By Chip Richards

The destiny of the world is determined less by the battles that are lost and won than by the stories it loves and believes in. —Harold Goddard

I’ve been passionate about story for as long as I can remember. I used to love to watch my grandfather, Pops, leap from his chair in his wiry frame as he spun feverish yarns about vampire bats landing in his hair as a kid and riding elevators with Al Capone in the 1920s. Pops had stories about everything from ghosts to boxing and how to make pasta, and each tale had a way of transporting my brothers and I right into those places. We were those creatures, riding those elevators with those gangsters too – and while we all at some level questioned the truth of Pops’ stories, we didn’t care. It was in those moments perhaps that I began to realise that the truth is often found not in the moment itself, but in what we see and experience within it. It is our perspective that gives meaning to our experience, and, with that meaning, we discover the seed of story.

In our modern information age, we have been packed to the brim with new concepts and ideas. They seem to be tunnelling in from every direction and dimension… Books, TV, film and the web now find us in our homes, in our cars and on the touch screens of our iPhones. We are literally swimming in a giant spaghetti bowl of concepts, ideas, thoughts and opinions. On one hand it’s great, because we are certainly becoming much more aware of a lot of vital information, but perhaps because of the pace that this is all coming in, a great majority of these concepts and ideas (no matter how revolutionary) are getting stuck up in our heads. Sure we can talk passionately about them, we can write about them, and we even may find ourselves arguing on their behalf or judging others for thinking otherwise, but the certainty is that many of the most powerful truths we’re learning – from ancient wisdom to quantum physics – aren’t making it past the front door of our brain into our bodies and our beings. They aren’t becoming cellular; they aren’t being lived. Sure we ‘get it’, but how many of us are actually, genuinely living it?

In my own quest to find ways to embody more of the truth I’ve been exposed to in this life, I have discovered one constant wellspring of indescribable power to not only bring myself into deeper levels of genuine experience with new ideas, but to simultaneously share that energy with others. That wellspring is the power of story.

There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories. —Ursula K. LeGuin 

It is well known that many of the greatest teachers and luminaries (as well as virtually every tribal culture on record) have taught not through concepts and ideas but through stories and parables… but why? If they knew the truth, if they held the wisdom, why not just speak it plainly for all to hear? Come on guys, out with it.

For me, the answer to this question has come strong and clear in the past decade as I have set out to share truths from my own life journey with my now10-year old son, Josh. Josh and I share an amazing bond, but from early on, it seemed that whenever I tried to explain a simple principle about life, he would just sort of turn off. It was like he had an anti-preach metre, and, from an early age, hearing life truths was like eating steamed kale (which was also going on at that time). At first I got offended, but then one night at story time, I began spinning a tale about a couple kids in the forest with a Druid and a glowing sword… it was quirky and funny with a touch of old Pops woven in, and Joshy loved it. His eyes got a little wider, his mouth dropped open… and suddenly I realised that he wasn’t just hearing the story, he was ‘in it’. I could have put a fork full of kale in that little mouth right then and he would have eaten it, but instead I just dropped in a simple theme about the tangible power of thought, and the idea that ‘thoughts are things’. After the story Josh drifted off (actually, to be honest, I probably fell asleep first), and then I forgot about the whole thing.

A few days later we were running late for a movie he wanted to see and I pulled around the corner looking for a parking spot on the busy street. “We’ll never find a park here!”, I blurted out. Josh shot me a scornful glance. “Not if you think that way, Dad. Come on. ‘Thoughts are things’ remember?” As if on cue, a spot opened right in front of us… and off we went to the film.

The truth is that story is one of the greatest known bridges from our head to our heart. It is a genuine mode of energy transference, literally altering the chemistry of our body. When we listen to a truthful story, we are taken on a journey, and in that journey it is our own story that we hear within it. Great masters and indigenous elders have always known this to be true. When we tell information we speak to the head, but when we tell a story, we speak to the experience of another. While facts are contained like a pool, stories run like a river. Their flowing rhythms allow those of different walks to draw from them whatever they may need to take the next step in their own journey.

Some people say that, if you want to be a writer, you need to read a lot, and really saturate yourself with other people’s styles. In my experience, the best path to become a writer, in most cases, is to put down your literature for a while and enter the book of life. Take your shoes off, walk into the world and genuinely engage with the stories unfolding within and all around you. Follow a drop of rain from the cloud back to the sea. Listen to a blade of grass reach for the dance of a butterfly’s wing. Feel the joys and pain of love, and share them. Through our connection to the intimate we discover our doorway to the universal in the STORY of life.

Chip Richards is an author, screenwriter and holistic coach. He is the co-founder of New Earth Creations and the creator of “Writing the Story Within”, a one-month online mentorship devoted to empowering emerging writers with tools to share new inspired stories with the world. A new program is offered this October http://www.livingnow.com.au/CWE/writing-the-story-within.