Today I went to lunch with my Mom and her friend. We were talking about people we knew and how much their parents and childhood affects them. When looking at their actions and behaviors it is often a direct reflection of their past. But we also talked about people who were abused physically and mentally by their parents. Today they moved on with their lives and you would never guess that they had such a hard childhood.

Sometimes we're verbally or mentally abused, sexually harassed, or something else unfortunate happens. Sometimes it's just never having anyone believe in you or support you and maybe your parents are never there. Whatever the situation I'm so sorry that it happened to you. You should never have had to live with that and go through that. It's awful and wrong. Also remember what happened was not your fault.

A lot of you reading have had something happen to you in the past that caused you to have a low self-esteem, self-harm, a desire to change yourself or a fear to live life. Like I said what happened to you shouldn't have but you can't hang on to that and blame everything you are struggling with on them and what happened to you and refuse to move on. You need to work through the hurt and pain in your life.

No body can do anything to completely change who you are. You aren't a child anymore and you need to take responsibility for yourself. No more, "well he did this," "he took advantage of me by," "she treated me like this." It's all you now. By putting the blame on the person who hurt you gives them continuing power over you. It's hard to work through some things that happened but you can. I'm sure we've all heard forgive and forget. Forgiveness is so freeing; it will allow you to be who you are without holding on to the past.

Challenge of the Week: Think of the person(s) who has hurt you. Write out what they did to you and how you feel about them and about yourself after it happened. Now, this is hard to do, it's okay to cry but please don't do anything self-destructive. Past memories are very hard to bring up.

Okay, Now that you have this written down…deal with it. Make steps you need to take to forgive and to get on with your life.