Why We Need to Dare to Tell Stories Raw & Real
January 12, 2010
I have several new clients lately that are all seeking to get to the heart of something beautiful raw and real inside of themselves - to be able to tell their stories in an open, honest and vulnerable format.
So you might wonder - why is it so hard?
It honestly is. They are not just making it up. It seems ludicrous in one sense that you actually have to go to someone to help them tell your story. Why can’t you just blurt it out?
What is so hard about it anyway?
But here’s the thing - it actually is hard. These folks coming to me to tell their stories are coming because they are brave human beings. They feel the call deep down inside and they just know that they have to articulate, express or share something with the world and that they need some help, structure or support to do that.
These folks are the smart ones who instinctively know that it is nearly impossible to tell these stories on your own. It is because people in our world don’t really want to hear the truth. If you don’t believe me just try this experiment…
Next time you are somewhere and someone you barely know asks you how you are. Stop. Pause. Look them in the eye and tell them the honest to god, real and vulnerable truth.
“Well now that you asked, actually I’m having a few money problems, my back is a bit aching from too much yoga, my boyfriend just left me and my dog is sick….and….and….and….”
Don’t bother to finish because the sentence because they are are already gone. If they haven’t walked physically away, trust me they’ve gone away inside.
A few months ago when I wrote my Raw & Real Stories about a painful relationship breakup, I actually experienced this. Someone inquired about how I was doing and though I’m not a person that just spills out my personal life to everyone, I started to honestly tell her the truth. I thought she really wanted to know. But as soon as I started, I saw her physically backing up so I stopped.
People aren’t prepared to know the painful truth! Ouch. It brings up the pain in them. So when you craft a story of your own, first you need to get it out raw and real. You need someone to listen to you carefully, not to judge and definitely not to back away no matter what you say.
The message that I need to send people when I listen is - “I’m here, I’m not going anywhere and I won’t back away no matter how hard it gets.” You can do it too.
That is really powerful. Imagine just how life changing that one message can be - I’m here, I’m not going away.
If you remember or read my Raw and Real stories, there was one in which my friend Leslie came running towards me and body hugged me. That was just the message I needed - a big real hug that said, “I’m not going away.”
So that is why people don’t dare to tell their stories raw and real - because they fear that no one will be there when then are done, that everyone will go away because the painful truth is too awful. It’s not.
Today send this message to everyone in your life - I’m here, I’m not going away and I will listen no matter how hard it gets. Story-telling is life changing for this reason. It’s not about entertainment, it’s the deepest form of life change there is.
When we change our stories, we change the world.
Today dare to tell yours raw and real and encourage others to tell theirs too. You’ll notice how much closer you feel, how much more love and vitality is in your life.
Today don’t back away from pain but go right to the juicy heart of what’s real.
Yours in sharing stories that make a difference in the world,
Annie
![[Post to Twitter]](http://anniehart.com/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter.png){kind=icon}
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
The True Power of Vulnerability
October 14, 2009
Telling stories raw and real requires an open and vulnerable heart. That is not an easy thing especially in a culture that tells us we must be strong and where vulnerability is often seen more as a weakness than as a strength.
Years ago when I was doing Heartwork training in business settings. The men would almost always say to me, “I can’t use my more tender feelings because then I’ll lose my edge.” What they meant was that they believed that if they accessed any of the ’softer’ feelings of the heart, than they would lose their masculine strength.
I was reminded of this the other day when I was having a very frustrating conversation with my colleague Jim. He is a great guy in every way but as he says himself, sometimes he’s thinking from ‘his man place’ and I feel like he can’t hear what I’m saying at all.
I was trying to tell him that telling these stories raw and real is very difficult. Even though I have been doing it for years, I am currently diving into stories that are harder to tell and I’m finding myself very challenged. I want to run away and hide in a cave rather than tell these more vulnerable stories! 
Jim was not getting my point. He kept trying to tell me that everyone loves hearing these kinds of stories. I assured him that they do not. He said that people love to hear how you’ve overcome a challenge. I agree. But what if you haven’t overcome the challenge? What if you never overcome it?
Let me give you the example of a client of mine whom I love. I have worked with her for many years through the ups and downs of her life. She has two wonderful children, one of whom has had a serious medical problem since birth.
Recently she was giving a talk at a conference and she was nervous about telling her stories. Her stories are very raw, real and personal to her. They are stories in which she she has struggled but not necessarily overcome. One of the biggest differences between stories of true vulnerability is that we don’t necessarily come out looking like a hero or heroine. This is what I realized after my conversation with Jim.
It is one thing to tell those stories in which we look big and strong. In our heroic culture, we are completely revered for that. But how about the stories in which we feel pitiful, small and woefully human? Are we able to tell these stories unadorned and still stand up tall?
Are we able to tell stories in which we don’t have all the answers, don’t have it all figured out and don’t have the solution? What about the tragedies that make absolutely no sense to us? Must we gussy up these stories just so they are fit to tell?
