Your Life-Story, Part 4: Review Your Past

When and where were you born? Tell the story of your birth.

Tell the stories of your life prior to now: your childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and so on. Where were you? Who were the influential people during these periods of your life?

What are the most memorable things you did? What are the most memorable things that happened to you, helpful and harmful?

What’s your opinion of your life-story up ‘til now?

What emotions do you feel as you review your life-story up ‘til now?

These are some of the questions you and your Life Therapist talk about as you review the past of your life-story.

Your Life-Story, Part 3: View it Now

Where are you now physically? Where on Earth are you? Where’s your home? Where do you work? 

Who are the other influential human characters, friends and foes, in your life-story? With whom do you interact with on a regular basis?

Are any pets or wild animals influential characters in your life right now? Any trees, flowers, or other plants? Are any land forms or bodies of water characters in your life-story right now?

What about buildings? Art or décor of any kind?

What is your opinion of your life right now? Do you view it favorably or unfavorably? Why?

What emotions do you feel as you view your life right now? Happy? Sad? Frustrated? Some other emotion?

These are just a few of the questions you and your Life Therapist ask and answer together as you view your present life.

Your Life-Story, Part 2: Your POV is Temporary

Your Point-of-View is Temporary. It’s temporary because it happens at a passing moment in the time period of your life. With each passing moment your life-story is changing.You are changing.

Three key questions you and Life Therapist continually ask and answer are these:

1.     From where you see now, what’s going on in your life right now?

2.     From where you see now, what happened in your past?

3.     From where you see now, what do see in your future?

These must be asked and answered continually because you’re alive. You’re developing your life-story as your live it. As you develop it, it’s changing. You are changing. Your point of view is not set. It's constantly changing.

Your Life-Story, Part 1: It’s Subjective and Biased

In Life Therapy, you and your therapist view the present life, review the past, and preview the future of your life-story. 

You view, review, and preview your life-story as you are now, from where you are now in your life-story. Your point-of-view is subjective and biased. So, is the point-of-view of your therapist. 

It’s subjective because you are the subject viewing your own life-story. Your life-story is the object you’re viewing.

You aren’t outside your life-story looking at it as if you’re a disembodied spectator. You’re in your story. You’re the main character. You are the story.

You are your life-story.

The only point-of-view you have is yours. Your point-of-view of your life-story is biased because it’s yours. It’s skewed by your subjectivity. No one else has your point-of-view because no one else is you living your life-story.

Your Life Therapist is now a character in your story too. Your therapist’s point-of-view is subjective and biased for the same reasons as yours.

There is no objective, unbiased point-of-view from which to view the present, review the past, and preview the future of your life.

Life Therapy Sessions

In Life Therapy, appointments are collaboration sessions rather than treatments. You and your therapist collaborate in attending to, serving, and taking good care of your life. 

You bring your Life Therapist into your life. Your Life Therapist becomes a supportive, influential character in the story of your life. Your sessions are not appointments to check off your “to do” list for the day. They are part of the story of your life.

You collaborate with your Life Therapist to co-create the narrative of your life.

Together you look at the condition of your life right now. How’s your spirit? What’s going well? What needs to go better? 

What is your life-story so far? What has harmed you? What have you overcome? What are you proud of?

If you live seventy-five years, how many more do you have? What do you want to make of your life in the time you have left? What must you do before you die?

Your spirit is what makes you alive. How’s your spirit right now? How alive are you? 

What are the life-affirming desires of your heart? Where are you in realizing them?