What's a helpful story?

A helpful story is a true story. A true story is one that doesn’t shy away from the pain and the confusion that is invariably part of the path, the journey towards realisation via the struggle of healing.

A helpful story is one that has a beginning, a middle and a transition - if not an end - that indicates that there is hope for change. Because what do we go looking for when we read the words of others? Me, I want to, and I often find that I do, relate to the angst and the tumult of other people’s stories. I am moved by the heartfelt and the heartbreaking insights that someone dares to share. And then, when I reach the ending, I think, ‘aha, it’s like that, and it’s like this’.

Helpful stories are helpful because they guide us towards some deeper understanding of the complexities of what it means to live a human life in relation to people and groups and systems and dynamics against which we have cause to rally and rail. They put into words the thoughts that entangle our mind, they give voice to feelings we might not otherwise know how to utter.

I think about the stories of Lemn Sissay and Roxane Gay, of Patti Smith and Arundhati Roy, of Ruth Ozeki and Rebecca Solnit, of Bruce Lee and the Buddha, of Nick Cave and Sylvia Plath, of Milan Kundera and Aldous Huxley. Stories that taught me how to live before I had fully figured out how, that teach me how to carry on when I’m not sure I can, that lift my spirit and soothe my soul when I am clouded by doubt.

There is strength in the act of giving and receiving the words of each other.