Each of us is a storyteller. 

Inside of us stories swirl in a stew of past and present, bumping into one another, forming and reforming. Favorites stay at the surface, evolving only slightly due to the number of times we share them. Our neural pathways somehow hold this collection of regulars together, finding consistent and predictable triggers for pulling them off from the upper shelves for the telling at parties, new employee orientations, and the like.

We categorize our stories according to our comfort level with those we know. When we first meet people, we bring forth the familiar light anecdotes meant to evoke a smile and/or some sort of connection. The trigger for storytelling provides the essential piece in effective “icebreakers” at a meeting or retreat. The leader instructs the group to share about our first pet. You might tell me about your cat Sheeba who liked to chase imaginary mice up and down the Christmas tree every year.  I’m likely to regale you with tales of Bess, our first farm dog who stared down more than one rattlesnake to protect us. I would swear to you she shared more than a modicum of genetic material with the local coyote pack and had the fierceness to prove it.

As we become more acquainted with new friends, we begin digging more deeply into our stacks, trusting our audience enough to allow for slightly more vulnerability. Perhaps you will tell me a poignant memory of an early childhood lesson learned while at your “dad’s house,” letting me know you grew up with divorced parents without explicitly stating it. I might return with an amusing vignette from my “Aunt Eula” catalog, cluing you in to the fact I come from a Southern family full of quirky and sometimes complicated members. 

The more we develop a connection, the more we trust, the more we choose to reach further into our library where the stories sit in darker corners, collecting a thin layer of dust and perhaps a cobweb or two. We prove our trustworthiness over time and, therefore, our worthiness to handle the more challenging, shameful, even disturbing episodes of our lives. If you like me at my first pet, will you still like me at my time I hurt a friend by sharing a secret when I shouldn’t have? Will you still trust me if you find out I’ve made mistakes and blunders? I’ll tell you of one of those moments and see how you handle it. Maybe you’ll reciprocate with a blunder of your own and we can smile as only kindred spirits can, knowing we both are human and that’s ok.

Finally, on the lowest shelves lie the stories no one has ever heard and which stay alive only because we tell ourselves these tales because something inside of us won’t let them go. Our core sense of self relies on them so the binding holds them firmly in our very foundation. We may allow them to see the light of day…no, the light of a dim library lamp or maybe a candle one evening when we have spent the last of the wine and the facades and now only trust remains, finally allowing for the rarest bearing of souls. 

Introduce me to someone with no stories to tell and I’ll know their past is either too painful or too shameful in their eyes. Another possibility being they’ve been hurt too often by those not worthy of their trust. That person may not share their stories with you or me, but they remain a storyteller all the same because they repeat those stories over and over again to themselves to justify never uttering them outloud. 

We are- all of us- storytellers because we are human. As humans we have a sense of self, an ego and identity that demand conveying and reinforcing. “I think therefore I am,” Decartes famously said. I would add that our stories are the thoughts that most render us into being.

When I tell you of Bess, my beloved first pet, not only do I tell you that we had a dog when I was a child. I also tell you that I grew up on a farm that filled my childhood with adventure. When you tell me a funny story of your first pet, you tell me you value humor, what sort of animals your family allowed, the type and perhaps location of your childhood home, and more. We tell each other that We Are, and of what sort of being.

Our choice of which story to share intentionally says something about us, something we want people to know. If you pride yourself in being a savvy city dweller, you’re likely to make one of your first shared anecdotes of riding the subway or bus to and from school, and grabbing a snack from your favorite street vendor. Maybe you love the fact that your grandmother raised you, so you may recall how you loved coming home from school to find a plate of cookies on the counter made from a multigenerational recipe. 

The same holds true of the stories others tell about you. Family members pull out the best and worst tales of us, often leaving us embarrassed in either case. A parent might delight in recounting the time you won the big game for the team or aced an exam despite having forgotten to study. Whereas a sibling may choose to let your new friends know how your pants dropped in the middle of your choir solo because the chosen costume did not provide a belt and you did not provide sufficient enough of a rear end to hold up the waistband. 

Of course, not all stories are charming nor are all storytellers altruistic. A parent may retell too often the time you burned your hand on the stove and, therefore, grew into “a horrible cook! Don’t let him near the stove!” (Ha…ha…) or a cousin revels in making sure everyone knows about how you managed not only to hook your own hand that one time he took you fishing, but also “caught” an old tire and more than a few branches, thus proving your inability to escape your clumsiness.

We decide which volumes come off our shelves and when based on which version of ourselves we want others to meet. The same goes for the editions of those same stories our loved ones choose to pull out and display on the coffee table for all to see. “Here,” we say, “this is the part of me I want you to know because I think you’ll like it best.”. We convey who we are, our very identities in the stories we tell.

But we do much more than that.

