Why storytelling is good for us...especially right now

When my three kids were in preschool, I remember attending a parent workshop where I raised my hand and asked, “How do you elevate the conversation at dinner?”

The teacher looked right at me and, with an ever-so-slight huff, responded “Really? Don’t you think you’re asking a lot of your family right now? You just need to get through this stage.”

I’m not asking for too much, I thought, but nodded my head, gave her a half-smile, and kept my annoyance to myself. Then she capitulated, and offered, “Put some questions in a bowl and let the kids pick one out at dinner. Just make sure to ask age-appropriate questions,” and she moved on to the next hand-out.

I swept her suggestion and my embarrassment for wanting more connection at the dinner table with my little people...  well, under the rug.

Just get through this stage, Katherine. At least you’re getting dinner on the table!

When Covid hit a year ago, after two days at home I freaked out and bought a basketball hoop for my now-teen-age kids. I was worried this whole shelter-in-place might last for over a month and was trying to think ahead about their mental health.

“Exercise is medicine,” my husband always says but he wasn’t too pleased with the price tag or with my idea to stick the hoop right in front of his flower garden. We just need to get through this stage, I insisted, as I shoved the heavy plastic base right on top of a bright pink impatiens. The kids would have access to a healthy outlet and I could breathe a heavy sigh of relief.

On the other side of the house, the five of us began eating dinner outside at the round patio table we’d rarely ever used. We would wear our puffy jackets and wool hats to keep the chill of a San Francisco spring evening at bay.

We were no longer unloading about our days out in the world; we were reeling from Zoom-filled days inside our home. For a while, dinners lasted longer than usual and there was plenty to talk about: COVID, the election, the download of the day or what was to come the following. We would reminisce and tell stories and hang on to every real, live, in-person word... I even learned some new ones: What day was it? Blursday!

We were in this well over a month, and sitting with uncertainty and fear around all we were losing. My dad was dying at the time from pancreatic cancer; high school graduation was cancelled; life as we knew it had been usurped. Yet we were safe, and that’s all that mattered. I might have been responsible for losing the flower bed, but collectively we were determined to get through this stage -- and maybe even make the most of it.

Sometimes I would let worry about my kids turn into worry about all kids, and I’d spiral down through what every single one of us was losing, the state of the world, the feared outcome of the election. (I just learned we have 60,000 thoughts a day and 80% are negative; no wonder we slide so easily down those scary rabbit holes.)

At other times, we just plain and simple ran out of things to talk about. When you’re with the same people... all of the time… maybe trying to elevate the conversation at dinner is too much to ask??

But no. You’re a storyteller, Katherine, take some ownership.

I remembered my exchange with that unsavory preschool teacher. This time, I raised my hand by asking the internet. I found a list of new questions to bring out at the dinner table. It’s never too early to ask deeper questions. Some nights the questions that involved reflection, insight and a dose of courage have really come in handy.

With the end of this stage in sight, I’m starting to hear the whispers of a stronger, deeper truth from my clients, colleagues and friends about this past year:

The time with my family has been amazing…

I would have missed my daughter’s whole first year…

I feel so grateful for what we’ve had, and what we have.

It’s been heartening to hear what this year has given to us, not just what it took away. We are meaning-making creatures. We are writing, and sharing, our own stories as we are living them.

And that’s why you’re a storyteller, too.

You may not think of yourself as a storyteller, but you are; we all are. Yeah, there’s an art and science to storytelling. Yeah, it helps to have a beginning, middle and end. Yeah, it gets really interesting when you open up about the challenges you’ve faced, the choices you’ve made and the change that has revealed itself as a result of those choices. That’s what I teach during the day to my clients.

But at night, around the dinner table, storytelling can look like a family of five picking questions out of a bowl, and giving each other the time and space to reflect and share what’s inside.

If connection is the antidote to anxiety (and all those rabbit holes inside our minds), then storytelling is just the jab we need. We always feel a little closer to someone when they welcome us into their inner world with their stories.

“Being listened to is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.” ― David Augsburger

Exercise is medicine; being listened to is being loved.

So when I hear the sound of the basketball dribbling and its swoosh through the net, I’m still breathing a sigh of relief.

And when one of us shares a story at the dinner table, and I witness my family leaving space for them to talk and staying quiet ‘til they finish, then I realize… we didn’t just ‘get through this stage’... we emerged stronger, closer and maybe, in a strange way, even more loved than we knew.