It is quite the journey to become a confident, skilled and inspiring storyteller. There are many steps and missteps along the way, and just like any development journey, there is no real ‘arrival’.
Story is like a TARDIS*, bigger on the inside than it is on the outside; the more I know the more realise I don’t know. But in my experience there was a point where I felt worthy of picking up the cloak of storyteller, settling it on my shoulders and offering my story gifts.
If you aspire to be a story-speaker-leader (and storytelling is an act of leading), then at some invisible point, when you have spun through the learning cycle enough times, you will feel at ease in the story saddle, alert, knowing at any moment the audience horse might bolt or buck, but you are skilled and confident enough to take that in your stride, hold the reins steady and learn and grow some more.
Each story is also a journey to the core of your being to think about, relate to, understand yourself and the message within the koan of story you are working with, whether it is about an experience from the fabric of your life or wisdom from the ancients passed from mouth to mouth through the ages, you will play that story like a lute inside your own being and hope the sound wave reverberate with others.
This is the vision that will inspire you to commit, to take the failures and learn from them, to keep showing up and trying. It is also what will keep you humbled by the craft and field of story, and in service of humanity, and the power of sense making.
I will be offering more storytelling workshops and programs in 2021. Sign up for my enews to be notified.
* Perhaps for another post, is an exploration of how the TARDIS metaphor applies to stories in other ways.
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