3 Points to Ponder
- “The saying that time heals is not true. Time distances us from the trauma, but the long-term path one chooses to walk determines the outcome. Has time helped or hurt your being around a hard anniversary?”
- “Sometimes healing and grief are best friends sharing a conversation in our souls. They need to live together. Are you letting them live together or trying to evict one?”
- “Emotions are a great driver for action. Without emotion, the fuel runs empty in our life, leaving us stranded in an unknown place. Yet, we fear emotion, as we don’t always trust where it will take us. Have you throttled emotion in your life and if so, in what areas? Truly, is it helping you become the person you want to be?”
2 Quotes to Share
“I admire people who could have turned cold after everything they have been through but still choose love anyway. There’s strength in that.” – Keneilwe Dr. Mhlanga
“Healing is a different type of pain. It’s the pain of becoming aware of the power of one’s strength and weakness, of one’s capacity to love or do damage to oneself and to others, and of how the most challenging person to control in life is ultimately yourself.” – Caroline Myss
1 Story of Impact
This week marks the one-year anniversary of losing my dad after a five-year battle with cancer. My emotions are all over the place as there are times it feels like yesterday, and other times it feels distant. I’ve caught myself many times picking up my phone to make a call only to remember he isn’t there. Or sometimes it is like I’m watching someone else’s movie as if this isn’t happening to me. For all of us, we have dates on a calendar with meaning to us. Positive events like a birthday, the birth of a child, a wedding date, or career achievement. There are also dates we dread, such as a death of a loved one, when we were fired, a cancer diagnosis, or a betrayal. The one thing I know, whether it is good or bad, it means I am alive. I’m not so calloused I stopped feeling anything. For that, I am thankful. And with that spirit of gratitude, I have an opportunity to write a grandeur story for my life. Those anniversaries mark me, but they don’t define me. I choose to take my story captive. For it is those emotions pushing me to become a better version of myself. I long for my dad, yes, but his death also helps me value being a dad to my children. It provides me insight to share genuine compassion with others who have lost a parent. What are the dates on your calendar with significant meaning? How are you dealing with the emotions around them? Do they control you, or are you taking them captive to help transform your journey?
