The Power of Story

When we tell our stories, we open up opportunities for others to share their stories. If we engage with each other, we will find common patterns, symbols, and themes that can grow our confidence and strengthen our social bonds. My theory is that storytelling is a key component to the life journey. Through my work, as an educator, writer, mother, publisher, and curriculum developer, identifying symbols, archetypes, and themes from my unconscious through literature, meditation, and art has allowed me to gain confidence that I am moving toward the path of completion and wholeness.

In the Science of Storytelling, by Will Storr, “there is no way to understand the human world without stories”. We are wired to enjoy story and it is what makes us human and we experience our everyday living in story mode. The main character of this story is the person – me – us – the human collective. Through Storr’s writing about how intelligent people come to believe crazy conspiracies and untruths he found that the brain searches for familiarity and confirmation for our internal star of the show.

The storytellers and scientists had started off in completely different places and had ended up discovering the same things.

Storr (4)

Storytellers use neural processes to coordinate everything from unexpected change, to outrage, to curiosity, wonder and awe. Story “researchers” have identified plot structures that the human brain likes to predict. Joseph Campbell’s monomyth can be seen in Star Wars and Harry Potter. Christopher Booker’s The Seven Basic Plots and Syd Field and Blake Snyder are used by authors and screenplay writers to best reach their audiences and their brain’s desire for story.

Many stories begin with change. An expected event surges neural activity. Although change can signal danger, it can also be a positive opportunity. Storytellers tap into this by intentionally creating unexpected change. In our life stories, change forces us to act and begins new chapters in our stories.

In order to tell the story of your life, your brain needs to conjure up a world for you to live inside, with all its colors and movements and objects and sounds.

Storr (20)

For mythologist, Joseph Campbell, the story starts with the hero receiving, and at first refusing, the call to adventure. A mentor enters to encourage the heroine and then they have a rebirth moment that leads to the dark forces pursing and attempting to destroy their progress. After a “battle” the hero triumphs and the heroine returns to home base with new found treasures of knowledge or rewards. “Great storytelling, like great psychology and great neuroscience, is a deep investigation into human behavior.” (Storr)

If wisdom is a gift of story, we can learn to look for patterns in our own story structures. The standard five-act structure has been in use for thousands of years. Many theorists have tried to understand why it’s complexity reaches people and the conclusion is that it is an efficient way to show a character is flawed, then tested, broken and then rebuilt. They will have to answer the key question of “Who Am I?” in different ways. Storr outlines it as follows:

• Act 1: This is me, and it’s not working
• Act 2: Is there another way?
• Act 3: There is. I have been transformed
• Act 4: But can I handle the pain of change?
• Act 5: What am I going to be?

As we move through this project, we will explore tools to discover that we live in a collective classroom. We will read text that will raise awareness to lead to the unlearning of the myths told to women in our society. I will introduce storytelling as a form of rhetoric with attention paid to the power of archetypes and themes.

Storytelling can open doors to self-discovery.

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