Is Your Story — Told or Untold — Holding You Back from a New Story?
I’m writing to you today in service of better stories — yours, mine, and the ones we’re here to co-create. After all, the subtitle of my book Transformational Speaking is: If you want to change the world, tell a better story.
Oh, the stories we tell!
- There’s the “signature story” we tell from the platform that defines us (and can become the very thing that holds us back.)
- There are the stories we hold in silence and are afraid to speak. They need to be told — not to an audience, but to someone who can truly hear us — so we can heal and move forward.
- And then there’s the new story, beckoning us to the possibility that awaits.
Recently I heard from two clients — both from 2015 — whose stories are changing. Our renewed connections reminded me of the deep privilege it is to witness new stories as they begin to take form and how agonizing that process can be. We’re attached! These stories — and the identities they’ve shaped — have often carried us to the pinnacle of success. So why must they change just when we think we’ve arrived?! (And really, how could we ever “arrive” when life itself is in constant motion?)
How Our Stories Can Trap Us
Our stories carry the message we hold dear and our lived experience demonstrates we’ve earned the right to speak. In public speaking, your “signature story” becomes how you’re remembered. That can be powerful — but also limiting. Is it possible the stories you tell have become prisons that keep you locked into who you used to be instead of opening the door to who you’re becoming?
The Stories We Don’t Want to Tell
“Wherever you are is called here, and you must treat it as a powerful stranger . . .”
That line touches me every time. Often the truth about where we actually are in our lives is the story we don’t want others to know. It may reveal that we’re not on top of our game. It may not show us in the best light. It may expose a broken heart to even more vulnerability. So we stuff the truth and pretend it isn’t real or important. We forget we’re all members of the Scar Clan!
After all, this too shall pass. And yet, when we silence our story, we often suffer from the weight of pretending we’re someone or somewhere we’re not. That’s when we become strangers to ourselves and wonder, Where did I go? We lose our aliveness and our connection with ourselves — and as a result our connection with our audience.
The Wisdom of Being Heard — and Listening Fully
There’s a teaching I received from my beloved friend and mentor, cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien:
This isn’t about shutting someone down. It is about recognizing that repetition creates neural pathways that can become our identity. It takes courage to ask to be heard. And it takes time and commitment to honor another person’s experience by listening fully — without advice or trying to fix the situation. When you’re willing to witness someone in this way, it becomes a gift of presence that allows them to release a story rooted in victimhood that could easily define them forever.
I won’t minimize those devastating and non-negotiable events that upend our lives and pull us down into the well of grief and loss and WTAF? Yet in today’s cultural landscape, with so much emphasis on trauma, I sometimes wonder: are we doing ourselves a disservice? Yes, the things that take us down must be felt — fully. But it is equally true that being deeply witnessed — three times, as traditional wisdom suggests — can begin the release.
That’s why our full presence — our capacity to listen to another without interruption, advice, or agenda — is a sacred service. It allows the story to move and evolve.
Healing Through the Full Story, Told and Witnessed
I’ve experienced this firsthand. I’d left a relationship, heartbroken and reeling, my dream shattered. My self-talk became a broken record of loss and shame, and pieces of the story leaked into every conversation. (Being around me had to have been an act of kindness.) Then a friend said, “Tell me the whole thing,” and she listened. On a 5-hour road trip, she never once interrupted me or tried to dry my copious tears. She stayed present and didn’t offer solutions. That night allowed me to get it out and be fully expressed. It was the beginning of healing.
Another time, a student in one of my programs gave a similar gift to a friend. She saw the struggle and simply asked, “Will you tell me the whole thing?” Her friend did — through the night. By morning, she was radiant. She was freed by the telling, and being witnessed allowed her to release what had been held too long in silence.
We don’t need to share our deepest stories with everyone, but we do need to tell them — no more than three times! — to someone who can hold them with love and without judgment, advice, or the urge to fix.
Then we reflect, integrate, and grow.
Ultimately, we heal — and in that healing, we discover a story no longer defined by what happened to us, but by who we’ve become.
That’s a new story worth telling!
From Personal Story to Collective Awakening
The world needs our presence, our love, and our vision. We can’t bring those forward when our energy is stuck in what happened to us. Healing frees us to participate in something larger — to co-create the story the world most needs now.
It’s a really big game we’re being asked to play these days. May the pull of what’s possible be strong enough to let the pain of the past recede. May we bring our collective energy to the greater story that is ours to live and to tell.
You’ve heard it before and I’ll say it again: We were born for these times!
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