Take a breath. Take a deep breath. Those of us who have the luxury of taking breathing for granted get to choose when we think about drawing air into our lungs—to center our thoughts, to relax, to sing, to blow up a balloon, to run. For people with lung diseases like cystic fibrosis (CF), every breath is a struggle, a triumph, and a painful reminder that it may be the last.

Just a few decades ago, the life expectancy for those born with CF was 10. So it is only recently that people like the teenagers with CF in “Five Feet Apart” lived long enough to truly understand their disease and their limitations.

Stella (a radiant Haley Lu Richardson) checks into the hospital for help with an infection as though it is her second home. The medical staff are all old friends, especially Barb (Kimberly Hebert Gregory), a compassionate nurse. Stella knows all the routines and she knows what to bring for comfort, including her stuffed panda, the laptop she uses for her vlog updates about living with CF, and the pictures from her bedroom wall.

Stella knows that her best case scenario, a lung transplant, may only work for five years, but in the CF medical relay race, the best case scenario is always just to last long enough for better treatment to be invented.

In the meantime, Stella knows that her best coping mechanisms are feeling in control of her “regimen” of care, organizing the meds cart, taking her pills with chocolate pudding, and visiting the babies in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Her best friend Poe (Moises Arias) is back in the hospital, too. And so is Will (Cole Sprouse) another teenage CF patient, there to receive an experimental drug. While Stella is ultra, even hyper-cooperative in her treatment, hoping to be able to get the lung transplant, Will is a cynic and a rebel, in part because his prognosis is not as hopeful. Even if the medication is successful, the B-cepacia infection has made him ineligible for a transplant. Stella presses him to keep up with his regimen, and he agrees if she will let him draw her.

Love stories always have to have a reason to keep the couple apart and in this case, that means literally apart. Because of their vulnerability to infection, CF patients have to stay at least six feet from each other. They are like Romeo and Juliet if the Montagues were bacteria and the Capulets were a set of new lungs.

Latex gloves, no touching, and six feet between them at all times. As Stella falls for Will she says, “After all CF has taken from me, I don’t mind stealing one foot back.” And so they have a date, still within the walls of the hospital (apparently hospitals have swimming pools) using a five-foot pool cue to measure their distance. And then, because they are teenagers, they take some very big risks.

Director Justin Baldoni balances the compelling specifics of CF with the larger questions we all face about creating our story about meaning in a world of uncertainty and loss. And he does it with two gifted and appealing young stars, especially Richardson, whose exquisitely expressive face shows us every hope, fear, hesitation, regret, and longing Stella is feeling.

Baldoni makes the most of the way he uses the hospital setting, the atrium lobby with its drab, sturdy institutional furniture. As Stella and Will fall in love, it seems warmed by their tenderness and excitement.

Even healthy young people can die. Illness can devastate families, emotionally and financially. It is scary to love someone and it can be even scarier to let someone love you, especially when you are embarrassed by your scars. We all try to create a story we tell ourselves to find a way to feel in control of something, whether it is by lining up pill boxes on a meds cart and doing what we are told or by putting an “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” sign on a hospital door and ignoring good advice. “We don’t have time for delicacy,” one character says, in their case because they may not live a “normal” lifespan, but in reality, films like this remind us we could all do better at making sure we get the most from the time we have.

The Power of Your Story Seminar

You will examine with Peter de Kuster, founder of The Power of Your Story the way we tell stories about ourselves to ourselves — and, most important, the way we can change those stories to transform our business and personal lives.

“Your story is your life,” says Peter. As human beings, we continually tell ourselves stories — of success or failure; of power or victimhood; stories that endure for an hour, or a day, or an entire lifetime. We have stories about ourselves, our creative business, our customers ; about what we want and what we’re capable of achieving. Yet, while our stories profoundly affect how others see us and we see ourselves, too few of us even recognize that we’re telling stories, or what they are, or that we can change them — and, in turn, transform our very destinies.

Telling ourselves stories provides structure and direction as we navigate life’s challenges and opportunities, and helps us interpret our goals and skills. Stories make sense of chaos; they organize our many divergent experiences into a coherent thread; they shape our entire reality. And far too many of our stories, says Peter, are dysfunctional, in need of serious editing. First, he asks you to answer the question, “In which areas of my life is it clear that I cannot achieve my goals with the story I’ve got?” He then shows you how to create new, reality-based stories that inspire you to action, and take you where you want to go both in your work and personal life.

Our capacity to tell stories is one of our profoundest gifts. Peter’s approach to creating deeply engaging stories will give you the tools to wield the power of storytelling and forever change your business and personal life.