making the personal universal
story work exercise
The following post is a Story Work exercise that paid subscribers receive every Sunday night at 8 pm et. If you are interested in receiving this weekly flow of self-reflection ideas for your writing practice, plus access to our monthly group journaling session, The Practice, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Story work exercises integrate the process of writing to heal with the development of craft. If you are just joining us, our current theme is The Art of Conflict which presents many layers for us to explore for healing and storytelling. We’ll be looking at internal and external conflict factors and how we identify them in our own lives, and make meaning from them in the stories we tell. We will look at examples to observe how conflicts on the surface of a story lead to insights about the inner worlds of the characters.
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.
Okay. Let’s get into this week’s exercise.
You are the main character of your life, so naturally, you see life through your uniquely colored lens. There isn’t one objective reality in the world; we each have our own. So when you are writing for yourself, you are essentially expressing your reality, and it’s a helpful way of affirming, discovering, and examining the different layers of who you are. You could be venting, searching, raging, lamenting, or whatever you need to express—your private writing doesn’t need to answer any questions or offer any meaning to anyone outside of yourself and this is a beautiful and worthy practice. However, along the way, you may reach a point where you want to turn your raw reflections into fully-formed stories to share with other people.