Your Life As History

Monday I felt I just had to go out to find the film Julie & Julia, as it is an appropriate parallel story for an enterprising author and for any blogger, of course. I streamed the movie and found the most relevant element for me to absorb was about the long process Julia Child undertook to transform American sensibilities in relation to more than just French cooking.  She was introducing a style, literally making palatable an attitude as well as a culinary revolution akin to the sexual liberation movement that developed in tandem with this European flair.

What is a writer or an artist if not an innovator and somewhat of a provocateur? Julia’s persistence over many years of developing her talents and composing her book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961), served her well (not a pun! well, maybe so).  She merged American gastronomic desires for nouveaux choses with traditional rural French cuisine in a manner that freed not only the taste buds but as well the fertile imagination of Americans after WWII had already begun to open up for us new territories of European philosophical thought and literature/ culture. Spiritually I must infer this was no accident. Julia Child was the right person for the task she undertook with her grace and fortitude plus her special brand of loving, even lovably awkward humor.

The parallel mythic aspects of Julie and Julia in relation to my own current life activity are obvious to me but that’s personal; not worth expounding here. Her perseverance and persistence despite the opposition she first encountered to a new approach that blended sensibilities rather than merely presenting one style in a didactic way offers lessons for many of us.

It was telling to see how Nora Ephron (screenwriter) drew parallel mythic connections in her screenplay between Julie Powell and Julia Child’s lives quite explicitly, fusing two historical epochs of an American in Paris from 1944-1961 with New York City in 2002, just after the 2001 Twin Towers disaster.

Our own story can merge with history itself in fundamentally useful ways. Julie Powell’s blog about cooking all of the recipes from Julia Child’s book in a year sparked the imagination of readers ready for a fresh inspiration to go beyond routine with a license to revitalize their passions. Powell actually worked for an agency helping victims from the Twin Towers attack to recover their own lives, so it is fascinating how she was led to intersect her own life and imagination with the life and times of Julia Child. Are there any accidents? I believe in co-incidence instead.

So, where does your Life Story stand positioned in the ongoing flow of human history? I know, that’s a big question. But of course our personal life history narratives are and must be understood at some level as products of History itself.

But how to unpack this? Just a brief musing (I invite you to write your own reflections…):

Born in 1954, I experienced the 1960’s while in highschool in Lewiston, New York. I started a Human Relations Club there to honor and punctuate the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. within a mainly “Lilywhite” community. This along with a 10^th grade class by one of my best early mentors (my English teacher, Mr. Scelsa)–in which for half the year we studied the Black literary Renaissance–led me to develop a sensitivity to issues of diversity in all forms. This was at a time when openness to new ideas was beginning to flourish. The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkle, and my next and lifelong mentor (who knows whom he or she is…) led me to want to be a writer, to make a contribution, to “make a difference” really in any way I might. So that led to 21 years of college, studying literature/philosophy,linguistics and cultural anthropology and then moving on to university teaching. These multidisciplinary threads and historical influences have coalesced to an interest in the interplay between cultural psychology and personal cognition, with the notion that we can free ourselves from self-limiting thoughts and behaviors, if we so choose.

So, what about you? How does your Life Story intersect with History? What are the consequences?

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I welcome your insights and stories!

Hitch Your Sail to an Epic Tale!

What is the value of the fact that we live out our lives as Myth, as an Epic or Episodic Story?  Stories have structures: a beginning, middle and end. That is, they lead somewhere, and in the process of striving to achieve our storied destination, we always learn something valuable in the process. (If we don’t, then we may be in a ‘tragic’ mode, repeating the same sort of experience until we do finally ‘see the Light’, learn the lesson. Then we can move on to the next story, the next Life Chapter.)

On Sunday I introduced the idea of “parallel myths”: looking at the synoptic structure of your own Life Story to Now and comparing that with a popular storyline you can identify with. This in itself can help you to ‘heighten’ your own Story; to see its meaningful significance for yourself and others involved. It can also help you recognize your Goals in relation to the parallel-story Quest of the heroic tale.

So here’s a method for using a parallel myth or story to help you resolve a situation in your life.

First identify a Goal in your life, and an Obstacle or set of obstacles you are confronted with in trying to fulfill that goal.

Second, identify a parallel story in relation to your Goal and Obstacles. Is there a story you are familiar with where the hero aims to achieve a similar goal and encounters similar obstacles?

Name that Story: ________________________.

Third, review the way the hero or other protagonists in the parallel story overcome their obstacles to achieve their goal.

And Fourth then, reflect on (contemplate/ talk about/ journal or write or compose a poem or create a piece of art about): How might you APPLY the strategies used in the parallel story to the situation you face? What can you do to help you achieve your goal by comparison with this parallel story?

Sometimes this method will allow you to uncover a vital, practical solution you had not considered. At very least it can show you that you are not alone in facing your obstacles and that there are ways to achieve your goal.

As an example from my own life, currently I am engaged in something difficult but worthwhile; the most difficult ordeal and the most valuable, exciting opportunity of my life requires a daily effort to try to break through what in the past I would have accepted as self-limitations. Where I am at reminds me of the protagonist Chuck Noland in the movie Cast Away with Tom Hanks (one of my favorites).

