“Healing the Wounded Child Within” by Charles L. Whitfield MD. Story Telling as part of the healing process, he writes.
“Telling our story is a powerful act in discovering and healing our Child Within. It is a foundation of recovery in self-help groups, group therapy and individual psychotherapy and counseling.
Each of our stories when complete contains three basic parts: separation, initiation and return (Campbell, 1949). Twelve-step self-help groups describe their stories as “What we were like,” “What happened,” and “What we are like now.” People in group therapy may call it risking, sharing, participating, and ‘working’ in group. In individual counseling or psychotherapy we may describe it by similar names and psychoanalysts may call it “free association, working through transference and through unsolved internal conflict.” Among close friends, we may call it “baring our souls” or “having a heart-to-heart talk.”
In sharing our story we can be aware that gossip and wallowing in our pain are usually counterproductive to healing. This is in part because gossip tends to be attacking rather than self-disclosing and it is generally incomplete, following the victim stance or cycle. Wallowing in our pain is continuing to express our suffering beyond a reasonable duration for healthy grieving. There is a danger here that maybe observed in some self-help meetings: When a person tries to tell a painful story that has no apparent or immediate resolution, the other members may unknowingly label it as “self-pity” or a “pity party.” In this case, while self-help meetings are generally safe and supportive, the bereaved may wish to look elsewhere to express their pain.
Simos (1979) said, “Grief work must be shared. In sharing however, there must be no impatience, censure or boredom with the repetition, because repetition is necessary for catharsis and internalization and eventual unconscious acceptance of the reality of loss. The bereaved are sensitive to feelings of others and will not only refrain from revealing feelings to those they consider unequal to the burden of sharing the grief but may even try to comfort the helpers.
Our story does not have to be a classical “drunkalog” or long in length. In telling our story we talk about what is important, meaningful, confusing, conflicting, or painful in our life. We risk, share, interact, discover and more. And by doing so we heal ourselves. While we can listen to stories of others, and they can listen to ours, perhaps the most healing feature is that we, the story teller, get to hear our own story. While we may have an idea about what our story is whenever we tell it, it usually comes out different from what we initially thought.”
Charles Whitfield
My story telling began in journals to myself, and eventually I was daring enough to have a blog.
I do know the ‘risk’ it takes to stand and speak about your journey, and also the benefits to being heard.
The biggest part of the storytelling is to have compassionate, caring, listeners.
My blog seems to be that. It is always available for me to place another bout of confusion down, a new wave of understanding, a twisted and unraveled past hurt, a present moment of disbelief, my blog is my group therapy.
I also love that I have some faithful group members that willingly share parts of themselves with me and give me feedback so that I know I am being heard.
All it takes is one ear and you can begin to unload mountains of grief even if the ear is online and it changes from day to day.
I want to thank all the faithful ears out there who read, comment and allow me to share my story as my life continues forward, as I learn about my past and how it still affects my nowadays.
A storyteller with out a listener will not work. We need the listener, we need to know another soul is hearing us, can see us, and understands.
The healer is a caring ear…
I M Perfect lady 