Can the stories we tell ourselves make a better reality?

This is the first of a two-part miniseries (or maybe three-part, I haven’t decided yet) on the power of story in our work to create a better reality.

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If I were to ask you what the purpose of story is, I wonder what you would say.

We have all known the power of story in our lives at some point. Of a story that blew us away, or reminded us of something we hadn’t felt in years, or that temporarily broke us though we weren’t sure why.

Most of us were read stories as children too. Maybe you had a favourite go-to story you asked to hear again and again. Maybe you have one as an adult too, I know I do.

*What was your favourite childhood story?*

Sometimes we tell children stories in the hope of preparing them for the complexities and challenges of life, or as a means of bringing understanding when the facts alone can't help.

Stories enable us to speak of what might otherwise remain unspeakable, such as death, suffering, betrayal, and defeat. Where to look directly at such things might cause us to fragment or turn away, story partially conceals and in so doing can woo a deeper part of ourselves to remain open.

Which is why story might just be one of our most powerful tools in the fight against climate change.

Because if climate change confronts us with our deepest, darkest fears, perhaps story can help us to face our terrors, and even give us a roadmap for the journey ahead.

But with so many conflicting stories currently colliding with spectacular force across the globe, how are we to know which stories are the ones worthy of our participation?

The Story Vacuum

We are a remarkably story-less generation.

Since our early evolutionary history myths, legends, parables, and fables were fundamental to the collective human experience. Society was bonded, for better and for worse, by common understandings expressed in tales told from one generation to the next.

But with the evolution of Western culture and the discoveries of science, the religious narratives that glued much of society together fell away.

Story, in the main, has become reserved for the privacy of our homes and the intimacy of our hearts.

So if we want to win an argument a story might help us, but we have grown to understand that it is nothing without the facts and data to back it up.

Some might even have said that as humanity evolved we left behind the childish ways of storytelling, and stepped into a new age of enlightened rationalism.

That was until we found ourselves living in a story vacuum that, quite unexpectedly, has birthed an incredible display of human creativity. A kaleidoscope of new stories about what is unfolding in the world has emerged with a power few could have predicted.

And facts, we are learning, are of far less importance to us that we might like to believe.

Story Trumps Reason

If Trump gave us anything, he gave us absolute confirmation of just how powerful stories, even really bad ones, are.

In recent years progressives have been berated for simply handing history over to their opposition by trusting too much in the data, and failing to arrange those facts into a compelling narrative capable of building a movement.

Climate change, for example, first became front page news over thirty years ago. And yet here we are on the cusp of missing the biggest boat our species has ever attempted to board.

Politicians and their citizens were presented with hockey stick shaped graphs and increasingly terrifying predictions, and yet we continue on track towards a world that has every chance of becoming uninhabitable. The facts have failed to speak for themselves.

But a sea change is sweeping across the globe.

The story of a young girl who refused to go to school. Of a national treasure taking to Instagram. Images of walruses hurling themselves off a cliff edge and rescue koalas finding new homes.

These are the reports that have opened our hearts and captured our minds, and with it has come some hope for the climate crisis.

The Purpose of Story

This week I listened to a wonderful webinar by the Human Impacts Institute called Everyone Has a Story, So Does the Climate Crisis.

The webinar brought together experienced storytellers from theatre, literature, and journalism to explore how the stories we tell can serve us amidst a climate crisis.

Story can, for example, put us in someone else's shoes and is therefore a powerful means of sharing the experiences of those who are currently on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

These are the stories that need elevating and amplifying because they are the future of what unchecked climate change looks like for all of us. We do not need to wait to know what such a future would be like, we can know now. And that knowledge can move us to action.

Perhaps not coincidentally, these are also the cultures and communities who have often already experienced oppression in other forms and maintained a rich tradition of storytelling, partially as a means of survival, from which we can learn.

Story can also give expression to the complexities of our human experiences in a way that facts could never capture.

Stories can hold both the hope and severity of the current situation and allow for the various fragments of ourselves to respond differently to climate change, as we struggle to face something that for many of us defies comprehension.

And at its most powerful story can unlock our emotions about climate change, which is of paramount importance. As I wrote about in my post On… Feelings several weeks ago, we are evolutionarily hardwired to listen more to our emotions than our reason, and we cannot live on facts alone.

So if we are to generate the political and personal will needed to face this thing head-on, we will need to understand how to work with the difficult and immobalising emotions climate change elicits in us.

Which makes story a particularly powerful tool in the context of climate change; it is the language of the soul.

Storytelling and Community

Story is a powerful and wonderful thing, but not all stories are helpful to us. Some stories, in fact, can cause us a lot of damage.

There is a myth, for example, that it is possible to have infinite economic growth on a finite planet.

Listening to the majority of politicians and economists speaking about economics you would be forgiven for thinking that this is not a story at all, but instead a fact. (For more on this, see my post On… Money).

Trump told the story of a mighty country under attack from some of the most oppressed and marginalised in society and in so doing he brought greater vulnerability to that country through fragmentation and division.

