Read the full transcript of MeiMei Fox’s talk titled “How Storytelling Can Heal Trauma and Our Divided World” at TEDxBocaRaton 2024 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
Standing at the Train Station
MEIMEI FOX: So I’m standing at the train station, and it is hot, and it is crowded, and it’s my first trip to India. I love it, the people, the culture, the food, but I’m ready for a break. So that train finally pulls into the station two hours late, and I grab my bags and I haul them on. I’m so ready for this.
I get to my seat, and there’s someone sitting in it. So I pull out my ticket, and I show it to him, and I say, “I’m sorry, sir, but I think you’re sitting in my seat.” And he looks at the ticket, and he looks at me with a big smile, and he says, “Oh no, ma’am, I’m in the right seat. This train is 26 hours late. This is yesterday’s train.”
Well, I kind of wanted to cry, but I really had to laugh, because my family says that the worst experiences make the best stories. Isn’t that the truth? We live in story, and ever since the dawn of humanity, people have sat around the fire telling stories as a way to pass the time, but also to share our values and our history.
The Story Cure
And we can harness the ancient power of storytelling to heal our hearts and our world. I call it the story cure. Now I discovered the story cure when I’m in my mid-30s, and I’ve been through a divorce, and then there’s this scandal in my family of origin, and I feel like the whole house has burned down around me.
So I do all the things that you’re supposed to do. I go to therapy. I practice yoga and meditation. You know what really helps is journaling. The simple act of writing about my story helps me to see where I messed up, to acknowledge the parts of my marriage that were really great, and it changes my narrative from one of shame to one of personal growth. The story was my cure.
And this is so cool. There is actual neuroscience research to back this up. So when scientists hook up our brains to fMRI machines, when we write our stories, our brains form new neurological connections that help us to solve complex problems and actually heal old wounds. It’s real.
Not only that, but the simple act of listening to other people tell their stories releases dopamine and oxytocin, which are feel-good hormones that promote human connection and compassion. The story is good medicine.
Tuan’s Story
So I’d like to tell you a story. This is a story about Tuan Lam, and Tuan is a book coaching client of mine. He came to my course just last year thinking that he was going to write a book about interior design. But instead, during a simple writing exercise, Tuan reconnected with his 12-year-old self.
So Tuan is 12 years old, and every day on his way from his home in the public housing projects to his middle school, he passes by a store. And in that shop window is a pair of shoes. They’re maroon-colored penny loafers, and to the young Tuan, they sparkle with magic like Dorothy’s ruby slippers in “The Wizard of Oz.”
He saves every penny, literally, until he can go buy those penny loafers. And when he finally does, he puts them on with a carefully-constructed outfit, and he walks into school—it’s the proudest day of his life—only to be met with derision and ridicule. “You’re so weird,” the other kids say. You know how mean middle schoolers can be, right?
Tuan goes running home, and he throws those shoes in the trash. He never wears them again. And he carries that wound in his heart for the next 30 years, until he writes his story. And in writing his story, he reconnects with that 12-year-old self, and he finally heals that wound. And Tuan’s book isn’t about interior design anymore. It’s about the magic we all carry within us, and how we can share it with the world.
The Need for Healing
Wow, do we need that kind of healing energy in our world today? You just look at the statistics, and one in four American adults is suffering from depression or anxiety or some form of mental illness. 25 percent.
Not only that, but just one in ten of us, only 10 percent, feel optimistic about politics today. In fact, the most commonly used word to describe the state of our union is “divisive.” And things are not prettier on a global scale. I wish they were, but they’re not.
In just the last four years, can you believe it’s only been four years? We have had a global pandemic, the outbreak of two terrible wars, and numerous climate catastrophes. We really need the story cure.
The Story Curse
And at the same time, we have to be on the lookout for the story curse. Now during World War II, Adolf Hitler told stories about his enemies, where he compared them to vultures and rats. And in dehumanizing them, he got away with the murder of more than six million people.
Today, anybody with a computer and generative AI can create a video, and they can use voices and faces that we trust and recognize to tell stories that have no intent other than to sow division and hatred. We really have to be on the lookout for the story curse. And we have to choose to actively promote stories that are positive and uplifting.
The Redemption Project
You know who does a great job of this? It’s Van Jones. Van Jones is the founder of the Redemption Project, and he brought together people from opposite sides of the political spectrum. When they first came into the room together, they were looking at each other like, “Who are you?