A New View for a New You

Each day is a glorious opportunity to live and enjoy.

Today I will let the past die -all the undone things,all the misjudged things...

Today, there are new pleasures,new challenges,new magic.

Ruth Carter Stapleton

Are you creating emotional and spirtual scars? There comes a time, maybe many different times as we go through the stages of life, when it is good to review and renew our perception of who we are and who we were and who we will become. However, if we are constantly picking on the pains of the past we are, in effect, creating wounds to our being.


My dear sister Glenna shared a story recently about a mutal friend who had been hurt by a slight by a life-long friendship. As Glenna's friend shared her pain several thoughts emerged as the gist of the experience. One, "I have known this woman since school and we have never had an arguement." Two, "I will forgive her but I will never forget how she hurt me." Glenna's dear friend is setting herself up for a deep wound and a scarring of her emotional and spiritual self.


If you have had a friend for more than a year and you have never had a disagreement whether civil or uncivil, you do not have an honest relationship. While honesty theoretically is the best policy, in the real world a fuzzy honesty is the best policy. While one can choose to be direct and honest one can choose to do it with kindness and love. And, one of my truths is absolute truth is absolutely impossible. Perception colors our truths and if I trust you I trust what you say and I know that you trust me enough to speak how I feel about something without being offended. And, if we are developing friendships that last a long time we learn whether overtly or intuitively what is a good thing to share with a person you are close to and what is a no-no. It is important to remember that not being "brutally" honest is a better choice if it is going to cause pain to another.

As an aside, it is a given that if someone is hurting you or pushing your buttons you have to be able to set your boundaries. Good walls build good neighbors and friends and relationships as long as they are not built so high that they obscure the view of you are. Sometimes we think we are friends with folks and it turns out that we are friends with the masks that they present to the world and not aware of the multi-dimensional qualities of what makes them unique and precious. It is good for all walls to have gates that we can open and let those who have earned our trust enter our inner sanctum.

Have you really forgiven someone if you are not able to forget? Do you relish pain so much that you are addicted to storing up hurt and resentment? To resent means to re-feel something. I personally believe that it is to my detriment to not forget the hurt and to get on with the healing process and not the scarring process.

When I was young

I often knew
That love and hate

Were one in two

When I became a woman

I put away childish toys.

Myriam 1970s

I learned early that the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. When you choose to continue the pain, the anger, the resentment, you are continuing to walk the fine line of love and hate and are unable to let go of past attachments (or current attachments) that are not self-empowering. You have the power to choose how you feel and respond to then, now, and tomorrow. You will not change the past (well that is another philosophical can of worms for later.) but you can choose what you will focus on in your past and that you will treasure the pleasure and toss the trash (even that ex-husband) so that your feel alive and renewed in the awareness that who you are is totally a choice for you to make. It is not your mother's choice. It is not your father's choice. It is not your high school friend who stole your boyfriend. It is not your spouse's choice (past, present or future). It is not your kids' choice. It is your choice.

Today, choose well your view of you. It is amazing how just this shift in perception is a magic potion that will wipe away or diminish the emotional and spiritual scars that happen along the way to becoming who you are today.