And I am sure we have all had personal experiences of finding ourselves caught up in a drama where we were wrongly painted as the villain, or where we thought of ourselves as the hero, only to realise we were anything but.

Which is exactly why storytelling is a communal activity.

That is why we need everyone to have a seat at the table as we figure out what this new chapter of human existence is all about.

And it’s also why the stories our cultures have told for generations might serve us today; they have stood the test of time.

The Myth Gap

This is the view of Alex Evans, a senior climate policy advisor to Tony Blair, with over fifteen years climate policy experience, including participating in many of the most significant international climate negotiations.

Like the contributors to the Everyone Has a Story webinar, Evans argues that collective stories are essential for halting climate change, emphasising in particular how they facilitate collaboration. In his book, The Myth Gap, he writes;

'It's for each of us to find the myths of regeneration and restoration that resonate for us personally, and then for all of us to find the areas of agreement between them, and sew together a quilt of compatible myths'.

And Evans draws on some of the most familiar and ancient narratives known to Western culture, those of the Bible, to give us some very helpful pointers as to what these kinds of stories might look like, including;

A larger us- Embracing the strengths brought by our larger and more diverse communities.
A longer now- Maintaining a better perspective on the larger arc of history, something which has become increasingly difficult with short election cycles and even shorter financial reporting timeframes.
A better good life- Measuring our standards of living by our quality of life, not by our quantity of consumption.

For Evans, themes of redemption and restoration will also play particularly pivotal roles, because they can help us to transform one of the most immobilising emotions of them all; guilt.

Climate stories around personal guilt don't work because the truth is that most of us are already acutely aware of the responsibility we carry for climate change, and the many other injustices in the world.

What we need, according to Evans, is not more stories about how bad we are, but stories instead that show us how to make amends, to repair the damage done, and even to atone, and this is something I will be returning to in next week’s post.

Our Personal Stories

In last week’s post, On.. Mortality #2, I shared a little of my family’s history with grief.

My growing into adulthood was set against the backdrop of an unusually large number of bereavements, and through those experiences I gained a couple of stories about life.

The first was how important it is to make the most of every moment that unfolds. Every person, every opportunity, even every challenge. Life is precious and beautiful and fragile and resilient, all at the same time.

But the second was a story about scarcity. A knowing of just how much it is possible to lose, and the knowledge of what it looks like to have to let go of more than we can possibly bear.

Which is why I attribute these bereavements to my current work on climate change.

Sometimes, when there isn’t the space, time, or support to adequately unpack and integrate difficult experiences, we can find ourselves revisiting those experiences later in life, often unconsciously, seeking the answers or closure that eluded us at the time.

That can be why we might escape one unhealthy situation only to find ourselves reliving the same experiences in a brand new one. But those experiences can also set us on a path to find the kind of restoration, transformation, and redemption Evans speaks of.

So when I learned about climate change for the first time, something within me resonated deeply. It made sense to me on a level beyond intellectual understanding.

Something within me knew that here was an opportunity to return to parts of those experiences of loss that had remained unresolved, and maybe use them for good. Perhaps I could find some answers, maybe even resolution.

It wasn't a conscious decision, but one that became clear to me over time as I got deeper and deeper into the work.

As things got costly, as the reality of frontline climate advocacy bit, this was a story I found myself returning to, seeking strength and direction for the onward journey.

It gave me the resilience to keep going when the charity I led had only three months of funding left, when our work was falling on deaf ears and I knew we needed to change tack, or eventually when things really took off and I recognised that it was time to step down and begin something new.

Research and 'Mesearch’

Part of my decision to step down as Hope for the Future’s Director was because I needed time to reflect on my story so far and to make some adjustments to how I understand my relationship to the climate crisis.

I once heard someone say that ‘most research is mesearch’, and I think that’s very true.

I’ve begun this research into how to build emotional resiliency in the face of climate change because the sector I work in needs it. But I’m also doing it because I need it.

*Unanswered questions about life are passed from one generation to the next, as the story of humanity unfolds.*

Turning up to the climate crisis is tough work, and I’ve got the emotional scars to prove it.

But I want to keep going with this work because understanding climate change has become fundamental to understanding myself, where I have come from, and the questions I have about what it means to be alive.

And I am certain that it is the same for you too, if you look closely enough.

Because unanswered questions about life are something that is passed from one generation to the next.

A hardship or challenge will arise and the world of that time will rally to rise to meet it, often causing seismic shifts in the way humanity understands its place in the world and relationships with each other.

Society is permanently changed by the adaptation that occurs when our survival is threatened.

And then the next challenge will arise, calling us once again to grow and adapt, compelling us to develop new sets of tools, or discover lost ones.

So I will finish this week’s post by asking you, how do you understand your place in the story right now?

Because we need you, we need all of us.

An incredible drama is unfolding before our eyes, and there is still everything to play for.

**About Me** I’m Jo,
formerly the founder Director of national climate change charity, Hope for the Future. I am currently researching eco-anxiety and how we can build emotional resilience in our response to the climate emergency.

Welcome to Climate.Emergence- a place to emotionally process what on earth is happening to us and our planet.

On… Story #1