Life Voices: Making Connections

Story Concepts

• story connects us
• story shapes us
• story is powerful
• story is our common language

"You are the only one who can tell the story of your life and say what it means." 
- Christina Baldwin

Thoughtshots
Thoughtshots are instantaneous reactions to visual imagery. These can be cerebral or emotional, but they are triggered by sensory perceptions stimulated by first sight. This could be a reaction to a painting, piece of music, sunset, and so on.

Select a picture, then write about the moment, bringing it to life with sensory details. Describe the significance of the moment in your story.

Prompts
Tell me about an unusual relative.
If your child never met you, what would you want him or her to know about you?
Explain a lesson you learned the hard way.
Describe a time you didn't get caught.
What is your birth story?
Who puts honey in your heart?
Describe a time that you were afraid.
What lesson did you learn the hard way?
What gives you courage?
Write about someone you need to forgive.
If you were a character in a fairy tale, who would you be?

Life Voices: How Story Connects Us

Story
Our story is not created from what happens to us; those are moments that move through us. Our story is created out of what we make out of what happens to us, what we share with others (connections), and what we remember (often selective).

How do we begin to tell our stories? We have to uncover them. We carry our stories with us. Stories determine how we will approach situations, how we interact with others, and how we will live our lives. Stories define where we've come from, identify who we are, and shape who we will become.

Polysemy
A person is said to be "polysemous" when he or she displays evidence of many characteristics sharing similar qualities. Therefore, we are all polysemous because we are many variations of ourselves in one physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual representation. This can be referenced by our relationships and the qualities we associate with them.

Being polysemous is not limited to the roles we fit into. It also extends to the relationships we have made and the emotional connections to particular places, people and events in our lives. Each relationship encompasses feelings or circumstances that further define that relationship or connection. For example, I am a mother. I associate this with passion, happiness, blessing and joy. These emotions come from specific moment being a mother and interacting with my children.

Prompt
Think about the roles and relationships you have that define or contribute to who you are. Connect these relationships to an event or memory, then tag that memory with a specific emotion you associate with it. Map these out however you wish. I recommend using post-it notes and some blank wall space to move your ideas around. Pick one to write about. Begin by defining or framing the relationship, then extract the emotions associated with it as you describe the event. Consider how the relationship has affected, defined, or shaped you in some way.

Life Voices: General Musings

"We are not our writing. Our writing is a moment moving through us." - Natalie Goldberg

Writing is a process. As you move through the process of writing, be mindful of the following guidelines, which are designed to promote uninhibited self-expression:

• Keep your hands moving. Do not stop writing until all the words have come out of you. This keeps the creator in and the critic out.
• Be specific. Use sensory details to bring yourself and your reader into your moments.
• Lose control. Do not worry about grammar or correctness. These can be worked on in the revision process later.
• Don't think, just write. No second guessing or crossing out allowed; just free flow of thought. 
• Go for it. If it is scary, take yourself there. It is the site of greatest energy.

"The beginning of all writing is learning to trust your own mind." - Natalie Goldberg

*adapted from Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones