If You Listen, You'll Hear: Confronting the Narratives We Believe

There are a lot of places you could spend your time, so if stopping here for a few precious moments means that you are exercising courage or the simple act of curiosity, welcome.

Maybe we can find something together here.

Maybe you will see a little of your story here, or maybe you won’t at all.

That’s okay.

Let me tell you why I'm here.

One day while enjoying the lull of a long gray Saturday, I found a movie I’d never heard of but sensed a need to watch. The movie was called “Luckiest Girl Alive,” starring Mila Kunis as Ani Fanelli. Picture-perfect Ani is a journalist for The New York Times Magazine whose put together life isn't as glossy as it appears. The story of past trauma comes to disrupt what she has worked so hard to hide.

After a series of intense, hard-to-watch moments, Ani feels ready to publish her painful story with a placating sheen of words that cut—just not too deeply—to avoid embarrassing her well-to-do fiancé or ruin the image she had worked so hard to build. After submitting the article for review, while pacing and studying her carefully, Ani’s boss turns towards her to return the pages into Ani’s hands. As she did, she looked deeply and carefully into Ani’s eyes and charged her with these words: “Write it like no one will read it. Say what it is you want, not what everyone else wants.”

There it was. The same haunting courage and curiosity that had been chasing me to write for as long as I can remember had found me again. Stacey, say it like no one will read it, the way you want to say it, not how everyone else wants it said. I replayed the scene no less than ten times, and I’d be lying if I said the tears had not flowed more with each rewind.

In the end, Ani wrote her story again, not for anyone else but her. As a result, her life did blow up, but in the greatest release from all she had been covering up, and her story touched many others who came forward with their own stories.

One story bore another, which bore another, which bore another...

As long as I have felt the unction to write, something stronger has held me back. I dabble here and there with posts and words that, more often than not, I regret and delete. Was it too harsh? Was it too true? Does anyone care? I could blame sensitivity or lack of time or discipline for never following through, but I don't think that gets to the heart of it. Not when a Saturday comes along to pull from the shadows my silent excuses to hide and avert, prodding me again with a permission I have silenced so many times: Say what you want to say.

So, why don't I? I decided finally that I am ready to listen. Nestled into a favorite spot in my house under the heavy comfort of a blanket and a cup of tea I hold as if in prayer, where I have learned to wait under the quiet canopy of the dark early morning hours so many times before, I began to listen to God and myself, careful not to attempt to distinguish between the two but trusting that, after all this time, they are becoming the same.

I close my eyes and take a breath, and the narrative begins to speak.

I’ve misunderstood writing to be used always as a tool for persuasion. That to make it worthwhile, I need to forever and cataclysmically change someone’s mind or heart or say something that no one else has ever said before. As if that is even possible.

Somewhere I began a narrative in my mind, whether it was about writing or working or parenting or marriage or friendship or anything really... If it wasn’t changing everything, then it wasn’t changing anything. And if it wasn’t changing anything, then why do it at all.

If all the moments weren’t sacred.

If all the sentences weren't beautiful.

If all the ideas weren't true.

If all the articles weren't read.

If all the little things never turned into big things.

If all the days weren’t magical.

If everything wasn’t the most fun.

If this experience wasn’t the most meaningful experience.

Then it was nothing.

I convinced myself that it was all nothing because the little things would never be big enough to be everything. And a memory rushes in so unexpectedly that it takes a few minutes to breathe through the implications of all this has cost me: Little Stacey had big dreams and a big God but felt abandoned by both. I have been using perfectionism to protect that little girl from the shame and disappointment if all my efforts turned out to be nothing, if God never came through for her, if she never became anything she thought she would.

So I did nothing.

Again and again and again.

The narrative of nothingness and a flawed idea of significance have taken me away from life for so long, and I never knew what to call it until just now. Because I've never listened to the narrative until just now. If you're curious and a little bit brave, you may find a narrative hidden inside you, too. The difficulty with narratives is that they are silent, unobtrusive killers until we hold them close and begin to ask of them what they would like to say. Mostly, we become ready to hear when we grow tired of our stuckness and know something needs to change.

Showing up here is my path out of nothingness. Writing to confront my fear of "What if it turns out to be nothing?"gives me a path to be curiously and hospitably brave. I want to listen to the ideas and narratives of my story to see if they hold up, if they are serving or destroying me, even if it only changes me. But, I don't think that is ever the case when we bravely show up where we have been afraid.

One reason I write is because I believe that listening to others’ stories makes us more conscientious of our own. We may not agree or share experiences, but through the simple act of listening exposure, we are prompted by our own thoughts while also learning how to hold someone else's. If we can become better at both sharing and holding, other people will feel safe around us enough to hold and tell their own stories, and that is no small nothing.

One story, birthing another, birthing another... until all of our stories can be told in the presence of a world of empathetic listeners. What a beautiful, healing place that would be.

In my world and work, we hold our stories as gifts, even the most unspeakable ones, and thank them for their place in our lives. We do not have to be grateful for the harm and hurt done to us to be grateful for who they helped us become. I want us all to hold our stories as parts of us that need to speak, that are telling us who we will be and treat them as sacred pieces of who we are, not undesirable intruders to send away or ignore, as if they have no home in us. Hospitality begins with hosting ourselves. We are responsible for making our own stories feel safe enough to be told, free of judgment and shame, not only for ourselves but for those who need the courage to do the same with theirs.

I believe that the personal work of involving our stories in our everyday lives is a sacred, holy practice to be done in the presence of God and each other.

So, I invite you to begin the work of storytelling in your life. What is your “narrative of nothingness?” Like mine, it has probably influenced so much of your life: your reservations, your decisions, your fears, your regrets, and it is either screaming or whimpering to be heard so that it may be released gratefully into the ears of the person it first longs to hear: you.

How do we begin to unravel the lulls of familiar narratives? I know no other beginning more expectant with possibility than to draw close under a familiar blanket, in a quiet place with a journal or a blank computer screen, and breathe slowly and deeply until you feel the calming presence of peace settle you into the moment. When you're ready, ask yourself what pattern you return to over and over, though you don't want to? What is the loop you feel helplessly stuck in? Then, listen to the narrative you hear behind the pattern. Tell the story as if it's only for you, because for right now, it is. Pour your words out with courage and curiosity. Write as if no one will read it, and say it how you want to say it, not how anyone else would prefer you tell it.

This is for you.

And when you’re ready, share it in the presence of an empathetic witness. If you don't have one, I would be honored to hold your words with the same courage and curiosity that I am learning to hold my own.

“Instead of shaming yourself for feeling stuck, look for stories.” – Britt Frank