By what truths do you live? By what truths do you understand who you are? Where do you invest your life during this brief time called life? Are you living the life that you want, or are you living someone else’s for them? By what point of reference do you make your decisions? The self stands at the core of being. It is the carrier of what the soul intends. This calling to peace in the inner self will not make your life easy or free of suffering nor will it win the praises of your friends or community, but it will fill your life with meaning, purpose and a general sense of the rightness of your life’s path. Storytelling has always been at the heart of being human because it serves some of our basic needs. We have the need to pass along our traditions and our heritage. We need to confess our shortcomings and failings. We need to find healing of present or past wounds. We need to be able to bring hope to a suffering world. We need to connect with a larger community. Living by example is another form of telling your story. Is the life that you are living the one that you intend others to know? It calls one to be who and what he or she believes. It requires that one has examined one’s motives, one’s intent, one’s values, one’s behaviors, and one’s words—really to evaluate everything. An unexamined life is a barren wasteland. There is so much to be discovered when one risks looking within. As a listener of another’s story, I may discover that someone else has a problem similar to mine, and as I hear its voices or read about it in another person’s words, I gain new insights into my own dilemma. Sometimes I hear, or read into, the person exploring resolution to his or her problem, and my own inner teacher is awakened. At the very least, knowing that someone else has a problem similar to mine, gives me a sense of not being crazy and alone. Because our stories make us vulnerable to having others want to fix us, or possibly, to be exploited by others, or maybe dismissed or ignored as trivial, we have learned to tell guardedly or not at all. Instead of telling our story, we talk about our opinions, ideas, and beliefs rather than about our lives. We discount our struggles as thought they are weaknesses to hide. I am convinced that neighbors, co-workers and even family members can live side by side for years, maybe even a lifetime, without learning much about each other’s lives. As a result, I believe that we lose something of great value. For in truly seeing another person, we are able to understand their situation, and we are able to have a fuller understanding of ourselves. All the tools that you need to write your story are within you. You were a witness to the events. You experienced them. You saw them happen. You felt them in your body. You have depth of emotions that go along with the events. The words are waiting for expression. Lord, help others to remember where they have been and how you have walked the journey of life by their side. Go into a silent place where you will not have any interruptions. Get comfortable and have a period of silence or meditation before beginning to write. 1. Identify the main periods of your life by age, topic, or time. 2. Detail the main events of the period and the elements that make up the plot of your personal story. 3. Include the physical, psychological, and spiritual highs and lows of each period. 4. Examine the major discoveries and the insights of each period or each event, which has caused you to move on your journey. 5. Indicate where you feel that your story has been significantly bisected by the Divine story. 6. What has been your experience of Christian or other faith community? 7. What feeds your soul? 8. What does your soul want now? My prayer for you is that you will have the courage filled with passion to being writing down your life story. I also pray that you will be blessed in the telling of your story as you witness to the love story between your God and you. I now invite you to begin the journey of writing your own unique story.