Jun 2, 2016
Adrea Peters is an author, mentor for writers and co-creator of Storytelling Ink writers retreats. Adrea is launching a new arm of her business called Feed Your Flow that includes travel services and ways to fuel your body, mind, spirit so you may become the stories you long to be.
In this episode we discuss how to feed the energy that feeds your flow and how a story is the way we connect the dots of our lives.
Adrea and I discuss how every entrepreneur can overcome resistance (it has to do with grace and ease), along with how to live a life of presence now.
What Adrea does to get into the healthy, thriving, in-your-body-and-soul-kind-of-moment that is her flow.
Why Adrea says we are always the heroes of our own story (and how that relates to everything)!
The universal 7-point storyline and how to use it to connect more fully to your tribe (Adrea says it’s part of our DNA).
Amber’s story of the mind-blowing meaning behind her Jurassic Park writer’s retreat with Adrea in Kauai.
Adrea's #1 ingredient to creating time for herself to do what she loves.
Adrea’s Golden Ticket question to writing (and to life).
1. An Image of You Now.
This is that warning or perfect-feeling place you may or may not be paying attention to right now. It could be a beautiful snapshot of you creating a gorgeous floral arrangement in your new office, or tossing a new mound of clay onto the wheel, or making dinner reservations for you and your sweetheart. It is a literally a “before picture.” The image in our minds we always go back to when we start our stories. Just before “that” happened.
2. Where Things Are: The Essential Background.
This is where you are at in your life, as it relates to the image from the previous moment. You have a day job. But you want to do your art full time. You are dating, but you want to be married. You make mugs for your friends, but don’t sell them.
3. Inciting Incident: A Trigger. A Shock.
This is that moment when things change forever. The phone rings. Someone wants your photos for their gallery. A space has opened at the farmer’s market. Your lover wants to talk. You fall. You’re fired. You get an email from an old boyfriend.
4. No. Way. Will. I. Change. Leave me alone. I can’t do it.
This is where fear kicks in big time. We do the opposite of the opportunity before us. What if you fail? Or worse, succeed? Then what? You said yes to the gallery, but have no prints, no frames, and no money, and your confidence is running out the door. He asks you marry him, but you want to go to law school with your ex-boyfriend. An agent calls, he wants your manuscript, but you don’t send it so the agent can’t reject you. You know you need help, but can’t take it. We know better, but we sabotage ourselves anyway. It’s safer to fail, to keep it a hobby, to hide our words, and our longings.
5. Okay. What do I have to do?
At some point—sometimes within seconds, sometimes it takes decades—we shake off our fear enough to dip into the new life we wanted all along, only to discover we have a lot to learn. Not knowing everything is a good thing. This is the MIDDLE of your story. It is filled with messing up, losing, failing, and flailing until we learn what we need to, and develop our skills, our backbone, and let our confidence return to us in order to ready ourselves for permanent, lasting transformation.
6. No. Turning. Back. Now.
It wouldn’t stick if we didn’t have to fight for ourselves. There is inevitably one last BIG thing we have to overcome before we are triumphant. We have to apologize. We have to forgive. We have to let go of the old ways. We have to quit that job or take out that loan or leave someone or something behind that we don’t want to. Often this is the moment of certitude: I will not turn my back on my dream any longer. Nothing will stop me from making my art or marrying this man or healing these wounds or selling my work.
7. The New You Emerges
The dust settles and here is another moment, another blip of you as the new you. Where are you now? What do you look like? You send that manuscript. You greet guests at that exhibit opening. You walk down the aisle. You hug the person you forgave. Your body is not the same. Your mind is clear. Your heart is open. You are a new you.
Writing is About Writing blog post
Storytelling Ink retreats with Adrea
Becoming Truitt Skye - Adrea's upcoming The first of Adrea's novel series that is out with publishers
Chinatown Movie with Jack Nickelson and Faye Dunaway
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Margery Morningstar by Herman Wouk