Tuesday, August 15, 3-5pm
LifePath, Rinconada de la Aldea 29
$200

Wisdom Storytelling Circle

Here’s a story you can probably relate to: You are walking down a street in San Miguel when a friend, coming the other way, stops, looks you in the eye, and asks “Que Pasa?” It’s a question you’ve heard a thousand times before — the default, open-ended greeting.

Your choices are many. You can answer any way you want, from the predictable “Fine, nothing much” to an elaborate monologue on any number of topics: the weather, your aching back, Donald Trump’s supposed wall, and the rising cost of rentals in town . In that moment, there is no correct answer. You get to decide what story to tell. What you don’t get to decide is the impact your story will have. That’s up to the listener. But know this: your story will have impact. Everything we say and everything we do has impact, even a seemingly casual moment of passing someone on the street.

If you watch TV, you can see this phenomenon playing out daily. With an almost infinite number of topics to report on, the news that TV stations choose to communicate is mostly bad news: war, violence, political unrest, terrorism, famine, corruption, plane crashes, murder, scandal, disease, gossip, and unemployment, with an occasional human interest story thrown in for good measure so we don’t all jump off the same bridge and screw up their ratings.

Sixty eight percent of North Americans believe that TV news broadcasts focus way too much on bad news and yet we keep tuning in. The impact? Our state of well-being declines. We become sadder, more negative, more hopeless and depressed, making worse whatever personal worries and anxieties we already had before tuning in.

You and I are also news stations. You and I are also reporting on what’s going on in the world. Like the TV executives behind the scenes, we also get to decide what stories to tell — even on the street when a friend asks us how we’re doing. That is our moment of truth. That is our broadcast. Will our stories be local versions of the nightly news, skewed to what’s bad and wrong, full of gossip and complaint, or will we choose to tell a new story, one infused with possibility, progress, insight, wisdom, and hope?

Towards this end, Mitch Ditkoff, part-time San Miguel resident and author of Storytelling at Work, will be leading a Wisdom (storytelling) Circle at LifePath on Tuesday, August 15th, 3:00 – 5:00 pm – a chance for you and 11 other people to not only learn more about the power of personal storytelling, but actually tell a compelling story of yours. $200 pesos.

Click here for more info and to register.