What Happens in Me When I Hear Your Story

Photo by Hussam Abd on Unsplash

I spend a lot of time listening to people’s stories. 

My husband, my children, my mother, and my friends often tell me stories of their daily lives. I listen. 

In my work, I sit with people and journey with them through their life story in coaching, debriefing, personalized care, and my volunteer work in the humanitarian world. I listen.

Yesterday, I sat for five hours with my Moroccan friend—an innocent victim of human trafficking. We sat on the twin bed in her room, walking back through parts of her hard story of trauma and pain that have broken her heart—broken her soul.

I tried to listen to her story with good “other-centered listening,” seeking to understand what it was like for her. 

I could feel all kinds of things happening inside of me as I digested her story—my emotions were all over the place. Anger, sadness, rage, disgust, and pain all welled up inside of me.

I also felt physical changes. Fatigue, brain fogginess, and occasional mental disconnection seemed to take over my mind and body.

What was happening inside of me as I listened to my friend’s story? Why did her story move me to tears, flood my emotions, shape my opinions, change my behavior?

We’ve looked at the “Powerful Results of Telling our Story”, but what is happening inside of the person listening?

5 Things that Happen Inside of Us When We Hear Others’ Stories:

1.Our Attention is Focused.

The chemical cortisol is released in the brain when we listen to a person’s story. This chemical is responsible for focusing our attention on something. If the story we are listening to is an emotional one—like the story of my friend at the safe house—this focus can produce feelings of distress in the listener as a result of the release of cortisol in the brain.

2.Our empathy and compassion increases.

When we hear a story, the chemical oxytocin is also released in our brain. This chemical is directly associated with feelings of care, connection, and empathy. 

While listening to a dramatic story, the most active parts of the brain are those associated with understanding what people are doing. These are areas of the brain that are full of oxytocin receptors, which stir empathy deep within us. 

Dr. Paul Zak, Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University, stated, “When the brain synthesizes oxytocin, people are more trustworthy, generous, charitable, and compassionate.”

3. Our behavior is changed. 

The combined release of cortisol and oxytocin changes the chemistry in the brain, which, in turn, changes our behavior. For example, in a neurological research study by The Future of Storytelling, they discovered that most people who watched a story about a 2-year-old boy dying of cancer were strongly motivated to donate money to strangers and to charities as a result of this change in brain chemistry and behavior.  The study revealed that the amount of oxytocin released even predicted the amount of money people would donate. 

In other words, “The narrative is changing behavior by changing our brain chemistry.”

4. Relational trust and connection are built.

The first time I went to the safe house to help with translation, this Moroccan woman didn’t know me at all. She certainly didn’t trust me after all the pain and trauma she had gone through as a victim of human trafficking. 

To begin building trust, I told her my story. I told her happy stories about my family living in her home country for many years. I also told her some of my own painful stories from my childhood of broken families, sickness, and trauma. My own narrative built a bridge of trust between us, and this hurting woman began to open up her heart little by little and allow me into the sacred space of her life story.

Stories build connection. 

According to Dr. Paul Zak, “That’s what it means to be a social creature, connect with others, to care about others, even complete strangers. Dramatic stories cause us to do this. When we watch other stories, or see movies, or listen to music, the same thing can happen. We feel uplifted, we feel motivated, we feel connected to others around us.” 

5. Barriers and differences between us are removed. 

My Moroccan friend and I had different stories, different lives, different cultures . . . different everything. However, as we exchanged our personal life stories with each other, something profound happened. Our perspectives changed, and we were able to enter each other’s worlds and gain better awareness, understanding, and appreciation.

Psychologists call this “perspective taking” and “perspective giving.” Studies by Berkeley have found that sharing different ideas and stories helps us negotiate our differences and increase our tolerance, allowing us to experience what others might be feeling—those with different experiences than our own or those from different groups or cultures. This can be especially powerful in groups who are in conflict (political parties, for example) or those who have a history of racial tension. As they have opportunities to tell their stories and listen to the stories of their adversaries, or those with opposing views, barriers are broken down.

Take Time to Listen

Maybe today is a good time to listen to someone’s story. Remember to put on your others-centered listening hat and hear the narrative through their eyes and in their shoes. As you listen, notice what is happening inside of you. Although we probably don’t have the neurological equipment to see our brain activity, observe where your attention is focused, observe your emotions, observe your behavior as the result of hearing the story.

Here’s a little experiment that you can do: watch this 5-minute video from Dr. Paul Zak at the Future of Storytelling. Notice what happens inside of you as you listen to this story.

Experience it for yourself! Here is a 5-minute video from Paul Zak at the Future of Storytelling.

If you would like someone to listen to your story, See Beyond wants to journey with you in debriefing. Experience for yourself the powerful results of telling your story.

Guest author, Marci Renée, along with her French husband and four boys, is a global nomad who has traveled to more than 30 countries and has lived in the United States, France, Morocco, and Spain. She loves to travel, speak foreign languages, experience different cultures, eat ethnic foods, meet people from faraway lands, and of course, write and tell stories. She is a published author of children's picture books, memoirs, short stories, and poetry.

You can find Marci and her books on her website.

"The Cultural Story-Weaver," at www.culturalstoryweaver.com