 

In order to continue forward with his life after being marooned on a Desert island, at a certain point Chuck arduously but successfully builds a raft and he aims to take it into the deep Ocean, so he will be rescued. The current, though, beats him back on his early attempts. He has to finally muster enough strength and ingenuity to mount a Sail (delivered serendipitously upon his stranded beach), one with enough heft that it will allow the raft to catch a wind to propel him past the beating tidal current that has kept him penned on the beach. This takes everything Chuck has: courage, determination, skill, patience, calculation, fortitude, and ultimately, action. He faces the odds, he encounters the vicissitudes of Nature, and ultimately he prevails. He exceeds those illusory self-limitations. Life beyond that goal is not entirely what he anticipates; his fiancée has married and he has no reason to stay with his former job. He is still a “cast-away”, but he has learned much that he will share as he continues forth into a valuable, if still uncertain future.

Just telling the Cast Away story in relation to my current travails is helpful. It buttresses my resolve and supports me in the alone-ness I often feel during this passage.  Stories remind us that our own story matters; it must, of course, if only to ourselves. Any good story, one “worth telling,” leads to a grander space than its ‘middle’ ordeals might foretell.  Any good motivation to achieve a destination bears fruit with its achievement beyond the hero’s own need or honor. It benefits the Whole that it is part of; hence it is worthy of the support of the Whole.

Seek comfort in the Whole (whatever you may choose to name IT); accept and receive Its love and support guiding you along on YOUR Journey!

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I always welcome YOUR insights and stories!

Your Story as Myth

Preface: As I present this blog about topics covered in my upcoming book Life Paths I find I need to dampen the material just a bit in order not to reveal more than I should before launching the book. I am presenting here a full sequence of topics in a process mode that mirrors the book’s process, but I do not want to simply quote from the manuscript or give the exact self-help tools outside of the fuller context of a complete Life Maps Process that the book will deliver. Particularly, there is an approach in Life Paths that delivers a much more in-depth and systematic approach to this week’s topic of “Your Life as Myth”, which I will need to present in a more basic overview manner here. Still, the ideas are relevant to where we are at as we go through a life mapping sequence in the blog. And, I do enjoy exploring these topics in the blog apart from and beyond the book process; it allows me a creative outflow and I hope that is true for you as well.

 

Your Story as Myth

Our lives are made up from the stuff of Myth and, in my view, Myth is made up from the stuff of our lives. That means that the same elements that are present in Myth are present in our day-to-day—and nightly dream—experience.  It simply cannot be otherwise, given the structure of human Mind and the nature of human consciousness.

We tell about the events of our lives—from the most mundane to the most significant, Shaping events—in stories, and we reflect on our life history as an overarching Life Story. So, consider the key elements of a myth or story and you can see their reflections in your own life. You are the key protagonist, for instance, within a cast of characters both external (your relations) and internal (your unconscious archetypal perspectives…a later topic). You have Goals, you face Obstacles; occasionally you might even come face to face with a Nemesis or Arch-Rival, and you might face unrelenting challenges. You survive, though, as best as possible. You seek help, develop strategies, equip yourself with skills and tools to meet your needs, and you persevere, you persist to overcome obstacles and to attain your needs and goals. That all sounds very dramatic and, er,…yes, Mythic!

So for fun this week, here’s something you can do to explore the mythic dimensions of your own Life Story.

First, write out in outline form across one page the titles you would give to your important Life Chapters up to Now (you can refer to two weeks ago or use this blog’s Search device for Life Chapters to find a tool to help you identify your Life Chapters as the event phases that have occurred between your major Turning Points.)

Got that? So now you have a sequence of YOUR Life Chapter titles across a page. (If you prefer to be nonlinear, you can arrange these in any manner that makes sense to you, like in a Spiral pathway, a pie chart or a creative collage.)

Next, read across the page of your Life Chapter Titles, several times, slowly. Does the Story that your sequence of Life Chapter titles tell REMIND you of any popular story (myth, novel, or movie, etcetera)? What is that “Parallel” Story?

Now then, you can talk about, journal/ write about, and/or actively contemplate the similarities between YOUR story and the Parallel Story you have named.

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Have Fun!

I look forward to your comments or stories.

The Multiple Threads of Your Life Story

I’d like to invite you next to consider whether your Life Story might actually be playing itself out according to more than one Genre.  This week I have introduced you to three story types or genres that Life Stories represent: Comic Epic-Adventure, Tragic Epic-Adventure, and Episodic. You can determine which of these patterns your overall conception of your Life Story weaves by reviewing the sequence of Life Chapters you can identify by naming the event frames that have transpired between the critical Turning Points of your life’s Adventure (see the last two week’s tools in the right panel about identifying and naming your own Life Chapters).

Now then, might the same person’s Life Story be simultaneously Comic, Tragic and/or Episodic all at the same time? This is a profound question, for which I can say the answer is, Yes.  There are many layers to a Lifetime, after all.

One way by which a person’s Life Story might be of multiple genres over time is simply in the sense that the Life Chapter you are in right Now—which I have called your Threshold vantage point—influences how you reconstruct your story. This is paradoxical, of course. If in the process of reflecting back about your Life you realize you stand in the Now at a relatively calm and aware precipice, then you are likely to name the Life Chapters you identify between your pivotal Turning Points in terms of a Comic Epic Adventure that has brought you to this Vantage Point of being a Threshold Dweller. On the other hand, if you are currently in the throes of a Dark Night situation, you might be more likely to reconstruct how dire events and repeating traumas have delivered you into this tragic Mess. (Please allow just for the moment my slightly droll attitude here, which cannot do justice to the real turmoil you might be experiencing.) Furthermore, if you find yourself currently on a sort of Lark of an adventure, relatively carefree and open to unexpected twists and turns in the Road before you, then perhaps you are more likely to reconstruct your Life Story as an Episodic, picaresque adventure.

