Learn about how to tell a compelling story, share your story, and listen to other people’s stories about climate change and sustainability.

Our next storytelling workshop takes place on Sunday, October 2nd on Zoom. The workshop is free and everyone is welcomed. In this workshop, you’ll learn more about how to tell a compelling personal story. After a short (15 min) presentation, we invite participants to share stories about sustainability, but you can also join just to listen in.

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The power of storytelling

When you listen to a story unfold, your brain waves actually start to synchronize with the brain waves of the storyteller. Humans connect through stories. In a society absorbed in individualism, we need that connection more than ever. Stories help us build empathy, community and resilience, increasing our capacity to deal with the major sustainability challenges of our time, such as climate change, pollution, and nature loss.

When you tell a story, your left and right brain must work together. The right side of the brain contributes raw emotions and experiences. The left side structures these events using words and logic. Storytelling helps us see the big picture. This is especially important when we are faced with complex issues like climate change.

Simply naming a feeling calms down the emotional activity in your right brain. When experiencing strong emotions, we need to activate our left brain to understand how we feel, and in order to move towards a place where we feel better. This way, storytelling can help us deal with climate anxiety and find hope in times of crisis.

Creating a safe space for open sharing

Climate Creativity has organized storytelling workshops for children and youth at universities, in schools, and at the UN Climate Conference for Youth (COY) in Glasgow. We also host open storytelling workshops for our community of artists and storytellers.

In our storytelling workshops we create a safe space where deep listening can take place. To encourage open sharing, we have developed a set of guidelines for the participants:

• Listen actively to the people sharing their stories (put away computers, smartphones, and other distractions);
• Try to let go of the need to analyze and respond to what the storyteller is sharing and rather listen deeply and without judgment;
• Practice gratitude by thanking the group for listening when you are done sharing your story;
• Practice collective responsibility by giving the word to the next storyteller when you are finished sharing your story.

We believe that everyone has a story to share, and we would love to listen to yours!