We all have memories of resting.

The intention is to shed stories we no longer wish to tell and choosing stories that better fit our hopes and dreams for ourselves and the world. And it starts with rest, because I think that rest might be the key.

Growing up, I received a book every Christmas. After wrapping paper was tucked away and my belly was full of bagels and cream cheese, I snuggled into the couch and started to read. Naps followed. This sensation is clear to me: the heat, the snuggly warmth, the feel of pajamas, the book on my chest, and nothing ahead of me. I have no needs. Nothing expected of me. I am simply lying down. That was it.

I kept this up as an adult. I remember my first Christmas in Austin when friends from up north visited. We had Chinese food and went to the movies on Christmas Eve, but the following day I had my book and I napped. I made this clear to my first wife so many years ago and it became a tradition. With my second wife, we now practice Jolabokaflod and give each other books and spend a day reading and eating chocolate. For me, Christmas is a day of rest.

Stories are made up of sticky images.

I have written over 1600 stories for Sparkle Stories but the truth is, I only remember certain images from the stories. Most of the stories slip by like leaves on a stream, but there is always a brightly colored image that stays with me. I don’t necessarily recall the context or placement of the image in the story, but I keep the image with me, like a gift from a grandparent. I can feel that these images are important.

One of these images holds the power of rest. The story is called, “Ladybugs in the window” and I truly don’t recall what the story is about. What I do remember is one moment: when the main character is lying in a bed, perhaps a bed in the attic, and he looks out an old window with the mottled glass. He can see the yard outside, and it might look out at a pond, but his attention is on the ladybugs. There are ladybugs in the window trying to get outside.

Anyone in the northeast knows that this is a sign of spring, when the ladybugs that had successfully wintered inside your home try to get outside. They go to the windows and it can be a real challenge.

For me this image means rest. I recall times when I lay in bed, feeling the warmth from the spring sun, and seeing the ladybugs flit about the glass. I feel no impulse to open the window or wave a hand or do anything. I just lay there and watch. I have no thoughts or really any energy at all, except to blink at the window and its ladybugs.

This image is central to my storytelling.

This image of rest is a source of confidence and renewal for me. And it is not about the amount of rest, it is the density of the rest that lives in the image. The power is in the density of the image, rather than the amount of rest.

Narrative density is how a story becomes attractive

The more dense an object, the more gravitation pull.1 More density = more attractive. The earth has more gravitational pull than I do, so my body is pulled toward the earth. So are basketballs. So are Ford F-150s.

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This is also the case with stories. The dense stories have more pull. More people find themselves listening to a dense story than one that is less dense. So what is a dense story?

People build deep relationships to stories.

Certain stories mean a great deal to us. Some of us love underdog stories. Some of us love stories about misfit dogs. Some look for haunted houses. Some seek balloons.

Density in stories has to do with particular moments or images in the story that are “sticky”.

Dense stories stick with us.

You keep thinking about them. When someone reminds you of the story, its the dense images you recall.

Images with a lot of narrative density can reach more people and have more effect. They are sticky for lots of people, and often different kinds of people. This is a major factor behind an image or moment going “viral”. There is something narratively dense about the cat, or the dancing old man, or the crying soldier. It sticks more often with more people.

Rest is a sticky image.

We all want rest, so when we explore images of rest, we are moved. We are open to listening. We are open to changing. This is what starts on March 20th. We will change our story, our picture of who we are and what is real, by starting with rest.

To do this, we will focus on our personal mythology rather than our biographies.

These are the stories we have developed over time. These are the deep stories that feel older and bigger than little ole’ you. Your personal mythology is made of the same stuff as fairy tales, superhero origin stories and epic poems. They have monsters and villains, lost loves and found treasure. These stories are more real than any other because they dictate how we make friends, who we vote for, what we love and where we live. They map our future and declare our fate.

That is, until we see them for what they are: stories.

And from this magical place, you get to decide which ones are true. This is the power of the conscious storyteller: to enter the subconscious, take inventory, and make changes.

For twelve days people around the world were given a daily prompt to make a list. Each list inventoried something about the previous year that illuminates part of your personal mythology. Once illuminated, a short practice work with your story in a particular way.

Each practice builds on the inventory and practice from the day before.

See the practice unfold here and follow the prompts here.

Over those twelve days, you will clearly see your personal mythology and then, if you’d like, you can consciously craft the story for the year ahead.

This is not about right or wrong, good or bad, authentic or counterfeit. To be authentic is a story. To be wrong is a story.

True is different than good or bad or real or fake.

True is what has power and influence. True is mythic and foundational. So let’s see which stories make up your personal mythology.

We begin with images of rest.

Please recall what it feels like to rest: what are the associated sensations, feelings, emotions, circumstances. We start with the body and how the body feels. Then, as you inhabit your body and recall the sensations, images will arrive. They may not begin with images connected to the past year but they will begin to give you information about how you rest. This is good.

You might recall moments from your childhood or early adulthood. It might be a time you were ill and were forced to rest. It might be a time when you were on vacation. It might be a single moment you can recall where you allowed yourself deep rest. They are all clues.

Soon you will arrive at a moment that happened during the past year. Recall as many sensations as you can: the colors, the sounds, the smells, the situation, the people involved.

Now we tell a story out loud to ourselves.

Include the sensations you experienced in your list. The story can be a description of yourself when resting. It can be something you make up about someone else. It can be a story about a tired otter. It can be a story about a hard working baker after a long week. I recommend you just start and see what happens. The goal is not to tell a “good” story or even tell a story that makes sense. The goal is to just do it. It is merely to tell a story out loud that includes resting.

Avoid judging yourself as you tell the story, because your skill as a storyteller is not the point. The point is that you are using a very old and very powerful tool of manifestation. You are doing the same thing that wizards of old did when they cast spells. You are speaking OUT LOUD something powerful. All stories are powerful. Trust that.

And when you end your story, then you are done. You don’t have to integrate it into a practice or turn it into a mantra. You did it. You are complete.

You have learned a vital part of your personal mythology—how you rest—and you changed the course of the year ahead.

We do these events every few months. Sometimes we tell collaborative stories, sometimes we learn new tools and strategies.

Join us for the next storytelling event!

It does cool stuff and is super helpful to me as a writer. From a research standpoint, it has really increased my productivity and my systems have a sweet flow I could only dream about ten years ago. I know it will be revolutionary—it already is. I know everything is going to change, because it already is. Its good and I’m grateful.

But c’mon.

AI trucks in dead things.

Nothing on the internet is alive, and since AI only consumes what is on the internet, it is essentially a death eater. Powerful yes, even transformative. But it isn’t going to land my next story. It isn’t going to come up with my intuitive response to someone’s pain or some witty thing I typically say. It can’t, and I don’t want it to.

I want it to mow the lawn, I don’t want it to taste my food.

I want it to find my keys, I don’t want it to pet my dog.

True creativity is like the universe: ever expanding and ever surprising. True living is sitting in the beautiful mess and finding a word or color or note to express it, in the way that only you can.

If you can hear the irritation in my typing, its because the modern person has enough fear and doubt. We’re good. We don’t need yet another worry. Dead things do that. They make people anxious.

Many jobs are about to transform or disappear. They already have. There is a solid chance that you will lose yours. It warrants some research and real consideration about your next move. We should all get on that!

But how do you properly ask the question: what is it that you can do that a robot can’t do? How do you even know what that is? How do you come up with something that AI can’t come up with? If we can’t know the extend of AI and AGI’s influence, how can we prepare?

