Letters to my kids: A suicide survivor's lessons and advice for life

Episode 29 : Part 3 - Finding yourself, a tale not just for movies

08.16.2018 - By Letters to my kids: A 2-time suicide survivor and advocate for realistic optimism.Play

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Download on the App StoreGet it on Google Play

Episode 29 : Part 2 - Finding yourself, a tale not just for movies

Music: “Just A Blip” by Andy G. CohenFrom the Free Music ArchiveReleased under a Creative Commons Attribution International License

https://allisonfallon.com/finding-yourself/https://www.wikihow.com/Find-Yourself

What we really need is to find ourselves.

Practical steps to HOW:1. Reconciling and working yourself outCreate your own life timeline. Write down all of your major goals that you feel you have achieved and want to achieve. In turn, write down the events in your life that have already happened and that have shaped or affected you.

Spend a little time clarifying the past in your timeline. A timeline is an incredibly objective method for marking down past occurrences in your life that you consider to be major. You can look at them as formation blocks and as changing experiences along your timeline without imbuing them with too much emotion (as would occur within a diary account). 

This isn't an exercise in wallowing. It's about clarification and identification of issues. These issues might be keeping you from reaching your present potential and letting your true self blossom.

"Like an old gold-panning prospector, you must resign yourself to digging up a lot of sand from which you will later patiently wash out a few minute particles of gold ore."- Dorothy Bryant

Distinguish your thoughts from the thoughts of others. For most people (it's more common than you may think) life is pretty easy to go through while on autopilot; we practically get handed a road map for how reality "works." 

"One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life, and there is nothing better."- Blaise Pascal

Start relying on yourself. Confidence and reliance are at the heart of finding yourself. If you don't have a solid sense of self-worth, you'll listen to what others have to say all the time and to be swayed by their insistence on what is appropriate. Learn to believe in yourself and trust your own feelings. Then, you'll come up with a structure to base your new sense of self on. Remember, be patient with yourself and confident in your abilities. Everything will come with time.

"To find yourself, think for yourself." -Socrates

Start trusting your own judgment and decision-making processes, mistakes and all. We all make mistakes, but through mistakes we find ourselves growing, learning, and reaching our real selves.Start taking responsibility for budgeting, household matters, and planning about the future.

More episodes from Letters to my kids: A suicide survivor's lessons and advice for life