A claim that Hallward made in her ted talk, “How telling our silenced stories can change the world” was that sharing stories that are hard to tell normalizes emotions and feelings that were previously surrounded by shame. Hallward provided evidence to this claim through discussing the various health effects that come along with telling stories and by sharing a personal experience of her own. This claim resonated with me so much because I’ve experienced that weight being lifted off my shoulders by hearing other’s tell their hard stories. Finding out someone is experiencing similar hardships as you and seeing how they’re dealing with them is like taking a fresh breath of air. It makes you hopeful and helps to disperse the shame you were carrying because now it’s not just you, it’s someone else who’s dealing with that as well.
Hallward supports this claim by showing that telling our silent stories can improve our health. Hallward states, “Immune system function improves, wound healing improves, visits to the ER are minimized.” All these are benefits from telling our silences stories and she also states that, “when you listen to a story told by someone like you… your blood pressure goes down” this is just another benefit, but from the other perspective of telling silenced stories.
A text to text connection I found between Hallward and Davis was when Davis was talking about breaking up the dog fight. Davis stated, “Everyone was… doing nothing… I rushed in and tried to pull the dogs apart. It wasn’t until after the adults pulled me away that I thought about the danger.” This connects to when Hallward says, “…and you’re alone in the dark. So you can feel really afraid” Hallward is discussing the fear around standing up and speaking out about difficult topics, while Davis is on the other end of that. Davis is saying that she jumps into situations and speaks up when no one else is without thinking of the consequences.