Stories that bring peace to the mind: Communication and the education of feelings

Stories that bring peace to the mind: Communication and the education of feelings
The Southern Communication Journal; Memphis; Fall 2000; William Kirkwood;

Volume:	66
Issue:	1
Start Page:	16-26
ISSN:	1041794X
Subject Terms:	Interpersonal communication Emotions Storytelling

Abstract:
Focusing on the role of storytelling, Kirkwood presents a four-fold analysis of ways in which telling and hearing stories influence how people learn to approach life emotionally.

Full Text:

Copyright Southern States Communication Association Fall 2000

[Headnote]
Communication not only elicits fleeting emotional reactions; it also influences how people learn to approach life emotionally. It does so by shaping perceptions and beliefs implicit in emotions, as well as ideas about the value and appropriateness of emotions. Furthermore, communicative experiences help develop people's capacity and inclination for particular feelings. This essay advances a concept of communication as education for the feelings, then examines the role of storytelling in this process. Four elements of storytelling have important consequences for listeners' emotional lives: (a) narrative depiction of feelings, attitudes, and behavior; (b) the narrator's emotional stance, (c) listeners' expectations; and (d) listeners' emotional responses. The essay uses this analysis to examine how telling and hearing stories can help people learn to approach life with greater peace of mind.

As a teacher, Gautama the Buddha is known for communicating without words. In a story often cited in the Zen tradition, he twirled a flower as a wordless expression of the teachings. Onlv Mahakasyapa understood: he became the Buddha's foremost disciple (Watts, 1985, p. 45). But the Buddha also had something to say about the value of speech: "Better than a speech of a thousand vain words is one thoughtful word which brings peace to the mind. Better than a poem of a thousand vain verses is one thoughtful line which brings peace to the mind. Better than a hundred poems of vain stanzas is one word of the dharma that brings peace to the mind" (Dhammapada 100-102, trans. 1986). These remarks reflect the universal human need for relief from distress, and they hint at a broader aspiration-that people might bring greater peace of mind to all their experiences. The dharma mentioned in the third line of the passage refers not to the thoughtful word that eases a particular hurt, but to the Buddhist philosophy and way of life. Hence, the Buddha praised words that relieve distress, as well as those that teach people how to approach life with greater ease and grace.

Understanding how communication can help people learn new ways of approaching life emotionally can shed light on the significance of many kinds of messages and interactions. This essay first advances a concept of communication as education for the feelings, then examines an important instance of such education-how words can help people learn to experience life with greater peace of mind. Focusing on the role of storytelling, the essay presents a four-fold analysis of ways in which telling and hearing stories influence how people learn to approach life emotionally. In addition to extending work on the value of storytelling for teaching and healing, the essay urges study of other aspects of communication as education for the feelings.1

COMMUNICATION AS EDUCATION FOR THE FEELINGS

At least since Aristotle's discussions of catharsis and pathetic appeals, scholars have noted that communication can evoke emotional responses in audiences, and they have discussed the effects of such responses on reason and action. Yet communication does more than elicit fleeting emotional reactions. It also affects the ongoing emotional quality of our lives. This influence occurs in two ways. First, communication shapes perceptions and beliefs implicit in emotions and guides our thinking about the meaning and value of emotions. Second, it helps develop our capacity and inclination for particular feelings. Both of these dimensions of communication as education for the feelings merit closer study.

Communication, Cognition, and Emotions

There is no sharp divide between reason and emotion. On the contrary, emotions entail certain perceptions and beliefs.3 By shaping our understanding of events, communication influences our emotional reactions to them; by shaping how we see life generally, it influences our habitual emotional responses. Moreover, private and public discourse supply standards for judging which feelings are valuable and when emotional reactions are appropriate (Waddell, 1990). Such judgments play an important role in the education of feelings, because they motivate efforts to cultivate some feelings and avoid others, both in particular situations and as a way of life (Harre, 1986; Heelas, 1986).

Many kinds of messages and interactions can influence ideas about the value and appropriateness of emotions. Such influence is most apparent when speakers or texts exhort us to embrace or renounce certain emotions, For instance, Proverbs 16:32 advises, "He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he who ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city" (KJV). But messages, performances, and interactions that do not openly exhort emotional virtues also have implications for how people could and should feel their way through life. In Exodus 32:19, Moses returns from Mount Sinai to find the Israelites worshiping the image of a golden calf. "And it came to pass, as soon as he came near unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing; and Moses' anger burned, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mount." The heroic, central figure of this story does not appear to model the counsel of Proverbs. Are we to follow his example? Does it endorse anger, so long as it is righteous?

