Bearing witness to people's stories

It has been a week of inviting and bearing witness to people's stories.

We talk about humans as a storytelling species all the time. We often think of our pull to create and listen to folktales and mythology, as sensemaking tools of our lives and our place in the world.

We see this across all cultures, from ancient times (think of different creation stories, for example) through to today, where we flock to cinemas, theatres, books, songs, and increasingly storytelling events and campfires.

What we often forget amongst this, is that each of us is also a storyteller. Each of our lives has not just a single story, but multiple. These aren't static things; our life stories and how we understand them are constantly changing.

But how often are we invited to actually tell a story of our lives? And to have someone bear witness to those stories?

When my father's parents were alive, they provided me with my first experience of intentionally inviting and listening to someone's story. Yes, I'd always heard them tell snippets of stories from their lives. But to sit down, with a recorder of some sort, and invite their life stories as a way of bearing witness to and documenting an elder's experiences, was a privilege that I will always treasure. We never finished their stories. But the videos I have of them speaking with me are very dear to my heart.

What's more, when you invite someone to share their story with you and to own their story as they tell it – not as an extractive exercise, but as one of kinship – a bond is created between you that is hard to explain as the story unfolds and is witnessed. I cannot stress enough the humble honour that is hearing someone respond to the invitation of sharing their story, in their way, and in their words.

What is your name, and what does it mean for you?

On Tuesday evening, for Nikki Kapp's Embodied Regeneration community, Dain Robinson, Hannah Riley and I invited the group of women who had assembled under the banner, 'Healing Bodies, Seeking Justice', to speak to the question: "What is your name, and what does it mean for you?" This was a way in to speaking about our experiences and heritages. We were a mixed group: roughly equal women of colour or mixed heritage, and white women.

The three of us shared our own story names (I've written a longer piece about mine).

And we then went around the circle.

I hadn't anticipated what would emerge.

Stories of white ancestry connected with colonialism, and feelings associated with that.

Stories that showed us how our names of colour and mixed heritage are often ways into hearing experiences of discrimination, yes, and also stories of affirming joy.

These two types of stories stood in stark contrast with each other; they provided the commentary of why we were gathering simply by being strung together. The stories stood in conversation with each other simply by being spoken into the circle.

But then there were also shared patterns regardless of who was speaking: reclaiming names, our relationships with our families, our places in the world.

Bearing witness to each story was a privilege I hadn't anticipated when we chose the circle question. It's one I'd heard at a DEI panel a good few years ago now, and felt like a 'soft' way into the topic. It's a question I invite you to ask others – and of yourself – when there is time and space to hear the stories it may evoke.

What is your story of regeneration?

This week I've also started hearing people's stories from the Regenerators alumni community. I'm working with the team to create a living library of people's stories who have been through the Regenerative Leadership Journey, having been part of the first cohort in 2022 myself.

An invitation was put out for people who wished to tell their stories of having been through the Journey, with support from me as a writer.

And again, I hadn't anticipated how honoured I would feel being trusted with people's vulnerabilities and lives.

I've heard three stories this week, one through voice notes and the other two through video calls.

And each time, I have been deeply moved by people's capacity to be reflective about their lives, their ability to draw threads of causality through them, their sense of self and evolution. But most of all their willingness to be asked and respond to questions.

The stories never started with Regenerators. And didn't finish there either.

I feel excitement in collaborating with them to transform their oral stories into something written that feels like a clear mirror when they read it. Something they can share with the world, with loved ones, and hold for themselves as a reflection of how they understand their journeys from their current vantage points.

And throughout this process, I never feel the owner of these stories; more a channel through which the storyteller can sound the bells and beats and silences of their lives. To be somewhere their living, spoken words can travel through and metamorphose into something written, which is still completely them and theirs.

Bearing witness to someone's stories

A few things I've learned this week while bearing witness to others' stories:

• It's essential that this isn't an extractive process, where I as the 'story receiver' see myself as some objective, passive recipient. This is something that Pause and Effect speaks to again and again, in terms of the responsibilities of researchers, and that I learned from them. And at the same time, it's important that I don't insert myself into someone else's story. For the Regenerators, it's an emergent dance of inviting them to move into parts of their story through questions that arise, if those are places that feel good to move into, but also creating space for them to be able to just speak.
• In the past when I've been researching and writing case studies, I've adopted a semi-structured approach. Here, I'd have pre-set questions that I'd use, while also sensing into areas that can we can explore while speaking together. And I'd be taking copious notes while listening. This time, for the Regenerators' stories, I trusted that the recording would work for me to come back to so that I wouldn't need to take long notes. And, while I had some guiding questions to fall back on, I relied on adrienne maree brown's "Less prep, more presence." This way, I could be fully in the conversation with them, again helping me move away from an extractive approach where I'm essentially 'mining' someone's story, and instead to one of kinship and relationality.
• The circle experience was different to the one-to-one Regenerators experiences. In the circle, we were holding space for stories to be told and heard in a group, with minimal commentary or questioning. There were some moments where clarifying questions were asked (for example, inviting a storyteller to explain what colourism is after she referenced it), and where we expressed surprise at common threads between us. But the power was in stories being shared with and into the circle.
• As a story receiver, I realised I also need to be aware of how my own body and self is reacting to what I'm hearing. Where do I feel glimmers, where do I feel constrictions? Am I having any of my own stories activated that could impact my ability to fully receive the person and what they're sharing? This in particular is something learned through Carina Lyall 's Art of Holding Space. Knowing when to lean in to share some of my own experience and story, or to ask a question, or reflect back what I've heard, and when to lean back to hold the space for the storyteller to just speak, is a process that takes feeling into and presence.
• There are multiple ways into and through a story! None of them is wrong; it depends on where the storyteller feels they need to start and where they wish to go. As the story receiver, if we're in an active conversation, we can ask questions that are invitations to start in a certain place or go a certain way. But it always comes back to where the storyteller and owner feels they need or wish to move into next.
• Not everyone has been given the invitation or space to share their story before and have it witnessed, particularly women and particularly women of colour, and other people who have been marginalised. I remember my grandmother needed a little more gentle questioning to expand into places of her story she hadn't considered sharing, compared to my grandfather who often shared the stories of his life and needed little prompting. So being mindful of what it means for someone to be asked to share their story, and actually be held to tell it, is a crucial part of honouring the process.
• At all times, the storyteller is also the storyowner. As I begin to feel into how I could write the oral stories, I can also feel how important it is to not hide away as the writer, but for the writing to be a collaborative process. For the storyteller's voice to still be heard in the writing. Sharing snippets of an intended direction for them to feel into whether it feels resonant or not needs to happen, rather than waiting to present them with a finished piece.

These lessons may change the further I get into the process! And within here somewhere is a deeper piece about the importance of testimonial, archival, histories, perhaps even an exploration of the whole concept of the 'unreliable narrator'.

But it has been an honour to bear witness to people's stories this week.

They speak to the folktales that we're so often drawn to; the everyday lives of people that contain with them as much magic and meaning as the myths of gods and goddesses.