Your Story Doesn't Just Matter. It Creates Matter.
I just wrapped up an incredibly fulfilling weekend as the keynote speaker for the American Brain Tumor Association's 2025 National Conference, and something has become crystal clear to me: it is in sharing my story that real joy lives.
Standing before hundreds of survivors, caregivers, and advocates, I felt that familiar surge of purpose that comes when vulnerability meets community. But this time, something deeper clicked into place. A realization that has been building for months finally crystallized into absolute clarity.
The Paradox of Happiness
I am well aware that happiness isn't a destination or something we "achieve" but simply an emotion. Yet it does feel like a place we can inhabit at times, and maybe that paradox holds the key to everything we've been missing about transformation.
When we focus on getting to happiness, we create the very resistance that blocks its natural flow. We transform a state of being into a goal to be conquered, and in that transformation, we miss the present moment where happiness actually lives.
Instead, I have discovered something profound: the more I share my struggles, the more I heal not only myself but everyone I encounter. Vulnerability becomes a bridge between souls, creating space for authentic connection and mutual recognition of our shared humanity.
From Story to Matter
I used to think my story didn't matter. Now, I am starting to wonder if it's all in my story that the "matter" is created.
This realization strikes at the heart of conscious creation. We are not passive recipients of life's circumstances but active authors of our reality. Every story we tell ourselves, every narrative we choose to embrace or release, literally shapes the matter of our existence.
Alan Watts understood this when he wrote about the fundamental illusion of separation. We believe we are isolated beings observing a world "out there," but in reality, we are the universe experiencing itself subjectively. Our consciousness doesn't just observe reality. It creates it.
Joseph Campbell revealed this same truth through the hero's journey. The stories we tell aren't just entertainment or meaning-making devices. They are the very structure through which transformation occurs. When we step into our story, when we claim our role as the hero of our own journey, we literally reshape the world around us.
When we believe our story doesn't matter, we unconsciously create a reality where we remain invisible.Our voice carries no weight. Our experiences hold no transformative power. But when we recognize that our story is the very substance from which our reality emerges, everything shifts.
We begin to understand that consciousness creates matter, not the other way around. Our thoughts, beliefs, and stories are not mere mental constructs but the fundamental building blocks of our lived experience.
The Alchemy of Sharing
This is why sharing our struggles becomes so transformative. When we speak our truth, we give form to previously invisible experiences. We transform internal chaos into external coherence. We alchemize pain into purpose, confusion into clarity, isolation into connection.
My brain cancer diagnosis wasn't just something that happened to me. It became the catalyst for discovering that impossible is optional, that hope isn't a passive wish but an active strategy, that we are far more powerful than we've been conditioned to believe.
The quantum field of possibility responds to the stories we tell with unwavering precision. When I shifted from "my story doesn't matter" to "my story creates matter," I stepped into my role as a conscious creator.
The Power of Community
What shows up when we take the brave step into our story is community.
I am grateful to and for all the wonderful thriving survivors I met this weekend. We all hold the beacon of hope and bravery, choosing trust over fear to truly share that impossible is just a word.
This is the magic of authentic storytelling. When one person has the courage to share their truth, it gives everyone else permission to do the same. Your vulnerability becomes their invitation. Your healing becomes their hope.
The Ripple Effect of Breakthrough "Mistakes"
If you haven't already, I highly recommend looking into donating, volunteering, or simply advocating for the American Brain Tumor Association. Finding a cure for GBMs and other brain tumors begins when we provide funds to researchers and doctors to explore and make scientific breakthrough "mistakes" that save lives.
History is filled with these beautiful accidents that changed everything:
Penicillin was discovered when Alexander Fleming accidentally left a petri dish uncovered, leading to contamination that revealed the antibiotic properties of mold
Pacemakers were invented when Wilson Greatbatch grabbed the wrong resistor while building a heart rhythm recorder
Chemotherapy emerged from studying the effects of mustard gas on soldiers during World War II
Viagra was originally developed to treat heart conditions but revealed unexpected benefits during trials
X-rays were discovered when Wilhelm Röntgen noticed a fluorescent screen glowing from an unknown type of radiation
Each of these "mistakes" has saved millions of lives. What breakthrough mistake might be waiting in the next research grant? What life-saving discovery might emerge from the next funded study?
The Natural Evolution
I am excited for what is coming. I feel the momentum building, and I am doing my best to let go and let things naturally evolve. I tried forcing things before and haven't ever seen anything good come from it.
There's profound wisdom in this surrender. Force creates resistance. Pushing creates pushback. Grasping creates scarcity.
But when we align with natural flow, when we trust the intelligence of life itself, when we become co-creators rather than controllers, magic happens. We move from efforting to allowing, from demanding to receiving, from forcing outcomes to dancing with possibilities.
The H.O.P.E. Algorithm in Action
This entire journey embodies the H.O.P.E. Algorithm:
• Hyper-Aware: Recognizing that our stories create our reality • Open-Hearted: Sharing our struggles with vulnerability and courage
• Persistent: Continuing to show up authentically, even when it feels risky • Empowering: Using our story to give others permission to embrace their own power
• Persistent: Continuing to show up authentically, even when it feels risky • Empowering: Using our story to give others permission to embrace their own power
Your Story Creates Everything
The momentum you feel building is your story coming alive, your matter taking form, your reality responding to the new narrative you've chosen to embody.
You are not waiting for happiness to arrive. You are creating the conditions for joy to emerge naturally. You are not forcing transformation. You are allowing evolution. You are not pushing against life. You are flowing with it.
This is the art of conscious creation: knowing when to act and when to allow, when to speak and when to listen, when to share your story and when to let it unfold in silence.
Your story matters because you matter. And you matter because your story creates the very matter of your reality.
Every time you've felt broken, you were cracking open to let more light in. Every time you've felt lost, you were finding your way back to center. Every time you've felt like you were starting over, you were spiraling deeper into your own truth.
You're not broken. You're not behind. You're not separate from the source of your own healing.
You are the story. You are the matter. You are the conscious creator of your own reality.
Hope isn't a passive wish. It's a strategy. And your story is the blueprint for that strategy's manifestation.
Learn more at beyondhopeproject.com
