When I work with children, I am always reminded of the deep soul wisdom of fairy tales. They can be a road map for overcoming hardship, trauma, and heartbreak, told in a way that speaks deeply to the human soul, overriding the tricks our mind plays on us, making us relive our heartbreak over and over again. Simply put, storytelling speaks directly to our imagination, building connection, extending our perceptions, bypassing the rational brain.
There is a reason these stories have been told around campfires, in schools, and for bedtime for thousands of years.
I have witnessed and experienced the power of a great story many times in my life, but I never knew the science until I trained to become a Waldorf teacher. Waldorf holds up oral storytelling as the most powerful way to teach the human soul. They taught me that children are nourished by feeling the vibrations of a human voice and hearing the deep metaphorical wisdom of ancient stories.
I have used and gifted the book “Healing Stories for Challenging Behavior” by Susan Perrow many times as a parent and teacher, and have been amazed at the results. Waldorf and Perrow use different metaphors to represent different things. For example, the Shadow Giant, monsters, ugly trolls can be greed and the destruction of the earth; a cape or a cloak represent protection; a garden often represents love and beauty; gnomes represent the minerals, rocks, and deep earth; a forest can be a place of nourishment and support, or a place to get lost, or a place of fear and danger–depending on the story, lanterns light the path, and treasures represent aspects of the human soul like truth and integrity, loyalty and courage.
One example: when my kids were very little, Henry got mad and pinched Annabelle. I told him a story from Perrow’s book: the story of a little crab who kept pinching his friends when he got mad, and they didn’t like it. It hurt them, and some didn’t want to be friends with him anymore. But one little friend found a better solution: she knitted the crab a pair of mittens as a reminder not to pinch. I didn’t know if Henry would take it in or not, but he went and put on a pair of mittens and pretended to be a crab and never pinched again.
That’s not to say all storytelling has this kind of instant effect, but they can work in a very very powerful way.
Read the fairy tales to your children and let them work their magic on you. Listen to an audio book or watch the television series “Once Upon a Time” which has many archetypal adventures based on traditional fairy tales. My children and I had amazing dinner conversations based on “Once Upon a Time.” They had many deep insights that didn’t even occur to me. For example, the dark curse of the “Mirror of Shattered Sight”. They told me that people who aren’t whole, who only focus on the negative and darkness, can be very destructive. Every choice has a price, so think carefully about the consequences of your actions.
We have also discussed all the archetypes and metaphor in Disney characters and stories, and they have pointed out to me over and over that the different characters in each story represent different facets of one person. We have spoken about how we think that the prince rescuing princesses isn’t about gender, but about different energies. We all have masculine and feminine energies, and it is up to us to merge the two to heal ourselves and make our dreams come true. When we focus on one or the other, we are out of balance–we need both.
As for me, just last night I was thinking how I sometimes feel like a Lost Boy, adrift in grief and sadness and loss, with Hook out to capture me completely and sink me in darkness. But with the invitation to Peter Pan, and all the mischief and merriment he represents, I find more and more joy every day. But without Wendy, he is chaos. I need her kindness and comfort, compassion and care, lullabies and storytelling to bring me back ‘home’.
Like a mossy path through the forest at twilight, with darkness only minutes away, fairy tales light our path like candlelit lanterns, showing us how to heal.
Even if I can’t really explain in a rational way the magic in storytelling, I can attest to how they have helped me. When I hear about things far worse than I am going through, and how they were overcome, usually through truth, integrity, strength and courage, I feel inspired to lift myself out of the swamp of grief.
And I remember the magic of who I am.