These are all solid sources of anxiety whilst strolling through a cemetery. When we exist in the paradigm of AI, we will be hard pressed to find a place to take a nap. So I recommend changing the paradigm from cemetery to outer space.

Instead, I invite you to build a spaceship. I invite you to create something that only lives in the future that no robot could every guess was possible. A painting, a product, a notion, a book, a lesson. Only you can make it because only you are you. And you don’t even know what it is yet! That’s cool!!

When you build a spaceship, you develop safety mechanisms, control systems, launch sequences and landing gear so that you can get off the planet and discover impossible things. Do that. Let’s all do that.

I’m not being utopian, this is purely practical.

1. Open your awareness and believe that outer space is wicked big (this is you choosing to leave the planet of normal expectations.)

2. Set the intention to create something no one else can (this is you choosing a unique mission.)

3. Do the next right thing, as best you can (this is you launching your space craft.)

4. See what happens and iterate (this is you learning, adapting and then continuing.)

I have a course called “How to Build a Spaceship” if you want to learn more. The next cohort is gathering. We need more creative cosmonauts who are willing to see what is happening and do something about it. Hope to hear from you!

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Whether you are in the northern or southern hemisphere, you are waiting for a change in the light. Here in New England, we approach the “longest night” with an inward desire to gather what light we can find and hold it dear.

In some Christian traditions, we are in the season of Advent.

The word is latin, associated with an “approach” or “arrival”. We wait for the arrival. We wait for Christmas. We wait for the light.

Usually, this activity has some anticipation or even anxiety or excitement built into it. We feel a tension between where we are (in the dark) and where we want to be (opening presents and relaxing.) To wait is often considered an uncomfortable place because our attention is trained on the future—or something ahead of us. Not where we are.

There is nothing wrong about this experience of waiting. All the associations and discomforts make sense and are a valid way of inhabiting waiting. And, I have another option to offer.

What if waiting was a station?

What if you had arrived already and the name of the port is “waiting”? In other words, what is waiting when the ultimate destination is no longer relevant. That when we wait, we are fully present. We are here. Here where we wait. We have arrived.

How does that change waiting? Does it? We have arrived but we still wait, because that is what we do in the waiting station. But now waiting is its own thing. It is not about what is ahead, it is now about the act itself. The actual experience. Its like going to a pool. In a pool, you swim. In the waiting station, you wait. In the pool, its not about going anywhere. You aren’t swimming toward any particular place, you are just swimming.

So in the waiting station, we don’t wait for something. We just wait.

Then the question becomes … why? Why wait if there is no destination in the future? Why lift waits if it doesn’t mean my muscles will get stronger? Why take this medicine when the whole point is that it will help me get better? So then what is waiting independent of the reason you are waiting?

I think the answer is not to be understood, but to be experienced. Let’s try it.

1. Name something you are waiting for. Christmas, vacation, a party, a meal—whatever.

2. Imagine arriving there (Christmas morning or the dinner table or at the party) and notice the effect this imagination has on your body. Take an inventory of the sensations.

3. Now return to this moment where you haven’t arrived and recognize that it is not Christmas yet, not dinner time, not the day of the party, and realize you need to wait. How does your body feel now? What is the experience of waiting for the event?

4. Isolate the sensations. Interrogate them and describe them to yourself. Notice all the aspects of the sensations—where are they in your body? What emotions are you feeling? What is your energy like? What images are bubbling up in your mind?

5. Now make that an island unto itself. The sensations, the emotions, the images—they are all what you do on this island. This is the experience of this place. This is how you feel, how you behave and what you think about. This is the correct way of being here. You are doing great.

That’s it.

Does that change waiting for you? Maybe it doesn’t, but it definitely does for me. It takes a layer of suffering out of the mix and replaces it with a kind of culture. “I am in waiting” is now a place. A station where the urgent sensations, the tickle of delight and the forward leaning is simply what we do here. Its how things go. And what’s fun is that we can do it together.

We become citizens of waiting, rather than people not where they want to be.

I am currently wearing a Turtle-bond Vest and it is making all the difference. It is helping me navigate election week with a measure of serenity that might be attractive to you. If you are interested, you can get your own vest.

Instructions are in the audio, and let me know how it goes!

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What this is, is an invitation to see the whole process from a different perspective—from an infinite perspective that is seeing tomorrow’s events eternally.

Have a listen, notice how it makes you feel, and then listen to Part Two, which will give you an election-day-giftie. Something that will make the do go so much more gently for you.

Its going to be ok. Of course it is. And the consequences are dire, yes. Of course they are. All of it is true.

And we have some choices.

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This morning my colleague Lidia taught the 6AM Restorative Storytelling practice session that includes many international folk and she led me through an exercise that landed what I’m about to share.

The exercise was part of the “Intuitive Navigation” tool aimed at practicing reading the room. Quite simply you:

1. Open your intuition through some signal.

2. Imagine your group of listeners.

3. Let your attention widen and notice where it falls.

4. Start your story there, pausing regularly to be inspired.

5. End the story and the connection.

Pretty straightforward, so long as you are comfortable with the story being a little sloppy or wandery. In RS, we love the sloppy and wandery.

I did the exercise and my intended group of listeners was you.

My attention landed on a smooth stone.

I was immediately reminded of the Tolkien epic story Silmarillion and the image of the elves standing by the edge of the ocean looking up at the stars. The feeling this image gave me was of complete and utter connection to all that is and the privilege and gratitude I imagined the elves felt. I thought in that moment “this is what we all want” and what I eventually realized was that what we all want might be to feel connected to all that is and to feel gratitude.

In a word, we want marvel.

This felt right and I started my story there. I told a story of the music of the stars and the people who listen to it, and my attention then landed on the image of a tree hanging on the far wall.

The story shifted to something very terrestrial where people continued to reach out, like the branches of a tree, looking for that connection, looking for that feeling—while our roots did the same, but quietly underground. We reached and searched and hoped and occasionally found it. But its not the same as the elves. Not the same as our primordial ancestors.

The story told me that it isn’t happiness we seek. Clearly not riches and fame. It isn’t even love. Its marvel. Marvel is what we deeply want. Awe, wonder, and gratitude. I do think gratitude is a kind of marvel, only less tied to the mystery.

So what is the juice that feeds us? Marvel.

To wonder at what we have, marvel at its unique sparkle. Wherever we are and however we live, love and vote. (I felt you tense up at that last verb, but if this is true, then it needs to be true for all of it. Even elections.)

I wish you all marvel today.

Once we live in that paradigm (where I live), then the universe becomes a little more like a game, like a mystery or comedy depending on how your stories line up.

And if you are like me, you will sometimes desire something that you currently don’t “have.”

Examples might be:

You would like a job more in alignment with your passion.

You would like a new hybrid camper van.

You would like a partner who shares you love of traveling.

You would like to make more money to afford your love of traveling.

You would like to feel more confident.

Many of us approach achieving these goals or acquiring these things through hard work, dedication, list-making, and visualization/manifestation exercises. All solid choices. This essay is about another route to creating your life the way you want it to be: rituals.

Rituals are the physical extension of storytelling.

They exist when you put a story into action—when the sacred text meets movement. This, I believe, is how church happened and why it continues to happen: there are stories we hold sacred, and rituals help us “move through” the stories. Weddings do the same thing and so do birthdays. We turn a date into an event through a ritual (party, cake, singing happy birthday, and such)

Brushing our teeth is also a ritual that takes the story “I need to take care of myself” and sets it into action. We wouldn’t brush our teeth without that story. Other animals don’t brush their teeth because they don’t have that story. They just eat stuff that happens to keep their teeth clean.

When you think about it, much of our day is ritualistic. We have coffee. We remember our phone and wallet and keys before going to work. We take breaks. We text our kids. We have pizza on Thursday. We walk with friends Saturday morning. We meditate. These are obvious rituals. But so are these:

1. We say good morning to our kids.

2. We get in line at the grocery store.

3. We feed the cat.

4. We check our teeth in the mirror before leaving the bathroom.

All day long we do rituals that may or may not seem sacred—but they are. All of them sacred, because without them our reality would be very different.

We manifest our lives through ritual.

Yes, our understanding of the world is made of stories, but we create our lives through ritual.

In my opinion, rituals are different than habits. Where are habit is developed to improve your life through a measure of struggle, a ritual is created out of conscious storytelling. Conscious storytelling sounds complicated but it isn’t. It is complex, to be sure—but only because it is very close to doing magic. But it isn’t complicated.

Here’s how you create a ritual using conscious storytelling:

1. Be aware of something you wish to change/eliminate/manifest. Soak in it like a bath. This is less of an intellectual thing than it is a sensorial thing.

2. Tell a 3 minute story to yourself—out loud—that shares the same feeling, the same vibe, or basic gestalt of #1. The trick here is to just talk and don’t worry about it making sense of being a “good” story. You are simply putting words to images. “Once upon a time there was a fox…” and take it from there—3 minutes.

3. End the story and sit with it. Was there anything about the story that seemed important or relevant? A particular image or turn of phrase? “The fox was hungry but continued forward”. This might be the phrase you choose, but choose something to focus on.

4. Put the impulse into an action. If your goal is to lose weight and not snack as much, repeat the moment in the story “The fox was hungry but continued forward” and close the pantry door and walk outside. Done.

Other examples might be:

You want to make more money and the 3 minute story included a baker who made flour out of magic beans. Putting that to action might look like creating a ritual that with every bit of your morning toast, an idea will come to you—just like the magic bean flour manifested wealth for the baker.

You might want to attract a partner that loves to travel and the 3 minute story included the phrase, “The sea foam tickled her toes”. Putting that to action is to open the dating app and imagine the sea foam before reading a profile. Imagine the toes being tickled before looking at a face.

You get it - it makes it playful, theatrical and occasionally fun. Rituals feed you in a way that habits don’t. Habits are solid choices and good for you, no question. But rituals sustain because you want them. You enjoy them. You need to do them or you don’t feel quite right.

So ring a bell and call out the Owl Maiden’s name before eating your breakfast.

Turn around three times imagining you are dancing with a bear as you dial your mother’s phone number.

Put a nickel in your pocket before you go to work because the Prince will certain need it to pay the hairy wood ogre at the gate.

And may your day be filled with magic, delight and manifestation!

You are invited to learn more storytelling tools and strategies through this free series:

Get a bunch of tools here

Two year olds can sometimes listen to a traditional story so long as it is short and to the point. One year olds, however, aren’t that interested in the content. They don’t really follow the plot or character development, and they can’t really appreciate your accurate descriptions or authentic narrative nuance. And six month olds? No chance—none of the above.

So I was faced with something new.

As a former elementary school teacher, I knew how to adapt a story between the grades. And as a professional storyteller, I knew what I needed to do to meet the needs of a four or five or even three year olds. But two and under was new.

It didn’t take long to realize that what these little listeners were interested in was actually my voice, my vocality. They liked my body language, the way my hands moved. They responded to my posture, my countenance, and what I learned was the most important of all forms of communication: my presence.

I felt my body in space. I noticed what quality of energy was moving through me. I attended what thoughts and feelings I was experiencing, and then I focused on being with them. I did tell a story, but the content was clearly for the parents in the room. What I noticed was how immediately these little ones responded to my presence. When my energy changed from alert to calm, they responded. When my countenance changed from droopy to upright, they responded. My flickers of doubt showed up for them like colors shone from a light. My comfort with silence became another being in the room. My presence was communicating. It was the primary message they were receiving.

Since then, I have discovered that five year olds, teenagers, and grown-ups are the same. When people reflect on a story, a speech, a conversation or just an interaction, they often mention presence. “It was lovely to be around them,” or “Something felt off,” or “What he said was correct but did you see the look in his eyes?”

Presence is primary.

This has since become the first storytelling tool I teach both adults and kids. We lead with presence. We start with taking an inventory: describing different states of being you experience every day

Delighted is a kind of presence. So is overwhelmed. So is preoccupied. So is serene (my favorite). There is no judgement with this inventory, we are simply noting what is so—what is actually happening.

I have a process that I’d like to share with you. In fact I have a bunch of stuff for you if you’d like to try it:

1. A “Presence Wheel” to bring consciousness to your states of being and what they are communicating.

2. A deck of storytelling strategies that include simple exercises you can try.

3. A character-building practice page for your kids. Characters are a great way to explore real things—this is one of the powers of storytelling.

   Start here to get all three tools

Each tool will be sent to you every few days. See what you think. I’d love to hear how they land and what is useful. I really believe it is the secret sauce to effective and connective speech.

Last night we had a few friends over for dinner and we got to talking about the challenges of caring for our parents. I didn’t have much to say because my parents seem to have created the most sustainable and self-sufficient aging model ever (more on that in another essay), but one image from the conversation stayed with me.

One of the friends described how her 90 year old mother refused to believe that a elaborate tech issue was directly traceable to a simple butt-dial. Her mom had developed a far more complicated explanation with tech conspiracy theory overtones and for her, facing a simple butt-dial was not at all satisfying. So it couldn’t be true.

And this got me to thinking.

What if everything is actually a butt-dial?

Here’s how this theory works:

1. Accidents happen all the time. Most of what happens in life is some form of accident. A butt-dial.

2. Since most of us want there to be order in our world, we develop explanations for the accidents. We give them meaning and in some cases, purpose.

3. People are more attracted to cohesive explanations rather than random accidents, so the explanations/stories are what gets documented and shared.

4. When these cohesive stories are inevitably upended by yet another seemingly random accident, we double down on our stories and entrench in them.

5. This keeps repeating until we reach a tipping point, and then catharsis. Transformation erupts, and sometimes it looks like revolt.

I don’t mean for this to sound grim.

I don’t see this perspective as pessimistic or nihilistic—I actually find the model quite soothing. It aligns nicely with the idea that the world is made of stories. Reality is a matrix of intricate variables. Life is a game that we play (consciously or more likely, unconsciously), like the latest and best VR technology. So real. So convincing.

I can feel some of you resisting this idea so I have one more component that I think you will like.

This component comes directly from my year of attending seminary in Texas. I had a spiritual formation course focused on the history of the church and the teacher was this brilliant priest who answered a question about the white-hot political topic of evolution or creation (it was 1998 so this was what had our attention).

His response was calm and clear, “Both are loved”. Meaning that both evolution and creation exist within the loving hands of a higher power. Both are true.

He did this by widening the container.

Cats and dogs are both mammals. Night and day both happen within 24 hours. Catholics and Presbyterians are both Christians. Kansas rebels and Kansas loyalists both live in Kansas. Widen the container and we all get to be inside.

So here is the component to the butt-dial view of reality:

Everything is a butt-dial, and is exactly as it should be.

In other words, reality is random and perfect in its randomness. The joy, sorrow, reconciliation and tragedy, the loss and the boundless love—all of it is a wild random ride that unfolds exactly according to plan.

I recommend we not concern ourselves with “whose plan” or questions of determinism, fate, string theory or multiverse. Let’s stick to the beautiful elegance of a butt-dial.

Let’s allow ourselves to say that we are doing great. You are doing great. Let’s keep telling stories and searching for explanations—it’s a ton of fun and it gets our blood moving. But let’s also occasionally marvel together at how none of us know what is happening, nobody really knows how it all works, and that our lives are actually ruled by sitting on our phones.

That is the reality for me.

(thank you C for encouraging this title and inspiring this essay!)

As a professional storyteller, it is my job to see the future.

More accurately, it is my job to see all the possible futures and pick the right one. To be clear, I am not a fatalist or someone who thinks that there is one timeline that slowly unfurls. I believe in treeform-narrative as the basis of reality—that our stories branch and root up, down, in and out. Each branch is a different future and each root is a different memory of the past. I believe we are in constant flux with our story and we regularly change what happened, and entertain different possibilities of the future. We make a tree.

So when I track a story, like this year’s election story, I follow the twists and turns and notice certain moments that become indicators of which future it is going to choose. There are the big ones: like Biden’s debate performance and the assassination attempt on Trump, but all the little indicators are more instructive: Musk’s comments on AI, Clooney’s decision at a fundraiser, Harrison Butker’s commencement speech, Boeing, Kaitlin Clark, The Bear.

Its not a mental thing. Its not something that is computed. AI will never be able to tell the future because it requires a kind of intelligence that is organic and imaginal. It is a beautifully human skill—the future is felt.

For most of us, this skill is simply a gut feeling or intuitive inclination that is more times than not, dismissed.

We brush away notions that don’t seem to fit in that moment or, more commonly, aren’t what we want. We don’t want to lose, we don’t want to worry, we don’t want to have to work harder, we don’t want it to rain. We want what we want and we want it right now. And seeing the future is far easier to take seriously, if we are more channel and less judge. More witness and less author.

Some of you might be reading this essay hoping that I’ll predict the results of the election. You might even be skimming this essay right now looking for certain words:

Biden

Trump

Harris

Kennedy

But that isn’t this essay.

I’m not going to tell you what will happen. I’m going to show you how to use storytelling to tell the future. How to track where the narrative is going and which branch will highlight November, and December and January.

Here’s how you do it:

Develop a vocabulary of sensations by noticing how your presence changes when you encounter different narrative threads. In other words, what does it feel like when you read the following outcome:

Trump wins big.

Map the sensations in your body, and don’t settle for the obvious excitement, fear, dread, elation or other emotions. Notice how this very short and dense story sits in your feet. In your neck. In your pelvis.

What images suddenly pop into your imagination? Don’t dismiss the ones that seem irrelevant or overly dramatic or bizarre. All images are welcome in this exercise, even the disturbing ones.

Every second, you are taking in 11 million bits of information, but your conscious mind can only hold 30-40 bits. That is a huge discrepancy. If you are only aware of 30 out of 11 million, then where does the rest of the information go?

In your subconscious.

And how do we access that information? Through the body.

This is why we develop a language, a vocabulary of sensations and states of being. This is why we pay attention to how our presence changes when we encounter possible story threads.

We read or hear or see something and our body responds, trying to tell us something. It sifts through all the billions and billions of bits of information and finds the good stuff that is in alignment with your story so far. This is a form of intuition: we have access to a massive amount of information and can finally use it. The trick is, we can only access it through our body. We attend the body, which then tells us what we want to know through sensations, emotions and images.

Basically, it is a dream. Interpreting the dream is what storytellers do. We get feelings and have imaginations and we align them into stories. Then we tell them, noting which parts align with the room, and use that information to guide us. We listen as we go.

And since everyone is a storyteller, then you can do this too.

Try it.

Lay out different scenarios and see what happens to your body.

Biden squeaks by.

Harris turns everything around.

Kennedy comes out of nowhere.

Trump picks the wrong running mate.

Michelle Obama surprises everyone.

Interrogate as many options as you can. Have fun with it. Notice the differences, and then tell yourself that you know what is going to happen (confidence does play into this game.)

And then, let’s see.

Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.

Stephen Covey

In the last essay, I wrote of breathing. In and Out. Independent and then part of All that Is. Over and Over.

As a nod to the holiday, I want to recognize how uniquely privileged I am (in so many ways) to be able to explore what is SO, and then respond to it.

This is the foundation of Restorative Storytelling and why I am able to write so many stories so quickly: awareness of what is happening, and then the ability to respond to it.

Consciousness and Utility.

That’s it. Happy 4th everyone. In all your gatherings and celebrations and hand-over-heart patriotism, let us all find gratitude for consciousness and utility—something few people (first of all) have and then (consciously) practice.

“…any experience that we have through our senses—whether of sound, or of light, or of touch—is a vibration. And a vibration has two aspects: one called “on,” and the other called “off.”

-Alan Watts

Listen to any seasoned thinker in new physics, evolutionary biology, religious studies, archeology or any subject that includes a calendar, you’ll encounter the idea of breathing. We breath in and breath out—we have to in order to survive. In order to “out with the old and in with the new”, we need to breath. The exchange of elements is essential, but also the rhythm. Our “rhythmic system” syncs us to the larger picture: the in and out of the world, the universe, and the singularity of All That Is:

The tide goes in and the tide goes out.

Night follows day, follows night, follows day.

Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring.

The universe engages in the “Big Bounce” from Big Bang to Big Crunch to Big Bang, etc.

Breathing.

So what does this have to do with Apocalypse?

A definition helps. Apocalypse does not mean the end of the world. It means being able to see it. It literally means “unveiling” or “revelation.” It means seeing the truth of what is happening: that the end of the world is approaching. And it is. Not for a while, but it is approaching. Because the world, the universe and all of us, are breathing.

And this freaks us out a little bit.

If you are my age (56) and scroll through social media, you will see bio hack after bio hack to extend your life. Immortality seems to be the goal because death is unknown, scary and probably uncomfortable.

If you are my children’s age (15-22) and scroll through social media, you will see productivity hack after productivity hack helping you be more effective and seen in school or the work place. Making the most of our limited time on the planet is key, because the older generation (mine) screwed up and you have to fix it.

We are all going to die. Maybe tomorrow.

This has always been the case, but the Apocalypse is showing us the reality in detail and all the time. We are shown our mortality by constantly reminding us that we can delay it.

In other words, we have storied death into losing.

Its an effective story that is fun to reproduce in every movie, every book and most conversations. We fight cancer. We slow aging. We beat depression and eliminate anxiety. But of course, that is a story.

And the Apocalypse that interests me the most is the “unveiling” that sickness and death aren’t characters in our story, they are points on a map.

We don’t beat sickness and we don’t avoid death like they are bullies in a back alley, they are markers in our narrative. They are a part of an ever expanding map of our full story which branches in all directions, and all the time.

The Apocalypse that interests me is to unveil that the linear timeline is understandable for screens, but in no way represents what is actually happening. That what is actually happening is that the world is made of stories that unfold into the past as well as the future, that you contain multitudes, and that you are experiencing every possibility of every moment all of the time.

And it is awesome. You think chocolate or roller coasters or tantric intimacy feels good? Wait until you tap into the multiverse and become everyone around you. That is bad ass.

The universe is still expanding. It continues out toward pure chaos and dispersement. We are all breathing out. The vibration of All That Is is “on” and full and a little too much for most of us. That will not lessen in our lifetime. It will not get easier or more simple or more ordered. That isn’t where this is going.

