Benefits of Life Mapping & Discovering Your Life Chapters

Before continuing with the LifePath Mapping stages I have been presenting for you over the last few posts, allow me to give you some notion of where this is headed and how you might stand to benefit from engaging with this self-discovery process. So, I will share a couple of stories from people who have completed a life mapping process. Then I will present the next step of how to discover and name your Life Chapters.

Above you see a Life Story Map composed for a woman I call Marnie (her self-assigned fictional name).  Notice how Marnie’s five Life Themes are represented in relation to key Shaping Events from her life. And notice she has identified four Life Chapters (using the simple method I will provide for you later in this post).  Marnie had a “white picket fence” early childhood, as she recalled it, with relative happiness and innocence until her beloved father died. This critical life event was followed by a long period Marnie refers back to as living in Hell. She struggled with depression and hardships until finally she could leave home and begin her independent adult life.  When she was around 22, Marnie discovered a spiritual teaching that she has dedicated herself to studying and growing from ever since. She attributes many Life Lessons to her awareness gained from her spiritual practices. Then around age 40, after having welcomed the birth of her daughter before divorcing her first spouse, Marnie eventually found someone she could truly love and enjoyed a relatively idyllic relationship with her spouse until cancer eventually claimed her partner’s life. But Marnie’s love for her daughter and family in general leads her to title her current Life Chapter as Giving Back… to her daughter (now as a grandmother of three), to her community (as a volunteer grief counselor for the local fire department), and to her spiritual community for which she serves in a leadership role.

While Marnie was engaged in life mapping she discovered how different archetypal facets of her self have been influencing her outlook in different life chapters.  While processing these various and often conflicting ‘parts of Self’ attitudes, she came to resolve some lingering feelings about the early “wrenching” times in her life.  As she looked forward to her future life path, Marnie expressed a life goal of continuing to serve life and to unfold spiritually, and she hoped she could maintain closer family relations. Shortly after that, her daughter chose to relocate to live much closer to Marnie’s home and she has enjoyed her role of active Grandmother ever since her daughter’s first baby was born.

The second case study I would like to share is an even more monumental sort of success story resulting from LifePath mapping. I worked with Mindy over a period of around nine months when she was 45 to coach her through a full life mapping process. This approach takes shorter or longer depending on how much attention a person gives especially to the central, “transitional/ transformational” stages that provide for a depth analysis engaging with archetypal parts of Self one identifies with their Life Themes (as I will present activities for later on with these posts).

As Mindy began her LifePath Mapping process she soon came to recognize a disruptive long-term pattern in her life. She realized that she had a deep internal conflict that had caused her to vacillate between jobs, relationships, and locations over many years. She would start a relationship with a man, or embark on a new job, or move to a new location on a nudge (sometimes in combination), but shortly after her attempt to find stability with these bold moves, doubt would set in and soon she would respond to new nudges, this time to BOLT from her new relationship, job, and/or location. 

Two of the Life Themes Mindy identified were associated with “Physical” and “Spiritual” events.  Notice in her Life Story map shown above how these events created polar opposite effects in her life, with Physical events consistently rated -5 and Spiritual events, +5. When asked to associate her Themes with Archetypal personas–(I will be introducing this approach to you to later on, so stay tuned)–, Mindy identified a Warrior archetype with her Spiritual theme, and a Descender archetype with her Physical domain.

I encouraged Mindy to engage in a “dynamic archetype dialogue” journalling activity, inviting her Warrior and Descender parts-of-Self to converse with each other around a common ideal Goal she had associated with both of them: Freedom.  This turned out to be enormously enlightening, as she learned how her Warrior would send spiritual nudges to promote the Freedom to embark on positive, life enhancing new directions, but then her Descender would react, seeking Freedom in the form of bolting away from any limitations or from feeling hemmed in by the new circumstances. So next, Mindy engaged these two parts-of-Self in dialoguing about how they could mitigate their conflict. Mindy decided she should seek out a job that involved moving to various locations or dealing with various sorts of projects.

Around two years after Mindy had completed her life mapping process with me, she called me from a state far away to tell me how excited she was about how her life was going. She had taken a job as an educational lecturer/ salesperson for a company with many diverse products, so indeed she was in her element with variety and educational service and the products she was promoting were health oriented, which also satisfied her Spiritual persona. As well, some time into the job she had met a man and remarried. They lived together in Oregon between her job trips around the country and they always gave each other plenty of space. She had resolved her conflict by understanding its psychological roots and utilizing the strengths of her complex self rather than merely suffering from its polarities.

