One of the benefits of meditation is that it forces me to slow down. Sometimes I'm running so fast trying to keep up with my kids that I miss many opportunities to feel and learn. But this past weekend I stopped in my tracks and felt a shift in perspective. It was 8am on a Saturday in a community center gym in New Jersey. I was holding my son's smelly sneakers when he shot me a smile as he finished tying his wrestling shoes. My husband was a wrestler, and I've got all these stories about wrestling in my head: 'Why do men feel this primal need to fight? This isn’t very yogic. I don’t like seeing people in pain.' But, suddenly, in that gym, I could see (even if he couldn't) what my son was learning: humility, strength and discipline. It's these meditative moments that can unlock habitual mind patterns that help us all broaden our perspective and rewrite that old story.

xoxo,

Sukey

We hear it all the time: "change your story, change your life." Sounds so simple, but it can be an overwhelmingly tall order if you're stuck in a rut. What if instead we were to focus on the minor narratives—the small-but-significant stories we’ve been telling ourselves for so long that we don’t even think of them as stories, but as second nature? Stories that we picked up somewhere along the way and ran with: I'm not athletic enough to work out or I'm not creative enough for a project like that.

But here's the thing: once you start to change the little stories, suddenly the big picture begins to shift too. Here are three ways to start from scratch and rewrite your whole story.

• Get on the cushion. Nothing shifts the focus like meditation. Oh, but you’re not a meditating kind of person... or is that just your story? If you’re not ready to change it just yet, simply take a minute to breathe.
• Write it down. Get a journal, start a blog, send a letter to someone you love—one of the best ways to make a positive change is to literally write down your goals—spell it out, and mean it.
• Take a risk. If you've always labeled yourself the shy one, step out of your box: take a class, talk to a stranger or ask a coworker to coffee. Aim to surprise yourself.

Tap the Well: Infuse your thought patterns with positivity with the Gratitude Stream app. Record your positive thoughts and watch a stream of others from all over the world in real time.