Shamm Petros (00:00)
There’s hope. There’s hope. Somebody here has hope, and it is legitimate hope. 

Welcome to Stories That Stay: How Stories of Identity Shape Us. This is a podcast where healing happens at the intersection of art, science, and storytelling. I’m Shamm Petros, a therapist, learning strategist, refugee, and eclectic creative.

Dwight Dunston (00:24)
And I’m Dwight Dunston, a facilitator, educator, artist, and proud uncle. Stories That Stay podcast is a project of Lion’s Story. In this episode, which is our last one of Season One, I first want to just thank you, our listeners, for tuning in to our inaugural season. It was depthful, emotional, hilarious, sobering, and we’ve gotten a lot of feedback from our guests—

—and from you, the listeners—that you’ve all found our conversations and our practices healing, cathartic, affirming, and inspiring. We started our season with Lisa Nelson-Hayes, the Executive Director of Lion’s Story, in an episode called Love, Protection, and the Weight of Racial Stress. We then moved to Osahon Tongo’s French Toast at Daycare. He spoke about love, care, and memory.

We had rock star Merrill Garbus on whiteness, grief, and practice in an episode called Wonder and the Will to Live. We then bopped over to the UK with Inua Ellams, who spoke on identity, abandonment, and creative survival in an episode called The Weight of Difference. We had Mona Norfleet, who spoke on healing and belonging in an episode called Growing Up Biracial. And then we had fellow trainer Brian Caselli Jordan in an episode—

—called Holding Love and Accountability and Our First Stories of Race. Lastly, we had a Lion’s Story board member, Dr. Darryl J. Ford, who spoke on race, resilience, and the generational legacy of education in an episode entitled Claiming Worth. Wow, Shamm, we had a powerful season.

Shamm Petros (02:09)
We really did. Wow. I’m sitting here as if I wasn’t there—in shock and awe. I’m so grateful. ⁓ So much richness shared with us. A lot of gratitude. Gratitude out of 10. I will say that, and I feel it in my heart. And for our last episode of this season, we want to be in conversation together. Because, you know, we’re a part of the people experiencing these stories too.

Conversation with one another, really, about our learnings, our insights, and our hopes for the stories of this season and beyond.

Prepare ourselves for the feelings, emotions, truths that will emerge. We want to take a moment to settle in together. Wherever you are—walking, driving, cooking, working, or resting—we invite you now to take a few breaths just for yourself, however you wish.

Exhaling as you need, and continue inhaling and exhaling for the next 45 seconds with an audio reprieve. And remember to always keep breathing.

Shamm Petros (04:03)
So I wanted to just start by asking you what we ask all our guests: how are you feeling about sharing today?

Dwight Dunston (04:09)
Wow, I’m feeling proud at a 10, grateful at a 10, a little sad here at the end of Season One, you know—just a little sad, maybe at like a three or four. Yeah. Truly inspired also at a 10. It was such a rich and diverse guest list. You know, when we set out to do this first season, we wanted to try and incorporate voices from—

—different sectors, different walks of life, different backgrounds, different experiences. We accomplish that in the tapestry that these folks help to build with their stories and their sharings and their vulnerabilities. It’s just something that I know, for me, has just really brought home the power of this work. So that’s some of the feelings, and just a little bit about, you know, as I reflect on the season.

Some things come into mind, but I don’t want to get too much into it before asking you the same question. I’m here at the end of our first season together. How are you feeling? What are those feelings? Scale them for us.

Shamm Petros (05:17)
Yeah, definitely that gratitude I mentioned in my heart at a 10. I feel that loud and proud. You used the word “tapestry,” I believe, and that gave me a really strong image. My mind just kind of wandered to how every one of our guests had several tapestries of their own, right? And all the color and threads and weaving and unweaving we got to witness. Yeah, the feeling is very much imagery—a lot of imagery for me right now.

It makes me want to smile. It gives me hope. Yeah, for us—even as people that have processed so many stories—we’ve done that in so many ways, but particularly in this model and fashion. I love that I’m never not surprised, if that makes sense. The work is very generative. So I guess more gratitude for that as well.

