Sharing the power of anecdotes

“Shut up and listen.” This is the mantra of My Story. Once a semester, Toreros come together in community with open hearts to hear the stories of their fellow classmates. The stories provide laughs, tears, and most importantly, the opportunity to build empathy and community.

On Wednesday, April 11, over 100 Toreros gathered in the UCs to shut up and listen to five USD students’ stories about experiences that shaped their lives.

The concept of My Story is simple: members of the USD community stand in front of the audience and tell their stories, sometimes in addition to showing photos. The storytellers speak of adversities they have faced and how they overcame them, often revealing vulnerable or sensitive information about themselves that many people do not know. Despite its simplicity, the event remains popular as seats fill up quickly every semester.

This event was part of USD’s Sexual Assault Awareness Week. Along the walls of the room hung USD students’ photos from the What I Be Project,  in which Toreros openly express their insecurities and face their stereotypes by writing the words on their faces.

Sophomore Jenelle Seguin spoke at My Story last semester. She discussed why My Story’s motto of “shut up and listen” is so important to the event, and how it connects back to building community at this university.

“I feel like this society lives in a very fast-paced world,” Seguin said. “By shutting up and listening, you hear other people talk about experiences they’ve been through, and by doing that, you might possibly find connections with those people. And that creates empathy, which creates relationships, which creates a stronger community at USD, which makes more people feel more at home and cared for.”

Junior Davis Luanava was a speaker at this semester’s My Story. She echoed Seguin’s thoughts, emphasizing the impact that listening can have.

“We live very outwardly perfect lives,” Luanava said. “And it’s easy to forget to get caught up in that everyone else has a perfect life. And I think My Story does a beautiful job of bringing a human back. And so I think that that’s why it makes an impact. Yes, it’s a simple concept, I’m just telling my story, but I feel like one of the biggest gifts in our society today is to listen.”

Sophomore Ally Ramona, along with sophomore Cameron Fruehe, helped organize the event. Ramona first became interested in My Story during her first semester at USD.

“I went to a My Story my first semester, and I just loved it,” Ramona said. “I loved the concept of it. I love spoken words, storytelling, I’ve always been super into reading and writing too, so I just thought the concept of the event was cool. I’m such an empath, so I really connected with it. So I thought, ‘This is the perfect thing I should be involved in because I’m so passionate about it already.’ And so I just dove right in.”

This semester’s event was popular with almost every seat filled in the forum. Ramona explained why she believes people keep coming back every semester to listen to people’s stories.

“Just simply advertising an event where you sit down and listen to people for an hour, that doesn’t sound exciting at first,” Ramona said. “But I think that people want to delve deeper and feel connected because as college students we really put on this facade of, ‘Everything’s okay,’ and, ‘Everything’s perfect, I’m fine.’ Really, that’s not true, and we all have stories.”

Ramona further elaborated that she believes the simplicity of the event is another reason for why it is so popular.

“We have a really minimalist setup,” Ramona said. “We have a podium, and we have a speaker. It’s so simple, but it’s so powerful. I think not enough people take the time to listen to people’s stories and enter into people’s perspectives that might not be their own. And also connect with people with a similar story.”

Seguin took the role of a mentor for this semester’s event. She explained what originally made her interested in the idea.

“I first heard about My Story when I was a freshman,” Seguin said. “I was asked by my RA to go to one of the events, and I had no idea what it was. And the first one I saw made me cry. So ever since then, it’s had a special place in my heart.”

Seguin applied to be a storyteller at My Story, and was chosen. She outlined the process of what it was like to develop her story.

“We do a few activities helping you figure out why you wanted to do My Story,” Seguin said. “At the end of the meeting, they reveal to you who your mentor is going to be. My process of creating My Story was journaling a lot, and then meeting with my mentor figuring out what topics I wanted to discuss.”

Seguin was nervous before presenting her story, but knew that the audience was nothing but supportive.

