This is Your Life

Some of you might remember a classic TV program called This is Your Life.  The host Ralph Edwards would surprise a guest, and then bring on various people to tell anecdotes and stories about their lives. The idea for this came to Edwards while he was working on the radio show Truth or Consequences. He had been asked by the U.S. Army to "do something" for paraplegic soldiers at a hospital in a Van Nuys Army rehabilitation hospital.

Edwards chose "a particularly despondent young soldier and hit on the idea of presenting his life on the air to integrate the wreckage of the present with his happier past and the promise of a hopeful future." Edwards received such positive feedback from the capsule narrative of the soldier on Truth or Consequences that he developed This Is Your Life as a new radio program. The program was later adapted for television with great popularity. Edwards would have a  big red book and narrate the biography of his guest, while bringing on family members, friends, and others who had had an impact on his or her life, or how the guest had an impact on them.

We can use the This is Your Life format to tell the story of our lives by interpreting it in the best possible light. Some may say “that’s just rose-colored glasses!” Well, yes, it is. Since our lives are just how we view them, why not rose colored rather than muddy brown?

We want to look through affirmative lenses at positive accomplishments and relationships. Imagine your guests – real or imagined – who tell about your victories, challenges overcome, healing, or the positive impact you had. Sort of “It’s a Wonderful Life” kind of view.  I doubt the program would have been very popular if it only showed someone’s mistakes, failures, and broken relationships. Like “This is your horrible life.” We can usually do that on our own.

Right now, think of someone who would champion you. Think of someone whose life was touched by you, your actions or words. This is your true life.
We are continually writing the story of our lives by our thoughts and words, and by our responses to whatever life brings us. Metaphysical beliefs teach that what we see “out there” comes from what’s going “in here” – that thoughts, beliefs, and interpretations are creating the experience of our lives. Our lives – past, present, and future – are exactly how we interpret them.  Since it’s a story we’re writing, so why not make it a good one?
 
For the world is not just “happening to us.” Our minds are the projection room of our beliefs, creating the world as we project them outwards. It’s like we have two projectors in our minds, one capable of projecting negative thoughts; the other can project positive thoughts. We can switch the picture being projected at any moment. It’s your choice.
 
St. Paul’s letter to the Romans tells us: “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Not “Be ye made a little different or a little bit better.” No, we’re talking Extreme Makeover!  A new kind of thinking can totally transform your life. As the saying goes, “change your thinking, change your life.”   
 
And we always have the capacity to change, for change and the possibility of change is going on all the time. Even on the physical level, we literally are not the same person we were a week ago. Most of the cells of our bodies replace and reproduce themselves every 7 years, and some have replaced many times over in that time. And even science is proving that our bodies, our DNA, is controlled by signals outside the cells, messages emitted from positive and negative thoughts.  Our thoughts do have power.
 
Of course, the key is keeping it changed. That’s where our spiritual practice is so important, of prayer, meditation, affirmations. We keep thinking of and projecting a positive movie, the movie we want to live.  
 
Because THIS IS YOUR LIFE, right here and now. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is the fulfillment of your soul’s purpose on this earth.
And that is quite a story.