With every telling of the story we reinforce that same identity to ourselves. I tell you the story of Bess because I want to remind myself of the significance of having grown up on a farm. I need to hear from myself why that dog, her loyalty and unconditional love, meant so much to me as a child. Her strength and determination reinforces my own because I wanted her spirit to be in me.

You may begin to tell the same story of burning your hand on the stove because you believe the lie that it determined your ineptitude in the kitchen. This core story reminds you of your clumsiness and carelessness, traits your family told you made you who you are, and maybe even made you unworthy or unlovable.

 “I’m hopeless in the kitchen and can’t even boil water because one time…”

The more I become aware of the power of my own story, the better care I take in the telling of them. A story told to make me seem ridiculous can be retold to highlight a different quality, one of which I am proud of or, at the very least, is more forgivable. 

As storytellers, we hold the power over our own stories and how they shape us. I retell favorite family stories, but now pause to reexamine if the identity they convey holds up. Do I agree with the values presented? Does it accurately portray who I am today and what I believe? I now shape those core stories differently as needed to better share a more authentic version of myself. 

You may say, “That’s changing the narrative! I don’t like rewriting history.” Valid point. But may I propose to you that this reflection does not rewrite history. That is, it does not change the facts, but instead emphasizes different elements. I can transmit the same information but with an intention that more accurately shares who I am and how I feel about myself. 

I’ll give you an example from my own life:

One day, my five-year-old self played in the basement with my older brother. My guess is that it was raining that day, forcing us to stay inside and find activities to keep us busy. Earlier in the week we must have eaten at a restaurant as a family at which time I had tried a food with a cheese sauce on top. My little five-year-old mind did not have the vocabulary nor the scientific knowledge to comprehend the process for creating a cheese sauce. I thoroughly enjoyed it and wanted to recreate it, despite having no culinary skills.

I filled a little cup with water, pulled out a slice of American cheese, unwrapped it then proceeded to tear it into strips and drop it in the water. The scientific properties determining how fat and water interact, the principles of how substances dissolve one into the other, nor the essential introduction of heat in breaking down physical states did not belong in my knowledge base. I only understood that somehow a cook had rendered the solid I knew as cheese into an ooey, gooey, magnificently delicious liquid. 

My brother asked, “What are you doing?”

My answer? “Making cheese water.”

“Cheese water???!!!” my brother replied. Then cackled as he broke out in a fit of laughter that I’m pretty sure continues to this day.

I was mortified and from that time forward despised it when he felt it necessary to share that story. In my eyes, that story only served the purpose of making me look like an utter idiot. My brother would grin devilishly at inopportune times and I knew what would follow…the “cheese water” story and my subsequent humiliation.

However, this story no longer serves that purpose for me. In the process of stepping back and looking at it with fresh eyes, I have come to appreciate some basic truths about myself while allowing the five-year-old me to finally forgive my older brother.

First, my brother was nine years old at the time. Of course I sounded absurd! “Cheese water” doesn’t exist and honestly sounds disgusting. To his ears, my words held no logical sense and my actions were those of a ridiculous kid sister. I expect most any nine-year-old older sibling to react in the exact same manner. From that perspective, this becomes a humorous anecdote about a typical sibling relationship. One sibling does something funny, the other laughs and tells about it.

Second, I now see how that very small version of myself grew into an adult who loves to cook. At an early age, the kitchen drew me as a place to experiment and play. How foods change and develop depending on temperature, technique, and the introductions of other ingredients fascinated me early on. No wonder I find a stove and full pantry fascinating and fun! And I even claim for myself that such an experiment at that early age showed more than a small amount of potential and intelligence. 

A story that once held only shame and embarrassment for me now conveys a few core foundational elements of my identity. My telling of the story transmits the same basic truths of what happened that day but now show you something much different about who I am, what I love, my connection to my brother, and the values I hold dear.

We are, each of us, a storyteller.

What are your stories? Which ones do you quickly draw from your library versus those you reserve for special company on the most solemn of occasions? Which stories do you know alone, never daring to allow someone else to glimpse?

You will find in those stories your true self, as well as a few false selves. 

Tell me a story,, and I’ll tell you something about yourself that maybe you didn’t even know. Tell me a story and I’ll understand both how you want me to see you and an element or two of your authentic self. Tell me a story and you tell yourself who you are, for good or for bad. 

In telling our story we have the power to lift up ourselves or tear us down. We may feel our worth, our best qualities, or we may convince ourselves again that we serve no purpose and others could never love us.

I ask you, friends, to be mindful and intentional as you crack upon the front cover of these beloved tales. Pull them down and sit with them a while. See what they tell others and what they tell you. Hold tight to those that ring true; revise and redeem those that need some alterations;  reshelve those that reinjure you with the others that only provide food for worms and anchors for cobwebs.

You are more than your stories, but they have the power to build and to destroy. 

Tell me your stories and I’ll tell you mine and together we will learn more about who we are.

If this post interested you, consider joining me in December for a special workshop on storytelling and identity! Check out my Upcoming Events page for more information.