The Heart of the Story

As you may have been reading my series of Blog Posts about Story, you will notice that there are several parts of Story that deserve attention, including the Characters, Setting, What Happened ( The Event) and now I will address the Feelings of the Characters in the story, The Heart.

Research shows that learning is motivated by emotions. This is a fundamental piece of information that seems to have been lost in our teaching, and is moving to the forefront. Logically, we like to learn about things that create emotions in us.

Some people are inspired by positive emotions and some from negative emotional experiences. Those choices are influenced by our childhood experiences. If we have grown up in a home where there is a lot of drama, we might be most comfortable listening to story that involved negative trauma, including, violence, yelling, cheating. When I think back to the stories that influenced me in my adolescence they were “soap operas”. Is anyone else familiar with “The Guiding Light” ? These stories were shown on television each day and were very similar to the lives of many during that time period. Our brain is easily adaptive to all the ways we experience life; visually, auditorily and kinesthetically.

So, as your story unfolds, think about the type of Story (fiction, non fiction, movies, podcasts) that you are attracted to and “enjoy”. I know people who enjoy “scary” movies. What emotions are evoked and what is “enjoyable” about them?

So the key element of the story here is the emotion! Mary Ellen Moreau of Mind Wing Concepts symbolizes this with a heart! I love that. It gets right to my heart!

When I started using this tool to teach children and teachers about the power of Story, this was the part where I would see children’s eye’s light up. They always remembered the symbol of the Heart. They never forgot to talk about the characters feelings. The Heart is where we experience connection, to ourselves and to others. When we retell an experience we have had to ourselves, we can give attention to the emotions we felt and how we feel in the present moment. Our emotions change. The power of sharing story is that we can experience our emotions and witness the emotions of others, which can be very healing.

Each time we think about a story we have heard, read or told, we can reflect on the emotional experience we had. The reason that story was memorable was because it had a strong emotion attached. When we reflect on that we can see that in that moment we are having a different emotion and in fact telling the story from a different perspective.

For example, when my dog and cat died on the same day several years ago, I was very sad. They both were very important loving characters in my life story. In reflecting on this story I just pulled up an email that I had sent to a friend explaining to them what happened. This triggered more emotion, but different emotion. This is grief. It comes and flows throughout our lives. It is influenced by our past and current experiences.

Joy is also an emotion that we can experience, it may be hard to explain, and it does happen. The birth of a baby, the rescue of an animal, the healing of serious illness. Those are stories that elicit a feeling of Joy!

For each story there is an emotion, a heart felt experience. Don’t forget to have it! It will keep you connected to yourself and those that you share your story with. Thank you for sharing your story!