The Life Chart
The Life Chart is an exercise that’s easiest to explain through a story.
When I was sixteen, my mom asked me to step in for half an hour while she went to run some errands. Stepping in meant attending to customers in our retail store. Nothing new, I did it often enough.
While she was out, a woman came in with her teenage son. Soccer season was starting, and he needed new soccer shoes. I sold them a pair of fairly expensive ones and they left.
Not long after my mom returned. “Anything happen while I was out?”
Pleased with my success I told her about the soccer shoes I had sold.
“Which ones?”
I pointed them out.
“That’s the new series,” she said, a little disappointed. “They practically sell themselves! Who did you sell them to?”
This being a small town it wasn’t hard to explain who the client had been.
“Oh dear,” she replied. “They really don’t have all that much money!”
This, of course, is not something I could have been expected to know, cos I didn’t actually work there, I was just stepping in. Still, she went on to tell me, that “New series sell themselves. You want to sell from that rack,” and she pointed at the Sales. “Cos those series are incomplete and we don’t want them occupying space forever. Only if there isn’t anything in their size, do you go to newer series, but never jump to the newest! Only go there when there’s nothing else in their size! Cos if it’s the newest they want, they’ll come in asking for those.”
Okay.
So, my mom left for another errand, and she left me to field the shop once more. And another mother and son came in, also for soccer shoes. As per my mom’s instructions I directed them to the Sales rack, we went through all the available pairs until they found what they needed, they paid and left.
Five minutes later my mom returned and I proudly told her I had done what she had told me to do: “I have sold that last pair of Adidas from the Sales rack!”
“Who to?” she immediately asked. I described them, and she frowned, shaking her head. “These people are loaded. You should have sold them an expensive pair.”
Yah.
So yeah… Let’s talk about the Life Chart.
In the Life Chart Process the first question is: “Tell me about an event that comes to mind.”
This one was rather top of mind for me…
We explored various events in the course of the exercise, but this specific event jumped out, because it was so very typical for the relationship I had with my mom:
I could never get it right.
There was no way to second-guess my mother. It was always damned if you do, damned if you don’t, in one scenario or another.
And that was the thread running through my entire life, for as long as I could remember.
By the time I was done filling out my Life Chart, I understood that events had taught me one very specific thing – something that wasn’t immediately clear from the individual events in and of themselves, because it was underneath them all.
You see, it’s one thing to never get it right, to feel ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’. But if you leave it at that, you don’t get to the core. The core can run so much deeper still. But the questions in the Life Chart brought it into view.
In my case, this was the core:
I cannot express myself without fear of retribution.
I cannot actually be me without feeling I’ll get punished for it.
That was the essence of the Life Chart Exercise for me.
My specific wound translated itself into always flying under the radar.
I never felt free to express myself the way I felt was right – because I was always wrong.
No matter what I did, no matter what I said, no matter what I chose, I always got it wrong…
And when you get it wrong, there’s disappointment, anger, disdain, displeasure.
When you get it wrong, response is never ‘good’. There’s always some kind of punishment involved.
And when you’re very sensitive and empathic, you perceive that punishment even when you’re not supposed to pick up on it. Cos here’s the thing: when you’re so sensitive you can hear people rolling their eyes behind your back, you receive a lot more punishment than they ever meant to inflict – because so much of it is just handed out without people even giving it a second thought.
I initially wrote this page a few years ago. And it was all about the wounds and the double binds. And that makes sense.
On average, by the time we’re seven we are, emotionally speaking, more or less fully shaped: in terms of how we respond, how we interpret, what meaning we assign to the events in our lives. And HSP-empaths, by the time we’re seven, can be deeply wounded.
We receive very clear messages from the people around us about what is and what isn’t acceptable. And the more sensitive and empathetic you are, the deeper the message is ingrained.
But here’s the thing: once the Life Chart has helped you see just where your wounds are, it flips those wounds around and we start exploring the talents that grew from those wounds. We explore your zone of Competence and we assess how that matches your patterns (read: how that keeps you safe). And we explore what you would do differently if you had a clearer understanding of those talents – and if you allowed your Gifts to come into play.
I’ve rewritten the page, because I no longer identify with quite a few of those old wounds – and trust me, the Damned if you Do/Damned if you Don’t has been an identifying characteristic of my psyche for years!
Not anymore, though. I know who I am now, and I know how to find Consensus in my Being; in my Inner Trinity and its dynamics.
And I invite you to explore your Trinity with me.
Because freedom lies in knowing yourself.
The Life Chart Package is a 6-week Hot Seat Package that you can extend with additional 2-week blocks.
Just like my other services, it is tailor made to you, but in this package the structure is more pre-set:
We do the Life Chart Exercise – typically in the second session – and then we explore:
– your wound patterns and your double binds;
– the Gifts and Talents that were a natural result of those patterns;
– your areas of expertise and joy;
while you continue to implement the insights and the techniques that best suit you.
You can read more about the 6-week packages here.
If you would like more information, or if you would like to first match schedules, feel free to reach out via the contact form.
Full disclosure: you can get astonishing results with the Life Chart – but you have to do the work.
Also, if you’re not sure about a 6-week package, you can always start with a single Mastermind Session. Once you’ve had the session and you decide to go for it, I’ll apply the cost of that first session as Store Credit, which you can then use towards the package.
“But Dani, what if I already know I want the full package?”
Smart cookie! I’ll make sure you get the same store credit – and then it’s up to you if you’d like to apply that towards an extra Mastermind session, or an extra Hotline Day.
