Celebrate your survival!
I wrote Be An Inspiration! to empower and inspire survivors of abuse with ideas, resources, and encouragement. As a survivor I know we cannot change what happened, but we can definitely change our perspective and learn some powerful lessons from our experience. In that light, celebrate your survival. Celebrate the talents and skills you have learned along the way. Some may not have been used with the best of intentions, but they got you through and today you can redirect those abilities in far more fulfilling pursuits. Maybe you couldn't tell because you didn't want harm to come to those who hurt you = celebrate your compassion. How much did you have to endure, what did you do to be good enough to merit some healthy attention, how did you manage to believe it could someday be different? Celebrate your perseverance, resourcefulness, creativity, determination, and hopefulness. This isn't to minimize any part of the trauma but to maximize the strength you've gained from it, something you may not have been willing to consider until now. Celebrate that you survived it all. There must be a reason. Start living the life you deserve - the one before and beyond the abuse. Be the light, be the joy, be an inspiration!
After a recent rain, I noticed the water drops sparkling on the plants and grabbed my camera to see what I could capture. The image above is of raindrops on lilac buds. Once I opened the pictures on a much larger screen I was surprised to see the reflections in the drops. You just never know what you'll see when you're willing to look.