‘The last time I cried was …’: The game helping families open up this Christmas

At a dinner party recently, we’d no sooner finished up our main course than the host pulled out a box emblazoned with the words, Where Should We Begin – A Game of Stories. I’d never heard of this game, where “there are no winners or losers.”

Its developer, psychotherapist Esther Perel, writes in the instruction manual that “everyone is on the same team. The intention is to come together around the magic of storytelling.” We have, perhaps, never needed this magic more.

As family and friends gather during the holidays this year, it’s hard to escape how much has been written about how polarised we are, how many families are struggling to make ends meet and how a mental health epidemic is spiralling out of control. There’s too much pain, loss and fear. Vanessa Inn, best known for her workshops on finding what she refers to as one’s “essence,” has said, “we’re afraid of being judged, ridiculed, kicked out of the pack, and abandoned.” The result too often, Inn added. “We are further and further disconnected [from others] and feeling kind of empty, and then more and more afraid to show who we really are.”

My dinner host, a good friend and veteran of this storytelling game, said it provides a structure for learning how to listen better and not judge and how to allow ourselves to take the risk of being vulnerable with others.

Actually, I’m a fan of games where you can win – such as Risk (world domination) or Monopoly (money, money, money!). Also, as with many people, getting personal with dinner table guests I don’t know all that well is hard for me. I’m private. I fear I’ll be judged in some way. But I didn’t want to be the naysayer, so I reluctantly joined the game.

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Each of us pulled a card with a question on it to be answered with a personal story. (If you didn’t like your question, you could exchange it.) Among them:

“I’ll never forget being bullied by …”

“The best gift I have ever received …”