Day 6 Superpower Sunday #HAWMC

I LOVE this prompt.

I’ve been working on a superpower of my own over the past few years.

It’s a superpower we all possess.

The power of story

The power of storytelling, as regular readers know, is a theme I return to again and again on this blog. Cancer takes so much from us, not just our breasts and our hair, but indeed the very story of how our lives were meant to be. When we become ill and that story that has previously guided our lives is taken from us, we need to find a new story.  Stories help bridge what sociologist, Arthur Frank, in his  book The Wounded Storyteller,  calls “narrative wreckage” – the point at which our old life plot is no longer valid, and we need a new story to continue life’s journey. Frank believes that seriously ill people are wounded not just in body but in voice and that we need to become storytellers in order to recover the voices that illness takes away.

I firmly believe that there is an alchemy that happens in the blogosphere when we share our stories. When your story is received and witnessed by others, the stories themselves change as they are told and heard, creating a social fabric around which we care for each other. Through sharing stories, we create empathetic bonds between ourselves and our listeners. Those who listen to our stories, tell others, and in this way the circle of shared experience widens. That is at the heart of why I put together a weekly round up of blogs each week, to create, what the philosopher Paul Ricoeur so beautifully calls  “a cloth woven of stories told”. By weaving our stories together we might find a moment of recognition and kinship in each other, a feeling we are not quite so alone in this world.

We are all storytellers and we live our lives through a network of stories.  I believe in the power of story so passionately that I have launched a new project the Global Village of Storytelling (GVS). It is a project that was hatched from conversations with many friends who share my passion for the power of story, and one friend in particular, Deirdre Munro, an Irish midwife passionate about kindness, compassion, and global networks. Deirdre founded a community network dedicated to those ideals and has been instrumental in helping me launch my own Global Village.

GVS is still at an embryonic stage, but I am excited about the future possibilities of creating a global community which empowers individuals and organisations to tap into the power of stories to share knowledge and experience, to create connections, to advance a cause, and to dream a vision of a more humane future together. I would love for you, my wonderful community of storytellers, to join me in developing this community.  Please like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter, and consider sharing your story on our website.