With this post I will start to share LifePath mapping stories and techniques. I invite and welcome for you to engage with these techniques. I will be presenting a sequence of steps as a graduating series of journalling and creative representation activities so you can compose a “Life Story Map” to represent your own Life themes, Life Chapters, a Parallel Myth synopsis of your story, and even a mapping of Archetypal character arcs and the opportunity to identify and engage in a dynamic way with some of your own archetypal parts of Self.
When people first encounter the phrase “life mapping,” some might assume it refers to a linear path like a roadway on a paper map, from point A to point X. However, “That is not it, at all” (in homage to T.S. Elliott’s Prufrock). Life flows, with its upswings and downturns, its dynamic conflicts of emotion and crossroads, with changes of direction here and there and sometimes back again. The sort of “mapping” I can guide you to develop to represent the unique dynamics of your own life path is likewise colorful and open-ended, more like a GPS device that includes flexible redirection tools than a map of a fixed path. What you will be able to reveal and discover about yourself with this thematic and archetypal mapping strategy are propensities and potentials of your unique and thriving pulse of dynamic experience.
So let’s get started with some preliminary “backstory” prompts that will begin to reveal significant elements of your unique Life Story. I recommend for you to procure and open a new journal dedicated to this LifePath mapping process.
Prompt #1 allows you to reflect upon your Origin Story. Please contemplate and journal about the following prompt.
I AM WHO I AM TODAY, BECAUSE _______
Complete the thought with a paragraph or even a page or more of journaling reflection. You might list or write about those persons, places, and events or situations that have greatly influenced the person you are today.
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As a sample to illustrate the journalling process, below is a brief version of how I would respond to this prompt today:
I am who I am today, because:
…because somebody quite special to me in my teenage and young adult years believed in me and encouraged me to pursue my dreams and to answer the deepest questions of my Soul’s quest for personal freedom and truth. Diane, my early mentor (first as a fencing teacher) became a lifelong friend. This led to being on an intercollegiate fencing team, where I along with another good friend learned to focus intently and to hone a skill to a high level of performance. ‘Once a fencer, always a fencer,’ I have realized ever since. Yet also, Diane herself encountered many difficult psychological and later physical challenges in life, including multiple personality syndrome and a related gender dysphoria, exposing me to some of the angst this world can engender in some of its most sensitive and gifted persons.
Later then, finding my spiritual path in 1973 that I have practiced ever since. This has profoundly influenced my every thought, word and deed and has provided an unlimited source of creative tools for exploration and for the development of my deep sense of personal freedom and adventure.
Also my education and career. I remember how when was a teen I saw a Disney TV movie about a woman who was an anthropologist working with Native Americans. This led me ultimately to develop that same career path myself, resulting in a fulfilling career as a professor, researcher and writer. The friends I have gained through these adventures including lifelong Zuni friends I will always care about are bedrock in the foundations of my being.
But also I should include how some of my personal human relationships have not been so straightforwardly successful. I tried for many years to find and sustain a lasting loving partnership but never did except with my beloved pet Soul companions. Yet this has led me to value deeply my family and deep friendships I have forged through the years.
So, who am I today? … Grateful for my career and family and friends including my home family with my dog Sophie and cat Emily now. Grateful also for daily spiritual contemplation and dreaming awareness. Empathetic to the emotional suffering of others. And yet, a bit too reserved socially still, with a tendency to “bolt” (flight vs. fight) or walk away from even potentially conflictual encounters or relations.
******
images are from pixabay.com
I invite you to try your hand and heart at this prompt, as an opening ‘departure’ phase of the rites of passage adventure these LifePath mapping tools can guide you to experience. Feel free to comment or send questions!
Better Endings 