Meet Arrowyn Ambrose of Story Tribe

Today we’d like to introduce you to Arrowyn Ambrose.

Arrowyn, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I never thought I would end up in a philanthropic vocation. My work certainly “found” me. I wanted to be an actress, and I was, for about ten years, and then in 2004, something happened that changed the trajectory of my life in ways unimaginable to me at the time. Because I had been a series regular on a TV show for tweens back in the late 90’s, I was asked to act in a “Big Show” at an elementary school in Los Angeles for an organization called The Young Storytellers. The Young Storytellers is a mentorship program that pairs up 10 industry professionals with ten fifth graders in arts poor elementary schools and helps them write 5-page scripts that then professional actors come and act out for them in a thing called The Big Show.

My friend, who was a mentor at the school, and in my acting class, thought the kids might recognize me. I didn’t have a philanthropic bone in my body and didn’t even think I liked kids, but something told me to show up. And I did. That moment was seminal and pivotal. Not only did I have the most fun I had ever had as an actor, but I saw the way the mentor watched their student as they watched their script being performed and something was happening there that I knew I needed to be a part of. Immediately I asked if I could mentor. Young Storytellers was a fledgling non-profit at the time and they were happy to have anyone volunteer with them! I began the next week at a school in Santa Monica.

My first experience mentoring was so profound, that I found myself telling YS that I wanted to be a Head Mentor and lead my own school! I had never led or taught anything in my life but I was responding to a deeper calling I never even knew I had. YS said, “YES!” and I led that school for three years before the organization asked me to come and work for them. Those first three years were precious. Because of my first Big Show, I looked into taking Improv classes and found this unique group that only existed for a short while in LA, called The Hothouse.

It was organic, long form, Spolin based improv. Nothing like The Groundlings or UCB. I remember the first week of class our teacher, the venerable John Thies, said, “This class will change your life.” And I scoffed at him. Then returned the following week having decided to finally get sober and leave my abusive husband. So, I guess he was right! At the same time, teaching 5th graders how to tell their story in screenplay format inspired me to tell my own story. I started taking writing workshops and reading my pieces to audiences around LA. The response blew me away. Having complete strangers come up to me with tears in their eyes and thank me for taking on subjects they felt no one ever had, made a huge impact on me and going back to guest spots on “Charmed” didn’t seem so appealing.

I was slowly letting acting go. And I was bringing the improvisational games into my Young Storyteller’s workshops because I realized how much the games were affecting my own writing and I knew there was something there. YS didn’t have much of a standardized curriculum at this point, so I was making it up as I went. And the kids loved it! Finally, in 2007, Young Storytellers approached me and asked me if I would come work for them full time.

They wanted me to be their Program Director, to create a curriculum, and to train the 15 or so head mentors they currently had how to do what I was doing. I balked at first, me? I thought. Have you met me? I am an actor. I have tattoos. I don’t belong in an office?? Once again though, I heard that small voice tells me to take it. To try this new thing. So I did. And I have never looked back. I was the program director of the Young Storytellers for almost a decade before I left to pursue my own program. They have been my longest relationship of my life and still feel like family. I helped them grow from 15 schools in 2007 to fifty by the time I left in 2015. I created a standardized curriculum that is dynamic and engaging. I trained hundreds of head mentors and mentors. I helped create a culture and a community of heart and soul. I am eternally grateful.

During my tenure at YS, I also discovered the practice of “Council” and fell head over heels in love with this simple yet profound way of sitting in a circle with others and sharing from the heart but most importantly listening from the heart. Aside from being the program director of YS, around 2009 I started piloting a high school program with at-risk kids. I wove together my three favorite loves; improvisational games, council, and personal narrative.

I started running workshops with different organizations and schools that served kids impacted by HIV and emotionally disabled and foster youth.

In 2013, I started calling it Story Tribe and with the encouragement of my executive director at YS, created a business. By 2015 it was clear that I had taken YS as far as I could and that for me to grow I needed to leave and focus entirely on Story Tribe. What I didn’t know when my ED and I made this decision, is that I would be a single mother during this transition. It has now been almost three years since my departure from YS and although I am still figuring things out, my work has been steadily growing and building, one school and organization at a time. I am now a certified trainer with the Center for Council and am contracted to go into maximum security prisons and teach inmates how to practice “council.” I also work with different social-justice programs, training their staff in council as well. I lead open trainings a few times a year in Pasadena. And I run my own program, Story Tribe, in several different schools, with students and teachers alike.

Most recently, I have begun to weave my training in Trauma Recovery and Resiliency into my workshops and tailor them to fit the needs of the demographics I work with. I am getting certified in Trauma-informed Yoga and also Resiliency Toolkit. I am most interested in how we bounce back from adverse experiences and learn to self-regulate the body, so we don’t get sick. I am passionate about people who have been silenced, being given a chance to share their story, and to build and co-create compassionate communities that give a shit about each other. I guess you could call me a Humanist.

Has it been a smooth road?
Definitely not a smooth road, not an easy one. I have struggled with alcoholism, abusive relationships, family of origin trauma, and sexual abuse. My biggest struggle I might say though is getting people to understand the importance of the work I do and enrolling in it. Until someone sits in one of my circles, do they have a real understanding of the potential of this work. It is difficult to explain. It sounds incredibly simple, yet it is profound in its impact. Creating a business that is fully self-sustaining is challenging, and word-of-mouth is always the best way for programs like mine. And luckily, that has been creating new opportunities all the time.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Story Tribe story. Tell us more about the business.
Story Tribe is a dynamic community building and intra/interpersonal workshop that focuses on the act of listening and speaking from the heart in a way that cultivates wisdom, compassion, and courage. I am known for changing the culture if the organizations I work with. For making students and teachers feel good about themselves and each other again. That people feel a sense of love and belonging that can be so elusive in our modern tech-driven product-oriented culture. I am most proud of the stories of past participants, not only feeling better about their lives, but taking this practice and making it their own, sharing it with the ones they love. What sets Story Tribe apart from other businesses doing social-emotional and team building workshops is that I have a profound respect and admiration for the body and its own emotional intelligence and weave the things I am most interested in at any given time into any program I am running. So my work is constantly evolving with me. It is never stagnant or stuck, but is extremely fluid and adaptable while maintaining the integrity of the Council Practice, which is my foundation for everything. I think too, my love of games and play, my sense of fun, along with my facility with personal narrative, makes Story Tribe unlike anything else.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I see a huge need for my work in the world, and already am a part of watching and facilitating it grow out of the prisons and into the communities surrounding and interacting with the incarcerated. I see law enforcement and correctional officers becoming involved in the practice. I see mindfulness-based practices becoming more standard in the more formal Council Practice, especially with law enforcement, where I believe we may need it the most. I think we are coming to a tipping point, politically, with so much “other” that coming together and listening to each other’s stories may be the only way out of this mess. Compassionate conversations lead to more compassionate communities and a better world.

Contact Info:

• Address: 685 Quail Dr.
  Los Angeles, CA 90065
• Website: www.storytribe.net
• Phone: 310-773-6165
• Email: arrowyn@mac.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thestorytribe/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thestorytribe/

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