An Experience Created by Nature

Not only is Storyweaving a storytelling strategy, it is also a transformational experience. The Storyweaving experience was actually created by nature. All transformation and transmutation and alchemy are the same thing as a Storyweaving experience. By naming it as a strategy and identifying the necessary steps under which it operates, we’re able to apply this very natural growth and consciousness expansion process to the business and art of storytelling.
The power of this alchemy experience cannot be underestimated. This is the same process through which the sun burns, through which a plant grows, through which our heart beats, through which a child is born. This is the transformation of one substance to another, of one energy to another.
What’s interesting though, about naming it and identifying it as a strategy, is that we are in doing so making conscious these processes that are normally under the radar. Typically these are automatic processes handled by nature. So, tapping into what is typically a mysterious phenomenon and making it into an intentional practice bridges the world of what is normally dreaming and is now awake. By awaiting our biological primal intelligence we are tapping into the biology of storytelling, which takes it beyond the realm of entertainment.
We have so much force inside of us and applying only a small portion of it to our storytelling deprives our audience of who we really are. In our society we are so accustomed to wearing masks and putting on a show to impress our fellow humans, even our storytellers don’t know how to set down the mask. This may sound intimidating and it can have its moments of being scary. But this is also the path of freedom, which means the path of fun with the right attitude. What appears as perhaps dangerous territory is to a story weaver the only thing actually worth putting time and energy into. Even a comedy project is enhanced by story weaving because the storyteller gets an insight into what comedy actually is in nature.
How things are arranged in nature is you’re either a predator or you are prey. From the Storyweaver’s perspective, story is either generous or it’s parasitic. This doesn’t mean that a story needs to be perfect, but by being aware of all of these nuances an artist is able to express a story in more and more pure forms of art. A story can be impeccable in addressing what it must address. Art which is not so pure is an emotional reaction to something, revealing an issue that the storyteller doesn’t want. Pure art on the other hand has a higher quality of awareness and is therefore the true creative manifestation of the storyteller’s essence. Settling for anything less from a bird’s eye view, looking at society, is the sabotage of our species.

Mainstream Story Consulting vs The Storyweaving Strategy

Mainstream Story Consulting vs The Storyweaving Strategy

A wise person is also known as a Seer because they can deeply See, amongst other things the hidden motivations. If a writer is writing from a place of self-importance, neediness, self-pity, and deficiency, it greatly behooves the writer to be informed of this and to become aware of their blind spots. Not to be told how to write, but to be told about themselves so that writing from a place of more integrity and power becomes the obvious choice.

In the Western world, we’ve forgotten the purpose of stories. Stories are for transferring wisdom. Transferring wisdom means the transfer of knowledge of the self. A good story is designed to help the audience to know themselves better. A wise person is someone who knows themselves. Most writers don’t know themselves and so their writing tends to be flaccid, weak, and not very impactful for the audience. A powerful story requires wisdom.

A story that is meant to make a significant impact on an audience requires that the writer have access to power. If a writer doesn’t have access to power, the best they can do is analysis. This is not authentic writing, this is manipulation based on self-importance, where most writers are coming from when they write.

No amount of writing analysis is going to transfer knowledge of the self to an audience. This has nothing to do with moral support, this is an issue of being faced with the harsh truth of our blind spots as writers.

It can be extremely uncomfortable to be confronted with our blind spots, and most people are not willing to do so. Knowledge of the Self is the difference between a good writer and an astonishing writer.

The True Purpose of Stories

“Stories are for entertainment” is a made up western idea, hijacking the true purpose of stories.
The western world has the greatest denial in this area, and we don’t need to contribute to that.
The real purpose of stories is to transfer wisdom. And of course, making it entertaining surely helps. Entertainment is the glitter.
It makes a story more digestible. Making a story all about that turns it into Pepsi and French fries. Junk stories rot people’s minds.

