For most of my life, I’ve lived a story, stories, really.

It’s not just one.

Lots of us do this.

I didn’t realize they were stories; they felt like indelible truths, reinforced by how I live, react, and show up.

A self-fulfilling prophecy of confirmation bias continues the cycle.

These “indelible” truths are the puppet strings that pull me in whatever direction they choose.  

These stories have kept me small, kept me from what I am, now in midlife, drawn to with a gravitational pull:

Potential.

I feel a desire to discover, understand, expand, and unleash my potential.  

I feel alive and aligned with the Hemingway quote,

“Go all the way with it. Do not back off. For once, go all the goddamn way with what matters.”

The first half of my life could have been measured in half-cups because so much of what I did was half-measures and half-steps.

It’s as though I spent the first half of my life trying to skydive partially.

The stories, those “indelible” truths, confined me to the ludicrous notion that I could partially skydive. They confined me because of what I believe awaits me if I properly skydive.

To as Hemingway said, “…go all the goddamn way with what matters.”

Unmitigated joy, peace, and freedom, all of which are natural by-products of what I believe is at the root of potential unleashed:

Authenticity.

When I envision going all in and what I know awaits me, I feel light and liberated; I feel unstoppable; I feel fucking bulletproof.

At this point, the stories weave their words and transform my desires into the unattainable, when moments before, I felt my desires in bones, reverberating through my soul.

What stories imprison me and pull the puppet strings of my life?

I am not enough.

I am not worthy.

I’m not enough to unleash my potential.

I’m not worthy of the beautiful experience that awaits me when I do unleash it.

I have many other stories, approval, and acceptance, and I’m not capable come to mind, but these two are, in Lord of The Rings vernacular, “the one Ring.”

I can, and won’t bore you with them, cite countless examples in my life where these stories dictated my actions.

I can also cite the countless consequences of these stories and identify that not one consequence had a positive effect.

I started journaling in prison; it’s a practice that 10 years later, I still rarely miss a day; it’s that important to me.

Last week, I journaled these two lines:

Nobody ever explicitly told me I wasn’t worthy.

Nobody ever explicitly told me I wasn’t enough.

The truth is unwavering in it’s simplicity.

No one ever uttered those words to me, yet I’ve operated from these beliefs as if they were the holy gospel.

Writing those two statements allowed me to see, with crystal clear clarity, that these are nothing but stories.

I wrote the counter to one of the beliefs, I am worthy, and then declared it to be truth.

My mind, operating from self-doubt and other stories came raging into the scene, asking,

“How do you know?”

“How is it quantifiable?”

“How can you possibly prove this?”

All valid points to my logical brain, but then intuition took over, and I asked myself a question:

Would I ever look at a newborn and say, “That child isn’t worthy”?

No fucking way. They are worthy and deserve a beautiful life, whatever shape it takes.

Stories, “indelible” truths aren’t intrinsic; they’re learned.

A positive or negative circumstance(s) happened when I was a child.

Regarding the positive circumstance, I did something, was applauded for it, and then felt I had to continue that behavior to continue to earn applause (approval and acceptance).

If the behavior isn’t authentic to me, and I continue it, I am living inauthentically.

The negative experience caused me to look within; whoever judged, criticized, or punished me couldn’t be wrong, so it must be me.

I must modify my behavior to ensure I win the approval and acceptance of others so I can survive.

Again, if the modified behavior isn’t authentic to me, and I continue it, I am living inauthentically.

For me, the underlying (hence the “one” ring) implications of either circumstance became:

I am not enough.

I am not worthy.

My existence became a matter of breathing life into those stories so I could grasp at being enough and worthy.

But now, at midlife, the call to potential and authenticity is growing stronger than the need to breathe life into stories that aren’t even mine.

The first half of my life in maintaining these stories was all about acquisition.

I realize now in the second half, it’s all about subtraction. It’s about stripping away all that’s not mine to discover what is.

It’s not easy.

I think where I and others get stuck is this:

We need to know who we will become without that story or belief before we let go of the story and belief so we can let go of that story and belief.

We need to know an unknowable outcome.

But that’s not how it works.

We must let go of our stories and beliefs and learn to live in the terrifying vacuum of not knowing who we are without those stories and our new identity.

Because it’s within that terrifying unknown that we discover who we are.

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