#80 | Why Facts Alone Don’t Change Minds — The Real Power Behind LGBTQ Allyship Is Storytelling

Welcome back. If you are listening to this as soon as it posts, I hope you are having a beautiful holiday season. Whatever you celebrate and whomever you celebrate with, may you know love, laughter, peace, and good health. Today's quick episode gives a sneak peek at the collaborative book my friend and joint venture partner, Catherine Katherine Burroughs and I are creating. We invite you to learn more about the movement we are starting around the power of stories, and not just any stories, rainbow stories.

Welcome to Just Breathe: Parenting Your LGBTQ Teen, the podcast transforming the conversation around loving and raising an LGBTQ child. My name is Heather Hester, and I am so grateful you are here. I want you to take a deep breath and know that for the time we are together, you are in the safety of the Just Breathe Nest. Whether today's show is an amazing guest, or me sharing stories, resources, strategies, or lessons I've learned along our journey, I want you to feel like we're just hanging out at a coffee shop having a cozy chat. Most of all, I want you to remember that wherever you are on this journey right now, in this moment in time, you are not alone.

Hi, I am Heather Hester, and I am really happy to be here today to talk to you, to share with you about Rainbow Stories, which is a collaboration between Katherine Burroughs and myself where we are putting together a compilation book of, for parents, teens, and allies of stories. And before I tell you any more about this amazing collaboration, I just want to tell you a little bit about myself and the reason I am doing this and the reason why I feel this this is such an important project. So when my son Connor came out almost 6 years ago, we really— first of all, we were blindsided. My husband and I had no idea, and we did not have any idea where to find information. We were really ill-equipped as to how to support Connor and where to find support for Connor, where to find good resources, good information. You name it, that we had a tough time finding it. And so Connor really, really struggled for quite some time, and we struggled for quite some time across the board, from mental health to just the coming out process and, and understanding that and understanding, you know, where he was in this process. Having the overlay of, you know, on top of just coming out as gay, he was also a teenager. He was 16, 17, 18 years old, which, as we all know, is a difficult time just in and of itself. So there were a lot of layers to our process and a lot of things that we were having to learn very, very quickly and, and to, to find the information to learn. And so about 2 years into our process, I thought, you know what, this is— I don't want any other family to have to go through what we went through. It was so difficult. It was so heartbreaking. It was so scary at many, many points. And, um, and I thought, you know what, there's— I want to make this easier for anybody I can possibly make this easier for. So I, at that point, started my website, Chrysalis Mama. Which initially started out as a resource website and a place for me to just offer information and share our story, share our stories, and share our process. And then about a year after that, I started my podcast, Just Breathe: Parenting Your LGBTQ Teen, which just turned 3 years old. And, and that became another way for me to really reach out to people and share stories, share my story, share our stories, and share, allow, give a platform for others to share their stories, both experts in their respect and all of their fields. And then people who have just, you know, have been on this journey. And it became such a lovely, wonderful way to connect with other parents and other kids and just human beings. And so, uh, along this journey, Catherine and I have met, um, through a coaching group, and we really decided that what an awesome way— like, realizing between what the two, each of us do, and you'll find out in a few minutes exactly what she does as well, but the power of being able to share a story and for also the power of being able to see yourself in someone's story and what that does to alleviate that feeling of feeling alone and feeling like no one else knows what you're going through and feeling like there's just nothing out there for me. There's no information for me. So I'm gonna turn this over to Katherine before we go any further into what we're doing here because I want you to hear all about her as well.

So I have a lovely blended family which includes a young person who identifies as non-binary. But my bigger role in this is bringing in the element of stories and my lifelong love of writing. My lifelong love of reading and just a passion in general for stories. You know, stories are really how we communicate with each other. Over 65% of all human conversations take the form of stories. You know, we tell each other about our day, we tell a colleague about a meeting that they may have missed, we talk to our children, we talk about our children, we tell stories of family history, stories of events that have passed, stories of the traditions that we're carrying on. And if you look, you know, even to sporting events, news stories, it's how we communicate on a larger scale globally as well. So I've been passionate about writing stories, and I've actually built my business around helping others to tell their stories through ghostwriting and through book coaching. And I primarily work with business owners. And one of the things that I've really— that's come to my attention in my 13+ years of writing professionally is that the character of who that business owner is is so integral to telling the story of that business. And so I created my own intellectual property called the Business Character Analysis, where I really look at who each business owner is when they come on board as a client, and they get their one defining characteristic, which is that personality trait that's really who they are, how they show up in their business, their three supporting characteristics that enhance that defining characteristic, and then the culminating result, which is the magic that happens when all of that those characteristics come together just to give amazing benefits to their clients. And so in talking with Heather Hester and also in a recent experience of writing an article, uh, on one of our local pride groups, I've really come to realize how important the stories are, particularly about people's experiences in the LGBTQ community. And it's so much about who you are, who we all are as human beings, and bringing that out and bringing that to benefit other people so that they can identify with those stories. They can see themselves in those stories. They can remember those stories and find support in them in those moments that they feel alone. Because we remember information that is presented in stories up to 22 times more than facts alone. So we can give a teenager a pamphlet that says, you know, here's some support and here's some numbers you can call, but if they've read a story that they really identify with of someone who's had a similar experience maybe a few years ago, they're going to remember that story far more than they remember what's in a pamphlet. And so Heather and I just are so excited to work together to bring all of this support and all of these stories together and get them out into the world so that more voices are heard, more voices are raised, because stories inspire us to dream. They help us to find the courage to act. Then they serve as a medium to celebrate and immortalize our achievements. And that's really what we want to do with this Rainbow Stories compilation book. So Heather, do you want to chat a bit about our vision for this book?

