The power of stories.
It's time for a story.
You know the kind of scrolling where you're so checked out you're outside time and you aren't even really seeing what you're looking at? Who knows how long I'd been doing that for when I came across a sponsored post that snapped me back into time again.
It was for an app that sounded like it was made for me - I got to go and be IN a story. The start of the story sucked; I was in a frozen world in a blizzard, and if you know me you'll know how much I HATE the cold. And then I was digging in the snow with BARE hands (what kind of madness is this)... but what I found was a gargoyle.
There was a voice in my head who was curious about my inner world as it explained parts of the external world to me. Through the voice's gentle questions and reflections, it got me to think about things I hadn't considered before - patterns and stuck points, challenges and strengths. And through the game, it encouraged a re-writing of parts of my story of myself.
It was a bit like journaling, but not boring. It was a bit like being in a lucid dream. It was like escaping into a fantasy but coming out feeling heard, understood, cared for. Better.
And I got to create a chimaera of my very own. And... it reminded me again of the power of stories.
We're all made of stories - intricate and beautiful layers of meaning built up over generations and added to during our own lives. Mostly, the stories that we are aren't written on purpose. We might unconsciously cast ourselves as the victim or as a seeker, we might cast the people around us in the role of lover or teacher or villain. We might be yearning for our happy ever after.
My question to you today is what if we started writing more of our life stories on purpose? If we tried on roles like coats - today I'm going to be the magician, today I'm going to be the eternal child, today I'm going to be the mad scientist.
What if we got really flexible with these roles, and could apply them at will to parts of our lives? How might a mad scientist do the grocery shopping? How might the eternal child? How might the magician solve a challenge in our lives, like a breakup or needing to find a new job?
And if we're made of stories, what kind of storyline might we want to explore next? An adventure? A romance? Something lighthearted? Dramatic?
How might life feel different, approached in this way, like you're the main character of your own story?
And, if you're curious about the app, it's called Betwixt, and you can find out more about it here (and download and play the game yourself if you feel moved to - it's free to play):
https://www.betwixt.life/
Full disclosure - I don't receive anything for sharing it with you - just the warm fuzzy feeling of passing on something that might be as useful and fun for you as it was for me.