An Argument for More Effective Storytelling

The Global Influence of American Cinema:
An Argument for More Effective Storytelling
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The film industry around the world is influenced by one country more than any other place because the birth of cinema is the United States of America. Hollywood is the capital of the film industry as an undisputed fact. And America of course places its spin on things, as an Enneagram 3 country it is obsessed with image and achievement.
Another fact that is interesting is that the film industry is perhaps more inconsistent and therefore remains more undiscovered than any other industry. Airplanes, for example, are quite reliable. They have a necessarily strict track record because there are lives on the line. The more that is at stake, the more all industries take their precautions seriously.
The film industry is the modern equivalent of the stories around the campfire industry, which of course has been around since the dawn of humanity. Storytelling is unique to the human species. This is a massive evolutionary benefit because we can convey experiences in more than just one note. While animals can convey the resulting energy of their experiences (in their excited behaviors) there is a nuance that only exists within storytelling which only humans take advantage of.
This is our superpower, and yet in storytelling school, we are kindergarteners because the real purpose of storytelling is only rarely used. And it’s rare that an effectively life-changing movie ever comes out. If the airplane industry had those stats, it would be unacceptable. This suggests that the answer might be in making the film industry internationally recognized as having stakes as great or greater than life or death industries.
This industry should be taken as seriously as anything else we use for our evolution. The popularity of cinema should be evidence that we are literally worshipping stories because of course it’s not the story that is needed but it is the alchemy that happens inside of the audience which humans are actually longing for.
This alchemy happens within the realm of our feelings. This is the realm in which the deepest truths can be realized. When we recognize the vast difference between feelings and emotions it becomes more apparent that simply feeling strong emotions is not a useful goal to have in storytelling. If it doesn’t increase their level of self-awareness, it’s wasting their time.
The whole point of storytelling, including the light-hearted and comedic, is to make it so that people are genuinely more free and more wise than they were before they came in. Oftentimes, the price of freedom is at the cost of our comfort. Horror movies and the like take advantage of this and create traumas in the name of getting out of our comfort zones. It takes the ability to See what is actually going to benefit people to get this equation right.
When freedom is not the goal, what is the goal? And then that raises the question – “Why did I have any goal other than freedom?” And “Was that goal actually my own idea, or was that planted in me and forced upon me?” And, “D”id I actually give consent to adopt a secret predatorial fixation?” Usually, the answer is yes, storytellers gave their consent to being taken over by self-serving forces in the name of survival. At a very young age.
Becoming aware of our own inner predator trains us to stalk our inner parasite. Otherwise, the parasite uses the evasive maneuvers of the predator and we remain blind to our survival fixation. If a storyteller is satisfied just to “make people feel something” (namely an emotion) perhaps they can find their own parasitic vampirism in this approach? Perhaps they can attune to how they are being siphoned by a thought-form. Maybe they can see that they are defending an inner war and a worthless idea in order to keep their pride intact. It is far more inconvenient to acknowledge than just keeping the show going and carrying on with “how things are done”.
This self-denial is rampant, especially in the storytelling industry. The parasite specifically identifies fame as being a place of safety. The industry is so “exclusive” to participate in, and it has a lasting impact and a legacy on so many millions of people. This makes people feel important to work in the film industry. And so the film industry is a natural magnet for self-importance.
Self-importance is caused by self-pity and self-pity is creating massive distortions in the rationality of our entire society. We are actually worshipping rationality. Meanwhile, rationality is a completely fluctuating universe. It simply demonstrates the belief system of its user. If one person looks through blue glasses and they see a blue world and they say I see a blue world, they’re not wrong. And if another person looks through red glasses and sees a red world and says I live in a red world they’re also not wrong. So they have differences because they have different perspectives but the actual reality is so all-encompassing that it’s not anywhere close to either of these apparent two options.
So now we’re at a crossroads where we can either aim our storytelling to trigger emotions and trap people in their pre-existing biases, or we can aim to place people in touch with their true feelings. Our answer reveals what we are driven by. If we are driven by our emotions, we are covertly wanting to keep validating emotions.
This attachment is actually the cause of our suffering, it is not the emotions themselves.
By default, people experience their emotions through the prison of self-pity. Feeling our emotions can be useful and healing, but it’s not useful without proper guidance. This can be easy to misunderstand. Passivity keeps us trapped, while genuinely surrendering our attachments is an engaging and participatory activity. It is giving our identity over to the unimaginable – the unknowable. It is an energetic movement, not just an idea.
As storytellers, it is our responsibility to create the best possible product we can by completely extricating our own parasite from all stories we venture to tell. This is how we embody the impeccability of a true storyteller.
The world awaits American cinema’s greatest act.

Intent in Stories

The act of Storytelling is ultimately just a manipulation of Intent.

Intent, unlike intentions, is the funneling of energy beyond the realm of the mind.

