So my talk today will be called "Turning Wounds Into Wisdom."
And before I begin, I would like to ask you, how many of you think it's possible to look
at some of your most traumatic experiences or the people who hurt you the most in your
life and not only forgive them, but also to start loving them again and look at all those
experiences with eyes of love and compassion and to trust that maybe in those experiences
are hidden some of your most valuable and precious gifts?
So, okay.
So hopefully after this talk, everybody will think this way.
So, it was a peaceful and quiet night in our home.
My siblings and I were sitting in the middle of our living room watching TV while my parents
were somewhere around the house.
While we were sitting there enjoying ourselves, all of a sudden we hear our father's angry
voice breaking the silence, "Who took them?
Who took them?
There are candy missing.
Who took them?"
I looked at my sister and from the look on her face, she looked horrified and I immediately
knew it was her.
We both started crying and shaking because we knew what was about to happen.
And then he asked again, "Who took them?
If the person who took them won't answer, you will all get in big trouble.
All of you hear me?"
That moment I didn't even want him to ask the question one more time.
I just got up and I said, "It was me.
I took the candy."
At the time I didn't realize why I said it was me, but probably because I didn't want
like my sister to get hurt.
I knew I could handle my own pain and I could deal with that suffering, but I will not be
able to see her suffer.
The moment I said it was me, he just pulled me by my hair and started dragging me all
the way to the bathroom and screaming and shouting, "Bring me the gasoline.
Bring me the gasoline."
I started crying so loudly, and I was not even 10 years old at the time, and I was shaking
and I didn't know what he needed the gasoline for.
"Bring me the gasoline or I'll burn you all."
He like threw me on the bathroom floor, started putting like paper between my toes and eventually
lit me on fire.
I was like crying so loudly and shaking.
I was horrified because I was like my body...I was there with my body, but I felt like, "Is
this really me?
Is this really happening?
Why would my father do such a thing to me?"
And I was like begging him to let me go, to leave me alone, but it just felt like his
body was physically there, but his mind and his spirit were not there.
I was like crying and shaking and because my body just couldn't deal with so much pain,
I just collapsed.
And it felt like the seconds that I was like sitting there and like on fire just feel like
an eternity to me.
And I honestly felt like I won't make it alive, and I passed out.
I had a lot of memories like this from my past and a lot of experiences.
And even though I suppress most of them while growing up, somehow this one just remained
with me.
And I couldn't forget it, and I never really had a childhood nor did I knew how it felt
like to live in a happy, healthy environment.
For the first 12 years of my life, my father replaced love and nourishment with like brutality
and violence, and that's all I remember.
I don't remember a moment when I was actually having a beautiful, loving interaction with
my father.
And even though the physical abuse stopped when I was like 12 years old, because that's
when my father died, I somehow continued to abuse myself emotionally and mentally, simply
because they were like so much pain in my life and so much past I was carrying into
the present moment.
And I just didn't know how to heal those wounds and how to deal with all that pain.
And it's not like I was taken to a psychologist because we didn't have the money and everybody
in my family was like so focused on healing their own pain and like trying to survive
that it just felt like you're on your own.
For a very long time, I thought that my self-worth equaled my net worth, and because we didn't
really had enough, I kind of continued to think that I wasn't a valuable human being.
And I remember going to school and on the playground, the people were like treating
me differently and it made me mad and sad because I didn't understand why in the world
are people treating me like that.
While at the same time I remember thinking, well, if my own father treated me like this,
what can I expect from other people?
And as I was growing up and when I was a kid, I was thinking that probably my father was
treating me the way he was treating me because there was something wrong with me, because
how can you treat your own child like that?
There has to be something wrong.
And unfortunately, I took that belief with me as years went by and I crafted my life
based on that belief.
And as a result, I started attracting in my life all kinds of people and experiences who
proved me that I was right, and then I allowed them to like kind of make me less or more
valuable based on how they are treating me.
So it wasn't easy.
