Everybody has an important life story, but not everyone realizes the benefits of taking the time to write it.
A life story is what makes us who we are and shapes the foundation of our identity.
But the more meaningful part of understanding our life story happens when we are able to link it to new self-discoveries and awareness about ourselves and how we are meant to show up in the world.
Whether we have lived abroad for an extended period of time, or we feel isolated because we have just moved to a new place, writing our life story can help turn this feeling of an “emotional disconnect” into something unique, empowering and emotionally uplifting.
Writing a life story becomes a “language” that cross cultural, social and linguistic barriers because our life stories are based on experiences that are universal to everyone.
Everyone can relate to the pain and frustration of feeling like an “outsider.”
It is a basic need to feel a sense of belonging.
As an American living in Israel, I felt a social and emotional void.
All those years living in Israel, I was an Israeli but as an American, I felt a sense of social, linguistic and emotional disconnect even though I was (and still am!) fluent in speaking Hebrew.
In my own writing, I wrote what I saw, heard, and felt – trying to take 17 years of experiences into words of my powerful “life story.”
People resonated with the words I wrote and my blog opened a window to an Israeli culture, which is a good thing in a diverse world.
By writing these “snippets” or “vignettes” I felt the feeling of disconnect as an outsider and wrote of my “need to be free” of this emotional, linguistic and cultural prison through the power of my own emotional experiences.
Through discovering my own voice, I found another voice – the voice of connecting with those who “don’t fit in.”
How to Start Writing a Life Story
Using the voices of our childhood can help springboard us into a deeper more powerful version of our adult selves.
Many of us have forgotten that inner child as our complicated adult life seemingly takes over.
What were the hopes, wishes, dreams and desires of that child, teenager or young adult?
It is only by writing through these voices and memories as we remember them, that we as adults, are able to get in touch with our “lost” inner child.
When we reach a point of self-discovery, we are finally able to understand how we need to “show up” in the world.
About Dorit Sasson
Dorit Sasson is an author and a storyteller. At the age of 19, she volunteered for the Israel Defense Forces and found her path to freedom. She shares this story in Accidental Soldier: A Memoir of Service and Sacrifice in the Israel Defense Forces. Learn more about her at www.doritsasson.com.
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