Your Origin Story

[Welcome to Better Endings for Life Paths. I invite you to visit the Weekly Topics page to see the series of Life Mapping topics and tools we will be engaging here. I will introduce a topic on Sunday, then present the weekly activity tool on Tuesday, then entertain further discussion and share responses to the life mapping practices on Fridays. You are welcome to share your Comments, insights and stories at any time. Feel free to review earlier weekly topics and tools in order to practice the sequence of Life Mapping activities you can sample with this site. Better Endings to You!- Linda Watts]

As a cultural anthropologist, I am quite familiar with Origin Tales. Every cultural group has an Origin Story in the form of a cultural legend or “Creation Story” that serves to define where they “came from” as a People and what their Core Beliefs and Values are all about. The Navajo (Dine) Peoples, for example, tell of emerging from underground worlds and that their Holy Ones (Yei Bichaii) built their Creation Hogan within the protection of four sacred mountains. This sacred geography is their Dinetah, their sacred Place.

 

Individuals also have Origin Stories. Where do you begin to tell the dramatic story of your own Life History?  Our lives are MYTHIC; they are the very stuff that Myths are made of (and vice versa). Therefore, as you embark on a Life Mapping adventure, a Quest of self-discovery that can help you to define or to reclaim and manifest your Life Dream, it is important to begin by expressing your Origin Tale. You may use the weekly Life Mapping Tool shown in the right panel.  I encourage you to journal or to actively think about or contemplate, or discuss with a loved one about your OWN Origin Story. You may do this by simply completing the following prompt:

I AM WHO I AM TODAY BECAUSE: …

 

When I looked up “origin stories” online yesterday, I found an interesting, quite different twist on this universal idea.  Many of the online accounts I found refer to Origin Stories of popular Superhero figures, like Superman, Spiderman, the Green Lantern or Captain Marvel (see the Weekly Quote in the bottom panel, below).  This has a lot of relevance for Life Path Mapping, because this approach will equip you to regard and to celebrate yourself as a heroic protagonist in your own Life Story!

What special powers did you attain because of your Origin Tale? Are you ready to release and nurture your unique insights and talents for the betterment of yourself and the world at large? Your unique Life Story has brought you to your vantage point in this Present Moment. From here you can go forward to Realize Your Dream. But first, you must reflect on the journey you have travelled to Here, in order to recover your Strengths.

The Life Maps Process, which I am inviting you to sample over the next six months with this blog, is a Rites of Passage journey. Rites of passage universally include three stages: Separation, Transition, and Reintegration.  Telling Your own Origin Tale is a rite of Separation; it helps to lift you from your daily routine so you can look back upon your life. It is the beginning of a “time out” of sorts, an opportunity for self-reflection.

So start a Life Mapping Journal, as you please, which may be in the form of a record of your contemplation, dreaming, and/or active imagination experiences as you engage with some Life Mapping tools. And please, you may begin by taking time out to reflect:

I AM WHO I AM TODAY BECAUSE …

What insights open to you about who you are as an Epic Adventurer based on YOUR Origin Story?

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I welcome your insights, Comments and stories. I will share your insights if you wish for me to (use Comments or see Share Your Story tab), or you can send your insights privately (see Contact tab).