Hello,
If you’ve been joining me at The Clearing for a while, you may remember the conversation I had with Kaitlin Curtice (you can watch/listen/read here) about moving through the world more kindness and integrity, and resisting the things around us that are the opposite of those values.
When Kaitlin told me about her new book Everything Is a Story - pre-order here (UK) and here (US) - I thought about how true the title rings. Our lives are made up of the stories we tell ourselves and others, the stories that came before us and the ones we’re still creating.
So today’s journaling prompt comes from Kaitlin, with a bonus poetry prompt, too. If you’re comfortable doing so, do share what comes up for you in the comments.
Take care,
Katherine
Friends,
You’re about to read a short excerpt from my new book, Everything Is a Story: Reclaiming the Power of Stories to Heal and Shape Our Lives, and I want to frame it for you a little bit, give you a little bit of my heart behind the book I’ve been working on for the past year and a half. I wrote this book in a sort of incubator of stories—they held me there for about seven months as I asked questions of the stories in my own life and the ones I’ve witnessed around me, around us.
The mystery of a story is that at some point, they are born, like seeds, like beings, taking shape in the world, going on their own journey, just like we are. So, if we are like a story, how is our life taking shape? And what role do we play in the stories we tell, the stories we inherit, the stories we hope to pass on to future generations?
Here’s a little peek into the introduction:
We may be storytellers, but we are always inheriting stories— from Segmekwe (Mother Earth), from the trees and the waters, the ants and the coneflowers, and, yes, of course, the oak trees.
Consider the story of your own birth. Who was there? What happened? What were the conditions of your coming into the world? We honor one another with birthday parties and gifts every year, but do we thoughtfully reflect on that moment when the world shifted a little, simply because we were in it?
The world also shifts with a story’s birth, with a story’s beginning.
Here’s another question to consider: Is any story completely new and unique? Our birth stories as humans are unique to a point, but we are still human. Acorns fall to the ground and go on their own journey, but they are still acorns. So, what makes a story magical? I’d say it’s the journey that a story takes—who the story encounters, how they are shaped, and where they end up.
We are told so many stories throughout our lives, stories in childhood and as adults, stories as we age into the last stages of these human-body lives. We are told stories about creation, about life and death, about family, about friends and enemies, about what we should believe. Sometimes these stories give us room to breathe and grow, and sometimes they suffocate us.
Taken from ‘Everything is a Story’ by Kaitlin B. Curtice, ©2025. Used by permission of Brazos Press.
Journaling Prompt: Focus on a story you’ve inherited in your life. Consider this story as a living, breathing being. How do you interact with this story? And in what ways do you think you might change your interaction with this story?
Poetry prompt: Set a timer for 10 minutes and write a poem based on the word “birth”
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Thank you so much for sharing from my book and all your support of my work and words ♥️ I hope everyone enjoys the prompts!
Loving this! but live in Australia, so the book may need to be a gift from a friend- sounds wonderful.
I live in stories and teach through them as well. The scaffold of narrative sits around the everydayness as well as the interrupted nights.
Birth in ten? Well, it depends how personal or literal one wishes to be.
Without time to reflect or edit
the challenge becomes a brain dump.
Being metaphorically-born is an invitation to consider-
when did I decide this is the person I've become?
Too hard. Too many interconnected layers.
So, the actuality?
Have to peer through the gauzy layers mother constructed to save us both.
A quiet retreat.
Trusted friends.
Wrapped in historical stories.
An unexpected timeline
with too many gaps for narrative sense.
(I never wondered how she managed)
Waterfalls of stories slip through my open hands.