All of our experiences – the good, the bad and the ugly, shape who we are. We have to remember that our experiences are just that – experiences. What happened to us or what we have gone through does not have to define us.
Trauma creates changes we don’t choose, but how healing flips the control back to us and allows us to create the change that we do choose. Healing from our trauma allows us to take back our power. We get to choose from that point forward how things are going to go. What we can do in taking back our power becomes limitless. We get to determine what we will do with our experience and how it will shape us going forward. But more so, healing is our responsibility. While we aren’t responsible for what happened to us, we are responsible for healing ourselves.
We ultimately get to choose how we integrate those experiences, even if they are awful, into our lives. No one has the perfect life and we all have challenges. And some of us go through some horrible things. But ultimately, we get to choose how we respond to it.
When you think about it, the people who become really successful have often gone through horrific events in their life to become who they are. For example, as a child, Oprah Winfrey went through hell enduring sexual abuse. She struggled to make it on television as a journalist and was told by people in the industry that she was “unfit” for television. Oh, how wrong they were about this woman! She went on to help so many people and became known as the “Queen of All Media”. Another example of someone who really had some horrible experiences in his life is Sylvester Stallone. Those experiences shaped him so much, he was inspired to write Rocky. Listen to Tony Robbins tell his story:
If you are struggling right now with experiences you have had, know that you are not alone. Integrating experiences into our lives takes time. And sometimes it’s okay to grieve and experience challenges because that is part of the healing process. It’s okay to fall down every now and again – just don’t stay there.
