Now that you have your Book of Secrets started, the main and first task to begin is the personal timeline. It’s a plumbline, really, a way to see when and how big decisions were made about your life—by yourself, and by others.
Patterns emerge. Trends. Epiphanies. It’s a priceless tool every thinking person should attempt. After all, the unexamined life is not worth living (Socrates? Someone famous and ancient). I’ve seen them done various ways:
- As a grid, with a box for each year, handwritten.
- As a line, with the years as notches, and events penciled in.
- As an outline on computer, with bullet points for events
- As an Excel spreadsheet
- As a line on a big paper, with events on post-it notes (so they can be moved around).
Something you’ll quickly realize is that your memory is not that reliable. (This should give you a clue as to the plasticity, resilience, and sheer stubbornness of the human mind. It simply forgets what it doesn’t want to remember, and magnifies what it does)
Doing a new one since my other ones were lost, before I began my Book of Secrets ten years ago. I've chosen to go with "old school" methods this time around.
I’ve done mine three times: the first in my first round of college in my Transactional Analysis class, the second time in my thirties at a career development seminar; and most recently, this October as I was trying to remember the context of some important personal decisions—and if I’d been keeping my Book of Secrets I wouldn’t have lost the first two, but I’ve only had it the last ten years. I shared my most recent timeline with my mother, and she helped with the timing of various childhood events. (Fact checking with family members, if you can, is super helpful—and can end up generating some interesting conversations)
The timeline will also help greatly with the next exercise in our “unleashing creativity” process- writing your life story, in third person, using archetypes. *grin* Get ready for all kinds of interesting sh*t to come bubbling up during that! And that's all the stuff that keeps you creatively blocked, so letting it out is key.
The timeline is something you will only have to do once, and can keep coming back to again and again as you mine your life for creative material.
What do you think of this exercise? Have you tried something like this before?
(Squirms uncomfortably) As you said, “It simply forgets what it doesn’t want to remember, and magnifies what it does)” I know it’s supposed to be healthy to drag your past out of the shadows and confront it, but I worry that it has bigger teeth than I do. On the flip side, I’ve found a lot of truth to the old saying, “The older I get, the better I used to be.” Those things we DO remember often magnify – like a juicy rumor – each time we revisit it.
Thanks for this installment. I’ll take a stab at it, although I’m sure the dates will be meaningless: I have a hard time remembering what I had for lunch yesterday!
Even if you don’t try it, think about these tools for another time. They really can unlock some amazing depths in your work.
Memory is, indeed, unreliable. I wrote a little item about how my sister, their child and her husband came to Perth from another city. I sorta kinda had it right. But I got the make of car wrong, and my brother-in-law didn’t come on the plane – he came later, alone, on the train. Mind you, I was about 8 at the time so that was a year or mumble ago. Yes, interesting. I’m sorry I didn’t do something like this years ago, when the people who could have corrected me were still alive.
What a tough take-away. I hope you find it helpful; it will really make the next exercise even more dynamic.
Yes, I have “…done something like this before.” When I was in training to become a psychotherapist, we did it in the context of Inner Child recovery. I’ll do it again now that I am “a child” even more open to whatever it presents.
I find in this third round, that I’m seeing new things I’d never seen before!
It’s so interesting that you wrote this because I was just watching Jane Fonda’s TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_fonda_life_s_third_act.html and she talked about the third act of life as a time to review and re-frame the experiences of our lives. Well, I decided I didn’t want to wait for the third act. Why not do it in my 20s? So my thought was to begin writing my whole life story, not for anyone to read, but to put down all the details of my life that I remember so that I can see the relationships that my life events have with each other. So often I look at my life in isolated bits and pieces without seeing the big picture. I think I’ll start with a timeline and fill in the details.
Yay, that’s great. Understanding and beginning to reflect on the early influences and events of your life sets you up for making better choices and taking a more “big picture” perspective later. you are well ahead of your peers in beginning to be a student of your life!
Your words caught me just when they are especially relevant, helpful, and reassuring.
About a month ago I began condensing journals from a specific 26 months to make a timeline for a memoir. The “book” is well underway with no lack of interesting stories. But, I found details about conditions, specific people, and other variables difficult to put them in a proper arc. I’ve now combed nine of those 26 months and four things have become clear. 1) I’ve forgotten more than I remember. 2) Time in my memory has collapsed, been jumbled, and now I’m stitching it back in order. 3) Dare I say I’m capturing occasional moments of brilliance. 4) Finally, I shall destroy the journals when I finish the annotated timeline. They are not worth the dust that lands on the bindings–just dull, repetitive moans and groans to get through the days interspersed with occasional important or useful details.
As an introspective person, I can see much progress in my personal growth. I’m here to strongly urge others to do this exercise and to discover their own selves in a fresh way–from what they have become in the intervening years.
What a wonderful share, thanks so much and I’m glad this was helpful. This section of the blog I was unsure if would appeal to many people…but it seems, it’s been important to a few and that’s worthwhile.
I like your idea of destroying the journals. I’ve worried about burdening my children with them.
Aloha
T