Transform The Story That Limits You

A poetic meditation on the unseen stories that shape us. Through imagery, reflection, and stillness, this piece invites you to rewrite your inner narrative—to become the storyteller of light, tenderness, and truth. Let it guide you into the quiet doorway where your new story begins.

Transcript

This week is titled Writing a story we want to live in changing the way we see.

I saw a man once waiting at a bus stop wearing a faded brown trench coat standing in a shaft of light pouring between two weathered stone buildings.

His eyes were closed and his hands they were open like bowls catching the sun.

I quietly watched the mysterious and beautiful display of what looked like prayer and praise on the side of a busy downtown street at eight o'clock in the morning.

After a few moments he opened his eyes and seeing me watching told me we receive vitamins from the sun best from the skin of our palms.

I had never heard this before and I couldn't know if his words were true but I loved his story and how he wore it in the tawny light.

I loved how he stood unabashedly receiving what he knew was good.

His story sounded like a person in love with their body and life spending careful deliberate time connecting with and absorbing what is naturally given and most often unnoticed.

The story he was choosing to govern his life at this moment was the kind of story that makes me feel wide and generous.

It doesn't have to be proven or fact.

The stories I long to live in and besides are the ones that when heard make my body feel like it's blooming.

I imagined a world where everyone believed this man's story about the sun and stood eyes closed in the early light on every street corner and in every doorway drinking sunlight with their palms.

What a beautiful thing to behold.

A world pausing every morning to receive.

Whether aware or not we are made of story which means we are also storytellers actively participating in creation.

We must be wise and artful with what lines we contribute and what stories we carry into every room.

If you were to crack open the door of our beings you will hear the tune of all we've been through and the tales we've told ourselves about it.

You could sense the sounds and the atmosphere we matured in.

We are each walking around with this muffled song under our skin and you can hear it faintly if you put your ear close enough.

When our innocence inevitably meets the wounded we absorb the sound,

The feeling,

And the story of the particular wound.

Our experiences can cause tremendous suffering but it's not what we go through that is problematic even if entirely painful.

It's the words we use and the story we tell about it that often causes repeated discomfort long after the moments pass.

We swallow pain like stones until we can finally find a way to spit them out and croak our story.

Hopefully one that serves our body and the life that will live through us.

We must confront and actively work with how we hold and perceive our life.

The thing with writing a new story or healing the stories we have inside is they need to be allowed and invited into the room with us.

We must see them and admit how they are influencing everything we do.

When I'm in the process of writing something my hips will inevitably begin to throb,

Sometimes my chest and back too,

As if a corset tightens with each step I take towards the edge of myself.

I will share my voice,

My seeing,

And my story with the world soon and my body recoils as if to ask,

Are you sure you want to do this?

Attempting to love another can seem like this too,

Cautioning that feels like something's binding my throat and my hands.

There is a story inside me,

One I'm not sure I willingly chose,

That believes life is unpredictable,

Painful,

And should be avoided.

The story running says it's best to withdraw from public displays of yearning or questioning and not show anyone your broken and healing heart.

There is a life hidden inside each of us that wants to claim a different story,

But doesn't know how to safely begin to write something new,

Something other than the torment they feel confined to.

Wayne Dyer said,

When you squeeze an orange,

You always get orange juice.

What comes out is what's inside.

The same logic applies to you when someone squeezes you,

Puts pressure on you,

Or says something unflattering or critical,

And out of you comes anger,

Hatred,

Bitterness,

Tension,

Depression,

Or anxiety.

That is what's inside.

If love and joy are what you want to give and receive,

Change your life by changing what's inside.

In other words,

Change the stories that live in you.

Impossible,

You might lament.

These stories,

They're forever grooved into the wood of my body.

They're not going anywhere as they're a part of me.

To which I will say,

Indeed,

They are a part of you.

What happened and continues to happen is part of the forever turning wheel of time.

But I will ask you this.

With what you have been given,

Are you writing a story that you do or don't want to live inside?

When you are squeezed,

Is it sweet sap that spills out or something pungent and soured?

I ask only because I have just started to sweeten myself.

My stories are changing their sound.

I can tell because when I'm squeezed,

It tastes more and more like juice instead of hopelessness,

Despair,

Resentment.

Fear squeezes and I'm standing in the doorway catching light in the bowls of my hands.

I dare to love more intensely and share my voice more urgently than ever.

And I find in agreeing to open my mouth and speak of beautiful things,

No matter the initial shock or state of my perceiving,

The stories that threaten my life are being liberated and retold.

I'm starting to see symmetry and possibility where only lifeless fields existed before.

