Characters in our story…

Our purpose and passion develops throughout our lives, is different at various and many points in our lives and can be influenced by where we have come from and the experiences and influences along the way such as socio economic background, parents, peer groups, friends, family, traditions, careers, you name it!

All of these experiences create an imprint, an unconscious conditioning through which we view the world, these are naturally established throughout our different experiences in our lives, veils of mist that can create a barrier or even a structure to support us at the time.

The imprints also often come with an identity that we establish in response to the experience and this alone can also create a path for you, affecting our direction of  life and where we are going.

I like to think of this in terms of the many different characters in my story, the different past versions of myself, from impressive (often horrific) outfit / costume choices to attitudes, priorities, habits, social circles to where I lived and my measures of success. Then, I go through and imagine having coffee with them, or a glass of wine, and learning from them, forgiving them and myself for my harsh judgements of them if I need to, because those versions of myself helped me reach where I am today.

Some examples of mine would include 12-13 year old me struggling with child sexual exploitation to teenage angst (and leopard print heeled boots with flared trousers – in the 90s!), eating and over exercising disorders as I desperately saught control over my life and then early 20s Essex me with the fake nails, hair, heels etc and London me doing the designer thing. All the while forgiving myself for thinking I was ever unworthy of love, for valuing myself on other people’s opinions and the value (or lack thereof) that they placed on me and their relationships with me.

All of these characters in my story had different passion and purpose at each stage, different goals and measures of success, and each of them offer valuable lessons to the character I am right now, and future characters to come.

Sometimes I like to draw these characters out, but if you’re not feeling artsy then just bullet point or find an image online even but give it a try and if you want, let me know what you come up with!