Can we sit and talk? Poems, stories and some words of advice

Abstract

Our stories help us to make sense of the world we are living in and sometimes those stories make no sense at all to those outside of our experiences. I am here to encourage you to listen to the stories of the people you work with, as you walk alongside them through some of the extremes of their life experiences. There will be people who challenge you, who stretch you to the absolute limits of your psyche, to North, South, East and West of your emotional and spiritual capacity of your own being in the world. But stay alert and stay alive to their stories, as they are often desperate metaphors of unspeakable experiences. These stories need to be heard. Do not lose sight of the storyteller or of the sense they are making of their experiences. I urge you to listen to them. Because these are often disenfranchised voices, the unheard stories of the dispossessed.