Change Your Story, Change Your Life

1. Your Life is a Story You Can Rewrite

The truth is that none of us is our story, and each of us has the power to be the storyteller.

You are not your story. We often become so identified with our life narratives that we feel trapped by them, as if the story is dictating itself to us. However, we have the power to step back, recognize our role as the storyteller, and consciously choose to rewrite our past, present, and future. This involves detaching from limiting beliefs and patterns, and actively choosing new themes and directions for our lives.

• We can change our story by changing our perceptions and making conscious decisions about how to frame the events of our lives.
• We can choose to be the underdog who triumphs over adversity, or the free-spirited explorer, rather than a victim of bad luck.
• We can rewrite the tale of our past and present, and thereby change how the story will unfold in the future.

Transformation through self-reflection. To rewrite our story, we must first acknowledge what it has been until this point. This requires honest self-reflection, identifying patterns, themes, and habits that have shaped our experiences. By examining our lives, we can become aware of the forces that have influenced us, both consciously and unconsciously, and make conscious choices about how we might change them.

• We can observe which events we have highlighted and which we have discounted.
• We can become conscious of the themes running through our lives, and aware of our habits and habitual responses.
• We can see how changes in one area of our story will affect other areas.

Empowerment through agency. The power to change our story lies within us. We don't have to be stuck in a narrative we didn't actively choose. By taking responsibility for the authorship of our own lives, we can move beyond feelings of helplessness and hopelessness and begin to create a more satisfying and fulfilling future. This involves recognizing our power of agency and making conscious decisions about how we would like our lives to unfold.

• We can detach from our current story and recognize our power of agency.
• We can make conscious decisions about how we would like our life to unfold.
• We can bring new energy and information into our everyday life to help us manifest our new story.

2. Shamanism: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Transformation

Shamans believe we each have a soul’s journey that encompasses our past lives and extends into the infinite future.

Shamanism's core tenets. Shamanism is a spiritual practice that emphasizes direct encounters with Source and the interconnectedness of all things. Shamans believe in the power and consciousness of nature, alternate realities, and a space where things exist only as potential. They work with energy to heal imbalances, retrieve information from the past, and explore possible futures.

• Shamans believe in the power and consciousness of nature.
• They believe in alternate realities and a space where things exist only as potential.
• They work with energy to heal imbalances and bring about changes in the everyday world.

Accessing transpersonal realms. Shamans use specific techniques to alter their consciousness and journey to other energetic realms, where they gain energy and information they can use to bring about changes in the everyday world. These realms are not imaginary but are alternate realities that exist in other universes.

• Shamans can interact with the spirits of ancestors and animals as well as the energies of places.
• They can negotiate with the energies encountered so as to bring about a different reality in the present and future.
• They can work with the physical world because everything has a frequency and an energetic nature.

Shamanism's goals. Shamanism is concerned with knowing ourselves, serving others, and having a close connection with the sacred. These goals are interconnected and reinforce each other. As we learn to know ourselves, we can better know Source and serve others. Through a deeper connection to Source, we come to better know ourselves and feel motivated to serve others.

• Knowing ourselves: Reclaiming lost parts of ourselves and moving beyond habitual roles.
• Serving others: Being fully present and acting from a place of love and compassion.
• Having a close connection with Source: Quieting the rational mind to allow access to the voice of Source within us.

3. Uncover Your Current Story's Themes

The themes of your story serve as organizing principles for the events you have experienced.

Themes as organizing principles. Our life stories are not just a sequence of events but are organized by underlying themes that shape our experiences. These themes act as energetic threads woven into the fabric of our lives, influencing our choices, relationships, and perceptions. Identifying these themes is crucial for understanding our current story and making conscious choices about how we might change it.

• Themes can be a thread of caretaking, struggle, leadership, or curiosity.
• Themes can be a fear of being swallowed up, or subsumed, and being forced back into old patterns.
• Themes can be influenced by powerful archetypal energies that have always been present in the human experience.

