The Difficulty of Telling Someone's Story

When first discussing monologue development in the early days of this semester, I was completely terrified. Although I knew that writing and performing one's story was something I desired to do, I was frightened to write someone else's story. What if they didn't like it? What if I was completely out of touch with what they were feeling? My ultimate goal was to provide a clear understanding of the life of the person I was interviewing. But how? How can I crawl into someone's mind and tell you exactly what they were thinking or emoting? The first draft was the most difficult for me. I struggled to find the right words to capture the person's emotions. After looking over six different pages of notes several times, I realized that each quote that my interviewee said was in three words. That's it. So, I decided to lead with it and let those quotes be the building blocks of my monologue. After this, I could build off of each quote, expanding new questions and emotions through each section. After a few weeks of revision, I finally had a monologue. My ultimate hope though is that my monologue has done justice to such a remarkable story.

Rehearsing the Monologue

I have had more fun performing my monologue than I expected to. I remember feeling a little anxious at the start of the semester at the prospect of performing in front of others, but I enjoyed the class rehearsals we have had so far. In hindsight, I needed to do partake in the performance, because Anne’s coaching lessons have reminded me that I personally need to be more confident in my decisions, regardless of how small. When I practice, I can see that my actions look weaker even when I slightly second guess myself, such as faltering in the way I step forward or when I waver my foot as I stand still. I look lost and unsure, and all my mistakes are very clearly on display when I am the only person “on stage.” I remind myself before I begin performing to feel the roots extending from the soles of my feet straight into the ground and to feel the branches extending from my head into the ceiling. Anne’s analogy reminds me to stand with intention. This type of performance is very different from the public speaking that I have trained myself for. In other instances where I am presenting a class project or my thesis, I can feel more relaxed in my stance and in my gaze. In theatre, my every moment contributes to the message I am conveying, so every movement of my body and my face needs to be controlled. I sometimes become overwhelmed by all the aspects I need to consider, but I know that if I practice enough, then all the motions will feel like second nature.

To Highlight the Voices of Those Who Often Go Unheard

Highlighting stories that might otherwise go unheard gives a well-rounded perspective to those who are blissfully ignorant to the unseen plight of other communities and also gives power to those whose stories go untold. Firstly, providing a well-rounded perspective to others is important because it breaks us out of the bubble that we often insulates us. Our values are shaped by the experiences that we have and our exposure to the experiences of others. Storytelling is a good way of giving others a glimpse into a life that could be vastly different from theirs and hear about issues that they may have never faced. Extending the stories of underrepresented groups to other communities can help bridge gaps between different peoples and help outside communities empathize with their struggles.

Secondly, for underserved communities, their voice may be their only power. Having a way to express your ideas is a quality of being human, and to lose that ability is isolating. Their voice is a way to express their identity and to have their voices go unheard strips the group of people what makes them distinct. Our project highlights the stories of those in the addiction community, who are often looked down on for their mental illness. To speak their stories brings them the power to fight back against damaging stereotypes, which are often perpetuated by those who have not had exposure to their struggles. Through storytelling, people in the recovery community can reshape how they are portrayed on their own terms.

Listening Deeply

Throughout this class, I have loved getting to truly listen to the story of other peoples' lives. It has been such a blessing to hear from people at all different walks and stages of life - in their 40s, or 60s, from the south or from the north. Each one has their own unique story (and trauma) that can help others better understand the world and the person they're speaking to. Through this experience, I feel like I've been able to learn how to listen better than I have before. I've been able to learn how to ask good questions to help people feel comfortable sharing their story. I've seen the way that a person telling their story can truly free them and put them in a much more comfortable place. All it takes is one person caring enough about someone to know what they've been through and how it shapes who they are - this alone can impact their lives forever. It has been so sweet to watch my classmates engage in this as well. We have loved listening and learning together.

