Patti On Stage: Merging Theater, Therapy and Tales for Healing
Ever felt a story tug at your heart, altering your mood or even your view on life? Join Patti Christensen as we unravel the magic of storytelling, time travel and its remarkable power to impact lives.
Patti is a professional storyteller, drama specialist, and licensed clinical social worker who uses the intricate art of storytelling and story-listening as tools for building connections. The settings may vary, like a children's hospital, counseling sessions, or doing drama with students in China, but her transformative journey touches lives highlighting the universal power of stories to heal.
Patti Christensen is a licensed clinical social worker in California.
She is on the staff of the Healing Arts Dept. at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego. She is a member of the National Storytellers Network and the Storytellers of San Diego.
Links
Patti Christensen-Storyteller (pattistory.com)
Storytellers of San Diego — Patti Christensen-Storyteller (pattistory.com)
Rady Children's Hospital, Healing Arts Program
Podcast Transcript
Pat: 0:06
Fill To Capacity, crazy, good stories and timely topics. Podcast for people too stubborn to quit and too creative not to make a difference. Inspiring, irreverent and informative. Stay tuned. Hi, I'm Pat Benincasa and welcome to Fill to Capacity. Today's episode "Patti On Stage Merging Theater Therapy and Tales for Healing. My guest is Patti Christensen, and Patti is a professional storyteller and drama specialist. She has master degrees in theology and social work. She is a licensed clinical social worker in California. She was a counselor in a domestic violence program and worked in child abuse prevention, aids, family counseling, mentoring and sexual assault. She did a school violence prevention project which used drama, storytelling and video making. She is on the staff of the Healing Arts Department at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego as a storyteller. This program brings professional storytellers, musicians and artists to the hospital every week to assist the healing for children and families. I know this is a lot, but she's done a lot. I got a little bit more here. She teaches and conducts workshops on storytelling and drama skills for educators, families, ministers, literacy teams and fellow storytellers. She is a member of the National Storytellers Network and the Storytellers of San Diego. Now I have to say, most importantly, patty was originally from Minnesota and she moved to Oceanside, California, and her storytelling journey spans many countries from Southern California worldwide and we'll get into that, patty, welcome!
Patti: 2:42
Well, thank you so much, Pat. It actually makes me a little tired when you're saying all those things, but it has been a delightful journey.
Pat: 2:53
I can't wait to get into this. I just want to go to the heart of it, right out the gate. Patty, why do you tell stories?
Patti: 3:01
Well, first I just want to tell you I was one of those little girls who in my elementary school report cards, nearly every single one in the comment section, said Patty is a little too social, patty talks too much to her neighbors. There is a piece about connecting with people that went all the way back to when I was a little kid that I could feel it was important to talk with people and listen with people and connect with neighbors. So sometimes I would like to go back and tell those teachers who made those comments you know what? People pay me money to talk and listen and be connected with my neighbors. So that's an old piece in my heart.
Pat: 3:44
Well, you know our gifts start from somewhere, and there's yours. That was the beginning, that's right.
Patti: 3:52
In terms of why I tell stories, though, is a piece about stories, storytelling and story listening that appears to be kind of hardwired into people. That goes so far back, probably to the beginning of language, where somebody would have something happen and then come back to the camp and go my goodness, there was a saber tooth tiger. I ran away, it chased me. So there's something that from long ago times that people felt an urge to tell stories, and I think it continues even to today.
Pat: 4:28
Oh yes. Well then I have to ask having a master's degree in theology and social work, how do these areas intersect in your work?
