Who doesn’t love a good story? We read, watch, tell, sometimes even write them down. Our tale-telling spans from the personal experience to the farthest fetched imaginings. I have yet to find someone who has no interest in stories of any kind. But for some reason, it was not until recently that I came to appreciate the need we all have to share our stories.
It was a sunny Tuesday morning in late September, I was 41 weeks pregnant and noticed clear liquid dripping from my body….my water had broken. 
There was something else though. A dark stain let me know that meconium was in my water, a sign that my baby might not be okay. I texted my husband, who was in a meeting (with his remote job) just downstairs, that I thought my water had broken. He was ecstatic. I was in shock.
My preparation and hopes for a fully natural, peaceful, hypno-waterbirth did NOT come to fruition. As most women will tell you, labor is no picnic…hahaha….. to say the least. Due to the signs of fetal distress, I was constantly monitored, induced with medication, and unable to move nearly as freely as I had hoped. 
All that being said, after feeling like a ravenous beast was devouring my internal organs for 9 hours, the midwife checked and found I was only 2-3 centimeters dilated (i.e. this state could have potentially continued for days). Immediately and shamelessly I requested an epidural and 8 hours later had the most beautiful, peaceful birthing experience I could have imagined.
For a couple of weeks after my daughter’s birth, I felt an overwhelming sense that I needed to share the experience in great detail with people. It mattered. Not to everyone I talked with, but it mattered to me and with each telling, I seemed able to process my experience a little more fully and feel more settled and comfortably distant from it.
About six weeks after becoming a mother, I finally got to visit a friend who had given birth just a day after I had, and in the same hospital no less! I had been so eager to hear her birth story, and originally really wanting to share mine as well. By the time we finally got together, the details of my own experience seemed far less significant. My friend, however, was still in a place in which she grew lively recalling her own birthing time. 
It was in this moment that I fully realized how important it is that we give people the space to share their stories, and truly listen with care and curiosity.
I was reminded of experiences with my beloved Grandma Laurie and “Bumpa”, my step-grandfather. They were both storytellers: my grandma loved to share family history. She was an avid genealogist who travelled the world to meet distant relatives she discovered. I’m talking across oceans to meet 3rd cousins twice removed. The woman was one of a kind! Bumpa, on the other hand, shared stories of his dust bowl era upbringing on a farm in Kansas. Their stories were so different, but the common factor was their love to recount these tales.
Whether you are a lover of sci-fi films, news junkie, or any other type of story-telling, I hope the next time you have a story on your mind, you will share it. And when you sit by a stranger on a bus or come home to your family after an exhausting day, I wonder if you will make space to truly listen to those who are ready to share.
We all have a story to tell.
interactions with people led me to think about who my true friends are and what I really value in them. These experiences lit up a hyper-awareness and time of reflection as I’ve engaged with friends since then and tried to remember the image of a finger pointing out mean three are pointing back at me. So it seems reasonable that any standard held for others must be one I uphold for myself. Here is a chance to consider some of the traits you may seek in friends…
To be honest, this was the first trait that struck me as vital to being a true friend in my book. Someone who listens without an agenda to teach me something or prove a point. A listener who is open enough to consider where I’m coming from out of genuine care. Thank you Kritika for showing me this.
Do you prefer the friend who tells you there is something in your teeth at a dinner party or the comrade who tells you look exquisite no matter what? In the honest framework, there is also tactful and then there is knit-picky or unable to let things go. Some of us are gifted with more gentle ways of giving feedback than others. Like humor, this can be a skill to learn, while for others it may come more naturally.
claim to do this to become more of the person we want to be, hence the countless jokes and unused, but newly acquired gym memberships (you may want to check out 
Tony Robbins says that “goals are like magnets. They’ll attract that which makes them come true.” I think that for big dreams you really desire, this is true. Sure, plenty of resolutions get easily dropped. When you start really forming a plan, make some investment and talk about (the research actually says regularly report on) your goal, my experience and that of many people is that dreams come to fruition- and the supporters we need arrive to help us on the way.
I can absolutely attest to this being my experience. After a flow of encouragement and what looked to be an easy transition, I’m currently enjoying the resistance and challenging muck * of setting off on a new career. Most of these elements are my own mental barriers (fear, procrastination, feeling overwhelmed with all the learning and to-do’s). Don’t we all do this? Hence why a little mindfulness and meditation (a.k.a being aware of my thoughts and moving to the next stage of accepting, dismissing or countering them with a new idea) are key.
It Just Dawned On Me...Again 