LIFE THROUGH A STORY LENS

Chauvet Cave, Southwest France. It is thought that thhese drawings represent
a creation taleand were part of a shamanic initiation.

"Once there was..." 

With these words we step into the larger life of the imagination, where what seem to be miracles in ordinary reaity are everyday occurrences in this greater, truer reality. I call it The Story Zone. 

I tend to be claustrophic, and I avoid situations that might trigger feelings of being trapped. So you can imagine how challenging lockdown since the beginning of March has been for me. Like you perhaps, I've been through the gamut of emotions, including waves of fear, followed by focused breathing and free-writing that has induced calm, only to be overtaken by despair, and then again, creative and spiritual practices to center myself.

About two weeks in, I had a panic attack at having no way out, unless I wanted to venture into a dangerous world where the virus circulated freely, invisibly, possibly fatally. No way out and no end date. (Even as I write these words, I can feel rumbles of anxiety!) 

Now that the world is opening up again, that same conflict looms between staying safe in what often feels like a prison and risking my health (I'm in a vulnerable group) out in the world. To get to my usual places of work, I have to take the subway, which has been determined to be the main channel of transmission in my city. I'm not ready to chance it!

When I feel stuck and without words to express the feelings that are paralyzing me, I go to storyboards -- scribbled cartoons that capture my situation in a lighthearted way. 

In early March, the first case of Covid-19 had shown up in New York City. It was a woman who had just returned from Iran. From that one unsuspecting woman, the virus exploded in my city. At the same time, my income and financial security was tanking. To save myself financially, I felt, I had to get "out there." That meant taking the subway. I was frozen. 

In my time of fear, I quickly sketched this storyboard. It contains my several "selves" -- the fearful me as well as my higher intuitive and imaginative self, along with the scary context I was trying to navigate. 

Playfulness was the key to calm! The lightheartedness, and even the laughter I felt on compassionately drawing this bewildered, frightened woman helped me transcend my immediate situation and I was able to come to a place of trust again. Trust not that I had an answer. Trust that there was an All is Well reality embracing all of epochal event, of which I was an infinitesimal part.

Feeling just a bit better, I remembered Story. Specifically, the "five elements" of story: Time, Setting and Mood; Character; Situation; and Plot. I looked around at my small room, which was sometimes sanctuary and at others a prison 

"What does this feel like?" I asked myelf.

A cave.

Traditionally, caves are archetypal places of initiation. I could now view my situation as an initiatory experience. I was about to be transformed, if I would allow the process to unfold naturally. I began to write....

The scribbles on my page held the energy of ancient creation tales drawn on the rock walls of a cave 36,000 years ago by forever unknown artists, as in the photograph of Chauvet Cave above.

As I wrote, I recreated my reality. In a moment of transformative insight, I realized that something unknown yet expansive could happen for me in this physical and emotional space. 

The result? Life opened again. And now I was ready for it. Over and over I have done this simple drawing and writing practice to sustain myself during the time of Covid. 

The lockdown continues. But so do I. And not just continue. As I play with my circumstances on the page, I rise up and out from the ashes of this devastated world and I create a new and healthier world in my imagination, on the page, and soon in outside life as well. 

So can you. 

If you would like to schedule private storymaking sessions with me to transform your reality from the inside out, I'm offering a 3-session online package for $300 total. You can find a description of how to work with me on my trusty old website: julietbruce.com, click on Ways to Work with Me. Times are tough, and if you really want to do this, but can't swing the fee right now, let me know and we'll try to work something out that is mutually beneficial. I too have to generate income to pay my expenses. Contact me here or via my website to set up a complimentary half hour exploratory session. 

THE GRAIL IN YOUR LIFE

Image found on Age-of-America

A young man was married to a woman struggling with drug addiction. She was unable to care for their infant son, he worked on a construction site all day, and his family was in another state. One night in the midst of a terrible fight, he looked in his son's crib and saw that the baby was shaking. In desperation, carrying his child, the following night he went to a support group for people living with a family member's addiction. Beyond all rational explanation, he began to feel hope, and even more surprising, he got the idea to take his baby to work. The foreman's wife set up a tiny nursery in the management shed and other women came in to help. The young man began to experience kindness in people he had never before known.

