Heart Stories Part 4
August 14, 2025
Heart Stories Part 4
We call them Heart Stories because they do what facts alone cannot — they stir the soul. They captivate, awaken, and intrigue us with the question: What happens next? Heart stories aren’t just heard—they’re felt. They evoke emotion: excitement, longing, warmth, sadness, wonder, and hope. They are food for the heart because they are made of love. And just like the body, the heart becomes what it consumes.
When we nourish our hearts with stories of grace and truth, the heart grows strong in wisdom, resilient in grief, and authentic in love. It begins to forgive what once seemed unforgivable. It hopes in the face of despair. It embodies the virtues like Compassion, Courage, Humility, Truthfulness, Joy, and Giving.
But make no mistake—the heart can just as easily feed on poison. And when it does, it grows, but not healthily. A heart fed on resentment forgets how to forgive. A heart that consumes fear, beats with terror. A heart in a feeding frenzy of lust grows in dissatisfaction. A heart that drinks vengeance swells with fury. A heart fed on pride becomes bloated with self. A heart that consumes envy learns to despise. A heart that takes in false humility contains a growing hollow.
These poisonous heart stories have no redemption, light, or way back. They are also the lies that we tell ourselves in the dark, from our “intelligent” but spiritually shallow egos. These are stories where shame has the last word and loss is final. We call these stories “dark stories” that draw us into the shadows, lies, murderous ambitions, and retaliation. They can even be stories of self-hatred and destruction.
Everyone carries a predominant heart story, a deep narrative that shapes his or her beliefs. Every family does, too—traditions, spoken or unspoken, passed down like sacred scripts. Some stories come from the ego’s distorted perceptions. Others come from the soul’s ancient knowing.
The same is true of cultures. Every person, every nation, every collective of souls is living out a heart story. And those stories either nourish love or distort it.
In times of upheaval like these, when the old myths collapse and the new have not yet been chosen, we are starving for a new story that feeds our hearts with all good things. Goodness cannot be rooted in self-gratification at all costs, but we may indeed choose that. Goodness cannot be rooted in violence or fear, but those can be selected. Deceit cannot be goodness, even with brilliant distortion that makes it seem so.
Goodness, rooted in dignity, compassion, truth, and hope gives a culture a golden reason to exist. So, the question is this: What shall we feed our hearts on an individual level? Our individual choices of stories determine whether we feed ourselves poison or feast on spiritual food.
Spiritual practice: Decide your predominant story. How do you live it out? Is it working for you?
Self-inquiry: How do you experience our culture’s collective myth?
Dear God, Tell me a story. Amen
