“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” This quote from Philo of Alexandria (not a household name, but apparently a smart guy) landed in my email inbox two days ago while I was in Minneapolis telling a story with The Moth. I thought of the quote when I was in the airport and the distracted Delta ticket agent was rude to me. Instead of barking back, I tried my best to smile. Who knows what was going on in her world? I thought of it again on my flight home when the lovely woman seated next to me revealed she had just placed her 48-year-old brother in a nursing home after his third debilitating stroke; she was desperate to bring him home to New Hampshire. And I thought of it Tuesday morning when I found my husband, once again, battling his OCD. [Read more…] about Our Battle with OCD
storytelling
Remembering Who We Are
Several years ago, a dear friend of mine held an intimate dinner for her 50th birthday party. She didn’t invite me. The exclusion hurt a great deal. We’d spoken daily for the past two if not three years, we’d guided each other through major personal crises, and enjoyed a cup of tea or a meal together at least once a week. We were close friends, I thought; it never occurred to me I wouldn’t be included. When I asked her why, she bumbled through several excuses and then finally said, “Well, you know. You have that big personality.”
The Importance of Being Vulnerable
In a recent video on storytelling seen on Carson Daly’s Last Call, The Moth founder George Dawes Green states great storytelling depends on vulnerability. I wanted to really understand that word, so I revisited several definitions including this one from The Oxford Dictionary: susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm. Sounds like a pretty scary place to be. [Read more…] about The Importance of Being Vulnerable