There is a more profound way, though, by which your Life Story might be transpiring according to multiple genres–and multiple story threads!– at the same time. This involves what Carl G. Jung or James Hillman or Carolyn Myss would describe in terms of Depth, or Archetypal, Psychology.  If you accept–and not everyone will–that we are each of us inherently “multiple”, all the time, because our personal unconscious domain houses a cast of archetypal character images or modes that exist under the surface of our conscious awareness yet they influence our perceptions and attitudes through dreams or ‘nudges’/ ‘impulses’, then you might be further willing to entertain the possibility that these unconscious aspects of Self may actually be construing THEIR Life Stories distinctly from your own conscious Life Story viewpoint. Perhaps you have an Inner “Wanderer/ Idealist” archetype sub-self in you. Then this figure might construe the life s/he shares with you as an Episodic Adventure, even while you may consciously be more goal directed on a Comic Epic Quest. Or maybe a ‘part’ of you that was squelched from early childhood trauma is in a Tragic mode and this colors all your experiences with a tinge of skepticism or sadness, even though for the most part you are consciously feeling happy and successful.

I find that for Life Mapping, referring to Archetypes is very important and potentially very helpful and illuminating, so that in Life Paths I will be introducing a fresh new approach to working with some of your Archetypal “cast and crew”.  I also realize that Archetypal Psychology is not everyone’s cup of tea, outright at least. So in Life Paths I am also offering an alternative to thinking in terms of or making contact with your ‘depth’ archetypal impulses directly; you will be able to opt for simply reflecting upon your LIFE THEME values and qualities, instead.

For those willing to ‘sink’ to such depths (naturally), try reviewing the three Genres: Comic Epic Adventure; Tragic Epic Adventure; Episodic or Picaresque. Can you identify with MORE THAN ONE of these story types as having been or currently active in your life? I invite you to actively contemplate, talk about, or write/ journal about these multiple dimensions of your life.

A third way to go about exploring your own Life Story Genre multiplicity is by simply reviewing one Life Chapter at a time. Sometimes each chapter is a Story in itself, and different Life Chapters may have taken their own forms as one of the three Genres we are exploring this week. Maybe your earliest Life Chapter as a Child was Episodic but your middle years were/are more focused as a Comic Epic Adventure. Maybe one of your chapters was distinctively Tragic but you survived and discovered a pathway to a more positive storyline. (If so was there a meaningful transition between these?)

So what’s the point of all this complicating what seemed pretty simple at the start of the week? As humans we are Meaning Bearers and Meaning Creators. That is, our lives “Make Sense” because of our sense-making capabilities. If we are not entirely happy with the Story we construe ourselves to be living out right now, we can “switch horses midstream”, if we choose to.  We can look ahead to creating and re-modeling the Story as we choose! We are not locked into any storyline beyond our own control.

Have you seen the Will Ferrell/ Emma Thompson/ Dustin Hoffman film, “Stranger Than Fiction”? I highly recommend it. A man (Ferrell) living out a fairly dull, overly routinized Life Story as an IRS agent comes to the awareness that he is actually a character in a famous writer’s story! The author (Thompson) always kills off her characters in the end. So an English professor (Hoffman) asks the man to try to determine whether he is the character in a Comedy or a Tragedy. I won’t tell you the ending but suffice to say, there is a definite turnabout needed!

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I Welcome YOUR Comments, Insights and Stories as you reflect upon or entertain these ideas in relation to your own Life Adventure!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Story So Far

For a Guest Post this week (Wed./Thurs.), I am reblogging for readers “The Story So Far” in its entirety. This is an excellent post by Debra on The Ptero Card blog about Archetypal Psychology. This post refers in a more detailed way than did mine yesterday to James Hillman’s book, HEALING FICTION. Let’s read from an expert:

Theoria

Case history: our public, outer life, a collection of facts, figures, biography and stats.

Soul history: the private interiority of identity, memory, feeling, reflections, dreams and beliefs.

In his book, Healing Fiction, James Hillman says:

“We can regard history from the viewpoint of soul. By carefully collating what happened, history digests events, moving them from case material to subtle matter. Hidden in this fantasy is a tenet of my faith: soul slows the parade of history; digestion tames appetite; experience coagulates events. I believe that had we more experiencing there would be need for fewer events and the quick passage of time would find a stop. And then I believe that what we do not digest is laid out somewhere else, into others, the political world, the dreams, the body’s symptoms, becoming literal and outer (and called historical) because it is too hard for us, too opaque, to break…

View original post 1,088 more words

Carrying On: How Your Life Story Can Be Self-Perpetuating

A story takes a conventional form, a Genre, which influences how it unfolds.  We have expectations about a Comic Heroic Adventure, for instance: a Hero will survive—even if barely–all challenges and s/he will defeat Evil, both in themselves and in the world. The world will benefit from the Hero’s Adventure while the Hero himself or herself will gain awareness and strengths to live “happily ever after”.

Of course, what really happens “ever after” is a story yet to be told. I like Steven Sondheim’s “Into the Woods”, a play where the first two acts show a convergence of fairy tale heroes meeting their obstacles and ultimately surviving to live ‘happily ever after’; then the third act brings a collective threat—an angry, rampaging Giant—that the same characters must come together collaboratively to defeat if any of them are to survive.

Tragic storylines also have a self-perpetuating form, often unfolding over several cycles or generations before the difficult lessons are learned so that the characters can reach a state of balance and at least put an end to the tragic causal chain of repercussions. Albert Camus envisions Sisyphus—condemned by the gods to roll a rock up a mountain only for it to fall back down over and over again—as ‘happy’, because he has at very least this one thing to do; he has a sort of purposeful focus, a cause.

