February 21 2022

By: Jackie Naginey Hook
Monday, February 21, 2022

As we continue to discuss the powers of sharing our stories of the heart, below are four more:

  1. Their ability to provide metaphors for us – Stories can become metaphors for our life circumstances and help us learn, grow and heal.
  2. Their ability to model alternative attitudes and stances which help us cope with hardship and forge new paths – Hearing others stories can provide inspiration to our own lives.
  3. Their capacity to accommodate manifold interpretations, morals, and meanings – The storytelling tradition remains vital because infinite meanings continue to hatch each time a story is told.
  4. Their applicability to the collective as well as the intricately personal – Some people find personal meaning and others universal messages.

​Whether we’re sharing our own stories of the heart, hearing others’ or reading fictional ones written by authors, storytelling can help heal both the teller and the listener.

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

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