If I could paint you a picture, I’d do it with words, with story. There’d be no canvas or paintbrush, no acrylics or oils, but your mind would see vibrant, dancing colors! With words, we can create almost anything, and with the turn of a phrase, turn it to dust. Words call forth forms, set them to function, infuse them with meaning. They can cut the heart out of someone. They can set a spirit free.

Storytelling is an artform as old as time, an ancient birthright, and my deepest love. It is the only inheritance of a poor Caribbean farming family; passed down to my mother and her older sister by their grandmother, then passed on to my brother, my cousins, and me. The descendants of a tiny, hilltop town in Clarendon Parish, Jamaica are now scattered like the stars, but our stories tie us intricately together. In this way, storytelling is remembering; pulling us back, drawing us closer, binding us lovingly to our past, to our dead.

For many years, I thought that my clinical work was keeping me from my love of stories, and impeding my ability to write something incredible. I would lament my career choices to others, chastising myself with just the right amount of self-deprecation. Once I had that million-dollar idea, I’d publish, become unfathomably rich, and never work again! Gratefully, age, experience, and wisdom taught me something new.

Every day, life writes and rewrites itself. We are ever in the midst of this narrative as players, tellers, and authors of our own fate. Listening intently as my clients unravel their histories – grappling with the painful scenes their minds have cemented over decades – isn’t distracting me from what I could be writing. It’s a new story taking shape, right before my eyes!

Whenever someone chooses me as a therapist, I try to make one thing very clear. “I’m not a counselor because I want to help people,” I tell them, watching their eyes go wide, their lips pursed with suspicion. “I’m here, talking to you, because I enjoy it. I’m here for the story.” Despite the shock value of that statement, it is undoubtedly true. Counseling is storytelling. There is nothing more beautiful, more profound, than a person sharing their sacred story, as a teller and a player, in the presence of another. The words inhabit their bodies like a spirit mounting. Their features shift and contort with the rising memories, as raw, powerful emotions fill the room. Each and every time, I am blown away. ❤

November 6, 2023 by Kimoré Reid, Ed.S, LPC, CPCS

Kimoré is a licensed counselor, supervisor, & writer. Her work is dedicated to the healing & liberation of Black & Afro-Caribbean Women, & Queer Women of Color. Interested in working with Kimoré? CLICK HERE!