Carolyn Myss has written about how sometimes people cleave to an illness or to a harmful habit or pattern which might be ultimately self-defeating. Why? She asks people to consider what they are “getting out of” holding onto the situation that it might be healthier for them to release.  Maybe there’s an addictive attachment to drama or traumatic stress (or a chemical imbalance activated by hormonal or stress factors)? In any case there are valuable Life Lessons to be gained perhaps, before one can find healthful solutions and “move on”. (No one can judge this, though; only you can examine your own situation to determine what you really need.) Therapy may a good way to address these sorts of issues; it allows you to “reveal yourself to yourself” over time with an expert Listener.

James Hillman, an archetypal psychologist whose ideas I draw upon in Life Paths, emphasized in his book Healing Fiction that therapy is largely about a person telling and then eventually being able to “re-tell” their Story. Hillman recognized precisely the same three genres of Life Stories that I have observed in Life Maps, so I was excited to find reference to that in his work after I had arrived at this observation independently.

So, is your Life Story primarily a Comic Epic Adventure? What Quest are you seeking to fulfill? What tools and Guides do you have available to help you fulfill your Mission?

If your Story is primarily Episodic, does that mean you would rather not plan for the Future but you might prefer wait to see what is “around the corner” when you get there? How is that working for you in relation to establishing or planning for your long-term goals?

Or, would you honestly characterize your Story to date as mainly a Tragedy? This is as valuable and significant a story pattern as any other.

I sometimes think the Universe (or, Spirit) provides “set-ups”: situations that require us to experience what we can ultimately most benefit from—but that may not feel like gifts so much until ultimately we are able to work through the hardest phases of the ordeals involved. It takes much strength, and patience, to endure the ‘dark nights of the Soul’.  I have no great words of advice or comfort here but I simply ask if there has ever been a time/event when you have successfully resolved a traumatic situation or found light in the midst of the dark tunnel? Can you recall those small successes and contemplate those? What helped you then? Maybe you can find in those past “mini-success stories” a tool or strategy that might help change the story now or in the future. Please, don’t give up! There is always more of a story to come, with potentially positive twists or turns you may not be expecting.

From Ptero, “The Story So Far” (same day):

Time marks us with habits, memories and limitations through which a distinct version of a story is imagined as fact and takes up residence in our hearts. Although the whole truth of our selves and others can never be wholly seen, we weave a continuous story through the assemblage of historical facts. Digital bits plucked out of an analog background, although never to be grasped fully, can be intuited.

“Healing begins when we move out of the audience and onto the stage of the psyche, become characters in a fiction (even the godlike voice of Truth, a fiction), and as the drama intensifies, the catharsis occurs; we are purged from attachments to literal destinies, find freedom in playing parts, partial, dismembered, Dionysian, never being whole but participating in the whole that is a play, remembered by it as actor of it. And the task set by the play and its god is to play a part with craft, sensitively.” (Hillman, Healing Fiction, as reblogged from Ptero in synchronicity!)

Friday I will explore the idea that the same person might have two or all three of these Life Story Genres active in their lives at the same time—either in different Life Chapters or from the perspective of different ‘archetypal’ aspects of Self.

I am always interested in hearing your Comments, insights or stories you might choose to share! This is—I intend and do hope dearly—a Safe Space!

Are You on a Comic, Tragic, or an Episodic Adventure?

After over a decade of coaching people from a wide range of backgrounds to compose Life Maps that represent their Life Chapters and Life Themes, I find there are three basic narrative GENRES people might use to reconstruct their Life Stories.  Two overarching genres for Life Stories are “Epic Adventure” and “Episodic Adventure,” and within the Epic Adventure category, Life Stories might be represented either as Comic or as Tragic.  Comic Life Story narratives arrive at a state of balance or successful survival or resolution from the point of view of the Present (they do not have to be “funny”).  Tragic Life Story tales represent unresolved turmoil from a dramatic sequence of situations continuing into the Present. Episodic Life Story narratives—associated with a “picaresque” hero—represent a person’s life history not as a dramatic narrative sequence so much as simply a string of situations or event phases that are not necessarily meaningfully connected to one another.

These three LIFE STORY GENRES, of course, have recognizable frameworks from mythology and literature.  Homer’s The Odyssey, with its heroic Odysseus/Ulysses, is a Comic Epic Adventure, as are J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and the film version of The Wizard of Oz.  Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex unfolds a Tragic story cycle.  Cervantes’ Don Quixote depicts the picaresque or Episodic adventures of a “man of La Mancha” who serendipitously wends his way through a series of unrelated mishap adventures which have a mix of tragic and comic outcomes along the way.

You can see which LIFE STORY GENRE you currently tend to use in thinking about your own life simply by reading across the sequence of Life Chapter titles you would use to label the meaningful phases—or Life Chapters–of your own life history. Life Chapters can be identified by considering those phases of your experience that have occurred between your most pivotal, Turning Point events. (I invite you to use last week’s Life Mapping Tool for discovering your Life Chapters in order to reconstruct your own Life Story, before proceeding.)

Now then, what sort of Life Story tale does your sequence of Life Chapters relate? Here are a few examples:

Comic Epic Adventure:

Innocence — Turmoil — Enlightenment

Tragic Epic Adventure:

Striking Out — Meeting Obstacles —  Over The Rainbow —  No Pot of Gold

Episodic Adventure:

Chicago — College Years —  Arizona —  Now

So then, what does your Life Story Genre reflect about the sort of Threshold Experience outlook you currently hold? (See last Friday’s post about being a Threshold Dweller based on reconstructing your Life Story to Now.) How might your Comic/Tragic/or Episodic Life Story influence where you perceive yourself to be “at” in life, or where you appear to be “headed”? I invite you to journal and/or to talk about and/or actively contemplate your perspective about the impact of your reconstructed Life Story genre on your life choices and attitudes.

