Accepting positive feedback
Also, on my experiences telling a story - I wrote this in my fieldnotes.
I did try to pan the room while talking, but during the laughter, I found it hard to look at the audience. I would look past them at the back wall or around at the tables or floor. I’m not sure why. I think a lot of positive feedback embarrases me a little bit - like I’m not sure how to take a compliment. I’m like this in real life conversations when people give actual compliments so it seems like a likely explanation.
I haven’t so acutely noticed myself doing this before and I’m not entirely sure what it’s about. I have a hard time with eye contact in general and I don’t know why the laughter made it harder to look at people. The laughter was definitely welcome and made me feel good - that my story was being enjoyed. But still, it was like I didn’t want to totally take credit for it.
There's a little, or not so little, shock that some of our tellers experience when the audience so wholly appreciates his or her story ... the audience laughs, applauds, oohs and aahs. I think when a teller is completely involved in his or her story, s/he experiences a sense of not being entirely responsible for it. This has a lot to do with our culture of individuality, when it collides with the lived sense of allowing the truth of a time to flow through us and express what matters to the people who matter to us.
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