Knowing there's a reason for what happens also saves us from being filled with blame.

There are many paths you can follow to forgiveness. that was one: Understand that your present is different from your past. Here's another: Focus on how it's hurt you not to forgive yourself and on what you need to be safe.

Discovering a hidden talent is actually a very big deal. It can save your life, as it did for my mother. It can save your emotional life, giving you the hope and energy to go on, as it did for Josie. It can save the life of the real you, the part of you that's special.

The bad event gave you the strength you needed in your foundation to make possible the next wonderful thing in your life.

Now here's the good part. It was the part where Monica told me was the reason her life had seemed to collapse. It was to give her what she needed so she'd didn't feel incomplete and unfulfilled anymore.

Think about your story in a new way,' the wise person says. 'You've been thinking of it as a loss. Now think of it as a liberation. What happened to you--it actually freed you up. And it didn't just free you up any old way. It freed you from some dead weight of the past so you could find a new home that would bring life to some part of you, maybe the best part of you.

It was always to free up some part of themselves that never would've come to light. Now they could burst free. And this part of themselves that was freed pointed directly toward where they would feel at home in the world.