A woman with Stage IV cancer diagnosis walked along a beach contemplating suicide. When a starfish with a broken point scurried up the sand to catch a wave, she recognized the presence of the grail. She chose to live, and to live well. To her his meant taking the necessary care of herself and sharing her journey with others. She bought a starfish pin and wore it near her heart to remind herself that she had learned the lesson of love from a starfish.

A community was bereft when a beloved neighbor, a firefighter, died on 9/11. One night at a community meeting, the discussion inspired a novel idea: he was a gardener and to memorialize him, they would build a community in their small park. Today, "Pete's Garden" blooms with annuals and perennials in the summer and is stays green with pines in the winter; people relax on the benches, and strangers became forever friends. 

These are the grail moments--the small or huge insights, ideas, and openings that shift our reality, heal our suffering, and transform our lives. The grail is life itself.

THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL

The Holy Grail was the chalice use to collect Christ's blood from where he hung on the cross, and it was buried with him. When his tomb was opened three days later, both the living Christ and the grail were gone.

Over the centuries, the grail has come to symbolize that which heals all wounds. Less an object than a shift of mind, the grail represents the moment when a small life opens up to a greater reality in which we live but rarely see. These are the moments when we receive help from a more than human source, when we feel fully alive and flowing with life, and as a result are enabled to take inspired, life-generating action. You don't have to believe in a god to experience these transcendent moments; the imagination will do.

I have found that the old stories passed down among generations contain the healing we so long for now in our personal and collective lives. The great teacher Jean Houston observes in A Mythic Life that the Arthurian legend of Parsifal can show us how to transform modern breakdown into breakthrough.  

Found on DeviantArt

Parsifal was a young and untested knight (the name Parsifal can be translated as fool or innocent) who finds himself in a wasteland where everything was crumbling and all living things were dying -- flowers no longer bloomed, rivers had dried up, animals and people were sick in body and spirit. This was the kingdom of the Fisher King, a monarch who suffered from an unknown illness caused by a wound in his leg; his illness had infected the land and no one knew how to cure it. 

Directed to a castle that suddenly manifested within a mist, that night Parsifal saw a magnificent chalice, glowing brighter than all the candles in the hall, being carried back and forth by a beautiful young woman. This chalice was the Holy Grail. Throughout the ages, the Grail became known as the container of the life force that healed all wounds. Parsifal vowed to find out the secret of the Grail the next day. But when he woke up the following morning, the castle was empty; there was not a soul around to ask. Seized with fear, Parsifal jumped on this horse and rode back across the drawbridge just as it was rising and the castle was becoming enshrouded in mist.

For many years after that, Parsifal wandered in a dark forest, trying to find his way back to the Grail Castle by sorting through the tangled roots. During this time, he had many adventures, but he lived without passion, longing for the joy he had felt for one night, in what seemed to be a dream. But these years were not really about loss; they forced the knight to go on an inner journey as well as an outer one. What he lost was his innocence, naivete, and his unconsciousness. What he gained was simplicity, clarity, and maturity. Like a blade, he was sharpened in the fire of adversity. 

Finally, one day he asked a simple question: “Where is the grail? Whom should it serve?”

With that question, life opened: the earth turned green, waters flowed, the drawbridge to the Grail Castle lowered, the ailing Fisher King was healed, and the kingdom too was restored to health. The Grail was brought out of the castle to serve the world.

The message of the grail legend is that healing is possible. We heal as we serve. 

One path to our own Grail is to discover our deep story and share it with caring others. At the same time, as the myth tells us, we begin the healing of our broken land.

Ask Yourself:

1. How does the Parsifal myth translate into your experience? Write yourself into the myth to find your own grail path. Play with it: rewrite the myth from the different perspectives of Parsifal, the ailing king, the Grail itself, and the land -- both in its dying time and in its rebirth. 

2. What is the question you need to ask? Try a few on the page and see where they lead.

3. A story isn't over until it is told. Share your transforming insight, if you have one, no matter how small and insignificant it may seem, with someone who cares.

4. What do you take from this exercise? What needs to happen? And what is the smallest, least difficult step you can take into a larger life? 

A new path beckons. One in which you are not alone, but now part of a life-giving grid of fellow seekers of their own Grails.



All rights reserved, Juliet Bruce, 2018. Excerpt from book in progress.

Tell Your Visual Story: Make a Mandala

A repost of a popular one from 2012.