Patti: 4:42
Well, my mother wants to know that, sometimes I also. My bachelor's degree was in history and sometimes people are like what a weird combination of things. But history, I was always drawn. I wanted to know the story behind things. I wasn't interested in memorizing dates and battles, I wanted to know what happened to who and what went on there. Then I was always interested in the spiritual aspects of things going on, people making meaning in their lives and how does it all fit together, both in our culture, other cultures, many of the religions. So that was an interesting area of study. And then at some point I said you know what, maybe I need to get a degree I can get a job with after I've done all of this. And so people say you're a social worker. Do you work for the county? No, social work has broad areas, but the part I really studied was to be a therapist. I had lots of volunteer experiences, talking and going on, but I kept finding, you know what so many people, especially I, first started in domestic violence. There are such deep wounds and stories that many times people say I've never told anyone this before. And I found a powerful piece of healing of being able to create a space where people come, they can tell the stories in a caring, non-judgmental way. Sometimes they have a spiritual context or a historic context and oftentimes, you know, history of oppression comes in there. So I found, kind of to my surprise, I would not, as a third grader said, you know I'm going to do this series of degrees but all of that has come together in my life right now. That allows me to use that, study those skills together.
Pat: 6:42
Well, that segues beautifully in my next question. You combine theater arts and storytelling with your work as a therapist in a really unique way. Can you recall a meaningful or powerful experience where this combination led to healing?
Patti: 7:02
Well, I use storytelling and healing in two different settings. One is in my position as a clinical social worker, counselor at a nonprofit agency, and there are many times there that, as I say, particularly, somebody might have experienced abuse, might have experienced some horrible trauma, and are stuck, stuck, stuck in their life. And part of the piece, as they get to know and trust builds of coming forward and managing to share what happened, what their fears were, what keeps them awake at night, how they have interpreted that and taken it in to feel bad, horrible, all going on. So in my counseling work that's a regular piece and one of the little classic things that comes out of storytelling, and particularly a narrative therapy, is change your story, change your life, and so that is a powerful piece. Sometimes I meet somebody and they have for 15 years been telling the story about my husband left me and so therefore I'm a loser and a terrible person and no one will want to be with me. And working through and finding a place that says, oh, is that the story you want to keep? And oftentimes like, oh, I never even thought about that. I said, well, let's, let's create a new story. So that happens in the counseling field a lot of figuring out the stuck piece. Often and sometimes, it's not people's own stories, but a story that has been handed to them, whether by partners, parents, crazy bosses, whatever that says. This is who I am and said let's create a new story that creates openings.
Pat: 8:58
Oh, I love that. You know, I taught art for 30 years, and one of the things I would often say to our students we are our words. And the reason I would say that because they say, oh, I want to show this, it's not really that cool, or this is kind of dumb I said, whoa, stop, no, no, scene one, take two. We are our words. How do you want to talk about your work is how you talk about yourself, and I think that it's not lost on me that here you are a storyteller. You're in a field where you listen to stories, you're the storyteller who listens to stories, and I can't think of a better combination. So you are the story listener as well, yeah, which I think is awesome.
Patti: 9:49
And people sometimes imagining, the most important thing in the storytelling world is the speaking, and of course somebody usually needs to speak. But you can speak to yourself at home and can be helpful, but, boy, to be deeply listened to. Suddenly something really different happens.
Pat: 10:13
Oh yeah, absolutely. You know you sent me that article about your work at Rady Children's Hospital and I wow. I could spend a whole podcast on that, but I'm going to reel myself back in reading that you work with children and families. Your aim is to help children heal and, my God, you encounter kids going through chemo, painful medical treatments. They're often frightened, nauseous, exhausted or upset. Patty, what does a day at the hospital look like for you when you walk into all of that pain? What does it look like? How do you deal with that?
