In Her Own Words | The Story Oracle

Hi, I'm Amanda...

The first story I ever consciously saw myself in was The Matrix: “Ouch, I’m also waking up from a matrix, and it hurts like hell to see the truth.”

The next was The Lord of the Rings — the first time I remember inviting a friend into a question with me, right there in the theater: why do I feel this way?

I didn’t have a name for what I’d just experienced, but I do now.

It’s called Narrative Resonance — looking at a story, any story, and wondering what it’s showing you about your own.

Story became a path of personal growth, inviting me to develop the social-emotional literacy that the adults in my life didn’t have or know how to communicate.

And good thing.

By the time my son was born, my personal narrative was paralyzing my body and making it impossible for me to do much more with him than watch and discuss movies and cartoons.

Story became a path of personal growth, inviting me to develop the social-emotional literacy that the adults in my life didn’t have or know how to communicate.

And good thing.

By the time my son was born, my personal narrative was paralyzing my body and making it impossible for me to do much more with him than watch and discuss movies and cartoons.

Story shifted from a path of personal growth to my sneaky superpower as a parent. Mindfully walking millions of miles in characters’ shoes cultivated his critical thinking and moral character, and it gave me the simplest and most fun way to stay connected to my introverted son’s internal world and help him navigate the external one.

About the same time I realized asking him to write a short story could reveal even more content that would help me support him, I was also beginning to help aspiring authors and it became impossible to ignore the fact that developing storytelling skills gave individuals of all ages access to more truth than they could see and articulate out loud, and then enabled them to process traumas and tragedies that had shaped their identities.

I didn’t have the term Narrative Intelligence yet, but it was accelerating insight, growth, and healing for myself and everyone around me.

I know the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and even financial costs of not understanding the story you’re living — I’ve done it — and I know what it’s like to play a vital character in everyone else’s story and wonder if you’ve lost the thread of your own.

I also have suffered the hard culture, productivity, and revenue costs of not using these storytelling skills with team members, vendors, and clients.

But learning to view real and fictional stories, characters, and plot twists through the eyes of a storyteller has developed the type of inner and outer resilience I didn’t believe was possible thirty years ago.

The same skills I now share are what helped me heal my own narrative, restore my marriage and physical health, and raise a high-performing and happy son.

And when I began to incorporate them organizationally, I witnessed Narrative Repair at a whole new and necessary level.

I’m married to my high-school soulmate. I’m in business with my son, Aaron — my favorite fellow storylover, co-author of Raised by Story, and business partner at Saved By Story Publishing — and my youngest sister, who’s been part of this story since before I had language for any of it.

All of it is more meaningful, even when it’s messy, because story is my first language, my favorite medicine, and always the most powerful invitation to a deeper connection with myself, the people I love and lead, and my life’s mission.

That moment in the movie theater eventually became three practices I still work from today:

Narrative Resonance — wondering what every story reveals and informs about your own
Narrative Intelligence — the page as the place where seeing your story turns into changing it
Narrative Repair — because real repair happens in relationship, and building the rooms where it can happen in community turned out to be as important as any of the tools themselves

All of this is alive and well at Saved By Story Publishing, where I work with my team to help other experts and storytellers discover what I did: that the story you’re most afraid to look at is usually the one that holds all the power for real transformation, for you and for whoever eventually reads, hears, or watches it.

And now, through The Story Oracle, these concepts and experiences are being infused into other domains that need renewal: education, mental health, etc.

My Journey

Mapped with More Details

I believe every story — the ones around you and the one you’re living — is worth a deeper look, and that most people (yes, you and the people you love and lead) are one honest question away from noticing they’re holding a pen they didn’t know they had.

My work is creating the experiences, the prompts, and the pages that make that moment possible. What you do with it once you see it is yours.

More Meaningful Storytelling

We use the power of Narrative Resonance, Intelligence, and Repair to help messengers move from Inspiration to Impact.

That means a soul-aligned foundation for their message—a book, a signature talk, a curriculum, a revenue model, or any combination they desire—and everything required to launch a life-changing book and world-changing paradigm.

Our fiction and nonfiction stories help adults address individual and collective trauma, discover and apply new paradigms for healing, and do the work to heal and raise a generation that is more whole in body, mind, and soul.

And our children’s books give littles the opportunity to learn the most important lessons without all the trauma and drama.

I infuse the power of Narrative Resonance, Intelligence, and Repair into companies and communities already focused on personal healing, growth, and repairing the world from the inside out.

Coaches with thriving communities, witness as your clients go deeper, move faster toward their goals, tighten the bonds you’ve helped them forge, and even more importantly… take the transformation into their homes and workplaces with more ease and fun.

Therapists and Treatment Centers, watch as your sessions lighten up, your clients quickly develop narrative awareness and resilience, and your compassion fatigue lifts.

Educators, tap back into the passion and purpose that propelled you into the classroom, and alter the atmosphere of your classrooms, teachers’ lounges, and schools with skills that accelerate motivation, learning, and growth.

Leaders and Executives, cultivate a culture of curiosity, courage, and collaboration to maximize problem-solving, heighten performance, and increase that bottom line.