Hearing Trauma Through Another

A requirement of "Dramatizing the Data" is listening and taking notes from people in the Chattanooga community. Each person we interviewed had experienced some type of trauma whether it was childhood abuse, relationship abuse, sex work, drug abuse, neglect, violence, or death, each person came with their own personal encounter with trauma. As a psychology major, I have heard this word "trauma" so much I began to become desensitized to what it really means, until it was spoken with tremendous strength from our interviewees. When people think of trauma, some may associate it with "shell shock" or a bad car accident, but what our class has shown me is trauma is more than that. Trauma is life-changing, relationship-breaking, and a type of everlasting pain substances, sex, or money cannot heal. Trauma may be the reason someone goes down a fatal path but it may also be the reason for a type of resilience that cannot be destroyed once it is created. Hearing stories of trauma through another person strengthened my empathy and understanding of things I could not begin to imagine. Hearing stories of how another has overcome trauma is inspiring and brings to light all the things beautiful in the world. Positivity, self-confidence, spirituality, human connection, and recovery support groups are all methods of healing taken by our interviewees to reclaim their lives after trauma. Through their powerful storytelling, our interviewees gave us their experience of how the were able to overcome unimaginable circumstances.

How Holding Space Taught Me To Listen

As someone who has always deeply cared about people, I find I have trouble not taking on other people’s problems and trauma as my own. Through this course, I have begun to see the difference between “holding space” for someone and allowing them to share their story without feeling like I need to tie myself in and make their problems my problems. From my experience with both telling and receiving stories this semester, “holding space” simply means allowing yourself to create an environment for the speaker that is comfortable enough for them to be vulnerable and share their story on their own terms rather than forcing a story out or making it your own story. I found that by holding this space and allowing someone to simply be vulnerable with me, I knew myself and my own story better. I realized how I carry my own trauma and stress both very similar and vastly different from the people around me. The act of simply listening and comprehending someone’s story provided me with the knowledge of how to be a better listener in my daily life. Too often it is too easy to interject in a conversation and tell someone how your story is like theirs or how you know a friend that this happened to as well. However, most of the time, people just want to be heard not told how their life is just like someone else. I found this to be tremendously true when I had the opportunity to share my own story with a peer. The experience of sharing my story with someone who at the time I barely knew, gave me the confidence to share things that I had not verbalized yet. My peer held space for me yet never interrupted or tried to make my story something common. It empowered me in a way that I had yet to experience and it has made me bring that out into my daily life. I spend more time listening to how my friends are doing and holding space for them to share whatever they want me to know.

Trauma: How it Shapes You but Doesn't Define You

Trauma is more than just "something bad that happened to you once." It is more like something that happened once that you find yourself reliving over and over again no matter how badly you want to stop reliving it. Trauma reroutes the thought patterns in your brain and turns normal events into experiences of anxiety and dread.

In listening to each of the stories that were told in class, I thought about how trauma is not just one thing. It can be literally anything that caused enough anxiety in you that it leaves a permanent mark on your life. Trauma is dark and lonely, but the speakers in class showed me that it is possible to overpower it and make it small enough that it no longer defines your life. It will always be there, but there is a chance to put it in the periphery rather than have it be the focus of everything you do.

When talking with someone about their trauma, it is important to remember that they are sharing a part of themselves that they are likely not proud of, and that makes them vulnerable. That is when holding space for them becomes so important. By holding space for someone, you are saying to them "your story is important," "I care about you," "I believe you," "your feelings are valid." You can alter that person's way of thinking about their trauma and help them see that they have been shaped by their trauma, but they are not defined by their trauma.

Dynamic Movement

Adding dynamic movements to my performance has been really wonderful with my memorization, as well as with the presentation of the story. I really think that it adds so much to the emotions of the scenes - really driving certain points home. I also think that everyone else had very successful performances that really connected with the original speaker of the story, an important aspect that seems much more easily lost without the movement of the speakers. Mimicking facial expressions and hand motions while speaking, though small, is also extremely beneficial to me when it comes to understanding how a person feels/what emotion they are trying to convey.

I am so excited to see how these performances turn out as we progress and fine tune them. I think also that the motions will make the original storytellers feel a bit more connected to the actor - seeing themselves within another person, recreating that experience for them in a new, safe environment where they are in control.

Holding Space

I’ve always thought of myself as a good listener. You know, knowing to show I’m invested in the conversation and to try and make the other person with whom I’m conversing feel comfortable. Listening to the lovely people who shared their stories with us was a feeling of listening that I’d never experienced before. A really powerful feeling. Through our practice with one another, conducting our “interviews” about the lives of our peers, we learned techniques for holding space as a listener. To think of that concept of holding space with someone as they talk to you is one thing, but to really feel it is completely different. Feeling that I held a safe space for someone in a moment of vulnerability was such a new and interesting feeling. In a way, I didn’t have to make sure they knew I was listening, I wasn’t there to comment on their story or chime in with my similar experiences. It was a way for another human being to be vulnerable and trust that I would hold space for their words. That is a feeling I hope to have again.