Patti: 10:57
Well, I have to tell you I'm very, very proud of our program. It's the Healing Art Program at Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego, and it's been operating for nearly 20 years as a program that has paid professional artists. There's many volunteer artists in many places around and not to degrade volunteers at all, because volunteers are wonderful, but there is a piece at our hospital that they made a decision. We don't want people to either be volunteers or even contract workers. We would like to bring you on as a paid employee so that we give the official stamp of approval that says this is being valued at the hospital. So that's one of the things I love, that I'm so proud of. So I would say I have the funnest job at the hospital. I never need to poke anybody to make them do therapy, get them ready for surgery that they don't want to have. The whole premise of our program is artists of all kinds are able to come and we usually get referrals from various staff members who said oh, I thought of somebody for you, or here's somebody we're really struggling with. What can we do? So oftentimes we come, check in with email and have a list of referrals. There's also a little bit of a serendipitous piece. Sometimes, walking by, you hear some screaming and peeking a little bit and said could we be of help here? And sometimes they're like no and sometimes they're like yes. So we get the list and then start the place of going to the various forms of rooms waiting rooms, larger areas Oftentimes it'll be coming in the hospital. I use a drama storytelling partner, James Nelson-Luca, so we are often together. Introduce ourselves Hello, we're Patty and James from Healing Arts, telling whether you're interested in a story or a magic trick today. And one of the things we found was sometimes a story sounds like either it's going to be too baby or too involved. We once had a teenager said well, that doesn't sound too lame if we do a magic trick, which often has a story as part of it and super important, and I think this doesn't happen so often. But they get the right to say yeah, come on in. That sounds good or not today, or that doesn't sound good now. Sometimes parents are appalled. It's like oh, I'm so sorry, he's being so rude. There's a million things in the hospital that kids don't have any choice of. You can't say I'm not taking my medicine, I don't want an IV, don't take another shot. You can say no. Today doesn't seem like a good day for a story and that is that just in itself. The opportunity to say yes or no to something creates a little bit more control over this kid's life that may be out of control. So that's a critical piece, yes or no, and I want to stay really clear that it's totally their choice. But if they say, oh yeah, that sounds good, or what kind of stories you got, so I also do some storytelling, performance on the stage and shows and whatever. Where you have your lineup, you know your set list, you know what you're going to be doing. At a place like a children's hospital, you don't know. It is in some ways improvisation at its best. The show up and find out, you might go. We've got this great story about a princess and a dragon. I hate princesses, okay. Or how about if you love animals? Or going on. So a lot of stories on the repertoire and it also is important and we've found over time some kids are not actually that interested in hearing a story. They would like to tell me a story, okay. So this is Tan's paranormal storytelling and maybe a story they know, maybe a story they made up, occasionally story of their favorite video game, which is a really like. And then and then and then it's like okay. But again, sometimes that is really what kids need is to have somebody who will listen to them. One of my favorite kiddos that I saw in an off for a while one day this little boy said to me I got an idea. Why don't we make up a story? And you and I are grandmas who are best friends. Okay, let's go. And so, in the way of how it goes that if you learn how to do improv acting storytelling, you know the deal is. You don't know where it's gonna go. You're always just gonna agree and keep going forward. So you know, said oh one day the two grandmas. They were outside and what were they doing? The boy says they were planting hamburger trees. Oh, yes, they were. Okay. Now, one of the things having done this for a very long amount of time, I have great confidence. Wherever the story is gonna go, I will be able to help bring it to a satisfying end. We can't tell 15 hours stories. At some point our time is up or we're noticing ooh, the kid is getting tired, or the IV pole is beeping and the nurses needing to come. So need thing to be tuned in and just know, okay, let's see where it's gonna go. Oh, and then you know how the story ended. And the boy said the grandma made cookies for everybody. Yes, she did, and they were so happy. So sometimes it's gonna be, and a lot of times those are not great art, as you're like oh, there we go, that's the best story. But one of the things that is so important with story and this happens in therapy but also if you're dealing with health issues is if you are immersed in the story. You're all going on, you're thinking what's happening next, you're creating the visions in your brain. You sort of can't also concentrate on how much your tummy hurts or how scared you are about the knee surgery or what's gonna happen later on. It's a very present moment, time where you just get to be there, immersed in what's going on, and that in itself, especially if you spend a lot of time living in great pain, is super good blessing.
Pat: 18:06
Well, I love how you bring in the time element, because, being in a hospital and especially faced with all those things, you're in your head, you're thinking about it, you're scared or whatever, and the beauty of what you do is that you pull people into present moment. You pull them out of the back seat of their worry and their suffering and you say, hey, let's go for a ride here. And it must be a great relief to the parents as well that you can just step in, do that and then walk away.
