Fr Marty is always throwing out memorable quotes in his homilies. The other day it was this, from 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” So true. After over six decades on this planet, I’m still gathering up these little nuggets of wisdom!
As I’m Googling about Kierkegaard, I stumble on another famous Dane: author Karen Blixen, more commonly known by her English pen name Isak Dinesen, who lived in the first part of the 20th century and whose works included: “Out of Africa”, “Babette’s Feast”, and “Seven Gothic Tales”, among others. But the quote of hers that struck me was this: “All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story.” Funny how the most profound observations are oftentimes the most obvious. After all, one of the reasons I’m writing this blog is precisely to help bear the loss of our son, Matt. But don’t take Dinesen’s word for it. There was actually a scientific study Published in the journal Cognition and Emotion that that backs up the claim:
The idea that telling a story about a sad or angry event helps us to feel better is a powerful one. People are more likely to tell and retell stories about events laden with negative emotions (Pasupathi, McLean, & Weeks, 2009; Rimé, Finkenauer, Luminet, Zech, & Phillipot, 1998), and report narrating such experiences to other people for the purpose of feeling better (Pasupathi, 2003; Nils & Rimé, 2012). A growing body of evidence links the act of narrating important experiences, and individual differences in the way people do so, to differences in psychological well-being (McLean, Pasupathi, & Pals, 2007;Smyth & Pennebaker, 2008). This work suggests that narration is associated with less distress, as reflected in lower reported depression and higher reported well-being. Narrating events also changes how people recall those events (e.g., Pasupathi & Hoyt, 2010; Tversky & Marsh, 2000), suggesting the potential for narration to reduce event-related distress in lasting ways.
So when life’s getting you down, find a way to tell your story. It will do you good!