It took me about seven years before I was really able to understand, accept, and release the events of that time in my life. I know now that sometimes you can be in the wrong place at the wrong time … or that the drama of those you surround yourself with can spill over and become your drama … or another individual will hurt you because they hate themselves, etc.,

Many of you had your innocence taken away from you long before you were emotionally mature. Maybe as a child you had to do things that only adults should be doing, like raising children, emotionally caretaking for someone else, such as a parent, or having to assume the role of a parent.

I have yet to befriend a woman who hasn’t been sexually victimized at sometime in her life or who hasn’t experienced some kind of physical abuse at the hands of another. And for many of you, that event (or events) marks your own personal 911. Again, your life becomes a picture of the before and after you.

And unless the emotional healing has begun, many of you will live your life trying to get back to that other side; the side where you were still innocent, free, unashamed, happy, and open. I’ve learned through the process of healing that there is a process. I’ve learned that anger, denial, acceptance, bargaining, and depression are consistent companions during such times.

And although some of them are not the most attractive companions, they can end up being blessings in disguise if you don’t give up trying to get over that mountain of misery that has put you in complete darkness. The truth is there is no going back to being the person you were before your tragedy. This thing that happened, happened. And it can’t be undone. However, it can be seen for what it is in the light of your awareness that comes during the healing process.

Instead of spending your energies trying to recapture what could’ve been, should not have been, or might have become, exercise the power you have as a survivor and give your body and mind the permission it needs to heal from emotional and physical trauma. If you do it now, then you won’t have to spend the rest of your life in the dark with only your pain as your one and true companion.

This will probably come as a news flash to a lot of people but the fact is we live on a lonely planet. So many people are busy trying to get their external needs met at the expense of what truly matters that eventually they end up feeling lonely, isolated, and invisible.

When you think of the lonely you think of the homeless man or woman on the streets or the prostitute or drug addict who no longer has a family. Rarely do you consider that the lonely are the people you’re engaged with on a daily bases. It’s the guy who’s your boss. You know, the man who works seventy hours a week to make the big bucks so that he can impress his extended family.

Is it possible that to you, the lonely are those single and frumpy women who live alone in their flats with just a cat and possibly a goldfish? In fact, the lonely are more often than not those people you try very hard not to be. So you surround yourself with lots of “friends.” You date even when you don’t want to date. You have sex with strangers just so you don’t feel so alone.

Who do the lonely love? They love people like you and me. They are the people like you and me. It is mind boggling how so many people on such a small planet can feel so alone but many of them do. The need to love and be love is such a powerful force that no matter your race, status, class, gender, profession, or background, if you aren’t loved for the person you are, you’re bound to end up feeling lonely.

Unfortunately, a lot of “experts” link their bias claims to matters of love and relationships. They preach that what women need is a man who is this or that … has lots of money … can make her feel secure and protected … give her multiple orgasms… lots of kids … make her feel special … They think that what all women need and want is a tough man until the end. One who will not only fight his own personal battles in life but will slay and defeat all enemies or threats to his family as well.

When specific life experiences of certain individual characters become indoctrinated into some set of “truth” guideline that claims to have knowledge of the intentions and desires of all people based on their gender, truth is lost. Men are no more capable of knowing what all women want than women are at knowing how to attract a man. A man doesn’t constitute all men nor do the actions of one woman speak for all women.

I attribute this desperate rush to compartmentalize others as a lazy attempt to define by heresy at the expense of authentic relationships. The men who keep claiming to know what women want will be the same men who can’t keep a woman. A woman is the herstory of her experiences lived and learned. She is flesh, spirit, love, and thought. To say that you know her without ever really knowing her is what fools claim.

At the time, you understood that your parents were punishing you for doing something that you felt impelled to do. To the mind of a child, this was inconceivable because how else were you supposed to act if not from a feeling place. As a child, you didn’t rationalize your actions. You weren’t focused on the fact that if you pushed one sibling down the stairs that your parents would even the score in the end.

Where kids are kids, adults can be adults and unfortunately, many folk haven’t changed from doing some pretty outrageous things. People can get a free pass up until a point but eventually excuses don’t cover the cost of loss, pain, and shame. For example, take the teenager who decides to send nude pictures of herself via a text message or the internet.

When that teen grows up she will move to higher grounds of inappropriate expressions unless she is able to change the feelings that lay at the base of her actions. You’ve heard the saying that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And you can bet that where there are teens misbehaving there is some resistance to some internal feeling. Unfortunately, lots of parents are unaware that their teen’s actions are an indication of how they are feeling and that there’s possibly something seriously wrong.