Although implications for our emotional lives are often evident in religious discourse, emotional education also occurs in other contexts. After a 1988 Presidential debate, critics questioned candidate Michael Dukakis's measured reply to a question about how he would respond were his wife raped. Discussions of whether Dukakis should have displayed more emotion in responding to the question implicitly addressed the broader issue of when emotions are appropriate and perhaps obligatory. Other kinds of public performances likewise depict and subtly advocate ways of responding emotionally to life. When a singer laments that she "can't stop loving" the man who left her and her life will forever be miserable without him, she affirms the widely held belief that feelings are beyond our control (Solomon, 1993).

Private interactions also influence ideas about the appropriateness and value of emotions, as when parents try to encourage or restrain their children's emotions or colleagues urge each other to behave professionally in meetings. Hence, many kinds of communication may influence how people learn to approach life emotionally. Whether by direct exhortation or example, they suggest which emotions we should value, when emotions are appropriate or justified, and how (if at all) we should try to manage our feelings as they arise.

Communication and Emotional Capacities

In addition to shaping perceptions and beliefs implicit in emotions and ideas about emotions, communication also influences our ability to experience certain emotions and our tendency to do so. Garrett's (1993) study of classical Chinese ideas about rhetoric and emotions calls attention to this dimension of communication as education for the feelings. A foremost concern of classical Chinese rhetoric was to make auditors less susceptible to the crass emotions rhetors might try to evoke and more capable of noble sentiments that enable practical wisdom. The goal was not merely to make people better thinkers, so they would be able to recognize and resist spurious pathetic appeals. Rather, the aim was to influence people's capacity and inclination for certain feelings. Some people get angry more easily, more intensely, and more often than others; some experience delight more fully than most of us. Some people are more aware of their feelings than others, and some can more skillfully rouse or Booth their emotions as necessary. Although such differences are due in part to personal temperament and biology, classical Chinese thought held that the capacity and inclination for feelings can and should be educated. Concluding her study, Garrett proposes, "audiences need to be taught to develop their emotional capacities much as they are now taught arithmetic and are coached in music and athletics. Just as critical thinking is taught as part of argumentation, so too something like `educated feeling' would seem to fall to rhetoric insofar as pathos is a major element in argumentation, public speaking, persuasion, and rhetorical analysis" (p. 36). This proposal is, if anything, too narrow, for the emotions are a major element in virtually all communication. They could hardly be otherwise, for people are both feeling and thinking beings, and feeling and thinking are themselves intertwined.

Chinese scholars observed that communication educates feelings not only by influencing ideas about emotions, but also by repeatedly evoking and thus reinforcing certain emotions. They argued that emotional education is accomplished more through the influence of the "material environment and cultural symbol systems" than through exhortation (Garrett, pp. 26, 30). This observation seems true of all cultures.' It highlights the importance of recurring and seemingly unexceptional daily experiences. For many Americans, driving to work, interacting with coworkers and clients, and telling stories about work once home create repeated opportunities to exercise particular emotions. Other feelings are experienced only rarely. The same may be said of music, film, and other elements of popular culture. Hence, Garrett urges scholars to examine how discourse and culture shape people's emotional tendencies and abilities. "What kinds of audiences are being created?" she asks (p. 33).

Thus communication influences perceptions and beliefs implicit in emotions, and it guides understanding of the appropriateness and value of emotions. Furthermore, it helps develop our capacity and inclination for certain feelings. Studying how storytelling can help people approach life more peacefully can extend our understanding of communication as education for the feelings and deepen our appreciation of the potential of communication to improve people's lives.

