Life Line

Intention:

The life line illustrates important events in a person's life over time. Patterns, trends, and relationships between events can be identified by plotting significant events graphically and chronologically. The life line can be drawn individually, or with a trusted someone.

Drawing our life line contributes to our self-awareness. This exercise is an opportunity to broaden our insight into how past events in our lives may have been related, and it can guide us to make decisions that will impact subsequent experiences. It familiarizes us with the technique and the process before trying it with others.

Instruction:

Develop your life line by writing down the date (actual or approximate), place, and events that you consider significant in your life up to the present.

Include events related to:

Health (accidents, illnesses, surgeries, hospitalizations, treatments)

Intimate and social relationships (beginnings, crises, notable events, endings)

Occupation (graduations, promotions, demotions, job changes and losses)

Circumstances in the larger historical context (wars, natural disasters, political events)

Problems (beginnings, course, outcomes)

Future (you can project into the future based on your plans and expectations)

Inspection:

·       What did you learn in the process of drawing your life line?

·       As you analyze your life line, what patterns, trends, and relationships do you recognize?

·       Did this exercise stimulate any desire to address an issue from your remote or recent past, be it for your sake, and/or for the sake of another person or group?

·       What emotional reactions were elicited by drawing and analyzing your life line?

·       How do you think would certain events have impacted you differently, had they occurred at different points in your life?

LIFE LINE

AGE      YEAR    PLACE                       EVENTS

Conception

Pregnancy

Birth

1

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

95