Member-only story
Protagonist Carl Ramirez, from FLASH Theme Park, signed up for Level I Story Mapping Guide Training in the spring of 2015. The training turned his life sideways, like opening an ancient lock. He went from Target Stock Boy to a Mapping Guide in six months, and, as the normative writer, I’ve scrambled to keep up. I’ve carved out the Story Mapping Guide basics for eight years and still struggle to get Surface World recognition. But, protagonist Carl Ramirez moves quickly through three months of training and is ready to assume the Portal Holder role.
As a Normative Writer, I always wonder what I might be asked to do. I think of actors and dancers — they bring their bodies to the Collaborative Circle and do what they can to embody the story. However, my Portal Holder embodiment is not protagonist Carl’s. He doesn’t need to learn what I’ve learned, and though his story is set in 2015, he already has sustainable integration I’m yet fighting for
Portals to the Other Side of Limitation are found in episodic triggering. I had to untrain myself from shutting these situations down to welcoming and inviting anxiety, fear, panic, and freezing. Anxiety is a brush snare drum, fear is major and minor chords, panic is a full orchestra with solo voices woven in, and freezing is musical silence.
Once identified, the Portals must be uncovered, involving prying boards…
