What’s Stopping You From Telling Your Stories?

By Audrey Quinn

I believe stories shape our whole world. Not just the stories from the media, or the stories you learn in school, but the stories that come from our hearts–the ones we tell our kids, our friends, our family.

The Stories We Carry From Our Elders

The stories your elders pass down to you especially influence who you are as a person: 

  • Would I have reacted the same way in this situation?
  • So that’s why my parent/grandparent/sibling did this.
  • I can’t believe I never knew that! 
  • Oh, I remember when my parent told me what to do if this ever happened…

And maybe the most profound: Thank goodness, I thought I was the only one.

Survival Through Stories

Stories are crucial for the survival of both the storyteller and the listener. Sometimes that’s literal, sometimes it’s metaphorical. 

A story about not sticking a metal fork into a toaster to dislodge a poptart is as important as a story about not being inauthentic and sacrificing your own personhood to try and fit in with society…although most children probably learned the former story much earlier than I did!

Why Do We Hold Back?

Despite the vital importance of sharing our stories, experiences, fables, and hard truths, many people find themselves keeping quiet. Maybe you don’t want to disturb the peace, maybe you think no one will listen to you, or maybe you don’t even know where to start when it comes to sharing anything deep about yourself. All of these things are understandable and human. 

When stories are painful

On the first count, it’s unfortunately true that some stories are inherently violent, disturbing, or otherwise hard to hear. They might literally feature violence of some kind, or they might just be very painful to talk about, especially with certain audiences. However, there’s ALWAYS a place for these stories. Sometimes, they might be the ones most important to your survival. 

It’s important to weigh the maturity level and safety of sharing difficult content with audiences but, even if you find it’s better not to share your story aloud, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write about it. Journaling, for example, can be a particularly healing way to process unresolved trauma, grief, and pain.

Fear of not being heard

If you’re worried about people not wanting to listen to your story, that’s also a very real possibility. I know this feeling: I’m writing this in my living room with nobody else around and wondering if anyone’s ever going to read it.

But that’s a risk you have to decide whether to take or not. Do you have something to say? Is it worth saying? YOU are the one who answers those questions; you and nobody else. 

When your identity ads another layer of doubt

Maybe you’re worried about being doubted because of your identity (age, gender, ethnicity, ability, nationality, all of the above, or something else altogether). That’s a fear I understand on a personal level as a queer, trans, and disabled person. For me, it helps me to think about my little brother, who’s also under the rainbow and disabled umbrella (picture a vibrantly colored umbrella playing with a fidget cube). He’s the first person I came out to as transgender and non-binary. But I still hid so much of myself. It wasn’t until he came out to me as transgender that I realized about how important it is to not only talk about my identity and journey, but to live authentically. When we live in fear, and keep our words inside, we betray ourselves. And we can’t show up for the people closest to us when we’re not being authentic. 

Sharing Stories to Light the Way

If you’re worried about people not listening to you because of who you are, think about the fact that your story could mean the world to someone feeling the same way you are, and wondering if they’re all alone, or if people are going to just ignore them, or if they’ll be laughed at if they dare to open up. Isn’t that well worth the risk of nobody caring about what you write? Or doubting you or mocking you? To me, it is. 

In isolation, in the quiet, a story is a spark. When you set pen to paper, or fingers to keys, or voice to air, your story ignites into a flame. When you share it with your listener, it becomes a real fire. Potentially dangerous, perhaps, but also crucial for survival. 

Because that’s the thing that makes stories so powerful. It’s that they are shared. They connect us, they help us remember, they teach us, they help us empathize.

When you think of it like that, what is holding you back from sharing your truth?

Then, you might be sitting there just dying to get something off your chest but you don’t know where or how to even start. We’ve all been there! Even those of us that aren’t writers have had to wade into conversations that we feel completely unprepared to have. Again, you have to make that call for yourself. How important is it that you tell this story? 

And maybe to help guide you to the answer to that question, ask yourself: who am I telling this story to? My kid? My sibling? My parents? The great blue Earth itself? Picture your audience like they’re right there in front of you. What does your story mean to you now that it’s no longer just yours?

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