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Writing Prompt: The Most Dangerous Thing
As we prepared for the Easter bunny yesterday, I decided to try blowing the good stuff out of a few eggs (mostly because I cracked half of the hard boiled batch). My daughter looked at me with a mix of horror and hilarity. She declared that what I was doing was "the most dangerous thing I have ever seen!"
Clearly, she lives a sheltered life (and I feel pretty proud of that fact), but what about you? What is the most dangerous thing you have ever seen or tried?
Based on this video, I hope you'll see that tongue in cheek answers are encouraged and perhaps even preferred. After all, Easter is a day that can use as much laughter and joy as possible.
Share your own "danger mom" or even "danger bunny" stories on the comments or tag me when you share them on social media.
The Shame of Shushed Story
“Oh honey, let’s not tell that story.” The words flowed easily from my lips but they were terribly hard to hear, hanging there in the air. I’d delivered them as kindly as I could in the voice of a woman with too many worries and too little sleep. All I wanted was the oasis of a quiet shower and to make it to my first cup of coffee before anyone pulled hair or screeched or required a bandaid.
But I know that silence and distrust and disconnection are born of distracted admonishments. This was a tiny sin that hinted at a deeper darkness.
My six year-old was remembering the beach house that the family rented for several summers. Her memories of eating a dozen clementines gave way to remembering when one older family member had fallen and knocked out a tooth.
I don’t like that memory. It was upsetting and it wasn’t pretty. I felt the pain and the worry of that Cape Cod morning. The guilt that I hadn't been very helpful at the time was (my excuse was morning sickness, but that seems paltry now). None of these thoughts were going to ease me into what was going to be another challenging day, so I shushed her and kept moving.
As I dive deep into what it means to tell stories, I'm learning just as much about how to receive and keep stories. Stories need to be held and reviewed when they bubble up. When they are stifled they become the monsters of shame and doubt and fear.
In trying to protect myself from unresolved hurts, I create new ones for my daughter. In trying to stifle the pure, spontaneous sharing of memories, I am creating new ghosts that are bound to be much more ghoulish the next time they come around.
I am a storyteller. I ask people to walk into the shadows with me so that we can appreciate the light. That means I also need to allow others to tell me their stories - even when I find them unsettling or inconvenient, even when I want to wish the memories away.
Learn how to tell your own stories with greater sensitivity and awareness. Join the free online class, The Story Triangle, on April 5.
The People Need Stories, Not To Do Lists
The difference between telling a strong story and writing “just another blog post”
There are million different ways to approach a topic. Say you wanted to write about how to talk with your partner about a struggles a creative entrepreneur.
You could use the good old “people love list posts” approach:
Seven ways you “should” approach the situation including “make a spreadsheet that he can understand!” and “make sure everyone is well-rested and ready to fully engage in the conversation.”
If your readers are worrying about how to get their partner to be more supportive of a business venture, they just might come away with a tip that helps them along.
But then there’s the storytelling approach:
It’s one a.m. when she gets to bed. She’s chilled from sitting at the computer for so long and feels so grateful when he entangles his sleep warmed limbs with hers. Visions of Facebook ads and YouTube clips swim before her eyes as she tries desperately to sleep. The kids will be up soon and there’s so much more work to do to get this new course launched.
He knows the pattern of her breath. He knows it doesn’t mean anything good. “Did you get everything done?” he asks. When she snorts, he asks, “Did you get at least one thing done? Are you upset?
“Yes. And yes.” She starts to cry because finishing up a LeadPage doesn’t feel like much when the to do list stretches across so many notebook pages.
She is not ok. She is tired and she is scared and she is so desperate for all of her work to pay off.
It would have been easy to mumble “it’s all good” and roll over to feed her fears into the lonely darkness. Instead, she chose to be honest. She chose to speak her truth and ask her husband for the kind of help that only he can give - to listen to her in the darkness and make the world feel safe again.
Though they’ll both be exhausted in the morning, there’s one less brick in the wall between them. There’s space for sunshine and support and connection to flow in their marriage, in her business, and in their bank account.
