What’s your trauma?

According to Dorothy, ‘there’s no place like home’. For me, that was true. I had to leave my home to go to another one when I was 14. I was still with my family but life as I knew it was now different and I didn’t like it very much. I wrote about that experience,and remembered it like it was yesterday.

Life is hard for a teenager anyway, it’s especially hard if a ‘trauma’ is added to the mix. I like to call it my trauma, because it changed me and opened my eyes.

I survived, of course, and ultimately became a strong independent woman. I have tried to instill that into my 5 daughters. I want them to be strong independent women and know what to accept and tolerate and when to walk away.

The relationships we have with our parents, our teachers, our siblings, our love interests and most importantly, ourselves will be mixed with the good the bad and the in-between.

As we grow and develop, as we face, fight or accept our challenges, our successes and our traumas, we begin to find out, what we are really capable of. What we can or cannot cope with. We discover how motivated and how resilient we are. We would hope that we can cope.

There will be times we may want to give up, give in or give out or cop out, but what we really need to do is push on, get up, move forward, one step at a time. One day at a time and keep learning, keep developing and keep building. If it feels scary, do it. If you think you can’t do it, stand back, take a breath and try anyway, you may just surprise yourself.

Each stage of life is fabulous, daunting, exciting, traumatic, hopeless and hopeful. The thing is to not give up, but to embrace each stage. Face and embrace each good, bad or traumatic event and learn from it. We, none of us have to be defined by an event or circumstance because in the end, we have a choice. A choice in how to deal and manage whatever is going on in our lives, by the way we view it and by the way we decide to proceed with it.

Home can be a place, a person or a feeling. For me, it’s a feeling of belonging, of fitting in and being accepted for who I am. Home is where there is a settled heart and a contented mind.

Relay what is important, shun what isn’t and ship out and set sail to something new when all seems hopeless. Seek and find your best relay- shun- ship as you go forward making relationships…..