storyteller types: the teacher

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.

This week’s story work exercise is the fourth in the Storyteller Types series.

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self-help and narratives nonfiction are my favorites ♥

Books, books, books. There will never be enough time in this life for me to read all the books I want to read. I’m a voracious reader, but a slow one, at least when it comes to nonfiction. I do read to be entertained, but what drives me even more than that is the longing to learn more, and more, and more about life. Whether it is through the lens of nonfiction or fiction, I read in search of meaning, soaking up the life lessons and truths that resonate, and I grow from absorbing the many ways that people use language to share their unique experience of the world.

Once I soak it up, what comes next is an insatiable desire to share what I’ve learned—discuss it, pull the the juiciest bits out of it, and connect it to other ideas and perspectives.

I didn’t grow up wanting to be a facilitator or coach, but in hindsight, the clues were always there. As a child, I would come home from dance class and teach my friends what I learned, mixing my teacher’s choreography with my own to make the dances more Black for us.

At work in corporate America, I would take the newbies under my wing to make sure they felt supported in their onboarding process, getting to know their personalities and learning styles, without even realizing that’s what I was doing.

In groups, I feel the energy of each person, sensing if they are tuned in or out, and I’m always ready with ways to get everyone connected.

Learning and teaching are two sides of the same coin for me, and they are both part of my authentic expression, how I bring my inner world out. As I learn, I teach, and as I teach, what I learn continues to deepen. Teaching is a beautiful way to engage with what lights you up, the interests and topics that move you to action.

The Teacher storyteller type is inspired to share personal anecdotes to offer guidance, tools, and advice.

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I love how teaching forces me to embody what I learn and be able to break it down from an intimate place of experience. Professionally, it takes the form of being a creative coach and self-help author. Personally, it shows up as being a student of life always down to talk about healing and growing, always down to talk about what life is teaching me.

It’s definitely part of my creative motivation, this calling to teach. Whether it’s through writing or coaching, it’s an art form that allows me to get out of my head and surrender to what I want to share. I believe that we all have spiritual gifts, and no matter how we engage with them, they enrich our lives with joy and meaning.

If you are motivated to use writing as a tool to share guidance, tools, and advice, here are two broad ways to think about it:

• You can write straightforward, informational articles, op-eds, how-to’s, sharing lessons and knowledge in your voice, style, and personality.

• You can also teach through storytelling like poetry, essay, or fiction where the lessons are buried in figurative language or a series of events.

I invite you to channel your inner Teacher in this week’s exercise.

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Exercise

Choose any or all of the following writing prompts to explore your connection with the Teacher archetype.

Self-Discovery

• What are the topics that you could talk about all day and love to discuss with others? What do people often ask you for help with or ask your opinion about?

• What are some lessons or skills that you’ve learned that you feel a desire to teach or share with others?

• Is there something you’re good at or know a lot about that your community needs? An offering that would contribute to the upliftment of the world today?

Storytelling

• Teach a lesson in two different ways. Choose a life lesson or something you want to teach, and use two different storytelling formats to do so.

  • Directly — Teach the lesson in a straightforward way like a how-to, a listicle, or you could get really playful and write a hermit crab essay in the form of a set of instructions. These are just suggestions. Use your imagination and see where it leads you. Whatever form you use, the goal is to make sure that the lesson is clear and easily followed.

  • Indirectly — Teach the lesson in an indirect way through a story or poem. Rely on more showing than telling to convey a lesson or advice to the reader.

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Do you resonate with the Teacher storyteller type? In what ways? What are the opportunities and challenges?

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