Marie-Josée Borduas didn’t see the wall at first.
How could she? The wall wasn’t made of bricks. No barbed wire stretched across the top. From the outside, her life looked like success: graduated top of her class, excelled at work, responsibilities handled, boxes checked, everything appearing in order.
But inside? She was suffocating.
“I had subconsciously built this invisible wall to protect myself. And now, the same wall that once kept me safe had also become my prison.”
For years, she had pushed forward, doing what she thought she should, proving herself, working harder and “earning” her space – burdens that seemed impossible to set down. Until one day, the weight became too much.
“I didn’t know who I was anymore,” she recalls. “Life had become unbearably hard. Much too hard.”
And for the first time, she thought: “I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to die.”
The Moment Everything Changed
It could have ended there. A life cut short not by accident, but by the sheer heaviness of carrying too much for too long.
But then, like lightning in the middle of a dark storm, came a thought she never expected:
“If I was going to die anyway, why not live in the meantime?”
She realized she had never given life a chance. Not her life anyway. She had been living by someone else’s story, someone else’s rules. As a programmer, she knew that if she wanted a different outcome, she needed to write a different program.
She wasn’t looking for transformation; she just wanted to be herself.
From Black and White to Full Color
Her first step wasn’t grand. It wasn’t a reinvention, a new degree, or a five-year plan. It was improv.
“I don’t even remember how I found the theater,” she recalls. “But I remember the moment I walked in. Suddenly, it was like my life went from black and white to full color.”
In that small, unassuming room, filled with laughter and the unpredictable magic of play, something in her came alive. Somehow, saying “Yes, And …” to a bunch of strangers turned into her saying “Yes, And …” to life.
“I realized I had stopped playing,” she says. “I was carrying life like a heavy responsibility. Improv gave me permission to be curious, spontaneous and silly.”
It also gave her permission to fail, to accept what is, as it is, and remain present to new opportunities and possibilities. The freedom to play made her feel alive again.
“Play isn’t frivolous. It’s survival.”
From there, the practices multiplied. Meditation. Long, soul-restoring walks. Somatic work to reconnect with her body. Doodling as a way of bypassing the critical mind and listening to what lives deeper. But more importantly, as a way to take up space, for no other reason than that she’s alive. She didn’t have to prove her worth by doing more.
Each practice slowly chipped away at the wall. Each one invited her back into her body, her truth, her joy. But the wall she built remained, and she continued to feel pressed in for years.
The Story She Swore She’d Never Repeat
The journey of healing herself had just begun.
She observed her mother trapped in a story of feeling unloved, unworthy, unwanted, because she was born a girl. That belief had been passed down to her from her father, who told her, “I hope you have a girl one day so you know the curse you were to me.”
Marie-Josée knew her mother didn’t have to live inside that story, yet she was unable to escape it. One day, while reflecting on her past, she noticed something chilling.
“I watched my mother live trapped in her story,” she says quietly. “And then I realized I was living the same one.”
Her mother’s story had been one of silence, of enduring, of shrinking herself to fit into other people’s expectations. Marie-Josée had promised herself she’d never end up like that. But the wall told the truth: she was living that same story.
And she wasn’t alone. She began to see it everywhere. Friends. Clients. Strangers. So many people living inside stories they didn’t choose. Inherited stories. Imposed stories. Stories whispered to them until they became invisible truths.
“We don’t even realize we’re living in someone else’s story until life gets so small we can hardly breathe.”
The Threshold Moment
Out of this realization was born her life’s work: Story Alchemy.
At its core is what she calls the Threshold Moment—that razor’s edge of discomfort where the old story doesn’t fit anymore, but the new one hasn’t yet formed.
Most of us avoid it. We numb it, run from it, or busy ourselves with distractions. But Marie-Josée insists: this moment is sacred.
“Discomfort isn’t the enemy. It’s a signal. It’s life saying: The story you’re living is too small.”
The wall that once protected us eventually becomes the wall that confines us. The discomfort we feel at that edge is our body’s way of telling us: It’s time for a new story.
“The trick isn’t to bulldoze through it with more effort,” she says. “The trick is to stay. To sit with it. To let it reveal the doorway.”
