Sharing personal stories is powerful. Storytelling is intrinsically human. Metaphors, myths, fables, legends – they’re how we make sense of our lives and help us contextualize our experiences within our communities. Sharing personal stories can build relationships. It can be meaningful to take ownership of your narrative. Sharing when you feel safe can change stereotypes and influence culture.
In my own life, I make sense of my thoughts through storytelling. Sometimes, I’m not sure how or what I feel until I start writing. Storytelling can make me feel connected to others with similar experiences. Storytelling can help me reframe my position within my own narratives.
We all have stories to tell. Some of us are more eager to share than others. But I stand by the Flannery O’Connor quote “anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.” She wrote short stories and wove her lived experiences into her narratives. Sometimes though, personal storytelling can feel overwhelming or like an obligation. Storytelling is a balancing act of keeping your stories your own and being vulnerable with others.
I teach composition at Rutgers-Camden and watch my students unpack their stories and formulate narratives they feel comfortable sharing. It’s vulnerable, nerve-wracking work. It’s courageous and it takes time. Like, a lot of time. And a feeling of safety. In my courses, we focus on creative non-fiction. This genre blends journalism and memoir. Writing and sharing creative non-ficiton can feel cathartic, but it’s rooted in craft. The way we phrase a sentence changes the mood, or the tone of the piece. Being thoughtful in how you structure a story allows for a greater sense of agency and purpose.
Sharing personal stories can be profoundly impactful. It can also lead to what’s known as sharing remorse. We live in a culture that emphasizes sharing, especially on social media. But there’s nothing wrong with not feeling ready to share or sharing a thoughtfully selected section of your story. Reliving memories while sharing can be painful. Sharing publicly can affect personal relationships.
Choosing to share is courageous, and so is protecting your wellbeing by not sharing. Being gentle with yourself and honoring your boundaries is critical. There is substantial research, academic scholarship and advocacy on this topic. In 2004, the Casey Family Programs created programming to empower foster youth alumni to safely share their stories. While there had been a push during the period for foster youth alum to advocate through personal disclosure, an organization stepping in and calling for mindful sharing was radical. The goal was to stop and prevent exploitative storytelling practices. And instead, create a culture of empathetic, trauma-informed sharing. Strategic storytelling asks, what is your purpose for sharing? What do you want to accomplish? What are you willing to share? Who benefits from you sharing? These questions are important because your time and wisdom are important. If you have a story you want to share, trust your gut. If you aren’t ready to share, trust your gut. Either way, commend yourself on your courage and be sure to take time to tend to your wellbeing, whatever that looks like to you.
The original Casey Family Programs guide defines strategic storytelling as “meaningful, effective, and safe”. Since the overarching goal is tending to your needs, “meaningful” is defined as meaningful to you. Taking in someone’s story, a story that has profound meaning to them, can effect change. Thinking through what effects you want your story to have, is important. Lastly, if a situation doesn’t feel safe to you, there’s no need to share. Vulnerability can foster connection, but being vulnerable without feeling supported can feel isolating, and/or painful.
A central tenant of strategic storytelling is advocacy. Advocacy exists and is necessary on several scales. Checking in with yourself and advocating for your needs is just as important as advocating for others. We don’t exist in a vacuum. We inform culture and culture informs us. Therefore, peer support and uplifting positive community connections is crucial. There is science behind this, too.
Social worker Michael Mancini conducted a study titled “Strategic Storytelling: And Exploration of the Professional Practices of Mental Health Peer Providers”. He found that strategic storytelling among peers “minimized harm” and “maximized [therapeutic] benefits” of sharing. I think, to a lot of us, personal disclosures feel intuitive. When we are in a space that fees safe, with people we trust, we open up. In strategic storytelling, this happens too. But there’s a preliminary planning step. If you’re sharing with an audience you’re not familiar with, or an audience that holds different values than your own, this preliminary step is crucial. Mancini describes the steps this way “peers…focus on audience, temporality, and plot so they could frame or stitch relevant temporal sequences of their story together into a coherent and effective narrative plot designed to meet the needs of their audience.”
Having a story to tell and discerning how to craft the story to meet your needs and the audiences’ needs, are different skills. When I really want to bore my students, I tell them that the word “essay” comes from the French word “essayer”, as in an attempt. We write to process information. We write when we become desperate enough, when we have a story that needs to be told. We might write, or tell a story one way. And then rewrite or reframe the story as we grow and change. The story will be re-told and re-examined and re-told and re-analyzed until something happens, an insight is born, exhaustion seeps in, something. This is at the heart of strategic storytelling, or mindful sharing as I think of it. It’s a tightrope walk -- sharing a beautiful, vulnerable, scary part of yourself, while being mindful of why you’re sharing, who’s listening and who’ being affected.
References
Hopkins, Marcia. (2022). Authentic Story Telling: Supporting Young People in Sharing Their
Truth. Juvenile Law Center. https://jlc.org/sites/default/files/attachments/2022-12/StoryTellingFinal_12.14.22.pdf
Mancini, Michael. (2019) “Strategic Storytelling: And Exploration of the Professional Practices of Mental Health Peer Providers”. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30616464/
O’Connor, Flannery. Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/34004-anybody-who-has-survived-his-childhood-has-enough-information-about. Accessed November 5, 2024.
Strategic Sharing. (2004). Casey Family Programs, Foster Care Alumni of America.
https://fostercarealumni.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/StrategicSharing.pdf
Strategic Sharing Workbook. (2012). Pathways RTC.
https://www.pathwaysrtc.pdx.edu/pdf/pbStrategicSharingGuide.pdf
