What does (blank) Mean to You?

A friend of mine, whom I met for coffee this morn, is going through some intensive therapy, and so we often speak of various lessons he as learned as a result. Recently, his therapist spoke to him about "programs."  She told him that we are all running on various programs.  That is why we tend to replay similar situations in our life. For instance, we all know that one person that keeps dating all the wrong characters, all abusive (or insert other such character flaw). That person keeps running on the same program.

One way that his therapist has for identifying a person's programs is through a word association exercise.  Loving such exercises, I asked him to walk me through it. 

 

First, you pick a word, one that means a great deal to you, one that may be an end that you are striving towards.  He chose "love" when he did the exercise.  I, however, chose Clarity, as it has been an aim of my studies for a ridiculous number of years.

The next step is to write the first 5 words that come to your mind upon thinking of your chosen word.  My word Perception, Deception, Illusion, Clear, and Wholeness.  After writing these 5 words, you write 3 word or phrase associations.  From there you choose one of the three and write three more that you associate with that word.  At some point in this exercise, one of your words will refer back to one of the initial 5 words.  That word shows how you define your main word.  For me, as you can see from the photo above, I eventually wrote out the word "Whole" in response to another word.  This means that for me:

Clarity = Wholeness