The Importance of Storytelling

Need connection? Tell your story.

Photo from my first blog post.

Why Tell Your Story

As part of my research into human connection last year, I turned up the volume on my obsession with the importance of storytelling to deafening levels. In doing so I came across and read, Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling by Matthew Dicks. It was by far the best book I read last year and - in fact - was angered to find it had been published in 2018 and I’d missed out on knowing about it for 4 whole years. If you saw or talked to me in the fall of 2021 you heard about the book. If you were one of the few who stumbled across my Instagram feed during that time you were subjected to a full frontal of sentences in ALL CAPS strongly suggesting you buy it immediately and do nothing else until you could devour every page – subtext strongly suggesting it was probably the only way to have a two-way conversation with me at the time. So, in an effort not to plagiarize anything written there, I’ll just say (again) – read the book! There are great exercises in it that will help you develop your story, but more importantly you’ll come out of it with ways to be more observant, thoughtful about, and present in your life every day.

…but I digress.

Storytelling was never meant solely for entertainment and still is not today.

It is a fundamental part of being human that has evolved with us to keep us safe. Sitting around the campfire (which in itself keeps you safe from the creepy crawlies that aren’t fans of white-hot ash) listening to your elders describe the day’s hunt or telling you which plants will kill you has kept humans alive for 300 millennia. Storytelling maintains its importance in today’s world – substituting blue light for the warm glow of a campfire – as the single best way to create connection, learn about and build trust in each other and the world around you. Stories create emotional connection. Poetry, fiction, song, even movement, and visual art... Bullet pointed bucket lists and – like it or not – social media posts, texts, and blog entries are all part of an evolutionary continuum to help humans convey and digest complex ideas in engaging ways and to remind us that we are not alone in the world.

Did you know that Storytelling Increases Oxytocin and Lowers Cortisol? Also worth noting that for decades The American Psychological Association and others have found that writing about trauma (telling your story) raises your immunity and improves your life functioning.

Evolutionary resilience.

Builds connection.

Improves immunity.

Compelling reasons to start telling your story.

So, here I begin with a bit of mine.

Between the autumns of 2009 and 2010 was an extremely monumental time for my family and the most transformative year of my life. In October of 2009 my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. This, on the heels of losing my father suddenly to lung cancer almost exactly a year earlier. My older sister was beginning a chapter in her life as newly divorced mother of 2 under the age of 10. My younger sister - amid beginnings of her own – was the new mother of a six-month-old recently located in a city 1,200 miles away from anyone she knew. Ironically, because of my mother, we are typically three of the toughest women you’ll ever know, but by the start of 2010 we were all reeling.

Then came more news – the furthest from any I could’ve expected. I was pregnant. By the end of 2010, I would have lost my second parent (on Mother’s Day) and given birth to my son.

The pregnancy was a surprise to say the least. I’d been on birth control for years. I’d broken up with my boyfriend 2 weeks prior. None of my friends had kids despite our “geriatric” statuses. We lived in New York where most only had serious partners because of the benefits of shared rent. We all had places to go and work to do – lots of work to do! At least 5 nights of the week I worked until my yoga class started. I then met friends in The Village for cocktails before we all group-cabbed home having only had breadsticks for dinner. I kept stilettos in my pantry.

I even found out I was pregnant in my office. I worked most weekends. On this particular day I stopped at Duane Reade on my way into the office for a large Smartwater and a couple of pregnancy tests thinking, “Let’s just get this stress out of the way so I can relax and get some work done.” 20 minutes later, I was stunned.

I felt ecstatic. I felt grateful. I felt alive. I felt terrified.

With my father and biggest fan no longer available as a sounding board and my mother losing ground every week, I couldn’t talk to my parents about parenting. My sisters were managing their new lives – the younger now back home trying to care for my mom.

I couldn’t talk to the people I would normally have depended on most, so I just decided to speak out into the ether. A journal wouldn’t hold me accountable, but perhaps something else would. On a whim I decided to start a (now defunct) blog about the day to day trials of managing a surprise pregnancy fully equipped with “complicated” partnering situation and dying parent 2,000 miles away. I thought it was narcissistic and knew it was poorly written but didn’t mind because no one was ever going to read it anyway. I just needed it for myself.

People did read it. Sure, some who I wanted to read didn't, but so many that I never even knew I needed to read it - did. Telling my story renewed relationships with friends and family that I thought moving away 10 years earlier meant I had to give up. It reconnected me with people I hadn't seen in 10, 15 and even 20 years. They sent encouragement. They sent advice. The sent… gifts! So. Many. Gifts. I did not buy baby shampoo until my son was almost 2. They beamed with me at the announcement of the baby’s gender. They held space for me in the sadness of my mother’s death and the joy of my son’s birth. They held their breath with every ear infection and heard the joy in my voice in every video (there were many) from the first time he ate peas to his first recitation of the alphabet.

Telling my story was a connector. It helped my find my way. It gave me support, bolstered my confidence, and oddly softened the fear of failure. I had a team. I was scared I would fall on my face in front of old friends, instead I was lifted through their connection.

As we round the corner towards February, most of us ease into our 2nd year of COVID feeling physically remote even on the rare occasion when we are standing next to someone. Connection is essential to human growth. We all need to vent and celebrate. We all need to feel heard. We share a collective experience so rare in history at a time when the numbers of ways to communicate are greater than ever before. At no other time have so many grappled with exactly what YOU are going through in this moment. Yet, without the storytelling we continue to feel alone.

It’s worth remembering how much more is going on in people’s lives right now than COVID! Marriages, babies, graduations, new relationships, new businesses, and other big stories are happening all around, and we all have little wins every day.

The stories we tell define us and the ones we hear help us grow. Connecting is easier than ever. Tell someone your story today.

What’s your little win this week?

What’s your story or one that inspired you?