STORIES THAT BRING PEACE TO THE MIND

Many kinds of communication have implications for our emotional lives, but the implications of narrative are especially noteworthy. Coleman (1995) calls "parables, fables, and stories" "the language of emotion" (p. 294). Smith and Hyde (1991) stress the importance of "imagination" in constructing pathetic appeals, and they note that it is chiefly through narrative that speakers stir auditors' imagination. Whereas the emotions aroused in pathetic appeals are means to some further persuasive end, a principal aim of storytelling in many spiritual traditions is to help listeners cultivate feelings valued in those traditions (Kirkwood, 1983). Telling and hearing stories can also acquaint people with unsuspected possibilities of awareness and action and help them transform their lives (Kirkwood, 1992). However, because stories often embody shared values and beliefs (Fisher, 1987), they may merely reinforce dominant emotional themes in a family, organization, or culture. Storytelling is inherent in the human condition (Fisher, 1985), but all people do not feel peaceful, loved, or whole. That stories help shape the ongoing quality of our emotional lives is beyond dispute, but their influence is not always for the better. Hence, it is important to learn more about such influence and how storytelling can help people learn more positive ways to approach life emotionally.

Of the many kinds of stories people tell, two especially merit study in this regardpersonal narratives and rhetorical/poetic stories. Self-expression, self-disclosure, emotional release for the teller, and the development of meaningful accounts of one's experiences are foremost concerns in personal narratives. Several studies attest to the therapeutic value and emotional benefits of telling such stories (e.g., Pennebaker, 1993; Pennebaker & Seagal, 1999; Spera, Buhrfeind, & Pennebaker, 1994). By comparison, rhetorical/poetic stories are told chiefly to persuade, teach, help, or entertain others. Admittedly, drawing distinctions between kinds of stories is fraught with difficulty, because one story can have many purposes and effects. Nonetheless, to narrow the scope of this essay, I will concentrate on stories told principally to influence others. This analysis can also help explain some of the emotional benefits of telling and hearing personal narratives, however.

Examining four elements of storytelling will clarify how it helps educate feelings and thus how it can help people approach life more peacefully. The most apparent source of influence lies in the content of the story. This includes feelings displayed by characters and scenes, as well as the narrative depiction of attitudes and behavior which support or transform particular emotions. However, this is not the only way in which stories may influence listeners' emotional lives. Equally important are narrators' emotional stances toward the stories they tell, listeners' expectations for the story-hearing experience, and their emotional responses to stories.

Story Content

Storytelling can educate auditors' feelings by presenting characters and scenes that display particular states of mind, by teaching attitudes that support certain feelings, and by modeling specific behaviors useful in managing or cultivating particular emotions. Each of these devices is useful in helping listeners value and experience peacefulness.

Presenting Peaceful Characters and Scenes. The stoicism of Louis L'Amour's cowboys, Romeo's passion and impulsiveness, Medea's fury-images commonplace and profound can exemplify ways of feeling through life, which auditors may emulate or reject. Stories that present heroic characters who display inner calm can thus affirm the value of this state of mind. A Vietnam veteran's story illustrates this principle. Early in the Vietnam War, an American platoon was engaged in a heated firefight with the Vietcong in some rice paddies.

Suddenly a line of six monks starting walking along the elevated berms that separated paddy from paddy. Perfectly calm and poised, the monks walked directly toward the line of fire. "They didn't look right, they didn't look left. They walked straight through," recalls David Busch, one of the American soldiers. "It was really strange, because nobody shot at `em. And after they walked over the berm, suddenly all the fight was out of me. It just didn't feel like I wanted to do this anymore, at least not that day. It must have been that way for everybody, because everybody quit. We just stopped fighting." (Coleman, 1995, p. 114)

Tranquil characters, such as the monks in Busch's story, thus affirm the value and power of a peaceful mind. But they do more than this. Their calmness in challenging circumstances demonstrates that this state of mind is not only desirable, but possible.

Recognizing this possibility both encourages and challenges listeners to approach their lives more peacefully. Furthermore, beholding a hero's calmness can induce a similar feeling in hearers, just as the monks' peacefulness affected Busch. Thus, exemplifying peacefulness in a story may influence listeners' ideas about the value and possibility of peacefulness, and it can help listeners experience peacefulness as their responses to the story mirror the hero's state of mind.

