After learning about your worldview, you may want to go a little deeper and ask yourself some powerful questions. Here is a fun suggestion on how to dive a bit deeper into the ‘big story’ through which you make sense of your experience and world.
‘Stream of consciousness’ journaling
‘Stream of consciousness’ is a simple yet effective technique for digesting and deepening what you’ve learned, as well as for making new discoveries. This technique is sometimes used by writers to catch their inspiration and develop new ideas.
The technique entails that you simply write down whatever comes to mind, and you keep writing, without stopping. This kind of unfiltered processing of ideas and associations can give you new insights, and tends to make the experience of writing more enjoyable.
So write down what comes to mind, without thinking too much about it, and without being worried whether what you’re writing is good, important, or correctly spelled or formulated. There’s no need for telling an interesting story or being coherent in your narrative. All of that doesn’t matter for this exercise! Also, don’t be tempted to start reading back what you wrote, as it will diminish your writing momentum.
There’s no need or use here for judging yourself. And in fact, the more you can allow yourself to write whatever comes to mind, the more you’ll likely discover about yourself and your own worldview.
When you follow the stream of thoughts coming up ~ even if they appear irrelevant or silly ~ and you keep writing, you may start to get into a state of flow, almost as if the writing is happening by itself. Deeper or different memories, ideas, and associations may start coming to the surface. Enjoy!
The prompts
Below you’ll find some ‘prompts.’ These are beginnings of sentences, which you’ll write down, and then complete. Get a timer and give yourself around 3 – 5 minutes per prompt. After completing one, move on to the next. If you get stuck, you can ask yourself ‘why am I saying this?’ or ‘what else is there?’ And then write on.
- What I noticed when I took the worldview-test is…
- What I’ve learned about my own worldview is…
- The ways I see my worldview come to expression in my (daily) life is…
- The worldview I grew up with, and how this shaped my life, is…
- I went through a change of worldview when…
- When I look from a distance at this ‘big story’ that guides my life, I see…
- What I’ve learned about the other worldviews is…
Completion
Once you’ve completed all the prompts, take some time to slowly read back what you wrote and reflect on it. Any new insights emerging? Hidden patterns coming to the surface? Associations or memories you were not so aware of? Take another few minutes to write down what you’ve noticed in reading back and reflecting on your own words.
And make sure to be happy with what you’ve written! These are your honest thoughts and words. Compliment yourself for making the effort to put them unto paper, and learn more about your own worldview!