Note to Self #15: The Story You Believe Is Not the Whole Story

What you’ve been calling truth might only be the story you inherited.

Photo by ANHELINA OSAULENKO on Unsplash

It has taken me decades to arrive at this understanding: our perceptions are just that — perceptions. They are not absolute truths carved in stone. They are one side of the story, shaped by belief, experience, and limitations.

They are mosaics — what we’ve been told, what we’ve assumed, what we’ve absorbed along the way.

From these pieces, we form a narrative. A story about who we think we are. And we live by that story.

We believe it. We follow it — until something in us grows quiet enough, brave enough, to ask a different question.

Until we’re willing to look another way. Until we begin to listen — not only with our ears, but with our eyes, our heart, our whole being.

Until we stop believing there are parts of us that are too broken, too boring, too wild, too much.

And instead, we ask: What if I can have it all? What if there’s more?

That is when something shifts. The kind and courageous self steps forward. The wild, curious self awakens. The gentle self finally dares to be seen.

We begin to speak to our wounds differently. We begin to meet them not only as flaws to be fixed, not as burdens to be carried forever, but as parts of ourselves in need of care.

In need of time. In need of tenderness. In need of love.

We realise they don’t always want solutions. They want presence. They want us to sit beside them.

To listen. To hold.

To stop reaching for one more tool, one more theory, one more answer — and simply be there. To be there as love.

Our wounds are made of stories. And not all of those stories are ours. As long as we cling to what was handed down, the pain remains tethered.

But the moment we loosen our grip — the moment we begin releasing what was never ours to carry — something lifts.

The weight lightens. The body softens. The soul exhales.

It is time to let go of what the soul no longer claims. It is the time to let your wounds become your wings.