By David Boje
"I remember the moment I lost my way. I had just been named University Teacher of the Year at Loyola Marymount—again. My storytelling methods were changing lives. Students were standing on their chairs shouting, ‘I feel healthy! I feel happy! I feel terrific!’ But then, I let one critique at an academic conference shake me. They called my work ‘McPostmodernism’—too simple, too accessible. I abandoned my truth and started writing to impress scholars instead of serving people. I lost my way in intellectualism, drowning in critical theory. The more I published, the more disconnected I became from the very people I wanted to help. But something inside me whispered: this isn’t your story."
🔹 How I Was
Stuck: I
sought validation from academia instead of trusting my own
truth.
🔹 How I
Got Unstuck: I
started questioning: What
if my true work was outside academia? What if I had to restory
my path back to the general audience?
"I was raised Catholic, but my first marriage in-laws forbade Catholicism in our home. I searched—Lutheran, Pentecostal, nothing fit. My divorce left me angry at religion. I told myself a story: ‘Religion is a system of control and oppression.’ That belief kept me away from spirituality for years. Then, in 1995, I met Grace Ann. She introduced me to Jainism. I went to India, sat with a real Jain monk, and learned the 7 chakras. This wasn’t about dogma; it was about liberation from karma, from false stories, from attachments that hold us back. It was about truth. But I had to make room for this new path."
🔹 How I Was
Stuck: My
anger at religion blocked me from spiritual growth.
🔹 How I
Got Unstuck: I
let go of inherited narratives and embraced Jain wisdom.
"In the 1980s, before my academic career took off, I started a business. It failed. My partners turned out to be unreliable, and I lost everything. I internalized the story: ‘I am not meant to be in business.’ That story kept me from charging for my work, even when I became an expert in storytelling. I gave everything away for free, hoping people would ‘see the value’—but they didn’t. It wasn’t until recently that I rewrote my story: ‘People value what they invest in.’ That’s when I set a price—$977 for my master class. The moment I owned my worth, things changed."
🔹 How I Was
Stuck: I
believed I wasn’t cut out for business.
🔹 How I
Got Unstuck: I
bet on my future by valuing my own work.
"When I taught at Loyola Marymount, I started every class with students standing on their chairs, shouting ‘I feel healthy! I feel happy! I feel terrific!’ It wasn’t just a gimmick—it built energy, engagement, and belief in their own potential. But when I transitioned into critical theory, that rhythm disappeared. Instead of energizing people, I was dissecting everything, stripping stories of life. When I finally woke up, I realized: storytelling is about embodiment, about energy, about momentum. I had to bring that back."
🔹 How I Was
Stuck: I
traded real impact for intellectual critique.
🔹 How I
Got Unstuck: I
reclaimed energy and timing in storytelling.
"One day, my wife Grace Ann took me to a chiropractor. He tested my muscle strength as I repeated affirmations. When I said, ‘I feel terrific,’ my arm dropped—I couldn’t hold it up. My body refused to lie. That’s when I realized: my subconscious was stuck in a false story. I was telling myself I was thriving, but I wasn’t. My body knew before I did. That moment changed everything. I started paying attention to the stories I lived, not just the ones I told."
🔹 How I Was
Stuck: My
mind was saying one thing; my body was telling the truth.
🔹 How I
Got Unstuck: I
started listening to embodied wisdom.
"I spent years—and over $10,000—training in Core Shamanism. At first, it felt like I was learning something real. But then I saw the cracks. They told me I could practice healing, but never teach others. They claimed secret knowledge, but it was just anthropology repackaged for profit. I realized I had fallen into another trap—this time, spiritual elitism. I was stuck in someone else’s staged reality. When I left, I returned to enthinkment—the practice of thinking for myself, of questioning my own assumptions, of rewriting my own path."
🔹 How I Was
Stuck: I
was following someone else’s staged narrative.
🔹 How I
Got Unstuck: I
reclaimed my own ability to think critically and restory my
beliefs.
"In 2023, I finally walked away from Core Shamanism. No more drumming, no more following a path that wasn’t mine. Jainism doesn’t do drumming. Jainism doesn’t do ‘secret knowledge.’ It is about self-realization, about purifying the karmic layers of false stories, about letting go of illusions. The irony? In shamanism, I was great at ‘seeing’—I could sense what people needed in lower world or upper world journeys. But I never saw that I was betraying my own spiritual truth. Now, I am back. I am practicing Jain meditation. I am teaching storytelling not as an intellectual exercise, but as a path to freedom."
🔹 How I Was
Stuck: I
had adopted a mix-and-match spiritual identity that wasn’t truly
mine.
🔹 How I
Got Unstuck: I
returned to the spiritual path that resonated with my deepest
truth.
I now teach Advanced
Master Classes in Storytelling for Transformation.
I help others uncover
their limiting stories, restory them, and step into their true
potential.
🔹 Are you
stuck in an old story?
🔹 Do
you need to restory your beliefs, your career, your
self-worth?
🔹 Are
you ready to step into a new chapter?
Let’s do this together.
📅 Join my
next master class: CSIstory.com
📧 Email
me at DavidBoje@gmail.com
🚀 Your story isn’t over. It’s time to rewrite your future.