What links your life together?

Start with ten.  (This is one of the assignments I frequently give my clients.)

You can choose life events, demographics, influential people you’ve known, talents, even “aHa” moments.

Mine might be:

1. Born female, in the USA, to a progressive, liberal mother.
2. “Abandoned” at four years old (for a year).
3. Abused by my stepfather, resulting in their divorce.
4. Moved, age 10, from a middle-class neighborhood to poverty neighborhood. I was suddenly a “minority”.
5. My mother worked 18 hours a day, so my siblings and I raised ourselves.
6. Growing Up in the 70’s.
7. Studied spiritual philosophies, finding an affinity with Christian, Buddhist, and Taoist ideas.
8. Became a mother of twin boys.
9. Started my own business as a psychotherapist.
10. Killed a person in a car accident.

(Wow! I just did that off the cuff! Very powerful!).

Next, you fill in the chapters. What about (That) affected you? What characteristics were created because of ________? You might ask yourself:

• How did ____ influence you?
• What did you discover about yourself?
• What did you have to learn to overcome?
• How did ______ wound you? Strengthen you?
• Define your gratitude for these occurrences/events

Using one of mine as an example:

Yes, I killed a person in a car accident.

• I discovered that life can change – drastically- in an instant. And in THAT particular instant, I didn’t even know it. For a long time, I’d have terrible dreams, I’d have flashes of people appearing in the road before I could do anything about it… I struggled with my connection to God (I’d like to have made it through my life without killing someone).
• I discovered that I loved and understood myself, even if society didn’t. I confirmed my value of always telling the truth, as I knew it, and that I continue to do what I think is right – even if others disagreed (I wrote to his family against the advice of my attorney, who thought such an act would be misinterpreted as guilt).
• I had to learn to live with knowing most people would make up stories about me that weren’t true (“she must have known!”, “She must have been drinking!”).  I had to overcome needing people to understand me.
• I will always have this heavy burden in my soul.
• I am grateful for the people in my life that tried to help me. I’m grateful to learn that other peoples  opinions of me no longer affects what I think of me.

 What have been the greatest influences in your life? What ties your life all together?