Group Coaching Memory Exercise

Today was my 2nd group coaching call with Dan Mason and the 6 others in my group. We were working on developing our purpose statements today. Dan quoted his mentor Mastin Kipp saying “Purpose is an emotion to cultivate within yourself and then give to others through your service.”

So Dan led us through a guided meditation for about 15 minutes to think back on our earliest memories of being happy. He challenged us to think as far back as we could remember and insert ourselves back into the memory and take stock of it. 

For me the earliest memory that came flooding back was playing “Diner” at my Grandma’s house (my Dad’s mom) beginning around age 5 or 6. My sister and I had alter egos who owned the Diner – Lisa (me) and Lara (my sister), the 3rd “owner” was my Aunt’s God daughter that was basically a cousin who lived in NJ named Tara. So the Diner was Lisa, Lara,and Tara’s (gotta love a rhythm and rhyme) also known as LLTs. It was a late 1980s era Fisher Price kitchen we got for Christmas, but my aunt MJ (who lived with my Grandma) took thigs to the next level by buying us Lisa, Lara & Tara personalized pencils and notepads and made us Diner menus at work. It was all very legit. My sister and I (since Tara only visited a few times a year) generally swapped between waitress and cook serving our patrons generally my Dad, Grandma and Aunt or any other family member that was around on a Sunday evening which is generally when we went to my Grandma’s house. My Grandma lived in a 2 family house that her brother and his wife lived in the upstairs half. This was the house both families basically raised their children in and I grew up only 10 minutes away in the same town my Dad grew up in. Dan then asked us to take stock of the feeling we were feeling in this memory. For me it was: imagination, creativity, love, service, connection, relationships, family, accomplishment. Then he asked us what we believed about ourself as a result of this memory and emotions. 

Dan then asked us to think of our next happy memory. Again I was at my Grandma’s house with my sister, but we upstairs at our great aunt and uncle’s house with some of our cousins playing “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” This was a game we played often between ages maybe 6-10. We took turns making up a short skit with the goal to make the audience (the rest of us kids not performing) laugh as much as possible. Whoever made the audience laugh the hardest won. The feelings I felt were: imagination, performance, creativity, laughter, humor, connection. 

Then Dan asked again for another early happy memory. This one I was again with my sister and my Aunt MJ and her friend on one of our annual trips into NYC to spend the day getting lunch, sightseeing and going to a performance of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. We did this for many years likely between when I was 7-12. The emotions were: special, loved, important, in awestruck, excitement.

Finally Dan asked us for a recent happy memory. Mine was a girls boating and camping trip weekend in mid-May. A bunch of girls some I was close with and some I was getting to know, spending hours out boating on a beautiful lake weekend and camping at night, where I was one of the more experienced campers. We spent hours sharing stories and laughing. I felt: loved, relaxed, freed, connected, helpful, carefree, laughter.

I teared up quite a few times during this exercise. Dan then had us take stock of all the emotions we wrote and boil them down to our top two that make us happy to help us form our purpose statement. 

Mine are: Creativity & Connection. 

I likely could have come to these two top emotions without having done this memory mediation, but now that I can so strongly associate these feelings with important memories makes me even more fired up about living my purpose.

Stay tuned…