February 14 2022

Here are the first five powers of sharing our stories of the heart:

1. Their ability to arouse strong emotions – We heal best when we’re powerfully engaged. When genuine emotions heat up and come to the surface, the psyche grows ripe for change. This new learning makes a deep impression.
2. Their ability to help us identify – Finding someone who shares our pain can decrease our feelings of shame and isolation and spark hope for a positive future.
3. Their way of helping us externalize our situation – Temporary distance makes room for reflection. We gain perspective on our own dilemmas by examining someone else’s situation.
4. Their ability to activate long-term memory – They do this by engaging our imagination, intellect and feeling in a compelling narrative that is both causal and mysterious. Old memories are revived and can help us make sense of our own stories.
5. Their ability to teach us to trust emotions – When we look at others’ stories of emotions and see they were not only justified, but also necessary motivators that led to positive change, it gives us permission to enter our own realms of deep emotion.

Next week we’ll look at four more storytelling powers.

(Source:  Tell It by Heart: Women and the Healing Power of Story by Erica Helm Meade, Open Court)