These two pictures hit me differently when I put them side by side. ❤️

The woman on the left had just been through VERY serious trauma. I was physically, mentally & emotionally destroyed.

Shattered.

Broken.

The love of my life, my husband, Gary, had suffered & died from cancer. I was grieving, angry, lost…and yet, I was smiling. That’s the thing about trauma. You can’t always see it.

For YEARS, I missed that woman. I wanted to be her again but just couldn’t.

~She was softer.

~She trusted more easily.

~She didn’t have the walls I developed later.

And quite frankly…I think she was simply “nicer.”😂 I hid on the bar stool for 15 years and mistakenly called it, “fun.”

It always saddened me knowing I would never be her again. But I finally understand something…

I’m not supposed to be.

The woman on the right has been through some SHIT. 😂

~Grief & loss

~Addiction and recovery (black out trauma)

~guilt/shame

~Betrayal.

~Anger.

~People pleasing.

~being a broke single mom

~painful loneliness

~family insanity/addictions/trauma/unhealthy patterns

~Healing.

Some of it hardened me, yes.

But it also made me stronger,

~wiser,

~more grateful

~and more at peace with who I am (by the way, no “certifications” can teach you what lived experience actually does).

For years I thought healing meant getting the old me back. Well it doesn’t. Healing isn’t about going backward. It’s about finding your way forward.

Today I can look at that woman on the left and say, I love you. I miss you. But I don’t need to be you anymore. ❤️ I didn’t find my way back to her.

I found my way forward to ME.

And if you’re somewhere in your own “left picture” right now, please remember… You don’t have to know who you’re going to become yet.

Just keep going. ❤️ I promise there will be a way out one day and you will take it. Things WILL change as EVERYTHING is impermanent.

I hand you hope. ❤️

~Jeannie

Path to Progress Healing Center & Coaching, LLC

www.p2phealingcenter.com

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