We are shaped by our past.
More importantly though,
we are shaped by
the stories we tell ourselves
about what our past means.
About who we are.
We can’t change what we’ve gone through.
But, we can alter our relationship to it,
and change it’s power over us.
We need to tell ourselves better stories.
Stories in which we become strong and free
rather than remaining prisoners.
Ones in which we are the victorious,
rather than victims.
Stories of new beginnings
and good days ahead.
In the telling (and living)
of better stories,
we take on the identity of alchemist,
transforming
the leaden history of our life
into gold.
In this new way of seeing,
past events are given a fresh meaning.
The question is not
what has the past made of us,
but what will we make of the past.
The power to renew and transform
resides within us.
Will we learn to heal ourselves,
and then administer healing to others?
Can past mistakes
become fountains of wisdom
rather than cesspools of shame?
Shall our cracked and flawed hearts be vessels
from which the perfection of love can flow?
The alchemic art
is rooted in the belief
that things can be
better than they are.
That worth can be called forth
from the humblest of substances.
Transformation is possible.
We are not who we were then.
Who we will become remains to be seen.
