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Unravel the Story You Tell Yourself, and Discover the Story You’re In

Here’s a lovely poem by my good friend Mark Nepo — a poem that makes me wonder what I’m missing because of my incessant need to “steer the plot” of my life.

Mark’s poem reminds me that if I’m willing to let go of the wheel for a while, I might learn more about “the story I’m in, the one that keeps telling me.”

“Understory”
by Mark Nepo

I’ve been watching stars
rely on the darkness they
resist. And fish struggle with
and against the current. And
hawks glide faster when their
wings don’t move.

Still I keep retelling what
happens till it comes out
the way I want.

(Excerpted from The Way Under the Way: The Place of True Meeting. Read the full poem here.)

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