First Step

Let's get the basics of our Storytelling task; the what, when, and where. We've already explore the why and in the next module we'll explore the How.

Let's get clear on what we mean by Story and Storytelling.

What is Story?

Story is the way we humans organize life. Story is as natural as the air we breathe for us. When we see something, feel something or experience something we arrange it as a story with:

A plot
Characters
Conclusion

And then we archive it as a narrative, a belief, an interpretation, an expectation of what could happen if....X (plot) took place when Y(character) did something, then we can expect Z. This is the simplest description of it. As a shaman, though, I see the energy patterns created by our stories as Story Fields in our energy body. But that's beyond our work here.

So we file these stories and use it for reference when we meet new situations.

If you take a second look, this story with three basic points serves also as a question and answer or a problem and solution. This means that following our natural inclination for story we can answer questions, suggest solutions and even help shift people from one interpretation or perception of an event to a different perspective-- we can help change the narrative.

There is something profoundly magical about story.

“Stories are the only imagined structure that can lay down
actual memories, as if you had experienced the event directly
in real life. This gives story the alchemical power to rewrite reality.”

~Maria Mar~

What does this mean?

Most of us have been told a story about a movie from a friend. They described it vividly. Years later, someone asks us if we see the movie and we say "Yes!" and proceed to tell them about the movie we swear we saw-- until our friend, seating besides us, reminds us that we had not seen the movie, that she told us about it. And we are shocked to realize that the movie we remember seen so vividly is really a memory of a story someone told us.

That is the magical nature of story. In contrast with teaching, analysis or advice, stories generate living memories within us because this is the structure we use to archive experience and create memories.

That is the power of story.

What is Storytelling?

Storytelling is story sharing. We can share a story in a conversation. We can share it by writing it so others read it. We can share it by recording it so others hear it. We can videotape it so others watch us storytelling later on. We can interview people in ways that help them tell stories about the topic. We can usual visual art to share visual stories. Here's a visual story in a series I'm creating entitled "Defend Democracy Now."

Visual storytelling. My Comment Art graphics tell the story I hear with my eavesdropping.

By the way, if you are an artist or like to doodle or do caricatures, etc. you will like Level 2 when we gather all the comments we've heard and start expressing them in text or visuals in the form of graphics that we can post all over social media. Because we listened, we will be sharing the true narratives within the people and that will make our graphics helpful and powerful.

If you look at the visual story above, you get the drift right away. The woman is looking for someone to save her, but is not willing to do anything out of her comfort zone, and so she's thinking that someone else needs to do it. If everyone does the same, then we are not joining the pro-democracy movement and it can not grow. It brings home to each of us the responsibility for saving our democracy. (But it is also revealing that there is a movement and that it is this movement who will save us.)

Because story is the way our psyche weaves the world, then when we hear (or see) something as a story, then we immediately experience it as real-- even if it's not our experience. It becomes a memory. It is woven into our psyche as part of us.

There's good and bad consequences with this. We can lay the issues with MAGA to this same effect-- that allows people to assimiliate lies as their experience. But story, like so many things, including power, is as good or bad as our intentions and use of it.

But that's the amazing power of story. And that power is reciprocal.

Stories have a potent physical effect in our body.

When we share stories, our vagus nerve is activated,
leading to our nervous system relaxing and resetting.
It does not matter if the stories are good or bad, funny or sad.
By sharing stories, we connect, relax and feel supported.

In our context, we are going to work with this healing, transformative, bonding effect of stories.

Then we are going to apply it within our goals for the empowerment of our people and the work of saving democracy.

We will be doing this by focusing our stories withing certain parameters we will examine in this Basic Guidelines, so that we can really focus on whatever aspect of our strategy to save democracy we choose or needs to be addressed.

The most important principle here is this:

We are using story, words and communication to inspire, uplift, inform, empower and engage people and to help activate our people to join in the liberation of our democracy. Activation means that we help them own their power as citizen leaders and take action on behalf of democracy.