And it felt like things were getting worse and worse as I was like getting older and
as years were going by and I was becoming unhappier and unhappier.
And I remember I felt like I hit the rock bottom.
And I was, like, so on the edge in the fall of 2009 when I came back from U.S. after spending
three years there, and after being with my boyfriend for a very long time, we decided
to break up.
And because I was like so needy and I didn't know how to love myself and how to be alone
with myself, I was just clinging onto him and I didn't know how to let go.
And even though our relationship was toxic, I just felt like I needed.
And I was also like used to toxicity.
So in a way my head, even though it was like disturbing, I thought that maybe I deserved
that, so I was like trying to hold onto it.
And then to make things worse, I was like studying something that I don't even know
why I was studying because for 12 years I went and I studied art and then somehow I
ended up studying economics, and then I didn't really have that many friends.
So it just felt like wherever I looked, I was just bumping into walls, and I just felt
like I couldn't do it anymore.
And I remember waking up one night and I was like sweating and I started crying and I realized
that I can't do this anymore.
I can't live like this anymore.
There has to be a better way.
And it was in that year that I started reading a lot of personal development.
And one of the books that I read that changed my life was like "Man's Search for Meaning"
written by Victor Frankl, who was a survivor of the Holocaust.
And in that book, he opened me up, like something shifted after reading that book because I
realized that what if the past happened the way it did because there was something that
I needed to learn?
And what if in those wounds and in those experiences are hidden some of my most precious gifts
and lessons?
And even though it wasn't easy because how in the world can you look at your past and
realize that 12 years you're deprived of love and you didn't have a childhood, and how can
you think that there is any meaning in that?
So I used to think...like be very resentful.
And even though I didn't really hate my father, I had like these feelings of sadness and think
to myself that it wasn't right, I didn't deserve that.
And the more I kind of like opened up to this idea of accepting what happened and looking
for the meaning, it was easier for me to actually open all the closets and look at all my skeletons.
And even though it was scary and like to kind of give them a hug because by doing so you
actually realize that you're like fierce and like your worst enemy, they become your best
friends and they teach you valuable lessons.
And so I remember one day I was like...I don't know what happened that day, but I was like
very, very, very unhappy and I was like in a really bad place.
And I remember like being so mean with everybody around me.
And I went home and I started crying and I was like, "Why am I doing this?
Why am I treating people like that?"
Because they're like really good and loving people.
And in that moment, I just had this realization that what if my father treated me the way
he did not because I was unworthy, but because he was in a really bad place?
And because there was so much pain accumulated in his life, and because he didn't know how
to deal with that pain, he like started spilling over.
And that helped me so much because it made me understand that I wasn't unworthy and there
was nothing wrong with me and that if people treated me unkindly, didn't have anything
to do with me.
And if until that moment I didn't know any better and I allowed them to like make me
feel less valuable, now it's the moment for me to take responsibility and to look at all
those experiences differently and to ask people to treat me the way I want to be treated.
And that's how I learned to like let go of all the things that were like holding me back
in life.
Let go of the self-judgment and the judgment that I was like directing toward everybody
around me, of criticism, of control.
Because I was like, being in a relationship with my ex-boyfriend, I was like trying to
control him all the time and I thought that he will be my salvation.
And by letting go all those things and by peeling all the layers, I managed to like
tap into something that was like so beautiful and I managed to like feel so much lighter
and at peace.
And I don't know how many of you are familiar with the movie "The Shift" by Wayne Dyer.
And in that movie, there's a scene where Wayne talks about how in the first nine months of
our life, like everything we need is being provided to us.
So why wouldn't it be the same for the rest of our lives?
Because we interfere.
And that in those nine months, we are pure, whole, and holy and that there is nothing
unworthy about us and there is nothing lacking.
And it felt like the more I was peeling off the layers, the more I was letting go of all
the things and toxicity in my life, I was able to like tap into that inner beauty and
to like go back to that place of serenity that Wayne was talking about.
And it felt like life began to take care of me.
And it helped me understand my father and why he did all those things to me.
