MY LIFE 2
SESSION TWO — MAPPING MY IDENTITY
This is a link to the ‘Principles’ tutorial video - ‘My Life - Session 2 - Principles.’
Alongside the Principes video, I have included the ‘Activation Narrative,’ which is part of this session, in the self-guided workbooks. The stories I tell aren’t comfortable, nor are they trauma porn. They are designed to elicit a specific response from the reader, tied to the topic our clients are working on in this session.
The Second Blue Rule:
“Over the years, I have found that when someone goes ‘nuclear’ it is because their identity has been threatened.
― Robert (Sherpa) Millar
This story begins with a picture of my wife and me. Bethany looks tired but determined, and I look like an extra from Schindler's List. We are on a mountain called The Wank (German pronunciation: [ˈvaŋk]), a mountain in southern Germany, situated in the Loisach valley close to the Austrian border in the southwestern Ester Mountains range near Garmisch-Partenkirchen. In 2016, my wife and I were hiking on Wank with another family. We were in Germany to attend a wedding. John was at home with Bethany’s parents, and so we had added a few days to see as many of our old friends and favorite places as possible.
We had been living in America for five years, had become parents, and I had been ill for the past four years. I’d dropped down to 125lbs, and had trouble eating anything but the blandest food. I’d already had one surgery that didn’t resolve the issue, our two-year-old had never seen me eat a proper meal, and things were looking like this was my new normal. Bethany’s ‘tired, but determined’ look in the picture didn’t come from a brisk hike in a low range of mountains. It came from the journey through infertility treatments, adoption, and my illness, which had been our last five years. Added to that, I was spiraling into a profound identity crisis after leaving behind the world of international mission and replacing it with a job as a pastor at a local church. Hatching, Matching, and Dispatching was the sarcastic way a friend of mine described the job of a local minister. That was a far cry from my life in Germany.
In Ireland, and in other parts of the world that are still culturally Christian, the role of foreign missionary is still wreathed in mystique. It is in many ways the special forces of Christian clergy. In my culture, it had an extra layer of historic resonance. It was the mystic missionaries of mainland Europe who had brought civilization to Ireland, and then, in the Dark Ages, brought it back to mainland Europe. As an Irish missionary in mainland Europe, I was standing on the shoulders of centuries of my ancestors. There are few vocations in Ireland we venerate more than the mystic missionary, walking the earth to share the faith with strangers. But now I had given all that up to live in America, have a job, and a secure middle-class life. That crisis of identity was tearing my marriage apart, destroying me from the inside out, so two months after we returned from this trip, I quit my job and began a nine-month sabbatical to redefine this prioritized place. That journey is part of the reason you are reading this, and I am still alive.
In the next post, we'll explore the introduction to the paradox of Extrinsic/Intrinsic conflict in My Culture.
THIS IS NOT TRAINING. IT'S CALIBRATION.
Self-guided workbooks: $297 | Live coaching: $10,000 per series
They call me 'Sherpa' because I help people get to where they want to go. I can't promise you will have all your fingers and toes when you reach your summit. But you'll achieve it. If you're looking for easy, this isn't it. If you want transformation, start here: Sherpa Intro Tree — Bespoke Compass
— Robert (Sherpa) Millar | Bespoke Compass