Stories are how we discover ourselves. 

Is there a story inside you that you’ve never fully told? But that you know has the power to help others?

I keep going back to a story I’ve shared before, and the lessons from it continue. It’s a story about family and childhood, as our foundational stories usually are. 

My father was a long-time drinker who always choose alcohol over our family’s well being, including his own. After decades of living on the edge and taking us on that wild ride, he eventually hit bottom and made a commitment to quit. With an intensity in his sky blue eyes he told me, “Ames, I’m never gonna drink again.” I wanted to believe him, but it took a lot of years before I did. 

Of course, I didn’t understand addiction as a 14-year-old. I can only understand it by looking back. In my mind, the focus of this story is not the trauma of having an alcoholic parent. 

Self discovery is the real story. I’ve always considered it a miracle that he didn’t continue his path of destruction and made the hard climb back to life. The next-level transformation is that he actually stuck to sobriety for 40 years until he died at 86. He never relapsed. He never went to rehab again. If you have any experience with addiction, you know what a miracle that is. 

Why do I share this story? The reason is that it wasn’t just self-discovery for him, it also sparked transformation for me. Growing up through years of struggle and disappointment, I had become a die-hard cynic who didn’t trust anyone. Imagine dealing with that attitude on top of the usual teenage angst! 

All the adults in my life had told me, “People don’t change. He’ll never get his act together.” But after seeing his turnaround, I couldn’t hold on to the same worldview.

I saw real change in him as I became an adult, and felt a new depth in those blue eyes when he shared stories of his childhood and apologized for his past.  I got to know my father as a caring, funny, and charismatic person, and to share his love of music and the Colorado mountains. 

It changed my perspective forever. I was inspired to retrain my brain from constantly focusing on the negative to seeing possibility.  For example, I found a way to put myself through college after everyone told me it was impossible to afford. That changed the trajectory of my life by introducing me to people and opportunities I wouldn’t have known otherwise. 

I tell this story because people see themselves in it. If they share a similar experience, they get emotional or put their hand on their heart in empathy. It strikes something in their past. That’s the magic of telling stories. 

Every transformative story starts within. This exploration of our stories leads to expansion that you just can’t plan for. It may bust open what you thought about yourself, what you could do, and even what is possible.

This expansion is what I want for myself, for every transformational author, and for our readers, who benefit from our awakened expression. While we think our stories are about us, they are actually a catalyst for transformation. 

Your story doesn’t just belong to your past. It’s the key that could unlock self discovery for you as well as someone else.