The Power of Story

The Power of Story

Melbourne, 4 September 2015

Henry Moore, Stormy Seas

Stories of illness are like maps that help us navigate the uncharted waters from the kingdom of the well to the kingdom of the sick and back again.

For stories to flourish there

must be a community to

hear

The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other’s memories. This is how people care for themselves.

“Stories seem to contain

that timeless thread of

human connection. This

is what our brains were

wired for reaching out

and interacting with

others.”

story

makes us

human

“To be in a culture is to be bound in a set of connecting stories.”

Jerome Bruner

tell a

story

We live in story like fish live in water. We swim through words and images siphoning story through our minds the way a fish siphons water through its gills. We cannot think without language, we cannot process experience without story. Christina Baldwin, Storycatcher: Making Sense of our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story.

Stories are the large and small instruments of meaning, of explanation, that we store in our

memories.

Joe Lambert

We understand ourselves inescapably in narrative.

Charles Taylor

PNAS.org: Speaker–listener neural coupling underlies successful communication by Greg J. Stephens, Lauren J. Silbert and Uri Hasson

Your Brain On Story

create a

change story

Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.

Robert McKee Brown

elements of

a good story

What do YOU think makes a good story?

beginning

middle

end

hero

time

suspense

plot

good stories

create an experience in images that evokes an emotional response

let’s try it

beginning

middle

end

hero

time

suspense

plot

structure your

story

create your

story

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Leo Tolstoy

we are

all

storytellers

To be authentic is literally to be your own author

Warren Bennis

When you own your story, you get to write a brave new ending Brene Brown

How do you want your story to end?

Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.

Barry Lopez