To Listen Deeply to Another

When the listener listens deeply to a speaker, they undergo the shared experience of recounting the story. From The Body Keeps Score, I learned that retelling a story alters the neural pathways that hold the story and changes the details and perceptions of the speaker about the story. To listen deeply is to interpret the story as the speaker tells it and understand how that event once shaped them. Furthermore, a deep listener affirms the potential new feelings that arise from the speaker upon recounting the story. The interaction changes both participants, and for some of the storytellers that visited the class, I am glad to hear that the experience is cathartic for them.

Outside of the story collection process, stories do not need to contribute to trauma to be worthy of a focused listener. We often exercise deep listening when a friend vents to us or when we listen to how someone’s day went. When I listen deeply to my friends, I feel a greater connection to them. The storyteller reveals their vulnerability by sharing a part of themselves that they cannot control and that they feel the problem is insurmountable. One of the most important parts of listening deeply is to recognize what response is warranted. Not every speaker is looking for a solution. I often find that the best response is to share their burdens with them. Essentially, I become a sounding board to help alleviate the speaker’s burden for the time that we are together. I reciprocate the emotions that the speaker emanates, which is how I feel validated when sharing something personal.

Thoughts on Notes From the Field

One of the readings/viewings that I did in this class is called Notes from the Field, written and performed by Anna Deavere Smith. In this performance, Smith performs verbatim (accents, pauses, etc.) interviews that she conducted.

Watching Smith perform is amazing. She transforms herself into 20 different people and tells their stories in exactly the way she heard them. It is so meaningful to see these stories performed because they are stories that would likely go unheard otherwise. Even though the lives of the people in the stories being told already had meaning, Smith shared that meaning with the world, allowing the stories to be seen and heard by her vast audience.

Smith's performance prompted me to think about all the stories of the people around me and the meaning that they carry. I want to learn all I can about the people I care about in order to be a better friend to them. Everyone deserves to be heard, and that includes people who are normally ignored. Marginalized groups deserve just as much, if not more, attention and recognition than those who are not marginalized by society.

Finally, I learned that my own stories are meaningful. I deserve to be heard, and I deserve to listen to myself instead of ignoring the things that I feel are important for the sake of pleasing the people around me.

Holding Space for Someone to Share Their Story

At first, I was unsure what the term "holding space" really meant, but as I have come to understand it, it is a way of listening to someone that makes them feel understood or that their story has meaning. In holding space in class, I have become more aware of my listening skills and now feel like I am better suited to listen to my loved ones when they have something they want to share with me.

I want to be a teacher (middle school English, to be specific), but one of the things that I want for my classroom is for my students to feel that they matter. I do not want my students to think that their one and only role in my classroom is to learn new material. I want my students to feel that my classroom is a place where they are free to be fully themselves and not have to hide the things that they care about. I want my classroom to be that space that I am holding for my students where they feel like they can talk about what they feel is important. My goal is to teach my students how to hold space for one another but also for themselves. It is important for young people to understand that they matter and deserve to be heard just as much as their classmates. I also want them to learn from each other's stories and get to know each other better through sharing their stories.

What I learned from the person I spoke with in class is that no matter what my past looks like, I am not stuck with one reputation forever. I can grow and change to become better and more open and open-minded. No matter what my past looks like, I still matter and deserve a place in this world. I want to show the people around me that I am capable of growth and positive change and that they are capable of the same things.

Preforming A Story That is Not Mine

Today, I did my first read through of my person's story. Trying to tell her story through my own eyes and experiences was interesting, as I could say things a certain way but I imagine that she would say them differently. It was also interesting due to the fact that I found it hard to make it sound very natural and my idea for it in my head did not match what came out of my mouth. Peggy also changed my perspective on how I might act and sound when preforming a scene with some anger or judgement behind it - I had originally read it with an angry and moody tone but instead we will be trying to perform it with a more questionary and confused air about it to ensure that the audience does not misunderstand the emotions that the storyteller was feeling when she first told us her story.

Additionally, I think that the addition of movement will make this a much easier to act piece. I am excited to share my ideas with Anne and she what she thinks about some of my stage presence. I also think that movement will allow for the audience to better follow the story and understand what emotions are meant to be portrayed. I also think that the addition of singing Amazing Grace versus me reading it out will add a lot to the story and the performance - It really adds to the religion/faith motif and I think that it will make it stronger than before.

