A Quote by Janet Mock

I wrote 'Redefining Realness' because not enough of our stories are being told, and I believe we need stories that reflect us so we don't feel so isolated in our apparent 'difference.'
I feel like it's important for young African-American girls - and all people - to read books that tell our stories and watch movies that tell our stories and do the research on our own, too, because sometimes that's not being told, and we're not being seen and shown.
I write because the lives of all of us are stories. If enough of those stories are told, then perhaps we will begin to see that our lives are the same story. The differences are merely in the details.
We sat down and told stories that happened to us in our childhood, to our children. They were all basically based on the truth. These stories were funny and poignant to us. They just took off. These are all stories from my life.
Each of us is comprised of stories, stories not only about ourselves but stories about ancestors we never knew and people we've never met. We have stories we love to tell and stories we have never told anyone. The extent to which others know us is determined by the stories we choose to share. We extend a deep trust to someone when we say, "I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone." Sharing stories creates trust because through stories we come to a recognition of how much we have in common.
Our stories are what we have,” Our Good Mother says. “Our stories preserve us. we give them to one another. Our stories have value. Do you understand?
So I found myself telling my own stories. It was strange: as I did it I realised how much we get shaped by our stories. It's like the stories of our lives make us the people we are. If someone had no stories, they wouldn't be human, wouldn't exist. And if my stories had been different I wouldn't be the person I am.
My real purpose in telling middle-school students stories was to practice telling stories. And I practiced on the greatest model of storytelling we've got, which is "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." I told those stories many, many times. And the way I would justify it to the head teacher if he came in or to any parents who complained was, look, I'm telling these great stories because they're part of our cultural heritage. I did believe that.
Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness — and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling — their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.
There are stories we take on from our culture, and there are stories based on our own personal history. Some of those stories lock us in limiting beliefs and lead to suffering, and there are others that can move us toward freedom.
As artists we have an extraordinary and rare privilege to tell the stories of our people, our land, our culture. They grip us, tear us apart, and put us back together. We are our stories.
Without archives many stories of real people would be lost, and along with those stories, vital clues that allow us to reflect and interpret our lives today.
Actors sure have stories. We always have stories. At the end of our careers, all we have to take with us is our stories, and we have many of them.
We read novels because we need stories; we crave them; we can’t live without telling them and hearing them. Stories are how we make sense of our lives and of the world. When we’re distressed and go to therapy, our therapist’s job is to help us tell our story. Life doesn’t come with plots; it’s messy and chaotic; life is one damn, inexplicable thing after another. And we can’t have that. We insist on meaning. And so we tell stories so that our lives make sense.
To share our stories is not only a worthwhile endeavor for the storyteller, but for those who hear our stories and feel less alone because of it.
Feelings and stories of unworthiness and shame are perhaps the most binding element in the trance of fear. When we believe something is wrong with us, we are convinced we are in danger. Our shame fuels ongoing fear, and our fear fuels more shame. The very fact that we feel fear seems to prove that we are broken or incapable. When we are trapped in trance, being fearful and bad seem to define who we are. The anxiety in our body, the stories, the ways we make excuses, withdraw or lash out—these become to us the self that is most real.
We love being told good stories, and we love telling good stories, and all of our energy and our effort and our thought and our passion goes into telling the best story that we can.
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