overnight. And you’re never going to be glad that he’s dead. But you get to choose a way forward. You get to discover that living a full life is the best way to honor him.” Last year I received a Christmas card

be passive is to let others decide for you. To be aggressive is to decide for others. To be assertive is to decide for

When you have something to prove, you aren’t free. Even though I didn’t yet know anything about his childhood during our first visit, I could tell that Emma’s father was living in a prison of his own making—he was living within a limited image of who he should be.

These are lost children looking for an identity, looking for a way to feel strength, to feel like they matter.

Survivors don’t have time to ask, “Why me?” For survivors, the only relevant question is, “What now?”

Time doesn’t heal. It’s what you do with the time. Healing is possible when we choose to take responsibility, when we choose to take risks, and finally, when we choose to release the wound, to let go of the past or the grief.

in your pocket you already hold the key: the willingness to take absolute responsibility for your life; the willingness to risk; the willingness to release yourself from judgment and reclaim your innocence, accepting and loving yourself for who you really are—human, imperfect, and whole.

good definition of being a victim is when you keep the focus outside yourself, when you look outside yourself for someone to blame for your present circumstances, or to determine your purpose, fate, or worth.

‘We don’t know where we’re going, we don’t know what’s going to happen, but no one can take away from you what you put in your own mind.’ ”