One of my favorite parts of the holidays so far has been listening to people tell stories. It is amazing how much we can learn as we transport ourselves back in time and hear what someone experienced, the details they noticed, the choices they made. I truly love hearing stories. There's something about it that is different than other kinds of information-sharing. Different details get shared in different ways. I kind of wish that instead of gifts, we stopped accumulating more stuff, and we exchanged and accumulated stories and ideas instead. Instead of a gift-exchange, stories- and ideas-exchanges in community settings, with music, warm drinks 🙂 (although I'm not complaining about my merino wool underlayers I got as gifts!)
I also enjoyed the story-telling evening I hosted a little while ago - where we created some intentional space about learning from a neurophysiological perspective - why listening and sharing stories is a powerful healing tool. I hope to integrate this somehow into future vision planning. I have this image of a beautiful ambience of lanterns or lights, campfire or coffee, or combinations of all of this. Not sure how it all plays together - but I feel society needs more of this kind of depth of using our communication tools of voice, hands, face for 'cumulative knowledge' and feeling understood by others.
Brain studies have shown that when people hear stories of struggle and overcoming massive obstacles, a very primitive brain structure in the brainstem becomes highly active. This same kind of brain activity doesn't happen when the story a person hears is easy. What does this tell us about stories and the hero's journey, and what our nervous system seems to be attuned to in terms of gathering information?
#storytelling #campfirestories #hearthstories #healing #herosjourney #storyarcs #storytime #community #familytime #team #booknerd
