In this course you will reflect on the narrative of your life, and discover how the story you tell can shape and transform your experience of the world. When you live as a Story Hunter – you will expand your awareness of how you tell your own story. And by extension – all stories.
This module is the first step in your journey of reflecting and transforming the narrative of your life to date. As you embrace the Story Hunter way of life, you will naturally start to hunt and hone your instinct for stories.
Like a Story Hunter, you should approach this course in a creative, playful and curious mindset. You can’t get this wrong. For fun, think of yourself as a journalist investigating the stories of your life. Through Story Hunter assignments and creative journaling tasks, we will invite you to explore your world through different lenses. By the end of this course you would’ve written and iterated on your story as a way to practice different ways of interpreting and making meaning for your life.
You are the author of your story.
Lets go story hunting.
The Principles of Story Hunting
Be Someone Stories Happen Around
If you are to become a Story Hunter, you must live a life of stories, and see how lived experience makes narrative, which makes meaning. Story hunting is about stepping towards life. You have to find a way to say yes to life beyond the known, and this doesn’t mean you have to go on grand adventures. There is a story across town, if you can learn to say yes to life.
Cultivate Presence: Storytelling is Attention
The unexpected mystery of storytelling is that great stories find their foundation in attention. One needs to be present, to see clearly, notice details and be aware of not just what happened but what it meant to you in the moment. For a story to have layers and depth it must be born out of a disciplined state of awareness. Presence is the currency of storytelling.
Seek Out Characters to Become One
Characters have found their own uniqueness and a path to express it. Becoming a character is about cultivating your own inner world, and building your life from the inside out.
Storytelling is Resilience
Through co-creative meaning-making, storytelling becomes restorative and healing. Storytelling is shared learning – a dialogue where speaker and audience learn together in a supported, relational process. Story Hunters are resilient because they live in creativity and curiosity.
Click on the button to dive in, or keep reading for more details of what to expect as you move through the course.
1.1 -The magic of storytelling
The flow of the course
This course will be experienced differently by everyone. The experiences and feelings it sparks will be uniquely yours. You will not be asked to make any submissions, nor will you be graded or tested. Rather this course is designed to meet you where you are, to unlock your curious and adventurous spirit and – through a process of creative journaling – support you in rewriting your narrative.
Look out for:
Story Hunter Assignments: voluntary tasks or challenges encouraging you to embrace life as a Story Hunter.
Creative Journaling activities with reflective questions and prompts to help you go inwards and explore the different stories of your life.
Your Story tasks: an opportunity to rewrite and iterate on your stories with different perspectives and awarenesses.
What you’ll need for each module
- A comfortable, uncluttered space
- Dedicated time where you can be alone and uninterrupted. Each module will take anywhere between 30 – 90 minutes.
- A means to capture your journal entries and writing exercises: A google doc, a notebook and pen, or a word document. These are your personal records, and nothing is required for submission.
More on journaling
During this course we will ask you to share personal stories, and write freely about your experiences. The journaling exercises are about reflection and introspection, and they are also a starting point for thinking about the way you tell your story.
As we develop more inner awareness, we are naturally more able to chart course and move forward on the track of our life out of this new state of awareness. Journaling produces insight, and insight produces enlightened action. These insights are often the foundation of great stories.
Remember:
- You don’t need to be a good writer. Journaling is not about spelling, grammar and impressive vocabulary. Simply putting your thoughts on paper is good enough.
- Honesty with yourself is key. It is the raw, most true emotions that make for a powerful, transformative story.
- If you don’t resonate with a specific question or find it useful, that’s okay. If it brings up something else you want to explore, feel free to write about that. Try to approach each question with courage and an open heart, while being non-judgemental in the case of not knowing how to answer.
Lets go Story Hunting.