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Reblogged from Theresa at Soul Gatherings:

One often meets their destiny on the way to somewhere else.

At first glance, it may appear too hard.
Look again…..always look again.”

~ Mary Ann Radmacher ~
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I welcome your Comments, Insights and Stories that you might wish to share with other life mappers. – Linda

 

Are You a Threshold Dweller?

One of the greatest benefits from identifying the Life Chapters of your Life Story by naming the phases that have occurred BETWEEN your pivotal Turning Points is that this brings you naturally to a position of being a Dweller at the Threshold, in Joseph Campbell’s terms (as in The Hero with 1000 Faces).  We each live always in the Present Moment, most often as if the Present is a bubble, like the bubble in a leveling tool, relatively sealed off from yet positionally linked to Past influences and Future potentials. Life Mapping can open your awareness to how the “Past” (i.e., your meaningful Life Chapters with their inherent Life Lessons) has carried you to both this Present Moment and to the potential “Future” that your Life Path is trending toward. Your mindful awareness places you at the precipice of embarking upon or unfolding more consciously into a future Moment of your own choice and envisioning; see?

If we are to constructively affect the course our life is taking—and I personally believe this is not only our right but our responsibility—we may step forward from this Threshold of awareness that links Past-PRESENT-Future into a more integrated Whole.

Being a Dweller at the Threshold, you have the opportunity to pause and to reflect; to scan the Past while envisioning the future course you desire to undertake in your continuing Adventure.  There will be another, big step to take after this, called Crossing the Threshold (stay tuned for later tools and for the Life Paths book to engage in the full process). But at this fertile, vital junction of  reviewing your life course to Now, you are able to discern meaningful trends and potentials you have already established in your unique Life Story.

I have observed in over a decade of helping people compose and reflect upon their Life Maps a very common trend. However difficult a person’s life may have been, a high percentage of people (not all) reconstruct their CURRENT Life Chapter as either at a state of Balance or as a Resolution stage after successfully negotiating earlier hardships and challenges. How about you? If you have named your Life Chapters based on the methods shared on Tuesday, what title have you given to the CURRENT Life Chapter you are in? I welcome your sharing about your own Life Chapter titles or experience.

Next week we will expand this discussion to the topic of “Life Story Genres”.  This might help you to contextualize the dramatic quality of your personal life experience.  It is a natural cognitive function of the human mind to reconstruct our life experiences in Story form. Neuroscientists believe this helps us establish a sense of coherence and “flow” to our stream of life events and it helps us to construe our sense of identity as a continuous, integrated Self. So, please stay tuned to Sunday for an introduction of our next topic of discovering your Life Story Genre.

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I’d like to add two remarks today. First, I’d like to express my gratitude to GraphicStock, the website at which I have found most of the images I use in this blog. For an annual fee I have discovered a rich well of images to represent the ideas being presented here.

Also, as it is Thursday and I’m mounting the Friday blog, as usual I am a day ahead in posting. (When I receive a story about applying these tools or find a very appropriate piece to re-blog, I will also post a separate Thursday blog, as happened last week.) My work schedule makes it easier for me to post in the afternoon or evening the day before a post is scheduled, so thanks to you, dear readers, for your patience. – Linda

Life Lessons: Your Currency for Better Endings

Let’s focus today’s post on the potential value and benefits for you of Life Mapping.  How can identifying your Life Chapters this week, for instance, help you to achieve your own Better Endings?  Here’s a quick tip:

First, identify  your Life Chapters as phases of your life experience that have occurred BETWEEN your major, critical Turning Points (see Sunday’s post to get there if you haven’t done your Life Chapter mapping yet). 

Now then, I invite you to focus on one Life Chapter at a time, and to ask yourself:

 WHAT LIFE LESSON(S) HAVE I LEARNED FROM MY EXPERIENCE IN THIS LIFE CHAPTER?

You could simply extend your Life Chapters chart to add the Life Lesson onto the chart for easy reference.

Personal Example:

Next you might ask yourself, “How have I applied this Life Lesson, or how might I apply this Life Lesson to a decision or to a desirable future transition or Goal?

Personal Example — Life Lessons to Apply:

With retirement goals, listen but be wise about how much to share or  discuss this goal, as some will simply give cautionary advice based on their own considerations; also though, research very carefully every step of the way.

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Reblogged from Ajaytao, July 16, 2014

Please feel welcome to share your Comments and your stories!

The Chapters of Your Life Story

 

Summarizing what we have explored so far with this sequence of weekly Life Mapping topics and tools, if you have been participating with the weekly tools you have so far reviewed your Origin Story, engaged in a Vision Quest, and you have had opportunities to identify and reflect about your current Life Metaphor, your Shaping Events, yourTurning Points, and your recurring Life Themes.  All of the insights you have gained from these reflections have laid the grounds for you to discover, this week, the distinct Life Chapters of your Life Story, to Now.

Our lives are of the same stuff that Myths are made of or, as I prefer to say, Myths are made up from the stuff of our lives. That means that you are the central protagonist of your own “life narrative”; each of us is unfolding according to our own dramatic Life Story.

