Freedom awaits those who choose to examine their story...

Writing your story... an exercise of Hope.

One sees through the lives of others that in the lows we are groomed for the thrill of the highs and having been thus enticed, are seductively lured to take the ride back down, a ride that can often take our breath away.

It is quite comforting and rewarding to write your own story. Be sure and take take a wide-angle view of your life. Seeing your life from a different perspective might surprise you. It is an invitation to discern the future…for it is up to us to decide how we wish our tale to end.

A wonderful aspect about writing your story is that it makes you think...ask and remember. What was that all about? What was I trying to tell myself?

• Ask youself questions about yourself. If you don't know the answers, make it your business to talk to people that do.
• Be inquisitive and interested in discovering some of the rich details of your life.
• If something doesn't make sense - ask the second question. Ask questions of yourself and others that will focus on possibilities and abundance.

• Remember good times, good dreams...remember the best of what was.

• What were those dreams trying to tell you?

It is from these questions that you will find the clues to your heart's desire, the threads of the very essence of who you are and why you are here. When you know this you can begin to dream the dream of who you wish to be. Once you know that, you can decide the best steps to take to make that happen.

This is a project. Get a workbook that you can devote completely to this task. Get one with a hard cover…it will make the contents seem very more important. Guard it with your life and treasure it always.

And remember fairy tales are a wonderful way of giving distance to your story. It will help you break away from detail and minutia and allow you to develop the bigger story… the story of who you really are.

I remember when I was __________ years old.

Why do you remember? Why this memory and not others?

My family used to tell me about when I was___________ years old and I _______________.

Why do you think your family remembered this particular story?
What do you think about what they remember? What do you remember about this incident?

When I was very little, I used to dream that I would be a ______________when I grew up. Later I decided I would be__________________. In fact I became a ______________.

I can remember really liking_______________. It made me feel _____________.

As a matter of fact I can remember when I was 5,6,7 years old. I liked to go to ________________ and watch _________________. It made me feel ____________.

How do you feel about these memories? Are you proud of what you have become? Have you just dismissed what you wanted to be? Why not consider that these dreams you had when you were young are important to the person you are today and the person you will become. What do you think these dreams really meant? (Avoid the temptation of saying they meant nothing, I was just a kid.) How do they relate to what you are doing now? If the dream has never been realized, is it time to reconsider the relevance of those dreams?

These are the threads of your story that need your inquisitive attention. Above all I encourage you to approach this endeavour appreciatively. And when you feel a longing, an 'oh I wish I had done', a 'oh it's too late', STOP. This is what you are searching for. It is called your heart's desire…that which would give your life meaning. See it as a possibility, an abundance, a gift you received from this exercise.

Do that and you will have sown the first seeds of Hope!

My experience bears out what Thomas Moore observes in his book Care of the Soul.

"Storytelling is an excellent way of caring for the soul. It helps us to see the themes that circle our lives, the deep themes that tell the myths we live."

• No matter where you light down, or where you chose to focus, what you choose will be relevant because you chose it.

• Writing in the third person allows you to stay distant to the story,

• An appreciative approach was helpful. It allowed me to get the threads that I needed to fashion a story that was balanced and hopeful.

And yes, I have written my own story…a couple of them as a matter of fact. For me, the writing of them was so freeing and so liberating as each gave me good guidance for how to live some small aspect of my life. It was well worth the investment of time and energy.