Living Stories: a storyteller’s exploration of the living world
How do we tap the power of stories?
My name is Megan Lindow. I’m a writer, oral storyteller and creative story practitioner based in Cape Town, South Africa. I’ve worked with stories all my life, and draw from a background of more than 20 years in journalism essentially listening to peoples’ stories for a living.
My work explores from many angles the art, science and power of stories. I am fascinated by how stories can serve as touchstones in our lives to help us learn, connect, create and thrive in a complex world. Working with myths, legends and folktales, and with artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, innovators and other creative and interesting people across the world — I help people tap the power of stories in order to cultivate richer, fuller lives of meaning, connection, creativity and beauty. (Find out more about working with me!)
I’m endlessly inspired by how we humans can tap the power of stories to develop greater compassion, awareness and sensitivity in our self-understanding and in our relationships with one another and across the living world. That is because we humans, the ‘storytelling animals,’ naturally use story to navigate the world, and find our place in it. We create and invent with our stories, and weave the world into being through them. Now more than ever, I believe we need to weave new stories that are more nourishing and regenerative, that honour and celebrate the web of life that encompasses us!
Through this blog, I explore a myriad of ways of working with and telling stories more skillfully and intentionally, to discover ourselves and the world anew. I write on such diverse themes as story performance, oral storytelling, stories and community, mythology and folklore, the art and science of story, ecological storytelling, indigenous wisdom, stories for healing, storytelling to explore the future. I write about the imagination and the senses, the body and the mind, the voice and the gesture, the individual and the collective, philosophy and psychology, the human and more-than-human - anything you can think of as it relates to the idea of Living Stories!
Work with me
Perhaps you'd like to take a closer look at some of your own life stories? For fun? For creativity and insight? To become more skilled in sharing your own meaningful stories with others? To gain a deeper understanding of certain experiences for yourself? Or perhaps there is a particular goal or project you are working on, such as an important presentation or a new business idea, in which your personal story is important?
There are so many reasons to work with your life stories. As Ben Okri said: 'Only those who have lived, suffered, thought deeply, loved profoundly, known joy and the tragic penumbra of things tell truly wonderful stories.'
Wonderful stories open the door to a rich, adventurous and full-coloured life. Looking deeper, and looking again (and again) at your life stories, you'll find your own lived experience offers rich and unexpected sources of insight and nourishment! Working consciously with your stories, you gain powerful tools to help reach deeper levels of creativity, connection, vibrancy, resilience and insight in your work and life.
What I'm offering is a short, playful, creative and powerful process to get you started (or help you further along the path of) tapping the power of stories to bring new ideas, new energy and greater thriving to your work and life.
This introductory offering, to be completed over three 50-minute conversations, offers you a personalised deep dive into the generative and juicy world of story-making and story-telling. There is a flexible and playful format that will be fitted to your unique intentions and goals.
The sessions can be done over a tightly focused 5-day week, or at a more leisurely pace, depending on your own needs and schedule. I offer you the first session free of charge, with no obligation to continue, so that you can experience the work and feel sure it's a good fit for you.
Let's do it! Here is how we'll work together:
First, you'll answer a short questionnaire to tell me a little about yourself and the purpose or intent that brings you here (It's FINE if these are not quite clear). This will help get us off to a generative start.
We will begin with a 50-minute conversation (online or in person if in Cape Town) to begin working with the themes and stories you are wanting to develop, and introduce key concepts. This is an iterative process of deep listening, generative questions and exploring what arises in rich conversation to feed further ideation and understanding.
Following our initial conversation, I will reflect back to you with ideas, questions and food for thought to help you go deeper into your stories and draw clearer insights. I will guide you through exercises to complete in your own time, and I’ll also record a short story (a myth, folktale or personal story) just for you that I think will speak to your unique situation and help you further develop your story work process.
Our next conversation (50 minutes, online or in person) will take us deeper into the heart of the stories you are working with. Together, continuing the iterative processes of listening, ideation, questioning and conversation, we will continue to explore the important themes, ideas, connections and insights that emerge — and how these relate to your specific intentions and goals.
Once again I will feed back to you with further reflections, ideas, questions and exercises to not only help you work towards realising your particular goals and intentions, but also to help you cultivate a wider story sensibility to enrich your life more broadly.
We will close the process with a 50-minute conversation (online or in person) to practice, reflect, harvest and to chart a way forward, as desired.
Upon completion of the three sessions, you will have developed new thinking and insights, and worked with key themes and stories, to support your chosen goals and intentions. You will have practiced new skills and gathered ideas and resources to tap more intentionally the power of stories in your work and life. You will have story recordings, written exercises and prompts that you can continue to work with and draw inspiration from, and you will enjoy flexible options for continuing to work with me as desired.
The people I have piloted this process with so far - they include an entrepreneur, a life coach and an ex-lawyer seeking to balance creativity and intellectual stimulation - tell me the process has helped them explore hidden connections and navigate work and life with greater clarity, zest and insight.
In their words, the process was 'fun and enlightening', 'energising and supportive' and provided ‘beautiful questions’ and 'masterful listening to and feeding back of my story.' Exploring the rich themes and threads of their stories in a playful and supportive collaboration with me, these first pilot clients found greater creativity and natural ease in their storytelling. Anchored in their stories, they found themselves energised and inspired to share their stories with others and move forward with their dreams and goals.
The first session is offered free of charge, with no obligation to continue. Afterwards, you can choose to continue the full process, with substantial introductory discounts offered through the end of September.
Please contact me directly to find out more or try it out!
email: megan.lindow@gmail.com
