I said this morning, out loud, “I don’t know how to tell a story.” And part of me really believes that… and it evokes a tinge of insecurity.
Which is strange, because I have told so many — bedtime stories, spontaneous ones for my kids, little improv moments in conversation. Like the dinosaur that got a pebble stuck up its nose and needed urgent help from Dr. Adira. Snort!
But when I stop to ask, how did I do that? I honestly don’t know. I start with a seed. Something small. A moment. A feeling. And then… it just sort of happens?
What does it even mean to know how to do something?
Maybe that’s part of it — I haven’t really looked at the how. I haven’t mapped out a process or studied what I do. I don’t plan like other storytellers seem to. But I can tell you this — there’s a feeling in my body when a story is coming. It feels like curiosity. A little spark. It’s like… “I wonder what’s going to happen next.”
That’s what makes it a “story,” I think — that sense that something interesting could unfold. A revealing. A dance with the improvisational energies I’m connected with.
Improvisation… I don’t even know where that came from. No one ever taught me. But it’s something I keep doing. It feels like a kind of… willingness? To not know. To go anyway — to feel something in the moment: a pause, a tug, a shift… and follow that without really knowing why.
Sometimes I back away. Sometimes I lean in. It’s messy. But maybe that’s the point?
There’s something beautiful about the way imperfection lives in that space.
Imperfectionism lets things breathe. I’m not trying to do it “right.” There’s no script. No safety net. I’m just staying with the aliveness. And weirdly… that’s where the stories live for me.
Stories show us what matters. They show us to each other. Sometimes it’s something small — a feeling, a frustration, a celebration. Sometimes it’s just “how are you?” — but asked in a way that invites something real. Where we wonder together. Where we slow down enough to let something surprising rise.
My own stories these days feel full of contrast. Like life itself — tender in one breath, frustrating in the next. One minute I’m irked by the world. The next, I’m dancing on a treadmill, shoulder aching, still laughing.
Maybe that’s all a story ever needs — not knowing, plus willingness to be with the dream and the pain. A moment of expression, and someone to hear it. (Even if that is just… ourselves.)
And I wonder what would happen if more of us just… let it be okay not to know yet.
What stories might surface then?
Useful Concepts for Thriving in This Story
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Improvisation
Improvisation invites us to show up without a script — to follow the tug of the moment, even when we don’t know what’s next. -
Imperfectionism
Imperfectionism gives us permission to create from aliveness, not from polish — to trust the mess and let meaning emerge. -
Awareness
Awareness helps us feel into the story as it unfolds — not from above it, but from inside it, breath by breath. -
Student-Teacher
The student-teacher path lets us speak even before we’ve figured it all out — to learn by sharing what’s real right now. -
Contrast
Contrast reminds us that joy and ache can live side by side — and that the tension between them can be the seed of a story.
P.S. Pebbles do not belong up your nose. ~Dr. Adira