Extreme events often precipitate major change in our lives. This transformative experience provides us with several options. Do we choose despair and become immobilized? Which I experienced. Or do we slowly, with the benefit of time, choose to see the sliver of light at the end of a very long tunnel that can provide hope and allow us to feel something other than pain? Ultimately, in surrendering to the pain I was able to see the light, experience joy and seek a higher purpose

No matter how you identify on the political spectrum, you don’t need to look very far to see the divide between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Through our words, through our reactions, through our silence, we have the power to excite and empower someone into exploring new aspects of themselves. Similarly, we have the ability to discourage, dismiss and leave them with lifelong questioning, an insecurity that they didn’t even know they needed to have.