Patti: 18:40
It is. Some things in the hospital are short term. Kids are still getting their tonsils out, or you got a broken arm, you have an easy surgery, two nights are going on, but some kids are really sick or in the hospital for months and months and months at a time. And so those parents, you know a tremendous amount of stress and pressure on that, and some kids, some kids, are pretty self-sufficient. But some kids, when they're scared, when they're sick, they are clingy-clingy. They want mom, dad, grandma, whoever, to be with them 24-7, which is exhausting. And so, especially some of those kids that we know over time and come in, the parents see, as they know, their kid is safe. That's a time somebody might say I'm going to go grab a coffee, or can I pick up lunch I'll be back in about 20 minutes or I need to talk to the doctor, is that OK? So it's a pleasure just to be able to say, yes, your kid, they're doing fine, you do what you need to do and come back and we'll take it for there.
Pat: 19:58
Now I want to flip the story here and ask you have you encountered a story that made you question or rethink your own life's journey?
Patti: 20:12
Well, I will tell you, boy, many stories over time become one of those stories that, just like, captures your heart or makes you like, oh my goodness. I once heard an amazing, nationally known storyteller tell a story about making some really important life decisions, and it was at a festival. It was amazing, wellcrafted, great Story, but it gave me a little bit of answer and peace to something I was struggling with. And after she was done performing, I went up and I thanked her that just how much that story had meant to me. And she smiled and she said, yes, that story really does its work. And I thought, oh, that's true, there are many stories that are entertaining, fun, little all going on, but there's some stories that go in a deep place and I was like, oh, this story somehow has work to do and might be the right words at the right time for the right person.
Pat: 21:28
Yeah, oh, that's beautifully said. Now I'm curious reading about you and all the things that you've done. What brought you to China and what did you do there?
Patti: 21:42
Well, one of the fun things about something like storytelling is there are times when cool opportunities come up. So my partner heard about an opportunity. There were some people being put together that were going to go to China to work at a summer school three week summer school teaching Chinese elementary and middle school kids English through using theater games, visual arts and music and that asked if he wanted to do that. I said no, that's not my jam, but came home and said you know, do you think it? Would you be interested in doing something like that? And I did a little bit of research and found out they were putting together a crew of 20 people. Many of them were classroom teachers, although not all. Everybody had experience working with kids and working in educational setting, and so they divided us up into teams and I was in the story drama team and we had a lot of stuff we headed off. We were in China for five weeks. The first week was preparing, then we had three weeks of teaching the kids and then then a week of traveling at the end Wow, so there were actually 700 kids who were in this program. It was it was a big program and the kids they were in their little cohort and they rotated around, so everybody got all four of those areas each week and we had different topics, and one of the things that was interesting and challenging was at the end of each of those weeks, we put on an all school show With 700 kids in an all school in English. So cool, cool, cool project. It was amazing and what we found all of these kids. So I worked primarily with fourth and fifth graders. All of them had been learning English since they were in first grade, way ahead of the game for America Learning languages. But what they were learning was reading and writing, and so they were actually pretty proficient in that. But speaking, singing, moving, acting things out was something they had had no experience in. So we had a chance to open the door for these kids and one of the things that we really found. Of course, you can learn all kinds of vocabulary, but you know okay, you know a lot of vocabulary. A story and acting was a great entry for those kids to learn some more, as well as one of the things that the kids often were talking about, they all had English teachers who were native Chinese speakers, so they had never heard anybody who was native speakers.
Pat: 24:53
That brings me to a huge question how did the cultural context impact your approach and delivery to stories?
