Steve Almond is an author, teacher and co-host of the podcast, Dear Sugars. One of my favourite things about the podcast, which is essentially an audio advice column, is how Steve uses the lens of literature to get to the heart of what the letter writer is asking. He’ll often begin by reading a passage from a book or talking about a character that faces the same problem.
In an episode entitled, The Hidden Worlds of Guilt and Shame, he opens talking about bad poetry. He says, “When you write a bad piece of writing – a bad poem or a bad essay or a bad story – there’s a story hiding behind that story that you weren’t ready to tell.” This rings true for me and what I’ve seen both in my own writing and in clients’ stories. The good story hiding behind the bad is the truth. The raw version. While the bad story is blanded out, the good story is specific and human and unglamorous.
When I work with people to tell their stories I’m always probing for the truth lurking in the background. Most of us don’t tell the good story at first. Whether it’s about why you started your business, how you met your other half, why you left your job, what happened that one time, or why you don’t drink – I’ve certainly done that.
Over the years I’ve told a variety of bad stories about why I don’t drink. The pragmatic, “I don’t like the taste of it.“ The nonchalant, “I’ve just never been interested in it.” The jokey, “I’m Irish so it’s in my blood already.” The Irish thing comes up a lot. People usually make some kind of comment along the lines of, “An Irish person who doesn’t drink? I don’t believe it!” And there is the truth lurking in the background.
There are alcohol problems in many Irish families and mine is no different. They say this stuff is hereditary and because I have a big extended family I’ve seen that this is true. It wasn’t talked about overtly when I was a child but I knew from a young age it would be a bad idea for me to drink. I don’t have the temperament for it.
Like so many of our stories the truth here carries with it some shame. Steve Almond says his writer’s instinct tells him, “The path to truth is gonna run through shame.” And he encourages us along that path because he says, “When we’re able to speak about the things that we’re guilty or shameful about… we feel unburdened and also welcomed into the human family.”
I think the reason we feel welcomed into the human family when we unveil our real stories is because in doing so we are inviting people to see us and to know us. When we tell an inauthentic story the opposite is true. In an effort to blend in we end up further away from people.
