
Instructions:
Exercise: Your life story on a postcard
‘One of the things that I have learned is that there are life stories everywhere.’
Michael Kimball
How long is a postcard life story?
Michael Kimball’s postcard life stories are all under 600 words which fit neatly on to a standard 4” by 6” (c.10cm by 15cm) postcard – anything longer than 600 words and you risk missing the point of a life story on a postcard.
What do you need? An actual postcard or a sheet of A4 paper folded into a quarter. Also, a sheet of paper for your rough notes.
Try to condense your life and write your life story on a postcard
This is not a definitive guide but intended to help you find a starting point. Try scribbling down who and what you care about most and how the people around you have influenced your life. Make a note of some of the challenges you have faced in your life and what motivated you to keep going. Note down any emotions, bodily felt reactions, anything which feels important to you. Make a list of any defining moments, event or decisions which affected the course of your life. Don’t worry about how many words you use at this stage.
When you have some ideas to work from, try summarising them and putting them into some sort of order. Check how many words you have written – if you are using a word processor switch on word count so as you can check how many words you are writing as you go along. Then, when you are ready, grab a blank postcard and write your story on it. Don’t worry if you can’t fit it all in (you could always do a bit of editing and then write it again). The most important thing is to have a go at trying to convey as much as you can about yourself and your life in as few words as possible.
If you really can’t squeeze your entire life story onto a postcard, try concentrating on significant turning points, events or periods or focus on people who were an important influence on your life.
See what comes up for you? How are you left feeling? What emotions/feelings come to the surface?
(written in 2020)
My letter to Self:
Aged 4 injected with shame, over and over again for the next few years of my life. Darkness eating away at my core. My younger years framed with wanting to be seen and to hide away all at the same time. Trying to find a way to be lovable. The years went on, years shaped by feelings of filth, of worthlessness – constantly creating different false senses of Self, trying out which would earn me validation for anyone who would feign to give it.
Finally, 21 years later I found one that would stick – at least for a while - a man that would give me validation simply for who he was. Not for who I was - if I could bag myself a rugby turned NFL star, then I must be worth something. All 6ft 7 of him with status – a great hiding place for me to finally disappear. To be validated and continue to hide all at the same time. A year on, following him to NY, the glass from my photo frames – ones holding pictures of people who did not protect me, who denied my pain,- were being removed as I was sectioned into Princeton hospital NJ. 4.11 stone and I’m closer than ever to no longer having to feel such darkness, such filth. If I close my eyes, maybe, hopefully, they won’t open again. I’d starve the darkness eating away at my core, I’d starve my pain. I’d starve the shame. I would not eat.
Concealing kitchen weights in my underwear for weigh ins – discharge finally came and I was back to England, where my tiny frame was ignored… I realised, no matter what I did, there would never be a sense of self that was enough, deserving of love. Then she came. The heroine of the story. A therapist I would feel unconditionally loved by, who held me in my darkness, who allowed me to feel the pain; to know it was not my fault. It is not my shame. She is the reason I am now a mother, the reason I am now divorced from a man who needed me to hate myself, the reason I live and not survive, the reason I embarked on this journey to become a psychotherapist.
Have I found love again? No. But I have found myself. I met myself in the darkness and I have nurtured that little girl within me so that, the adult standing here today, knows she is loved. I am no longer alone because I have me and I am enough.

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