To identify the contours of your Life Chapters, I invite you to first simply list very brief descriptions of your Turning Points chronologically across a page (be sure to use a big enough page to represent these in one visible sequence). Place below each Turning Point representation the age you were when each of these Turning Point events occurred. Creatively, you could use computer clip-art or images cut out from a magazine to represent your Turning Points sequentially across a page, then place your Age at that event below or beside each image.

Next, simply use a ruler or a sheet of paper to draw vertical, solid or dashed lines right beside or through each Turning Point, from near the top of your page to the bottom.

So far, then, your mapping of Turning Points might look something like this:

Now then, I invite you to reflect upon the periods of your life experience that have occurred BETWEEN each of your major Turning Points. From Birth to your first Turning Point experience, for example, what was your life about? Think of yourself as the Author–as you are!–and of this series of events as your Storyline. Be creative and assign CHAPTER TITLES to each of these time frames occurring BETWEEN your Turning Points. Then you can simply create a new mapping that keeps the age demarcations shown on your Turning Points map, but this time place the LIFE CHAPTER titles between each of the Turning Point boundary lines.

So now, your mapping of Life Chapters might look something like this:

Of course, please be open and flexible to use your own creativity in designing how you might best represent or depict your Life Chapters. Maybe you prefer a pie-chart, or a Spiral, or a pictorial collage of your own design.  This is YOUR composition, so feel free to modify and to elaborate in a way that is meaningful to you!

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(To catch up on previous tools, please see the right panel invitation for any of the past 7 weeks, or click on dates for the past 7 weeks on the calendar below; or you may enter a topical search cue.)

Your Twists and Turns…What’s Around the Bend?

Turning and turning in the widening gyre… so begins Yeats’ famous poem of “The Second Coming”. As historical epochs shift and turn (Yeats’s poem bespeaks our post-modern reality as an antichrist, chaotic sort of epoch), so do the cycles of our own lives twist and turn. Yeats once also said he could imagine “the universe as an egg, turning itself inside-out without breaking its shell” (in A Vision). He was referring to the idea of a DIALECTICAL view of life: one that observes a dynamic tension of opposite experiences or viewpoints.  We need the Darkness to appreciate Light; we appreciate love and all we have gained in life by contrast with what we have lost or Joy is contrasted with our times of loneliness or sorrow or despair.  When we experience whole “life chapters” that seem to illuminate or magnify particular states or conditions, these then might come to exist in our memory in relation to happier, or less happy, chapters.

 

Next week I will offer you a technique for identifying your life chapters. This week we are moving in that direction by considering your Turning Points. These are the pivots from one sort of life condition or experience to another; events that mark the boundaries between who you were before and after each one of these events occurred.

It can be helpful to review your own Turning Points to understand better how you have managed or dealt with the major transitions in your life up to Now. Especially, you may wish to pay attention to your most positive Turning Points. How have those come about? Was there a choice involved and, if so, how did you approach and make your decision?

Ultimately life mapping is not merely about reviewing the past, except in so much as this can help you to better prepare for or to create your own “better endings.” The general credo for the Life Maps Process which I will be sharing with the public in Life Paths, is: “Live Your Dream, Now!”  Wherever you are Now is based on how you have come to be Here. Where you will arrive tomorrow will be based on how you DECIDE in the Present to aim toward and to model (or, re-model) your Life Dream.

I share this today because my recent travel experience has led me to approach a major set of future transitions or Turning Points in my own life. I like to practice what I teach about, and I have been using life mapping skills a lot this last two weeks to envision “alternate future-scapes”—what I like to call future-casting. I am envisioning the completion of Life Paths and its release, but I am also envisioning my upcoming retirement in 2 ½ years, as a graduation from Academia and as a meaningful shift into a new set of chapters of my own Life Story. I now have a fairly good idea of where I will retire and I have visited the location to begin planning in that direction.

So I invite you to review your past Turning Points with an eye to ENVISIONING your NEXT Turning Point as a very conscious shift into your own ‘better endings’, whatever that means for you, as of Now. Don’t worry about “setting things into stone”; that will not happen. You will remain open and flexible, but this process can help you to begin the process of Manifestation that can bring your Dream into Reality.

So, Where are you headed generally in the Present based on where you have been and how you got Here?  You are free to Envision—at any time—your next best Turning Point in advance of its occurrence. We are gifted with the faculties of active imagination and creative visualization. I invite you to simply practice and hone these faculties, for the highest good of all concerned!

Better Endings to YOU! And thanks for reading! I truly, deeply welcome your insights from applying this life mapping tool.

The Turning Points of This Woman’s Life

Today I am opening a new weekly post day; on Thursdays I will post “Tips and Stories”. These will be either stories people have sent to me about applying life mapping tools from this blog site (see weekly right panels) to their own live and the insights they gain from this, or reblogged posts from other life path affirming stories or tips from other blog sites. Today opens the genre with Mandi’s artistic representation of her Life Themes and reflections about her Turning Points and the life lessons they have woven into the fabric of her life experience. Mandi is the talented and inspiring author of CagedNoMore, a site I link to and highly recommend following!

The Turning Points of This Woman’s Life

JULY 7, 2014  PERSONAL JOURNEY 3 COMMENTS

                                   

Using the Life Theme Illustration that I created (inspired by the exercise given at Better Endings for LIFE PATHS by my friend Linda), I have identified actual turning points to all of these major themes of my life which are represented in their own portion of this illustration.