Mandala is a sanskrit word meaning "circle." But it's more than a shape. The mandala represents wholeness and is considered by most of the world's peoples to be the basic structure of life -- from our cells, to our world, to the cosmos itself. The life you're living right now is your living mandala. Putting on paper helps you see the totality of your life in a fresh and illuminating way.

The mandala appears in every culture across all continents and epochs. Sometimes it's used to represent sacred space; at others the moment; increasingly, the mandala is being used to heal deep psychosocial wounds and to support peace within and without. The mandala at the left is the Avaloketeshvara mandala from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. It represents and supports compassion and forgiveness.

If you google "Mandala images," you'll find hundreds of them, many linked to web sites that discuss their symbolic meaning and offer ideas for making your own mandala. 

When I'm actively engaged on a regular basis in drawing or collaging mandalas, and then writing what I see and feel from them, I'm more centered, focused, and forceful in my life. When I share this practice with my clients, they experience the same cohesiveness and personal power.
 

Jung and the Mandala

At the height of his career in 1913, the psychiatrist Carl Jung went through a severe emotional crisis, in which serious internal conflicts emerged in his life. He broke with Freud, renounced his position as the head of the Zurich Psychiatric Clinic, and went through a deeply introspective 3-year journey during which he separated himself from family and friends. Toward the end of this period, he began drawing mandalas, without knowing what this meant, without knowing that he was following a path cleared by others before him in both East and West.

               

It was through the mandala that he found the way to restore himself to wholeness. They became photographs of his daily internal state, and images of what he was in the process of becoming. He sketched in a little notebook every day a circle that seemed to correspond to his interior situation. “Enlightened by these images, I could see day by day the psychic transformations that were operating within me. It was only gradually that I discovered what a mandala really means: ‘Formation, Transformation, Eternal Mind’s eternal creation.’”

               

For the next 10 years, he drew circles, labyrinths, and dark and shining centers of all kinds, the unspooling of an internal process of centering and healing the breaks in his personality. He eventually formed his theory that the mandala represented the unity of the soul, an entity much larger than the ego, a Self or atman that was the source of life and guide for its development and total fulfillment of its destiny. 


Make Your Own Mandala

This is a fun and deeply revealing visual arts exercise to do both privately and in groups. The mandala at the right is found at http://www.arttherapyblog.com/art-therapy-ideas/healing-with-mandala-art-a-multi-cultural-idea-worth-exploring/#ixzz1zMnR5hN2.

Supplies for collage: scissors, white sketch pad paper, multi-colors of construction paper, glue sticks. 

For drawing: pastels or magic markers. Simple!

Time: 20-25 minutes.

Instructions: 

1. Leaf through the colored construction paper pages and cut whatever shape in whatever color that most appeals to be your background, representing the Ground of Self, a relationship, organization, creative project, whatever area you want to explore.  It can be a circle, rectangle, or free form.    

2. Think of the elements of story. You are the storyteller, artist, director, and witness:

• Places: geographical landscape and interiors; their emotional qualities, colors, shapes, and textures.
• Loved ones - like-minded fellows who expand you, amplify your strengths, support your quest.
• Difficult people, obstacles, and conflicts - within and without. To be authentic, your mandala must contain the Shadow.
• Your grail, dream, north star: whatever most symbolizes for you the life force. 

3. Cut whatever shapes or draw figures that want to emerge that represent each of these elements. Quickly, without thinking too much about it, place them in relationship that feels right to you and glue them to the Ground. Give yourself no more than 10 minutes for this. You want to bypass your rational mind.
4. Now look at your mandala from all perspectives. This is a self-portrait emerging from the depths of your unconscious.

What Story Does Your Mandala Tell? 
 

This artful mandala is found at http://fineartamerica.com/featured/celestial-mandala-maureen-a-girard.html.

1. What stands out in your mandala? A shape? The relationship of shapes? Colors? Overall impression? "First thought, best thought."

2. Without intellectualizing the process, quickly write down 5 words that come to you. Working fast releases the imagination, voice of intuition.

3. Which word has the most energy for you? Or which two elements seem to oppose each other or want to be in dialogue?

4. Make this the opening word and continue writing for 5 minutes, following the words wherever they lead. This allows your verbal intelligence to transmit the kinetic truth contained in your mandala.  

5. Read it aloud to yourself or to a supportive listener. What does the writing reveal in practical terms? Is there guidance here for what you need most in your life right now? 

 

Mandalas are everywhere. Look for them in your life today.

IMAGINE. . .

"Most people equate the imagination with unreality. Nothing could be further from the truth. What we consider imagination is a reality beyond the normal world." So wrote author Ted Andrews in his book, Animal Speak.

Every truly creative breakthrough -- in art, science, and life -- involves an imaginative leap -- often through apparently unrelated metaphor. Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine, held imaginary dialogues with the polio virus that helped him crack the genetic code of this virus. Thanks to Salk's playing around with character and story, polio has been virtually wiped out in the world.

Einstein doodled and came up with the theory of relativity. Early in his career, Bob Dylan found songs in montages of Civil War headlines that he poured over in the periodicals room of the New York Public Library.

Your work and life can be transformed in the same way. Metaphor -- whether poetic, narrative, visual, melodic, dramatic, or dance-inspired -- is the language of the Threshold. This is the space between the known and the possible, the half-lit place where sudden and profound change can happen, the ground of transformation.

What we call miracles are actually breakthroughs into this larger reality in which we live and rarely see. Except through our imagination.

So be not afraid to imagine the life, the work of art, the job, the mate you want. Doodle everywhere all the time, be open to the stories unfolding everywhere around you, write fairy tales, dance your dreams. (Same goes for disappointments: pain quiets, perspective changes when given safe, structured, creative expression.) Sing the song of your deepest self.

HOW TO LIVE CREATIVELY, DA VINCI STYLE

Here's the master's -- Leonardo da Vinci's -- recipe for breakthrough thinking and living. For this list, I gratefully acknowledge Michael Gelb's lively book, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, (Thorsons, 1998).

Curiosita
Keep an insatiably curious approach to life.

Dimonstrazione
Persist; be willing to learn from mistakes.

Sensazione
Practice continual refinement of your senses through art and nature.

Sfumato
Embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.

Arte/Scienza
Maintain a balance between logic and imagination.

Corporalita
Cultivate grace, flexibility, fitness, and poise.

Connessione
Recognize and appreciate the interconnectedness of all things.

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Which attitude listed above most resonates today? Your intuition may be guiding you to what wants to emerge in your life now. This is your fertile ground for growth and change. Turn the English words into a first sentence and start writing...!

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And buy the book. It's a great read and a terrific holiday gift!


by Juliet Bruce. All rights reserved.

"Am I Safe?" The First Question

Hurricane Sandy, NY Times photo, 10.28.12

Originally published in 2011, this is the first in a series of posts on life as story. As the East Coast endures under Sandy, this is a reminder that in the Big Picture all is well.

I've been thinking about how to live with some sense of safety in a world that offers very little, and how to give it to clients who come to my office in search of a place where they feel safe enough to give birth to a new story. "It takes courage to become who you really are," wrote the poet e.e. cummings. And never more so than in times when being safe can feel more important than being true -- even if that means staying in an unhappy relationship or job, or hunkering down away from your dreams.

What I keep coming back to is resilience: the capacity to transform devastating experience into something positive. The self-healing mechanism that causes someone to carry on, no matter what. The inner safety that enables you to step out into the unsafe unknown to keep giving birth to yourself. Resilient people have a self-confidence and self-esteem based not on circumstances but on their own capacity to deal with the worst life throws at them. However, living as we do in a culture that tells us pain is bad, and that the solution to our problems is out there or in the medicine cabinet, many of us have lost touch with our natural resilience.

The First Story
Each human being arrives in life as a unique being, with potentials, gifts, predilections, and contributions to make. Jung called this potential our "star," an essential spirit that exists beyond our families, our environment, and our culture. It is an essence that holds the code to our destiny if we can discern and follow its path.

The most basic needs that must be met for a person to thrive (that is, to manifest their star) are 1) safety, 2) belonging, and 3) dignity. And the very first question we ask is "Am I safe?" Our first developmental task is to answer it. This answer becomes our first and foundational story.

In their book, Ghosts in the Nursery: A Search for the Roots of Violence, Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith Wiley (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997), describe the first two years of life as the critical period for setting the neurochemistry of the brain and building a template of expectations for life -- the core story. They write, “From our first breath on our first day of life we are learning who we are. We are building a model of what to expect, who will be there, how we will be received, how safe it is out there, how we can make ourselves known and comforted. We won’t remember these early experiences, but our limbic brain remembers and our body remembers.”

If our first caregivers are consistent sources of food, comfort, and affection, we learn that others are dependable and reliable. Like flowers turning toward the sun, we turn toward people. We leave infancy with a basic sense of well-being, a core resilience no matter what life holds for us, and a foundational trust in relationships. Karr-Morse and Wiley observe that children raised in nurturing families demonstrate compassion and altruism as early as four years of age.

For all too many of us, though, the first story is a different one. For whatever reason, our parents fail to provide a secure environment and to meet our basic needs for safety, belonging, and respect. The core story is that the world is undependable, unpredictable, and possibly dangerous. No matter how earnestly we go after our goals, we may be steeling ourselves against a deep-seated feeling of worthlessness and a mistrust of the world in general. We become spiritual if not actual orphans. The pace of life and the distance created by the very technology that is meant to connect us help us to hide the orphan from others and from ourselves.

Until one day, we can’t anymore: The life we’ve known falls apart. Or the inner yearning breaks through the walls we’ve erected around it. All too many adults come into my practice with an emptiness in their life that nothing can fill – not material success, pleasure, busy-ness, alcohol, drugs, traditional therapy, nothing. What I sense that they’re looking for is the missing piece of themselves that got left at the gate, back at the beginning of life -- that wasn’t loved into being.

Art and Resilience
My role as a creative healer is to create a sanctuary where adults can drop the mask for an hour or two and find their way through the hidden bi-ways of the right brain to who they really are. Freewriting, poetry, fairy tale, drawing, collaging, dancing, playing -– in these activities both my clients and I connect with a primal innocence that has nothing to do with naivete and everything to do with being fully awake to reality, within and without, and seeing the truth of existence from a light-hearted place. The Islamic poet Kabir wrote, “I wish I could show you the astonishing light of your own being.” Artmaking is the healing mirror.

In his book, Art as Medicine, the well-known expressive arts teacher Shaun McNiff wrote: “The immersion in the materials and process of art-making frees a person from their ordinary self, the familiar, rules, the system, the conscious, controlling side of their personalities. Hidden characteristics of the self shine forth. In this special space, the person experiences themselves -– beyond label, self-concept, problem. It is in this place that the person can shape new ways of being, create new life, find new direction.” Creativity reframes the question, “Am I safe?” into “What can I make?"

Researchers who have studied people who have overcome the odds, such as those coming from high-risk environments characterized by alcoholism, abuse, mental illness, violence, and poverty, have found that these people share many of the following qualities:
~ Empathy;
~ A sense of humor;
~ Resourcefulness;
~ Autonomy, internal sense of control;
~ Imagination;
~ Sense of purpose and spiritual connectedness.

For thousands of years, human beings have survived storms, earthquakes, droughts, wars, trauma, heartache, and long, dark nights of the soul by gathering together, telling stories, and making art and music. Within darkness, the stars are always shining. We just can't always see them.


by Juliet Bruce. All rights reserved.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, experience, and suggestions on healing story, creativity, or resilience.


Recommended Books

A Healing Story for the Gulf, its Wildlife, and its People

June 8, 2017. One of the principles of my story practice is that there is a point of intersection between our own lives and the larger one playing out on our planet. As we heal and make whole ourselves, we heal and make whole the energy flowing through our world.

Today, as we enter the deeper waters of the Sea of Chaos in America, I am reminded of this blog post and healing workshop I offered during the Gulf disaster. I'm beginning to think of how to bring healing story practice to Trump's unraveling.

The background music on Morning Joe this morning is Paul Simon singing, "These are the days of miracles and wonder..." 

 ---

Ancient healers understood very well the power of words, images, dance, music, and especially the dynamic conflicts and characters in stories to heal and comfort suffering people. They often diagnosed illness by observing what parts of a story most resonated with their patient and then told a special curative story to mobilize the sick person's inherent healing capacities.

Contemporary healers, artists, and creative people can do the same for our planet and all its creatures. Through the metaphors of artistic expression, we can imagine into being a better story than the one that is playing out now. This month, I’m inviting New Yorkers to attend a healing story workshop to call forth the energies of restoration and resilience for the Gulf of Mexico, its wildlife, and people.