In addition to presenting characters who exemplify peacefulness, stories may employ other elements that display peacefulness. In the account of the Buddha's enlightenment, his profound calm is signified by several scenic elements, including the unmoving tree beneath which he sat in meditation and the earth's response to his enlightenment:

Mighty drums of thunder resounded through the air. Pleasant breezes blew softly, rain fell from a cloudless sky, flowers and fruits dropped from the trees out of season .... Mandarava flowers and lotus blossoms, and also water lilies made of gold and beryl, fell from the sky on to the ground near the Shakya sage .... At that moment no one anywhere was angry, ill, or sad; no one did evil, none was proud; the world became quiet, as though it had reached full perfection. (Come, 1973, p. 51)

These scenic elements do homage to the hero's calm and enable auditors to experience this mood more fully. Hence, even when listeners' own circumstances and the "material environment" do not support peacefulness, the "possible worlds" created in stories can do so (Bruner, 1986). Having experienced this feeling within the world of a story, listeners can then decide whether it might be useful in their own lives. Storytelling thus creates narrative environments in which people can safely experiment with unfamiliar feelings.5 Frequent retelling of peaceful stories offers people recurring opportunities to "practice peacefulness" and deepen their capacity and inclination for this feeling. When certain stories become dominant in a family, organization, or culture, they can establish a sustained symbolic environment that cultivates certain feelings and inhibits others.

Teaching Attitudes that Support Peacefulness. In addition to depicting tranquil characters and scenes, stories can help people approach life with greater peace of mind by teaching attitudes that support this feeling. These include letting go of the desire to have only pleasant experiences and avoid unpleasant ones, practicing greater understanding and compassion toward others and oneself, adopting a sense of self not easily threatened by the vicissitudes of life, and treating others and oneself more gently. A tale told by the Bulu of western Africa illustrates how stories communicate such principles. Once a very hungry elephant, walking along a path in the forest, came to a bamboopalm growing in a swamp. The elephant tore down the palm and found a tender bud in its leaves. But the bud fell in the water when the elephant tried to remove it. Now even hungrier, the elephant searched frantically for the palm bud, but it was nowhere to be found. Just then a little frog said, "Listen!" The elephant, who was whipping the water into a froth and making quite a commotion, did not hear. Again the frog said, "Listen!" This time the elephant heard the frog and stood very still, curious. Soon the water was calm and clear once again, and the elephant easily found the palm bud and ate it (Kennerly, 1973, p. 31).

This story illustrates the need to know when to take vigorous action and when to be still, and it demonstrates the value of restraint and gentleness in accomplishing one's goals. It affirms the worth of diminutive and seemingly powerless beings. The frothing and calming of the water also serve as emblems of agitation and peacefulness.

Spiritual traditions and folklore are important sources of stories that communicate attitudes supportive of peacefulness and other feelings. Another source of such stories is popular song. To cite an example from contemporary American culture, in "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" Sarah McLachlan sings,

all the fear has left me now, i'm not frightened anymore.

it's my heart that pounds beneath my flesh.

it's my mouth that pushes out this breath

and if i shed a tear i won't cage it.

i won't fear love and if i feel a rage i won't deny it.

... peace in the struggle to find peace.

comfort on the way to comfort. (McLachlan & Marchand, 1994)

These lyrics conclude an untold story in which the singer has come to realize she must accept her emotions if she is to find peace and comfort in life. Other contemporary songs have equally compelling implications for how to approach life emotionally.fi As Chinese scholars long ago noted, given the pervasive influence of popular songs, their role in educating feelings merits close study (Garrett, 1993).

Modeling Behaviors that Cultivate Peacefulness. Stories may also model specific practices by which characters moderate their emotions and regain peace of mind. These stories show listeners how to bring peace to their minds in a particularly direct way. An Indian story describes how the author of the great epic Ramayana was transformed from a brigand into a sage and poet through the practice of meditation. Once he was a ruthless bandit and a hunter "who killed everything he could lay hands on" to feed his large family (Narayan, 1986, p. 104). One day he accosted a group of traveling sages and demanded all their wealth. They offered to teach him the secret for possessing the greatest wealth in the world, which involved chanting a special mantra. The robber's intense greed motivated an equally intense meditation, which was so prolonged that ants built a mound over his unmoving body. When he finally emerged from the mound, he had been transformed into a sage himself, known thereafter as Valmiki, "the anthill sage" (Narayan, 1986, pp. 100-115). Thus, stories can bring peace to the mind by teaching specific methods for inducing feelings of peacefulness.