And it helped me go from bitterness and resentment to love, compassion.
And it helped me understand that how people treat you doesn't have to determine how you
treat yourself.
And that your self-worth does not equal your net worth.
And that if you want, like, to change your life, you don't have to like ask people to
treat you differently and you will not change and you'll never get better by getting things.
We will change from how you think and how you perceive yourself.
And by doing so, I managed to like transform my life and to attract people in my life that
were like loving and beautiful.
And it made me realize that when you let go of the old, you make room for the new and
you are able to tap into something that is so beautiful.
And it's so unique and you are able to discover talents that you didn't know you have.
Because that's how I started writing, and that's how I wrote that article.
And for me, writing was such a healing experience because it helped me understand everything
that I was going through and he helped me become my own healer.
And it helped me realize that nobody will help me if I don't help myself, and that my
salvation will not come from the outside.
There's a beautiful quote from Buddha that goes like this, "No one saves us but ourselves.
No one can, no one may.
We ourselves must walk the path."
So no matter how many horrible things happened to you in the past and no matter how bad people
treated you, it doesn't have to determine who you are.
The story of your past does not have to equal the story of your life.
And everything for me changed the moment I decided to make a commitment to myself to
let go of all the things that were holding me back, to let go of my past, to let go the
judgment of toxicity thinking, to let go of resentment, the need to like control people,
and the attachment to all that pain.
Because believe it or not, we are so attached to our own pain and our own struggles that
we keep those struggles to keep us away from opportunity moving forward with our life.
And by making a commitment to myself to make the rest of my life the best of my life, I
was able to actually surrender to whatever it was that life was offering me up until
that moment.
And to look at everything with like understanding and to think that there are lessons that I
need to learn.
And if people come into my life and then treat me in ways that I don't like to be treated,
it's my responsibility to make that, this is not who I am and to like let those people
go.
And that's why after that I got back to my boyfriend and we went back together, but it
was like again toxic.
So it just took me so long to actually let go of that relationship.
Because it's so funny how the past, if you don't heal it and if you don't take time to
like look into everything that happened to you and accept and forgiving, chances are
that it will repeat, it will repeat, and you'll like encounter the same people, maybe different
faces but the same experiences.
And that's why, like, it's so important to just surrender to whatever it is that life
has to offer you and to trust.
Just like Eckhart Tolle said, "Life will give you whatever experience is most beneficial
for the evolution of your consciousness."
How do you know that's true?
Because that's the experience you're having right now.
To give yourself permission to forgive those people that treated you unkindly, your past,
your wounds and to heal, to forgive yourself for treating people badly because probably
you did the best you knew at that time.
To let go of all the things that are holding you back, to work on purifying your thoughts
and to...because I remember like back in the days, all the thoughts that were running through
my mind were like so toxic.
And if you think about it, it's like, it's your thoughts that create your beliefs and
based on belief that you are and when you are, you're creating your own life.
So by purifying your thoughts, you purify your own life.
To take time to contemplate and to be alone with yourself.
What I've noticed that a lot of people can't really be alone with themselves.
Why?
Because they don't enjoy their own company.
I couldn't do it before either, but the more I allowed myself to like just go outside in
nature, to meditate, to write, and to be alone or away from everybody, I was able to build
a relationship with myself.
Because how do you build a friendship?
By spending quality time with that person.
And that's why it's so important to just be alone with yourself and to know who you really
are.
And by doing so, you'll be able to love yourself fully and you'll understand that you don't
need other people.
And when you would be with other people, you'd be like so easy to be around and they will
enjoy your company, and you will not have to like get their approval because they won't
give it to you freely.
Another thing you can do is to see if you can express your gratitude for all the things
that happen to you, all the experiences, good or bad.
And by doing so, chances are that you'll be able to see all the lessons that your experience
have to teach you.
And it will help you like make you a better person, not bitter.
And it will help you turn your wounds into wisdom.
And by doing so, you will be able to craft the life you want and to live the life that
you deserve.
Thank you.