Patti: 25:04
Well, it was so interesting to find what are the things that that we're familiar to the kids and that we could count on piggyback on one of the things. Of course this has shifted some now, but it was still at the time of the one child policy, yeah, and China. So stories that people had brothers and sisters and aunties and uncles and cousins, like they kind of have heard a little bit, nobody had any brothers or sisters or and mostly their parents also only children. So they know. So you know, thinking like oh goodness, okay didn't know that, and that one of the things that was quite interesting, one of the units that they had this do, was careers and playing with. What kinds of things might you want to be when you grow up? These were very middle class families and there were a lot of answers. Kids want to be. I'd be like my dad, I'm going to be a boss. I'm not sure you know a lawyer or a doctor, but one of the other popular things that kids wanted to be, they wanted to be an American FBI agent because they had seen movies and that looked like it would be a cool job. I'm not sure that's a realistic career goal for you, but so we were doing some things going on that had the kids as often happens in drama will dress up in the costume, what you want to do. And the FBI kids all brought plastic guns to school to show you. Know, there we go. American teachers and working in the schools know, can't bring that tolerance of weapons at school. And the Chinese teachers who are working with us is like Wait, you're in America, everybody has guns in America said, oh, you can't bring guns to school. They said it's their costume. It's like FBI agents got to have guns. So some of the time we were having some of those discussions of saying, okay, no, but they're like Wait, everybody in America has guns, we watch the movies. I said, well, I actually don't have a gun. Oh, the other thing I had brought along photos of my house I lived in. 100% of these kids all lived in apartments. They're like Wait, that whole building is just for your family, yeah, so you have a story of a little house, of like I don't even know what a little house is. Yeah, we all in an apartment and it's like no go. So sometimes we would get things. You know the cultural assumptions. You wouldn't even thought of that. Yeah, but they were in shock, and I also had had a picture of me with my eight nieces and nephews and they were like Wait, all in one family, all of those children? Yeah, it's not even that many, but Wow, and they're worldwide. Whoo, that was crazy.
Pat: 28:07
I'm talking about cross cultural richness. Now I'd like to go in a different direction. Maya Angelou said; "there is no greater agony than burying an untold story inside you, and I'd like to say to someone who feels that their story is not important or interesting so why bother?
Patti: 28:30
Oh, so many people feel that Think, if I'm not a famous movie star, if I haven't jumped off a cliff to save a baby, you know, my story is just ordinary, as it goes on when we do storytelling workshops. Of course there's many, many types of stories that people can tell, and literary stories or folk tales or things like that. But if you're looking at stories personal stories, true life stories, sometimes memoir oftentimes that's the initial piece people say nothing, ever happened to me, I have boring life, who'd wanna hear about that? And so with that then there becomes in some ways we wanna look at it about fishing for the story and oftentimes and as an art teacher you might have found that just give people a tissue to paper said do anything you want. It's like I don't know. But if there's an idea, if there's a prompt, if there's something, so to say, okay, write a story about anything. Your brain is like a little drug blank but you say tell me a story about how did you get your name, what's interesting about your name? And suddenly they're like oh, this is who I'm named after, or my parents, they were gonna name me this, or all going on. Or my mom just made up the spelling of this name and all going on. Suddenly you get something that you're fishing for. So there are pages and pages on the internet and books of writing or storytelling prompts that just says well, tell about a time when you got a scar. Whoa, when I was in third grade I was riding my bike, I was outgoing, I wiped out and then it was bleeding all over and then suddenly there's a deal. So we have to let go of that pressure on ourselves that it has to be a significant enough story. Sometimes some of the delightful stories to listen to aren't even the most amazing thing, but it's something that brings your audience back to. Oh, I remember. Actually, I would tell you I was just at a workshop and they had us go back to a childhood home, some place that you went to that you had happy memories in because of course, sometimes we have places people don't have happy memories, which are other kinds of stories but said I want you to imagine there you were, you're going in and you see something and I popped right into. My grandma didn't have city water, they had well water and they had in their kitchen a bucket that was sitting there there was a metal dipper and you could go in there and you could drink the water out of that. Well, suddenly and I hadn't thought about that in years and years and years but in the workshop I told that story three other people immediately had stories of weird things about water when they were a kid. Oh, my grandma had the sulfur smell in her water. All going on. So something that sometimes happens is one story begets some other stories. It's something inside. So even though, okay, was that the most exciting story on the planet about? I took a drink out of the dipper from, but it was actually kind of fascinating and satisfying to play around with that a little bit and just whoa, what else comes along those lines?
