Changing Lives through the Power of Storytelling with Kate Tellers
Manage episode 340540324 series 2980544
Joining Yuliana today is Kate Tellers, a staff member of The Moth and a co-author of How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling. Kate shares her phoenix tale today of how she lost her mother at the young age of 28 and how this shaped her life. She shares how lessons she learned from her mom set her on the path to storytelling and how these lessons continue to echo even today.
Kate recounts how her life experienced a redirection following the death of her mother, and also about her final moment with her mother with whom she had a close relationship. Talking about grief, Kate describes it as nonlinear and how she honors her mom. She also describes her relationship with her children as being influenced by losing her own mother and goes on to discuss discovering storytelling after her mom’s death and the importance of storytelling in our lives. The episode ends with Kate sharing the one song that resonates with her life - a song about how life can be bittersweet.
Episode Highlights:
- The challenging event that redirected the course of Kate’s life
- How the death of her mother shaped Kate’s college years
- The final moments
- Handling the grief
- Kate’s special ritual to honor her mom
- How losing her mom at a young age impacts Kate’s relationship with her children
- Getting into storytelling
- Observing as a storyteller and still living in the present
- Kate talks about her new book
- The one song that resonates with Kate’s life
Quotes:
“She went very fast. She just went from like a healthy person swimming laps, who happens to have cancer to a person that was no longer alive.”
“What I learned most about losing my mother, like the greatest grief I've ever experienced, is that it's so nonlinear.”
“I'm the mom that rolls on the floor with the kids. I mom so freaking hard because I have such respect for the relationship that you get and the form and the connection you can build with your children.”
“When you tell a story about someone, you bring them alive. You bring them to the forefront of your mind and anyone who's listening, and that's magic to me .”
“I am so invested in creating present moments with my kids. I just want to imprint myself on their tiny brains.”
“Having a story brain forces me to laser focus in a way. I could be on the subway, and also rescheduling my appointment with my dermatologist while I'm listening to a podcast and looking out the window, remembering the time I went on a date at that restaurant.”
“The true nature of life is that you can have great beauty and great sadness that sit aside each other.”
“That Barbra Streisand version of ‘The Shadow of Your Smile’...my mother had a really, she had a huge smile. She just left her mark on you. She was the one at a party that found the quiet person in the corner and you would find them, like, laughing with their heads back ten minutes later, you know. She left a mark.”
Links:
69 episode