What needs to be addressed is your feelings and how you got to feeling the way you feel. This method works. If the real cause beneath your actions is not uncovered, then you are compelled to act in a reactionary fashion to outer events that are not necessarily connected to your most charitable response. In essence, you’re not afraid to show emotions, but the ones you show are childish, juvenile, sophomoric, and not really well thought out … pretty much like when you’re a child, a pre-teen, or even more so, an immature adult.

If you are in a relationship with an angry woman, don’t even think of treading lightly. She will hear you even when you don’t speak. She will know your thoughts even if you don’t know them. She will hold you, love you, please you, accept you … and leave you should that time come.

To certain men, an angry woman is a headache. And a moody and menopausal woman requires too much giving, understanding, and patience on their part. They would rather feel justified in their whining than to look beneath the surface as to why the woman they claim to love is depressed one moment and anxiously joyful the next. These men shamelessly let the angry women pass in and out of their lives without any knowledge of ever really knowing them.

Fortunately, there are men who don’t judge a book by it s cover. They’re emotionally involved and aware of the woman they’re in a relationship with and are not looking for someone to emotionally rescue them. Angry women are not like angry men. You might endure some melodramatic episode of not being understood but rest assured … they won’t plot your death or those you love.

If you’re still wondering how it is you love an angry woman the answer is really quite simple. First, you forget everything you’ve ever read or seen or heard from your friends, parents, or media about what it is to be a woman or, what women want. As a woman, I can attest that part of the problem is not being recognized as an individual but rather as some stereotype.

Angry women are just individual people who are a bit more expressive of negative emotions than they are with feelings of love at the moment. Loving them is a matter of seeing them as the people … the women … they are and accepting the person who shows up on plate to bat. Maybe they won’t hit a home run but at least they will be swinging … and you can bet that they will be giving it their all.

In fact this man might go so far as to believe that it is his money that he is sharing with her and not theirs. Another example is the man who needs to control her social life and or network of friends. Much like a father, men can be very protective of their daughters.

Women, also, will fall into the role of a mother/son relationship. They will nick-pick their husbands to no end to get him to do and behave as they would have him. They cater to his needs and wants much like a real mother does for her dependent son. His clothes are washed and ironed, his meals are made for him, and the home operates around his mood.

The second type of relationship that couples adopt is the brother/sister relationship. This happens when you have two people who have just about everything in common besides physical desire and romance. Maybe they started off believing that they were love mates but over time have realized that they do better as friends. What little attraction that’s left is nothing more than an appreciation of common interests.

The third type of relationship that partners imitate is the kind that is found within a healthy relationship between two healthy individuals who are not only soul mates but also good companions. This kind of partnership is referred to as the partner/partner relationship. Women and men within these types of relationships have their own identity. Their identity is not a threat to their partner nor does their partner see it necessary to control their expression.

They operate from a frame of reference where love and romance is a personal exploration between two aware individuals who have some pertinent things in common with a desire to share mutual emotional, physical, and spiritual experiences. This type of partner/partner relationship doesn’t feed off the traditions of the past, how mom and dad behaved, or what one sees in the movies.

So, what kind of mate are you? Are you in a relationship where you’re the daughter, the mother, or the sister? Are you emotionally and financially being handled by a man who is the father, the brother, or the son? Maybe you’re none of these characters. Perhaps you’re your own person and within a relationship you can call your own.

It’s natural to want to talk about the person who holds the keys to your heart. It’s like having a new secret that you can’t keep to yourself. But it becomes a handicap when the focus on him is more important than knowing the inner workings of your own self.

If you are dating or married and aren’t self – aware you will remain lost somewhere in between the men you have dated and your marriages. You will judge and see yourself through the eyes of the man you are with. If one day he decides that you are fat, then suddenly you become fat.

If he decides to abuse you, you stay in the relationship because not only is he physically controlling of you but you have given over your power to him. Now your existence is determined by his characterization of you and your worth.

The further you remain estranged from yourself, the more you will experience an emotional and psychological detachment and get involved in romantic relationships wearing blinders. And because you have no concept of yourself, you are left open to the influences of the men you encounter. And this can and will leave you at their mercy.

If you are living through the likes of any man in your life … whether it is your dad, your husband, your boyfriend, or even your son … with no indication of the self that remains, you must find your salvation by discovering you – that person who has been inconveniently left behind.

I’m one of those individuals who would like to believe that I am very much in touch with my feelings and that I wisely choose my friends and associates. So when I got really angry about this person not stepping up to the plate and being there for me like I had almost assumed they would be, it was a blow not only to my ego but it made me question this persons commitment to our friendship.

