- What broad patterns, if any, do you observe in your collection of memories?
- How is this material connected? Taken together, does it tell a single, overriding story? Is there a “plot” to your life?
- Which have been the main events in your larger life story? Which turning points, central characters, main themes?
- Which experiences that you have recalled have had the largest impact on your life?
- What character roles have you played in these stories? (e.g. leader, supporter, caregiver, mentor, advocate, teacher, encourager, mediator, patriarch or matriarch, steward, volunteer, defender, other)
- Have you tended to be a major character or a supporting actor?
- What “interpretations” have you placed on the events and experiences?
- How can the story be enlarged? Expanded? Deepened?
- How have you told your story? (e.g. vocabulary, tone, metaphors, recurring expressions)
- What new meanings (if any) can you discern in the events and experiences you have described?
- What do you learn from your story? What wisdom? What truths from the reading?
[Note: Some of these questions reflect the wisdom of Gary Kenyon and William Randall in their profound book Restorying Our Lives: Personal Growth Through Autobiographical Reflection. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1997. Specific credit to Chapter 5: “The Restorying of Our Lives,” pp. 132-134]