More chaos is ahead, for a very long time.

So what do we do?

Anything you want.

For me, I want to see what is really happening, and I want to respond to it with a sense of marvel and awe. I’m not interested so much in “right and wrong” or “good or evil”. That is like an old cassette player: cute and for collectors, but not for me.

I’m more interested in figuring out how I am you.

And how those two enemies are actually the same person. And how I die in every moment of every day somewhere in the multiverse. And how, so far and somehow, I’m still riding this timeline with a big stupid smile on my face.

If I was to define each of these forms of interaction, I’m not sure we’d learn much that would impact our lives. It does beg the question, however, around why there are so many words for an activity that might look exactly the same. And these are only the “d’s”—there’s also the “c’s” of converse, confer, contest, and then all the other words that attempt to identify a specific way in which we interact: to talk it out with someone.

So instead of interrogating (oh, there’s another one) the meanings of each word, I invite you to look at the words, speak them, taste how they feel in your mouth, and then notice their affect on your body. Notice the images that come to mind. Notice the change that comes over you. If these were all dense magic spells, how would they transform you as you speak them?

Try it now.

Interesting, right?

You would think that “deliberate” would have either a calm steadiness or an inspirational affect on you (it has the word “liberate” in it), when it fact—for me—it feels heavy and tired. I don’t want to engage in it. Even “converse” makes me tense up. Some of you will get excited by “debate”, perhaps in the same way that some of you look forward to cross-fit training, but not for me. None of these words seem like fun to me.

Except one.

Dialogue.

That word feels like a hug, like an invitation to something warm and sweet. It feels fresh baked and buttered. I want to dialogue. I’d like to dialogue right now.

I know we are not defining, but the word does have telling roots. It consists of “Dia” which literally means “through” but has a feel of something holy. If feels like a word you use when you are talking about spiritual things. And “logue” is akin to “logos” or words. But you can feel the power in logos. Wasn’t Jesus the logos? Seems a lot more transformative than just words.

Even “through words” feels more powerful in its entirety than the sum of its parts. “Through words” seems like we are describing magic spells. It seems old and wise and incredibly simple. But not easy. It takes some intentionality and practice.

And this is why it is at the center of my work as a storyteller. The storytelling that interests me and that I practice is “dialogic” or a part of a dialogue.

Now how does that work? Isn’t storytelling a one-way thing? Doesn’t the storyteller stand in front of the group of listeners and proceed to paint a verbal picture to them?

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Sure, some storytellers do that. Some are entertainers, lecturers, professors, influencers, marketers and brand specialists that want to distribute images and have an impact. Those kinds of storytelling exist and are legitimate. But that isn’t what has my attention, and it isn’t what I’ve been practicing.

Dialogic storytelling, or what I call Restorative Storytelling, is connective and collaborative.

It is happening right here and right now and honors the uniqueness of the interaction, incorporating all the variables with a sense of privilege and respect. The goal is not to convince, educate, entertain, or win anything. The goal is to connect. That is a very different bottom line. “Success” in dialogue—if that is even a thing—is not measured in solving problems or getting what you want. It is the degree to which you authentically connect with another person.

There is a debate about to happen between two presidential candidates (notice the affect that sentence has on your body and mood.) Two people will use words to convince, educate, entertain and win something. Neither will use this opportunity to connect with the other. Neither will use this platform to better understand and empathize with the other—why would they?

But what if they did?

Well, you can find out by doing it yourself.

Today you will encounter someone who irritates, upsets or even offends you. If you want to interact with them at all, it will likely be to correct them, show them how they are wrong, and in some small way, win.

I challenge you to try dialoguing. Try using your words to understand, to empathize and connect with them. Authentically—not to then use the experience against them. Really be curious where they are coming from and see if you learn something about them, about the world, and about yourself.

The result might feel good.

It might give you energy and boost your optimism about them, the world and even yourself. This is why I call it Restorative Storytelling.

So if you watch the debates and find yourself getting irritated or upset, use your imagination to turn the debate into a dialogue, a dialogue with what could be—an invitation for worlds to get closer, to connect and then talk through something together.

1. In three different email exchanges with local government leaders, I learned that people in public administration are leaving their jobs due to the anger, rudeness and “incivility” of the local citizenry.

2. I attended my son’s college graduation after the university leadership supported the pepper-spraying, arresting and dismissal of hundreds of student and faculty protestors.

3. My inbox blew up with posts from a local neighborhood forum about a few dogs spotted off-leash in a “no dogs allowed” park in town.

We have a tendency to measure outrage in proportion to the severity of the circumstances, but I think that misses the point. The people who posted anti or pro “dog rules” were genuinely upset and used the best outlet at their disposal. The same was the case with the state and university leaders. They used what they had, which included the police force. All parties are angry. All parties have a sense of the “them” that is the problem. And all parties use what they have to enact what they believe is an appropriate response.

That tends to be the order of things:

1. I am angry about something (injustice, harm, privilege.)

2. I identify the person or force that is the cause of the problem (protestors, rule-breakers, leaders, police.)

3. I do something in response to that person or force (demonstrate, barricade, use force, make a statement.)

It seems like a fair assessment and it is often the way conflict is measured. We identify the source of discontent, we list the actions and reactions, and then—hopefully—explore ways we can find a peaceful solution.

It seems to me, however, that we don’t get very far, because we generally don’t acknowledge a foundational part player in this dynamic: storytelling. The violence, the outrage, and the demands for change all stem from stories. As I have said many times in the past, “stories” does not mean “untrue”. For me, stories are the very building block of reality. For instance, these statements are built of assumptions:

• Rules should not be broken.

• Civilians should not be killed.

• People should be not be rude.

• Leaders should not be oppressive.

These assumptions are, of course, based on stories. Each of these statements can be examined situationally and depending on the stories told within a particular community, exceptions are made.

• Rules should be broken when saving someone’s life.

• Civilians should be killed if those civilians are about to kill you.

• People should be rude if they are defending the oppressed.

• Leaders should be oppressive if it is needed to avoid total chaos and restore order.

What “should” or “shouldn’t” happen is always a story. There are always exceptions because our circumstances, identities, lived experiences, and genetics are all different. Everyone is their own rabbit hole.

So then, what is the point of this essay—that people should be allowed to be harmed because their stories make it justifiable? No that is not the point of this essay.

My point is that we have the capacity to empathize with what others believe is “civil,” and this empathy will change the way we respond.

When we can access genuine empathy (distinct from understanding, support or tolerance) for someone who disgusts or offends or even irritates us, our actions will be profoundly different than when we cannot.

If we have true empathy for our local leaders (town clerk, city manager, county commissioner) we are far more likely to make our case without using harmful language.

If we have true empathy for a protestor (again, distinct from agreement with their position) we are far more likely not resort to violence. The same is in reverse. If we are a protestor and have empathy for the governor or chief of police, we will not call them cruel names or throw things. We just won’t. In my experience, we can’t have empathy and want to harm someone.

Let me be clear: protests must happen and change must be demanded. Conversely, order must be restored so that democracy can be preserved. Rules must be followed while better rules must be explored. People need to be angry and express that anger AND we can do all these things with empathy.

Restorying is a real way to access empathy. Here’s how it works:

First you interrogate your own stories.

What do you believe is true? Include everything as it pertains to the subject at hand. Recognize that “killing children is wrong” is one of your stories. Again, I am not saying that a story is something made up or fantastic. I believe that stories actually make up one’s reality. So this is why I encourage taking a full inventory of the stories you believe are true. Assume nothing as universally true. Make it a long list.

