Healing the "Scars" of Life

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars." ~ Kahlil Gibran

"The most massive characters are seared with scars", Kahlil Gibran wrote. What, exactly, is a scar? The dictionary states a scar is: "1 a mark left on the skin or within body tissue where a wound, burn, or sore has not healed quite completely and fibrous connective tissue has developed"

But the dictionary also provides a figurative alternative: "a lasting effect of grief, fear, or other emotion left on a person's character by a traumatic experience"

It is an unavoidable fact of Life that each and every one of us will experience or has experienced one or more traumatic events at some point or another. And for some of us the word "trauma" is absolutely no stranger within our existence.

Some of us were born into trauma, like the infant who suffers from shaken baby syndrome, or the child with cigarette burns marring her tender skin, or the toddler with the greenstick fracture of his femur. Others have merely been "in the wrong place at the wrong time", so to speak, like the people in Indonesia when the 2006 day after Christmas tsunami struck, or the families who lost everything in the wake of Katrina. No matter what the trauma, or where or whom it strikes, none of us can avoid a traumatic event over the course of an entire lifetime. It is all in how we, as individuals, deal with the traumas of Life that is important.

The inevitable traumas of Life can teach us how to handle a traumatic event with ease and grace. We can choose to learn from each situation, or we can choose to avoid the residual emotions at all costs via denial. No situation presented in our lives comes without choices. 


There are always  choices: a choice in how we handle the situation, a choice in whether or not we forgive, a choice in whether or not we forget and move forward. At times, a person finds him or herself in a situation in which he or she proclaims: "I have no choice!" Those four words are perhaps four of the most self-limiting words in the Universe! There is always a choice in any given situation.

Today, I choose to see all the options open to me in every situation. I pray for Divine guidance in choosing the appropriate actions, words, and thoughts. I choose to live my Life feeling happy, joyous, and free. I choose to share unconditional love, serenity, laughs, and kindness. I choose to be the wonderful, amazing, beautiful woman God created me to be. I choose to remember that it is none of my business who thinks negatively about me, because how one thinks about me has absolutely no impact on who I am. 


The only person who has an impact on who I am is ME. I define my Self, and the Truth about who I am is within my Soul, and within the Mind of God. As someone so eloquently in history stated (I think it was the philosopher Rene Descartes): "I think, therefore, I am."

Namaste, my friends ~