It’s not always easy to know who we want to be. We can get lost in the daily grind of our lives and our old habits, and get frightened away from change because of intense emotions (fear, anxiety) we might experience when we try to move towards what we value, especially if it challenges a sense of security. Choosing who we want to be, what makes us feel fulfilled and whole, and intending to act from this place can help us know how best to follow motivations for security, enhancement, both, or neither in a given situation.
Choosing who we want to be is a process. It takes time as well as trial and error to know what it is we want to be about in our lives. For now, we want to just begin exploring what matters most to you. Please set aside 1-2 hours on one night before the next session. First, vividly imagine you have crashed on a desert island. You are still alive, but nobody back home knows that, and it will be a little while before you are eventually rescued. So in the meantime, your loved ones go ahead and have a memorial service for you. This exercise is not meant to sound morbid. It is not about exploring your death. On the contrary this exercise is an opportunity for you to explore your life – how you would want it to be if you could choose it all.
To begin, imagine that that you can hear what the people speaking at your memorial service are saying about you. Rather than the universally positive things that people often say at a memorial service, all of these people say what they would say based on how you have actually been living your life. The people at the service can magically see exactly how you have been living your life, and they speak the truth about that. Please reflect on what they would say, how it is to hear those things, and then share your thoughts in the space provided.