What exactly is a healing story, you may ask. Healing stories are metaphors for the universal human struggle to create meaning and growth out of misfortune. They're as old as humanity itself and are often called hero's journeys; they're expressions of our natural resilience -- of hope, transformation, and redemption. In this kind of story, a personal or collective disaster inspires someone to leave their ordinary life and go on a difficult quest for the solution to the problem. After many trials and defeats, overcoming dangerous obstacles and adversaries, they succeed in claiming the healing knowledge, elixir, or object, and bring it back home for the good of all. These times call for heroes.

Adventurous minds, released through imagination, can create innovation, leaps of genius, and inspired solutions. What if millions of people across the country let their imaginations loose to create healing stories for the Gulf? What unimaginable possibilities might arise? Mobilization of millions of citizens for the greatest environmental clean-up in the history of the world? A new and more profound commitment to taking care of our environment? What’s your wildest dream for our land and its waters?

The Workshop (WORKSHOP IS FILLED)

Monday, August 2
7:00-9:00PM
Force and Flow Integrated Bodywork
1100 Dean Street, #5
Brooklyn (between Franklin & Bedford Aves.)

FREE

Space is very limited and you must register to attend.
RSVP: julietbrucephd@gmail.com.

We all feel helpless and sickened about what's happening in the Gulf. Once the oil leak is stopped, it will take years, even decades, for the ecology, wildlife, and people of that region to recover. But we're not helpless to create unexpected and amazing change through storytelling. The purpose of this workshop is to activate collective energy for restored health to the waters, wildlife, and people of the Gulf.

In this session, you'll:
- Learn how to write and tell a transformational story;
- Hear a healing story inspired by Salman Rushdie's novel, "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," a highly popular fable written for his son during the fatwa against him, which touches upon similar issues to the Gulf disaster;
- Experience private writing time and communal sharing time (when the transformational magic happens).

This workshop is not about writing a wishful but inauthentic vision of what you'd like to see happen in the Gulf. It's about finding that place in yourself that intersects with that larger story, and writing whatever your soul and spirit send up from that place. That's how real healing happens, both personally and for society.

In Chaos Theory there is a term called the butterfly effect. This means that small actions in one part of a giant system can affect the whole system. So a butterfly flapping its wings in New York over time could create a fresh wind over the Gulf of Mexico.

Many minds moving with the same intention can create miracles. Think back to the grassroots momentum that put President Obama in the White House, against all odds. It began with hundreds of tiny Camp Obamas, where people were asked to tell a better story for our country and for their own lives. The sharing that happened at those storytelling camps galvanized a movement. Together, possibly we can change this awful story too.

Train info: www.forceandflow.com.

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Comments from Participants on Evaluation Sheets at this Workshop

"Magical and wonderful!"

"Made the tragedy more meaningful to me in a personal concrete way."

"Amazingly creative."

"Facilitation was subtle and anything but heavy-handed. Bravo!"

"Stories you shared were beautiful and inspirational. I felt a strong sense of healing."

"Lots of sharing and feedback, lots of compassion, especially from leader."

"Peaceful and comforting."

"You are such a wonderful storyteller, soft and tender voice with just the right vocal expression. At your dance workshop I learned that the story I shared would be heard and understood. At this one, I learned that it could be expanded to the community in way that would impact each member. It was so powerful to share with each other about our feelings about the gulf! As if we were little drops of water getting together."

"Learning about the hero's journey healing story was beautiful and helped me understand the big picture and the how I can use it in different ways."

"Bathing in collective creative process was like swimming in cool fresh water."

How to Create a Thrilling Life with a Story Imagination

From Hubble space telescope

I'm my own best client.

Some time ago I brought about a miracle in my life -- I mean a real "pot of gold" type of miracle, something that never would I have thought could occur. I'm sure it wouldn't have happened if I had stuck with conventional notions of reality and failed to mobilize through creative metaphor the big, bold, life force energies that make lightning strike and magic happen.

Once you understand that your life is an unfolding story and that you are the storyteller who can shape and play with it on the page, then use that page as you would a roadmap, you gain tremendous power in your life.

In this month's blog, I'm going to share a story process with you to spark your imagination around an issue or situation.

The Alchemical Process for Bringing About Amazing Change

First, embrace your life as it is, right now, right here, knowing that you are exactly where you're supposed to be in your own development.

