Telling our story can be as just as easy or hard as approaching a blank canvas with a pallet and brush. What to tell? We wonder if others will want to hear or know us. We wonder if we will bless or be blessed or after a blink she will turn her eyes and find another view to look at. She will look at a view and in so doing, will qualify us as something other than.
Imagine that you are coming to see a physician for the first time. You enter and sit.
So what has brought you here?
And there you are with another chance to tell your story. You are trembling with the same fear that was screaming across your nerve surfaces like an Olympian bobsled on and off over that past many years.
Why am I here?!
You’re sure she can hear the sound of your os ripping as you deliver the word,
Uh!
You look at your physician and doubt her interest.
We’ve all heard a skilled interviewer on the Late Show, such as Jonny Carson, or talk radio with Jim Rome. My best friend has always loved listening to possibly the last great baseball host, Vin Scully. He used to listen on his transistor radio in bed late into the night when he was a kid. What makes them great interviewers? The stories. It doesn’t matter who they are interviewing, talking about or show-casing, the story of the individual grips us and we feel connected and less alone.
Well, talking to your physician may not be the same as talking with Jonny Carson… but, you are. You are the story and you and I are what has made these people renowned. Without us, without the real connections between Me and thee, the real commonality in our humanity, in our suffering, in the discovering of how little space there is just when we thought we were alone – yes! we are worth hearing. You and I have a story to bless and be blessed by. Even when talking with your physician, you are what it is all about. Speak, to bless and be blessed.
Self-Care Tip: Tell your story to be a friend to yourself.