This is what we are NOT doing:

We are NOT convincing.
We are NOT shaming.
We are NOT blaming.
We are not fighting, arguing, opinionating or trying to be right.

Why? What is our goal with our Storytelling?

Our goal in storytelling at the first level is to inspire, uplift, inform, empower and engage
those who can most easily be moved to join the pro-democracy movement,
shifting the narratives that keep them from actively opposing this regime,
so that we grow from 5 million to 11 million citizen leaders.

Our goal is to activate people into saving our democracy.

To do this most people need to join the pro-democracy movement because we already explored that this movement is the solution and it needs to grow now.

So at Level 1, we will go where this people are online. There's lots of them trying to figure out what is going on, seeking alternative information, listening to alternative/progressive news shows and scrolling through social media.

Some of them are simply trying to figure out what to do. Others are avoiding action by doom-scrolling and talking. Others are focused on finding who will save them because they do not realize that they are the saviors.

And that's right there-- that's what we need to change with our stories.

Who are these stories for?

Let's drill into that goal to find out who are these stories for:

Our goal in storytelling at the first level is to inspire, uplift, inform, empower and engage...

Who needs this and for what?

Who are those most easily moved to join the pro-democracy movement. Here's my answer:

Those who are right now in a state of passive support to democracy.
We want to help them shift to active support of democracy.

The reason for this is simple. Those people who are looking for answers, wondering what is really going on, maybe feeling frustrated but clear that they want democracy, but are not doing anything about it-- these are the people that are most likely to join the movement if they shift.

They are more likely to move out of passivity and start practicing noncompliance.
They are most likely to look for what they can do with their situation, skill-set and resources, to help save our democracy.
They are at our one degree over in the audience. The poster below is available for downloading right below this text.

We are working towards shifting engagement one degree over

Obviously, if someone is in support of this regime, then they are probably white supremacist, ultra conservative or identified with its values. This is not absolutely true, but even for those who are not white supremacist, moving from active support or passive support to engagement is a big leap that requires specialized effort. Not for us, at least not at Level 1.

Even someone who is neutral is still more removed and requires more work in order to get them to join the movement.

But if you are pro-democracy, if you are not a white supremacist and if you are against the policies coming out of this regime, then the obstacles that are keeping you from being engaged are ones that we can help you consider and shift.

And also, at a strategic level, there is no neutral stance at this moment in facing this democratic backslide. If we are passive in our support for democracy; then we are supporting the coup by not resisting or practicing noncompliance.

And that needs to shift hugely and urgently because we need to build a Wall of Noncompliance to stop the coup. This means numerous institutions and individuals, leaders and citizens practicing noncompliance, NOT following the Destroyer's "executive disorders", not bending the knee, not disregarding DEI, not settling, etc.

So that's our first specific goal as we go out there to meet online conversations.

Who are these stories for?

What?

What will we be doing with stories in our First Step as Storytellers for Indivisible?

We will do Storyteller Rounds using Comment-stories in the online conversations inside the comment threads for alternative/progressive news shows YouTube Channels.

Comment-stories are conversational.

Start them with a connecting statement. It may be that you agree. Or you relate. Or perhaps what the person said made you laugh or was surprising. Then respond to the questions, doubts, emotions and ideas of the commenter, providing the inspiration, uplifting, information, empowerment or resource for engagement needed. If you sense that the person needs some pick-me-up energy, end with an energizing inspiring statement.

These Comment-Stories may be offering an uplifting information about what the movement is doing or the impact of protests or how the strategies of the resistance are making this regime's moves backfire-- as a response to someone who thinks that nothing is happening.
They may be sharing some insight for someone who believes peaceful protest have no power to change our situation.
Or they may be a story that shares how someone was feeling helpless and then went to a march and felt uplifted... you get the drift.

Look at the Story Scripts in the next module for specific scripts for these Comment-Stories.

Where/When

At the first level, these conversations will take place in YouTube under the comment threads for alternative, progressive news show.

