We spend our lives taking pictures. Not with a camera, but with our minds. Every experience leaves an impression: something someone said to us, a moment when we felt rejected, a success we were proud of, a mistake we wish we could undo, a belief we learned from our family, an expectation we absorbed from our culture, a story we began telling ourselves about who we are.

The past several months have been challenging for me. Amongst the difficulties I faced were two significant health scares and having to...