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Archive Number 3581 | ||
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Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 09:20:19 +1300
MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Halo, I am a new person on this list from down here on the bottom of the world in New Zealand. I have been reading this discussion with interest. I like the way you describe this process Laura and for my 2 cents worth as a Therapist/storyteller for 30 years or more... I think the telling of personal stories requires the teller to have gone through the process you describe Laura. Sometimes we will lack awareness that the process is not finished yet, or that we need something else to make it comfortable for our audiences but so long as we don't lose ourselves and can hold the group- maintain that attitude that someone wrote about before... that this is an opportunity to move closer to another human being, to bear witness rather than hearing through our victim ears there will be no 'abusive' stories. At our local festival here Elizabeth Ellis told a magnificently shaped and polished story about her daughter running away from home. I was the 'host' of the session and as several women in the audience began to weep openly I wondered how the session would end, especially as I knew Elizabeth was moving straight on to another session. However, the women who had such a strong response stayed behind and I sat with them and facilitated their telling each other the stories they needed to tell. It wasn't therapy but it was a building of community among women who had felt extremely isolated before. Would this not be a part of what storytelling might do? I'm just thinking about movies, plays etc, and how they can evoke the same response and whether we question the ethics of that? As I said my .2 worth. Gaye Sutton Storyteller Te Ao O Te Pukeko Chester Road, R.D.1 CARTERTON http://www.tepukeko.co.nz more thoughts ..... for several years i told a particular story from which I could not disengage from my own beshadowed hidden feelings. Each time I told it, almost driven to tell it, I felt that there was something wrong in the telling.When it was over there was a thick feeling of gluey discomfort for myself and the audience. For a long time I did not tell it at all -It took me years to recognize that I was stuck somewhere myself and the retelling grabbed me unaware and engaged me in this territory like a dirt storm. I was therefore unable to be the storyteller telling a whole story, but I was captured in an emotional state of the story and character and could not let it go. Having let it go at some point, I saw the story differently and also was able finally to tell it for my audience to live through the entire process rather than making it my story and suddenly engaging them in my own unprocessed pain. It reminds me of the man who once came to me after the death of his wife. Her death was tragic and somewhat the result of a series of things that had happened which he had no chance to apologize for. His telling was purely an attempt to extricate himself from unbearable pain and my own inability at the time to listen without taking his pain. I have learned so much about the state of mind of the teller and the listener since then.. My deep responsibilty to create the right atmosphere of listening and prepare my listeners. The sound of my voice and the intention of the telling with presence and detachment without losing myself in the story, or abstracting myself out of the event. How to dive under the images and see the whole process of the story .. And how to listen to those who can not help but attempt to release themselves from pain by trying to give it away... unknowing that they are doing this and also unknowing that they are attached to the reliving and reinstigating with ever more fixation on the pain, rather than gaining any awareness or self love, or understanding. I am awe struck with what I still need to learn about all of this. Laura ------------------------------- To Unsubscribe from Healingstory send the message: unsubscribe healingstory to: listserv@maelstrom.stjohns.edu ------------------------------- ------------------------------- To Unsubscribe from Healingstory send the message: unsubscribe healingstory to: listserv@maelstrom.stjohns.edu ------------------------------- | ||