Our final Stories of Our Lives session of the year took place on 20th December at Chorlton Library. It was a really lovely one to end with as we gathered with brews, mince pies, notebooks, and put some time aside to pause and gather our together our thoughts before the year turned.
We moved through three main reflections: time spent thinking about Stories of Our Lives and community, and time reflecting on the year in a more personal sense, both looking back and looking ahead. Each reflection began with a few minutes of quiet writing or reflection, and then a wider group chat at the end.
Rather than writing about personal reflections, which are not mine to share, I will write about what surfaced in terms of community and Stories of Our Lives.
Our latest Stories of Our Lives session took place on the 18th of October at our new/ old home, Chorlton Library and was co-led by our wonderful guest speaker Merryn Myatt, who is a writer, celebrant, public speaking coach and retired journalist and broadcaster, and now runs lifestory.vip.
Participants engaging in a lively discussion during the Stories of Our Lives session at Chorlton Library, led by guest speaker Merryn Myatt.
It was an extended session today as we had so much to cover! We began by sharing our intentions for the morning. One participant used the lovely phrase “panhandler” , meaning sifting through life’s detritus for nuggets of gold. Others offered words like open, sisters, motivation, consideration, collaboration, encouragement, celebration, gentleness, and gratitude. Someone summed it up beautifully: “I can hear my critic, but I answer then with let’s get involved, let’s get curious.”
Together we reflected on our purposes for writing memoirs or life stories. These included validating our lives, showing the many sides of ourselves, and declaring with clarity and pride: there is more here than just what you see. Many spoke of wanting to leave a story behind, something that helps family and future generations see the whole person, not just what’s visible in the present. Others saw writing as a way to make sense of memory, to look back with compassion, or to celebrate what’s been achieved.
Merryn then shared examples from her work supporting people to create their own memoirs and explained her process. We discussed rhythm, method, and form, how our personal styles shape our writing journeys. I also shared a short presentation about voice transcription tools, which we’ll return to in a future session.
A big theme of the day was the power of photos, how choosing, labelling, and presenting them clearly can bring memories alive. Merryn offered practical tips on clarity, formatting, and choosing meaningful images. We even imagined creating boxes of memories, collections of photos or objects that can spark conversation and reflection, perhaps for people in care settings.
Towards the end, I reminded the group that Merryn is available for one-to-one support via merryn@lifestory.vip, and we talked about other ways to keep writing and stay connected. Many of us left with fresh motivation, one person said, “I’m remembering that I can do this.” Others planned to set aside a regular time to work on their project, even just fifteen minutes a week. Someone else said they felt newly inspired to embrace technology after the session, and another said they now want elocution lessons from Merryn because of her beautiful voice! (Merryn kindly refused, pointing out quite rightly that this request was asked by someone who has a beautiful voice of their own).
It was a gentle, purposeful, and encouraging morning and a brilliant reminder that our stories and authentic voices matter, that they’re still developing, and that sharing them can be both an act of genorosity as well as creativity and care.
In our most recent session, Ben Wild introduced us to Kurt Vonnegut’s “story shapes.” Vonnegut came up with eight of these, and said that every story—from ancient fairy tales to Shakespeare to modern fiction—fits into one of them.
Ben guided us through an activity where we mapped the rise and fall of our emotions that morning, or in recent days. We used Vonnegut’s graphs as a starting point to notice how, even in a few short hours, so much can shift beneath the surface.
From this, a mix of writing emerged. Some poetic, some reflective, some playful or philosophical.
Together, they explore what it means to feel, to tell stories, and to question the patterns we’ve been taught to follow.
We enjoyed an interesting and learned talk from ‘Be(n) Wild’ of MMU on the use of emotions in storytelling. I was intrigued and so sceptical when he mentioned that a researcher, Kurt Vonnegut, postulated that there are a set amount of patterns of emotions in all stories – a conclusion he arrived at way before the invention of computers.
We were invited to try one pattern to write about our emotional state that morning. I initially chose the flatline schemata, ‘Good news or Bad news’, as I was raised as a traditional male stoic so I have difficulty relating to my emotions. Indeed, how do we even tell if events are good or bad in the present? For example, a broken leg may save you from conscription! But conscription could mean glory and incredible service. We can only evaluate fully in our last days. With gender blurred in modern society, I feel less embarrassed to give it a go and analyse my own emotions… imagine my surprise when I read it back as a rollercoaster journey.
Woke up this morning. As usual the body was stiff and painful. Sad that I ached and attributed it to the wear and tear of time. Happy to be still alive. What’s the alternative? Angry with myself that I hadn’t yet developed the discipline of daily exercises to try and slow the degeneration. Thought about my plans for the day. Afraid that I couldn’t do everything… the fear of missing out, FOMO the young ‘uns call it. Chose the workshop, but unable to do a volunteer task from 10–2 today. Disgusted that I had so little time and energy to get out the door and face the day, and accomplish all I wanted to. Delighted to meet an old friend walking on the way there. Shared our grumbles about our common ailments. Settled into our seats, with a coffee or tea, and prepared to listen to our instructions. Finally, my open mind went emotionally into neutral! Or so I thought… Oh the joys of learning!
