Five Ways to Build a Trauma-Informed Storytelling Practice In 2026
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In This Episode
As we step into a new year of storytelling, this episode invites you to slow down, take a breath, and ground your practice in deeper care. Trauma-informed storytelling is not just about avoiding harm. It’s about building systems, rhythms, and habits that protect the people at the center of your work — including you.
In this conversation, Maria shares five practical ways to strengthen your trauma-informed storytelling practice in 2026. These approaches don’t require new software or a bigger team. It’s a gentle, practical invitation for anyone who wants to begin this year with intention.
The 2026 Winter When Bearing Witness® Trauma-Informed Storytelling Certification Program is open for enrollment! Learn more here.
Connect with Maria
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Transcripts
Welcome to season three of When Bearing Witness!
We’re stepping into a brand new year—into fresh notebooks, quieter inboxes, and I hope it is giving us space to do this work in ways that feel grounded, ethical, and deeply human.
The new year is a beautiful moment to pause and ask:
How do I want to show up as a storyteller this year? What kind of care do I want to model? What systems need to be strengthened so I can do this work without compromising myself or the communities I serve?
So today, I’m sharing five things you can do in the new year to deepen your trauma-informed storytelling practice. These are practical, doable shifts that don’t require a new budget line or a major reorganization. They simply require intention.
And—because timing matters—this episode also marks the opening of enrollment for the Winter 2026 cohort of the When Bearing Witness® Trauma-Informed Storytelling Certification Program, beginning February 2. If this episode resonates, I’d love to support you more deeply inside the program.
Alright friends, ready?
1. Slow Down Your Storytelling Pace
The first practice I want you to embrace this year is slowing down.
Most nonprofit teams are producing stories at a pace that is simply not trauma-informed. Many are collecting dozens—even hundreds—of stories per year, while juggling interviews, drafting content, reviewing, revisiting consent, all the other things on your plate that are not storyteliing, and trying not to burn out in the process.
Slowing down is not just a self-care strategy—it’s a safety and agency strategy.
When we slow down:
Story owners have more space to process whether they want to share.
Program staff have time to participate in review instead of being surprised at the end.
You have time to do language audits, adjust media choices, and check for harm before publishing.
And you—yes, you—get to stay regulated, present, and emotionally grounded.
Trauma-informed storytelling is never a race.
It’s a relationship.
So this year, consider choosing fewer stories and giving those stories more time, more collaboration, and more care.
This one shift alone is foundational.
2. Build or Revisit Your Storytelling Guidelines
Your organization needs a set of storytelling guidelines.
This is the internal compass. Your shared commitments. Your promise to each other—and to your community—about how stories will be gathered, crafted, and shared.
A good set of guidelines includes:
Story readiness indicators
Consent and ongoing consent
How you compensate story owners
Review roles and approval processes
When composite or anonymous storytelling is appropriate
Your harm repair plan
Your retraction policy
If you already have guidelines, this is the perfect moment to update them.
Does the language still reflect your values?
Do the processes reflect your current staffing and capacity?
Do new team members know where to find them?
3. Audit Your Language and Media Choices
Language creates reality.
Media shapes perception.
And both can cause harm if we aren’t intentional.
This year, commit to auditing your language with a trauma-informed lens:
Are you using unnecessary details that could retraumatize story owners or audiences?
Are you anchoring deficits instead of strengths?
Are you using metaphors, music, visuals, or camera angles that sensationalize pain?
We don’t need to dramatize someone’s suffering to communicate impact.
One of the most meaningful practices you can adopt this year is focusing on micro-transformations—the small but real shifts in someone’s life. They are humanizing, and never require a story owner to be at their lowest point for the sake of fundraising.
4. Build a Nervous System Care Strategy for Yourself
I want you to care for the storyteller who does this work: you.
Storytelling is not neutral work.
You carry other people’s pain in your body.
You absorb their fear, their hope, their grief, their resilience.
Vicarious trauma is real.
Dysregulation is real.
Burnout is real.
And the antidote is not “try harder.”
The antidote is nervous system care.
This means:
Knowing your window of tolerance
Recognizing when you’re in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn
Building grounding practices into your workflow
Setting boundaries
And asking for support—before you need it
You are not meant to regulate alone.
Co-regulation is part of the work.
5. Create or Strengthen Your Harm Repair Plan
In 2026, you will make mistakes as a storyteller
Even with training. Even with care. Even with the best intentions.
A harm repair plan ensures that when something does go wrong—and it will—you know how to respond with accountability instead of defensiveness, with grace instead of urgency, and with clarity instead of panic.
A harm repair plan includes:
How you pause the storytelling process
How you assess and understand the harm
How you acknowledge it with care
How you invite collaboration on repair
How you follow through
How you debrief internally
And how you care for your own nervous system afterward
This plan is your anchor.
It protects trust.
It models leadership.
These five practices—
Slowing down,
Building guidelines,
Auditing language,
Caring for your nervous system
And preparing for harm repair,—
They can help you move into the new year with more steadiness, clarity, and care in your storytelling.
And if you want to implement them with structure, support, and community, I would love to invite you into the Winter 2026 When Bearing Witness® Program, beginning February 2.
Inside the program, you’ll receive:
Inside the program, you’ll receive six self-paced modules that teach the full storytelling process through a trauma-informed framework
You’ll also receive a workbook to help you reflect on the material,
templates you can use right away,
and two integration calls where we work through real questions and challenges together.
You’ll be learning alongside a cohort of storytellers who care about dignity just as much as you do.
You can learn more and enroll at mariabryan.com.
Wherever you are in your storytelling journey, I hope this new year meets you with room to pause, room to grow, and room to lead.