My story's protagonists are melancholy,

Anxiety,

Anger,

Inertia,

Which is really just a sluggishness and apathy,

Fear,

Fraud,

And perfectionism.

They are some of my most active tendencies for me and they float around in my body most days and if squeezed will come out for me inevitably and luckily so because it allows me to taste the waters I've been living in.

Grace is in every reckoning.

At least that's the story I'm choosing to believe.

And this story is responsible for providing the safety and incentive I need to embrace my humanity.

If I believe grace is in everything,

The rugged and beautiful,

The frightening and groundless,

The love and the loss,

The quaking heart afraid of shattering,

The estranged and the dislocated,

If grace is at the center of the story,

How might I approach myself differently?

How might I begin to see nothing is against me and that there is no enemy other than how I choose to see things.

My fear of death has really become the story of my quest to love everything urgently and to abandon the notion of safety.

My moments of dispiritedness and depression have become the story of my quest to make space for daily rest,

Slowness,

Time to catch up with my feelings.

My moments of anxiousness have become the story of my quest to surrender my control and listen to the room's quiet more often,

To find joy in the body so vital and quaking.

My anger is the quest to speak my need in a way that it sounds like love,

Not hate.

My inertia and the constant feeling that every room is kind of pitched in an uphill climb is the story of my quest to accept the perpetual creative nature of life and the pressure that comes with being alive and in constant movement.

And my perfectionism,

My worries of being a fraud,

Are really just the story of my prodigious appreciation for my life and my desire to offer all I can to this feast.

You see,

Everything is good.

I develop these tendencies to respond to painful,

Hard-to-be-with experiences in people,

But still I have pivoted from victimized to empowered,

From hurt to active,

Awake,

Fluid,

And forgiving.

Every pain when turned on his head is a flower looking for the light,

Petals just dying to open and see their shades and hue.

Your life doesn't have to stay in an undeveloped script and storyline.

You can challenge yourself to write poetry with your days.

You can make art of yourself.

Painting is a way of reflecting on life and reflection is more active than simple contemplation.

It is the manifestation of a will to discern reality,

To dig into it,

To collaborate in its discovery,

And then its understanding.

To paint is also to create reality.

Antony Tappes.

So your why,

My why,

Is to tell the stories that make our life meaningful,

To create reality,

And not a partial,

Lopsided fiction,

But one that includes sweeping brushstrokes of compassion,

Forgiveness,

And wholeheartedness.

I'd love to just go a little deeper with our seeing now and close our eyes and let all this storytelling catch up to us.

I'm breathing deeply,

Breathing gently.

I'm just switching gears for a moment.

Two people can stand in a field and look at the same tree.

One will only see what is broken,

What is lacking,

While another sees its vitality,

Its beauty,

Its shapeliness.

There is no difference in the capacity of those people,

Of the one seeing,

Other than one has trained themselves to look at life in a way that encourages the best qualities to come forth.

Let's just connect with our own bodies.

As if beholding ourself as a tree,

A tree of life,

A thing of beauty.

Just noticing how natural or unnatural that feels.

I think so often when we land inside of ourselves there's this bittersweet mixture of love,

Love in not-so-kind ways,

Love and criticism.

Depending on the light of day,

We are either seeing ourselves painted in golden light,

With crown of leaves,

Or we're seeing the broken and brittle pieces of ourselves.

We're either seeing the story of our beauty or the story of our shadow and our pain.

Now if all of this is perfect,

Just the way it is,

If there is no way to live without either part,

Either voice,

Either story,

If we are held together by grace,

With all our contradictions,

How could we learn to see all of ourselves,

All of our stories,

As beautiful and okay and accepted?

The story changes once we begin to rest inside of ourselves differently.

When we have chosen to stand beholding the tree of our bodies and our beings,

Looking for the beauty of the complexity,

Naming what is good,

What is healthy,

What is beautiful.

We will undoubtedly be given the pen to write a story of pain,

Or a story that includes wonder and compassion,

One that acknowledges both the pain we feel but ends with us placing it in the golden light of the sun.

This hurts,

But I will not remain hurt,

But I will use my will to tenderize this.

I think so often pain comes in and it's left as pain,

One-dimensional pain,

Pain that sits and lingers in our body.

But if when it comes in,

We pause to change the way it lingers in the water of us,

If we become generous and wide and kind,

We too will be the person standing in the field saying all the things we found beautiful about the tree.

If when squeezed you want to taste like juice,

You must know what's being asked,

And graciously mold your life,

Mold the stories of your life.

In order to do this,

According to Hawaiian elders,

They say there is three spiritual directives.

