Four Prompts for Unlocking Your Untold Stories: A Starting Point
Our bodies and unconscious hold stories we often cannot access with our thinking brain. These four narrative medicine-led prompts are a great starting point to help you begin to unlock the stories that live deep in your bones.
INSTRUCTIONS:
First, complete the following mindfulness exercise. With any narrative medicine-led prompt, we want to begin by being fully present in our bodies.
Sit comfortably with a straight spine.
Take a deep breath in slowly…expanding the belly. Bring your awareness to the belly expanding with each inhalation. Feeling the cool air moving up the belly into the lungs, throat to the top of your head...EXHALE.
Bringing your awareness to the belly contracting in with each exhalation.
REPEAT X 3
Next, set a timer for five minutes and answer the first prompt. When you’re done, reset the timer for another five minutes and answer the second prompt, and then repeat the process for the third and fourth.
Narrative Medicine Prompts:
Write about something you know is true
Describe the threads that connect you to the ‘other’
Describe a time of harmony
Describe a time of hope
Finally, whenever you’re ready, review what you’ve written. What stories have revealed themselves in these exercises? What did your unconscious offer up about your experiences with the truth, other, harmony and hope?