On Drawing a Life Map

I’ve been taking a brand development course from a creator and coach named Jera, whom I’ve followed for quite a while now. I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly my brand should be–if I’m going to be a public facing artist in these days I probably need one, and this creator is one I trust to give me a valuable tool.

She definitely didn’t disappoint (her Instagram account is @jera.bean if you think you could use help in the same area!). The guide is broken up into two documents, the first of which is forty pages alone. Jera asks in-depth questions and has journal prompts that are meant to help get to the heart of who you really are and what you bring to the table as a personality. I assume the second part (I haven’t opened it yet) will help take all of that information and turn it into a brandable story.

I’ve gotten stuck on an exercise in the first part. The next step in the course is to make a life map, an illustrated map of the major events in your life that may have shaped who you are, what you do, and how you think. I think this can be a really great exercise in the right circumstances, but I don’t think I’m in those circumstances.

I’ve tried to make these maps before for other things and what always comes out is my traumatic and negative experiences. Unfortunately those are the things that have, in my conscious memory, shaped me into who I am. The positive memories are harder to find even though I know they’re there. In fact, now I try to think of those intentionally more often than the bad experiences when I can, and when the opportunity to talk about my past arises.

But this exercise just brings out all the worst memories for me. The things that shaped me were, in no particular order:

• A flood that destroyed half my hometown and half my house

• My Alzheimeric grandfather living with my family as he mentally deteriorated

• My dad losing his job in the Great Depression and my family struggling to keep our house

• My brother and uncle being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan multiple times and understanding that, for months on end, their survival was not guaranteed

That’s just a sampling from before I graduated high school. I’m not trying to say I’ve had the worst life; there are people who have had it far, far worse than I have. I’ve been privileged beyond what I can even understand, even in these circumstances. I know my parents having the resources to take in my grandfather and eventually buy a house, or my family’s ability to put the house back together after the flood when so many other homes were fully destroyed and had to be demolished were absolute miracles that other people could not experience. But I also don’t discount the damage things like this did to my mind. 

It’s difficult to use this exercise to define a brand. I do not believe I am the things that have happened to me; rather, I am the choices I have made in the face of my reality. 

As I write this, I wonder if perhaps I should write my timeline in that way. The choices I made shaped who I am; the books I read, the things I learned, the ideas that informed my chosen path are the things that I believe matter. 

So, in no particular order, here are a few things I did to direct my own life:

• Chose to go to a liberal college away from my hometown where I knew no one and was away from all support systems after being homeschooled in a very small religious community for the majority of my life

• Moved to New York with no job because I was determined to find the place in the world that I belonged, and New York seemed as good a place as any to start

• Found the courage to end relationships with people who were hurting me or hindering my growth 

• Started this blog (which will hopefully land me somewhere closer to my goals)

Yes, I think that’s the mindset shift. It’s about what you choose to do with what you’ve been given, not about what life throws at you in the first place. I have survived, and I have thrived far more than others in similar situations, and that is due to luck and good choices. So I’ll keep my focus there and see what kind of brand story I can build out of that instead.