“Before my My Story, I was anxious,” Seguin said. “The day of, I was just excited to share my story with everyone who I invited and all of the strangers who were there with an open heart.”

She explained how presenting her story allowed her to express a side of vulnerability in a way that was scary, yet powerful.

“Going up (and speaking) was very freeing,” Seguin said. “At parts, I was really in touch with my emotions and I felt like tearing up again, but I felt like that added to the power to what I was speaking about. It was a night full of positive emotions, and love and support.”

During her story, Luanava discussed experiences as a person of color that shaped her, and how her relationship with her white mom changed those relationships.

“People of color don’t necessarily get to talk about how they feel in their skin a lot,” Luanava said. “To be a person of color and to admit that you had this feeling at one point, that you didn’t want your skin, is something that, first of all, I don’t hear my friends do that much. And it’s something that’s isolating because it feels like you can’t talk to anybody about it. And the extra layer with my mom being white on top of it was an extra little piece.”

At first, Luanava was scared to tell her story because she did not want the audience to think that the story she chose represented all of her life experiences.

“And the story I shared, that was one time, one piece, just a tiny part of my story,” Luanava said. “But it was so difficult to narrow it down and it felt daunting and overwhelming to share my entire story and to say that it’s my story and that’s all it is. And I was scared that people would think that the entirety of my story.”

Every storyteller at My Story has a mentor that helps them develop their story and be open to vulnerability. The storytellers and mentors work together for about two months before the event.

Ramona explained the purpose of a mentor.

“(Mentors are) just there to empower (storytellers) and help them feel more confident and ready to share their stories,” Ramona said. “And basically assist them in any way they need throughout the process.”

After being a storyteller, Seguin decided to become a mentor because she had loved being a speaker so much.

“I really wanted to be a supportive mentor,” Seguin said. “The person I was paired up with, I didn’t know. We set up a session where we could sit on the Colachis Plaza and just talk for a few hours. I was just prompting her with questions, and she told me stories. By making her open up and talking about things that were important to her and that she was supposed to confide in me, it helped her figure out what things she wanted to share with the community.”

Luanava explained how her mentors helped her interweave the different parts of her life to create a story that represented who she is.

“I started to write and I started to journal, and so many different stories kept popping out,” Luanava said. “But one of the biggest things for me was seeing the thread throughout all the stories. Me and my mentors talked about that there’s events in my life, but the underlying thread is my relationship with my mother.”

Seguin believes that My Story is not only a valuable experience for the storyteller, but for the entire audience as well.

“I feel like it creates a vulnerable environment on campus, and a lot of people aren’t used to seeing that from very established community members,” Seguin said. “By having one night a semester where community members could talk about their stories, it brings people from all different communities under one roof in empathy and solidarity. And I think that’s really unique.“

Luanava hopes that some of the audience members connected to her story and can help them understand further the experiences that some people of color may go through. She also hopes that her story helped the audience understand and accept its own flaws.

“It’s okay because we went through this and this is the end point, this is how we feel now and we can get through it,” Luanava said. “To humanize is to also create connection, and to create a community, and to create empathy, and to create a safety net, and to create this sense of understanding that it’s okay to be who you are with fallacies and everyone has fallacies.”

Ramona also believes the event bolsters a sense of community at USD.

“I think people really crave connection, and I think this event provides that,” Ramona said. “I think of anyone in this room, and I know that I connect to at least one thing that each speaker said. Even if you don’t, there’s a really inspiring message to take away from each story. So I think that keeps people coming back, for sure.”

While Ramona hopes to see My Story continue to be successful, she does not necessarily see the need for it to expand.

“I just think I’m going to roll with it and see,” Ramona said. “I don’t think this event really needs to change that much. People keep coming back for it, just as it is. One thing that we would really like is for President Harris to do a talk at My Story, but that just takes a lot of planning in advance.”

My Story is an event for people to bring an open heart and an open mind. The simple, yet powerful concept is one that is successful at USD and will continue to strive to build community.