The Story That Keeps Tugging

Where do stories come from? Why is it that one idea keeps returning while others fade away? What makes a certain story feel urgent, the one you keep circling even when you try to ignore it?

Most of the time, it isn’t reason that drives us. It’s something more primal. Stories rise out of memory, emotion, the moments we haven’t yet made peace with. They surface because they are unfinished business, asking to be named.

Everyone has a story they are drawn to but haven’t put into words. Some people tell themselves they don’t have the time. They might worry it will reveal too much about them. Or maybe they're holding back because they don’t know how to begin. Still, the idea lingers. And it does so for a reason.

Why Certain Stories Choose Us

The stories we are pulled toward usually mirror our emotional state. If you're about to be an empty-nester, you may find yourself leaning into stories about loss or reinvention. If you feel stuck in your work or resent your boss, darker stories might rise up. If you’ve fallen in love, romance sneaks into everything you create.

The pull is not random. Your brain is always shaping your experiences into narrative, and the ideas that refuse to go away are the ones that resonate with your current life. Ignoring them doesn’t make them disappear. It just keeps you from writing the story that would feel most alive on the page.

The Science of Storytelling

Neuroscience tells us why stories hit so deeply. Researchers at Princeton found that when someone tells a story, the listener’s brain begins to mirror the storyteller’s activity. They call it “neural coupling.” Stories don’t just entertain us, they synchronize us. They make it possible for one mind to connect directly to another.

Other studies show that when you watch a film, your brain doesn’t treat it as a distant performance. If a character eats bread, the sensory parts of your brain light up. If a character runs, the motor cortex sparks. Your brain doesn’t fully distinguish between lived and imagined experience. This is why films can move us so powerfully.

Mirror neurons add to this effect. They're the cells that let you feel what others feel. When a character suffers or rejoices, those same circuits fire inside you. So, watching a film isn’t passive entertainment. It's rehearsal for real life... empathy in action.

The Heart’s Role

But it's not only the brain... the heart has a voice in storytelling too. Scientists call it the “intrinsic cardiac nervous system” — a small network of neurons inside the heart that communicates directly with the brain. In fact, the heart sends more signals upward than the brain sends downward. Those signals influence perception, memory, and decision-making.

The heart contains approximately 40,000 neurons that form its own nervous system. When these cardiac neurons detect emotional significance, they send signals through the vagus nerve directly to the brain's emotional processing centers. This happens faster than conscious thought. Research shows that heart rate variability patterns can predict which memories will stick and which stories will feel emotionally resonant to us.

When your heart rhythms are steady and coherent, you think more clearly and respond with more balance. When your rhythms are jagged, emotions like stress or fear take over. The stories that stick with us often echo in the body first. A quickened pulse. A sense of restlessness. That is the heart signaling the brain that something matters.

So maybe the story you can’t stop thinking about isn’t just an idea. Maybe it's your heart asking to be heard.

Why Film Feels Like Living

This is why film feels like full-bodied immersion. A good film engages your senses, your memory, your emotions, and even your heart rhythms. You're not just watching. You're participating.

And when it’s over, you leave the theater changed. Not because of what you saw on screen, but because your mind and body have lived something perceived as real.

Where to Begin

The harder question is not why stories affect us, but why certain ones demand to be told by us. What is the story you have been avoiding? What idea keeps surfacing no matter how often you push it aside? That story is a mirror of your current life. Finding the courage to face it is what gives writing its authenticity.

For example, I was shocked to read statistics on loneliness in the US in 2024 and cannot get it out of my mind. Not because I'm lonely—au contraire, that's the beauty of living in San Miguel de Allende where everyone on the street is a friend you haven't met. But the numbers are staggering: 17% of Americans report having zero friends. Nearly half say their relationships lack meaning. One in four young adults under 30 have no close friends at all! These statistics keep tugging at me because they're simply staggering. There's a screenplay buried in those numbers and I have dozens of ideas on how to tell it. The trick is knowing which is best.

The Human Thread

In the end, storytelling is not a luxury. It is how we survive. It is how we practice empathy, connect across time, and make meaning out of chaos. Our brains are wired for it and our hearts push us toward it.

So the question is not whether stories matter. The question is: what story is calling you right now, and will you listen?

Your persistent story isn't just creative inspiration. It's your nervous system telling you what needs attention, what requires understanding, what deserves to be witnessed. The story that won't leave you alone is trying to teach you something essential about what it means to be human.

The question isn't whether stories matter. The question is: what story has been tugging at you, and when will you finally trust it enough to begin?

That story you keep avoiding? It's not going anywhere. It will wait as long as it takes. But imagine what might happen if you stopped running from it and started running toward it instead.

Photo Credit: Lorraine Flett