Story
Hello and welcome to May’s Soul Session edition.
What draws us into our depths? This has been my question as I’ve planned the topics for the recent Soul Sessions. I like to think of these themes as wells; places we can pause, check-in with our souls and find refreshment. So you are very welcome to this month’s well, make a nice hot drink and give yourself a breather to reflect and recharge.
Today we’re thinking about Story, and the possibility of stories to encounter ourselves, one another, our broader world and the Divine. What are your favourite stories? At our Sunday Soul Session1 we enjoyed talking about Little Women, The Faraway Tree, and Paper Dolls (by Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb). Emma shared a storybook written by her mum, and Shona spoke about a memoir written by her grandma. A gorgeous heritage of stories.
Some Ponderings
When I recently finished my assignment for my Spiritual Writing as Reflective Practice course I felt both challenged and empowered about the significance of my wee stories from my small life. I love to write about my days, my family and about my faith, but I don’t often share. I’ve absorbed messages from a capitalistic and patriarchal society that tell me these stories aren’t important (I wrote about this here).
Sarah Bessey has written beautifully about sharing our stories (her Field Notes are one of my favourite Substack spots). On Valentines Day she encouraged us to:
“Tell your love stories. Remember them with honour. Re-enchant your own life.
Tell a friend or your kids, your therapist or your journal but it’s worthwhile, I hope, to remember the ways you’ve experienced love and honour it even if was just for a semester or a season. We can delight in our friends and our companions, our lovers and our partners, our children and our community, all the places we’ve encountered love from hospital waiting rooms to divorce courts to suburban splash pads.
Yes, I do want to hear more about that vast middle part of all the ways we love. Especially the love that doesn’t show up in movies.” - Sarah Bessey
And so our kids know about me running away when Paul first suggested a date. They also love to hear about my waters breaking in the back of the car. They regularly request the story of the time we got four trains to Hove, even though it only happened 3 months ago. I’ve always wanted my kids to grow up with books and stories; to know the vastness of our world and also the significance of their own lives. The stories we offer them about their own lives can be fun and formative.
“Each of us is a storyteller, actively composing the story of our life.” - Anderson & Foley2
A Practice
Take a moment to run through today and find a moment of quiet significance: a moment of joy, connection, peace. Once you’ve spotted something, lean into it. Take your time to bring as many details of that moment to mind: what could you see, hear, smell, touch? What were you feeling? What were you thinking about? Perhaps take five minutes to write it down.
At last month’s Soul Session we each wrote our momentary stories down and then shared them. Following Celeste Deschryver Mueller’s process we had a storytelling circle: we each read our stories aloud, then paused in silence before the next story was shared. We didn’t respond to or comment on one another’s stories, but allowed them to stand alongside each other, honoured by the quiet. I found it felt unnatural not to write meaning into my story, not to give pre-amble, or respond to one another, but it was beautiful. The storytelling circle allowed each person’s story to stand, unclaimed or changed by another’s observations, as one participant said it was ‘a buffet of moments’. Here’s the moment I savoured that day:
“Why are his toys in his box?” Micah asked as we watched Toy Story 3 today, his weight on my legs and leaned against my tummy.
“I guess he doesn’t play with them anymore.”
“But why not?”
“I don’t know love, I guess he’s grown up,” I replied. Annie sat squished between my side and the arm of the sofa, quavers crunched into the fabric between us. Robin was on my right, his cheeks rosey and Finlay on the other side of him, more reclined than should be comfortable.
We watched the movie just like that.
That evening we went on to consider the honouring of these delightful moments of our lives. How do we notice our own beautiful moments? And how do we deliberately share these micro-stories with others? I thought of my friend Nic. When I ask her how the family are doing, she always has vignettes at the ready, birthed from a beautiful attentiveness, giving insight into each of her kids. Connection is formed in both the offering and receiving of our stories.
"We are familiar with the power of story to inspire, to create meaning, to deepen identity, purpose and belonging, and to connect us to realities richer and deeper than our own."
Celeste Deschryver Mueller
A Few Prompts
When has a story touched you and sparked or changed something for you?
Are there any stories you tell yourself which are no longer serving you?
What are some of the stories of your own life that you want to honour? How could you do that?
What stories are you paying attention to and sharing? Whose stories are you listening to?
May you notice the stories of your own life and find connection in the sharing.
May you hold your hands open to gently receive the gift of another’s story.
And may our stories lead us deeper inwards and onwards.
Thanks for reading.
If you’re interested in checking out the the other Soul Sessions in this series of ‘Wells’…
I host this in my home here in Glasgow once a month, get in touch if you’re interested in coming along.
Herbert Anderson and Edward Foley, ‘The Power of Storytelling’ in Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals: Weaving Together the Human and the Divine, San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1998, pp. 9–16, 18–19.