FINDING YOUR CONTRIBUTION
TO SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION EXERCISE
This article describes an
exercise I have used in Life Purpose Intensives and some of the experiences
people have had. This exercise is specially oriented toward making a
contribution to changing society. The full exercise can be found in my book Inner
Journeys.
First there is a writing exercise
in which people contemplate their skills, interests, abilities, values, and how
these might relate to social change. Then in a guided meditation, they
remembered various incidents from their lives, and met a guide in an old stone
tower who showed them images related to different aspects of their life purpose.
In pairs they worked on interpreting the images, and then each person became a
story teller and told their life story as if everything significant in their
life was leading toward their finding and manifesting their life purpose.
A Young Adult
Jenny originally came to therapy at the age of 21 because of difficulties
with low self-esteem and lack of confidence and career direction.
Despite being bright, she dropped out of college because she couldn't
handle it emotionally. She had a
hard time getting along with people because of her tendency to be angry and
domineering.
In the guided meditation, when the planetary crisis was first mentioned,
Jenny assumed that things would go badly and the world would be destroyed.
Then when it was suggested that she would help to turn the crisis around,
it jolted her in a positive way. "I
felt very light and ethereal. I
imagined I could fly and be invisible if I needed to be, and I could speak every
language. I was thin and had long, red hair and a white gown.
I was very calm. I saw open hands that could do anything--creativity."
"As guides I saw my parents, and also some people in back of them
whose faces were unknown. I knew
that at some point they'd come into my life and then I'd recognize them. There was hardship and cruelty, being made fun of and picked
on and being scared. But in the
next image I saw myself rising above it and feeling Ok about myself, and being
able to help others to do that too."
"I would grow a garden and study martial arts and attend a
predominately Negro college. Someone
very close to me would die, and that would be a struggle for me.
I would be very distressed, but somehow I would overcome the pain and
continue. R--- would help me set
the world on a constructive course, teaching me patience and how to deal with my
anger more productively. I imagined
myself as some sort of preacher, though no one would know that I was preaching.
I would have a magical way of infiltrating people's minds with goodness
towards others. Basically the
message seemed to be about helping people and the earth and animals."
Jenny did this exercise as part of a long-term individual therapy
process. After two years of work on
herself she is now able to get along better with her co-workers and is feeling
stronger and more confident in her relationships in general. She has begun that searching process which will eventually
lead her to a sense of life purpose, even though as a 23 year old she can't be
expected to be very far along. She
is finding her feet career-wise; she has moved up into a responsible, full-time
job. She is experimenting with
various creative outlets in the arts. Her
social consciousness is developing, showing itself as little acts of kindness
toward people in need. Eventually
it will probably become more focused and integrated with her other interests as
part of an overall life direction.
A Mature Woman
The following experience comes from Grace, a 40 year old who is
experienced with this kind of work and also with investigating her life purpose. It illustrates how one can fully let go of control in a
guided fantasy and allow images to arise that may have no obvious meaning,
knowing that they can be interpreted into a coherent whole later. Grace saw the
following images for each floor:
8th: Wings flying upward, symbolizing raising
consciousness.
7th: An owl superimposed on an eagle holding a pen in its
talons, meaning wisdom and writing.
6th: The
winged heart which is the sufi emblem. She
had recently been studying sufism.
5th: Rough rocky terrain for hardships.
4th: A pool with angels coming out of it in all
directions, signifying spirit emerging out of the emotional.
3rd: A spiraling staircase with hierophant figures in red
and black ascending the stairs, having to do with male spiritual authority
figures and her ambivalence toward them.
2nd: Water insects skating in a particular direction on a
pond, as a sign of her direction in life.
1st: A stylized horse's head arching back, full of life,
signifying action, vibrancy, aliveness.
This was
largely a confirmation of directions in which she was already moving--raising
spiritual consciousness through her work as a psychotherapist and also through
writing.
Another Experience
"The images I remembered as
you took us back through our lives were fascinating to me. I remembered a dress I made that came out of a medieval
court." She realized that she
had common attitudes and a common viewpoint at all the different ages.
It gave her a pleasurable sense of the continuity of her self over time.
Her tower images had to do with integrating her femininity with a
masculine sense of assertiveness in dealing with the material world. "I came up with two guides, my 13th century monk and one
of the forms of the Goddess. The
monk has been there for years now to teach me what it is to be religious, and
the Goddess is teaching me what it is to be a woman. And they integrate in some very nice ways.
It was fun. Having to talk
about the images during the fantasy was difficult, but it helped me retain more.
If I go off on my own there's a lot I lose.
It was nice at the end talking to my partner about it because she made
more sense of some of them than I could."
Barbara was apprehensive about the story telling at first, because she
didn't see herself as good with words. However,
she gave herself permission to play with being a bard, and she ended up enjoying
herself and having her verbal side validated by her partner.