Next use your imagination and curiosity to explore their stories.

Try to put your judgments on hold and be genuinely curious. Explore their situation and history. Explore the context in which they are acting. Imagine they have parents and grandparents who have a specific lived experience. What are the stories they have been steeped in? What assumptions do they have about reality? You are not gathering these stories to prove them wrong, you are exploring what they know to be “true.”

Finally—and this is the whole point—look for a connection.

What do you have in common with them? You might be on either side of a world conflict, but do you both love the same restaurant? Did you both lose a grandparent recently? Are you both wearing the same sneakers? Did you both notice the same misspelled poster at the same time and smile?

Connection makes your vulnerable. And vulnerability is where you will find empathy.

And so—what is the point of empathy, vulnerability and connection when you are trying to make the world a more just or compassionate place? How do these things help you when you are dealing with violent governments or assholes who are yelling at you?

Connection, vulnerability and empathy bring transformation.

They just do. As a storyteller, I make it the #1 priority to create connection, be vulnerable and access empathy because that is how I change a room. That is the only way I do it. Not through content or charisma, but through authentic connection. Its the only way. My attractiveness of my presence and the richness of my content is second to the connection I make with my listener.

So how do I “restory” civility?

I prioritize the connection first, and then the dialogue. Connection first, and then start to solve problems. Connection first, and then I protest or debate or discuss. Because once I discover the connection and make myself vulnerable, I gain empathy and ultimately …

trust.

And that is what we all want.

To trust the people around us. To trust them as doing the best they can with what they have. To trust that they are just as “right” as we are, and the only way I’ll get them to listen is to listen first.

Civility, therefore, is the enjoyment of trust, brought by empathy, brought by vulnerability, brought by connection, brought by listening.

Listening is the seed of it all.

Let’s start there. In physics, the Heisenburg Principle of Uncertainty says that the more we know about where a thing is, the less we know about what its going to do. In other words, once we pin something down, we lose sight of what is happening. Likewise with the “observer effect”, where we change a thing by observing it. There are all possibilities until we open the box and see if Schrödinger’s cat is there or not.

But we can tell a story about what happened, and this becomes what happened.

Over and over again, this becomes the measure of reality. We can add all these filters: video footage, corroboration of sources, consensus agreement—and then agree that THIS is what happened, only to find out that yet again, there is another story.

A glass of wine a day is bad. Then, with the publishing of research, it is actually good. Then with the publishing of yet more research, it is bad again. Then it is bad for some people and good for others. Then it is good for some people in certain circumstances and bad in other circumstances. And what do we mean by a glass? Then there is the story that Uncle Frank should never drink any wine at all. Then there is the story that Aunt Linda loves all things Italian.

In the past, the dominant narrative was considered history.

Now we live in an age of positionality and while we question the source and context of every narrative, our behavior is still deeply bound up in our own biography and social position. Everything has a “depends” associated with it, and yet, we still make choices based on our personal stories.

There is a phrase that has my attention these days, that pain is inevitable but suffering is a choice. For me this is like saying: things will happen but how you story those things creates your experience.

Things will happen.

You might get punched in the face. Pet cats will die. Cicadas will eat someone’s garden. It will rain. It will not rain. These are things that happen.

That you didn’t deserve to get punched in the face is a story. That you miss your cat is a story. That you are being punished by the gods is a story. Which is not to say that the stories aren’t true. They are true. That is what truth is: stories that line up with how you feel.

“I am mad because that guy is an asshole” is a story that is true. It is true because I am man, and I believe that guy is an asshole, and I can map the connection. So it is true. And it will keep being true until I learn that the guy was an asshole because he was scared for the safety of his daughter. Then suddenly he is less of an asshole. He was just behaving like an asshole. But then that story changed because you learn that he didn’t actually say what you thought he said. Then he stops being an asshole and the story is you thought he was an asshole. That is now what is true

.

Yes, I believe the truth moves with story.

And yes, I do believe this makes us all vulnerable to racism, sexism, elitism, and any other time when someone is right and others are wrong. I really don’t think murder is ok. But others believe that it is ok when war is declared, or you are acting in self defense. And who decides it is self defense? The courts. Which courts, and when?

So then what are we supposed to do?

I can’t answer that. I can only say that being a “good guy” is important to me, so I am going to try to do the next right thing all day long. I try to notice when I am suffering and then ask myself, “what story is at the root of this?” Usually I find it pretty quickly.

Trying to change the story doesn’t often change how I feel, at least not initially. But it does help me access empathy and gratitude.

I do think some people are assholes—for a moment. And when I think that, I suffer. But if I remember that this is my story about them, then I can make my next though one of curiosity. I can wonder at their story. I can wonder about alternate stories. And this often results in a sense of wonder rather than suffering.

And I like that better.

Writers in all genre’s are creating complex villains and heroes that have light and dark “sides” but this is like saying, “I really hate when people hate other people.” It means that you are in a paradigm. And the paradigm is binary focusing on degrees of gray. They aren’t able yet to step out of the paradigm and see that there are so many other options.

When I suggest letting go of good and evil as a way of describing reality, the first response tends to be focused on evil, and demanding a reason for violent behavior. We like to see our edges because it helps us see a boundary. And boundaries help us stay in the here and now and not get lost in the multiverse of possibilities. We don’t like the response, “Well that is presuming the serial killer actually exists.” Even though it is a perfectly valid thing to say, it doesn’t help with the paradigm question. The paradigm needs a container, and as soon as someone busts open the nature of reality, the container transforms and we have to play a different game.

Back to Hollywood for a moment.

Look at the list of highest grossing movies of all time.

All of them have good and evil at their foundation, and generally good “winning over” evil. Evil, in the case of the movies made more recently, trends toward the complex. The “bad guys” have solid reasons for doing what they do:

Thanos believes that all problems stem from overpopulation. Solution: snap your fingers and 3 billion people disappear.

Miles Quarich, the primary antagonist in Avatar, is doing his job—and his job is to protect the “civilized” from the dangers of Pandora. That old chestnut.

We give our heroes mental health challenges or bad thoughts. Batman is a psychological mess. Dexter is a serial killer that only kills bad guys. Even Sauron, the literal devil in Lord of the Rings, believes that chaos is the true enemy, and that ultimate control is the solution.

We like to sympathize with our villains.

We also like to be disappointed in our heroes, because then we can relate to them. We can align their stories with our own:

We fall short of our expectations of ourselves.

We sometimes do the wrong thing. We are trying, but sometimes its just really hard. And then sometimes, against all odds, we nail it. And it feels really good.

These are all real things, and when we watch movies, read books, listen to music, we get swept into versions of the same thing—but more and more we are not happy with the good/evil way of looking at things. But when we are stuck in a paradigm it is very challenging to avoid being hypocritical.

We criticize people for being critical.

We wag our fingers at people who are “judgy.”

We give someone the finger for cutting us off in traffic and then feel validated when we need to cut someone else off. And then we judge ourselves for doing that. Maybe.

All of this way of seeing the world is within a paradigm that assumes there is a “right” and “wrong” way of being. It assumes there is good behavior and bad behavior. There are all the ways we can reinterpret the same binary:

connected to divine—not connected to the divine

authentic—inauthentic

in the flow—in our resistance

From my perspective, it is all the same thing and all working within the same paradigm. But there are so many paradigms!

One of them is the storyteller’s way.