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Discover Your Life Chapters

Now then, let’s add the next step in LifePath Mapping as I am presenting the process for you here.

So far (see previous posts if you need to catch up), you have identified a set of Shaping Events; you have sorted these events into categories of types of events and named these categories as your recognized Life Themes; and with the previous post you plotted these Themes on a graphic Life Themes Map by using Theme color-coded points and linkages to plot the relative impact ratings of the Shaping Events related to each of your Themes.

Next then, I would like you to go back to your original list of Shaping Events, and this time as you read through these significant moments and/or situations from your life, please identify which of these Shaping Events were of such momentous impact in your life that you may feel you were “not the same person before and after that event or situation occurred.” List those separately. These are your Critical Life Events.

Once you have identified your Critical Life Events, which usually will be far fewer in number than all of your Shaping Events—maybe two to four or five or so—then look back at your Life Themes Map and draw dotted or hash mark lines vertically from the top to the bottom of your map in accordance with the AGE points along your Age Line when each of your Critical Events began.

Now you can look at the time frames BETWEEN your Critical Events that you have marked off vertically across your Life Themes Map. These time frames embody Life Chapters for you in association with your Life Themes. This makes a lot of sense psychologically since the Critical Events by their very nature have served as ‘boundary markers’ of momentous shifts in your life experience.

So look over your Life Themes Map with Life Chapters demarcated, and now you can NAME your Life Chapters. Think of this mapping as being like a story script. That is what it shows: your Life Story, with your very own Themes and Life Chapters.  Provide narrative titles for each of your Life Chapters which are meaningful to you and that reveal the plot structure of your Life Story over time.

free stock images are from pixabay.com

Next time I will begin by discussing the sorts of Life Chapter sequences people most often identify with their Life Stories, and we will proceed from there to a technique for discovering a Parallel Myth that reveals the mythic structure and import of your own heroic adventure.

I apologize for delaying several weeks between the last post and this one. Much is happening in my own Life Story, too!

Again, if you wish to discuss this process or take it further than these posts, you could reach me at lwatts@uccs.edu. (If you may have done so with my not responding yet, your message might have gone to spam mail, which as a fixed rule I never read. You could leave a note to that effect in the Comments area below and we can work out a way to get connected.)

A Return to LifePath Coaching

Recently a dear friend, Ro, and since then also a dear friend of hers, have engaged with me online via Zoom for LifePath mapping sessions. And, I must say, “it works beautifully!” (words from a TV commercial as I was writing this).

Initially (c. 2010-2018) I conducted research, presented a series of university Humanities courses, and facilitated several public and academic seminar workshops while developing the LifePath Mapping self-discovery/ personal growth and development process that I provided for the public in my 2018 book, Your Life Path: Life mapping tools to help you follow your heart and live your dream, Now! (Skyhorse Publishers/ Carrel imprint).  I have coached well over 360 persons through this often life-changing ‘rite of passage’ self-reflection and journalling process. Almost everyone who has completed this creative life mapping approach to reveal their personal Life Themes, Life Chapters, Life Story, Archetypal cast of characters, Life Dream and challenges, and Life Dream realization/ Future LifePath envisioning procedures have found it empowering to reveal their own unfolding story to themselves so they can envision a more mindful and fulfilling future life trajectory.

 I do not take credit for life mappers’ deeply meaningful personal reflections and creative visioning abilities. I am always amazed at how easily and readily anyone willing to “look within” can reveal their own life story threads and encounter some of their most dynamic unconscious archetypal sub-selves—and internal conflicts—with eloquence and clarity, by engaging with this simple, processual sequence of life mapping and journaling tools.

It lights me up when I coach someone through a life mapping process. It is like being invited to attend another’s sacred spiritual initiation; in fact, it is very much like that, because people often undergo a deep and profound transformation of consciousness.

My reason for sharing about my recent return to coaching using the LifePath mapping process is that in witnessing again how individuals can benefit from taking ‘time out’ for life review and future life creative envisioning, I realize that I should—and would still like to—find ways to share this approach more widely.  The book that I published, while I believe well written and comprehensive, did not get published in the format I had intended. Since the publisher mainly targets libraries, they required me to reduce the 75 workbook tools I had designed for the self-discovery process, to truncated, chapter-ending instructions, so that readers would not write directly in the books.  Very few readers, that I know of anyway,  have taken full advantage of these tools except when I have personally coached them through the process.  I have included The Life Maps Toolkit itself, including all 75 workbook activities fully formatted, as an unpublished Ms. which you are free to download from the right panel here. Some fifty or more persons have taken advantage of the toolkit from here.  Yet without the book to provide adequate context, the toolkit alone may not provide enough guidance to fulfill the process altogether.

