Like many in the past few days I was captured by Oprah’s Sunday night interview with Meghan and Harry. I didn’t watch their picture perfect wedding viewed by over two billion people worldwide, but my ears were glued to the words they used to describe their process of dis-entangling from an oppressive system.
There are so many great truths in the interview but two things took my breath away.
First, I appreciated their ability to name that it was more than leaving a royal family with prestige, power and privilege, it was also about escaping a 1200 year old institution—the entrapment of a monarchy.
Second, they constantly explained the difference between what it looked like in pictures and what it felt like inside the palace.
At one point Meghan said:
When the perception and the reality are two very different things and you’re being judged on the perception but you are living the reality of it, there’s a complete misalignment and there’s no way to explain that to people.
I don’t know what aspect of your life comes to mind when you read this quote, but in so much of my story work with clients we “mind the gap”—the gap between their perception and the reality of their childhood story. It’s this very misalignment of the past that is hard for others to understand from the outside and prevents us from getting the help we all need to come out from under systems that aren’t protecting us the way they promised.
99.9% of us will never get our nationally televised interview with Oprah to set the record straight, but communities of storytelling can serve the same purpose—a chance to speak, witnesses who gasp at the appalling moments we describe and who believe us.
This month I’m offering two opportunities to learn about stepping into your own story—to tell your version within the context of safe community.
Sexual Harm Survivors Story Group Informational Meeting (Female)
Monday March 22nd 7-8:15 pm MST
Between Touches Story Membership Group Informational Meeting (Co-Ed)
Tuesday March 23rd 6-7:15 pm MST