For the storyteller, good characters and bad characters are options. Well tell their stories and then “finish” and move onto another story with a different paradigm. Maybe a story about the Prodigal Son, or Yudhishthira gambles his family’s future, or we dive into the work of Cormac McCarthy and explore despicable characters trying to survive in a foreign land.

This is one of the gifts of practicing intuitive storytelling: navigating the multiverse without judgment or even understanding it. We might not “get it” but we tell it, because we know in our bones that this a way of playing the game. We act. We do. We participate. We apologize. We celebrate. We grieve. And we keep telling.

And we do this knowing full well it is all story. All storytelling.

That the world is made of stories, and as storytellers, we are participating.

There is no goal beyond telling. There is no right action beyond standing in our story and taking responsibility for it. But what if we do something really bad? What if we hurt someone? What if we offend someone?

Well, in my experience, we keep participating.

We see the consequences of our storytelling and choose how we want to respond. In my case, I like to make amends. I love taking responsibility and then healing wounds. I love developing community and mending fences and “doing the next right thing.”

Does that mean we should do that?

In my experience, we don’t unless that is the story you want to tell. The point is not that good is right and evil exists and bad guys should or shouldn’t be punished. Those are things that are happening in the container. In the paradigm.

The point is that the paradigm I live in, as an intuitive storyteller, is that I get to change paradigms.

I get to dip in and move on. I get to forgive, to mend, to dare, to act, and ultimately to tell. I get to tell.

Next week I am offering a 2 hour skill-building workshop to city managers from around the country. They are gathering in Boston to better understand the benefits generative artificial intelligence and how this can make their jobs easier. The organizers, in their practical wisdom, have decided to offer a storytelling workshop to the attendees as well. They are doing this because they have seen how central storytelling is to the City Manager’s job. But they are also curious how storytelling might work with the weekly waves of new AI tools and applications. I am too. I have some suspicions.

First of all, how is storytelling central to the City Manager’s job?

1. City Managers, like any manager, need to connect data with action. They need to convince people to respond to what has been learned.

2. City Managers, like anyone in leadership, are in charge of making the system work. Systems include people and their “motivational fit” with their responsibilities. Leaders need to help people better understand their role and how to do the work expected of them.

3. City Managers, like anyone in government, need to connect policy with practice. They need to translate new bills and laws into practical application. This asks that the team have a common understanding of the bill’s meaning.

This is some high level storytelling.

So what does all that have to do with Generative AI?

First up, for those of you who think this AI stuff is worrisome or something on the horizon, well—you’ve been using AI for a while now. In fact you are using it right now. Artificial Intelligence connected you to me by way of this platform and all its content. It created or at least strengthened our relationship by delivering this essay to you. It helped me with write this with spelling, grammar and research support.

And with ChatGPT, CoPilot, Bard and other Generative AI tools, it could actually write the first draft for me. And pretty well, quite honestly. It would have been fun for me to say that this essay was written using GPT-4, but I actually have my own system that is ultimately (with re-writes, editorial integrations, etc) faster than using the AI tools. More on that another time.

But I think these tools are great.

They are content factories that spit out high level stories in seconds. These tools, with the proper prompts, can write a Sparkle Story technically as good as anything I’ve written. Technically. That word is key. Which leads me to why Generative AI is great for storytelling.

Because it shows us the true power of storytelling.

And its not the content.

If robots can now write Sparkle Stories as good as anything I would write, then what exactly is storytelling? Meaning from a human perspective—what is storytelling?

And before you say that storytelling is our ability to vocalize and communicate well, robots are also getting good at that. It won’t be long before AI tools will be able to replicate my voice and be able to tell the robot stories with my voice so well, that it will be difficult to see the difference.

But you will know the difference—and that is what makes storytelling a human activity.

It has to do with the connection.

We are all so focused on what is in the story, and how the story is told, that we forget WHY we are telling a story in the first place. And THAT is the most important part of this investigating.

The reason behind storytelling is why it will always been an intimately human activity that is impossible to replicate by robots: humans need to connect.

We need to be connected to each other.

Like trees in a forest, we literally need each other. Dis-connection is at the root of every downfall in our species. Disease, war, famine, isolation, and greed have disconnect at their roots. We lose empathy and our ability to FEEL into each other. We forget our interdependence. We tell ourselves stories about willpower and being “self made” and none of it is true. We are who we are because we are a part of a community. It is truly the only thing that makes us happy, joyous and free. Each other.

So Generative AI tools might write content as good as what we humans are writing, it might even tell or perform these stories in audiobooks or shows or movies as good as human actors can, but it will never be able to replicate why we have stories, books, movies and shows: connecting one human to another.

That is why we tells stories.

That is what a storyteller’s only job really is.

My primary purpose has been pretty clear to me for the past few years: distribute powerful skills to the change-makers who need them most.

What hasn’t been as clear is HOW to do that. Or rather, how to do that more broadly. I am fulfilling this mission in teaching classes to kids, in training teachers and local leaders, with inspiring posts, podcasts and public keynotes. It is happening, for sure.

AND, I still feel the urgency to get these tools to as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time.

I say all this because I think the next 12 months are going to be rocky. Tumultuous at a minimum. The upcoming presidential election is a nexus point for a great deal of systemic unease. Regardless of who “wins”, we will have some extensive and complex work to do. It is a destiny year.

So I’ll be creating more posts like the following, where I am explicit about the skills, obvious about how I’m teaching them, and then offer clear next steps.

Let’s hit it.

My “lane” is storytelling.

This is what I practice, what I teach and what I write about. And yet, there is no mention of storytelling in the title. If the primary skills I have to offer are all connected to storytelling, then why all the wizard stuff?

Quite simply: intentional storytelling IS about casting spells. Literally. I am not being cute or metaphoric. Whatever you imagine spell-casting to be, storytelling can do it.

Most dictionaries define spell-casting as using words to have an effect on people.

The words often need to be spoken in a certain way to have maximum effect, which means the vocality—vocal tone—is intentional. Witches and wizards will say things to bring about rapid change. Whether it is to shift a behavior or bring illumination, or to set a transformation, they will speak out loud, tasting the words, being crisp and deliberate with every sound.

Intentional storytelling does the same thing.

Telling stories is how human beings understand the world. Even when explaining scientific discoveries, we tell stories in order to make sense of the data. It is simply how we are wired. And when we are intentional or targeted about the stories we tell, we can attract listeners and elegantly convince them to our point of view. If we add embodied vocality to the mix, we become irresistible.

As a storyteller, I am welcome everywhere. The moment people realize I am practiced at spinning tales, they invite me into their homes and trust me with their secrets. I am well aware of this power. It is actual magic. It is spell-casting.

Many politicians know this, and brand managers definitely do. Anyone who wants to sell something knows the most effective way to get people to input their credit card is to tell a story.

So why are so many well-meaning change-makers who wish to make the world a better place so ineffective with their storytelling?

I believe it is because they don’t know how to properly cast spells.

I see it over and over again: smart, well informed and experienced people dumfounded that people won’t listen to them. They have the facts. They have the proof. They have science and good sense, and yet, people are more interested in the other side.

Why?

It might be because of spell casting.

Wizards believe that their spells work. They are utterly confident. They cast the spells with flavor and zest and with an authentic connection to the task at hand. Yes, they might be entertaining—but I don’t believe that is the source of their power.

Wizards transform reality because the room is theirs.

They are completely present. They pay attention. They are embodied and enjoy the sound of their own voice. They only say what they need to, and don’t waste their breath on arguments or repartee or cleverness.

