Stories About Stories

Story Prompts

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How To Use These Story Prompts

Use any or all of these Story Prompts to ponder, contemplate, or journal about. You can also bring them into a meditation or discussion with a friend.

As you will see, we will be diving into the deep end of the pool. Use whatever prompt speaks to you and forget the rest.

No time? No problem. Here is my secret - you need only listen to the story and then read the prompts to have them begin to work “psychoactively” in your story life. Try it out - you will see!

It's that simple...and complex. Like all of our stories.

Be sure to enjoy your explorations - it only seems serious. Creativity has healed far more than anything else I know. Dive in!

Introduction

Is life a kind of crazy, purposeful accident for you as it is for me? More crazy or accidental?
Do you feel that consciousness is “on the move” in your life and the world?
Do you need stories in your life? What do you use them for? How do they support you? Work against you?
Are you conscious of your storytelling as it is happening?

Chapter 1 Roxanne, Mom, and the Opening of a Dark World

Can you identify the first pivotal moment in your life - an “inciting event?”
Do you recall another sharp bend in the road after which you were forever different? Was it an internal or external event?
When does a meaningful narrative begin for anyone?
Can you look back at your early story and see any metaphors and symbols that have been with you all along?

Chapter 2 Who's To Blame?

I suggest that something precious dies in every childhood. What did you lose? Did it feel like a death? How/where does the memory live in you today?
When have you felt alone, misaligned, and misunderstood? What role did stories play in that? What stories have you told yourself about it? Has it changed over the years, and maybe many retellings? Does it feel like it has changed?
Is it true that the more aware you are, the more bereft you are likely to feel? Does that ever keep you from wanting more awareness?
Do you recognize the feelings that go with being “dual, split, of two minds?” If so, what do they feel like to you? How do “you” talk to “you?”

Chapter 3 Rivers, Songs, and the Beautiful Light

Do you believe your own stories more than is warranted? Does it help to know your stories are not completely true or does that make your life story feel less stable?
Where are your story mountains? Can you see how you have built them stone after stone? Could you find a few to deconstruct? What about building new ones? How do you respond when you recognize the story mountains of others - with irritation, intrigue, or...
What would a healing story look like in your life? How might you get there? Are there any songs that help? Can you throw your body into the healing? What comes naturally in the healing process and what do you have to work at?
Have you ever had a moment of timelessness? Of light breaking through? What was it like? Where does that moment live in your story now?
Do you have some part of you that is sure up on sure that something wonderful is about to happen at any moment?

Chapter 4 Money, Money, Money

What are your three money stories that reflect who you are? How did they shape you? Which money stories come out easily and which ones catch in your throat? Do you think about them much or do they run more in the background of your life?
Does money build more brick walls or bridges in your life?
What would you do with a million dollars - or ten? What would you do if you lost everything tomorrow?
Where are your priorities chosen and ignored through money choices?
Do you have a friend who is much richer or poorer and how does that affect your friendship?
What relationships are more of a transaction than a loving flow?
Where has violence touched your life and how did it shape you? What area of life did it shape most? How have you stayed open to the pain of it or closed down around it? How do you want it to shape you now?

Chapter 5 Fathers, Daughters, and Stories That Never End

Where have you been caught in a relationship triangle, such as between you and your parents, or between an outside relationship and your primary partner? Can you remember the first triangle that impacted you? How did each person pull on the other? Do you feel you or “life” created the triangle? How does it feel today?
Can you speak of death and dying frankly? If not, what holds you back?
Do you imagine being a “good dying person” or needing to be when the time comes?
Have you had someone actively die with you nearby, or at least knowing it in real-time? How did that land with you?
What father stories live within you, actively influencing who you are now?
Are your stories about your father presented in black and white, or is there room for complexity and ambiguity?
In what ways were you seen and not seen by your father? Did you feel safe and protected? Did your father ever heroically help you when you most needed him? Were you ever deeply let down?
How does talking or thinking about your father leave you feeling today? What is left unresolved? What has been put to rest?

