Written by Viveka, our Let’s Go Together Program Coordinator
Paths to Understanding leans into the foundational human practice of sharing stories as an essential way to prepare the ground of our hearts for connection. One way to summarize our work is to say that we create spaces for people from different backgrounds to share stories with each other. Here are a few examples of how the innate practice of storytelling opened the door for connection.
Finding common ground through shared stories
After our three large Let’s Go Together events in the late winter and spring of each year, we hold regular meet-ups that continue offering a space for people to gather and deepen relationships with people from many different geographies and groups who may never have met otherwise.
During our first meet-up in 2025, a couple of long-time residents of Skagit County started talking and found out that they all had spent impactful parts of their lives living in Iran. Though their relationships with Iran were very different, they spent time trading stories and even speaking Farsi together. Sharing their stories made space to find that they had a surprising part of their lives that they had in common. It was a place for them to start sharing similar stories and hearing even more deeply where they differed.
Welcoming through offering a story
At our last meet-up of the year, we were joined by some friends and colleagues of one of our Let’s Go Together Council Members. It was clear they were not sure they were welcome as they sat with their backs to the wall, looking at their phones and quickly glancing around the room. When another Council Member saw them, she brought up a chair and started joking with them. Most importantly, she started telling them a little bit about her life and how she could relate to their nervousness at entering this new room. As she welcomed them with her story, they leaned in and their bodies began to relax. They even began to share a little bit of their own stories. Soon there was a twinkle in their eyes too.
Sharing your story builds trust and connection
Our Let’s Go Together Public Gathering in the spring is always full of people from many backgrounds sharing their stories and why it is so important to them to respect and honor other groups in their wider community.
A few weeks after the Public Gathering this past May, one of the speakers attended a Pow Wow. Though she was not part of the in-group that was gathered at the Pow Wow, a man approached her with a big smile and said, “I know you!” She looked bewildered and he explained that he had been to the Let’s Go Together Public Gathering and heard her story. He then proceeded to introduce all of his relatives to her. Sharing her story opened up the door to new connection with someone who she had never met and helped build such trust that he felt safe introducing his family to her.
What value is there in putting in the effort to deepen our sharing in 2026?
At this point, we cannot afford not to deepen our sharing with others in our community in 2026. In order to see each other, build relationships, and repair the weave of our communities, we need to start with storytelling. We need to find and create the spaces where it is safe to share our stories with each other.
Join us as we continue to gather people and use stories as a tool for growing trust in 2026.