Time To Change Some Stories of Myself

We define ourselves, in part, by the stories we tell about ourselves. We choose certain aspects of ourselves and make them prominent by the way we privelege them in how we talk about ourselves to others -- and in our own internal dialogue.

Long-time friends may remember that several years ago one of the primary features of my story of myself was that I was a woman whose heart had been badly broken twice in quick succession, and who never expected to love again. One day, while making an entry here, I realized I was tired of that story. I didn't feel an active desire to be in a relationship again, but I knew I didn't want that to be my story anymore. I stopped telling that story to myself or to others.

Not too many months later, _storyteller_, with uncrowned_king looking over his shoulder, left his first comment on my journal, starting me on the road to not one but two amazing loves.

This morning I wrote an entry that at the last moment I decided to make private. It wasn't anything super-secret or extremely decliate. It was stuff I've posted about frequently before -- and that was the trouble. I realized that I was tired of telling certain stories about myself, tired of living certain narratives that trap me in pain and frustration.

I need to change some of my stories. It's time to stop telling the story of a woman with a Masters Degree trapped in a day job that gives her no satisfaction. It's time to stop telling the story of grief over my lover's death. It's time to stop telling the story of the reluctant mother.

It's time to start telling the story of the priestess and spiritual director and author. It's time to start telling the story of the woman who has been blessed with a love that transcends time and space and the material world. It's time to start telling the story of the amazing relationship I have with my terrific daughter.


Careful the tale you tell, that is the spell warns the Witch in Sondheim's "Into the Woods" -- and it's the truth.

The facts of my life are no different at this moment than they were two hours ago. But I'm telling a new story -- which means I'm creating a whole new world for myself to inhabit and I'm shaping a whole new destiny.



What stories are you telling about yourself?
Are you telling the story of the person you really want to be?

Synchronicity & Affirmation

I find it deeply affirming that right on the heels of the profound transitions and affirmations of the past week, I've obtained a book called Colliding Galaxies: The Universe in Turmoil.

When I was writing my stories of the Link, I made up the idea of colliding galaxies as a device to justify the stories I wanted to write: stories about a young woman moving between worlds and galaxies and finding her destiny as a mediator. I didn't believe that galaxies really collided. I thought that everything in space was moving out and away from everything else, with galaxies getting more distant from each other, not bumping into each other.

But galaxies do collide.

And I did grow up to become a Link between worlds.

And I married a king.

None of this happened the way I envisioned, of course -- but back in the late 1970's and early 80's I didn't have any frame of reference to frame the yearnings I felt except science fiction.


Why in the world (in all the worlds!) should I have the slightest doubt that I can become a successful spiritual director? I've already done the impossible stuff!

"A Breath Away"

I wanted to keep this. . .