Narrator's Stance toward the Story

Listeners may also learn about emotional responses to life from the implied stance of narrators toward the stories they tell. Expressions of narrators' feelings vary in directness. Least directly, these feelings may be conveyed by the manner in which a narrator tells a story. In Wiesel's Somewhere a Master, an unnamed narrator sympathetic to the Tzaddic of Nemirov' tells how a Lithuanian Jew set out to discover where the Hasidic Rebbe went when other Jews were saying their morning prayers. Noting that Lithuanian Jews were "stubborn enemies of Hasidism," the narrator continues, "You know how those Lithuanian Jews are: they know the Talmud and nothing else-nothing else exists for them. And Talmud to them means logic.... Now tell me: what is the use of arguing with Lithuanian logic?!" (1982, pp. 94-95). Although the story is a deeply moving account of the Rebbe's service to the needy, throughout it the narrator pokes gentle fun at the skeptical "Litvak" and even admires his persistence. The narrator's emotional stance toward the master's detractors thus implies how readers should approach life.

In Narayan's (1983) novel, A Tiger for Malgudi, it is what the first-person narratora tiger-does not say about his story that is significant. The tiger has lived most of his life in captivity, often mistreated by humans. Yet, in telling his story he never displays hostility, resentment, or bitterness. His attitude (acquired in his latter years, he says, during his discipleship to a yoga master) is one of understanding and compassion. Even in describing how in an unpremeditated instant he killed the animal trainer who tormented him for many years, the tiger neither celebrates his victory nor expresses guilt over it. The tiger's emotional stance toward life is disclosed by the narrative style of the entire work.

Still more directly, narrators may tell readers or listeners how they feel about the characters or events they are describing. In casual conversation, one might introduce a story by saying, "Something really funny happened at work today" or "I feel just awful about this." Such introductions communicate the narrator's emotional stance and, by implication, suggest an appropriate stance for listeners. In an autobiographical story, Terry Dobson advocates peacefulness by contrasting the feelings of the story's hero with his own. Once, when Dobson was riding on a commuter train in Japan, a large, angry, drunken laborer staggered into the car and began threatening the passengers. Dobson, an Aikido expert, prepared to defend them by "taking the turkey apart." He stood and "blew an insolent kiss" to provoke the drunk into attacking him. But before the drunk could move, "someone shouted `Hey!' It was earsplitting. I remember the strangely joyous, lilting quality of it-as though you and a friend had been searching diligently for something, and he had suddenly stumbled upon it. `Hey!'" A "little, old Japanese man" in an immaculate kimono had called to the drunk. "C'mere and talk with me," he said. "What'cha been drinkin'?" The old man gradually engaged the drunk in conversation, first about the sake he had been drinking and eventually learning that the man's wife had died and he had lost his job and home. "I'm so ashamed!" he said and collapsed in tears. Concluding the story, Dobson comments,

Standing there in my well-scrubbed youthful innocence, my make-this-worldsafe-for-democracy righteousness, I suddenly felt dirtier than he was.

Then the train arrived at my stop. As the doors opened, I heard the old man cluck sympathetically. "My, my ... that is a difficult predicament, indeed. Sit down here and tell me about it."

I turned my head for one last look. The laborer was sprawled on the seat, his head in the old man's lap. The old man was softly stroking the filthy, matted hair. (Ram Dass & Gorman, 1987, pp. 169-170)

In this story, while the old man's behavior reveals his tranquillity and compassion, Dobson comments directly on the inadequacy of his own. This is narrator commentary on the emotional life at its most direct.

A special kind of narrator influence may occur when stories are told orally. In addition to expressing their feelings toward the characters and events in a story, narrators may display feelings toward the act of storytelling itself. When a storyteller's performance displays tranquillity, humor, or delight, the performance may influence listeners' state of mind. By "performing a feeling" for listeners, storytellers can help them experience it, in a manner reminiscent of the "sympathetic faculty" discussed by George Campbell and others (Bator, 1982). Hearing a story in light of this feeling, listeners may thereby learn how to approach their own stories with similar feelings. When Garrison Keillor presents the "news from Lake Wobegon" or James Taylor sings of lost love, their evident delight in doing so communicates a way of approaching life emotionally that audiences might adopt. Thus, performing a feeling is an important part of storytelling. This performance offers listeners a tacit commentary on how to approach life emotionally, as well as an invitation to participate in the feeling the narrator is embodying for them.

Narrators' role in educating the feelings of listeners and readers merits more study. Insofar as narrators' feelings are less obvious than those of characters in a story, audiences may scrutinize them less carefully than they do characters' feelings. For this reason narrators' implied or expressed feelings toward their stories and the act of storytelling may be especially important elements of the process by which storytelling educates auditors' feelings.

