How Valuable Are Your Stories?

Fostering Resilience

What if I told you there was a way you could contribute to the happiness and resilience of your children and their children? Would you do it? What would it have meant if someone had done that for you?

Recent happiness research shows that children who know their family narrative exhibit more resilience and a stronger sense of love and belonging. Children unaware of their predecessors tend to be more challenged in these areas. It has been proved that our children benefit from knowing not only our triumphs, but also our struggles and how we persevered.

Children who know their family narrative exhibit more resilience and a stronger sense of love and belonging.

This knowledge has deepened my commitment to reaching more people and making the process of capturing, saving, and sharing one’s personal stories fun, engaging, and something that is enriching to all.

A life story saved in a way that it can be passed on to future generations is the best gift anyone can leave for their children, grandchildren, and generations to come. It’s the most personal gift, the gift with the most meaning, the gift that only the storyteller can give.

A life story saved in a way that it can be passed on to future generations is the best gift

Stories can be saved in print, audio, or video, but what I love about working in video is witnessing the essence of a person, seeing that sparkle in their eye, hearing the inflection in their voice, watching that moment when they recall a joyful or poignant memory, and the tears begin to well. Seeing that, capturing it on film . . . it’s irreplaceable.

Once those precious life moments are saved for all time and the family receives it—really understands the importance of what we have achieved . . . that’s priceless.

My client Michael Rosa deeply understood the value of the work a personal historian does and wants everyone to know why saving his mom’s story was important to him.

What would this mean to your loved ones to have their lives, their stories, their beliefs and blessings honored in this way? Don’t wait another day. You know how valuable YOUR loved one’s story is . . . don’t you?

Blog Post Author:

April Bell is a Professional Personal Historian and founder at Tree of Life Legacies. She has been operating her storytelling and wisdom keeping project in the San Francisco Bay Area and across the United States since 2008. April utilizes her innate skills as an active listener to connect with others and draw out their stories and authentic, heartfelt values to be preserved and shared for generations to come. Her clients include individuals, families and organizations who value the power of story. In an effort to provide the gift of video storytelling to the world at large via a simple, fun and easy to use tool, she and her business partner, iPhone app coder Urs Brauchli, released StoryCatcher® for iPhone. Available on the Apple App Store.