1. That sad little girl with the glasses displaying the artwork that she created, with clouds and lightning hovering over her… -This is symbolic of the bulk of my childhood. As an asthmatic, I was unable to play and exert myself with my friends outside. I had really bad allergies and asthma attacks. I also set out with a very low self esteem, as I was a chubby little one (because of Asthma meds), and very few children had glasses in my class. Being made fun of by classmates and an elderly neighbor that is not mentioned,  this imprint was created. My self concept (in psychology: the mental image one has of oneself ) was developing, and it had all come down to this. I knew I was different. I was fat and not pretty. All of the nice pictures I could ever make would never change it. So…The turning point here was HUGE.
2. The Treble Clef that represents my musical experiences growing up was made in red because music was a fire, a passion that flowed through my veins. This passion was an outlet. Though I played clarinet, when I played I did so with as much soul as I could belting out any show tune with a diva-like voice. In high school I earned first chair (for you non musician cats out there, that means I was considered the best or the section leader). Music opened a huge door in my life. This whole band thing led me to auditioning for leader of the high school marching band my second year of high school! I made the cut, held the spot as drum major/field commander of the high school marching band for the rest of my high school career/3 years! I had no clue I could be a leader. At this point, that little girl who saw herself as fat and worthless looked around only to find others staring up at her in awe. Things looked a whole lot different from the top of the field podium directing that band on the football field than they did at my mom’s kitchen table. I knew I could do it. I had it all in me. I had a future! There was something in me far greater than I could’ve ever imagined…the floor of Heaven cracked open just a wee but and the blessings rained down. I was somebody! I knew I could achieve things then. I was smart. My self concept was altered for the better.
3. The Happy/Sad broken heart doodle above the Treble Clef signifies all of the teenage love gone sour due to not only situation and circumstance, but because of my undiagnosed condition and how it strongly impacted my relationships with others, especially boys. Just because the greatest crush I ever had rejected me, and the fact that he and other guys my age were attracted to my friends more than me, made me feel incompetent for love. This belief led me down a horrible path of bad decisions in the dating world, horrible suitors, and tragic endings. From that point on, I failed at romantic relationships simply because of how I let people tell me what I deserved, and who I was.I wasn’t complete nor whole. In order to thrive in life and in love, you must first know who you are! I didn’t find myself, til even after I was married. Better late then never, I suppose.
4. The A+ that leads into The Dean’s List Scroll symbolizes my outstanding academics in high school and into college. I was becoming who I was meant to be, knocking down mountains. Into college, career opportunities were lighting up along with my confidence! Being recognized in such a way really boosted my self esteem. This is where I was at an all time high in my world. I believed I was smart, and so did everyone else…I became a true, confident young woman, headed for success.
5. The Crossing, Green Street Signs, as you can see, say “Danger” and “PhD.” There were 2 roads. I was on that road that led to success, led to completion, led to my PhD!!! However, I took a detour and headed in the way of danger because I had lost my grasp on reality. It was all so gradual, so nobody noticed right away. My life was in part a show, as people believed the lies that I told to make it all fit. Somehow I was justhappy all the time. High risk behaviors became the norm, and flirting with danger was routine. I began to act not accordingly  to any of my morals or beliefs, or who I grew up to be. I defied my religion and all of my own guidelines to life. At this point, I welcomed Bipolar Mania, and letting go of it all, embraced the thrill of insanity…
6. You can see where The Bottle of Lithium below came from! It took a lot of time, a lot of time, trial and error, scary hospitalizations to be monitored and such so that my doctor could find the right combination of meds. to keep me stable, on an even line, so that I could live a normal life. The introduction of these Bipolar medications was another beginning. This was my blessing though! I began to settle down, find a calm that I never knew in all of the storms of my life. Lithium was a savior along with a few other drugs that helped control my Bipolar disorder and bring me back to a state of normalcy!
7. The woman and man kissing a shared heart with the word ‘forever’ inside, are supposed to be me and my husband. Finding my husband was an adventure in itself.. This was a huge change for me. I believed marriage to be a healing. Now I see that I am the healing.
8. The Church on the Bottom Right Corner represents how God never gave up on me, even though I gave up on him at times, and in times of mania, completely let go. However, I was protected through much by The Father and His angels. That’s another post. The prayers of my family and my Church were most definitely heard while I was in the hospital multiple times during the year 2004. Prayer is the most powerful tool that we have as people. These prayers, and the prayersof my own made the difference. I returned to the Lord who protected, healed, and delivered me.
9. Finally, the large Cross in the middle of my illustration represents Jesus, my Savior, my hope, all that He’s done for me. With God as my rock, I made it. He never let go even though I did. I let go of the heart of me. Not anymore. He’s got my back, and lives in my heart forever! In a healthy state of mind, I include Him when making any decisions. I made it back to The Truth. Praise God for delivering me from it all…and for what the future holds!

God bless! — Mandi

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I welcome all of your insights and stories! Linda

Turning Points: Your Chapter Turners

Prescript: I have decided to add a fourth blog post per week. On Thursdays I will post your insights and/or your results from applying life mapping tools. I might also reblog relevant tips or life path affirming stories and ideas.

Here’s an odd idea I woke with today: Earn Life Coins to add to your Life Line every time you do something healthful and positive. The goal: to add more life coins per week than you ‘spend’ on unhealthful actions. After a two week-plus cross-country roadtrip during which my dietary habits suffered some while driving, I’m ready and need to start adding some positive coins to my own Life Line!- L

Turning Points: Your Chapter Turners

Which situations or events in your life history have been your Turning Points: events of such magnitude that you feel you were a different person before and after each of these events occurred?  That is this week’s focus; to identify your monumental moments.  Now let me add this piece: if you were to rate each of your Turning Points in terms of its relative positive and/or negative impact on your life (say, -5 to +5), what would that be?

