You Are More Than Your Worst Chapter

I read a quote somewhere that said, we all have a chapter in our life we don't want read out loud. Whoever said that was speaking to every single human being on the planet.

Recently I came across an article I'd saved written by the once infamous Monica Lewinsky for a Vanity Fair feature.

It was about taking back her life's narrative. Now if there was anyone who was cyber bullied and cast aside after working and kibitzing in the White House it was her. She disappeared for a long while feeling like the worst person in the world - though seemingly parties also involved - managed to come out of it completely unscathed, thanks to a millions of dollars budget, for a brilliant smoke and mirrors PR campaign. Monica Lewinsky would refer to this era as her dark decade.

Author Louise Hay said that perspective is healing. We can either say, why did this happen to me....OR we can say, WHAT IS THIS PREPARING ME FOR? You cannot step into the greatest calling of your life and fulfill what the universe has planned for you without being forced into that deep dark room of letting go of all that was never good for your soul in the first place.

Monica in all of her courage changed her perspective. She took back the pen and refused to let the worst chapter of her life become the title of her story. Today she is an advocate against cyberbullying and a voice for compassion, resilience, and accountability.

It made me wonder....

What chapter have you allowed to define you? A divorce? A betrayal? An addiction? A diagnosis? Infertility? The loss of someone you loved? A business failure? A public mistake? A season of depression or anxiety?

We all seem to have a "dark decade" a season that shakes us to the core. But those years don't have to be the end of the story. Looking back, I no longer call mine my dark decade.

I call that decade my "backbone years". They taught me resilience, compassion, they deepened my faith, they gave me clarity. they gave me an unbelievable courage, an unwavering sense of self and that time taught me how to alchemize the ashes of what was - into the beauty of my future.

We don't get to choose every chapter life hands us. But we can most certainly get to decide which chapter becomes our identity AND see how our greatest life challenges are in fact preparing us for our life's greatest calling. Don't let the worst thing that ever happened to you, become the truest thing you believe about yourself.

Pick up the pen. Your best pages can still be written.

Monica didn't let that dark decade define her. She let what happened refine her. And you can too.