One is love all that you see with humility.

Two is live all that you feel with reverence.

And three is know all that you possess with discipline.

You can open your eyes again if you'd like.

So if you find one day you're swimming in the impermissible,

And you reach for a pen to write,

And you look for perspectives that uplift and fortify your spirit,

Or you place a hand on your heart and you march out into the wilderness,

Refusing to be immobilized.

Or when pressure comes,

You pause and you say,

Thank you for the opportunity to create and know.

Thank you for the opportunity to create anew.

You are becoming so very wise in your actions and storytelling.

And your body will begin to perfume an aroma that says,

This home is cared for.

This story has been seen,

Loved,

Counseled,

Pruned,

And assisted.

This life,

Which is my story,

Is cherished and precious.

Even if you find yourself knee-deep in mud on this breath,

It's worth saying,

There is beauty in this corner of the field.

I can smell wild oregano and mint,

And the sun is warming me on the left side of my face,

While my right side feels cold and alone.

Just ensure you see the beauty wafting to you on warm southern winds,

While nursing and loving the places still in the shade.

The story we tell eventually falls like a sandcastle into the sea.

But while we are here,

It's best we let our life be a generous and kind collection of words.

Words that witnessed and made sense of that one sunrise inside ourselves.

That great heartbreaking dawn.

That is worth something.

At the end of your life,

You will joyfully say,

I saw this.

I felt this.

I cried for this,

And I am proud to have spent my years here loving what is,

From every angle,

Vanquishing nothing,

Owning everything,

And calling it by its most true name.

The undeniable story of love.

I'll look for you in the streets,

Hoping to find you,

Eyes closed with your hands outstretched,

And your body finally open to warmth.

I'll imagine a world where everyone stands on street corners,

Pausing to remember what is good,

What is beautiful,

What is given,

And what is ours.

I will write the story I want to live.

And I hope you do too.

Thank you for listening.

I love and appreciate you.

Reviews

Just what i needed today! Especially since I’ve been stuck writing my literal story (memoir) in a very difficult chapter. Will return to this beauty again and again - and Sarah just a note - each morning, when there is sun entering the apartment, my cat and I have a ritual where she shows me the sunny spot, I congratulate and thank her again and again, and then play the Beatles Here Comes the Sun and sing it along to her while she rolls on her belly in sheer delight and continues to do her little dance in the “sun sun”. So i very much appreciate your story of the man with cupped hands to the sun. Thank you

A perfect message for the liminal space in which I find myself today.

So so so beautiful and inspiring! Thank you for the alternative perspective on how we understand our lives and difficult experiences.

I internalize more with every listen and commit to rewriting my stories with compassion and love. Thank you Sarah!

Addressing the inner story is so important to living your truth

So much wisdom in here. Will continue to listen and journal from this one! Forever grateful for you and your big wise heart ♥️

Sarah is an angel poet sent from the heavens to help me heal my angry, fearful heart. “I will write the story I want to live in. This hurts, but I will not remain hurt. This was hard, But I will not remain hardened. I’m afraid, but I’m with my fear.” Thank you, dear Sarah for sharing your magic.

Wow. Thank you so much for allowing me to tap into myself so incredibly, your words exploded my heart. You really enable people to transform their thinking. My baby girl woke at the end of this meditation and I had the most beautiful interaction with her. Thank you for that presence.. I’m going to drink some more sun <3

Thank you, Sarah. This is exactly what I need right now 🙏

So thankful for this gift of you, Sarah, for reflecting back this gift of me. 💞

Deeply touched. Wish I could remember every word. Thank you Sarah. I will be back to listen to this time and time again.

As always, I bring tears to my eyes you help me heal in the past few years from an awful experience, but I have grown from it, and I will stand with my palms open from here on in

Thank you for helping me see potential in an impossible situation 🙏❤️

Thank you Sarah for your beautiful work. Your dedication to educating while articulating a lesson in every script that activates new perspectives on life is such a treasured blessing.🙏

Magnificent. This is my favourite track from this treasured soul ✨️

Thank you Sarah. I love you and your heart intensely.

Thank you! Even though I am afraid, I am with my fear.
Thank you.

Anxiety to letting go of control.
Inertia to an opportunity to create.
Thank you so much for this. I am going to work on making art of myself.

Wow!!! Simply incredible! Resonated with me fully. Thank you for sharing! 💜

Wow. This was so incredible. Brought me to deep tears & has shined a light in my life that I needed so desperately. Forever grateful 🫶 I do not want to live in the shadows of my pain any more. I will re-write my story.