Post Traumatic Growth Questionnaire and Story Process Part I: Post Traumatic Growth Questionnaire: 1. Choose a life challenge to explore for integration, meaning making, and gift- harvesting. This could be a single event trauma, an illness, an injury, the loss of a parent, the end of a relationship, etc. anything of significance that is not currently occurring (you can also work with something current, but it is recommended that you choose an event that you ve already done some emotional and psychological processing around). Name the event: 2. What resources do you have in your life now? List as many as you can think of. Resources are things that help us feel safe, connected, happy, alive, calm, etc. Resources can be both internal qualities (such as a sense of humor, optimism, kindness, etc.) and external people, activities, animals, and places (such as your pet, a dear friend, a place in nature, dance or art, etc.). List all the internal and external resources that you have in your life now (at least 10 of each). 1
3. Choose your strongest resource and visualize it. Notice what you notice in your body as you imagine that resource. From this place, rooted in your current life and resource, describe the past event in question: (Don t include so much detail that your system gets overly activated, but enough to open the file on it). If you get stressed or overwhelmed in the process, take a break and come back to your resource. 4. What helped you get through this event? Or in other words, what resources did you have at the time of the traumatic experience that helped you cope? 2
5. Are there aspects of the event that still have some charge for you (nervous system activation, fight or flight energy, fear, anxiety, the desire to avoid it, etc.)? If so, note them below. These would be good to work with a therapist or guide. 6. What abilities or capacities did you have to develop to get through this challenge? For example: will, faith, discipline, the ability to ask for help, learned optimism, etc. 3
7. How did you develop those capacities? In other words, what actions did you take, or what inner stances did you hold that contributed to the development of these capacities? 8. After the challenge happened, how are you different than before? (List both good and difficult changes in you.) 4
9. What are you most proud of regarding how you moved through the event or experience? 10. What do you most regret about how you moved through the event (if anything)? 5
11. What hidden gifts were there, (if any) in this challenge? 12. Why do you think this event occurred in your life? What meaning do you make of it? 6
Part II: Write Your Personal Mythic Journey A. If you d like to go deeper into your Post Traumatic Growth story and discover how your greatest challenges have served as initiations into your deepest gifts, you may want to try writing your Personal Mythic Journey. To begin, you can go through your Questionnaire, and make an outline of your story. In order to aid you, you may want to additionally answer the following questions:! Who were you before the event/experience in occurred? (Even if you were an infant, you can think about what your essence was as a baby coming in.)! Trauma and other crisis can feel like a spiritual kidnapping, much like the Greek mythic figure Persephone experienced when she was taken down against her will, into the Underworld. What was the kidnapping into the Underworld like for you?! What did you learn down there in the Underworld? What hidden gifts were there?! What tools or resources helped you begin to find your way through this challenge?! Who did you have to become to find your way through? What skills did you develop? Who were or are your guides?! What changed for you?! Who are you now?! What can happen now that couldn t have happened before? B. Next, if you d like, create chapter titles for your myth, giving each chapter a name. Or, if a timeline works better than chapter titles, you may want to create a timeline of your life, before and after the event. Include your resources, the gifts, the challenges, and the answers to the questions on the timeline. C. Next, write your story, if you choose, in the 3 rd person. Pick a name for the main character, and a setting. Then write it like a myth or fairy tale. It doesn t need to have a happy ending. Or make any sense. In the beginning of the writing, see if you can give yourself permission to write without the editor. In other words, just freewrite for 10 or 15 minutes at a time, keeping your pen to the page, without lifting it, don t think too much. Let the writing itself surprise you and teach you something about yourself. The point is not to make a perfect story. Or to tell it to 7
anyone. The point is to tell it to yourself, to make sense of your own life. And to feel empowered in the telling of your journey. D. Alternatively, if you d like to make a visual art map, instead of writing it out as a story, feel free! You could do a collage, or a series of paintings, or some sketches. Or even a 3 dimensional piece of art. Make the project work for you. E. If you feel inspired, share your story with a friend, ask them to hold space for you, and reflect back to you the beauty and inspiration that they felt while listening to you. Sacred mirroring in this way is an essential aspect of our growth. This may be vulnerable! For some of us, it requires the new skill of taking in love. If this is challenging for you, I invite you to reach out for support from a therapist or guide. 8