Life has been a bit crazy the last few months. I'm learning to find balance in this new stage of life between teaching, training, and getting back into speaking and writing. I was waiting to post until I finished my thank you cards, but I decided since they are half way done I'm going to post anyway, and even though my blog makeover isn't finished yet either.
Story telling can come in many shapes and sizes. This blog is my form of story telling. But stories can also be told through music and art, pictures and videos, books and speeches. I'm including our wedding video here in this post to display an art and form of story telling through music and videos. It's definitely not a picture perfect video because we are not perfect. My crutches make their appearance in the videos and pictures because that is real life and that is part of the story. I'll post more of the wedding late but for right now I want to talk about sharing our stories.
Sometimes I get going on these YouTube kicks. I become interested in a topic or person and I just keep clicking on video after video. The other morning my kick was Lin-Manuel Miranda. Many of you may know him as a actor, a writer and composer of the Broadway Musical Hamilton. My brother has been recently obsessed with the musical and sparked my interest. While watching many of his various interviews and videos, I came across his commencement speech at the University of Pennsylvania. His speech captivated me, but it wasn't until the end that he spoke about sharing our stories.
"Your stories are essential. Moments when...someone will thank you for telling your story because it resonated with their own."
His words resonated with me right then and there. There have been numerous stories and quotes that have resonated with me. After another surgery in 2014 I read Stephanie Nielson's book Heaven is Here. While our accidents and stories are different some of the feelings we experience were similar. This passage really resonated with me and inspired me to share my experience with grief and helped spark my own story telling. She wrote:
“Considering the reality of my own – had left me reeling, devastated to my core. The emotional weight of it was crushing, but I chose not to share it with anyone. I didn’t even know where I’d even begin, but more than that I didn’t want to share how vulnerable I felt. I had already been stripped of any physical independence; I wanted to prove that I could handle the emotional challenges on my own. It was a lonely choice, and the beginning of a lonely road.”
Since then, I've had numerous people share with me their own personal experiences and stories with me. They shared because something I wrote resonated with their own story and feelings. And that is why I write, that is why I share not only "my story", but my stories, and to connect with other people and inspire them to share their stories and experiences.
Often when I'm asked to speak they just ask me to share "my story". I always know what they mean, they are asking me to share the story that started with my accident. Well our lives are not just one chapter stories. My story did not begin with "the accident" and it did not end once I was discharged from the hospital. Our lives are comprised of stories and moments, chapters and seasons. Some seasons are filled with joy and laughter while others are filled with sorrow and pain. There are moments when we may feel like we are on cruise control just going about life and other times when we feel as thought we are spinning out of control or in the midst of never ending change or challenge.
"If a story is in you, it has to come out."
William Faulkner
I don't believe there is just one story in me that has to come out and that is why I continue to blog. There are many stories and moments of learning that I try to take the time to sit down and sort through my thoughts and feelings.
"I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say."
Flannery O'Conner
"I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand."
C.S. Lewis
Both of these quotes resonated with me. I don't start off writing knowing exactly what I am going to say. I start off writing because I have a feeling or quote that resonates with me and I need to write to sort through all of my thoughts and emotions to make sense of it all. Maybe sometimes, or all the time, I don't make any sense of it all.
"It's important that we share our experiences with other people. Your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else. When you tell your story, you free yourself and give other people permission to acknowledge their own story."
Iyanla Vanzant
And I think this last quote is my favorite of them all because of the truth she speaks! It's so important that we share our "stories" and experiences. It wasn't until I began writing down "my story" that I began to find the most healing in my life after my accident. It wasn't until I was vulnerable and shared my grief and sorrow, that I began to heal and move forward. Through this process I've realized many of our stories don't begin with a traumatic accident, or the traumatic experience. You don't have to have experienced trauma to have a story to tell. We all have stories to share and as Lin-Manuel reminded me, our stories are ESSENTIAL!
By telling our stories we are taking control. When we share our stories we are claiming our experiences instead of allowing our experiences to claim us. Instead of trying to suppress or ignore what has happened or what is going on, we need to claim our stories! When we finally claim them and begin to share them with others we begin to put them in the past and begin to shape our future - futures that we decide on. We choose how our stories will define and shape us. That experience, season or chapter (whatever you want to call it) is only ONE piece of our stories.
Find a way to share your story. Sometimes that means just talking with a friend, other times it speaking in front of hundreds of people. You may share your story through music or art, a journal or video. But regardless of how you tell your story, you must find a way to share it. Your stories matter because you matter.
