We all love a story in some form or other. Maybe we love to catch up on the latest gossip over a coffee or a glass of wine, maybe we love to snuggle down with a good book or indulge ourselves in the roller coaster of a box set – it is all story telling. But have you considered that the whole of every moment is about stories? You wake up and switch the radio or TV on. You listen to the news – stories of our world and beyond, you listen to the weather – a futuristic story that is part of yours, you listen to other peoples’ thoughts and discussions – you peek in on their story. Each step of the day you are writing your own story and you play a character in other peoples’ stories. Sometimes you can determine the role you want to play, sometimes you are assigned a character whether you like it, accept it, or not. But the stories roll out as the worlds rolls on.

What about the kids – the ones we work with and our own? Who writes their stories? Well to begin with their stories are very much written for them by the adults in their lives. And not all of those stories are happy ones – many are tragedies. But there comes a point when they are able to pick up the pen of self determination and start to write for themselves. As parents we can often struggle with this – surely we could write it better than them? But we need to let go and move from author to a key character. We need to step back and watch as they design their own plots and tread their own paths – there will be comedy, there will be tragedy but it will be their story.

And the kids we seek to help? The ones who have been assigned a part in a tragedy from birth? We need to help them to start to write their own stories. To turn their tragedies to triumphs, to recognise that they can determine the part they play and the character they choose to be. Yes, they cannot unwrite the start of the tale, or the impact that has had on who they are, but they can choose how it unfolds, they can choose who plays the most significant roles and they may even be able to determine how it ends. Let us enable them to become the authors of their own destiny rather than the victims of their past.

(painting by Jan Fordyce)

Metaphors often help us understand the difficult to grasp concepts in life. Here is one of mine to help us to understand what often feel like the inexplicable behaviours we can see from the hurting children/people we work or live with:

The pebble or stone is the damaged child or person. When the stone hits the water it does not ripple, splash or change. It appears unaffected. But the water it lands into is disturbed – it rises into the air then falls with its own splashes, the waves cascade outwards unsettling the stillness and balance of anything in the way, the ripples reach far and wide until eventually they dissipate. A damaged human being can become hard like the stone. They have learnt to switch off their feelings, to close themselves up to protect themselves. But they still have those feelings, they still need to express them and experience them. So we feeling people – we are the water, and as the stone falls we are impacted – we rise into the air then falls with our own splashes, our waves cascade outwards unsettling the stillness and balance, our ripples reach far and wide until eventually they dissipate. So we feel for them, we express the emotions for them. And the stone? They hear the splash, they see the waves and ripples and they witness their feelings without having to be moved themselves.  But as the stone witnesses its impact it knows it exists, even if it no longer feels, and the bigger the impact the stronger the evidence of existence.

So maybe that pain, that confusion, that anger, that anxiety are not yours? Maybe you are doing the feeling for someone else who is too afraid to feel. And maybe, just maybe, as they witness your ability to feel and not be destroyed, the stone may allow itself to feel again.

But take care and look after yourselves as being the water is challenging work.