I encouraged my client to tell her stories raw and real and to put her focus on making a connection with the audience, rather than looking good. She liked that idea. She is a very genuine and loving person and she wanted to connect with people. It also took the pressure off of her to perform. She realized that she could just tell the stories from her own real human heart.
She came back today and reported great success. People really connected to her stories and she felt natural and comfortable telling them. “Annie,” she said, “I realize that I just need to keep opening up and sharing vulnerably.” That’s the key.
Our stories are our stories. The are precious, raw and real, just like our own human hearts.
And by the way, the men that I trained in Heartwork, always got a dose of the science of the heart. What they learned is that there is a whole body of scientific evidence that shows that the power of strength in the human body is generated from the qualities of love and care in the heart.
And my buddy Jim? He’ll get what I’m saying. He always does. As a matter of fact, I hear the phone ringing right now, that’s probably him….
So today dare to tell your story unadorned and trust the power of vulnerability to create true strength and connection.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
My Stories Raw & Real: Why I Don’t Want To Tell My Stories
October 2, 2009
If you think it’s easy to tell your own stories raw & real, let me assure you that it’s not. There are many reasons why we don’t want to tell the truth. One is because people don’t really want to hear it. When you tell the truth, sometimes people can’t handle it, or they shut down, or go away, or judge you.
That hurts and it doesn’t make you want to open up and tell your story. But even though I’m personally aware that this is the risk in telling them, I feel compelled to do so anyway.
As I’ve said a few times, my twenty one year old niece is pushing me to do so. She insists that I shouldn’t feel embarrassed by these stories, in fact she said so bluntly. “Annie, why should you feel ashamed for what a man has done? If anything it’s his problem, and not about you.”
While that is true and it’s logical that I shouldn’t feel embarrassed or ashamed, the truth is that I do. I feel embarrassed because they are my stories, not someone else’s. They are my very own personal Pandora’s box and I must now open it to reveal the truth.
But do I want to? No, not really. Why would I wnat to do this? Why would anyone want to do this? We need to tell these stories because the rawest, most vulnerable stories hold the most life energy. By the way if you read the myth of Pandora, here is what you find out:
According to the myth, Pandora had been given a large jar and instruction by Zeus to keep it closed, but she had also been given the gift of curiosity and ultimately opened it. When she opened it, all of the evils, ills, diseases, and burdensome labor that mankind had not known previously, escaped from the jar, but it is said, that at the very bottom of her box, there lay hope.
Isn’t that amazing? Open the box to all the evils of the world and there at the bottom lies hope. This is why we must tell our stories, the stories we least want to tell. The mystics say that inside of everything of darkness, there are sparks of light just waiting to be released. Inside is Light that can be shared with the world.
Imagine what happens when we don’t tell these stories. What happens when we don’t have the courage to share that which has been most dark and painful to us? We are literally hiding the light. Light that could be made available to everyone.
Do I want to be that selfish? No. I must break through my own fear, trepidation and emabarrasment and dare to release the light that is inside of these stories. I must liberate the life force that is just waiting to be released into the world.
Thank God Pandora opened that box. What if she had listened to the voices of fear and kept it closed? Yes it unleashed all manner of evil into the world , but we obviously needed to learn how to deal with that. We need to unleash the power of story in our lives and dare to trust the Hope that wants to come out into the world.
Today dare to tell your story and be sure to listen for the stories of others. Make them feel comfortable to tell their real stories. You never know what Light you can bring into the world.
Yours in story, Annie
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
My Story Raw & Real: I’m Doing Great
September 22, 2009
I am doing great. I am whole and intact. I got exactly the kind of loving care that I needed from many different sources and I am doing amazingly well. I have never gotten over anything like this so quickly in my life and this is a wonderful gift to me. I had the realization for me that nothing can do me permanent harm. It’s almost like I have a force-field of love around my life.
I feel very blessed. This painful situation has given me the opportunity to really cherish and appreciate the beautiful people in my life. Remember my friend on the bicycle? Well he called today and asked me how I was doing and I was happy to tell him that I am doing great. I’ve never been able to say that before, so soon after something painful happened. This is a real gift to me.
I am getting ready to go on a trip to Oklahoma to see my family. This is the trip “Mr Former” and I were going to go on together. He was going to meet my family. I could be sad about that, but I’m not. I’m actually very happy. 
I’m happy to see my family and have a fun time in their small Oklahoma town. We are going to the homecoming parade and I get to wear a big fat tacky mum - woo-hoo! I sure hope mine is not nearly as big as the one in the picture! But I don’t care if it is. I’m going to have a great time no matter what. I’m celebrating my new life.
I am alive and intact and a situation that once would have taken me years to get over, has been restored in only a few weeks. I went to see my spiritual director last week and she is going to help me with my book. I also met with my new writing partner and we began our first write together. I’m moving forward and setting my sails in new directions.
And believe it or not I am open to love again. I have to admit that when this happened, I could feel the doors of my heart want to snap shut and rust. But I refused to let that happen. I know that the biggest challenge one can have is to keep your heart open when it hurts the most.
