Couns 600
Paper on Personal Identity
1. Identify and make a list of the significant 10 incidents – both positive and
negative – that have profoundly affected your life. These may include your
traumas, victories, loves, losses, successes, humiliations, adversities, and
triumphs. Provide a paragraph about each event as far as how this particular event
impacted you and shaped your life.
2. Look for a common theme(s) that each of these events shares. (It might be a
theme of loss, or not feeling good enough, not feeling safe, that everything is fine,
that you are a survivor etc. that permeates your life story.)
3. Reflect on each one, asking yourself,
a. What skills and abilities do I possess because of this experience?
b. How can I use this incident to contribute to myself and others?
c. If my life were training me to fulfill a particular need in the world, what
would it be?
4. Imagine that you have been asked to teach a college course based on the
culmination of all your life experiences. What would the name of that course be?
(You want to look for what your life experiences have made you uniquely
qualified to teach or contribute. What do you know and understand about life the
most people don’t? What have you learned from your life experience that could
benefit someone else?)