Chapter 6 Angels, Ecstasy, and The God With Attributes

How closely have you looked at your relationship to your God stories (not just your “God”)? Do you feel more comfortable with a “God with attributes” or a God without attributes? Or no God at all?
How have your early God stories affected your life today? Is there any active energy needed to keep them close or away from you?
What feelings do you associate with the idea of a God or no God? How do those compare with religious stories? How do culturally religious stories play into your life view?
Have you ever seen something otherworldly or mystical that felt God-like or God-associated?
If you have had a “break” with a God story, how does that feel now? Is there more you need to consider to arrive at peace with God, religion, or a life without a God figure?
What god stories do you wish you could feel to be “true” - if any?

Chapter 7 Sex and Power—The Early Years

What is your first sexual coming of age story? Was it early, late or right on time?
Did you follow cultural norms? Was there a sterotype or group you fit into, or not? Did you see yourself as a "good" or "bad" person?
What do you know now that you wish you knew then?
How have Sex and God mixed for you, if at all?
Where did love come into your story? The power of touch? The glory of the body?
Have you ever been catipulted beyond what you might think of as ordinary reality through a sexual connection? Did that change anything about what you think your sexual self is all about?
Have you ever made a deal with "God" and how did that turn out?
If you could go back, what would you do differently or tell yourself to create a different experience?

Chapter 8 When They Are Cut

NOTE: This chapter is a tough one, and it comes with a warning. If you are in any way feeling suicide might be an option for you, please do not listen to this chapter. Also, you'll find resources on the podcast show notes if you or someone you love is feeling suicidal.

How do you know someone is your soulmate? Have you met one or more? What was the feeling that let you know? What private "inclinations" did/do you share?
Who are the members of your true family?
How do you experience "The heart has reasons that reason does not know" - the quote from Pascal?
What does procrastination feel like for you - what do you do? Is that a story? Are you aware in the moment?
What story "kills" you to tell it? Can you tell it to someone anyway? When you have told it, did it help, or dig you into deeper trenches?
Where are you still "bleeding" from your life stories?

Chapter 9 The Formidable One

Do you experience yourself as having one cohesive self - if so, who argues with who when you are arguing with yourself?
Can you identify a "formidable one" within you? What is that one like?
Who within you carries on when things get tough? When you think you can't show up yet again?
What is your "birth story" and does it have any symbolic correlation with your life?
Can you feel some part of you on "ever alert" and how does that make you feel?
What part of you are you most grateful for?

Chapter 10 Choices

What would it be like if you spoke as if each word was a choice? Each. Word. A. Choice?
How has biology pushed your choices when you might have known better? Does it still do so? What choices might be driven by something other than your conscious mind?
When you woke up this morning, what was stronger... a problem to solve or an adventure to follow?
Do you feel you have chosen the important people who would enter your life—maybe before you were born? Are these options or inevitabilities?
How does the idea of karma (that you get what you give, good or bad) play into how you make choices?
What choices have you gone back on or changed your mind about and how has that changed you and your life?
When have you lied to protect another and how do you feel about that now?

Chapter 11 Hidden Villains

Where have villains or dark forces, ideas or patterns hidden in your life? Have you called them that or something else?
Are some of your villain's patterns from within - even if you have projected them outward? Do they tend to appear in specific areas of your life but not others? Which ones are the most gnarly to work with?
How do you deal with shades of gray? Can you find good in the worst of your villains? Is there a villain even in your most loved companions, talents, or ideas?
What have you learned from your villains? Have you faced them directly or indirectly? How has that shaped you?
Have your villains moved you toward your destiny or fate?
Is perfection a villain - or any supposedly “good” but over-driving themes in your life?
How have you carried depression, if at all, in your life? What role have you assigned depression in your life? What have you found that remedies it or makes it worse? Are there patterns you can find?

