Create The World
“you gotta believe it’s already yours.”
- Gabby Bernstein
Welcome back! This creative writing exercise is so powerful for releasing resistance so that you can live life by design. It is all about establishing the world you want to live in and getting more clear on who you want to be in that world. It is absolutely the most important exercise we’ll be doing in this series because it helps you get clear on where you want your story to go and who you want to be. By the end of this exercise you’ll realize that in fact, you are already living some, if not most parts, of your next chapter — it’s not as far off you think! Major upheavals aren’t needed here… just some easy, fun tweaks to shape the story.
this is for people who are:
lacking clarity + feeling overwhelmed,
launching their own business,
moving through tough transitions,
overcoming burnout, doubt, resistance + anxiety, and
working on healing their stories.
We’ll only be doing the mini-version today and if you want to learn more about Embodied Mapping, simply respond to this email and I will hook you up with some deeper work!
let’s dive in
Sit comfortably, close your eyes, and take five deep breaths. Roll your shoulders back and smile softly. I want you to imagine that you walked into your local bookstore in search of your next great read. Take your time walking through the aisles. Look at the different categories, different genres. Don’t rush. Eventually, allow yourself to be pulled to the book that calls out to you. To your amazement and delight, you see that the book cover a picture of ‘future you’!
I want you to pick up the book, hold it, and take that in for a moment. What do you look like on the cover? How does this make you feel in your body? Take five breaths. Next, I want you to flip the book over, and read the blurb.
What’s a blurb?
The blurb is the paragraph or two that goes on the back of any book: it conveys the general tone, subject matter, and it makes the reader want more. The blurb is not a summary — it’s doesn’t give away everything in the book. It’s a seduction.
That’s what makes this exercise so perfect for visualizing our future selves and the world we want to live in. We don’t need all the details, just the major plot points.
Let’s write the headline.
At the top of the blurb, you’ll notice there is a headline. Something that sums up the tone of the book. All books have this — whether they are fiction or non-fiction.
Grab your pen now and write the headline for your blurb. Don’t overthink it. Here are some examples:
“How it all clicked… a brave tell-all from a female entrepreneur in tech.” (Autobiography)
“Having it all while hanging on: how to start a business while staying a nourished, happy mom.” (How-to)
“Love After Loss — a woman’s journey back to herself.” (Memoir)
“Love in the time of isolation” (Romantic Foodie Fiction)
Now grab your pen and go for it!
The blurb is not a summary, it’s a seduction.
Now that you’ve got your headline, it’s time to write the rest of the blurb. I want you to write as dreamily as you like. You aren’t held back by anything, so I invite you to draw in the dreams you have for your future self.
Who is she? What brings her joy? What are her values? What has she overcome? Make it all about your emotional self. You can go a week into the future, or five years. Ready? Go for it.
Spend 10 minutes now free writing now.
PS: Fully Booked is my first ever romantic novel and if you like travel, you’ll dig it! Click here to buy it on Amazon.
extra credit
Now that you have the main characteristics of your leading lady, where does she live? Get as detailed + dreamy as you like. What city? What house? What does she do for work? What does her day look like? What music does she listen to? Food? Hobbies?
Here’s a tip I give to my fiction + non-fiction clients: readers must want to spend time in the world you’ve created. This applies to you, too! Create a world you’d want to live in and make it as detailed and dreamy as you like.
Spend 10 minutes free writing about the world you want to live in. This exercise goes on to introduce tension, overcome obstacles, and really drill down and get clear on the heroine’s journey. If you’d like to go a bit deeper into the world of Embodied Mapping, shoot me an email and we’ll have a chat!
recap
This exercise works so well because when we look at our current selves in our immediate present, we have a tendency to get so bogged down. So overwhelmed yet also wrapped up in the details. (Isn’t that the worst irony?)
So mentally and emotionally cluttered. So anxious. So deflated. It almost becomes impossible to visualize the woman we want to be. This exercise allows us to strip away the obstacles and create the world and the woman of our dreams. When we imagine ourselves as the leading ladies in our own stories — because we are! — it all becomes more clear.
By taking the future version of ourselves and putting her right in the middle of her own amazing story, . we’re getting clarity on we want our next chapter to look like. It’s so easy to say, “I will do that some day,” or “I will be happy when…” but if you can’t see it, how can you live it? This truly is my favourite exercise and I hope you enjoyed it too!