Find your truth; tell your story

Man cannot discover truth if he is unable to speak it.

Walt Whitman

Identifying your truth and telling your story is the most powerful things one can do. The process of finding your voice, claiming your story, and sharing it has a lasting impact on your sense of identity, self-worth, and others around you.

Truth is, we all need something to relate to. We need a story that reflects our own experiences. We need to absorb things that resonate with our own truth and cut right to the heart. We need someone, or something, to speak for us in order to learn how to speak for ourselves. It’s the reason why music connects with us so deeply and has an incredible impact – it connects with us and shares our story. It reminds us that we are not alone and what we feel is valid.

That’s the beauty of story telling – it builds a lasting connection between us. Have you ever had a chance meeting with a stranger and they’ve proceeded to tell their story? Maybe it was merely an insight into why they were on the same bus as you that morning, or maybe it was a little deeper than that and they offered you an intimate revelation into their greatest struggle and how they overcame it; whatever form their story took, I bet you remember them, and I can also bet that the memory fills you with a warm, contented feeling in your heart.

Story telling used to be the only means of learning about your ancestors and your history. It created togetherness amongst families, forged a sense of identity within individuals, allowed them to understand their origins, and infused people with a notion of their potential. In psychotherapy, and other therapeutic settings, the acts of listening to and telling stories is a powerful means of building bridges between families, repairing damaged self-worth, and binding wounded hearts.

Today, however, we are absorbed into the world of social media and bombarded with so many different narratives that we can lose our way. We spend too much time absorbed in other people’s stories, social media highlight reels, and we forget to talk to our families and find out our stories.

Find your story.

What happened?
How did you overcome?
How did you achieve all that?
What keeps you going?
What was the greatest day of your life?
What made it so good?
How is life going?
Who are you?

Life is so busy that we often forget to stop and ask these questions. We try and make sense of everything ourselves, asking Google instead of asking each other…

In order to tell your story, you need to find your voice.
In order to find your voice, you might need someone to first speak for you.
Sometimes we find it in music, theatre, films, books, historical figures, family members, friends, support workers, advocates…

Wherever you find that person who resonates and echoes your story, soak it up. Seek to understand and, by doing so, you unlock all the secret elements of your story and you begin to find your voice. Dive into the heart of what they are sharing, let it speak for you, sift through the things that resonate with you, and learn. Hear your story repeated back to you through their lyrics, through their writing, through the sharing of their own struggles and victories. You are allowed to cry, and to laugh, and to shake your head in disbelief. Its partly why, when we hear a sad song, it connects with us and we cry – it’s putting our pain into words. In allowing this, you’ll light a spark in your soul that will grow, and grow, and grow…until it becomes a raging fire within you that you need to share your story. Sometimes, it’ll be an anger that burns inside you, or a sadness, or an ecstatic joy…Whatever you do, speak it.

Share what you’ve lived.

It is through sharing your story that others can come along and learn off you. It is a continuous cycle. Maybe you feel your story isn’t unique, or has been said before, or maybe it feels boring – this is irrelevant. Your story is your story and needs to be shared. It’s empowering for everyone and, also, for you.

You see, through telling your story you have the opportunity to bring into the light what was once in darkness and expose it. You have the chance to explore it and bring a depth to it. So, please, give us your voices when you find them. You have suffered much, but you have achieved more. Tell us how hard it is to be a single parent; tell us how your lover broke your heart; tell us how it felt to be ashamed of your body; tell us when the moment was that you decided to take anti-depressants; tell us how you felt when your son got married; tell us how it felt for you to see your first child being born; tell us of your joy of that first promotion in work…

Tell us because, through story telling, we build community based upon exactly that – a common unity.

We are holding the space.
Now, speak.