There was a story today on Fresh Air about a man who became an artist after a stroke. Before the stroke he'd been a chiropractor who occasionally doodled. Now he was a collectible artist with somewhat over 70,000 art pieces and counting. It seems the stroke had destroyed part of his left-brain, leaving him incapable of most linear thought. He now lived fully in the moment. Every day, every experience was absolutely new to him. Fresh. But also without context. There was diminished capacity to build a history of experience. The compulsive art-making, he said, was his brain's way of trying to explain his life to himself. Trying to make sense of it all. Taking the same materials, day after day, and re-ordering them. 

We all tell ourselves stories. All the time. We each have a personal mythology that explains for us why we behave the way we behave, why we are the way we are, why these shortcomings, why these strengths. How did I end up here?  

We are, none of us, victims. Things happen. Life happens. We have strokes, accidents, illness; people come into our life, people leave us. All without our permission. But what do we do with these happenings? What is our point of view on the facts of our lives? Are we in fear of financial insecurity or unhappy because we don't deserve? Or because our parents didn't love us? Or...

Are we successful because God loves us more than someone else, or because we're lucky, or because they haven't yet figured out who I am?

We move the facts of our life around, making different stories, or the same story, day after day. What story are we telling ourselves today? What is our personal mythology?

The Veda says we all are expressions of the one, divine whole and we have taken these individual forms in order for the one divine whole to experience the joy of reuniting with itself. We humans call this experience love. Self looks across at Self, recognizing itself. From this perspective, all these things of life are merely challenges to help us grow into our full capacity for love and unity. 

Our stories can be changed. And as our stories change, we can change. Even without a stroke.

Today I will rearrange the facts of my life, making sure to include the ingredient that I have been given life by a loving God, just to see what happens.