keynotes
Call and Response:
Building collaborative space between
storytellers and audiences.
Storytelling is an ancient and intimate tradition. It allows us to disclose lessons, creating the power to teach and heal. But, the power to share a story isn’t just in the hands of the storyteller: It often resides in the capacity of the audience to receive what’s being given. Telling a difficult story asks both storyteller and audience to stretch beyond themselves in an act of reciprocity to create a meeting place born in the synthesis between what is shared and what is heard. Building an invitation into our stories for our audience to resonate and respond fosters intentional connection allowing for growth and creativity, often in new and unexpected ways. But learning how to speak about sexual abuse in the face of the pervasive denial in our families, our communities, and our culture, takes a strong north star, a good compass, and the ability to navigate in unchartered territory.
Courage: Vulnerability creates the space for authenticity and real connection. Facing your dragons publicly gives your audience the permission to face their own stories, reflect on their roles within the framework, and identify how your journey is part of a larger narrative we all share.
Recovery: Let your audience honor your resiliency and strength by sharing the person you have become, the gifts of your journey, and the empowered voice of a survivor working to contribute to healing and education.
Depersonalize: We tell effective stories when we learn to rise out of the emotion and into an objective narrative that allows the audience to find a way to connect, internalize, and take action. We create receptivity when we respect the capacity of our audience to receive the weight of our stories.
Decide, Deconstruct, Define, and Deliver: The Gifts of Trauma Recovery
Healing from trauma is a lifelong process. Survivors face one layer after another of behavioral issues, addictions, triggers, and recovery. The journey is daunting and oftentimes feels like an unrelenting assault within a sea of obstacles. Pain is the touchstone of growth and recovery is a process of constant transformation in an ever-changing landscape. It is easy to become disheartened along the way. Learning to see the gifts inherent in recovery restores a sense of purpose to survivors and provides a roadmap to the destinations along the journey that create meaning, agency, and hope as we travel. No one wants trauma to be a part of their story, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t claim the depth of opportunity it gives to us to reach deeply, to live fully, and to reform our lives in a redemption only offered through forging ourselves in the fire of our own experience.
Decide: We have a choice to create or destroy in every decision we make as we move along the road of recovery. Learning to tap into our own creativity helps survivors contribute to a world in which so much was taken from them, a balance whose exchange paves the way towards a life filled with sustainable growth.
Deconstruct: For every challenge and experience that gets thrown at us, we have to be able to take it apart piece by piece and find our own part in each experience. Because, ultimately, we only get to fix our own part. When we see the things we can change, we become more empowered, compassionate, and capable of making good decisions.
Define: Learning to define ourselves by who we are today and not by what happened to us in the past, reclaims an essential part of ourselves. When you get to the place where you don’t need anyone to define, validate or acknowledge your story for you, you find freedom.
Deliver: Our challenges have the power to tear us apart or to deliver us to greater awareness. Pain is the touchstone of all spiritual growth and recovery is a process of constant transformation in an ever-changing landscape.
“Very rarely are commencement speeches applicable to all who attend, but your words resonated with me in a way that reinvigorated my drive to serve with passion and purpose. Your honest words not only validated the struggles I have felt this year as a professional, but they also reminded me that this is not the end, that I will take these trials and make them lessons. and that the impact I may have had goes far beyond what I will ever understand. I’ve never been inspired by reality and truth before in the way you inspired me yesterday, and I thank you for your authenticity.”
Kate Decker, English Department, Ten Sleep School
Book Jessica
Jessica Golden is a writer and speaker working to normalize the discussion of childhood trauma. She shares her experiences to help survivors weave together the threads of their own fates and to form a tapestry of awareness that works to preserve the strength and integrity of all the hands passing the shuttle back and forth across the loom. Audiences will leave with a roadmap to greater awareness, tools for recovery, and the ability to trust that the journey forward is full of hope, action, and the ability to create change.