By Charlotte 

During the spring semester, 2014, I had the awesome opportunity to teach a Digital Storytelling class. I became inspired to do so last summer, when I attended a traveled to Cleveland for the 6th annual International Conference on Conflict Resolution Studies. 

One of the sessions I attended discussed digital storytelling as a means to render moments of social justice and activism. Listening and watching these short memoir pieces come to life with image, narration, and audio layers including music, I fell in love. I wanted to create such pieces and I wanted to lead other people through this process.  Even though I’d never worked with movie-maker technology before, I felt like this format could be a powerful and vibrant way to help writers find the right important moments to bring to the digital storytelling realm.

Despite the challenges with the gadgetry, and my bumblings as a first-time teacher of a new way of creating narrative resonance, it was a terrific success on many levels. We built community, we repeatedly discussed the power of storytelling, and we dove into our vulnerabilities with specificity and an eye for the way “turns” can evoke surprise and transformation. By allowing for an emotional shifts within the narratives, we discovered that our audiences felt more connected to the piece. To learn more about turns, we examined poetry with an eye for the ways a distilled piece of writing could include pivotal shifts.

We had frank discussions about technology—what worked, what didn’t, where one could turn for help with challenges. The students learned as much from each other as they did from me, and it’s been a gift to read their cover letters, including their advice to possible future students:

"You will learn much about the writing process, and about creativity, and about being a giver."

“Sincerity and honesty become easier as you get acquainted with yourself.”

"My parting advice is: keep your eyes open--to the beautiful stories surrounding you and the ones within you."

A digital story is a short memoir piece of about 200 words, augmented with visual images, audio layering (if desired) and music. That’s the technical definition. I think the emotional definition goes something like this: it’s another powerful means for connecting with others and creating coherence for one’s self.  For a look at my second piece, where I examine my role as a writer in the context of my family, click here: A Separate Gaze

By Charlotte & Melinda

In business, success requires the ability to connect and resonate with colleagues, employees, vendors, and clients. The path to authentic connection begins with sharing our ideas and experiences, yet many struggle with the level of vulnerability needed for true connection, which can often be perceived as weakness in the professional context. We suggest that appropriate vulnerability can actually establish credibility and create opportunities for collaborative thinking and connection, as well as foster professional growth.

We understand the hesitation; we’ve been taught to adopt strict roles in the workplace, which emphasize a separation of the personal from the professional in order to be successful. However, emerging research in psychology and sociology emphasizes the power of storytelling and personal narrative to create meaning and connection, especially in the age of statistics and “big data.” For example, Brene Brown, PhD, who has spent her academic career studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame offers, “Maybe stories are just data with soul.” Furthermore, in recent LinkedIn article, Shane Snow (Chief Creative Officer for Contently), suggests that storytelling will be the number one business skill of the next five years.

At the 6th International Conference on Conflict Resolution Education, Mark Schulte, Education Director for the Pulitzer Center, offered a keynote address entitled “Telling Better Stories.” Mark began by sharing a short anecdote about a recent interview with the president of an international banking organization. He had asked the executive: “What is the number one trait that all people must have to be successful?” Much to Mark’s surprise, the response was “empathy.”

At the root of a good story is the power of empathy – the ability to create emotional connections that resonate between individuals and across the human experience. Indeed, current neuroscience research shows that listening to a story activates the same neural pathways that fire when one is actually experiencing the events of the story, literally creating the experience of empathy. Once a connection is made, listeners are much more likely to align with the speaker and to feel invested in the subject matter.

Melinda has found that when teaching or facilitating discussion groups, it’s easy to hide behind her “religious studies professor” title, which can end up creating a sense of separation from the group. However, when she steps beyond that role and begins sharing her own personal stories and experiences, the group in turn becomes more receptive and more willing to discuss their own. Her personal stories, especially of her own challenges and uncertainties, create an atmosphere of invitation and engagement that allows participants the opportunity to acknowledge and share their own difficulties. The dialogue then becomes more authentic and embodied rather than abstract and theoretical.

Charlotte, as Chair of the Creative Writing Department at Austin Community College, uses storytelling in both her classes and in her various positions on committees. Recently, while making a presentation on success equity to a group of higher education professionals, she decided to start by asking how many people in the room had actually attended a community college. Only about a fifth of the attendees raised their hands, including Charlotte. This question created an entry point for discussing the different experiences and resources students bring to their educational aspirations. “As a first time college student,” she shared, “I was looking for a reason to not belong – I was waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and tell me to leave.” She shared this experience in order to underscore the sense of inadequacy students might feel while attending a community college. Instead of talking about the data first, Charlotte grounded her presentation with the emotions she wanted to highlight. She also established a connection with those in the room that had not gone to a four-year university immediately out of high school—she found her education companions, so to speak—and this increased her confidence. In opening up and allowing a moment of possible vulnerability, she created a more resilient space for the presentation.

Not only do vulnerability and storytelling create connection, they can also transform individuals, relationships, and organizations. As Brene Brown observes: “vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” We communicate our vulnerability through sharing our stories, and we all have stories to tell. As Charlotte often tells her students, stories are the great denominators; they evidence our shared humanity.

While this may all sound compelling in theory, how do we decide which stories to use in a professional setting? When considering whether to weave a personal moment into a work presentation, we suggest asking yourself these three questions:

1)    What common foundation do I have with this group? Thinking about the points of connection with a group/client can create an opportunity for empathy and resonance.

