This paper reflects on my experience of using personal stories to create a Pot Gan performance exploring the complexity of how lives are lived, how the experience of climate change is shaped by poverty and struggle, but also strength in facing adversity. Bringing real stories to the stage had more meaning, emotion and personal connection for audiences, while also challenging them to work through a solution to the problems the characters onstage faced. It calls on us to treat their stories with an ethics of care, recognising that each person's story belongs to that person alone.