Dear Older Self,
According to Erik Erikson, your current developmental task is to review your life. The reason for a life review is to help you to tell your story—to see its themes, to acknowledge losses, to make note of the many gifts and the abundance of grace, to understand more fully the narrative of your life and to give thanks.
You have lived many years through many seasons. There have been many dead ends. Many failures. Many life lessons. Much growing. Multiple times of breaking open and being remade. So much to be grateful for!
Reviewing the story of your life is a way of bringing deeper understanding and healing to your heart and mind. It is a way of bringing the light of love to places in your life that still lie under the shadow of fear, shame or guilt. It is a way of remembering all the gifts of kindness that have come to you along the way.
Above all, it is a way of recounting God’s faithful care in your life. It is an opportunity to name some of the ways God has been your Good Shepherd, guiding you through dark valleys, teaching you to rest, quieting you, healing you, bringing you to this moment of seeing all the ways that goodness and mercy have been with you all the days of your life.
On one level life review is a kind of reminiscing. It is telling stories from the past. Sometimes it includes the joy of letting children and grandchildren in on some of the stories of your life. Stories they may never have heard.
This process of reminiscing can be enhanced by looking at old pictures, getting out old letters that you have kept, listening to music that was significant to you at different times in the past. All of this is greatly enriched if it can be done as a way of sharing your life’s stories with others.
Remember when one of your parents told a story you had never heard about a time when he was serving in the Air Force during World War II? He described how afraid he was. How he wanted to run from his assignment. How he stuck it out. This was a person who shared very little personally. It meant a great deal to you to hear his story. You could see him as a young man, in harm’s way, so terrified, so far from home. It deepened your empathy and understanding of him.
It may have done many of these same things for him. It may have deepened his compassion and understanding of himself and his life decisions. It may have been a way of honoring that scared kid he had been.
Life review is reminiscing. And it is more than this. It is a kind of treasure hunt for all that matters most in life—the love, the kindness both given and received, the relationships and connections, the challenges and changes, the unacknowledged losses, the growth, the movements of grace.
Remember your elderly friend who began to tell you stories of the significant losses in her life when she was placed on hospice care? She told you that she had lost two sisters to sudden illnesses. She had watched her parents’ marriage struggle and never recover as a result. She had lost access to a beloved niece because her brother had disowned his own daughter. She had lost her vibrant husband because he came home from war a traumatized man. There had been so much loss and so little opportunity to share these sorrows with others. But they were a central part of her life story and she was finally able to speak about them all as she did this important work of reviewing her life story.
Some people recommend doing an intentional life review. This can a structured process guided by a series of questions or a focused process of some kind.
For instance, it can be meaningful to draw a time line of your life on a large roll of paper and then to divide the time line into five year sections. On one side of the line you might note major events that happened in each five year segment of your life. This might include births of other siblings, moving from one home to another, changes or crises, or activities of your life in that time period. On the other side of the line, you might note people who were the helpers or supporters during each five year time period. This might, or might not, include your parents. It might include a sibling, or a grandparent, or a school teacher, or a friend. It might include a TV personality like Mr. Rogers. If there are many you would name, name them all. If it seems there was no one available to support you in a particular time period, take note of that significant lack.
Another meaningful process might be to list memories that were moments of grace in some way. This might include times when you knew you were loved and valued. Times you felt compassion for others. Times someone acted in kindness toward you. Times when you acted in kindness toward another. Times of extending or receiving forgiveness. Times when you were especially aware of God’s loving presence in some way.
Another approach would be to list turning points in your life. Or times when you felt like you were awakening in some way.
In addition, it can be valuable to make a list of regrets. Are there ways you failed to act in love, or respect, or kindness or patience that come to your mind? Writing these down, talking with a trusted friend or minister about these memories, and praying for ways to make amends, if possible, can bring healing release. It can be an opportunity to accept your own failures. And it can be a time of allowing yourself to receive God’s forgiveness more deeply.
Working through these more intentional kinds of life-review processes can be done with a friend, a therapist or in a group of peers who are all committed to do the same work. This might be a group that your place of worship or community center might be willing to host.
However you approach this important developmental task, let go of unconscious living. Engage in reminiscing and in life review. Your life is a gift. Each day of it has been a gift. Celebrate it with humility and gratitude. Honor the gift of your one precious life.
This meditation is taken from Notes to Our Older Selves: Suggestions for Aging With Grace by Juanita Ryan and Mary Rae. You can get a copy at Amazon.com
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