2)    What emotions do I want to inform this session? A careful consideration of the emotional bedrock of a meeting/presentation can greatly increase the success and power of the associated outcomes.

3)    Why am I telling this story? Considering why is key. Without an understanding of why, we might easily get off track and/or veer into victimization rather than creating connection.

Once you have done some thinking/talking/journaling about the why of a specific story, it’s time to consider what story to tell.

Here are a few guidelines for weaving a story into the professional setting:

• Know the essence of your story. Think about the universal emotions of love, loss, joy, anger, shame, and grief – what is the emotional resonance of the story?

• Key details create connections – what sounds, smells, tastes, or touches, informed the situation? Our stories live in our bodies, and it is through the visceral you will create resonance. Remember, use a light touch here; just a couple of sensory details can transport an audience into a moment.

• Don’t tell the most recent story. The brain, body, and heart need time to process, and sharing your most recent vulnerabilities may undermine your professional aims.

If you’re looking for resources to deepen your own connection to the power of storytelling, we suggest listening any of these shows: Radiolab, The Moth, and Ira Glass’ “This American Life.”

If you’re interested in diving into your own stories in a supported environment, join us for our Storytelling for Life workshop on Sunday, February, 23, 1:00-4:00 at Soma Vida, 1210 Rosewood Ave, Austin, Texas 78702

By Melinda.

I just returned from the Spring 2014 Saybrook University Residential Conference in San Francisco. Each semester of my Ph.D. program in Psychology / Creativity Studies begins with such a gathering; it is a time for students and faculty to come together to share knowledge and research, to network, and to bond. This was my second residential conference, and I attended seminars on Buddhism and healing; positive psychology and film; and dreamwork, including dream poetry and dream theater.  

During the conference, I had the opportunity to give a presentation on Holocaust Art, based on my recent trip to Eastern Europe with my friend and mentor Jake Lorfing. We had planned the trip to explore the possibility of leading a contemplative arts retreat for photography and writing at Auschwitz. While visiting the camps at Terezin (Czech Republic) and Auschwitz (Poland), I was struck by the prevalence of art and creativity under unimaginable circumstances, prisoners’ efforts to remain connected to their humanity. Most heartbreaking to me were the exhibits of children’s art, including drawings dedicated to “Maman” and “Mutterlein” (“mother” in French and German, respectively), and the stark realization that 1.5 million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust. Feel free to email us if you’d like to view the PowerPoint slide show I created for the Saybrook Presentation.

Also at the Saybrook conference, I had the pleasure of co-facilitating a workshop on “Embodied Creativity” with my friend and colleague Michael Brabant of Integral Awakening, who will be in Austin this week to lead a “Culture of Connection” retreat (February 7-9). Michael and I will also be offering an expanded version of the workshop we presented at Saybrook, called “Embodying the Muse: Where Creativity and Spiritual Awakening Converge” on February 6th at Soma Vida. In an intimate and inclusive setting, we’ll be exploring how movement, breathwork, and deep listening can reconnect us with our bodies and sense perceptions, thus enhancing our everyday creativity.

I am looking forward to my courses this semester, particularly “Perspectives on Creativity” with Dr. Steve Pritzker, and “Personal Mythology and Dreamwork” with Ruth Richards, M.D./Ph.D. I feel energized and inspired by the synergy between my academic studies of creativity and my work with Syncreate. I am particularly eager to explore the connections between my coursework for this semester and our upcoming “Storytelling for Life” workshop (February 23rd), as well as our spring“Deepening Your Creative Life” retreat (April 4-6). Every day seems to bring new creative insights, connections, and cross-fertilizations between my studies and my professional work.

I also recently completed a Shambhala Art Intensive and Teacher Training program in Los Angeles. Shambhala Art emphasizes direct, fresh experience of the world using the sense perceptions, a contemplative approach to creativity and art making based in meditation practice.  I will be officially co-teaching my first Shambhala Art program at the Austin Shambhala Meditation Center on 19-20, 2014.

It is incredibly gratifying to me to simultaneously study, witness, experience, and facilitate the transformative power of creativity, and I look forward to a year filled with creative explorations. I hope you’ll join us for one of our upcoming creativity events!

By Charlotte

I believe in the power of art to transform the frightened heart, the scarred psyche, the unquiet mind.  In the tradition of Spider Woman, I have been taught that the story is a co-creation woven by what we each bring to the circle, that to tell is as important as to listen.  Storytellers use the web of story to inform, educate, enlighten, explore how we might live as social beings, capable of inflicting the worst kinds of pain and dispensing the deepest moments of compassion.

I believe that humans crave narrative, and that storytelling offers a path for healing, growth, and clarity.  It is through the story we learn to know each other and to overcome our bigotries and our pettiness.  I believe art should be available to all, no matter a person’s education, class, race, gender, sexual orientation—any of those small-minded categories where too many of us get confined or lost.  I believe that art needs to remember to be humble, that accessibility is just as important as aesthetics, that the garbage man is just as important on the stage as is the senator.

Specifically, I believe art has taught me my most important lessons: to be patient with process, to keep an open heart toward all people; that to there is more risk in vulnerability than there is in intellectual posturing; that sentimentality is too easy.  Instead I want pursue the quiet moments of potential change that are housed in every moment of our lives; that stories are a certain kind of magic, one that we willingly seek out so that our lives might seem brighter, wholer, more intact.