I would like next to redo the workbook-style toolkit by adding brief chapter or section-introductory material, so that the workbook can adequately conduct the reader/ life mapper through the full process effectively.

But, meanwhile:

images are from pixabay.com

I INVITE ANY OF YOU who are readers of this blog to contact me for life mapping sessions via Zoom.  I would provide at least three free, approximately one hour sessions, and beyond that we could negotiate terms if you might wish to continue with me, instead of on your own, to progress more deeply with the process. These three sessions would guide you to complete Stage One (of three)  of the LifePath Mapping process, including: computer-generated LifeMaps with your self-identified Life Themes and Life Chapters; a Parallel Myth synopsis of your heroic life adventure; and an introduction to your personal-unconscious archetypal cast of mythic characters. Small group sessions could also be negotiated.

You can reach me by responding in the Comments area below, or see my contact info in the menu tab above. Feel free to share about this offer with a friend or relative, too, if you feel s/he might benefit.

Practice What You Teach

Here is an oldie but golden adage: “Practice what you Teach!” This month we are exploring how the Teacher Archetype Ally, which is our  ‘unconscious’ Teacher part of Self, can help us attain to what we may construe as ‘better endings’ in our life choices and pursuits, so this saying is entirely relevant!

Here’s a self-discovery technique I invite you to practice:

First, make a list of what you teach (or, focus on ONE precept you often aim to help others to understand); then second, journal, contemplate or share with a loved one about how practicing that precept has or could help you to improve upon some aspect of your life currently or in a foreseeable future scenario.

As usual, I’ll start the reflection process by way of example, then I welcome you to practice this self-discovery on your own

One PRECEPT I often share with others which I have learned from the spiritual teachings of Eckankar is:

“IS IT TRUE, IS IT NECESSARY, IS IT KIND?” (Answer these three questions before you think, say, or do any action.)

1. How have I practiced this that has lead to some better endings?

“Is it true, is it necessary, is it kind” (in THAT order) has often helped me to formulate a statement or frame an action in response to potentially stressful situations. When some interaction (e.g. some email exchanges in the past) have gone “very wrong,” in retrospect I did NOT apply this practice. In one of these exchanges in particular, after contemplating how I should use this approach, I was able to do a very helpful mid-course correction, resulting in a much more heartful and positive interaction. In fact because of this principle, I asked that this email exchange would shift to a person to person, face to face chat, and that indeed “made all the difference.”

2.  How might I practice this precept with respect to some foreseeable future scenario?

As a department Chair at work I need always to practice this precept. I can place this on a placard and place it on my office wall:

     IS IT TRUE? IS IT NECESSARY? IS IT KIND?

This placard, visible to myself and to those with whom I interact at my office, can help everyone to be more aware and Mindful. This can only have a better endings effect for  all concerned!

images from pixabay.com

Now it’s your turn. What teaching do you often impart that is also beneficial for you to practice mindfully?

I welcome YOUR comments and 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 POWER OF YOUR DREAM, by Richard A. Cross (http://richardacross.com/)

I am re-blogging today from life coach Richard A. Cross’s site, Energize Your Thoughts.  His post has a wonderful Better Endings theme:

 The Power of Your Dream

Do you have a dream?

What is stopping you from accomplishing your dreams?

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible”. ~T. E. Lawrence

I want to say why most people don’t experience the life of their dreams is simply because they quit way too easily, never want to go the extra mile. At times we need the push that life presents to us. It is that push that makes us grow and become better.

However, most people don’t like to be tested.

My dream was to one day have a better life than what I was experiencing as a child. I would sit outside as I looked out in space and envisioned more for my life. As a child my dream was very simple, due to my exposure to the minimal things that life had to offer. My dream was to run as fast as I could so I would be able to win my races when it comes to track and field season. I won most of my races, but as I got older and my vision got magnified with new found ideas and challenges crept in.

At age 12 years I saw a runner by the name of Kevin Webb run past my school, and as he ran, the cheerers on the street shouted “he is the winner and he wins every year”. I said to myself that day that I want to do that, and I will do that. I said it without even knowing what the challenge would be like.

I guess when you are young your first thought is that it’s possible. The older we become the less we believe in our potential. Don’t let go of your dream. Age is just a number.

