Alright friends! This post is setting up the OISE U of T session presenting on Twitter June 8 @ 11 am all about the power of personal storytelling and the connection that lies within them.
I’ll be presenting my grandmother’s story, I call her Nonni, as my Italian heritage dictates the names used for grandparents.
Nonni wrote this story! For her 75th birthday, my aunt drew the pictures, my sister assisted with creating the digital document, and together they had this book published with only enough copies for close friends and family.
In this presentation, my aim is to educate those listening on the power of personal storytelling with three keywords; connection, experience, and healing/understanding.
I grouped healing and understanding together because they work in combination. Not all of our experiences are going to require healing per se but can allow for greater insights, understanding, and wisdom to come from them.
Connection, Experience, and Healing Through Self Awareness
How can these three concepts get us to a healthier place mentally?
Connection allows us to put pieces together.
Whether through the power of personal storytelling or through writing, connecting to the experiences we have allows us to share what insights have been made after the experience.
Depending on the type of experience; positive, neutral, or negative; writing can help us understand what the experience means as whole within our life.
Using the example of a personal story Bianca the Barn Cat demonstrates how my Nonni created a positive and heartwarming story from something that could have been called negative or traumatic at the time.
With higher self-awareness, it is possible to use the power of personal story telling to attain connection to ourselves, highlight experiences, and offer personal healing where necessary through understanding experiences in a new way.
Where does the power of personal story telling come from?
The power of personal story telling comes from the author’s ability to retell the story.
Even true stories can be modified, embellished, and written in a way that offers the author a different way of seeing their own story.
I now know that lot of what I went through in university taught me lessons and allowed for growth.
When I started to write about my own experiences, I realized it’s beneficial to have negative experiences as they promote internal growth and healing.
Always remember that the power of personal storytelling lies in your own self-awareness, your own ability to comprehend the story and change the story if you choose to do so.
Remember…
Connection to ourselves comes from understanding the experiences we go through and sometimes requires healing.
It’s important to maintain self-awareness when considering the story of your life, as this awareness allows you to grow beyond that particular experience.
Experiences are useful ways to tell stories because they are accounts of memories.
We can learn a lot about ourselves and cultivate higher self awareness by writing about personal stories. That is the power of personal storytelling.
I hope that you enjoyed reading about the power of personal storytelling, and I hope that you enjoy watching the OISE Stay at Home Club session!
I’m so honoured and grateful for the opportunity to present my Nonni’s story Bianca the Barn Cat and I know it will touch a lot of hearts, as her stories are beautifully written.
Leave a comment about your personal experience and how you learned from it!
With love and light,
~~~ stay true stay weird ~~~
~~ Kristina