Effective storytellers don’t need to make sense. They don’t need to be accurate. They don’t need to have the facts or the best lines. In order to shift a behavior or bring illumination, or to set a transformation, a storyteller might try this instead:

1. Be where you are. Authentic presence is captivating.

2. See things as they are rather as you think they should be. People love to be seen and heard, and without judgement.

3. Believe what you are saying. Feel it in your heart. Know it is true.

4. Taste your words. Feel the vibration of your voice in your throat. It brings you into contact with the true power of sound.

It sounds like a tall order but it really isn’t. You used to do this all the time. When we were kids, the world was new and we could easily access wonder and awe. We enjoyed making sounds and talking merely for the pleasure of talking. We were utterly present with whatever we were doing, and we believed everything we said, even when we were blatantly lying. We had the skills, just lacked the content and experience.

I want to be clear that I don’t advocate replacing smarts with charisma. I don’t think facts should be buried, nor do I think coherent arguments have no purpose. But I do want people to know that we are wired for story. We are built to pay attention to good storytellers. We can’t help ourselves.

So if you want to make the world a better place, consider working on your storytelling. Play around with sound. Experiment with gesture. Notice what it feels like when you enter a room. Take a moment to attend the listener before speaking. Consider letting go of the plan and being open to the moment. The moment is magic. This is the home of the wizard.

When we think of storytelling, we tend to focus on the words, the text, the black type. This is expected from a culture at the tail end of the “information age”. We love information and therefore we love content. But this does not mean we have the whole picture. In fact, it means we have maybe 5% of the picture.

In physics it is called “ordinary matter,” and it comprises about 5% of the universe. This is the stuff we see and can easily measure. Ordinary matter includes the stars, planets and us. The rest of it is “dark.” Dark matter and dark energy are most of reality, and the same goes for storytelling. Yes, the content is important—essential even. The words spoken are tips of the iceberg. But most of the iceberg is invisible underwater.

Most of the power of storytelling is silent.

Continuing with the physics analogy, 95% of the universe is dark, and roughly 27% is “dark matter” and 68% is “dark energy”. So, dark matter is stuff we can’t see—it emits no light, but it does influence the behavior of the “ordinary matter.” It influences the way stars and galaxies move.

I’ll call this nonverbal communication.

While we are focused on the content of a story, we are being influenced by the presence, gesture, facial expressions, vocality and touch of the storyteller. All those variables are affecting us—influencing us. Much like dark matter. But we might not be conscious of its influence.

Stay with me.

Dark energy is, quite simply, the mystery. It affects the whole universe beyond the movement of galaxies and planets and us. It is operating on the whole enchilada. So, like … God? Weird to think of a higher power as “dark energy” but that is precisely what is going on. Dark energy is what determines the expansion of the universe.

So how does this relate to storytelling?

If the content of the story is the “ordinary matter,” and the nonverbal communication of the story is the “dark matter,” then “dark energy” of a story would be the flow.

The flow is the direction and purpose of the story. It is what athletes, scientists and psychics always seek. Why do anything? The answer is because it is where the flow took us. Flow is universal energy, and when we go WITH flow, it feels really good.

And this is where doubt comes in.

Doubt is what precedes flow. It is the universe tapping us on the shoulder and asking us to take a breath. Doubt, in my opinion, is not about changing a course or direction. It is merely the request to pause. To be still and silent for a moment and allow the universe to work on us. That’s all.

We have been taught to push through and overcome doubt because we are told it is a sign of weakness. That it is our shadow selves trying to subvert our goals. Doubt, in this paradigm, is a kind of fear. I don’t see it that way.

When I feel doubt, I treat it like a signal to stop what I am doing and DO NOTHING. Not to make a change, not to take an inventory, not to assess the situation or even to seek any guidance. Just stop. And wait. And, in the words of Saint Frances, allow for faith.

There is more to the prayer (I say it every morning), but I see doubt in a similar way. Doubt makes room for something bigger. Faith. Higher power. Dark Energy. Flow. Doubt makes room for the flow to take the wheel.

Here is a way you can welcome doubt into your storytelling:

1. Go ahead and talk. Tell a story, start your keynote, begin the conversation, have a chat with yourself.

2. Notice whenever you feel a twinge of doubt. Usually it will land first in the body as a discomfort. Temperature change. A moment of dizziness. The breath thickens.

3. Don’t dismiss it. Instead, stop. Just pause. Even for a moment. Sometimes consciously pause for a split second is enough. In my experience it just needs to be conscious. Be aware that you are pausing.

4. Something will happen. A change. An image. You will notice something.

5. Take that seriously and allow it to affect you.

That’s all. Let the “something bigger than you” affect you. And with practice, you will become proficient in finding flow, and thus navigating reality at an exponential degree.

The more I tell stories and teach others how to do it, the more I learn that the true gift of storytelling is what I call the CONTAINER. You’ll see it pop up in other posts.

I’m doing research for my dissertation, which is a program evaluation of Restorative Storytelling. RS is the use of stories and storytelling for healing and developing community. The Container is the sixth storytelling tool taught and over and over again, people report it is the tool that changed everything.

Here’s the deal:

• When you tell a story, you enter into a contained event.

• The story has a moment with it begins and ends.

• It takes place in a certain time and space.

• The story has an intention

• There is a person talking and at least one person listening.

This is the container of a story: the who, what, why, when and where of a storytelling event. When we know the container of a story, then we can enter it, and more importantly, exit it.

Why is this important and at all interesting?

If we expand our understanding of stories and storytelling to include any use of language to talk “about” something else with coherence, then most conversations could be considered storytelling. Lectures are storytelling. Answers to most questions become storytelling. Storytelling is thus, our primary mode of human communication.

And if you believe this to be true, then the container gives this kind of interaction a structure. It contains moments of storytelling with a set of rules that are unique to that interaction, and therefore…

It gets everyone on the same page.

How many times have we inadvertently upset, offended, confused or disappointed someone simply because there was a misunderstanding? Often? More times than not, this is due to a lack of conscious containment. We weren’t clear about the who, what, where, when and why of our storytelling in that moment.

For instance;

One member of a couple wants to be heard while the other member of a couple believes it is time to solve problems. This is a misunderstanding of the why.

Or someone tells a joke to a friend and a third person takes the joke personally and out of context. This is a misunderstanding of the who.

Or someone shifts from giving advice to telling a personal story about their day and confuses the listener. This is a misunderstanding of the when.

So imagine a bucket.

Inside the bucket are the rules of the storytelling event.

Who: I am going to have a conversation with my child about what happened in school today.

Why: Because I want to find out their perspective on what happened. Not to correct or give advice or teach them anything. Only to find out what happened.

When: After my child has a snack and before they go upstairs to their room.

Where: In the kitchen while sitting side by side at the kitchen counter.

How long: Only ten minutes unless the child needs more time to talk.

All of these rules of the storytelling event are in the bucket. And when both people have agreed to these rules, you both enter the bucket. This signals that the storytelling event has begun and that the rules won’t change. Other people are not invited. We will keep to 10 minutes unless the child needs more time. The adult is there to listen and ask clarifying questions only.

Then, when 10 minutes is up, you leave the bucket.

Or you re-contain.

This happens when someone else enters the space, or you need more time or you both realize that the intention of the interaction or lesson or recounting has changed. It’s ok to change course, but I believe it is important that everyone know this is happening.

Its important that everyone be in the same bucket.

If there is a whole in the bucket, dear Liza, then the bucket is contained. If not, there is a hole instead. And something important is going to spill out.