I was eager to meet this athlete because I wanted to find out how he was able to do what he was doing and so effortlessly. The first time we spoke he gave me the formula he had been using to win and he said I could use it if I wanted to win any of the road races. He said I would have to train very hard. I thought to myself, what a formula. He won the first year that I competed, but that was his last year in high school. I would train some evenings, but that was not enough to win. As a result I lost the second and third year of competing.

I could have quit and let go of working towards my goal due to me not winning. The losses were the years that helped to develop my determination. The man who achieves is dream is the man who is consistent with his action and believes he can. I became consistent and it paid off.

I won my fourth, fifth and sixth year in the road race competition at high school and my dream of doing what my friend did was now history for me. What next was a question that kept playing in my head? I wanted more and I will not stop until I receive it as I completed high school.

What I wanted most of all was to go to college but I failed miserable in my exams. Doubt set in and for a while I lost focus and the vision of going to college. I said to myself what teachers said to me-that I was not capable.

What are you saying to yourself? Make it be positive things and don’t let anybody dictate or limit your abilities.

What happen when you share you dream with someone who wants to see you achieve more out of life?

I had shared my dream of college with a sports coordinator at my last competition of track and field and what he said to me that day was I can do it, but I must believe. The sport coordinator saw me months later and asked what I was doing on the street and not college.

He asked me about my dream and I stumbled over my words. I wanted to go I said and he gave me his words that he will direct me to a program that will help me when the next year comes around. Never give up he reminded me and from ever since that phrase have been with me. I will never give up plays in my mind whenever I am faced with challenges. I meet a lot of it. I was in college the next year.

I was met with challenges, but I was already equipped with a strong mind that I should not give up.

What are you giving up on?

During college I saw student after student leaving the country on scholarships to the states and every athlete’s dream of getting one including me. I didn’t get one even though I requested one and was recommended several times. Did I give up? NO!

I watched friends leaving to the states and thoughts crept in of not getting a scholarship. For one year I didn’t work so I trained, and sometimes I wondered what I was training for. I wanted a job and out of nowhere an older man of the community saw me and asked when I became a police officer. At the time I wasn’t an officer, but that was enough to peak my interest. I’m a risk taker as my friends pointed out when I told them what my next move was. A month later I joined the national security organization even before telling both my parents knowing that they would not like the idea. I won the cross country run during training school and that was enough to let me know I was on the right path.

I received the scholarship in 2006.

If you failed at first that is not a prerequisite for you to quit. I found out that every time I bounce back I am stronger.

• Michael Jordon Had a Dream-He didn’t give up
• Thomas Edison Had a Dream-He never quit
• Abraham Lincoln Had a Dream-He pressed forward despite adversity
• Oprah Winfrey Had a Dream-She believed that it was possible
• Sidney Poitier Had a Dream-He knew that a treasure of possibility was in him
• J.K. Rowling Had a Dream- She knew what a dream could do
• Elvis Presley Had a Dream-He proved them wrong by believing in himself

I want you to know that your Dream can come to be. Do you believe in your dream? I hope you do. I want to see you be a success.

Never give up on your dream… because you never know what the Lord can bless you with. ~Kelly Rowland

You just can’t beat the person who won’t give up. ~Babe Ruth

Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to become successful. ~Zig Ziglar

Your Dream Is Possible: Think on these things

1. You need perseverance.
2. Be prepared to overcome obstacles. Your dream may be outside of your comfort zone.
3. Sticking to your dream is always good.
4. Believing in yourself is important.
5. All great things come with challenges-greatness is within you.
6. Your dreams need your effort.
7. Develop the power to overcome.
8. You have to push hard for your success.
9. Remember to stay the course.
10. People will try to stop you. If it’s your dream, go for it.
11. Always prepare to grow.
12. I know you can do it.

My life is better than when I was a child. I now have Greater Dreams, and I know that possibilities are endless on this journey.

Dream Big Dreams!

We all are given an opportunity and that opportunity is life. With life you can become anything you want, so dream big dreams. I hope you keep your vision of success close, and as I plea don’t lose sight of what you would like to accomplish because it’s possible.

From Richard A. Cross’s “About”/ biography:

Richard A. Cross was born in Alexandria St. Ann, Jamaica in 1982 to parents Phillip Cross and Pauline Joyce Pennant.  The burgeoning motivational speaker has a devotion that has come from years of persistence, dedication and faith.  He always knew he was destined for greatness, but that greatness has taken different forms over the years leading him to his current position on his journey to prominence.

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Thanks to Richard Cross for his inspirational words! I welcome all comments and insights, and stories about your own Big Dreams! I agree with Richard that when you nurture your dreams and believe in yourself, not letting anyone be a naysayer, anything is possible! – LW