1. Describe in "real" world terms the situation, crisis, misfortune, wound, or lack. What’s the real world reality facing you? This is a narrative report generated by your rational mind. This step alone will make you more present and attentive to what’s going on around you.

Now, look at your situation from the perspective of story. By that I mean, break it down into the elements of story. These include:

Time, both in terms of when it happens and in terms of beginning, middle, and end. Time gives story its basic structure and makes it a safe container for difficult feelings.

Setting and Mood. Where is this situation taking place? What’s the mood? External environments usually mirror something about the people who live or work there. The overall atmosphere reflects the deeper emotional context.

Characters.
-- Protagonists in stories are the main characters. They're seeking good things for themselves and their loved ones. You're the protagonist in your story. What do you want?
--Antagonists created the lack or want to keep the status quo and create obstacles. Bad bosses, mean spouses, people who instill doubt, weakness, lie and betray your trust, and create obstacles to your success. Who's or what's standing in your way, and why? Could they be reflecting an inner demon?
--Allies, friends, sponsors, coaches, wise counselors, caring doctors expand you and give you energy. Who are they in your situation?

Plot. Whenever you try to change a situation, you set up a conflict, even if the new one will make you much happier. The forces of the old ways rise up to hold you fast. In story, this struggle creates the dynamic of plot. Describe the conflict, the choices you want to make, the actions and outcome that you desire. These and your adversary’s response create the unfolding plot.

Storyteller. This is the Voice in you that reframes, changes, shapes, and tells the story. Your voice is where your power lies. It externalizes internal conflicts and feelings, makes you and others more aware of what's really going on, and helps you know you're not alone.

2. Next, rewrite your story as a fairy tale. Writing in the third person as omniscient narrator, turn each story element into a metaphor -- a fantastical object, place, or character. Metaphorizing experience translates it into a language of the senses, which captures its essence. It awakens the non-rational, intuitive right brain and guides you to a deeper knowing where you can discover the unconscious dynamics and hidden treasures in a situation.

Metaphors for Time. “Once upon a time,” is an archetypal wake-up call to the right brain, where new connections will be made. What’s your metaphorical time frame and mythic period?

Metaphors for Setting and Mood. Archetypal landscapes and structures capture the meaning of experience to the interior world. These include deserts, oceans, islands, prisons, parlors, stairs, bridges, tunnels, towers, crossroads.

Metaphors for Characters.
-- Hero: The one who steps up to change the story. Often someone who is vulnerable or marginalized in some way. (Change happens first at the edges, where the status quo is most vulnerable, not at the center or in the mainstream, where it’s strong.)
-- Villain: an illness, misfortune, status quo, forces that represent resistance to change; orthodox priests and reactionary and/or violent political forces. His agents can be armies or trolls, demons, and snarling dogs.
-- Mentors, allies, helpers – wise and old men and women, talking birds, omens, gods and goddesses.They represent your intuition, the heralds of your highest and best self.
-- Demons, monsters, trolls, and natural events such as storms set the hero back, but can become important teachers.

Metaphors for Plot. After an arduous journey, struggle to the death, or terrible drought, water flows again. A sleeping princess awakens. An ugly duckling is recognized for the swan she is. Transformational story always has some kind of positive outcome, redemption, or shift of consciousness that gives meaning and hope to the struggle. This doesn’t mean a cure or a perfect solution. It means that the life force has begun to flow in a sterile situation.

3. Improvise. This is the step of serious play. What stands out for you in what you've just written? Pick an image, character, or moment in your story that stands out and make that the title or beginning of a 5-or-10-minute freewriting session. Allow whatever wants to emerge through writing, other artistic media, or brainstorming.

4. Translate this fairy tale version of your life back into ordinary reality. Very important! Come back across the metaphorical bridge: What does this look like in the material world for you? With this new and deeper intuitive understanding, what wants to emerge here? What are these circumstances asking of you?

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Story is a spiritual practice. You tell your story not to hang onto it or identify with it, but to release it by embracing it, and to release yourself from a pattern that no longer serves you or others.

Tell the story of a painful life experience and it loses its emotional charge.

Tell the story of a block and it dissolves.

Tell a new story and you begin to change your life from the inside out.


(c) 2010 Juliet Bruce. All rights reserved.