Page 69 - Learning to Learn

LEARNING TO LEARN: BECOMING A SELF -GROWER 69
EXPERIENCE 3: YOUR PAST D OESN’T DEFINE YOUR FUTURE
CHALLENGE
From your reflections so far, you may have realized that you share similar types of past and current issues
with your teammates and classmates. Pick three significant issues that you want to address in order to open
up your future to greater self-growth.
TOOLS/WORKSHEETS
Learning and then Moving On worksheet My Life Vision worksheet
PREPARATION
1. Re-examine the worksheet, Learning and then Moving On: Analyzing an Experience, Issue, or
Relationship. Think about each of the questions on the worksheet, determining how those prompts
are helpful.
2. Prioritize your list of potential problem to solve and select one on which to focus
3. Identify a resource of one or more individuals with whom you can think through this problem
PROBLEMS TO S OLVE
Take a very important past issue, experience, or relationship, and with at least one other person to help
you, fill out the form to develop a plan for addressing it. After you complete the form, what did you learn
about your own identity, efficacy, and affective skills?
MY LIFE VISION
Processing Life’s Difficulties
As everyone knows, we cannot get through life without difficulties. The ways in which we deal with these
difficulties will profoundly affect our lives. Developing positive ways in which to meet, deal with, and
process the negative experiences in our lives is essential to our well-being. By assessing the ways we have
been processing the difficulties in our lives up until this point, we can make more positive changes that
will help us to deal with negative experiences in our future.
As you learned from Lisa and Jordan, being able to respond to negative life experiences and learn from
them is an important life skill. We not only need to respond to life’s difficulties, we also need to find a
way to recover from them and to move forward positively in our lives. Some experiences in life can knock
people down, and many have a difficult time recovering—some never do. For example, some who have
endured the horrors of war continually relive their experiences in their minds to the point where they
cannot function in society. Psychologists call this syndrome Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Others also
suffer from this disorder: people who survive plane crashes, school shootings, bombings, physical and
sexual abuse, tornadoes and severe hurricanes, etc. And although you may never be a victim of these types
of violence, other experiences can also knock us down: the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, drug
or alcohol abuse, dealing with a troubled child or a mean boss, a divorce or any break up in a romantic
relationship, etc. This assignment is important because no one is immune to life’s blows. By developing a
plan to help you cope with these blows, you may find that you can recover from the pain of most setbacks.