Sharing Our Stories

If you’re reading this right now, you already know the power of stories. This blog is all about sharing our lives and thoughts with each other, coming together at the table to welcome one another into this safe space where we can be ourselves. Storytelling is a powerful thing, especially when we are telling our own.

When I was still in school, I had a job as a tutor at the writing center on the campus of a community college, where I worked one-on-one with students to help them write and edit their class papers. Some of the most difficult yet most meaningful sessions were with students who were writing personal essays.

For many of these students, these essays were their first attempts to tell their stories, and they often shared vulnerable and traumatic moments from their lives through their writing: stories of immigration, surviving abuse and assault, overcoming eating disorders, surviving genocide.

My job was to help them get the words on the page, encourage them, help them organize their thoughts, point out grammar errors. My job was to listen, to play the part of the reader. Only it wasn’t acting for me. I became invested in their stories, interested beyond the mechanics of writing. There were times when a student started crying in the middle of a session if the story was too much for them to discuss out loud. I cried too, though I tried to keep it in till I made it to the break room.

The telling of our stories breaks us open, and it can break open others as well.

I felt a lot of empathy toward these students, and I sometimes got to work with them over the course of a semester or two or more. I watched as they grew in their writing, as they gained confidence in using their voices to speak their truth. I read their essays, witnessing their growth in how they saw themselves, understood their pasts, and wrote out their pain and into their progress.

Sometimes composition classes can seem sterile and simple from the outside, as their purpose is to teach how to write arguments, use rhetoric, and communicate clearly, but for many students, it was impossible to separate the personal from their papers. Once they were given the opportunity to write from their experience, their stories simply poured out.

As I learned from these students and from my own experience in sharing my story, it is extremely powerful to share your story, even if it’s with your class, even if it’s just with one person, even if it’s just with yourself.

I’m reminded of the story of Naomi and Ruth in the Bible, how they experienced such loss. Naomi’s husband and two sons died, one of whom was Ruth’s husband. Naomi and Ruth were alone in Moab, without their former means of living. They likely grieved over the past and worried about the future. When they returned to Israel to start over, Naomi told the story of their family ruin:

“Call me no longer Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty; why call me Naomi when the Lord has dealt harshly with me, and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” (Ruth 1:20–21 NRSV)

We know from a previous verse that “the whole town was stirred because of them” (verse 19), but we don’t really know how the people in their lives reacted to Naomi’s story. Did they welcome her back home as a friend? Did they judge her, imagining that God was punishing her? Did they sit down and listen to her story, help her process the trauma? All we really know is that Naomi and Ruth were living poor and alone, doing what they could to survive.

I don’t want to reduce the fascinating, culturally complex story of Ruth down to a morality lesson, but I do think it’s important to notice how Boaz received Ruth and Naomi. He was paying attention to their story when he heard it. He listened, helped however he could, and blessed them: “May the Lord reward you for your deeds, and may you have a full reward from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge!” (Ruth 2:12 NRSV). Rather than judging them or pitying them, Boaz listened well and treated them with dignity. And if you’re familiar with the story, you know that in the end, he ultimately provided safety for them.

If we find ourselves in a position of listening, we would do well to meet people where they are, receive their stories without judgment, acknowledge their humanity. And if we are in a position of telling our own stories, though we might struggle with them, we can practice being vulnerable with trustworthy people.

Of course, not everyone will understand when we share our stories. Not everyone will be a good listener. And we are not required to share if we don’t want to or don’t feel safe doing so. But I believe that with discernment about when and how to share, we just might find that letting others into our lives can be a healing experience.

There’s a reason narrative therapy, which “positions stories as central to the way people understand and evaluate their lives,” can be helpful for mental health. Talking through the stories of our lives can help us find meaning in our lives and healing from the pain of the past.

Sharing our stories can help us express our authentic selves, and it can also open us up to community, helping us find others who have been through similar experiences or people who can empathize. Vulnerability is never easy, but sharing our stories can bring both healing and hope for the future. Joan Didion wrote, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” I would follow that up by saying that we tell each other stories in order to find connection, to find we are not alone after all.

Cait West is a writer, reader, and publishing professional who lives with her husband in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After leaving the stay-at-home-daughter movement, she started over by studying creative writing at Michigan State University, working in education and literacy, and eventually finding her way to an editorial position in book publishing. Find her at caitwest.com and on Instagram and Twitter at @caitwestwrites.

Photograph © Edwin Indarto, used with permission