It is important to tell your story. It is equally important not to get trapped in your story. It is not what happened to us that matters but how what happened hurt us.

When you feel small and invisible
or stretched-too-thin-and-all-used up,
when life feels too hard to live
and pain feels too much to bear,
when guilt and shame and
self-condemnation feel too heavy to carry,
go outside and stand barefoot
in the stardust-speckled dirt
with your face tilted up to the universe
and whisper to your wounded heart,
'This is not how my story ends.
There is so much more to life than this moment,
these hours, this day, this season of my life.
It's my story. I get to choose.
It doesn't end here;'
And then take your pen in hand
and write the rest of your gorgeous,
shredded, pasted-back-together story
however you choose to write it.
And remember, you're not alone.
We're all writing our own jacked up stories
our own way, too.
Welcome to our tribe of misfits and outcasts
and rebels and dreamers.
We are the story-weavers.
And we're all on this ride through the galaxy together.

Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There's magic in that. It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy. Do not forget that... there are many kinds of magic, after all.

If you want to be more effective when sharing yourself and your work, you need to become a better storyteller.

If you want to be more effective when sharing yourself and your work, you need to become a better storyteller. You need to know what a good story is and how to tell one.

Don't forget- no one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories that you have to tell

Never let them stop you from telling the story you want to tell.

Be true to yourself and to the culture you were born into. Tell your story as only you can.

To survive, you must tell stories.

I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and you laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.

Great stories happen to those who can tell them

If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending...
But if it's a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone.
You don't tell a story only to yourself. There's always someone else. Even when there is no one.

Everybody loves a good story, but good storytelling doesn't come easy to everybody. It's a skill that takes a lifetime to master. So study the great stories and then go find some of your own. Your stories will get better the more you tell them.

Tell them stories.