Storytelling- A Powerful Catalyst for Systems Change!
Ever wondered how did we start believing in something and not believing in something? How did we start to fear something? How did we start to like & dislike something? How did we form opinions about something? How did we find something positive and the other negative? How do we believe that this is right & that is wrong?
“I don’t believe in fasting, it increases acidity”
“I fast because it helps my body detox”
“I’m a married woman and it’s a tradition that I wear a Mangalsutra & put on a bindi”
“Mangalsutra & Bindis are just ornaments & accessories to me”
“As a child, I cannot back answer my parents”
“I’m not back answering my parents, I’m presenting my opinion which is different”
And when we think deeply, we realize that everything started with a Story- A story that we have either heard or experienced! And what if that story has been a significant part in conditioning our mind?!
-We start believing in something because we heard a story about believing that something or we experienced a story which made us believe that something!
-We started fearing something because we heard a story of someone who already experienced fear or we experienced a story which made us start to fear!
-We started liking/ disliking something because we heard of someone who experienced the like/dislike or we ourselves experienced it!
-We started forming an opinion about something because we heard a story which we started believing in or we experienced something favoring us with that opinion!
When we start believing in unresourceful stories, we place ourselves in a box. And within that box, we miss out on new possibilities and options!
What if we change the stories? What if we tell stories that would not limit our actions but will encourage us to look beyond? What if we pay attention to more resourceful stories?
And if we do all this, we might just break out from the box and explore something more!
A couple of weeks back, my husband and my son both went for a haircut on a Sunday morning on my husband’s bike. And while coming back their bike dashed onto a car and they met with an accident. My son fell down and broke his spectacles, saving his eye. And my husband hurt his hands and knees.
They rode back home as the wounds were mild abrasions. After reaching home and hugging me tight, I could sense that the scars of the accident had left my son still in fear for some time after reaching home. But eventually, he got back to normalcy after an hour or so.
Last month, we had to go to a relative’s place in the evening. My husband and I decided to go on his bike, while my son accompanied my in-laws in the car.
While on the way, he told me that our son still has some fear to accompany him on his bike after the accident. He did experience that once after the accident. I took a self-note of it and went ahead to the relative’s place.
And while leaving back, I asked my son to accompany us on the bike, it’ll be fun together after many days. Initially, he was all pumped up and geared up and agreed in one go. But immediately his eyes went off to my in-laws who were leaving already in our car.
Within a minute, my son changed his plan and told me that he would prefer to go in the car as it was cold outside. (though he had a really warm winter jacket and woolen cap on)
Now, this was something unusual to me. Usually, he would either come along with us on our bike or force me to get into the car with him.
We went home and I asked him why he didn’t come with us. And he answered the same… That it was cold outside even after wearing his winter jacket. Now I spoke right to the point and asked him, “Are you scared of riding on the bike after the accident?”
And the poor baby put his head down and nodded in acceptance.
NOW the storyteller in me had to then take charge. And we started with sharing our real-life accident stories with him where we all had risen up from major road accidents in our lives. I shared 2 stories of major accidents that I met within my college days, my husband shared his stories of rising up from an accident and my father-in-law too had 2 stories of recovering from 2 major accidents.
And while he was listening in aww to all these stories till 1 AM, all he had to say was, “Let’s go for late-night coffee somewhere, on the bike!”
With this affirmation, and a few rides on the bike with him later, somewhere I knew, that he had changed his own, experienced story into something else. He had broken a pattern of building up a limiting belief. He had disrupted his pattern of fearing something even when he had experienced one.
He had somewhere overcome the fear of sitting on a bike. Or he was prepared to face any challenge that would come along when he sat on the bike. Or maybe, he realized that an accident can happen once but not always.
So many possibilities were built up in one single story!
What if we change our own stories? Or what if we tell stories that bring about a change- A change either in a person’s mind/life or in the systems?
As it is rightly said, ‘Change starts from Home’- When we can be successful in bringing about a change right from our own internal systems, I’m sure it will spread like the work-of-mouth and change the external systems as well!
And what better than starting to narrate stories that bring about a change!!??
What a lovely way of changing the systems, no?
