Begin by journaling and answering these questions:
- What are the words you do not have yet? [Or, “for what do you not have words, yet?”]
- What do you need to say? [List as many things as necessary]
- “What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?” [List as many as necessary today. Then write a new list tomorrow. And the day after.]
- If we have been “socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition,” ask yourself: “What’s the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?” [So, answer this today. And every day.]
Adapted from “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” collected in The Cancer Journals.
Afterward:
- Pair and share questionnaire; what did you write down and why?
- Doing this is being honest with ourselves and where we are at; looking at what we are facing right now; sharing these problems with someone else to maybe lessen the burden a little bit
- Invitations
- What is hard about sharing our personal experiences with people? What is something easy?
- What is a time you shared something and really felt like you were seen?
- How can you continue/work on being honest with yourself and others?
- Recognizing the human dignity in others and the power of storytelling; we become closer to others and understand people more
Check-out: Share something you need to do and something you want to do this weekend