Chapter 12 Took You Long Enough

What is the difference between Grace with a capital “G” and grace?
When have you experienced grace and how do you “explain” it? A mystery? Is it divine assistance? A mercy? A kindness? A clemency?
What changed from before this Grace and after?
Have you ever had an “awakening” experience? Is it something you have sought after?
Looking back, can you see small awakenings in your life?
Are you aware of more than one “awarnesses” within you? What is the difference between them?
How do you “look” for greater consciousness, if you do?
When did you experience a life event that you “almost missed” and what do you feel was there to make sure you did experience it?
How long has it been since you truly saw the sunset or the other wonders of our world? Are you "IN" your life or standing by it, watching it go by?

Chapter 13 Putting The Pieces Together

Do you recognize your stories as stories? How soon into a story do you think about this? How might life be different if you recognized it sooner?
What do you “always” tend to do with a big story? What would someone else say, especially someone who knows you well?
Who do you tell your good stories to? Your bad stories? Who are your cheerleaders? Your naysayers? Your trusted coaches?
Have you ever had a moment when your old stories dropped away?
Can you look back and connect any special dots in your young life to your life, love, and spirituality stories of today?
What would you do with the suggestion of “reject nothing?”

Chapter 14 Getting Ready, But For What?

When have you “just known” a friend was a friend of a higher soulful or spiritual magnituide?
Who have you found to be a true friend with empathy, trust, honesty, and more?
What friendship wounds have you encountered and what story scars do you carry? How have you dealt with them, and do you still need to?
Where would a new friendship story begin today? What history of needs, desires, fears, and insecurities seem built in from the start?
How would you “propose” a true friendship - what would you say? What would the setting be?
Have you ever talked to the other side - with those who have crossed over? What did it feel like? If not, what would you hope from it? Who would you wish to come through and who would you wish to stay away?

Chapter 15 Reading The Future

Who influences your voice the most? Has it given you higher or lower confidence? How are you similar and different?
How would you describe your style of storytelling today? Whose storytelling style (we all tell stories, even if only to our friends) have you borrowed in perspective, truth, or process? How might you break away from or expand upon that?
Do you feel you are capable of Original Thought?
What drives are alive in you today? Which ones have come and gone? Which ones do you wish you had?
What rational thoughts and processes have you tried to apply to the irrational? How is that working for you today?
Have you ever been too afraid of falling into your ego to step onto a strong story path? What if you were to step more firmly onto your path today?

Chapter 16 Diving In

What are your most significant "yes" and "no" stories? What about your half-hearted "maybe" stories?
Is there a victim in you living out a story you can’t move or a stuck-as-a-stage?
What choice points are you at? Is there a “no” option that is a way of choosing “yes?”
What gifts have you embraced or resisted?
Do you trust your intuition? Why or why not? Could you develop it as a skill?
Have you seen a miracle in your life? A time when you were changed for the better that lasted? How do you tell that story to yourself and others?

Chapter 17 Things That Go Bump In The Night

Is it true that “nobody soul searches on a good day?” Does that mean you need a bad day to soul search?
How does darkness play a role in your life?
Do you know your story villain of fear? Could there be gold in your fear? What might it reveal to you? Do you have the courage to explore your true fears? What about the fear of death? Can you follow your fear back to the core? Can you ask questions to get to know your fear better?
Could you imagine fear as nothing more than a waste of time?
When has the non-ordinary entered your life? What do you feel about it after hearing my stories? Might there be much more than we realize in our human experience? What “more” do you need to consider?
What have other people seen in you that you have not been able to see in yourself?
Have you ever felt or seen a “glitch” in the matrix? How do you explain it to yourself?

Chapter 18 The Dream Teachers

Do you dream more at night or in the day with daydreams? If both, which do you prefer? Why do you think this is so? How important are your dreams to you?
Have you had a dream that points you toward “something more” or “something else?” Have you traveled somewhere that feels real?
What would be different in your life if you could lucid dream (if you don’t) and how would you like to be more lucid in your dreams (if you do)?
How are you “taught” in your life if no longer in school? Who are your teachers? How do you know you are learning something true and valuable?
If you have a “Daphney” writing your life, how would you get to know her?
Do you have stories that would make others think you are “off your rockers?” What it would be like if more of your friends, family, and coworkers wanted a greater journey of consciousness? How do you imagine the world would be different?
Is there another part of your brain than the part that remembers? What happens when you have a dream or experience but don’t remember it? Where does it live in you?

Chapter 19 Out Of The Box

Do you feel congruent with all of the parts of “you” that are in your “story box?"
What experiences don’t fit in your primary story box? What have you done with those? What is in your “impossible but true” box?
When have you taken something “impossible” and treated it as possible? What is possible for other people but not you?
What is in your “things that will never be me” box? Is that story up to date, or from an older version of you?
How might you unpack some stuck boxes and open things up in your life?
What is not enough for you - and maybe never was? Is there anything “of a different ilk” about you?
Where might coloring outside the lines be a cause for celebration?
Can you find a distinction between intuition and “just knowing?”
Have you been told any stories that are just too far out?

Chapter 20 The Weight Of A Story

Can you name a $6.99, $69, or $6,999 cake story in your life?
How do you learn how someone else values your cake stories? How might you value theirs differently? Have you learned to treat others by how they weigh a story, instead of how you weigh them?
What are your high-ticket stories? Do you feel you can’t handle another?
What good or positive cake stories might you have backed away from because they were too good to be true or too good to be yours?
If you were to awaken further, how do you imagine you might handle the massive changes in your life that could be a result?
Who has helped you with your bigger stories and how did that help change you?
Have you seen and felt energy and learned to work with it? What might your life be like if you did? Do you see yourself as talented in any area(s) and what responsibilities come with that talent?
How do or would you handle magical powers like shifting energy if they were abundant in your life? Would you trust yourself? Would using it feel ethical?
Do you run energy lines of your parents? What would you do if you discovered you inherited otherworldly talents from your ancestors?
How is your magic different from others?

Chapter 21 The Best Possible Story

When have you gotten stuck in a story hole - unable to get out?
When have you chosen the best possible story?
Who is there to stop you from a better story interpretation? Would you permit yourself to tell a better story than the one you have been told?
Can you "not know" what a story means - by choice - to keep the mystery open with “we’ll see” and so give it breathing room?
What are your “no way to know” stories? Could you DECIDE about a story that cannot be proven? Could you “train” your brain to tell a different story so your psyche accepts it? Do you have a willingness to look?
Does choosing the best story feel like cheating or do you feel you have the right to choose the best story you can find?
Can you imagine accepting the story of healing that comes from a outside the mainstream, such as through a shaman?
What symbols of wholeness have you found in your life?
How did you find the spiritual path that is yours - or are you still looking?

Chapter 22 Many Lives, Many Stories

What and how do you think about the concept of time? Is it fixed? Does it limit you? Is it malleable? Expandable?
What is the most common segment of time you “think” in - minutes, days, weeks, months? Could that be more about time than attention span?
What gets you into a flow state where time disappears? What does it feel like to be unbound by time? Can you be present at will? What gets you closer to the present moment?
Do you have any connection to a past or future life? When do you imagine your very first lifetime to have been? If you believe in reincarnation, what do you imagine has to happen for a given lifetime to be your last one?
Who do you trust to help you explore the hidden parts of yourself? When have you turned yourself over to the care of a professional, and how easy was that for you?
Who have you met and felt: “I’ve known you before?” Is there anywhere you have traveled that feels like home - even though you have never been there before?
Can you imagine parallel realities? Is there another YOU out there right now, living out choices that are different from the one you are living out right now?
What past lives would you love to have lived? What would you regret most? Do you feel you have, indeed, lived before?

Chapter 23 Shaman, Heal Thyself

What role has your “self” played in your life? How do you view your self-esteem? How would you describe your self-image?
Did you ever go through a “self-help” stage?
Do you have any currently active self-fulfilling prophecies?
What about the soul? The spirit? Does the soul have a deeper meaning and purpose than your self? How does that show up for you?
When have you been foolish in your life? Spiritual, mental, physical? What would you break the rules for?
What would you ask of a “master story negotiator” who was willing to work on your behalf?
What kind of proof do you demand of your spiritual experiences?