Yes, I do. I think you did just a lovely, lovely job of really talking about how the power— what power a story has. And that's not something that's just for a specific group of people, right? That's for every human being. Stories have power. And when you think about what stories you've read in your lifetime that have moved you. Think about why, why those stories moved you. And, and were you able to connect? Was it because you were able to connect to the person that was writing the story, or the main character of the story, or something that happened in the story? There are so many reasons that a story does have power. And, you know, as Catherine and I were talking about doing this and realizing just how far-reaching this can really go. It's not only the, the power of these stories for individuals, it's— I often think when I'm working with people and working with families and, you know, even working with my own kids, that one of the things that we talk about a lot is actually knowing somebody, reading a story about something that's happened to a specific person, right? Instead of like reading a statistic, like you just said, reading on a pamphlet, hearing a news story where you hear something that's really kind of disconnected, something that you really can't necessarily relate to. But if you read a story about, or if somebody tells you a story about a specific person, then it's so much like automatically easier to relate to, right? Or to understand, or for you to have compassion, or for you to be curious instead of judgmental. So there are a lot of beautiful possibilities for this book, and the more we talk about it, the more we are excited to offer this opportunity for anyone listening, um, anyone, anybody seeing this, to share their story, um, because as you know, not only can that be just inspiring, it can be life-saving.

And we really have a larger vision of this becoming a movement, uh, because I think now more than ever, and I'm sure you agree with this, Heather Hester, there's so much fear in the world that we really need to be constantly fighting against. And I think the best way to combat that fear and to cause it to dissipate is through information and knowledge and educating people. And so the more voices are heard and the more people understand that the wonderful people of this world who identify with the LGBTQ community are such a rich and diverse part of our world and part of our greater communities, and that they bring so much value through that diversity. And, you know, voices need to be heard by these people so that they can understand we're all human, we all have the same concerns. You know, we all want to be able to have a job that supports our families. We all want a safe place to live. We all want to be able to enjoy life, find something that we're passionate about, and be able to do that, that thing that brings us joy. So when people can see themselves in the stories of our compilation book, and when the greater community who may maybe doesn't have that personal experience or doesn't have a close family member with that experience, they can learn too what it is like to go through these things and be more understanding and hopefully become an ally and an advocate. So we are hoping together, Heather Hester and I, that you are willing to share some part of your story or a message for the world some form of creative writing that's original. Could be poetry, could be prose, or some sort of artistic expression— a painting, a sculpture, even a photograph, but something that can be transformed into a photograph that we can put in a book.

I was just thinking of a conversation that you and I had the other night with somebody who shared a very specific incident, and we thought, gosh, this is such a— that in and of itself is such a beautiful way to share something. So, you know, we, we want to inspire you to brainstorm. We want you to, to inspire you to think about how your story, your message, your experience can change somebody else's life, can help somebody else. And I think that Sometimes we don't realize that our voice does have that power to be able to positively affect someone else. And so that is one of the many reasons that Catherine and I are so excited about putting this together and offering this opportunity for you to be able to, to give you a platform to share.

Yeah, so anything that you wish people knew, people in your support circle, other people, um, like co-workers or the person at the grocery store, you know, whatever you wish people knew and what something you think people could benefit from that would really help them as they go through that journey that you have already been through and you're a little bit further ahead on. So as Heather Hester said, it could be one, you know, specific evening in your life that was very influential, or it could be a bit about your journey over several decades where you touch on some turning points in your life. So just whatever you feel called to share, we would love to help you bring your voice forward and get it out into the world, because all of you have such beautiful voices, and we can't wait to hear from you.

Thanks so much for joining me today. If you enjoyed today's episode, I would be so grateful for a rating or a review. Click on the link in the show notes or go to my website, chrysalismama.com, to stay up to date on my latest resources as well as to learn how you can work with me. Please share this podcast with anyone who needs to know that they are not alone. And remember to just breathe. Until next time.