This is why storytelling works
Because it’s a story, the reader connects with you in a real way that builds trust. They get drawn in by the emotion. Even if they’re not looking for “quick and easy tips for having tough conversations with your spouse about your business,” people who understand the challenges of entrepreneurship will be drawn in.
Stories are like giant magnets for the brain - people want to be invited into the room, into the conflict, and into the resolution. A story like this one shows them they’re not alone and exposes the other side of “grow your six figure online business” sales pitches.
How to make storytelling work for you, your audience, and your business
Is that my story above? Well, I can tell you that I am launching a new course and I’m pretty sleepy today…
That’s not the point of all this, though. My goal is to help you understand that stories are what connect you with your readers and with your potential clients.
We dive deep into why we need stories and list posts in the Connect With Your Readers & Clients: Discover the Story Triangle webinar. The recording will be available through Monday, April 11.
Traveling Distances by Guest Storyteller Peggy Acott
Why had she taken a train out of Minneapolis instead of making a direct flight to Seattle? It postponed the inevitable conversation with Bea, true, but made the anticipation of it a torment, stretching out like the endless lines of cattle fence rushing past her window; she had spent the last several hours (last several days, if she was to be truthful) running over various scripts and monologues in her head of how she was going to approach the topic with Bea. Hell, I can’t just walk into her house after all this time and say “Hi! Guess what? Daddy’s alive, but not for long, and he wants to see you.” She groaned audibly though no one heard, unless her moan got picked up by the wind and was now startling some poor prairie dog family minding their own business in their den.
But Alice couldn’t deny that she had been happy to see him, terrified by his cancer prognosis. She, who avoided all things having to do with sickness and mortality; she, who could not summon up the courage to visit her mother (for she still thought of Adriane as her mother) until the week before she died; couldn’t bear to see her sick and failing. She knew Bea was furious with her, maybe even hated her. She felt an ugly, malignant sort of cowardice that she wouldn’t admit to anyone. Well, now she was getting paid back in spades.
Alice gazed out into the distance. The parched, dry ochre hills and plains were so opposite to the life she made in the lush Hawaiian Islands; this landscape seemed like the no-man’s land threshold separating her past and her present. Unbidden, her memories started to bubble up: Daddy teaching her about fireflies; dinners around the wooden kitchen table in the dining room or the picnic table in the back yard in summer; her mother reading to her and Bea at bedtime in the room they shared, the warm pool of light from the bedside lamp illuminating the page of Wind in the Willows and their mother’s concentrated expression.
Peggy Acott is a writer in many forms, who shamelessly takes advantage of the rainy weather in western Oregon to help maintain her (mostly) regular writing practice.
The Alchemy of Envy (Or, Why I'm In Love with Glennon)
Glennon Doyle Melton of Momastery began her blog because she needed a place to be honest.
That journey into honesty has created an international community of humans who want more love and hope and a whole lot less fear and separation. Oh, and a best selling book and some epic charitable giving.
So, here’s my honest confession: I’ve envied Glennon too much to read all the words and feel all the feelings and experience all the virtual hugs that happen in her digital world.
Based on what I heard in Glennon's must-listen interview on Rob Bell’s podcast, I think she would lovingly escort me into therapy if she heard I envied all that she’s survived in this life. I get that. But envy is one of those stupid emotions that really just needs alchemy - the magical process of turning something base and blah into something shiny and brilliant.
I’m done with envy and it’s petty, perspective stealing black magic. I am done with missing out on all the good stuff because I am terrified I’ve already missed my own “good stuff” train. I’m through with assuming that Glennon’s world is already too full of passionate, big-hearted, creative beings. Who is served by my believe "no one needs little old me to like, comment, and share"?
I’m ready to SHOW UP.
That doesn’t just mean I’ll hang out on her Facebook page more often and pre-order the new book (though on both counts: check). It means that I will choose respect and admiration over envy and isolation. It means I will read and reach out to all the bloggers, authors, and thought leaders I adore and become an active participant in their worlds.
Choosing participation over envy means I will free myself from the depressing chains of competition. It means I'll get over myself and my "I shoulda created something this vibrant and important already myself" crap.
When I tell the universe - and all the wonderful, caring people in it - that I am open to play and explore and be a part of all the eye opening wisdom and heart cracking connection I can find, love wins. We all win.