Forgiveness and Healing

We all have choices. We choose what we eat, what we wear and even who we love. We even have a choice about forgiveness. Some offenses might be easier to forgive than others but we still have the opportunity to choose.

For those of us who have suffered trauma at another persons hand forgiveness is as essential to life as breath. If you need an apology and the offender can admit the wrong they have done and you think an apology will help, then you should have an apology.

Trauma affects every aspect of a persons life for a very long time. It robs you and your children and family and friends of the person you would have been. It changes you forever. By forgiving, you can take back part of what was lost. You can gain a measure of control over your life. After trauma or abuse we spend lots of time thinking about it and talking about it. We spend time with our therapists learning coping skills and how to move on with our lives. It's my opinion that at some point after we go through the therapy and talk about our trauma that we put it on a shelf...just for a bit. Our trauma/abuse has defined us long enough. I'm not suggesting that we forget what happened to us...only that we forgive and love and be who we are meant to be...

Dirty Feet

I don't know about you but I want to live my own life. I don't want to live the life that someone else thinks I should live or have the beliefs that someone else thinks I should have. A couple of weeks ago a car full of teenage girls passed me on the highway. The passenger in the front seat had her sandeled feet sticking out the window and in the back seat dirty bare feet hung out. Becoming my own person and healing my wounds has been difficult. Even having my own thoughts. Things were ingrained. Breaking away and having my own thoughts. Not the thoughts of my history. The thoughts that say... young ladies sit with their feet on the floor of the car. Those were not the thoughts I had when those girls passed me that day. I smiled to myself because the only thing I could think about was how sweet and innocent they looked with they dirty feet hanging out the window. I thought about where they might be going and I wondered how much fun a car full of girls might have. I thought of my own daughters and how I have instilled in them respect but have allowed them to have fun. Something that was missing from my youth. So if you see an old lady with her dirty feet stuck out the window of a car, smile, because I'm having fun...