Go to YouTube and spend about 20 minutes the most in one comment thread, no more than 2 hrs in a session and no more than 4 hrs in a week. Pace yourself. This is not a sprint. It is a marathon.
If you connect with 10 people in a comment thread and this helps 2 of them shift their narratives and if you this perhaps 2-3 times in a session and do two sessions per week, then you are touching 60 people and helping 12 people shift their narratives every week. That is enough.
You may want to look for keywords dealing with the topics in the questions we will address in this level + the name of the show.
When you do your Storyteller Rounds depends on you. The comments are there. They don't go anywhere. Do this at your best time. I like to do them at night, after work. It's up to you.

How?

Actions

A. Your Storyteller Round

I recommend that you watch the news episode so that you understand where the host is as a starting point and the context of the conversation. You may direct a comment to the host. For example, the suggestion to focus on the grassroots movement instead of the usual old leaders. In this case, you can give them some information and mention the grassroots organizations and leaders.
Scroll down the comment thread and get the pulse. Is this a community of people who believe in democracy and are against the regime? Or is this a MAGA crowd? We want to address the former, but not the later. I'll drill down into this later. You can also check the level of trust and engagement. Are they activated and doing something to save democracy? Or are there many commenters who oppose the regime, but are not active in the opposition? These last ones are our focus in Level 1 right now.
Once you go through the basic training and study the Story Scenarios, trust your intuition of when someone is clearly a person who "believes in democracy, but..." then address that "but" in as conversational, helpful and story-oriented way as you can. Select a person and go do your Comment-story. Do anywhere from 7 to 10 comments per thread. If you will do just one thread per session, it could be more.

Those are the three basic steps and you can download this poster below.

B. Your Storyteller Report

Once you do your Storyteller Round, then do this before you close that session:

At the end of the session, write down a journal entry. (I recommend a journal. Mine is called "Saving Democracy" and I put everything that is happening these days there that has to do with my tasks). It is amazing what we learn when we go back and read this journal.
Do your Storyteller Report. Come back here and leave me a feedback. Use the "HOMEPLAY" section, which goes privately only to me. This will help me to address any challenges or improve the training here and to do a general report to Indivisible about the "pulse of the people." You will find some guideline questions on the modules below.
You can also leave a part of your report or impressions in the comment thread so that others can reflect on some of the things you perceived. This is going to help other people who may be going through the same thing and have similar questions or wonder about a type of comment, etc.

This is the process of co-creation that we follow to help change the narratives while getting a pulse of the people. Then we are comparing it so that we get confirmations and consensus on what is going on. And at the same time we share reflections to increase our understanding as Storytellers.

Use the Story Scripts you will find later on until you get a sense of how it works, study the rest of the materials and get some Indivisible training if you have not gotten it yet. After that, you will be equipped to use the resources here and fly alone.

Dos and Dont's with our Storyteller Job

We are NOT convincing. We are NOT shaming. We are NOT blaming. We are NOT arguing or trying to win. The moment we do this, our stories cease to be healing and liberating and become manipulative. So we avoid this.

We are also NOT going to address anyone who is already consciously positioned in a place that is in opposition to democracy. If we honor democracy, then we need to honor those who think differently. That's one reason why. But another reason is simply that when you try to convince people who area already convince of something else, then you will alienate them, not inspire them.

In other words, we will not be engaging with MAGA people at any time. Can you see why using the information here so far?

We will also not engage with anyone who is bullying, destructive, shaming others, insulting or lashing out. Trolls are not interested in conversation. They are out for destruction.

And that is going to make our work much easier, graceful and relaxing. It's hard. But it should not stress us out. We should feel uplifted at the end of the session.

Resources:

You will find a list of my favorites YT news shows below so you can visit them.
There is a poster with the simple 3 steps for you to practice basic commenting storytelling that you can download.
There is another poster with the Shifting Engagement visual.

No contents are available in this lesson/Step!

No lessons/Steps available !

Lesson/Step contents locked