When You Almost Lose It All: Are You Willing To Forgive?

So here I am, sitting right in the aftermath of what could have changed my life dramatically, forever. I have gone through every emotion during this scenario, from fear to pain, sadness to anger, and compassion to pure love.

It’s funny (well not funny in a “haha” sense, more interesting I guess), that when it comes to my own pain, I am pretty hardy at this stage. I have been through a lot in my life, I’ve looked depression right in the eye and I can tell you it hurts through every inch of your body when you are in it.

But there is nothing quite as distressing as when something happens to your children. And I learned that the hard way last weekend when a woman, in broad daylight, tried to take my child.

As you can imagine, it was one of the most frightening events of my life.

(read about the incident here)

When I look back at it, it feels like a movie still. I remember it clearly yet everything seems so vivid, like it was all staged somehow, not real, not us.

Isn’t it amazing how time stretches out when your body is pumping with adrenalin. What must have only been a minute and a half still feels like an hour and a half, looking back at it.

I thank my lucky stars that my family is ok, everyone is safe, and that the lady who did this to our family is locked up and getting the care she so desperately needs. I know that my husband and I did everything to the best of our ability when it came to protecting our children and dealing with the situation. No regrets.

So now what? How do you move on from a situation like this when the paperwork is done and the right actions have been taken? How do you go on living without fear, still believing that the world is a good place?

If this had happened to me a few years ago, I think my actions would have been so much different. I don’t think I would have been able to look at this situation and allow myself to deal with it the way I have. Honestly, now is the time that I really understand the value of inner work and countless hours of self-development.

All through my 20s, I was dealing with depression and negative self-talk. I had no idea how to solve any of my troubles. I was lost, floating around in space trying to grab onto anything in my outside world that would confirm I was worthy of being here on the planet. I didn’t understand what life was about and I certainly didn’t understand what the meaning of my life was. I was looking for answers high and low, but nothing seemed to soothe my troubled mind.

I remember a very low moment in my life. I was 24 years old sitting in my little flat in Gothenburg. The rain was pouring outside the window, everything felt dull and dark. I was feeling so lonely and depressed, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wanted to escape my feelings and my body was aching both mentally and physically.

In pure desperation I opened up the phone book and looked up “massage therapists” in the registry. I literally just picked a name out of the bunch and made a call. Little did I know that this call would change my life completely.

Not only was the woman on the other line a massage therapist, Ann introduced me to meditation and alternative medicine. She told me everyone is here for a reason, and that we are all special. In the beginning, it didn’t really feel like this alternative way of living was actually doing anything for me. All I knew was that it felt good – sort of soothing –  and I started feeling clearer in my mind. I had never been involved in the holistic world before. I never even knew it existed, but ever since that day, finding and living my purpose has been my great aim in life.

Now let me clear something up. When you start taking the road less traveled, things don’t all of a sudden become easy. It’s hard, sometimes extremely hard! But the thing is, once you start opening up the door to this new way of thinking, there is no going back. You simply know too much!

Making that phone call that day many years ago feels like a lifetime ago, and I guess it sort of was! But everything has a domino effect, and that day instigated a whole plethora of events and growth spurts in my life. I wouldn’t be who I am today if I hadn’t made the phone call to Ann that day.

You see, everything in your life happens for a reason, good or so-called “bad.” I really believe that. At every moment you have a choice to live in fear and anger or choose to expand and grow beyond your limiting beliefs.

And that’s why I choose to handle what happened the other day with forgiveness and love. Because I know I am in charge of how we feel, and no one can take that power away from me unless I let them.

I believe in a great future, I believe in a world that is good. I believe that we are all born innocent. Yes, there is madness in this world, sure there is pain, injustice and cold heartedness. But that doesn’t mean that the world is bad. And it doesn’t mean that the world isn’t full of wonder and miracles, because it is. Every. Single. Day.

I know that I am on this planet to experience life and I know life is and will be full of contrasts. It’s part of the journey. I also know that every contrast serves a purpose and is an opportunity for me to grow and learn more.

After posting about the incident online to spread awareness, there have been some people coming back to me saying they would have solved this issue differently, that they would have used force on her and have made her suffer further for her consequences. I understand your anger, I see your pain, but for me, I choose to walk on from this as whole as possible.

I strive to be a role model in my children’s eyes and show them how to live with compassion. I want them to know that life doesn’t always turn out the way you plan and that sometimes we experience pain, but nothing gets solved by you living that pain long after it’s over. I feel it’s is important to teach them about stranger danger and to be vigilant, but I don’t want to traumatize them for life because, thankfully, the world is mostly good.

I have chosen to let go, surrender and appreciate all that happened last weekend. I have chosen to forgive, focus on what’s good in the world and continue my quest inspiring people to live with passion. Because at the end of the day, this is who I am.

I am no saint, and I am certainly not perfect. Just trying to be better than yesterday, better than I used to be and live as a good example. And what kind of teacher and mum am I if I can’t rise above this incident and allow myself to expand and grow from it instead of spiralling down the route of negative paranoid emotions?

I found this quote the other day, and for me, it sums it all up. Hope it will resonate with some of you:

“I am no wino but I’m no saint either. A medicine man shouldn’t be a saint. He should experience and feel all the ups and downs, the despair and joy, the magic and the reality, the courage and the fear… He should be able to sink as low as a bug, or soar as high as an eagle. Unless he can experience both, he is no good as a medicine man. …You can’t be so stuck up, so inhuman that you want to be pure, your soul wrapped up in a plastic bag, all the time. You have to be God and the devil, both of them. Being a good medicine man means being right in the midst of the turmoil, not shielding yourself from it. It means experiencing life in all its phases. It means not being afraid of cutting up and playing the fool now and then. That’s sacred too.” –John Fire Lame Deer

Keep seeing and believing in a beautiful world. I know I will.