storytelling types: the self-healer
storytelling types: the self-healer
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 open to all subscribers.
I’ve always kept a diary or journal, but I only wrote in it sporadically, mostly when I was sad or angry and needed somewhere to vent. I would pour out my pain and forget about it until the next time I needed to release the pressure. When I was coming of age, I wasn’t consciously journaling to heal, but I was using it as a way to feel. My mind was so disconnected from my body that I often didn’t understand what I was feeling unless I wrote it down.
When I started blogging as a creative outlet in my late twenties, I felt a dormant part of me come alive, a spark I’d been missing for a long time. Writing became a tool for self-discovery, and sharing became a practice in self-expression. Two things I deeply needed after years of hiding precious parts of myself. I didn’t think of myself as a storyteller at the time, but I did notice that surrendering to my urge to be vulnerable and sharing my experiences had a positive impact on my life and the lives of others.
It gave me a deep sense of purpose and satisfaction to join the universal conversation about healing by offering up my slice of human experience. Since then self-healing has been the foundation of my motivation to write.
For the next few weeks, we will be walking through eight archetypes for storytelling to discover insights about our motivations for writing and how they inform what and how we write. There is not just one type for each person. As we go through each one, keep an open mind and reflect on which aspects resonate with you. The archetypes are Self-Healer, Survivor, Gamechanger, Teacher, Observer, Scribe, Explorer, and Entertainer—and we will do writing exercises from each perspective.
This week we are starting with the Self-Healer.
Self-healing is a term that is thrown around quite a bit and may mean different things to different people. In this storytelling context, a self-healer’s writing is motivated by a craving for inner connection and a deeper understanding of life and self. It's not about satisfying any external expectations. It is all about investing in your well-being.
According to science, writing is physiologically healing when it is used as a tool to confront challenging experiences and emotions and find meaning.
Without this search for meaning, writing can become a place where we get stuck in negative emotions and limiting beliefs. Research says that venting emotions without the intention of learning from them is not enough to reap the health benefits like lowering blood pressure, strengthening the immune system, and improving mental health.