Listener Expectations

Much has been made of the power of stories to teach, persuade, and even transform hearers. Thus far, this essay has discussed some of the elements of storytelling that may contribute to its ability to bring peace to the mind. Listener expectations also play a role in storytelling as education for the feelings. Although, for instance, scholars have praised the power of New Testament parables to "invade" listeners' consciousness (Wilder, 1971, p. 84) and "compel" a response (Funk, 1966, p. 214), part of this power lies in listeners' willingness to approach these stories openly, prepared to learn (Kirkwood, 1985). The same may be said of other teaching stories. This is not to deny that a well-timed, well-told story can touch even an unsympathetic listener. However, listener readiness is often important and indeed may allow people to benefit from seemingly unremarkable stories. This seems especially likely in considering how storytelling may educate listeners' feelings.

Education for the feelings concerns not only how people react to life, but also what feelings they bring to life. Listener expectations likewise define how people approach stories emotionally. For instance, audiences of traditional Indian drama are well acquainted with the plays they will see, and they have no doubt about the happy endings these plays will eventually reach. This knowledge allows them to enjoy the twists and turns of the plot as it moves inevitably toward resolution (Dimock et al., 1974, pp. 218-220). Similarly, audiences of professional storytellers expect to be moved, delighted, and edified by the stories they hear. Given their prior experience with such performances, these audiences, too, are free from anxiety about how the stories will turn out. They do not expect to leave a storytelling performance feeling depressed, discouraged, or angry. In effect, the premise underlying such performances is, "Let us delight ourselves by telling and hearing stories about our lives." This attitude can play an important role in educating listeners' feelings, for it is at the heart of a tranquil way of feeling through life: Let us enjoy the unfolding drama of our lives.

Listeners' conscious efforts to hear stories in certain ways can also transform what should have been disturbing stories into experiences that reinforce peacefulness. Some years ago one of our daughters was anxious about watching a horror film at an upcoming Halloween party. Never having seen one before, she feared it would upset her, but she wanted to join in with her friends. After reminding her that filmmakers create these movies to frighten people, I encouraged her to study the film as she watched it, observing the techniques the filmmakers used to instill fear and trying to predict when frightening events were about to occur. Equipped with this stance toward the film, our daughter was surprised to find she could watch it with some detachment and thus enjoy the experience. Since then, the story of how she was able to enjoy the film has become a reminder of her ability to master other situations.

Hence, audience preparation and expectation can support tranquil responses to what should have been disturbing. These audience responses become "audience performances," the central feats in stories listeners can tell about their own capacity for peacefulness (Kirkwood, 1992). Helping people tell such stories is a powerful way to influence their understanding of themselves. Heroic stories need not always be about someone else.

Listeners' Emotional Responses

Insofar as listeners' emotional reactions to a story reproduce their responses to other stories and life events, storytelling will reinforce emotional habits already in place. Thus, it is important to examine recurring emotional themes in the stories people tell and hear. Storytelling can also evoke unexpected emotional responses in listeners and thereby acquaint them with a new way of feeling through life. A tranquil response to a single story is unlikely to produce a lasting change, but it can set the stage for further change by revealing a new possibility of emotional life. Furthermore, even when listeners are acquainted with the feeling of peacefulness, a story can show them they are capable of responding peacefully to a greater range of experiences than they once thought possible. Chuang Tzu describes how Master Lai suddenly grew ill and lay at the point of death. His family gathered around him and began to cry.

Master Li, who had come to ask how he was, said, "Shoo! Get back! Don't disturb the process of change!"

Then he leaned against the doorway and talked to Master Lai. "How marvelous the Creator is! What is he going to make out of you next? Where is he going to send you? Will he make you into a rat's liver? Will he make you into a bug's arm?" (Chuang Tzu, 1964, p. 81)

As the story draws to a close, Master Lai happily agrees with his friend about the wonder of the changes in store for him. If, as people hear this story, they find themselves smiling with the sages, their response can show them they are capable of experiencing peacefulness even in seemingly difficult circumstances.

Thus, although a peaceful response to any story can acquaint listeners with this way of approaching life, the response will be more significant if listeners are surprised to find themselves responding peacefully to narrated events they would normally find upsetting. This element of discovery is common to the many stories Chuang Tzu told about sickness and death. One might argue that Chuang Tzu told so many of these stories not merely to influence his readers' views of these events, but to re-educate their emotional responses to all kinds of life situations. If people discover they can enjoy even these stories, they may feel more secure generally.