Methods for exploring your story. To uncover your story's themes, it's helpful to examine it from different angles and tell it in a variety of ways. This involves creating timelines, exploring emotional experiences, and writing individual chapters on various aspects of your life, such as health, relationships, psychology, vocation, spirituality, and service.

• Creating a timeline helps to recall significant events and their interconnections.
• Exploring emotional experiences reveals recurring patterns and triggers.
• Writing individual chapters allows for a deeper examination of specific areas of life.

Identifying patterns and habits. As you explore your story, pay attention to recurring patterns and habits that influence your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. These patterns can reveal unconscious beliefs and emotional wounds that are shaping your experiences. By becoming aware of these patterns, you can begin to make conscious choices about how you would like to change them.

• Look for patterns in your relationships, moods, and attitudes.
• Identify your triggers and habitual responses.
• Become aware of your role in creating and sustaining your emotional experiences.

4. Craft a New, Empowering Narrative

To write a better story, you must first acknowledge what your story has been until this point.

Envisioning a new story. Once you have explored your current story, you can begin to imagine what your new story might be. This involves identifying what you would like to change about your life and creating a new narrative that reflects your desired future. This new story should be informed by your deepest desires and aligned with your soul's journey.

• You can choose new themes and new connections linking events and actions you have taken.
• You can begin to see your story as mythic—a story influenced by powerful archetypal energies.
• You can choose your destiny rather than being tumbled along by the whims of fate.

Writing a new autobiography. To begin crafting your new story, write a short autobiography that starts with the present and stretches into the future. This new narrative should focus on the significant events, relationships, and experiences you would like to have. It should also include the themes and patterns you would like to embody.

• Write about the significant events that you experienced, the people you met, and your struggles, losses, and triumphs.
• Include facts about where you have lived and traveled, and what jobs you have held.
• Focus on your emotional experiences and how you would like them to change.

Creating a new timeline. Just as you created a timeline for your current story, create a timeline for your new story. This timeline should include the events, relationships, and experiences you would like to have in the future. It should also include the themes and patterns you would like to embody.

• Consider the times when you had important experiences regarding your health, relationships, mood, vocation, spiritual experiences, and service to others.
• Imagine what your new life looks like.
• Describe how you will handle such issues as diet, exercise, weight, stress management, illnesses, and any chronic conditions you might have.

5. Prepare for Shamanic Practices: Sacred Space and Stillness

To access high vibrational energies that can help with healing or birthing new stories, shamans need to raise the vibration of their own bodies.

Opening sacred space. Before engaging in shamanic practices, it's essential to create a sacred space. This involves intentionally connecting to loving and supportive energies and avoiding any dark, heavy, or dense ones that might prevent you from accessing the information and high-vibrational energy you seek.

• Sacred space can be any space you approach with reverence and designate for working with transpersonal energies.
• You can open sacred space by calling in aspects of Source associated with the four directions, Earth, and Heaven.
• You can close sacred space by thanking and honoring the energies that have worked with you.

Cleansing your luminous body. After opening sacred space, the next step is to cleanse your luminous body, the energetic field that surrounds and infuses your physical body. This involves releasing any heavy, dark, or dense energies that may be clinging to you and bringing in fresh, high-vibrational energy from Source.

• You can cleanse your luminous body by visualizing releasing unwanted energies and drawing in cleansing light.
• You can imagine dark or troubling energy draining from your luminous body through a tube at the level of your navel that drains into Earth.
• You can use a guided visualization to dissolve and purify your energy field.

Mindful breathing. To prepare for shamanic practices, it's also important to quiet the rational mind and shift your consciousness. This can be achieved through mindful breathing, which involves focusing on the physical sensations of drawing in and releasing breath.

• Mindful breathing helps to center yourself and reduce mental chatter.
• You can use specific breathing techniques, such as breathing in for seven counts, holding for seven counts, exhaling for seven counts, and holding again for seven counts.
• You can also use alternate nostril breathing to balance your energy.