Dwight Dunston (06:08)
Hmm, Shamm, you’ve been doing this work of teaching people these skills and tools and techniques and interventions for years now. I just think about your role at Lion’s Story as developing the curriculum, making it accessible to participants. This is, you know, the first time we’re doing this in this setting, using podcasts as a way to teach these skills—just in your role at Lion’s Story as an organization. I’m curious—

—how you see the conversations in this medium of podcasts as a potential way to continue to build the skills to navigate moments of stress, racial stress, identity stress, with care, with resilience, with thoughtfulness.

Shamm Petros (06:53)
I mean, big “O” to you for encouraging this podcast format. Shout-out to Dwight for really believing this is a space we should and can occupy. I was very reluctant—you know this—but what it has shown me as someone that designed learning tools and spaces, particularly at Lion’s Story, because we are backed by now 40 years of rigorous research, right? Shepherded by Dr. Stevenson and a lot of his students.

There was always a strong commitment to fidelity to the research, right? And the curriculum, and the tussle has always been: But we want a world that has these skills. We want everyone to have these skills. You know, how do we democratize it while also protecting how rigorous this work is? We have the practices, the formulas, the lesson plans, the steps, the model.

Just dancing between those two standards I’m committed to upholding. The number one thing about this work has always—I see it every time. Either we’re training large groups of people, small teams, executives, or even—you know this well, Dwight—when we’re even possibly talking to a future client that wants to book us. The moment they hear about this work, it’s like they abandon. They go straight to: My gosh, there’s hope.

There’s hope. Somebody here has hope, and it is legitimate hope. There’s hope that I can quantify or calculate or look at. And I think that’s the most important thing right now. Someone can hear this podcast, hear the stories across this platform, and just feel hopeful that their story matters. All stories are tapestries, and there’s a way to tell our stories and process them differently so we have more agency, right? So I hope that’s what—

—the space is doing for folks.

Dwight Dunston (08:51)
And we often quote the poem by Nayyirah Waheed: Some people, when they hear your story, expand. Others, upon hearing your story, contract. And this is how you know. There’s just something about the power of our stories that open others up or cause them to turn inward. And that’s data, right?

Going along that hope thread, I have to shout out Morgan Reed—who for many years was the Director of Operations—and I feel like had the initial idea for a podcast. And I can remember hearing Morgan’s story, which we, you know, was one of our early recorded stories using trainings. You know, I heard her stand up for her brother in her story, right? And facilitating conversations from just a recording of her story—right—one could argue was kind of a—

—podcast format, because she wasn’t in the room, but people listened to her story. And then we worked with them in relation to what was coming up within them from her story.

It elicited so much in me, but one of the biggest things—as a sibling and, you know, uncle and partner and friend—just hearing her, the ways that she embodied care and protection gave me hope that I could do that in my relationships for the people I love.

So many of our participants, when they were hearing a story, also felt empowered. Or also remembered moments when that didn’t happen—when someone didn’t intervene on their behalf, or they didn’t intervene on someone else’s behalf, right? They had to move through either grief or disappointment or shame, but it was all on the way to hope that in the next moment they could do something different. So there’s just something about hearing one another’s stories, cultivating hope, as you were just sharing, that just comes to mind.

Shamm Petros (10:46)
Yeah, her story involved a school setting—caring for someone more vulnerable than her brother who was mistreated. But then it unravels all the characters and lack of characters in a setting like that.

To all our listeners, we’ve asked all our guests around their first memory of difference. When you continue our curriculum in most settings, we then build on the story prompt to ask: if you could—

—redo, have a do-over in an imaginary world, and just rerun those events for a different outcome, what would that look like?

And it’s one of my favorite questions, because our story prompts we process here illuminate so much. The characters and people in our audience—our participants, our clients—can really see themselves or relate. Great storytelling does lead to better connection.

I love the Nayyirah Waheed quote. Some people, when they hear your story, contract—you know this, right? We’re trainers, we’re facilitators, yes, but we’re trained as researchers too. We don’t want to judge that contraction. We want to get you in a place where you’re observing it.

Some of our guests feel like that came up in our podcasts, in the episodes—either physical contraction, right? Or how they even understand their stories. That’s why I love most about this work, especially coming out on the podcast: we’re working with storytellers. Of course, there are professional ones such as Osahon, a filmmaker; Dr. Ford, who has been Head of School and has also led a lot of community spaces.

I think what our work offers is to really support them in the process—to be able to name, okay, actually, when I look back, I see no images there. I see all these other images, and that’s actually taking me somewhere else. Like, I believe everyone’s a storyteller. Everyone’s a creator. For better or worse, I feel like I’ve been a storyteller, architect, my whole life. But for those of us drawn or compelled to the lifestyle, we need help. You know, we need help.

And as much as people are influenced and impacted when we speak, do we contract when we tell our stories? Are we open? Are we numb? Are we running? Are we hiding? And not even the goal of changing anything—just to understand.

Dwight Dunston (13:15)
Right. I would add Lisa also in there as our list of professional storytellers. Then I think about Merrill, who’s a musician, right? And she’s painting stories in this different way through music. And Brian Jordan as well, who is an incredible musician and singer—vocalist, instrumentalist. So the ways that art helps us tell stories.

And even Mona, who came to us as a relative of our producer and has done a lot of work leading local initiatives on racial equity and in community programming. But she supports people to tell stories, right? It feels so natural, right? I think it’s so human to tell stories—to have our cultures, no matter what our backgrounds are—you sort of eventually go back far enough, you get to the fact that your ancestors had oral traditions, would pass—

—stories down: fables, understanding of the world around you, the plants, the animals, the roles in your culture, society. We use stories to tell those things and to pass information, wisdom, warnings—wisdom and warnings—down to one another.

Yeah, there’s just something so powerful and healing about really stepping into storytelling, narrating our own lives, our experiences, giving voice to them. I hear Doc say this all the time, you know: just falling in love with our stories—the tragedy and triumph of them. So, so healing.

Shamm Petros (14:52)
Yeah, following the love of your story is something Dr. Stevenson leaves with. That’s what we stand on: the ability to make meaning out of your story, even if it’s not love yet.

I spent some time working with migrant youth in East Africa and in refugee settings who’ve been exposed to chronic and acute trauma—and those migrants have even resettled abroad, right? And a lot of the research supporting their care and well-being is that if they can make meaning out of their experiences—whether that’s connected to a faith practice, their purpose, their family role—and, you know, I want to be careful to say this is not like a glorification of any trauma they’ve experienced, right? If they can place it and weave in the narrative of the before, during, and after, their outcomes are a lot better than most.

For those of our guests that have made meaning out of these experiences: In Inua’s story, for example, he was very clear, you know—he was at age four, five—and the very moment he was separated from his twin in the classroom, that he felt a shatter in him—the launch of a lot of themes around forced movement and migration for him. Or Brian, who is an artist—the main meaning of his family, not only in his artistry and how he talks about his family, but in his role as a father and what it would mean to name his son after his grandfather, who he loved dearly, also wanted to hold accountable.

It never ends, and that’s the best part. And these are just the beginning skills. When we show you how to breathe in the moment, name your emotions, scale them, color them, name the image, name the self-talk—there’s no ending to where that will lead you. But as a tool, we’re teaching the skill. So I’m very happy to show these storytellers—all of us—that that’s possible.

So I grow within your story. ⁓

Dwight Dunston (17:00)
We could talk so much about Season One, Shamm, and we want to leave people coming back. So our plan right now is to have another season. And so once again, we just want to thank all of our guests. Thank our listeners. Thank you to Lion’s Story—the leadership at Lion’s Story—Lisa, our board, Dr. Stevenson, Dr. Peterson—just everyone who helps this project take flight.

Peterson, Marty, our entire Lion’s Story team. We can’t wait to come back to you with more conversations, more stories. Thank you so much for tuning in, and please join us next season for Season Two. We promise it’s gonna be awesome plus plus plus—and depthful and emotional. We promise you: it’s gonna be emotional. Just thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you soon.

Shamm Petros (17:58)
Thank you so much for tuning in to Stories That Stay: How Stories of Identity Shape Us. This podcast is a project of Lion’s Story. To learn more about Lion’s Story and our work, please visit lionstory.org. This episode was produced and edited by Peterson Toscano. Music during our mindful moment comes from Dwight Dunston himself. Other music comes from EpicSound.com. For our listeners—

—know that we are here to help you build the real courage, practical language, and skills to navigate discomfort with compassion and clarity, starting with yourself. If you found value in today’s episode, please consider leaving a review, subscribing, or sharing this with someone who needs it or might enjoy it. Your support helps us grow our healing community with practical learning resources, training opportunities for individuals and communities that need these skills the most.

Until next time, keep listening, keep learning, and keep telling your story. You are your most important listener.