What is Mentionable is Manageable…

 

“If there is someone that is there to listen to your story, there is healing.” 

 

Nancy Slonim Aronie

 

 

I watched a movie with my husband the other evening called A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, based on a true story about the friendship between a journalist and the TV show icon Mr. Rogers. 

 

In one particularly poignant scene, Mr Rogers said something so remarkable, I want to share it with you.

 

I’ll set the scene. 

 

The journalist’s family are sitting in the living room of his estranged father’s house, who is on his deathbed. Mr. Rogers is visiting to pay his respects and meet the journalist’s newly reconnected family.

There is laughter, some hopeful conversation about the family travelling together, and then silence, a heaviness in the solemn realization that there will likely be no more travel for the father.

 

In the midst of the silence, Mr. Rogers says:

 

“What is mentionable is manageable.”

 

I have to write it again.

 

“What is mentionable is manageable.”

 

Apart from enjoying the play of words, the alliteration, I love the message it conveys:

 

We often don’t speak about things that are difficult, because we believe that by not speaking about them, they will go away. However, in my experience, talking about things that are difficult, and writing about them, helps them to become less difficult. If not immediately, then over time. 

 

There’s a name for this kind of retelling. It’s called Narrative Inquiry, and it is a healing process, as well as a research modality (which I used for My M.Ed. and PhD.)

It is what inspired and informs my practice of Loving Inquiry. 

 

Taking the time and space to be with yourself,

    telling and retelling your stories,

          & shaping them in new ways.

 

This is what makes what is difficult, manageable.

 

It’s a practice, worth the effort and learning. 

 

It’s also a skill that will serve you for the rest of your life.

 

 

This is what I offer women though my writing programs.

 

 

A gentle, loving space to be with yourself and learn how to tell your stories in ways that make what is difficult, manageable. 

 

Curious and want to learn more? Contact me here…