The Stories We Tell Ourselves

You may not realize it, but you have a story - a whole pack of them, really - about yourself and you tell them to yourself everyday. A few of them start with once upon a time, one or two may end and they lived happily ever after .... but most of them we don't even recognize as stories we've molded, edited and retold time and again.
The purpose of story is to explain, make sense of, find closure with, celebrate. It's through conscious creation of our versions of how things came to be and the way things are that the greatest power of storytelling comes into being.
That's where these old folktales are so helpful - they offer rich, archetypal images that we can use to play with the idea of who we are and who we wish to be. Nearly all the characters, settings, villians and problems are from time gone by and they can't be literal for us now. Their best gift is their ability to live only in our imaginations.
It's said that we can only change one thing - the way we respond to the what happens of life. We spend a great deal of energy acting as though we have control over our lives, but then something happens and the illusion is gone. Better to tell the story of how we can live with intention, define our path and move forward, knowing all the while that life will unfold as it wants to. Often, taking the steps along a path leads us exactly where we never expected to find ourselves. Much like the archer, the wood cutter, the handless maiden, the goose girl.
In Rumplestiltskin, the miller's daughter finds herself at the mercy of the king who expects of her something she cannot do. The lies of her father have trapped her and she is helpless to do anything. A magic man arrives - is it her tears that have summoned him? Would he have shown up anyway? She pays his price and he spins the straw into gold - this is a talent we all have, but too often overlook. She looked around the room and saw nothing but straw; he sees the stuff from which gold is made. Life can be like that. It's all in how you look at things, isn't it?
Lately, I've been bound up in the world of data and information, plans and goals, and had found myself in a dry, uninspiring land quite full of straw. I realize, now, that I'm surrounded by the stuff of which gold is spun and I might cry a little, at least enough to make the magic little man appear.