Life is a continuous cycle of births. Imagine yourself as made up of three parts. One part arrives at birth and never changes, the eternal self. At that level, you are eternal, and throughout your life you recognize that unchanging self in the midst of developments, a quintessential star ever shining in the deep interior of the soul. A second level is so completely defined by events and environment that it changes all the time. This is the self that tries to survive and thrive in the everyday world, the practical self. Yet a third level is the caterpillar-and-butterfly part, the unfolding self. This self is always becoming, always evolving, unless it is blocked, and goes through deep transformations. It is the go-between that links the eternal with the everyday.

FOUR: Accompaniment

“After the illuminating gaze, accompaniment is the next step in getting to know a person.

Second, you can try “This Is Your Life.” This is a game some couples play at the end of each year. They write out a summary of the year from their partner’s point of view. That is, they write, in the first person, about what challenges their partner faced and how he or she overcame them. Reading over these first-person accounts of your life can be an exhilarating experience. You see yourself through the eyes of one who loves you.

The third thing I’m asking myself as people tell me their stories is: What’s the plot here? We tend to craft our life stories gradually, over a lifetime. Children don’t really have life stories. But around adolescence most people begin imposing a narrative on their lives. At first there’s a lot of experimentation. In one study, for example, McAdams asked a group of college students to list the ten key scenes in their life. When he asked the same students the same question three years later, only 22 percent of the scenes were repeated on the second list. The students were in the early process of understanding the plot of their lives, so they had come up with a different list of episodes that really mattered.

There’s one more thing that happens as I listen to life stories. I realize I’m not just listening to other people’s stories; I’m helping them create their stories. Very few of us sit down one day and write out the story of our lives and then go out and recite it when somebody asks. For most of us it’s only when somebody asks us to tell a story about ourselves that we have to step back and organize the events and turn them into a coherent narrative. When you ask somebody to tell part of their story, you’re giving them an occasion to take that step back. You’re giving them an opportunity to construct an account of themselves and maybe see themselves in a new way. None of us can have an identity unless it is affirmed and acknowledged by others. So as you are telling me your story, you’re seeing the ways I affirm you and the ways I do not. You’re sensing the parts of the story that work and those that do not. If you feed me empty slogans about yourself, I withdraw. But if you stand more transparently before me, showing both your warts and your gifts, you feel my respectful and friendly gaze upon you, and that brings forth growth. In every life there is a pattern, a story line running through it all. We find that story when somebody gives an opportunity to tell it.