Meditation is the practice of clearing your mind and focusing your attention. Some types of meditation focus on visualization with the intention of allowing ideas and images to arise from deep in one's own mind. A guided meditation is one in which the process is directed by another party. Guided meditations often use a script, in which the narrator encourages the listener to visualize specific images. In this case, the goal is to help the listener (you!) visualize new story ideas within the framework of specific archetypal journeys.

Archetypes are symbols representing specific experiences that are recognized as culturally or even universally potent. Archetypal character arcs explore transformational periods within the human life. Specifically, I teach a cycle of six important archetypal character arcs, alternating between feminine and masculine and chronologically advancing through the human life. These archetypes are Maiden and Hero (the archetypal journeys of youth, concerned with individuation and independence), Queen and King (the archetypal journeys of maturity, concerned with power and responsibility), and Crone and Mage (the archetypal journeys of elderhood, concerned with the mysteries of life and death). Each archetypal journey represents a crucial initiation within the human experience.

Everyone's mileage will vary, of course. But according to one user who prefers the discovery approach to writing:

"I'm naturally a pantser or discovery writer. The guided meditations you're offering are perfect for my writing approach. They have just the right amount of prompting, without demanding precision and nailing things down. I don't know if you set out to make the perfect brainstorming aid for pantsers and discovery writers, but that is what you've accomplished."--Ed Conway

If you're a regular around here, you know I'm a heavy-duty outliner myself, and I love using this meditative approach (obviously!). My process is to dive into the dreamzone for fresh right-brain ideas, then take them with me into the more left-brain space of plotting and piecing them all together into a cohesive whole. For me, a meditative exercise like this helps ensure my planning is never stale or overly mechanical. Ultimately, I want any story I write to be a partnership between my subconscious creativity and my conscious knowledge and logic. The Guided Meditations are designed specifically to help you accomplish this.

The meditations do focus on invitations to visualize your characters and story world. However, they also offer many questions that can be used as prompts without any need for visualization. One of my beta testers was a non-visual thinker who reported the experience was successful in advancing his story.

Absolutely! Although I've designed the meditations specifically to help writers envision their characters, they can also be used for personal growth work. Just in taking an archetypal journey on behalf of your characters, you are necessarily taking it for yourself at some level too. But you can certainly use the meditation specifically to access your own personal relationship to any of the archetypes. After experiencing the meditation, Marya Miller wrote:

"I liked the way you invited people to use the archetype meditation for themselves as well as their writing/story. One has to be diligent in improving oneself to do one's characters justice! Meditation can provide epiphanies and insights that take that quest one step further. I can see it helping book and reader grow together."

Yes! If you decide the Archetypal Character Guided Meditation is not a good fit for you, I offer a 7-day refund window after date of purchase.