My Younger Selves

An invitation to notice the gifts our younger selves want to offer us.

Me at 15 years old, after track practice

My new book The Things That Saved Me: Breathing Light Into Our Stories will be released later this month and I am thrilled to share it with you. At its core, it is a story about noticing the gifts our younger selves want to offer us—beauty, strength, goodness, wisdom—and discovering ways these gifts can continue to breathe light into our stories now.

In writing this book, I was curious to explore what others had to say about their younger selves. So I started window shopping and was surprised by what I found. With almost every book I came across, the authors were looking to convey some sort of message—compassion, hope, wisdom—to their younger selves. To tell their younger selves something. There are a slew of books with similar titles: Letters to My Younger Self, Things I Would Tell My Younger Self, Advice For My Younger Self, Wisdom For My Younger Self.

You get the picture.

I didn’t do an exhaustive search, but in perusing this category, it didn’t take long for me to realize that my book wasn’t like the others.

I wasn’t trying to give my younger selves anything.

I was trying to get something from them.

Me at 18 years old, on the farm

I knew my younger selves had been through alot of hard things, and I was hoping I could channel their grit and determination to help me get through my current hard things. But in the process of revisiting the stories of my life so I could reunite with my resourceful and resilient younger selves, I discovered surprising threads of light, gifts my younger selves wanted to offer me, to illuminate my path forward.

I became cognizant that there are so many threads of light weaving through our stories, so many different ways our younger selves want to speak into our current realities, to offer us gifts, to breathe light into the hard stories we are living now.

May we let them speak. May we open our hands to receive the gifts they want to give us during these trying times.

May it be so.

Here’s to the journey,

Melynne