Have you been working on telling your story or writing your memoir or in some other way for self-healing purposes, and now you’re starting to feel ready to share it with others who might benefit from it?
Do you feel a strong sense of purpose arising, as if it’s bubbling to the surface and about to burst through like a beach ball held underwater, to tell your story so you can help others like you heal?
Are you ready to start feeling calm, clear, confident, creative, and connected from privately grappling with your story in your inner world, and instead of feeling terrified to take the risk of public disclosure?
Are you thinking of finally publishing your book, posting your story online, performing your play, or recording your album about your story?
Have you put your story into writing or art or music, and now you need a jump start to help you facilitate your next steps?
WHY?
Imagine what the world would be like if we didn’t have Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Liz Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, Glennon Doyle’s Untamed, Tarana Burke’s Unbound, and every book Anne Lamott and Mary Carr have ever written? All of these books are stories of traumas turned into art that heals not only those who tell the stories but also those who read, listen, and feel.
Think of all the cult survivors comforted by the memoirs of other cult survivors, the refugees healed by other refugee memoirs, or the memoirs of those who have lost a loved one that provide refuge for those who are grieving. Think of the stories of marginalized people who help heal racism, homophobia, sexism, or xenophobia by telling their stories and enlightening us all. Think of sick people who help heal and offer hope to other sick people or survivors of narcissistic abuse who validate that others like them are not crazy or foolish.
Even if a thousand people have told stories about something similar to what you went through, nobody has ever told your story your way. Plus, nobody else will ever be beautiful, wise, awakening YOU.
Creating art from your story in whatever form it flows out is the first step to letting your storytelling be medicine for your therapeutic process. When we exercise agency and take control of our story, transforming it into a work of beauty and grace, even if it’s also painful, we help solidify the neurological process of “memory reconsolidation,” not only rewriting our story into one of transformation but also rewiring our neural pathways to prepare for the neurophysiology of healing, rather than trauma.
Even if a thousand people have told stories about something similar to what you went through, nobody has ever told your story your way. Plus, nobody else will ever be beautiful, wise, awakening YOU.
Creating art from your story in whatever form it flows out is the first step to letting your storytelling be medicine for your therapeutic process. When we exercise agency and take control of our story, transforming it into a work of beauty and grace, even if it’s also painful, we help solidify the neurological process of “memory reconsolidation,” not only rewriting our story into one of transformation but also rewiring our neural pathways to prepare for the neurophysiology of healing, rather than trauma.
It’s a brave moment when your story becomes your power and your power become your purpose- to help others heal the way you have at least started to heal, whether you’re preparing to tell your story via memoir writing, fiction writing, art-making, playwriting, songwriting, public speaking, blogging, social media, a podcast, a YouTube channel, or some other creative outlet,