If I tell you that which lies deepest inside of me and you do not respond in a manner that tells me you see me, as I am truly, our potential for human bonding may be lost.
Then what? Why did I do this? What difference did it make? For me? For you?
I am rarely interested in idle chatter or have time for it. So what's next?
At New Horizons that kind of soul-searching arose in me last week, prompting a surprising turn of events, especially as I am the head of the organization.
Believing that I have an important tale to tell, for you and others, I knew I needed to share my story from which I trust there are vital lessons to be gleaned, especially for anyone coming up against organizational obstacles when making #MeToo--related complaints, in the workplace, in academia, even in churches and synagogues and so forth.
Thus the situation of my recent storytelling, ushered in a shift in priorities, at New Horizons, bringing formerly unspoken intentions of mine to the fore, following my last broadcast on Anastasia The Storyteller Radio in a program titled “Coping When #MeToo Hits You." In fact there were objectives and needs that I discovered in the doing that I did not even know I had.
On that show, I had, for the very first time, come out from behind the shadows that had been keeping me hidden from the motion and flow of life as it was happening post-Harvey Weinstein.
I had finally gotten, on that broadcast, my chance to begin telling the full story behind my Ethics Complaint -- and even more distressing, in present time, my daunting experiences with the Ethics Committee of the International Transactional Analysis Association.
Steve, my radio show co-host and I had designed a program that would focus on me. It was a wonderfully fulfilling show, as he and I went through our steps on the broadcast, with Steve being an almost ideal support.
Listening to the podcast several times, as I eventually did, was exciting and liberating for me.
But then something happened and like a drifting hot air balloon losing its wind, I began to sink.
What had happened, for me, after the high, we are still sorting out, my board members and myself.
However, what we quickly came to see is that my storytelling on that broadcast, coupled with what occurred inside of me in doing it and interactively with them, in the aftermath, was about to turn the priorities of the two New Horizons-sponsored radio shows, Anastasia The Storyteller Radio and The Possible Society In Motion, into a kind of reversal, in order to move forward.
The saga of Dr. Christina Blasey Ford, testifying in public, during a Senate Judiciary hearing, that Brett Kavanaugh, a Supreme Court nominee, had sexually assaulted her as a teenager, comes to mind.
Where is Dr. Ford now?
How is she faring, after publicly telling her story?
According to reports she has had to move four times since she came forward and is still getting death threats, requiring protective security for her family and herself.
What is life like, now, for Dr. Ford?
And for the tens of thousands, perhaps millions of other women who have elected to come out, recently, from behind the shadows of their own carefully concealed stories of sexual harassment and abuse and power-over exploitation?
We do not all need to make the news, write books or go on nationwide television, as Dr. Ford stresses she does not wish to do.
But we all do need to feel heard with compassion and respectfully acknowledged and to receive back some semblance of knowing that our pain and distress were noticed, that our stories matter, that our experiences matter.
And, that what we have so painfully revealed might touch someone's heart, inspire them or even make a difference in helping someone and/or somehow help to better our world.
From my own brief experience on that radio show broadcast and its aftermath, I found myself tuning in to something I have been aware of since last year when Ronan Farrow’s New Yorker expose of Harvey Weinstein was published; a disheartening sense, arising over the backlash and controversy this and other similar stories have elicited.
Certainly there have been frivolous, vindictive and vengeful misuses of the platform the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have created.
However, for those of us, such as myself, who are merely needing the relief of which Dr. Maya Angelou spoke in the quote below –
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.there are many layers of need.
What I learned from, at last, beginning to open up publicly on “Coping When MeToo Hits You” is that--
Storytelling is not enough!
Just as fierceness is not enough, loud voices in the news or in protests are not enough --- to bring about the healing that survivors need.
At some very basic level, a much quieter, more subtle response is needed in response to our telling our stories, be it from a therapist, a clergy person, a friend, family member, a support group or a stranger.
A personal recognition from somewhere in the collective consciousness that can help the healing advance in a place where our humanity meets, person-to-person.
If not, what you get is something like this –
"With my telling you this story that I have long kept hidden, I have given you all that I am and have from the deepest parts of me.
But my telling, my speaking out, is not enough to bridge the vast separations that frequent our daily lives and that are so damaging and damning.
Not enough to create that richest of human interactions -- intimacy.
Without that quality I am left hungering for that which I know exists somewhere, a certain something that brings with it a sense of aliveness like no other.
Having known this other times in my life, I seek it now again, wanting you, my friend, to be in it with me."Realizing the general prevalence of this state of affairs, separation and isolation, rather than a greater connectivity, from now having taken my first steps into my own public sharing, the outcome, at New Horizons, resulted in a shift in our priorities.
Our revitalized intent is now to help our listeners and followers to develop the art, not only of storytelling, but also the arts of: 1. Story listening and, then 2. Interactive storytelling.
(Interactive storytelling might be described as a process wherein storytelling prompts, first, story listening and then a deepening conversation between two or more parties.
No debate only dialogue/meaningful, consciousness-raising conversation!
Nothing less! This is how you can get to awe, if you are so inclined.)
There is so much more to this outcome, now in the works, that has been derived from our last radio show broadcast!
Much more behind it than I can yet say, as the reasoning and the significance of what occurred are still obscure.
However, one thing is certain, the magic of human connectivity, at its best, is what we are after, at New Horizons!
So it has now become clear to us, though we are not yet certain how to best proceed, it is not only in storytelling or story listening but interactive story telling where the magic lies.
The kind of magic we viewed in the closing scene of Avatar that captured millions of hearts when the words --
“I see you”-- were so impactfully spoken.
That is the quality New Horizons and myself are going to be after on Anastasia The Storyteller, a kind of responsiveness to telling our stories that everyone who has the courage to speak out can fill up on.
On the air that might sound like --
“I hear you with my heart and mind.”Here is the magic New Horizons is after.
We hope you will help us attain it.
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