But my heart is open and I am determined to be even more loving, more kind and more caring to the people in my life. I don’t know why this happened or why I had to have yet another painful relationship ending, but I am determined to continue to tell these stories, raw and real. The stories that have shaped my life and shaped my heart.
Yours in story,
Annie
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
My Story Raw & Real - We Can’t Avoid Life
September 11, 2009
So here’s the lesson coming in loud and clear - We can’t avoid life!
It’s easy to hide, it’s easy to stay in our shell and it’s easy to make other people the source of our problems, but they are not. I’m saying this because part of my old shell has just been cracked open and it was really painful.
It always is, but that doesn’t mean anything is wrong. That is the part that is hardest to understand about these moments.
People have asked me a few times, “Did you see it coming?” It meaning the end of my relationship. That’s an interesting question. Hmm, did I see IT coming? Possibly. But how do you really know what is coming? That’s the hard part.
The hard part was that I was actually trying to avoid this exact pain. I was trying to avoid the pain of getting connected to someone again and then have them leave. I was trying to avoid that because I’ve experienced it many times before and I have some idea that I shouldn’t experience it again.
Note that I say ‘idea’ that I shouldn’t experience it. This means that we really don’t understand life at all. How do I know what I’m meant to experience? I don’t. So did I see it coming? Yes I’ve always seen it coming. But the real question is - Was I meant to avoid it? Was I meant to step out of the way? Or is this exactly what life was meant to bring me? Exactly this and nothing different.
I was cracked open and now what do you see? You see an open egg. That’s exactly the point. Life wanted to open me, but because we are wired to avoid pain, we don’t open easily or willingly, so life needs to crack us open.
Mother nature herself is creator and destroyer. But here’s the beauty - I am alive. And now what you see inside of me is raw and real, just like the soft inside of the egg. I am alive and doing really well. I wouldn’t change a thing about what happened. I needed to learn something and experience something. My prayer every day is that I learn whatever it is and then I take it out to help others.
I have dedicated an entire week to writing these stories raw and real. I hope you’ll stay with me on the journey and I hope that they touch and inspire you. Please feel free to comment on the blog.
Yours in story,
Annie
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
My Story Raw & Real: Why I’m Daring to Write These Stories
September 9, 2009
So why am I daring to write these stories when some part of me feels so raw and vulnerable? Well that is exactly the point.
Exposing our vulnerability is the last thing that we want to do when we feel wounded. What we want to do is to curl up inside a nice dark cave and never come out.
I am aware of those feelings and for the first few days, I couldn’t move much. I had a hard time getting off the bed and getting out the door to go buy groceries. All simple things normally but not on those days when the dark cave is beckoning you.
I”m writing these stories for YOU. I don’t even know who you are but you are out there somewhere. And you and me, like everyone else, is hurting somewhere inside of you. It may not be obvious or it may not be as raw as mine but it’s there. You just may not be able to admit it openly. Or maybe you’ve tried and no one has really listened.
So I want you to know that I’m listening to you. I’m listening through sharing these stories. Our collective pain needs to be heard. That is how we bond, that is how we heal and that is how we come together in renewal.
These stories are definitely not just for me. I don’t need to heal at your expense. No, I want this to be a sharing and healing venture. I want to share your stories too.
Because I’m an Aries, which is the first sign of the zodiac, I tend to go first and lead the way. I blaze the trail in the forest for others to follow. Aries often go where others fear to tred. Fear does not stop us.
I’m not afraid of feeling pain. I’m not saying it’s easy to experience it. It’s not. But I consciously choose to open my heart over and over again, even when life hurts. And I want you to do the same. I want you to dust yourself off from the last failed relationship or business failure or whatever it was that stopped you,.
We must grieve and then move on and do better things with our lives. I’m writing these stories so that you can learn two things. These are things which the world outside does not teach us. One is that I want to share openly how to grieve about life’s pain. I want to share that in a raw and real way, to let you know that it is not only ok, but it is necessary to our physical and emotional health.
Do you know that there are indigenous tribes that do a ceremonial purgings of all their emotions every year? We need that. We all need a regular cleansing of pain and distress and if we don’t take that upon ourselves, then life brings it to our door. We should be thankful when it comes. It might be saving our life.
The other thing that I want you to take with you is a way of making pearls out of pain. I want to show you how you can take the raw and wounded experiences and make them into a mark of your greatness.
I will be sharing stories about how I and others have done this and lead up to the moment when I feel ready to carve a new path for myself. I’m not there yet but I hope you’ll stay with me on this journey. And please feel free to email me and let me know how my stories touch your life.
Together we’re going to go on a journey. Together we will restore and repair ourselves from whatever it is that pains us. Life’s beauty is made up of exposing our hearts to the tender, the vulnerable and the real. That’s why I’m writing these stories and why I hope you’ll be with me on this path.
Yours in story,
Annie
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
-
Connect With Annie Hart
.png)
.png)
-
Check Out My Blog on Skirt!
