The Stories We Tell

I want to take a little time to share with you one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in life. I wrote a poem to help illustrate and express this thought for you.

“Journal of Dreams”

In my Journal of Dreams, the ink smeared across my page before it even had a chance to dry. Hope for the future, replaced with a cynical tale repeatedly told by the mind. I read it over and over, analyzing every angle I can find, then I rewrite it slightly different every—wasting time. Persistently spiraling down in circles nearly blind, this is where the joy and magic slowly begin to die. The vastness of my world closes in, whenever I allow myself to become a victim. Here I was, tightly contained, in a cell that I continually maintained, crowded with imperfect people, throwing blame, all unable to escape our pain. Visitors would come and hear the same stories until it grew old and they would walk away. I would stare looking out past the bars, to the patch of California I could see, even it had turned gray in my misery. One glory filled morning, aware, I was in-between a dream and reality. In that peaceful space, I was given divine clarity. The only one imprisoning me, was me. I had been haunted by ghosts of my past, who lived there only in my memories. The key out of our mental prison has always been within our reach. We just didn’t know, that we could set ourselves free.

-Kaden

I am living in control of my story now and want the same for you. There is a great power in knowing that you choose when your sentences end, there is no life sentence. You just need a new period for your new chapter to begin.

Allow me to give you this little gift-      .(period)

As you can see, the negative stories we tell ourselves can undermine the great things we can be doing right now. The reason wise and successful people say “there are no mistakes” is because they realize that your struggles are the best opportunities. When you struggle or feel you’ve failed, ask yourself “What can this teach me?” and “What do I need to learn to move on?”.

When you are growing you are only gaining, not losing anything. You can attain so much insight from your failures that they transform into lessons. These lessons can then lead you to future successes and thus become an important part of your journey. The past cannot harm you unless you allow it to. You are so much more than a word, a sentence, a paragraph, a page… You are writing more of your story with every breath you take.

Even if your story feels like a tragedy, you have the opportunity to turn it into a triumph and that is the kind of story we all want to read.

Keep writing.