Pat: 32:13
So in your work counseling, how have your skills as a storyteller enhanced your counseling sessions with children or adults? How does that play into your work?
Patti: 32:27
Well, there is a whole field and theory in counseling that's called Narrative Therapy. That really has to do with the story. And sometimes, for example, one of the most prominent narratives we might have people do is help create their trauma narrative, or go back about either a specific situation or a series of traumatic things that went and kind of explore those and kind of file those together. That is a very common use of story. That comes in there and also it is exploring what story are you telling? That's so good. Another piece though that I'm gonna say that's a little trick in my storytelling bag is especially with kids who are struggling with something. That is a common situation. Just telling a kid, oh yeah, that happens a lot isn't very comforting, but to say you know what? That reminds me of another girl who, how old are you again? Eight, oh, she was eight and a half. You never wanna be younger, that would be bad Little older. And she once told me that this happened or that this is what she kind of did. Is that oh, really, oh, and then what did she do? Well, I don't know, what do you think? Suddenly we go from lots of kids who has had that experience to this mythical kid. Now, sometimes not mythical, sometimes it really is. We've been doing this a long time. I know a lot of kids seeing stories, but I also know a lot of situations that are common. But there is something that's very satisfying. Or I have even had times when kids are really stuck ,and I said, can I ask you some advice? I got a kid at another school you don't want it to be, and they were like what's their name? Oh, remember, I can't tell you their name, but he's really having a problem. And so let me tell you would you be able to help me figure out what he should do? And suddenly, crafting a little story, Bobby, who's over at that other school, and he had some kids who were really teasing him, bullying, and he didn't know what to do, and they would tell him this as like what do you think? Well, I'm sort of thinking he might tell the noon duty because she might be able to help. Now, what if? Oh, that's a great idea. So suddenly we have somebody who we can externalize a little bit. Sometimes it's a lot easier trying to help figure out what somebody else should do I'm really good at that as opposed to what am I gonna do myself? So the story part of that sometimes becomes a really helpful tool.
Pat: 35:19
You know, Patti, I'm an artist, so, as you're talking, I get these visual images. And what I love about what you just said is I envision this personalized threshold. Now, doorways are a threshold. Every time we go in and out of a door, we go into a new beginning, a room outside, whatever, and what you do in your work is you create a personalized threshold for this child to walk through.
Patti: 35:52
Oh, that's beautiful! Excellent. I love that. That's a powerful image and I think that that really is true. I will tell you especially I have a great place in my heart for kids and teens, because it is not easy being a young person these days at all. Sometimes the reason parents are bringing kids to therapy is you don't know what to do, or she won't talk to me. I was so worried she won't talk to me. Sometimes what kids need is somebody who's not in their family they can talk to on their side. If I tell you this, am I going to get grounded? Because then I don't know what I'm going to tell you. So it can be a teacher, it can be a counselor, it can be a neighbor. But I think that there's something really important. But I love you're right that that is the image of come in here. It's our safe place and I'm going to invite you in.
Pat: 36:50
So the author, Sue Monk Kidd said, "stories have to be told or they die. When they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here. Patty, how do you see the role of deep, meaningful storytelling, like this quote suggests, in a society dominated by short attention spans, social media and quick information consumption?
