Dear World and the Transformational Story

• Reflect on a personal story about who you are, who you were, who you want to be:
• Write phrases about yourself free-writing
• Pick a phrase and tell a story about it
• Tell the story to someone else
• Review the notes they've taken
• Find a phrase in those notes that tells your story.
• Have a portrait taken with you "wearing" your story.
• Share the portrait with others

This is the basic model of how Dear World helps you find your story.

I've been thinking about this in terms of storytelling and why we tell stories. Yesterday, I taught about open-ended questions in Case Management class. Open-ended questions do not use words like who, what, where, when, why, how, how many, or how much. Rather, they tend to take a form like "Tell me about ..." and variations. In other words, they ask the client to tell their story, which gives the case manager the information they need to help the client and, perhaps more importantly, provide the client the opportunity to tell their story, often traumatic and sometimes sordid, to a nonjudgmental, safe party. It becomes an affirmation of the person, perhaps the first they've ever gotten.

I see similarities in the two processes above, case management's open-ended questions and Dear World's script for finding stories. The idea in both is for the listener to be a facilitator, and not a shaper, of the story. I see differences in the processes above, mostly dealing with the shape of the final message -- one a narrative in a report, one a media-friendly portrait.

How can I get your stories?

You see, I want my readers' stories. I want to listen to them, to acknowledge them. However, we're on a social media platform where I write and you read. Most people don't even comment on blogs (Hi, Chris! Hi, Lanetta! Hi, Lynn! I love you!) because they come here and read quickly, just like everywhere else on the Net. So for me to ask for your stories seems too much to ask.

Tell me who you are in one sentence. 

You don't even need to tell me your name.

I'm listening.