What do you want to be....

Sometime last week I said to Hubby, "When I think of my childhood, I don't think of what I did in school. I don't have a lot of 'school' memories. I mainly recall playing outside and riding horses. Us kids in the neighborhood playing pick-up rolly-bat and football and riding bikes and sledding. I don't recall playing often with Barbie dolls; most often I played with model horses. I don't recall reading a lot. I don't remember many of the books that I did read. I remember Misty of Chincoteague, about horses, and Ruffian, about a dog."

I can't recall exactly what prompted that discussion.
But I think it was all the recent news about school shootings.

***

Victor Frankl developed logotherapy.

When I first saw the word "logotherapy," I thought of the Greek word, logos, used in the New Testament.
Logos means "word" and is used in reference to Jesus Christ (the Word in the flesh), the written Word (the Bible) and the spoken Word (when a believer speaks by revelation/inspiration).

But that isn't what Frankl means by the prefix logo.

Logo means "meaning or purpose."
Logotherapy is "a form of psychotherapy that is based on helping clients to find a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives."

I've struggled with purposelessness often since the onset of polyradiculitis and continuing thereafter as I'd experience one loss after another due to the disabilities brought on by the illness.

Naturally I thought, Hmmm, logotherapy might be useful for me.

A few days ago I searched online for a workbook about logotherapy.
I found a free online pdf version, downloaded and printed it, and am giving it a try.

One of the exercises, which is labeled "expanding your conscious awareness" is to think of your earliest recollections of what you wanted to be.

My first recollections are...
A pirate, an American Indian, a dancer where I choreograph my own moves, a performer in musicals, and a boy.

As I got older the list expanded...
A visual artist, a teacher, a wife, a backpacker, a naturalist, a healer, a counselor, a transcendental meditation instructor, an organic gardener, a Peace Corps or VISTA worker/volunteer, a believer, a mother, a philanthropist, a life coach and...the list probably isn't finished.

I recall some of my earliest times...
When I stood on the side bar of the backyard swing-set looking for land.
The swing-set was a ship, and I was a pirate.

When I dressed up in costumes of my own design to dance and sing with Dad's 45-vinyl LPs playing on the record player: "Winchester Cathedral" and "King of the Road" and "Big Bad John."
Mom and Dad were my audience.

It's been fun to do this first workbook exercise, "expanding my conscious awareness."

I wonder if I'll actually finish the workbook?