For example, if you were to witness someone telling a story in an incomprehensible foreign language, the intent they’re able to manipulate is easier to perceive because we don’t get caught up in the words.

If we cannot See Intent, we do not know what we are manipulating.

When an audience participates in a Storytelling experience, they are trusting that the storyteller has done their homework and understands what they are conveying.

Audiences are playing the more receptive role, while the storyteller is acting more as the provider.

This more receptive role is more innocent and naive. This means that they don’t know what they don’t know. And it’s not their job.

They don’t know if they’re being roped into the unresolved issues from the author’s childhood.

They don’t know if the author is using their own self-pity to appeal to their emotional body.

They don’t know if the author’s usage of Intent is conscious or unconscious, and so it’s become a rare and “lucky” find to come across truly great stories.

This is also why producers are constantly on the lookout for high-quality stories because typically they are completely contrived as they are coming from unconscious agendas.

So, the Storyweaving revolution was just begging to be born. It could change the entertainment industry completely.

Storyweaving is nurturing the nurturers, birthing the birthers, and cultivating the cultivators.

This is big.

Joshua

The Quality of Seeing

The difference between someone who is awake and someone who is not is the quality of Seeing.
If we cannot See accurately, we are operating on assumptions.
Most of what we see is stories, not actual reality.
And so, giving ourselves permission to alter those stories, even to something completely fictional and irrelevant, quickly reveals that if the story can be changed that easily it’s not really true. It’s not really “who I am”.
We become so invested, so much momentum into one particular story that the inconvenience of changing it tends to outweigh the desire to See accurately.
But that seeming inconvenience ALWAYS catches up with us one way or another until Seeing is actually the most obvious choice.
Sometimes the story had to get to an absolutely absurd place in order for that to happen.
This reveals #1 that absurdity is always an option, and #2 that such a shift in energy had the power to change things.
For writers, it is well known that truth is often stranger than fiction. This is why.
Own it, and then fiction can become as real as the truth.

Magical Re-framing Effects

Storytelling has magical re-framing effects, beyond what the mind can comprehend.
And Storytelling is happening whether we are paying attention to it or not.
Investing our energy into doing it well means becoming good at something incomprehensible to the mind.
This funnels and directs energy according to what we prefer.
This approach is very simple, and very rare at the same time.
Re-training the mind to use this skillfully is only possible when the mind is willing to break down its own habitual pathways in the process.
This is The Art of Transformational Storytelling.

What is an ImageDetox?

Since the time we are young, we are fed images and stories which play a major part in the development of our identities.

I remember seeing “Aladin” and “The Lion King” and applying these stories to my own life as if they had really happened to me.

I remember seeing “Saved by The Bell” and “Are you afraid of the dark?” and “The Simpsons” and inside myself, I related to the characters in these shows as if they were my real-life friends. Friends who I had some connection with, but they didn’t even know I existed.

These types of relationships (especially featuring less than ideal role models and one-way connections) train children with subconscious misunderstandings and false assumptions. For example, this may be one of the major contributing factors which cause children to confuse admiration for love. Thinking later in life that they must become famous in order to become lovable.

Additionally, usually as we get older we are exposed to more horror movies and images of carnage. In the information age, not only is helpful information more widely accessible but so is extremely unhelpful and grotesque imagery. We would never normally be exposed to these types of unnaturally violent scenes, and it has become increasingly easy to be exposed to an ever-growing array of catastrophic imagery that our nervous systems do not know how to handle and process.

Coming to terms with this exposure can greatly help us in coming back to our true creative essence. We have to know what needs to be cleared in order to clear it from our nervous systems.

In order to know what to do with this visual information as we hunt it down inside of ourselves, we must have a general understanding of the mechanics of how stories affect us positively and negatively. This is a significant conversation and is something that is all going into the ImageDetox course – step 1 of 4 in the Storyweaving Strategy. We call this step “Discover Basic Assumptions” because without this internal investigation it is very easy and very common to express our creativity through these invisible filters. When doing so, we are unable to see the subtle motives and messaging driving all of our decisions and this gets infused into our work.

Not everyone notices or cares about these limits on creative expression – but if you’re here you’ve probably noticed and become curious about what’s under the hood.

New Storyweaving YouTube Series

Hey Storytellers!

I am creating a new series of videos designed to help Immersive Storytellers tell deeper and more impactful stories. Would love to hear if this video is helpful for you, and I am taking topic requests too.

Take care,

Joshua