world who had lost her mojo and longed to get it back. Then I started telling my story—and voilà! Millions of people responded to tell me how they had once lost theirs and since gotten it back.” They did it by telling their stories, witnessed with loving attention by others that care. “Each of us is a constantly unfolding narrative, a hero in a novel no one else can write. Yet, so many of us leave our stories untold, our songs unsung,” remarks Rankin. “When this happens, we wind up feeling lonely, listless and out of touch with our life purpose. We are plagued with a chronic sense that something is out of alignment. We may even wind up feeling unworthy, unloved or sick,” says Rankin, who blogs on related topics at LissaRankin.com.


Power to Heal a Family Sometimes, writing a new story can help keep families connected. Kansas City, Missouri, author and columnist Deborah Shouse took an unplanned and unwanted, yet ultimately reward- ing journey with her mother through Alzheimer’s disease. Shouse discov- ered that as her mother was losing her memory and identity through dementia, crafting a new narrative helped her family hold it together, a process she details in Love in the Land of Dementia. “You have to celebrate the person


who is still with you,” Shouse says, noting we may discover a different, but still interesting, person that communicates in ways other than talking. She recommends employing a technique she calls The Hero Project, which she developed with her partner, Ron Zoglin. It uses words, photos and craft supplies in what Shouse


“By sharing our stories together and finding


common ground, we lay the groundwork for world peace and much more.”


~Rev. Patrick McCollum


terms “word-scrapping” to generate and tell a new story that helps keep the personal connection we have with our loved one and make visits more positive. She shares more supportive insights at DeborahShouseWrites.wordpress.com. Sharing an old story may also


provide a rare link to the past for a person with dementia. “Savor and write down the stories you’re told, even if you hear certain ones many times,” Shouse counsels. “By writing down the most often-repeated stories, you create a legacy to share with family, friends and other caregivers.”


Power of the Wrong Story Our thoughts are a shorthand version of a longer life story, says author Byron Katie, a self-help specialist from Ojai, Califor- nia, who addresses reader stories via blog posts at ByronKatie.com. Sometimes we tell ourselves the wrong story, one that keeps us from realizing our full potential, while making us miserable at the same time. Examples might include “I will al- ways be overweight,” “My partner doesn’t love me” or “I’m stuck here.” Katie’s book, Who Would You Be


Without Your Story? explores how we often take what happens in our lives, create a story with negative overtones,


believe that version of the story and make ourselves unhappy. “The cause of suffering is the thought that we’re believing it,” she says. By questioning our stories, turning them around and crafting new and more truthful ones, we can change our lives.


Power to Heal


the Community Humorist, speaker, and professional storyteller Kim Weitkamp, of Christians- burg, Virginia, knows that the power of story creates wider ripples. She sees it happen every time she performs at festivals and events around the country. “It is naturally in our DNA to commu- nicate in story form,” she advises. “The power of story causes great revelation and change in those that listen.” She cites supporting studies


conducted by psychologists Marshall Duke, Ph.D., and Robyn Fivush, Ph.D., at the Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life, in Atlanta, Georgia. “They found that children—at ages 4, 14, 44 or 104, because we’re all children at heart—are more resil- ient and happy and rebound faster from stress when they know their family stories. They know they’re part of something that’s bigger than them- selves that people in their family have kept going,” says Weitkamp. “When people leave a storytelling


event, they leave telling stories,” she says with a smile, “and that results in happier and healthier families and communities.”


Judith Fertig tells stories about food at AlfrescoFoodAndLifestyle.blogspot.com from Overland Park, KS.


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