Chapter 24 His Holiness In India

Are you a traveler or a tourist? A beaten-path traveler? What do you like or not like about the road less traveled?
Are you eager to let your ideas change? How have you disappointed yourself in your small-mindedness?
Who has had such an impact on you that it felt visceral?
When have you taken a wild hair idea as far as it could go
Have you ever been in a room of beauty and majesty?
Is there a spiritual tradition that feels familiar to you? A people or community that feels like yours?
What might you be “homesick” for?
If you could have a holy person take some of your karma so that you could do good for others, what karma would you love to have removed?

Chapter 25 Ireland

What land is your land? How do you know? Do you have a home there?
What influence does your home soil have on your stories? What has it been like to visit?
Can you feel the land you walk on? Is there a relationship with the earth that nourishes you, spiritually or physically?
If you crossed the threshold of your doorway as if you were held, what might change in your life? Might that make something in you more whole?
Is there a wanderer in you who cannot rest or who feels without foundation?
If you are traveling, what do you search for?
What would it be like to find a more true “home” in feeling, tone, and essence?

Chapter 26 Of Mantles and Initiations

As a storytelling “god” in your own life, how do you bless? How do you curse?
Do you self-protect from stories? How?
Are you comfortable blessing someone else? Do you feel that you are blessed? Whom have you freely blessed and who has blessed you? How much heart was in that blessing?
Is storytelling karmic? What stories do you tell that have come back to bite you - or simply won’t let go?
Do you know the power of a curse? How much gravitas is in it?
Have you faced the dark and the light? Did you see it as an initiation? Could you?
How have you been put to the test when trying to make the world a better place?
What would it mean to you to have someone gift you with a mantle from their life’s work? What would you do with it?
Have you ever left your body? Did you tell anyone? Who would you tell if it happened today?

Chapter 27 Seven Years Awake

What path or paths have you followed in your life? How far up the mountain did you take them? At what point did you (or will you) make the path your own?
How do you describe the “forest of adventure” of your life? What has been scary, hard, beautiful, fun?
How authentic are you in your life right now?
When have you had to follow very close to the “bone of the unexpected” - what emotions are still living inside you about that time/those times?
Are you adept at feeling, not shut down or avoidant?
What teachers have you had and what did they truly teach you?
How do you take stock of your life experiences? Is it intentional? If so, toward what purpose?
What integrities do you demand of yourself?
When was a time you became determined to take matters into your own hands?

Chapter 28 What Do You Want?

How much of your life, day even, is centered around getting what you want?
How would you live if you fully understood there is no gaming the system to “win" in life but instead that it is a lifetime of ups and downs?
How has wanting changed in you over the years?
Would you rather have answers to better questions or better questions?
What would you work for, fight against, and why? How far would you go and how far is too far?
What is the list of what you want and will give for it? What did you want most? What was overkill? How much would you pay for it?
At the essence level - ask yourself why you want what you want. Can you find that essence?
What would you long for if left behind? How complicated is that for you?
Is your life a worthwhile journey? Do you think it will be by the time you are finished?
Are you going for what you want right now? What and how?
Are you willing to take matters into your own hands? How will you do that?
What’s the craziest thing you have done to get what you want?

Chapter 29 My Henry, My Home

What is home to you? What is your story of arrival at a sense of home?
What is your ideal of home? What meaning does it have?
Has home touched the Mecca of your heart?
When have you been kept from home? Have you been “homeless” in the heart?
Have you found a sense of home within?
What stories do you have that point you toward home?
How does your house and home match or not match?
When has the irrational called to you - and how have you answered that call?
When has true love arrived and how did you know?

Chapter 30 Healing Magic

What kind of energy do you “run on” and do you ever think about it?
When you consider others in your life, who requires a great deal of energy? How do they get it from you? Do you have a choice?
What is the “source” of your synchronicity or magic? What fuels your creativity and how do you top off if you get low?
What makes healing… heal? Is there an energy source or is it all mechanical and biological?
Is there someone you feel you have known “outside of time?”
Can you imagine working on all the parts inside of you to get them on board with an idea?
What is your “how” process for dealing with the irrational
How might the magical world be dreaming you?

