Therapy is about our future and the stories of our past. We all have made mistakes, but don’t talk about each one. Our shames are put in a closet. The inside, non-public story is unique to who we are.

Everyone else’s understanding of our existence is incomplete. It lacks the private awareness of what we consider most genuine about how we came to the present moment. 

Accurate or not, the concealed individual we call “me” is who we find in the mirror. He is the person who must change.

The imperfect self-observations none of us can escape are the difference between your opinion of me (knowing less than everything and nothing directly inside of me) and my opinion of myself (having forgotten or blocked some of what you remember about me and can see in a way I cannot).

If you are astute, you might detect my blindspots. By definition, I am unaware of them.

We each possess a meaningful personal narrative, even if unwritten, unseen, untold, and unconscious. Our yarn sums up the events, actions, and inactions attached to our names, enlarged or reduced, decorated, and fashioned into a historical thread of our lives.

Some of our self-characterizations and conclusions are in error. That’s why Socrates directed us to “know thyself.”

We live with and live out the meanings embedded in our autobiography. They account for the inevitable repetition of old, unchanging interpretations that have governed us for decades. 

Any misunderstanding of ourselves leads to potholes, sometimes unseen and rarely escaped. A portion of the human race walks around them while another falls into them and crawls out. The most unfortunate, having fallen down many times, decide the climb up is too much trouble, believing they are safer in a trench than out of it.

A new saga must be written to avoid the jarring ruts and unfortunate repetitions we suffer to produce a more fulfilling and joyous time on the planet. If well done, the new vision of ourselves can offer pathways to the fulfillment we failed to pursue while in the grip of our longstanding understanding of who we are.

Without a fresh set of directions, we journey to dead-end destinations, the equivalent of serial bad vacations. With a redrawn picture of our behavioral highway, we open our lives to new possibilities and the reformation of our inner and outer selves.

Think of how a single individual might invent, modify, and reinvent himself, perhaps by altering his condemnation of himself or others and his education, occupations, assertiveness, friendships, fears, and matters of faith.

Our beginnings permit several ways of leading a life; most try a few that emerge within our youthful circumstances. The typical human course is to conclude that one of these works sufficiently to justify following it unaltered. 

Too often, they fail to read the “use by” date that comes with any attempt to solve human problems. A permanent solution, so they thought, had been found.

Some of those beliefs were derived from parental opinions and or demands on us and statements about us, right or wrong. Teachers and fellow students contributed, as did bosses and lovers throughout our lives. 

Without therapy, creating a vision of our existence and who we are is a do-it-yourself project. No rules exist to restrict or enlarge our behavioral choices except dedication to change. We can make and remake our character, principles, politics, and more. The next chapter of the story awaits this creation.

The world moves, and we need to reconsider and reevaluate all that is changeable inside us to keep up.

Start with what kind of person you wish to become, then ask what prevents metamorphosis, like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.

There are many versions of unfortunate personal stories. Some people inflate them to boost their ego, impress their friends, or both. They fake it to make it. For others, grudging injury can create a personal mythology and justify a decision to hide from the world.

Regardless of the truth of these opinions, one must proceed beyond them lest we spend all of life enraged or broken over losses and grievances.

No small number attribute life’s disappointments to themselves. Some of our fellows resist the idea that they might have misunderstood or misinterpreted the meaning of their particular life path and how they managed it. Recognizing you might have missed half your years discourages many from taking a backward look.

On the other hand, such an idea enlightens those who can summon courage and openness. They never considered that the design of their life (and the labels they applied to it) contributed to their current unhappiness. Recognizing a pattern of poor choices offers both sadness and the sunrise of a better future.

The souls who do this imagine a better time ahead, no matter their inability to relive their youth. Creating a new and more fulfilling path presents a hopeful opportunity.

As Emily Dickinson wrote:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all –

 

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –

And sore must be the storm –

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm –

 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –

And on the strangest Sea –

Yet – never – in Extremity,

It asked a crumb – of me.

===

The three photos are the work of the superb photographic artist Laura Hedien, with her permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

The first is a Vintage Truck on the Backroads of IL, 2022. 

Next comes Approaching White Shoal Lighthouse Near Mackinac, Michigan, 2023. Finally, Mass Ascension at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, October 2023.