How Story Alchemy Is Different
In a world full of self-help methods and mindset hacks, Story Alchemy stands apart.
Most approaches focus on either reframing thoughts (“just think differently”) or pushing harder toward goals (“just do more”). But both can leave people stuck in the same loop of fixing symptoms while the deeper story remains untouched. Story Alchemy goes further.
“You can’t just change how you think. We have to change the story that’s shaping who you believe you are.”
Unlike therapy that often revisits the past or coaching that emphasizes future strategy, Story Alchemy works at the threshold moment—the living, breathing discomfort in the present—the place where old narratives surface and new perspectives can be born.
Story Alchemy invites you to meet the discomfort you’ve been avoiding. To sit at the threshold where the old story unravels and a new one can finally take root.
It’s not about temporary confidence. It’s about lasting liberation and rewriting the script that determines how you see yourself and what you believe is possible.
By blending play, somatic integration, voice work, creativity, and narrative reframing, Story Alchemy helps people do more than cope. It helps them repattern at the root level, rewriting the hidden scripts that dictate how they see themselves, others, and the possibilities available to them.
The result? Not incremental improvement, but an entirely new story of freedom and power.
Setting Generations Free
But Story Alchemy is about more than personal freedom. It’s about legacy.
When you rewrite your story, you’re not just changing your own life. You’re changing the lives of those who came before you and those who will follow.
Many of the stories we carry aren’t ours to begin with. They’re inherited: passed down through silence, shame, or survival. Without realizing it, we replay the same roles our parents and grandparents lived, continuing cycles of struggle that were never truly ours.
“When you break free, you’re not just setting yourself free. You’re giving your children a new model to follow. You’re honoring your ancestors by doing what they couldn’t.”
This is why Story Alchemy matters. It’s not self-indulgent work. It’s legacy work. The moment you choose differently, you alter the trajectory for generations. You become the turning point.
3 Signs You Might Be Living Someone Else’s Story
- You often feel like life is happening to you instead of through you.
- You’re following invisible “rules” or expectations you never agreed to.
- Discomfort shows up again and again, but instead of listening to it, you avoid it.
Next time discomfort shows up, don’t push it away. Instead, lean in and ask:
Is this story mine? Is it still true?
Stay in the inquiry. Feel the feelings that surface.
The Invitation
Today, Marie-Josée stands not as someone who had all the answers, but as someone who bravely dared to ask the right questions: Whose story am I living? What if there’s another, more empowering, way?
Her story is not about perfection. It’s about courage. About daring to stay in the uncomfortable threshold moments, those pivotal points in life where change is possible, long enough to find the door that leads out.
Her journey, from despair to play, from wall to doorway, has become the foundation of Story Alchemy, a movement dedicated to helping people rewrite the narratives that confine them.
And the invitation is simple, making it easy for you to take the first step towards your transformation:
“The story you’re living right now isn’t the only story available to you. You have the power to choose again.”
This work isn’t about quick fixes or surface-level positivity. It’s about stepping into your threshold moment, daring to sit in the discomfort, and discovering the freedom waiting just on the other side.
It’s about reclaiming your voice and releasing the weight of inherited pain and giving yourself permission to live the life that was always yours.
So consider this your threshold moment. You can keep carrying the old story, or you can choose to write a new one. One that frees you, inspires others, and sets generations free. The choice is yours.
Join the Movement: Rewrite Your Story Today
Every day, countless people wake up feeling stuck and living inside stories they never chose. Stories of silence, struggle, lack of self-worth, and playing small. But those stories are not the end. They are only the wall before the breakthrough.
“The story you’re living is not the only one available to you. And the moment you choose differently, everything changes.”
That’s the heartbeat of Story Alchemy. It’s an invitation to step into your own threshold moment, sit with discomfort, and let it show you the doorway to freedom.
The work is not just personal, it’s collective. When you rewrite your story, you ripple freedom forward and backward through generations. You give others permission to rise.
So the question becomes: What story will you choose from this day forward?
The movement has already begun. Will you join it?
You can begin your transformation journey through Story Alchemy by visiting Awakken today.
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