Chapter 31 Alchemy and Aya

How do you view risk - are you risk-averse or a risk-taker?
Can you imagine looking at risk through a story lens?
How does a risky feeling show up for you? Is it more in your body or your mind?
When have you been forced to risk something important to you?
What has been worth the risk for you lately?
How has the story of risk shaped your life and identity?
Are you most comfortable with spiritual, emotional, financial, relational, or reputational risk? Where do you think you may have become “too safe” in your life?
How often do you look at the “big risk” of life - death?
Do you trust your life?
Are you comfortable handing over your mind and spirit to a psychedelic experience?

Chapter 32 Energy To Spare

How have you made meaning in your life? Have you pursued it? Do you see it as your job?
Have you found the direction that is your purpose? Have you made efforts toward that?
Have you been in search of your passion, like falling in love? Have you worked for it?
Is impact important to you? How have you made both positive and negative impacts in your life?
What are you willing to “make” in your life? Do you have a story journey about it?
What have you “made” of yourself (your…self)? What have you sacrificed for this making?
How is your creative energy? Is it easy to get into flow states?
What is your inbreath - that which you take in to feel well? What is your out-breath - your contribution?
What do you imagine 12 people from your life might suggest for you next?

Chapter 33 Premonitions

How are you hiding yourself from yourself?
What is your most used method of staying unconscious?
What tools do you use to get into your inner mysteries? Are they still working?
What do you know... that you don’t want to know?
What is going so well that you don’t want to risk knowing deeper truths?
Have you ever been called “unfeeling” in responding to the dramas of others? Might that be a sign of awakening?
What is the difference between unfeeling and unflappable to you?
Do you ever think, "I don’t have another loss in me?"
How do you imagine you would handle another great loss in your life?

Chapter 34 What Fresh Hell

What myths do you live by?
What patterns and complexities do you meet with stories?
What teaching stories have you kept and/or outgrown?
How do you handle myths that fly in the face of reality, such as Happily Ever After?
What are your personal “forever” stories in your life?
How has your body spoken through times of challenge in your life?
Have you ever felt exiled? Personal annihilation?
Have you had seasons of compounded loss? How has that taken a toll on you?

Chapter 35 A Tale Of Two Stories, Part Two

When have you been betrayed? When have you betrayed yourself?
What invisible bargains might you see if you dared look closer? Who are you bargaining with?
How do you rationalize a bargain that doesn’t work out
What bargains have fallen through for you? What greater truths emerged?
What do you tend to do when your bargains fall through? What might you do differently? How might you make more conscious bargains?
When have you been to Dante’s Inferno, and what brought you out again?
Do you believe a soul can die?

Chapter 36 Tale Of Two Stories, Part Two

Do stories die? Can you ever leave yours behind?
Are there any stories acting as destroyer agents in your life?
Where do you feel your unique psychology and patterns come from?
What stories don’t you want to end? What fears come up when you think of them ending?
How has awareness been with you in your life?
What would surrendering to everything mean in your life?
What feels like it’s too much?
How might life have been preparing you for where you are now?
Can a soul die? Has yours ever gone through a death?

Epilogue

Can minds connect across the miles? How does that work?
Do you matter in the grand scheme of things? Is that important to you?
What are you doing with your unique life - does it feel right to you?
Is it possible that your world is mostly in your head?
If you were in charge of design, what would you create the same or differently in a galaxy of your own?
Are the possibilities of your life truly limitless - if there are limits, what are they? Can that change?
As a galaxy of one, what do you most want to do?
Will you write your stories more consciously after listening to these stories about stories? How?

Postscript:

Alchemical Gold

How have your stories evolved over the years of your life? Has it been conscious or unconscious?
How does the hourney of alchemy resonate with you? What stage might you be in? Where have you spent the most time?
What are you willing to sacrifice for your greater joy?
Where does negativity enter into your speech? Would you value having less of it enough to make a change?
What do you wish for the world at large?