Personal Story As A Pursuit of Spiritual Wholeness
Recently I had an opportunity within a group setting to draw my own river of life journey. This was a spiritual exercise. Our personal story is a story of our pilgrimage and the story of God's interaction or presence in our lives. Telling, writing or publishing our story is a sacred process that make us aware about our own life narrative and patterns. There is a great power in sharing our personal story. Have you ever processed your story? This is the most powerful message you have. Some of our stories might be the story of a victim, persecutor or a story of rescuer. Each one has their own diverse stories. Everyone of us might be struggling with our own stories. There are cultural, family of origin and specialized significance to our own story. The process of our spiritual story starts with making notes and organizing it chronologically or thematically or metaphorically. In order to complete your final manuscript you need to process your story. 
The Johari Window is another better technique to understand the relationship with themselves and with others. This was created by Joseph Luft (1916-2014) and Harrington Inghram (1916-1955). This has basically four different arenas. The first one is Open, which quadrant represents traits of the subjects that both they themselves and their peers are aware of. The second one is hidden which represent information about them their peers are unaware of. It is up to the person to disclose this information or not. The third one is blind, the person or subject is not aware about, but the group or others are aware about, in other words the blind spots. The last one is known as unknown, this represent behaviors and motives that were not recognized by anyone. This can also be called the collective ignorance. This is connected with what i see in me and what I do not see in me. Another way to understand out stage of inner dynamic is to understand it from a drama triangle. 
The common issues we will face when we write or process our own story are:
The difficulty to be honest:You can't lie to yourself. Many times we run from the reality. It is in our lostness we find our righteousness and wholeness. When we process our story we will gain power over what lies in the darkness. Darkness will not withstand the cleansing and transforming power of light. Light diminishes the grip darkness has over us. Many times this can happen where you have agreed in a small group to be confidential.
Divide your life into different life period: You can do that based on a age based period such as childhood, adolescence and adulthood etc. It can also be categorized as a period of encounter with God, crisis of faith and outcomes of growth. Your encounter with God can be a mystical experience, conversion experience or charismatic experience. How has God made himself known to me/you in each period of life? The crisis of faith can be a crisis of doubt, circumstances, disobedience, depression or darkness. This will lead us to further growth which might be intellectual, emotional, behavioral, service or relational.
Dealing with the past hurt: Writing your own story will undercover issues that cause you pain. If this stay in our memory for some reason, it might still remain with you as an unhealed wound. Tell it to someone that you love to get this out of you and get some external help.
Keep moving: Don't stay with your excuses such as " I can't do this", I can't write, I don't know, I can't talk about my life for some reason etc. Deal with the fear with the help of God. For some people it takes lot of time. The ultimate purpose is to come in one page with your own self to gain the confidence to tell your story to others.
The following are a checklist for processing or writing your story:
1. Have a deadline for finishing your manuscript.
2. Create support group along with seeking God's help to complete writing your own story.
3. Create a draft with a chronological outlook.
4. Explore the places, people, period, experience, emotions, mystical, charismatic and daily experiences that you can recollect or remember.
5. Explore the low points such as crisis of faith, doubt, relationship, loose etc.
6. Explore achievements, learning and influence you created.
7. Finalize your manuscript and process your story in a presentable format.
The inspiration for this blog and some of content is taken from: Richard Peace, Spiritual Autobiography: Discovering and share your spritual story. Colorado Spring: CO, Navpress, 1998.
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