Ethnodrama and How it has Affected Me

When I first added this class to my schedule, I had no idea just how profoundly it was going to affect me. The main way that I see and feel the changes within myself are in the forms of compassion and listening. While I have always viewed myself as a compassionate person, listening to and really taking in these stories that are full of struggle and of trauma has opened my eyes a bit more to how much your everyday person can go through. I have been fortunate in that my life has been safe from many struggles, though the result of that is a lack of knowledge and maybe even slight ignorance to the fact that a lot of people within my own life have been through immense struggles. It has been easier to imagine and put myself in the shoes of others due to this class.

The Power of Listening

I did not realize that I was such an avid listener until my band director told me my senior year of high school when asked to describe myself. She had said that I would hear things that others in the class would not, and she always felt heard whenever I was in the room. I realized from that day on that I wanted to use that power for good. When I heard about a course that encourages students to listen to other people's stories, I immediately knew I wanted to participate. With a bit of hesitation, I took a chance and signed up for the course. I realized exactly why I had the intuition to join the class as I listened to the interviewee, whose story eventually became my monologue. I signed up for this class because I want people to feel heard. I know how important it is to share your story, as it often guides others that are put in similar situations. I am so thankful that they were willing to share their story with the class and me, and through their story, I have realized so many things, including the idea of constantly living in the moment. 

The Importance of Storytelling: What I've Learned Through "Dramatizing the Data"

My dad was always a storyteller, so growing up I heard plenty of tales: true, false, and especially fabricated. He told me about how my Grandmother was a witch, how he survived on canned spinach in college, and how him and his three brothers terrorized their small Pennsylvania neighborhood in the winter by instigating snowball fights with almost anyone passing by. I am mesmerized by those that are able to share a fascinating story, but it wasn't truly until this class I decided to take to fill a couple of my credits that opened my definition of storytelling.

Throughout the past approximately 10 weeks of classes, we have had the opportunity to interview 10 members of the Chattanooga community asking them a simple question: "What do you want us to know about you?" This short, simple question has taught me more life lessons than I could have ever imagined. The beauty of storytelling is that they can share an experience through a first-person primary -source point-of-view. Through these stories, I've been able to listen and empathize with experiences of trauma, abuse, sex trafficking, drug trafficking, gang involvement, imprisonment, and most importantly how these individuals overcame their unimaginable challenges resulting in contentment they hold with their lives now. By hearing about the setbacks and extraordinary perseverance, strength, and faith it took to survive through a multitude of challenges, I was taught lessons in determination and resolution I may not have learned for myself until several years from now. Through storytelling we can share unique experiences and the knowledge that resulted from those experiences, without necessarily having a first-row seat in these events.

We are now done transforming our interviewee's stories into monologues and are now preparing for our performance next month. I am excited to have the opportunity to share these beautiful stories with the Chattanooga community so they too, can learn from the wisdom of another.

Holding Space for Others

The most difficult part about holding space for others is using non-verbal cues to reassure the storyteller that I am listening. The story-collecting process was not conversational, so I refrained from using verbal indicators to show that I am focused. I felt like story-collecting with a classmate was more relaxed and I was able to use a few quiet verbal indicators. Whereas, when I was story-collecting with a community member, I had to rely completely on non-verbal cues. I felt like if I glanced at my notes too often or if I kept a blank face, then the storyteller would feel like I am uninterested or spacing out. I remember regularly nodding my head and holding eye contact, but I worried that I would not take enough notes to write a cohesive monologue. Despite my worries, I feel like both of my storytellers felt comfortable enough to share emotional insight on their story.

In hindsight, I think that interpreting the non-verbal cues of the storyteller is just as important to story-collecting as noting specific details. In the end, I want to write an engaging monologue that captures my storyteller’s experiences. By watching how the storyteller reacts to the memories recounted, I can draw insight on the emotional gravity of pivotal moments in her life. The final monologue does not include her entire life story. Rather, I chose to write about only one aspect of her story and I expanded on the thoughts she had in the moment--with tremendous help from Peggy, of course.

UTC Ethnodrama Class

This exceptional class of students has collected stories from a diverse group of visitors who shared their experience, strength, and hope in dealing with a major life challenge. They transposed the stories into poetic monologues and will perform them for the storytellers and the public on April 25th at 5 pm in the Reading Room of the Honors College.