Healing from our pain starts with learning the art of story telling

And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.Matthew 14:14

If you have been reading my blogs for any length of time you might gather the impression that I love telling stories about my pain. Some of you might think I am a little narcissistic and would prefer a little less drama. I learned that God had given me the gift of putting into words the inner turmoil resulting from our June 10th tragedy. Story telling, for me, has been a way of getting the dreams and occasional nightmares associated with my loss out of my head where on paper it is less threatening to me.  

I believe many of us have lost sight of the importance of story telling. Instead of sharing our pain in our lives we turn to alcohol, drugs, and sex to placate that inner pain. Instead of telling someone our story so they can understand what we are going through we resort to sending short text messages that really do not enable us to share our whole story. Instead of working through our pain by we resort to playing mind numbing video games until we nod off to sleep.

Susan Conley, the teacher and writer in this video, shares in this TED talk about the profound impact that story telling has in bringing healing to the lives of young people.  She believes that if we can get every kid to write for 15 minutes each day about themselves we would see more of them graduating from high school and college.  How simple, yet profound was her statement. As I momentarily reflect on that statement I realized that telling our stories has become a lost art for most of us. Instead of writing we search for ways of being entertained through movies we watch, music we listen to, and sporting events we go to.

To learn the art of story telling she reminded her audience that there is no right or wrong way to write your story.  I think most of us are fearful of writing that story within us because of the grammar Nazi's trying to pick apart and criticize those stories. Many of us avoid this task to keep the grammar Nazi's at bay.

I believe the art of story telling is comparable to a painter standing in front of a canvass and painting the scene in front of them. Instead of paints of many colors the writer has a open journal, a blank sheet and a variety of pens. The goal is to write anything that comes to your mind on that paper. Whatever ails you flows on that page. Whatever pain you are having gets written down.

 Susan tells her audience to write about two things: 'Who am I and do I matter'. To her teenage guys in her workshops she tells them they have 15 minutes to write about anything and when they were done she would ask them to read those stories out loud. She shared the story of a speech impaired boy in her class who read with clarity the story he had written and the tears that flowed down his father's cheeks when he heard his son share that story because for the first time his son spoke without any trace of a speech impairment.

Susan Conley believes learning the art of story telling without the fear of grammar Nazi's attacking it brings healing and connectivity to peoples lives.  People who learn the art of story telling are more likely to find their place in this world and to be less impacted by their inner turmoil.

From a Christian perspective I am reminded how in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John Jesus often used word pictures to illustrate important points he wanted his followers to know. The storm on the sea of Galilee when Jesus walks toward his panic stricken followers and calms the storm is a powerful reminder that Jesus will calm the storms in our lives. It becomes our word picture as we enter our own storms and is a powerful reminder to pray.

If you are experiencing trouble times I encourage you to write your story in a journal. If writing is a problem, but you can type I encourage you to consider starting your own personal blog. I like blogger.com because there are so many ways to individually design your blog that is unique to you. I encourage you to write for 15 minutes. You can start off writing about Who am I and Do I matter? In time you will be writing about what really matters to you.  Fearful of cancer, you write. Unemployment, you write. Fearful of being alone, you write.  As you write you will see the tapestry of God's love being woven into your life story and that is when healing begins to take place. 

Finally, just think of the possibilities if every church youth group encourage their young people to write through writing groups. As we teach them how to tell their story they will find connection in this world and their purpose in Christ and many of them will go onto become successful adults. What a powerful ministry this would have in the community they serve.