The beginning of the phase one of the Stories Act project, is ending and everything in between has now blended in our memories into a slightly abstract ethereality we feel in a shape of a story that goes on and on. If we were about to note down everything we’ve learned and record all the magical moments, we feel like we could write a whole book about it. However, for the short testimonial article that follows, we will start with a few keywords, which present our main takeaways: empowerment, reflection, community, inspiration, change.
In that one week, without knowing how we’re going to do it, we made our stories act and there were several kinds of stories we did that with. Sharing our personal stories had a deeply healing effect. One of us recalls: Sitting in a circle with three other people and remembering a time in our lives when we walked away from a victim’s point of view of what is going on for us towards the accountable position, reframing our current situation for ourselves, taking ownership and finding solutions, took me way back in the past and reminded me that I’ve been in difficult cirrcumstances before and I made it through, and I can do hard things. Talking about past events as if they are a story and realizing now that indeed they are, felt soothing and empowering. Receiving feedback from others and hearing their stories connected me with somehting universal and communal.
We re-wrote and re-told the way the usual hero’s journey stories go, too. We added unicorns and placed our characters in communities, where they helped each other mutually through all obstacles and problems. We also experienced exactly that while working in groups. Creating stories together without being preassured about the result and therefore being able to focus solely on the process, which removed the layer of unnecessary perfectionism we picked up in schools and society, was another essential way of healing we experienced. One of us remembers a scene: One of the most impactful moments, among many, for me was during an activity where we all got an object from nature and wrote a story. In the beginning, Anna said: “I know some of you won’t believe me when I tell you that you will write a story in the next 10 minutes.” At that moment I thought I could not write a story, I truly believed it without a doubt. However, a few minutes later, I was surprised to find myself writing a story and genuinely enjoying the process. This activity has taught me to push past my self doubt. 8ì I think I truly can’t do something now, I think of that story and give it a try anyway to see if I can actually do it.
Another part of the training we greatly appreciate is the practice of embodiment. Movement, incorporated into our days between other activities grounded us inside the stories and inside ourselves. While stories tend to connect more with our minds and imagination and have the power to take us far away while we physically stay in the same spot, moving our bodies through the space added a sparkle of earthly reality and enabled us to be present wholesomely. Thinking about ways of spreading focus on individual participants and the community of participants as well as on the stories and the topics we are dealing with, seems to us to be an important factor to consider when we’re thinking of storytelling activities we would like to try out in our local communities.
Seven days of telling stories in Olde Vechte Foundation passed within a blink of an eye. Thinking of it now, the first phase of the project was like a goodnight story, sending us all towards quality sleep full of dreams we get to create ourselves with the help of storytelling tools and ideas we received. The dreams will be our local actions between March and June.
In the third phase of the project, we will be waking up in Olde Vechte once again, telling each other all about our dreams and creating audio/visual art to note them down and keep them to inspire us further as we go on telling stories and widening our communities.