Feel Me Flow

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Stories come with a feeling already baked in.
The only question is: are you choosing it… or letting it choose you?

Here’s some storytelling sauce. Be intentional about the emotion you want to evoke. What you choose will shape the journey path your audience goes down.

So, might as well be intentional about it.

Let’s cook together.
Pick an emotion: I’m gonna choose remorse.

This is some shit that can be used in the here and now, truthfully. Public health policy cuts for Medicaid/SNAP cuts.

But notice something important: not every character in the story carries the same emotions.

Communities losing Medicaid/SNAP benefits? They don’t feel remorse; they didn’t do anything to be remorseful. They feel grief, anger, frustration, and betrayal.

Remorse(at the very least, hopefully) belongs to the power-holders — the policymakers who slash budgets while calling it “efficiency.” The people who had the power to protect health but instead pulled the rug out.

So if you tell this story with remorse as the guide, it sounds like:

• “We cut behavioral health funding, and now the crisis has deepened. We did that.”

• “We reduced Medicaid, and people lost jobs, lost care, lost lives. That’s on us.”

And you can tune that remorse like a volume knob:

• Light remorse → “We should’ve acted sooner.”

• Medium remorse → “We failed to expand care, and people suffered.”

• Heavy remorse → “Our cuts cost lives. That blood is on our hands.”

  
  And as the storyteller, you decide how loud to play it.

If power-holders feel remorse, communities feel something else:

• Betrayal might look like a parent opening their mailbox to find their child’s Medicaid coverage canceled.

• Frustration looks like a clinic worker turning away patients they’ve known for years.

• Grief looks like a vigil for someone who couldn’t afford treatment after benefits disappeared.

• Anger looks like a packed town hall where residents demand answers and get silence.

These too can be dialed up or down depending on what your goal is(which, once again, you choose as the storyteller.) They’re daily scenes, lived and replayed in households and neighborhoods.

When you choose the emotion — and match it to the right character — you’re shaping accountability, painting lived reality, and deciding the road people travel with you.

And that’s the heart of being Productive Disruptive.
It’s about interrupting the stories that leave out suppressed voices.
It’s about starting the conversations that “politeness” avoids.
It’s about daring to shake the table, cause a scene, and remind folks that storytelling is a powerful act.

🛠️ The PHacilitator’s Corner:

Here’s your one-step challenge this week:

Take a gander at The Feelings Wheel

Choose an emotion and intentionally write(or speak) to it.

How will the reader or listener identify with that emotion? What would it look like?

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How’d I do?