HeartSupport’s SWAT Training
3️⃣📖 Peer Modeling

Understanding Your Own Story

Complete & Continue Next Lesson Learn More

Looking at our stories

from a new lens.

Encouraging others requires us to understand our own story. When you learn to reflect back on your story, you understand which puzzle piece you can use to fit into the empty spaces that need to be filled.

We encourage you to take a couple of minutes and journal about 1-2 challenging moments that happened in your life. Journal about the pain and emotions that you experienced underneath each of those experiences, moments in time. You can journal on your phone, laptop, a piece of paper, or whatever feels most comfortable for you.

Examples of Journal entries

I used to be amazing at soccer. Now being a dad of four I’m not as good as I once was. I used to be on the third-best soccer team in the country and I was a goalie. I was really good at what I did and I was trained by the best. I played every day of the year. Whether it was practice, training, or a game. I was highly competitive until one day I got kicked off my team. For me, this was one of the most deflating moments of my life. My lifestyle changed in an instant and I lost a lot of friends in the process.

How I felt:

I felt embarrassed and ashamed of myself.

I felt as though I had done something bad.

I am bad, I don’t belong, I am not worthy.

I never belonged in the first place.

I felt like my purpose was being taken away from me.

I felt shock and humiliation.

I got waitlisted at the only university I applied. I was really smart and was a high school senior by the age of fifteen. In high school, I took many second-level college classes in high school to get as many college credits as I could by the time I graduated high school. I was really good at school and I felt like I was the bee's knees so when I applied for college I only applied to one school. I was certain I was going to get into this school so in my mind there was no reason to apply to other schools. When they came back and told me I was waitlisted. I hid not wanting to talk to others until the letter with the final decision came in the mail.

How I felt:

I felt a huge ego blow.

I felt like I wanted to hide.

I felt like I wanted to avoid conversations about myself.

I felt like I was branded as a loser.

I felt embarrassed.

I was deflated.