CONCLUSION

Communication affects the perceptions and beliefs implicit in emotions, as well as our ideas about emotions. It influences how we value emotions, how we understand the origins and meaning of emotions, and how we assess the appropriateness of emotional reactions. Through communication we learn when and how to manage emotions. Furthermore, by creating opportunities to experience and reinforce some emotions, communication helps shape our capacity and inclination for particular feelings. All of these dimensions of communication as education for the feelings merit further study. This essay has suggested that many forms of communication, from private interpersonal encounters to mass media, play a role in such education. Hence, the opportunities for study are extensive. Scholars might ask, what beliefs about emotions does communication in a family, organization, or culture advance? Which emotions does communication in these settings most frequently evoke and reinforce? How does communication equip people to transform their emotional lives? Raising such questions can expand our understanding of the consequences of communication and allow communication scholars to address issues of considerable interest to audiences beyond our own discipline.

This essay has explored four elements of storytelling that contribute to the education of feelings. Although the discussion focused on helping people approach life more peacefully, this analysis should prove useful in understanding other ways in which stories influence how people learn to feel their way through life. Sadly, experience would suggest that many people tell and hear stories that encourage recurring feelings of bitterness, resentment, fear, anger, guilt, and isolation. Scholars should examine how storytelling supports these responses to life, as well as how it can bring peace to the mind. The ability to comfort those in distress is a hallmark of emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995). Yet, even when words provide comfort, they may not necessarily help the comforted learn new ways of approaching life emotionally. It is especially important to understand how communication can serve this end.

[Footnote]
NOTES

[Footnote]
1 This study continues a line of research on how narrative can acquaint people with unfamiliar attitudes and states of awareness (Kirkwood 1983, 1985, 1992, 1995). Examples of work on storytelling and healing include Pennebaker (1993); Pennebaker and Seagal (1999); Spera, Buhrfeind, and Pennebaker (1994); Sunwolf (1998); and White and Epston (1990); and volume 14 of Storytelling World, which is devoted to this topic (Joy, 1998). For work on storytelling and teaching, see Collins and Cooper (1997) and McEwan and Egan (1995).

[Footnote]
2 For reviews of the literature on communication and emotions, see Garrett (1993), Hyde (1984), Hyde and Smith (1991), Planalp (1993), and Waddell (1990).
3 Discussions of the role of beliefs and cognitive appraisals in emotions include Calhoun (1984); Hamilton, Bower, and Frijda (1988); Ortony, Clore, and Collins (1988); and Solomon (1993). Among the communication scholars who have addressed this topic are Garrett (1993), Hyde (1984), and Waddell (1990). Although theorists are divided about how to characterize the role cognitions play in emotions, there is little dispute that perception, belief, and emotion are closely intertwined. In an exchange with Robert Zajonc on the subject, Richard Lazarus wrote, "Zajonc states, `In nearly all cases, however, feeling is not free of thought, nor is thought free of feelings.' With this I agree wholeheartedly" (Lazarus, 1984, p.251). Concluding a critique of cognitive theories of emotions, Calhoun (1984) argues that although attributing emotions to consciously held "intellectual beliefs" is problematic, emotions are closely tied to "evidential beliefs"-how people "see" or experience life. Fortunately, the ideas advanced in the present essay do not hinge on resolving all the issues raised by cognitive theories of emotions. Others interested in communication as education for the feelings may find it fruitful to examine these issues in greater depth.
4 Chinese scholars' emphasis on the role of culture in shaping not only ideas about emotions but also the experience of emotions closely parallels work on the social construction of emotions (see Harre, 1986; Heelas, 1986).
5 I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for this observation.
6 Recently the author taught a senior seminar on communication and the emotions. One assignment asked students to identify and analyze popular songs with implications for how people should value, understand, manage, or communicate emotions. The assignment yielded numerous examples from a variety of musical genres.
7 Wiesel (1982, p. 98) believes that the story, made popular by the Yiddish writer V L. Peretz, is about rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sassov.

[Reference]
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[Author note]
William Kirkwood, Office of Academic Affairs, East Tennessee State University. An earlier version of this essay was presented at the 1998 meeting of the National Communication Association in New York City. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to the author at the Office of Academic Affairs, Box 70, 733, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City TN 37614-0733 or by electronic mail to kirkwood@etsu.edu.