Believing Our Own Stories

Jeff Stanford, “The fragrance of memory.”

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In a sense, in order to really change, in order to transform, we have to let go of who we believe we are, and I mean in the sense that we believe our own story of how we were wounded and how we were traumatized. And that that woundedness, rather than breaking our heart open, makes our heart close up tightly early in life. We couldn’t protect ourselves. We were vulnerable in the extreme, and therefore we all get wounded, and that wound lives in the heart.

They also say that after we’re wounded, the ego forms to protect us from ever feeling that sense of deep wounding and the verge of annihilation ever again. But later in life, what originally protected us, such as the attitudes and the practices of the ego, become the thing that will shatter and limit our lives unless we learn to let go.

So, there’s all this gold hidden within that’s the core of so many stories found around the world. There’s the fact that life will break us down and break us open.

…what we really need to do is change and transform if we are to grow, if we are even to sustain ourselves and if we are to find meaning and purpose in a path with heart.

~ Micheal Meade

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