Week 9 · Lesson 1
The Work
Eight questions. What you write is read by your facilitator and nobody else. Not your officer, not your school, not your family, and not in any report. Three of these you do not write down at all.
Week 9 of 23 · The Cycle of Trauma
Nobody reads this one. What happened in your house that nobody outside ever knew about?
Write one thing you do exactly the way somebody in your family does it, that you never chose. Then write whether you want it.
How does a family hand down what it hands down?
- A By telling you the rules.
- B By what you watched before you were old enough to know you were learning.
- C Through blood, so it cannot change.
- D It does not, everybody starts fresh.
What did your house teach you about what to do with pain? Write what actually happened when somebody in your family got hurt.
Nobody reads this one. What is on your family’s list of things everybody knows and nobody says?
Why is swearing you will never do something not enough?
- A Because you never really meant it.
- B Because it is a wish, not a plan. A plan is knowing what you will do instead and having practiced it.
- C Because you are going to become them anyway.
- D Because nobody can change.
Matthew opens with the family line of Jesus, and it is full of liars, schemers and worse. Why did God leave that list unedited?
- A Nobody noticed at the time.
- B To show He walked into a family exactly like yours on purpose.
- C To warn people about bad families.
- D It was a mistake in the record.
Nobody reads this one. What did you swear you would never do, and how close have you come?
Nothing you write here goes to your officer, your school or your family.
Defining Narratives · Week 9 Written work