Pauline Omoboye
Today
Today I woke up happy I could picture the day ahead Today I woke up happy as I got out of my bed My feelings are those of contentment I saw it in my dream I knew my day was mapped out in a happy scene But then I gazed up at my watch The time had gone so fast The feelings of being late came out and cast A shadow deep into my heart At the thought of what I could miss But as I entered the room Came that feeling of sheer bliss It’s going to be the day I wanted It brought to my face a smile My emotions rising to the top This feeling should last a while.
I woke up early, pleased to see the blue sky and sunshine. Downstairs, I saw the frost on the lawn and rooftops and felt somewhat anxious about our trip to the Lakes tomorrow in the camper van: how cold will it be there?! I took a cup of tea back to bed, one for me, one for my sleeping partner, read for a while and fell back into a heavy sleep. “Oh no, I’ll be late for Stories of our Lives,” I thought when she finally woke me. I got ready quickly, left the house and met a neighbour. We exchanged a few words, I hurried on, met another, then another! I felt resigned to being late, but glad to live where I do – I feel like I belong. I walked into the garden of the church and met Jane – such a lovely calm person, she explained that she couldn’t make it to the group as her daughter was taking her out for the day. Her warmth calmed me, I came through the door and felt happy to be with everyone. My late arrival didn’t matter at all, after all.
It started with some charts. As a prompt to start today’s workshop, Ben Wild brought Kurt Vonnegut’s famous model of story shapes. They showed us the rise and fall of fortune, arcs of success and failure, and a way to make experience fit a pattern: things got better, then worse, then better again.
But something felt off. It treated the protagonist’s fortune as if it existed in isolation, as if emotions and events happened in a vacuum. Yet in real life, stories aren’t just about one person moving through change. Stories are about relationships, movement, space, and time. Emotions don’t simply rise and fall; they ebb, flow, transform, stagnate, spill over. And then the idea came—what if the way we structure stories shapes how we experience emotions—and therefore, life itself?
We’ve inherited a linear way of storytelling, shaped by Greek theatre, the Enlightenment… and more recently, the news, X Factor, and advertising. These structures train us to see life as a tidy journey with clear beginnings, middles, and ends. This individualistic framework tends to fit us one of three slots—hero, villain, or victim—meaning everyone (and sometimes even everything) else has to occupy the remaining two spaces. Perfect fuel for polarisation and the prioritising of self over community, really, isn’t it?
I started wondering… maybe it’s time to expand beyond this. To explore traditions that honour cycles, interconnection, and emotional fluidity. And perhaps the next step isn’t another rigid framework at all… but permission to let stories move naturally, mirroring the world around us. Then I thought about how part of this shift might mean learning to stop seeing emotions as ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’, and instead finding a way of welcoming them in—like Rumi suggested. And if his idea of greeting them all as friends feels too exposing, maybe we could imagine emotions as places we move through—different ways of meeting them.
Some emotions are experienced in a brightly lit room, full of hyper-awareness. Others take place in a cluttered basement, where feelings get boxed up and labelled Do Not Open. Sometimes we’re rushing through corridors, searching for a way out of feeling at all.
But as I was walking during these reflections, the idea of walls started to feel restrictive. I searched the sky for an answer, but it was too vast and formless. Then I saw a rock, steady and still. Suddenly, I heard its story: “I was once buried deep in a quarry,” the rock said. “Now I sit in the open air, where people rest their tired legs. You think I am cold, but I hold the warmth of time. I will outlast you and your family. But I will hold your stories within me.”
And that’s when I realised—I didn’t need lines or walls to plot or frame emotions or storytelling. Stories and feelings don’t just happen inside people or even rooms. They unfold in rivers, trees, skies, shifting weather, and the way light moves across water. Nature has been witnessing stories forever, without ever needing an arc or tidy resolution. A tree doesn’t fail when it loses its leaves. A river doesn’t succeed when it reaches the ocean. The sky isn’t wrong when it is filled with storms.
The River Mersey, Chorlton by Jolene Sheehan
Maybe if we start experiencing and then telling our stories this way—with a greater sense of interconnection and spaciousness, where we don’t need to be the main character—we realise we don’t have to force our narratives to make sense. We don’t have to stay stuck in one perspective. Instead, we can let our experiences be spacious, complex, and relational.
So here’s where I am now… My stories don’t have to be about winning or losing. They can be about movement, flow, cycles, connections. My emotions don’t have to be overcome like opponents. They can be witnessed, held, allowed to exist without urgency. Because the frameworks we use to make sense of things don’t just describe reality—they shape it. And I am ready for a different shape.
Finally, sometimes, the best thing we can do is step outside, listen, and let the landscape teach us something new.
“Close your eyes, listen to this recording of the sound of rain on a window. Imagine yourself, warm and dry inside a library. What libraries do you remember being in? Where would you like to be now? Imagine that in this library, on the shelves, are all the books, magazines and DVDs that you’ve read during your life. What has reading meant to you at different stages in your life? You might want to go to a shelf and pick a book you remember enjoying. Where were you? What was happening at that time?”
What a powerful opener Jolene gave to us, leading to us having so much to say to each other! Just as the people reading in a library may, in their minds, be travelling in many different directions, those of us on the Zoom call had a variety of experiences to relate, and much to think about afterwards as we wrote up our individual pieces for this week’s post.
The Stories of Our Lives 