Healing (2)
Experience is the best teacher
Hello everyone! This is Sean again. I am back to talk about our experiential learning. Last time we looked at the people in our lives and took an inventory of our thoughts about them. I hope the exercise was helpful and more pleasure than pain.
And now, I look forward to our continuing to heal. The next step after looking at our relationships with people is to look at our experiences. To clarify, our experiences are the key to unlocking how and what we have learned from the world around us. As we navigate our way through the world our experiences teach us how to interact with others and how to respond to our impulses and our truth.
So how do we begin to explore our experiences?
Firsts
First, we can create some lists, a type of inventory if you like. For instance an inventory of our firsts, or at least our first memories. It could look something like this:
- my first kiss
- my first date
- the first tongue kiss
- my first intimate experience
The first time:
- I saw someone naked (same/opposite gender)
- I asked someone out
- Someone bought me flowers
- I slept with someone
and so on. This list can be as detailed and explicit as you wish it to be. I would limit the first exercise to 10 to 15 experiences/memories.
(The list above and this blog are maintained in google and family friendly format. For more information and more intimate or direct vocabulary, please contact me.)
Be Nice to You!
Be sure to be nice to yourself in this process. This is not a competition or a marathon. Be creative and supporting to yourself. Try to be light. Make a list of 10 to 15 experiences you remember.
WOW!
Once we have our list we can rate each one with a number 1 through 5. On the one hand a 1 being fantastic „WOW“! On the other 5 being the opposite. In each case whatever the opposite might be: i.e. embarrassing, uncomfortable, etc.
- my first kiss = WOW-2-3-4-5 = _____________
- my first date = WOW-2-3-4-5 = _____________
- the first tongue kiss = WOW-2-3-4-5 = _____________
- my first intimate experience = WOW-2-3-4-5 = ____________
- I saw someone naked (opposite gender) = WOW-2-3-4-5 = ____________
- I saw someone naked (same gender) = WOW-2-3-4-5 = ____________
- Someone asked someone out = WOW-2-3-4-5 = ____________
- I received flowers = WOW-2-3-4-5 = ____________
- I slept with someone = WOW-2-3-4-5 = ____________
So I would recommend giving yourself approximately an hour for the practice. Do your best to be honest and fair in your evaluation (ratings) without being judgemental. Once you have completed your list of first experiences: Take a minute! Breathe! And Smile! You survived them!
Adjectives
We can expand our inventory by adding our own adjective to the ratings.
This could end up looking something like this:
- My first kiss – 5 – confusing
- My first date – 2 – funny
The first time:
- I saw someone naked (same gender) – WOW
- I asked someone out – 4 – awkward
This has been quite a bit of experiences and processing for one blog-lesson. This is Sean saying “Be good to you!” Till next time.
Till next time: Our Blog-Lessons –1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10–11–12–13–14–15–16–17
