In this vlog, I want to share with you something that has been transformational for me—and can be for you, too. This is a skill, a mindset, and a practice. It is meaning making.

Taking Ownership of My Own Challenges

Let me explain. If you know me, you know there was one defining moment in my life that changed everything: August 9, 1994. That morning, I came to on the floor of a crack house with a blonde wig on my head. I was a prostitute, a high school dropout, and a crack addict.

That night, by a fluke, I attended, on a first date, a 12-Step meeting for drug and alcohol rehabilitation. I haven’t had a drink or drug since that day.

Finding myself at age 20 with all this on my resume, I built a life from there. This taught me something powerful: there is no devastation in my life that I can’t recover from. Nothing can happen to me that I can’t turn into positive meaning. I know this deeply.

I have a friend from that era who never tells anyone she was a prostitute. I went a different way. When I started the Bright Line movement, I didn’t want anyone finding out about me from somewhere else: I wanted to define my own narrative. I’m not afraid to talk about it. It can be liberating. That’s the meaning I make of it. Addiction and recovery are foundational to my life, and now I teach others about recovery.

What Happens FOR You, Not TO You

I have turned that pivot point in my life into something positive that I use to help the world. This is the first principle of meaning making—If something big happens to you, your meaning is also going to be big. So, for example, if you had a divorce followed by ten years of depression, your meaning will need to be significant to be satisfying. If it’s just a flat tire, it doesn’t need to be as big a meaning.

I use the phrase: “how could this be happening—not to me, but for me?” Your meaning can’t be BS. You need to use whatever happened to you as a springboard for growth and a turning point in your life.

Do the Work and Feel the Feelings

You need to do the work for this to happen. You have to feel the grief and process the trauma; you need to seek the lesson truly. I spent six years—from 14 to 20—in a very dark place. My best friend and I parted ways because I scared her. My addiction was not a small thing and I lost a lot over it.

The way I have found meaning involved a process of sitting in 12-Step meetings for decades, telling the story over and over again, and draining the shame out of it. Research shows that when you tell your story repeatedly—in a 12-Step meeting, on paper, in a tape recorder, to your best friend, whatever works for you—you will be happier, your immune system will be boosted, and you’ll be well on your way.

Turning Your Story into a Triumph Story

There are different ways you can turn your story into a triumph story: maybe it was a turning point in your life, or changed the way you relate now to others, or maybe it became the birth of a calling or new perspective. The more you can craft your story into something positive, the more you come to a point where you’re at peace.

I prefer the world in which I am an addict, because of what I’ve made out of it. I love my identity as a recovering addict who helps others. It’s how I understand myself and the world around me.

When you’re good at meaning making, you have no fear about life. You know, deep down, that no matter what happens, you will turn it into a blessing.

When you’re good at it, the experience of being alive is fundamentally good, with incalculable blessings. You are on an amazing journey to turn your challenges—deaths, setbacks, failures, whatever—into positives. You become uniquely qualified to help others with these challenges.

Meaning Making is a Superpower

This is one of my superpowers. I invite you to make it one of yours. You can craft stories and beliefs that help yourself and others. You can write your own stories and rewrite them if necessary. I am always doing this. What’s my motherhood journey? What’s my marriage journey? What’s my professional journey? I constantly write and rewrite them into better versions.

Meaning making. It’s a craft. An art. A privilege.