 For example, moving from Buffalo, New York to Phoenix, Arizona for graduate school when I was 24 was a huge event in my life. I would say its impact was mainly positive (+5), but at the same time it required me to leave my family and friends and all I had grown up with to move to what felt like a very foreign world (-3).

This sort of “duality” may be a characteristic feature of Turning Points. Think about one of your own. Would you rate its impact as all positive? All negative? Or both to some degree? Why?

 I invite you to describe each of your Turning Points in terms of their relative positive and/or negative impact on the person you have become.  I welcome any insights or examples you might wish to share (as Mandi of CagedNoMore did about her artistic Life Themes reflection yesterday; thanks Mandi for sharing and I am glad it helped you put some things into perspective!)

Turning Points—as we will explore a bit later here too—are more than page turners in your life. They bring LIFE CHAPTER changes. So, taking some time to identify these can help you to understand your major shifts. Which ones were by your own choice, or not?

When I left Buffalo 35 years ago for Arizona, it was such a huge shift apart from everything I had ever known that I troubled over the decision. Every night I would raise an issue about the move in a nightly contemplation, posing questions for inner guidance. And every night I would dream in a way that clearly answered that question. How could I drive my red Buick convertible to Phoenix, for example. Wouldn’t it be too hot? That night I was taken to a rotating hotel restaurant overlooking Phoenix (there really was one at a Ramada Inn, though I hadn’t been there.) I looked down to see almost every car in the parking lot was—you guessed it—red!

Do you have a Turning Point sort of shift or a major decision coming up? What can you do to help yourself go through this most effectively, to help yourself advance to realize your greatest potentials?

Share your stories if you’d like; I would love to share them.

Better Endings to You! – Linda

My Life Themes and Representing Illustration

Mandi of Caged No More has posted her own results from the Life Themes activity offered last week on Better Endings. Good work, Mandi! (I will respond better after processing…I am still traveling and just arrived at my hotel today.) Readers please also see the new Sunday post for this week’s theme of Your Turning Points, also posted today. Mandi’s artistic reflections are a great way to brig these forward for your reflection!

Your Turning Points

 

Two weeks ago I invited you to compose a list of your Shaping Moments. These are those significant life events that have “shaped the person you have become.” This week I invite you to reflect on those Shaping events or situations a bit further. Which of these meaningful, impactful events were of such a high magnitude impact that you feel you were “not quite the same person” before and after this pivotal event occurred? These Critical Life Events are your TURNING POINTS. What have yours been?

I invite you to focus on your Turning Points this week. Identify them. Share with your loved ones about one or more of them. Write about them. Draw pictures or write poetry representing their dramatic influence on your life.

I encourage you to use meditation or prayer or active imagination this week to illuminate and to REFLECT upon your Turning Points; this way you can celebrate all that you have lived through that has brought you to where you are today.

For your journaling or other modes of reflection:

• What changed for you before and after each of your Turning Points occurred?
• How did each one come about? (Did you have any choice in the matter? Was a decision involved?)
• If you could go back to one or more of these Turning Points again—with your more mature, present awareness, would you change any of them?

Why, or why not?

Or if so, HOW might you wish change the event, leading to what different results?

 

I welcome all of your Comments, your Insights and your Stories!

Wending Your Way

My own primary Life Themes (as an example) are Education, Spirituality, Family, Friends, Pets, Writing, Travel, and Romance.  All of my significant “shaping” events represent one or more of these Themes.  These Themes have had rather distinctive trends and they have had quite different sorts of impacts on my life.  Education has had a progressive,’ ramp-like pattern, creating a very gradual incline.  I have experienced spirituality by a sequence of plateaus, step by step and with wider and longer plateaus along the way. Friendship has generally been more like a rising slope to a steady table for each relationship, though there have been a couple of major dips or blockages. Romance…well, let’s say that went through a rather Up and Down, roller coaster sort of pattern until it flatlined several years ago, though on a positive note. Pets are almost always a strong and positive influence, with dips when their shorter life span takes them, ever too soon.  Travel is always a lifting factor, no matter what else is going on. It brings forth my Idealism and my ambition to forge new pathways; to reach for distant horizons and to realize my dreams.

How about you? If you were to draw the trend or pattern of each of your primary Life Themes, what tendencies and impacts does each one weave? Do some Life Themes tend to lift you higher while others hold you back or keep you ‘down’ in some respect? Do you tend to shift to one or another of these thematic threads unconsciously to negotiate the ups and downs of your life? I invite you to sketch these patterns out; you can use different colored pencils or  crayons for each Life Theme trend or pattern. If you show each one chronologically from birth til now, you can see how their different patterns overlap or relate to each other. I encourage you also to write about these trends and about how you are impacted by your particular combination of recurring kinds of situations in your life.

One life mapper I have interviewed—I’ll call him Scott—went through a rocky period of trying to establish himself in a sales clerk career, only to gain and then lose several jobs. Every time he would lose one position, he would look for work further away from home and then he would move to take the new job; only to lose that job too.  Then he would move back to his home town in defeat.  Travel was Scott’s attempt to jump-start his work life, but he described his losses as arriving at “no pot of gold”.

For everyone, Life Themes form dramatic arcs in our life. They set the stage for our most dramatic moments; our successes or losses, our sorrows and our joys. They bring variety to our lives, the “spice of life”.

I encourage you to take some time to explore and reflect on how your own Life Themes have impacted you or how they help you to express your sense of identity and your feelings, motivations and attitudes. How do they affect your Life Goals?

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I always welcome YOUR insights and stories!

Stay tuned Sunday for next week’s topic: Your Turning Points!