Ouch.

I woke up in a lot of emotional pain this morning and I know exactly why.

Last night I shared my past with a new friend of mine going into major detail of the traumas, the hurt, the despair and I basically felt like I relived each event.

I felt my heart shatter into pieces like it did for the first time and today I have been unable to breathe or move.

I always read that when you can share your story without crying, you know you have healed and I was able to tell my stories without tears, but the aftermath was a much different scenario.

The utter powerlessness when someone strips you of your innocence and your open heart are difficult moments to visit.

I felt the same feelings in my body where everything goes numb and the world comes crashing down on me.

I have done so much work on my demons and to see how they can take me down just like that makes me feel like I just stepped back 20 miles on my path to healing.

But I haven’t. I know that’s not true.

What’s true is that forgiving takes time, especially the ‘biggies’ the doozies that took you down for the count, sometimes for more years that you would like to admit.

I went to that place of resentment and anger towards a person who wronged me so badly when all I ever did was love them. I reverted back to that little girl again when I thought about how much my life may have turned out different if I didn’t experience physical abuse at home. I kept thinking, “Why, why did you take the happiness I had, the innocence, my open heart and crush it?”

But that’s life and that was part of my path.

It’s just sometimes necessary to hold a space for yourself to cry, plead, question and hold yourself with compassion like you would an injured child. Because that is what we are, injured children.

We all have stories. We all have people we need to forgive.

Small things are easy to forgive, the bigger and more devastating things that changed your life in a big way take much more time and in all honesty, it make take forever.

Today I am choosing to write about this, to remind others that it’s ok if past events in our lives can take us down for a bit.

The important thing is, we get back up, dust off our beautiful hearts and see how much stronger we are because of those times.