Stories from a messy place🩵

On micro-storytelling, reclaiming stories & sharing things anyway

“I was meant to be a breaker of some stories and a maker of others…even a vessel for the most precious cargo you can carry, the stories waiting to be told, and the stories that set us free.”

- Rebecca Solnit, Recollections of My Non-Existence

Hi Friend,

1. Of course, I had another post planned today. 😘I started writing it last week, realised I’d planned to post it on the Thursday before the Easter break and that perhaps, this served nobody. Then somehow, as I came back to it, it felt like the story had moved on. At least for now. Isn’t that what stories do?

2. Coming to write this, I didn’t feel I had a bright shiny package to offer you. I felt like I didn’t really have anything to say. But I knew I didn’t want to not show up. To fall back into the familiar trap of silencing myself before I even start.

3. So much of my life feels tangled up in a messy middle right now. I’m working on a new offer for corporate clients, waiting for feedback on a creative project, trying to support my 18-year-old in the thick of A-levels. Like there’s a handful of stories orbiting around me, that I can’t quite pin down.

4. My algorithm is flooded with ads for storytelling masterclasses. Promises to create your 6-figure story and high-ticket offers and blah blah. Like we have one perfectly formed story we need to use in our PR or marketing. Of course, I believe in clarity and untangling your stories. I also believe in story structure. I don’t believe this has to be perfect before we share them.

5. In my poetry, I keep finding the way that women’s stories have been silenced throughout history – from the bible through to Substack. You know I love my Greek myths so forgive me if I start with Cassandra, the prophetess, who could see the future – including the destruction of Troy - but nobody listened to. The New Yorker just did this great piece on how Mary Magdalene was written out of the bible. The darkness shone on women’s stories is too huge a topic to grapple with here. It’s a degree subject. That shapes women’s experience every day. As Elissa Altman wrote, “How many stories are not being told, by women, by people who grew up in cultures that limit storytelling?” I think of my grandmother. I think of women everywhere. Especially now.

6. How do we reclaim all these stories? It’s a whole newsletter in its own right but I love the “Greek Girl Myth”* renaissance for this reason. Work like Nikita Gill’s and my wonderful Primers colleague and friend, Laura Varnam, unlocking one silenced woman’s voice at a time.

7. Many storytelling courses still use Joseph Campbell’s hero's journey template: hero goes on adventure, hero triumphs over decisive event, hero returns transformed. The end. It’s also called a “monomyth” which, by definition, means one single story. I was not expecting to bring the patriarchy into this essay today but how many women’s lives fit into a singular story arc? (I’m not gender essentialist, and I don’t think men’s do either). How many versions of you – mum/ daughter/ sister/ partner/ friend/ boss/ business owner/ colleague/ cat feeder/ WhatsApp present organiser have you been by 9am most days?

8. Sometimes you’re coming to your story from the beginning, sometimes 2/7ths of the way through. Sometimes from the messy middle. Or the bit just after that. Not every story is neatly tied up in a bow either. Sometimes it just ends. And a new one starts.

9. We are all so rich in stories. Why would we tie ourselves to just one? The How I started by business/ burnout/ changed my money mindset – all so valid, but we’re more than each of those. Our stories live alongside each other and spring from each other. Stories run through us like rivers, a current to our life force, moving us forward into the mouth of the ocean. Then they start again at the water source. Gathering more as they go.

10. How can your stories expand you? Each of us has a multitude of touchpoints, of resonance and relatability and inspiration. That connect to forgotten parts of us and new selves. That reach the different layers of who we’re speaking to. In the stretch bit of my barre class at the weekend, Marnie Alton, spoke of how the Joni Mitchell records she listened to as a teen in Canada, with their stories about California and life and love, shaped her decision to move to LA. How this became the tapestry of who she is. I was immediately transported back to my own teenage self, 17 and quietly reading Syliva Plath for the first time, dreaming of leaving and cities and freedom. A stitch in my own tapestry.

11. Stories that have helped me lately: One from Steph Caswell talking about inconsistent income when you run your own business. This brave and honest piece from Nat Lue. Maya C. Popa on how deep the origins of achievement run. I’m so grateful each of these incredible storytellers didn’t talk themselves out of not sharing their story.

12. Perhaps it’s ok for me to do the same. Perhaps we need these stories even more.The ones from hard places. Lonely places. Stuck places. Even this messy place. Perhaps it’s even a responsibility.

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Where are you in your story right now? What’s the one you’re not quite ready to tell? Will you share it anyway?

As always, I’m so, so grateful for every ❤️, comment and reply.

See you on the Stack or right back in your inbox.

With love,
Antonia xo

*Myths of other origins are available

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