When life strikes…

Life can strike us often, and I mean in not a great way. It can be in forms of loved ones passing away, break ups, health struggles; the list is endless. And everyone is different in how every situation strikes us.
Recently, I went through a couple of months of ill-health, and although quite a few people know what happened, I’m not quite ready to write about it. I might not ever be, and that’s fine. But I came out of it, feeling I had changed for the better in a variety of ways. My friend recently sent me this paragraph she found on ol’ Insta, and it resonated. It might apply to you too if you’re healing after something.

Healing is not about going back to exactly who you were before, because that person was not capable of seeing the storm before it hit, and that person didn’t know how to shield themselves from it. You aren’t supposed to go back to being more naive, or unaware. You aren’t meant to return to your mindlessness, a life in which you didn’t know the contrasts. What you get through healing is greater than a return, it is a rebirth. You become stronger where you’ve been broken,. You become grounded where you’ve been egotistical. You become responsible where you’ve been neglectful. You become more sensitive and conscious. You become more considerate, more empathetic, more mindful, more careful. You learn the hard lessons so you can open your heart to the lighter ones. You come more fully into the experience of being alive.

Brianna Wiest.