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Picture by LugiL – Deviant art
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Very few of us have ever written down our life story. I know it can sound quite vain because you will be thinking why would your life be worth writing about? It’s worth writing about because it shows us all the patterns we have repeated, how often we have done what we have been told we ‘should’ do, and it shows the roles we have played.
We don’t need to write a novel or spend a huge amount of time to do this.
Take a large sheet of paper and draw a line for every decade you have been alive. Mark the end of each line with 10, 20 etc. Firstly, write key events that happened – losses and gains, good and bad, relationships, jobs, family on each line at the approximate age these events occurred. Then write down the themes that were happening in your life at the same points, for example, bullying, what it was like to live in your house, what your relationship was like.
Don’t worry about not remembering all of the things that happened in your life, just concentrate on the main events to start with. But you will find that starting this process will bring back long-forgotten memories, some of which will be good, and some will be bad! Just add them to the lifeline you have created.
When you have finished, take a look at the actions that you took to cope with other people or events., Then think about whether these started out as a way to cope and then became a habit you still have even if they don’t work for you now. Are there repeating themes such as have you been bullied at school, then at work and in relationships to the point where you kind of expect it now? Are you the rescuer for people, always being there for everyone else and never for yourself?
There are many themes and repeating patterns in our lives, it is how we learned to cope as children with good and bad situations. Now you can see them, you can decide if they still serve you well or if they are making your life more difficult
Then comes the difficult part , - time to work on changing those that have become bad for you, self-help books, assertiveness training or counselling all help.
Picture credit - frisk ageline - brihanna25