I love superhero comics and movies. I still go to the Marvel Universe movies even though my kids don’t need me to take them anymore. One thing that all superheroes have in common is a great origin story.

Regular people have origin stories, too.

Sometimes we design our origin stories to cast ourselves as the victim, and avoid responsibility for our own failures.

Sometimes we design our origin stories to be so full of sunshine and rainbows that we are never able to acknowledge or heal from our childhood hurts.

I often say that most of us spend the majority of our adult lives healing from our first twenty years. Every parent gives their kids something to tell their therapist.

Other things have origin stories as well. Often origin stories don’ts hold up well to actual research.

Tarot, for instance, has numerous origin stories, all historically inaccurate. What is thought to be the historical truth is a much less fantastic story than the myths that grown around tarot.

My new favorite exercise form, Chinese Wand, has a fabulous origin story that began in 1977, and is apparently completely false.

Most of the history we learned in school was inaccurate. The origin stories of countries seem to be just as inaccurate as every other origin story.

As the world wages war over religions that are thousands of years old, I am convinced that the stories that support these heinous acts are just as inaccurate as every other origin story.

Maybe it’s time we leave the origin stories to the comics, and get better at separating fact from fiction in our lives.

Tarot is a wonderful tool to help us understand truth and release fiction.

How might you use tarot to find a true and helpful origin story for yourself?