Without needing to get into the specifics, sometimes people can really disappoint. You think that someone’s your friend one day and then a week later you find out that they’ve been creeping around with your boyfriend or girlfriend. And sometimes the people you think you know the most are the ones you know least.

It’s usually after the betrayal that you have time to think back and retrace where it was you went wrong. You wonder how was it you even thought to trust such a person. Why had you not heeded the red flags from the beginning? How could you not know any better after all that you had been through? And why had you even tried to give this person a chance when deep down inside you knew you’d be taking a risk.

These are the hard times. They hurt like hell because once again someone who you decided to trust lets you down. It took me a few days before it dawned on me that my anger, which I tried to politely disguise, was a residual anger dating back to my childhood. Anger, that I had originally harbored towards my parents had, once again, taken on a life of its own and I be damned if I would let anyone else disappoint me.

Like I had been many times in college, in different relationships, social gatherings, work settings, and while trying to mold my own network of friends … I was once again surprised, dismayed, and accepting of how my feelings were an intrinsic part of who I am and who I sought to become. And how even an honest expression of hurt, by way of a non-consuming anger, could do a lot of good in keeping me in touch with my feelings.

How is it possible that in the land of the brave and free are people raised to devalue, discredit, and dislike themselves? How is it even possible that a person could learn the magnitude of hope while living a life of despair? Are the wounds much too deep and far too pervasive to turn back to what could have been … should have been …might have become?

At some point the game stops somewhere. The psychological abuse endured by the words of your religion … the physical battering at the hands of your parents … the degradation of your self by a society that is holding onto tradition and ignorance at the perils of freedom stops with you, right now!

Is it not enough that as an innocent individual you were forced into a world reality where evil rules? And to add insult to injury you were encouraged to believe that you were born evil by birth. So many lies … So much abuse. Where will it end? And who will take a stand for happiness and peace if you don’t start standing?

The time has come for you to protect you, love you, and to believe that your life is as precious as the next persons. No longer do you have to continue to give allegiance to unhealed wounds that have marked your life with struggle and depression. If you don’t stop the emotional hemorrhaging caused by the hurt inflicted upon you by someone else … then you risk piling more emotional baggage onto an already heavy heart and troubled mind.

Lately, I’ve been noticing how my ideas and thoughts are a progression of an extended ideology, and that this extended ideology could easily be traced back a few hundred years. I had been thinking that unconditional love was an altruistic experience that only the few could achieve. And such ideas left me feeling more powerful when I was able to forgive or turn the other cheek.

However, my experience has taught me that people are unpredictable, sad, and fascinating. The harm that is often done toward another human being can at times seem unforgivable and unforgettable. Just maybe… some people don’t need or want to be forgiven.

The conversation with my friend left me pondering whether or not unconditional love was a realistic response to people who chose to behave in an unkind fashion. Was turning the other cheek just a way of not responding in kind to violence, or abuse but not quite the same as saying that no matter what I will continue to love you.

I suppose that turning the other cheek when your husband has knowingly infected you with the HIV virus is admirable and to many, the right thing to do. My friend says that you can turn your cheek until your head does a 360 degree turn but unconditional love is a myth in certain circumstances.

What about the stranger who has managed to destroy your world of peace? How do you forgive the person who killed your child, raped your daughter, or murdered your husband? But even more so, how do you forgive the person who claims to love you but instead hurts you beyond measure?

If you can’t do the unconditional thing, does that make you somehow less of an evolved human being? If you can only turn the other cheek but refuse to forgive or love someone who has hurt you beyond repair, does that make you wrong or put you in the same class as them?

I suppose my friend had a valid point. I tried to think of the worse thing that could be done unto me and to determine whether or not I could continue with a loving feeling and attitude despite circumstances. I reflected on how my own life had been changed and marked by tragedy. Horrific things had been done unto me. I have seen and felt and know to this day that evil spreads through the actions and thoughts of people.

My life has been a consistent turning of the cheek. Not so much due to Godliness as it has been to powerlessness. Living as a woman in a man’s world diminishes my worth and value as an equal human being in the eyes of not only men but women as well. A world in which my body continues to define me, gives little relevance to my thoughts and opinions as a whole.

Yes. I’ve been turning my cheek, it seems, all of my life but I can’t say that I love you despite what you have done unto me … girls … and other women. I can choose to walk a different path, be a different kind of person. I can even choose to forgive you, but love is a rather big ideal for such a small reality as yours.