What Gifts Have You Gained from the Pains of Your Past?

And interestingly, I am left with the same conclusion. I wouldn’t change a thing.

I know this is hard to believe or understand, but if given the opportunity I wouldn’t change a thing. No matter how much I struggle, I wouldn’t give up one ounce of the pain I have experienced, because without each and every experience I have had, I might not be exactly the person I am today.

Many people describe themselves as “happy.” Although I have experienced moments of great happiness, given some serious consideration, I don’t know that I would describe myself as a happy person. I am a pensive person, an intellectual person.

A thoughtful person, I consider things carefully and am deeply empathetic. I am able to hold other’s pain when most people cannot because I understand what it is to feel deep pain, and I am not scared or fearful of that emotion.

These are gifts I have incurred because of the experiences I have had.

Without my experiences, I would be a different person with different gifts. I don’t know that I would like or value that person as much. I don’t know that I would have the same profound gifts that I have to offer.

So when people hear my story and ask how I have survived, I simply reply that I survived because that is what people do. They survive. They survive in pain and they evolve into the person they were intended to be, their most authentic selves.

I value my most authentic self. The person I was intended to be. I am grateful to have evolved into myself, and I wouldn’t desire it to be any other way.

I am someone who can comfort a veritable stranger and hold her as she shares unendingly deep and vast pain where most people would be frightened of such an interaction. I am able to listen without offering a platitude or telling her that “it will get better” because I am able to comprehend that it won’t and that it’s okay.

The pain will simply be part of who she has now become and will grow with her as she continues her journey of continually becoming the person she was meant to be.

For all of these abilities, I am grateful. The abuse I suffered as a child resulted in my developing the profound gift of empathy.

What are your gifts? Have you taken the time to become aware of what they are? Perhaps you too have developed gifts as a result of hardships you have suffered. Maybe you are not even aware that these qualities are gifts.

Or they don’t feel like gifts because they make you different from the norm or make you stand out from the crowd. It can be painful to stand alone.

There have been times in my life when my empathy was misconstrued as oversensitivity, being overly emotional or weak. This was painful. It made me feel lonely, and I had moments of self-doubt.

I urge you to embrace each strength with which you have been graced, as your strengths are your offerings, and your offerings are where your true beauty lies. They are your opportunity to give to the world and the people around you in your own unique way.

This is why when I question how things might have been different if I hadn’t been abused, it’s tempting to wonder momentarily, “What if?”

But I am always left with the same conclusion, which is that I wouldn’t change a thing. I do not wish to be anyone other than who I am, as clearly “to wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.”

I urge you to consider that same conclusion for yourself. Be proud of your beautiful being, be authentic, be brave, and give freely.

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/what-gifts-have-you-gained-from-the-pains-of-your-past/