“When the stories of our life no longer bind us, we discover something greater.” Jack Kornfield

I read the above quote this morning in a Science of Mind Magazine article and I was struck deeply by it. It’s not that I haven’t heard this before, but it registered at a deeper level this morning.

How many of us have stories? I know I have lots of stories from the past and even up to yesterday. If we’ve lived, we all have stories. What if stories were just that – stories or experiences that we have had. They are not us. We are something greater that cannot be bound by anything – not any experience or story or anything that we’ve ever told ourselves or that anyone else has said to us. We are free.

We are free because we get to choose in every moment. What if we were the ones who created those stories to assist us on the path of life. Our stories would take on a whole new meaning. And now, we get to let them go. If we created them, we can let them go.  We’ve learned what we needed to learn from them and we get to let them go.

We get to choose what we accept and what we reject. We get to choose to be open or be closed. We get to believe something or not to believe it. Just the other day, I had someone tell me something that I should be feeling at my age. I get to believe that or not ro believe it.

If we could let go of all our stories and bring ourselves to this moment, realizing that our stories are just that – stories, we could open ourselves up to something greater. It makes so much sense that it is our stories that hold us back. They hold us back because we allow them to limit us, keep us stuck in the past, and to dictate to us who we are by believing we cannot change.

As I think about the stories of my life, I realize something. I had all these experiences so I could finally become me. Those stories assisted me in bringing out my true nature. These stories actually aided me while they were taking place, but they do not assist me anymore. It’s time to cut loose. My stories are my history. I can respect my history and still let go of my stories.

“When the stories of our life no longer bind us, we discover something greater.” Are we ready for that “greater?” I am always ready for the greater.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita