What is Storyteller Authenticity?

Before you relate too much to the bird in the picture - consider the times that you have actually been the wolf.

As important as it is for us to hear stories of overcoming being attacked, we also need to start getting honest with ourselves and each other about the times we are the ones doing the attacking and not seeing that we are only destroying ourselves.

A storyteller's authenticity cannot be faked. It It can only be buried underneath a desire to only tell the good, positive side without sharing the pain, the shame, the guilt that we must equally understand - more so now than ever before.

My definition of Storyteller Authenticty is about changing the language of hatred, of blame, and of separation into that of understanding, responsibility, and oneness. It is not about changing or obscuring the events that happened - it is about changing the way we relate to these events and what kinds of decisions we make about them. But in order to get to this point of informed decision we have to start being honest with ourselves and stop telling half-truth stories that only highlight our glories and victories without ever mentioning our very real and oftentimes very painful moments of shame, of guilt, of hatred, of powerlessness.

Storyteller Authenticity requires that we first and foremost get straight with the most important story that we will ever tell. It is the story of our own lives and what anger, what hatred, what pain we still carry and want to blame others for because we have not yet arrived at a point of healing, of understanding, and of responsibility for our experience. It does not make sense to abuse others in order to exact justice or revenge for abuses we experience. It does not make sense for a storyteller to try to heal the world through tranformative story when the storyteller is still actively in conflict with themselves and the depths to which they must be willing to go in order to be truly authentic.

So - in order to really appreciate the "story" of this picture, you have to be willing to recount the times that you have been the wolf equally as much as you have been the bird. Otherwise your lesson on overcoming attacks is one sided and hollow because it only shows us how to hate the wolves for what they do, and not how to prevent ourselves from becoming the very wolves we love to blame.