Exercise for Life Review: Testing Our Values with Andrea DeSharone
This is the exercise that Andrea DeSharone asked us to complete BEFORE the lecture on 25th March 2021. Just doing this exercise will give you a good overview of your life on several parallel but intersecting dimensions. From a mathematical point of view you are looking at your life in a five -or more!- dimensional space. I regard each of my five orthogonal dimensions as continually bifurcating. For example, in the months before I was born my only significant relationship was with my mother. After birth I developed relationships with my father, my grandparents and then my sisters, one by one, and so on. I can't wait to find out what we do in the lecture!
What you need:
• A very large paper (newsprint or drawing paper, if you can manage). Some people taped two sheets together.
• Markers of contrasting colors
The exercise:
• Turn your page so it’s as wide as possible. Draw 5 (or more) horizontal lines from west to east. These will be 5 (or more) parallel lifecycle continuums. Label as follows:
1. Place/location
2. Physical development/health
3. Psycho/spiritual
4. Relationships
4. Vocation/career/life’s work
6. ....
• Draw vertical time markers by decades: Birth…..10 years….20 years…up to your current age. You can also label these by the calendar year to help you locate events.
• Fill in all five+ continuums, by marking small vertical lines at the times of significant events or transitions in your life, and adding labels. Some people chose to divide the page into boxes and writing signifiant moments into the box for the corresponding decade.
• Circle with contrasting marker: pivotal moments or crossroads or defining change that has occurred in your life.
