“Change is inevitable, growth is intentional.” ~Glenda Cloud   How much time slips by when you’re living in the pain of resentment? Do you ever question if your bitterness has held you back from living your true destiny? Is blaming everyone else sabotaging your life and future? It’s only now that I can admit to the years I wasted pointing the finger at everyone else. It was easier for me to say it was their fault than accept responsibility for my own decisions. For me, attaining perfection was validation to my success. If it wasn’t achievable, then it was obviously someone else’s fault. Until one day, I took the time to watch the Tony Robbins’ documentary movie, Guru, for the second time. Amazing when you watch something again or read a book twice, you get something different out of it. There was a young girl struggling with the lack of love she received from her drug-addicted father. After admitting that it was her father’s love she craved the most, Tony Robbins led her to a breakthrough perspective. He told her if you are going to blame him for everything that went wrong, like not being daddy’s girl, then don’t forget to blame him for making you a strong woman too. He reminded her that she was allowed to blame him for not being around but not to forget to blame him for teaching her how to cope at such a young age. Suddenly, I felt a shift within me. I connected to the anger deep within me, and somehow it no longer felt so heavy. What was happening? Unexpectedly, I realized the pain of my resentment was actually a gift. I have carried a lot of emotional weight in my heart, some of which still remains. My heaviness is rooted in childhood memories of hurt and confusion. At the blissful age of eleven, just when I thought life was pretty safe and stable, I had the rug ripped out from underneath of me. Infidelity and unfaithfulness had crept into our home and turned everything upside down. Everything I knew faded away, as my mother threw his things around, screaming and crying. She was so emotional, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Her anger was wrapped up in sadness as she packed up all of my father’s belongings into black trash bags. One by one out the door, like little pieces of my heart that she was just bagging up and throwing out. She set them out on our front lawn, and I stood there grieving. She didn’t see the little girl in the corner crying along with her. Someone forgot the little soul who was being traumatized by these big emotions. No one stopped the chaos for a minute to realize my heart was breaking too. My memories of Christmas traditions and Saturdays at the grocery store never came back. Everything changed, and I hated this new life. From then on, everyone was always seemed [...]