6. Journey and Dialogue: Accessing Inner Wisdom

Dialoguing specifically involves a back-and-forth conversation with a symbol, inner figure, or emotion, or even an aspect of nature that you came across in a shamanic journey or your work with nature.

Shamanic journeying. A shamanic journey involves intentionally suspending your ordinary way of relating to the world in order to travel to transpersonal realms. These realms are not imaginary but are alternate realities that exist in other dimensions.

• You can journey to the lower world, the realm of your past and potentials.
• You can journey to the upper world, the realm of your becoming and future possibilities.
• You can journey to the Quiet, the place before creation, and to the matrix, the grid of energetic connections that unites all that is.

Dialoguing with energies. During a shamanic journey, you can dialogue with whatever you encounter to gain insights and information. This involves a back-and-forth conversation with symbols, inner figures, emotions, or aspects of nature.

• Dialoguing is similar to Jungian active imagination, a process in which the ego engages content from the unconscious.
• Dialoguing involves asking questions, making observations, and then letting the unconscious mind respond.
• You can dialogue with symbols, inner figures, emotions, or aspects of nature.

The four questions of dialogue. To guide your dialogues, use the following four questions:

1. What message do you have for me?
2. What do you want from me?
3. Will you give me ————————? (Fill in your request.)
4. What can I do for you?

Integrating insights. After a journey and dialogue, it's important to reflect on your experiences and integrate the insights you have gained into your everyday life. This involves making conscious choices about how you would like to change your story and taking action to bring your new narrative into being.

• You can use a working stone to help you separate your ego consciousness from the energy itself.
• You can use your witness consciousness to objectively listen to the dialogue and glean insights.
• You can journal about your experiences and come back to them later to glean further insights.

7. Work with Archetypal Energies: Death, Initiation, and More

When you see you are living a story with aspects that mirror the ones your parents and grandparents lived, you start to understand the importance of identifying themes that affect your beliefs and perceptions and, ultimately, your choices.

Archetypal energies as organizing principles. Archetypal energies are universal patterns of behavior and experience that are present in the collective unconscious. These energies, such as the sage, trickster, eternal child, and warrior, influence our thoughts, feelings, and actions. By becoming aware of these energies, we can consciously choose how we would like them to affect our lives.

• Archetypal energies are not intrinsically positive or negative.
• How you use them depends on your choices, both conscious and unconscious.
• Shamanic and Jungian practices help you discover and work with archetypal energies effectively.

The archetypal energy of death. The energy of death is not just about physical death but also about endings, transitions, and letting go of what no longer serves us. By working with this energy, we can release old patterns, beliefs, and relationships that are holding us back and make room for new possibilities to come into our lives.

• Death energy helps us to release heavier, lower-frequency energy to Earth and the cosmos.
• It helps us to let go of the heavy baggage of the past and become more still.
• It helps us to see that endings are a necessary part of life and that they make room for new beginnings.

The archetypal energy of initiation. The energy of initiation is about transformation, growth, and stepping into new roles and identities. By working with this energy, we can fully embrace the changes we are making in our lives and move forward with confidence and purpose.

• Initiation helps us to remember that we are expressions of divine energy.
• It helps us to feel our connection to the infinite and to the collective.
• It helps us to release any ambivalence about the transformation we are experiencing.

Other archetypal energies. In addition to death and initiation, there are many other archetypal energies that can influence our lives. These include personas, shadows, and contrasexual energies (anima and animus). By becoming aware of these energies, we can better understand ourselves and our relationships with others.

• Personas are the masks we wear in different situations.
• Shadows are the unconscious parts of ourselves that we don't acknowledge.
• Anima is a man's inner feminine energy, and animus is a woman's inner masculine energy.

8. Dreams and Nature: Allies in Your Transformation

Shamans believe in the power and consciousness of nature.

Dreams as a source of wisdom. Dreams are a powerful tool for accessing the wisdom of the unconscious mind. They can reveal hidden patterns, emotions, and beliefs that are influencing our lives. By working with our dreams, we can gain valuable insights into our current story and how we might change it.

