The Stories We Carry
Story as Medicine
Hey Tribe,
I’ve been sitting with stories lately.
Not the kind we organize or try to make sense of… but the kind that lives in the body. The kind that comes out before you even know you’re ready to say it.
The kind that changes something in you just by being spoken, written, or witnessed.
There’s something that happens when I open my mouth and let the truth come out without editing it too much.
It doesn’t feel like explaining.
It feels like release. Like something loosens its grip on me the moment it’s given voice.
I don’t always know how to name that, but I know it’s real.
I think about how, in so many stories, before someone can face what has been haunting them, they first have to name it.
In many ways, I think our emotions work like that too.
What we cannot name, we often continue to carry.
But when something is finally given language… when it is witnessed… when it is welcomed into the light instead of hidden in silence…something begins to shift.
I’ve noticed that stories don’t really leave us.
They stay in the breath.
In the chest.
In the places we go quiet when something feels too heavy to say out loud.
And then, sometimes without warning, something opens.
And it comes out anyway.
Not polished.
Not perfect.
Just honest.
I think that’s part of why storytelling has always felt so familiar to me.
Long before I had language for any of this, stories were how I found my way back to the people I loved.
I grew up in foster care while still remaining connected to my biological family—a story I’ll share another time.
Life often felt fragmented, but stories became one of the places where things still felt whole.
They carried names. Memories. Family history. Laughter. Grief. —Pieces of people that distance couldn’t completely take away.
And then there were the letters.
My biological father spent years incarcerated during my childhood, and for a long time our relationship was built through envelopes, handwriting, and words.
We learned one another one page at a time.
Looking back now, I realize we weren’t just writing letters.
We were tending a relationship the only way we knew how.
Maybe that’s why I’ve never believed stories are just stories.
I think about how long people have been doing this.
Sitting together.
Speaking.
Listening.
Remembering.
Passing things down through voice, through rhythm, through song, through silence between words… and eventually through written word.
When I think about our ancestors, I don’t imagine them beginning with books.
I imagine circles.
Campfires.
Ceremonies.
Songs that carried memory.
Prayers that carried hope.
Stories that carried identity.
Long before stories were on pages, they lived in people.
They helped us remember who we were.
They reminded us where we came from.
They carried wisdom from one generation into the next.
Something in me has always trusted that way of knowing more than I could ever explain.
There are moments when I speak and I can feel my whole body shift—like what was held finally starts to move.
Not because it’s solved… but because it no longer has to live inside of me alone.
That’s the part I keep coming back to.
Not healing as a concept.
Just… Flow. Release. Voice. Frequency.
For as long as I can remember, expression has been one of the ways I’ve made sense of my life.
Sometimes it looked like journals.
Sometimes conversations that stretched late into the night.
Sometimes letters.
Sometimes music.
Sometimes art.
Sometimes videos I didn’t post.
Sometimes silence…
until I was finally ready to speak.
I’ve learned that when something is given a voice, my body softens.
My breath changes.
What once felt tangled begins to loosen—not because I’ve figured it all out, but because it no longer has to live inside me by itself.
In 2019, before any of this looked like a business, I started a little Facebook page called Emotional Inc.
At the time, I thought I was simply giving myself somewhere to express.
A digital diary.
A place to breathe.
But something unexpected happened.
People began sharing their stories with me.
And then with one another.
What began as my own expression slowly became a space where other people felt safe enough to express themselves too.
Looking back now, I can see that something sacred was unfolding.
I wasn’t just sharing my story.
I was creating space for story.
Over time, Emotional Inc evolved into Earth Angel & Co., and from that same thread, Sitting With Spirit was born.
The names changed.
The work expanded.
But the heart has remained the same.
Creating spaces where stories can be witnessed, honored, remembered, and spoken back into relationship with ourselves.
Looking back now, I think Story Medicine had already found me.
I just didn’t have a name for it yet.
I don’t really see storytelling as something separate from life. It feels like life itself trying to move through us.
Trying to be spoken.
Trying to be witnessed.
Trying to return somewhere it can finally be held.
Maybe that’s what Story Medicine has always been for me.
Not fixing.
Not performing.
Not turning pain into something inspirational before it’s ready.
Just allowing a story to exist outside of the body long enough for it to breathe.
Long enough for me to breathe.
Maybe that’s what I mean when I speak about transmutation through spoken vibration.
Not that our words magically erase what we’ve lived.
But that something changes when truth is no longer carried in silence. When breath meets voice. When memory meets witness.
When what has been held finally has somewhere to land.
And maybe that’s why I’m starting here, with this blog.
Not to teach anything.
Not because I have all the answers.
Simply because this is how I’ve always known to make meaning.
One story at a time.
If you’ve found your way here, I hope this can become that kind of space for you too.
A place where stories don’t have to be polished to be worthy.
Where reflection matters more than perfection.
Where your voice doesn’t have to earn its place.
Where we remember, together, that sometimes the simple act of telling the truth begins changing our relationship with it.
Before you leave, I’d love to leave you with something to sit with.
What story has been quietly asking to be witnessed?
Not the story you think you’re supposed to tell.
Not the one you’ve rehearsed.
The one that’s been patiently waiting beneath the surface.
The one that might simply be asking for a little more breath. A little more space. A little more compassion.
You don’t have to know what to do with it today.
Maybe the medicine begins by simply acknowledging that it’s there.
Thank you for sitting with me.
I’ll meet you here again soon.
Oh, & I love you,
Jasmine
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Sitting With Spirit is the community that grew from this same belief—that stories become medicine when they are witnessed with presence, compassion, and care.
It’s a space where we gather to reflect, share, listen, and remember together.
If you’re longing for a place where your story doesn’t have to be polished to be welcomed, we’d love to have you join us.
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