Storyphile | Your life. Your story. For the people you love.

“Every man moves on…but there is no need to grieve. He leaves good things behind.”
—Alistair MacLeod, “To Everything There Is a Season”

1. Telling your story is fun. A stroll through the past can bring back happy memories that make you feel good. That’s good for your health!
   
   • Researchers at the University of Southampton have found that reminiscing can boost your mood and even make your body feel warmer. Reminiscing can make you more hopeful, more generous and more connected to the people around you.

2. Sharing is good for you. Sharing the bad stuff lessens the burden. Sharing the good times makes them more precious.
   
   • Telling your stories can be a healing experience that helps you work through painful memories and come to terms with difficult times.

3. Remembering is important. The world is changing ever more quickly. It’s important to capture the way things were while you still remember them.
   
   • When I was growing up, in small town Alberta, my family was one of the few that had a telephone, and neighbours often dropped by to use it. Today even schoolkids have their own phones!

4. Memory is a fickle thing. What you write down is what you will remember.
   
   • My Baba Lesoway came to Canada as a little girl. She never went to school. (There were no schools to go to!) But not knowing how to read or write made her memory razor sharp. Baba remembered everything, without writing it down. I can’t get through a day without sticky notes and electronic reminders!

5. When you tell your own story, you make sure you’re remembered the way you’d like to be remembered.
   
   • Storyphile helps you tell your story your own way, in your own words. For the people who love you, reading your story will seem like a cozy chat with you.

6. Stories bring families closer together. Sharing your stories helps your dearest loved ones get to know you better. It helps them understand you as a real-life person with ideas and hopes and dreams.
   
   • The people who love you want to know about the experiences that shaped you. They want to get to know you as a person. What makes you happy? What are your regrets? Your heartbreaks? Your insights? Your proudest moments?

7. Stories connect the generations. Your stories are your legacy for the future. They make you more than just a name on your family tree.
   
   • In every family, it’s the lovers of stories who keep the threads of family history unbroken. What customs and traditions does your family cherish? What family rituals will you pass down?

8. Stories teach us the important things in life. Your wisdom and your life lessons can shape and guide the future.
   
   • What we inherit is what we pass on. What did your life teach you? What would you do differently? What words of wisdom can you share with the generations that will follow you?

9. Stories bear witness—to your adventures, to your accomplishments, to your roots.
   
   • Taking the time to reflect on your life can be an enlightening experience that teaches you about yourself. It can help you appreciate the good things and the important lessons your life’s journey has taught you.

10.  Stories are a gift. Sharing your stories is a way of sharing your hopes, dreams and values with the generations that will follow you.
    
    • We all want to know where we’ve come from. Knowing our history shapes who we are and guides the paths we choose in life.

11. You can’t assume that your loved ones know your stories. And you can’t assume that they’re not interested.
    
    • My husband’s grandmother once told me how she married her husband. Her Highlander Catholic family had been so opposed to her Protestant fiancé that they locked her up in an upstairs bedroom so she couldn’t see him. But Grandma escaped through a window and jumped off the veranda roof to elope. And she and her true love lived happily ever after.

      No one in the family had ever heard this story. No one but me had ever asked!