clouds and compost
weekly story work exercise
If you’re new here, Story Work is the name of my current book-in-progress. It describes a process of reflecting, reclaiming, and reimagining the stories of our lives. It involves looking at your life experiences as creative material that you have the power to shape.
The weekly story work topics cover universal life themes with references from literature, philosophy, science, and spirituality; offering perspectives that spark ideas for personal growth and creative expression.
Paid subscribers receive Story Work exercises every Sunday night at 8 pm et.
“Why is patience so important?"
"Because it makes us pay attention.”
― Paulo Coelho
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Hi everyone,
I wanna share a few thoughts on patience before we get into our weekly story work exercise.
More and more, patience is becoming one of my core values. I used to declare that I was an impatient person and I really didn’t allow myself to imagine being any other way. Impatience often led me to settle for less than I deserved, and force situations that didn’t feel quite right. Impatience made me leap to conclusions and assumptions, unable to tolerate uncertainty and discomfort. At the root of many of my problems was the fear that I couldn’t trust life’s timing so I needed to speed things up to make sure I didn’t miss out.
I think it’s something I’m meant to learn in this life. It’s one of the virtues that keeps presenting itself to me through different patterns and situations in my life.
Can you be patient? Can you sit with this? Are you faithful enough to wait without anxiety?
Impatience is a form of scarcity, and scarcity hinders creativity.
By cultivating patience, we give ourselves the space to be present and respond to situations with intentionality instead of knee-jerk reactions. Patience transforms our creative work and our daily experiences for the better.
Take these reflection questions with you:
What does patience look and feel like to you?
What’s your inner narrative about patience?
How does impatience affect you emotionally and physically? How does it feel in the moment?
Write about a recent experience that sheds light on your current relationship with patience.
What baby steps can you take to build patience into your daily routine?
Identify a creative goal that requires your patience. How are you working towards it?
Reflect on a stressful situation that could come up related to your creative calling. How can you handle it with a patient, abundant mindset?
Okay. Let’s get into this week’s story work exercise.
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“The sky and the sun are always there. It’s the clouds that come and go.” — Rachel Joyce
clouds and compost
This is our last week working on the Tree of Life exercise, a narrative therapy exercise created by David Denborough. This visual metaphor represents life and the various elements that connect a person’s past, present, and future. You can find all the parts we’ve covered here, and the starting instructions here. This exercise can be used as an ongoing source of journaling prompts and story ideas.
Now that we’ve worked our way up from our roots to our branches to our leaves and flowers, what parts of life did we miss?
We need to create space in our Tree of Life for painful experiences and how they impact the bigger picture. So get ready to add some clouds in the skies above your tree, and some baskets on the ground to capture the raw materials that fall from your tree. Through reflection and storytelling, we can convert these things into lessons and wisdom, so we can sow the nutrients that come from them back into our lives.
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The Clouds
Identify the burdens, obstacles, challenges, fears, and limiting beliefs that have created storms on your life path. Write these in the clouds surrounding your Tree of Life. You might include health challenges, addictions, relationships, vices, doubts, stressors, etc.
Compost Heap
What events have occurred from those challenges? While working on this Tree of Life exercise, you may have recalled negative events in your life experience that are hard to accept but have played a part in shaping who you are. Put past traumas, toxic relationships, mistakes, betrayals, and struggles that you don’t want to be defined by in the compost bin.
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Mental Health Note: Keep in mind that this is a creative exercise that may bring up painful memories and feelings. Check in with yourself as you proceed and seek professional help or support from loved ones as needed.
Exercise:
Often it’s our painful experiences and challenges that draw us to the page to make sense of things. If you’ve been journaling and writing for a while, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve done quite a bit of exploration on these topics already. If so, the Tree of Life exercise can help you find new connections and storylines.
For example, you may discover that aspects of your Roots played a part in causing certain challenges, but if you’re open to it, you will also find ways that your Grass or Trunk or Leaves played a part in helping you cope with your challenges.
Below is the list of each part we’ve covered. In what ways have the painful experiences, problems, and challenges from the clouds and compost been impacted by each one?
Roots: Where you come from. Your family, community, hometown, state, country, etc.
Grass: Where you live now and the activities that you choose to do on a regular basis.
Trunk: The gifts, values, and skills that have helped you cope with your challenges and fears.
Branches: Your hopes, dreams, and wishes.
Leaves: People (or animals) that you know personally (or not) that have played a significant role in inspiring or supporting you.
Fruit: Gifts and legacies that you have been given by others.
Flowers: Gifts and legacies that you have or want to give to others.