What differentiates humans from all the other creatures on this planet is our capacity to tell and believe in stories. Don’t we just love a good yarn? That’s why we have books, and films, and TV, and before that there were storytellers that our ancestors listened to whilst sat around a campfire.

We also have our own stories which we carry around in our heads – where we came from, what defines ‘me’, where I am going. These stories shape our lives.

This may sound a bit new age, but the Universe is also telling us stories. The world we live in, the people we meet, the experiences we have, are all part of our story and have the propensity to shape it by pointing towards something that is different to our current course.

That is if only we could just slow down, clear the head of busyness, watch and listen.

Last night a friend told me a great story written by Paulo Coelho in one of his books, ‘Light Warrior’.

We are all, ultimately, beings of light. Without the sun we would not exist. And without this body, the soul would not experience.

As an aside, one of my favourite quotes taken from a commentary of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali says ‘ The soul does not love, it is love itself. It does not exist, it is existence itself. It does not know, it is knowledge itself’. To paraphrase Eckhart Tolle, we are here to allow the universe to experience itself.

So as Light Warriors we are here to experience, and the story goes that at certain times during our lives we come to a choice of two doors. Through one door is everything we have experienced in the past – we have done it, seen it, been there, and got the T-shirt. We know EXACTLY what is going to happen.

And through the other door, everything is totally new. We don’t know what it is going to be, what kind of experience is waiting. And there is a sign on this door which reads ‘Courage’.

The only guarantee is that both doors will have challenges; neither are plain sailing.

So my question to you is ‘what is your story so far, which door would you choose, and why?’