• Record your dreams as soon as you awaken.
• Choose some dream images to contemplate and dialogue with.
• Identify your emotional state in the dream and dialogue with that feeling.

Nature as a source of energy and information. Spending time in nature can help us to connect with the energies of the earth, air, fire, and water. It can also help us to quiet our minds and access our intuition. By working with nature, we can gain valuable insights and energy for transforming our lives.

• Nature can help us to feel connected to the forces around us.
• Nature can help us to reduce the chatter of our busy minds.
• Nature can help us to reflect on our own cycles of growth, death, and rebirth.

Dialoguing with nature. Just as you can dialogue with symbols and inner figures, you can also dialogue with aspects of nature. This involves listening to the messages that nature has for you and responding with gratitude and respect.

• You can dialogue with the waters of the oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams.
• You can dialogue with the mountains, deserts, wildflowers, birds, and fish.
• You can dialogue with the sun, moon, and stars.

9. Ritual and Ceremony: Manifesting Your New Story

Ritual and ceremony connect you to the energy of Source.

Ritual and ceremony as tools for transformation. Ritual and ceremony are powerful tools for releasing old energies, bringing in new ones, and manifesting our new stories. They provide an opportunity to honor and express gratitude to Source and take us to a sacred time and place where all is at the beginning.

• Ritual and ceremony can be used for expressing gratitude and respect.
• They can be used for achieving closure or balance.
• They can be used for shedding unwanted energies and drawing in specific types of energy.

Sand painting. A sand painting is a symbolic energetic representation of yourself and aspects of your life. By working with a sand painting, you can gain insights and new energies that will help you change your story.

• Use a stick to draw a circle on the ground and fill it with natural objects.
• Let your intuition guide you in placing the objects in the circle.
• Dialogue with the objects and their energy to learn more.

Fire ceremonies. Fire ceremonies can help you to release old energies and open yourself up to new ones. They involve burning wood or paper that represents what you would like to release and what you would like to bring into your life.

• Blow into a stick the energy of something you would like to release.
• Blow into another stick the energy of something you would like to gain.
• Burn the sticks and allow the fire to transform the energies.

Despachos. A despacho is a ceremonial offering of gratitude to Mother Earth and to Source. It involves creating a folded paper packet containing symbolic objects that represent aspects of your life, Earth, Heaven, and the entire universe.

• Place symbolic objects on the center square of the paper.
• Offer prayers and blessings as you add items to the despacho.
• Burn or bury the despacho to send your gratitude and intentions to Source.

10. Write New Stories for Society: Collective Transformation

Each new individual story affects the larger, shared story.

The need for new societal stories. Just as individuals need to rewrite their stories, so too does society. We need new myths and narratives that promote compassion, sustainability, and justice. We need to move beyond stories that perpetuate inequality, violence, and environmental destruction.

• We need new myths that serve and enhance life in all of its forms.
• We need new stories that promote collaboration and cooperation.
• We need new narratives that honor our interconnectedness with each other and the planet.

Individual action for collective change. Each of us has the power to contribute to the creation of a new societal story. By changing our own stories, we can provide a model for others and inspire them to make positive changes in their lives.

• We can choose to live in ways that are more sustainable and compassionate.
• We can choose to promote peace, love, and harmony instead of conflict, hate, and destruction.
• We can choose to be of service in the world and make a difference in the lives of others.

Working with perceptual levels. To address societal issues, we can use the four perceptual levels: the body (the literal), the mind (the mental and emotional), the soul (the mythic), and Spirit (pure energy). Each level offers a different perspective and a different approach to creating change.

• At the literal level, we can focus on concrete actions and policies.
• At the level of mind, we can focus on education and awareness.
• At the level of soul, we can focus on creating new myths and narratives.
• At the level of Spirit, we can focus on connecting to Source and bringing in new energies.

Last updated: February 2, 2025