Patti: 37:25
Well, that's an awesome question, Pat, because we do. We have people who they are used to. I want it quick. Can you give me in a sound bite, can you? I don't have time. I have particularly teens who sometimes say you don't mind if I'm texting while we're in therapy, right, Because we have to always have multiple things going on and that's a society we live in, so we don't want to pretend we don't live in that society and hear what that's all going on. But there is something very powerful about sometimes putting down the phone just sitting. Many of our young people don't actually even have very good listening audience skills because they spend so much time with screen time. With screen time you have something on, you can talk right over the video that you're watching the movie, the video game, you can talk, it doesn't matter and sometimes they're a little bit like I have to shut up when you're telling a story. Yeah, we're right. So I do think when we can find time and create situations where kids and adults can have opportunity to listen and to speak, it's very powerful and a lot of times it takes a little bit of extra help. Now I just will say because it sounds like I'm really bashing the whole screen and video. Of course, when COVID hit the storytelling world, you know, screeched to a halt for a while. I said, oh my goodness, what's all gonna happen? And so there was a lot of looking and scratching head and trying to figure out. Many people in both the local, national and actually international storytelling world had to learn how to do Zoom and go online and create both video video uploaded shows. Our Storytellers of San Diego created a very hefty YouTube channel which we had never had before because of course, if you're telling a story on Zoom, easy to record. Suddenly we had good quality recordings going on and what we also found and it was fascinating, because often storytelling would be considered such a local thing. If you're not at the local library you can't get a chance to hear. Suddenly there were opportunities around the country and around the world where we could have a story swap. That is welcome, anybody who's got the link. And then people had to learn how do you figure out time zones and how does that go and how do you mute yourself when you're all going on. But there are still to this day, many storytelling programs and opportunities that are happening via the internet. So I know storytellers in Ireland, I know storytellers in New Jersey, I know storytellers around in so many places, and so, if we can keep from just being so technology bad, let's find where the barriers and the places we don't want it to turn into. We never actually see people in real life because in-person audience is a whole different show and it's very satisfying, but we've become convinced that there are opportunities to share stories around the world in ways that have never been possible before.
Pat: 41:06
If anything from COVID, it turned the globe into an international neighborhood. And yeah, was it great? No. Was teaching art and science and lab classes great on Zoom? No, but there was also, in that separation, this hunger to communicate, this hunger to connect. And podcasting took off. Artists began to show their works online using social media. Musicians performed. So it introduced us to a different way of communication. But there's also that need for eye-to-eye contact, that ability, if you can, to sit with someone not texting, but kids I'd be teaching, they'd pull out their phone. I'd say, oh, wait a minute, you gotta put that away. I need to make meaningful eye contact with you this moment. And they would all roll their eyes and I say, now we can have meaningful conversation. But I knew my shelf span was very limited. Two or three sentences, you get it out and you move on. So we are dealing with a whole, different, a whole different world.
Patti: 42:15
Here it is, and I think as elders, in that world, we sometimes catch up. But also to be able to see oh, you know what? We know some things about meaningful eye contact, about sitting with somebody, being able to, you know, touch their hand or give them a hug, that, oh that actually felt really good.
Pat: 42:38
Yes, yes, it did. Who knew Exactly? So, Patti, if people want more information about what you do, how do they contact you?
Patti: 42:49
www. pattistory. com and if anybody is on Facebook, they can just look me up under Patti Christensen. Happy to be in contact with people, and if people are interested in learning more about storytelling and being a storyteller, there is an amazing amount of information online, learning storytelling. Suddenly you have online courses as well, as most everywhere now has some kind of a local storytelling group. So that's another thing we really found out more about when we had COVID. Just like oh, there are all of these small groups of people who are together telling stories in circles, which kind of makes your heart happy.
Pat: 43:48
Whoa, what a conversation, Patti. You gave us a glimpse of this intricate tapestry of storytelling that's woven into your work as counselor and teacher, and your unique fusion of theology, social work and theater arts becomes a vehicle for transporting us to our better selves. My takeaway from what you do is everyone's story matters and you, Patti, change lives one tale at a time. Thank you so much for coming on today. What an honor.
Patti: 44:34
Well, thank you so much, Pat, and it really was a pleasure. And I also just wanna confirm in your work you are also bringing forward stories and that that's such important work, so I honor that also.
Pat: 44:50
Thank you, Patti, and thank you listeners. If you've enjoyed today's Fill To Capacity, tell a friend. No! Tell them a story about what you heard. Thank you.
