I’ve noticed every time I have used a box, no matter its size, it was to hold something of value to me, even if I was gifting that something to someone else. Once I fill the box with the contents of my desire, I always make it a point to seal the box shut for safekeeping and protection from outside influences. It’s amazing how much a box can hold, especially when it comes to our past memories…

I remember my first day of kindergarten. I was so scared! I was 5 years of age and it was the first time I was away from my mother and sisters for an extended period of time. For 5 years, I was at home with my mother and sisters every day, all day, so I couldn’t understand why she was leaving me with two adult strangers and a class full of children I didn’t know. I understood I had to go to school, but I didn’t know it would be like that! Naturally, I was a very quiet and withdrawn little girl. I remember standing in the doorway of my classroom with my eyes full of tears, as I watched my mother and sisters leave me, and then my teacher escorted me to my seat. That day was traumatic for me!

I remember when I was 12 years of age. It was summer, and my family and me were going to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for vacation. My father was angry about something, which wasn’t unusual. It literally took absolutely nothing substantial to set him off into an angry fit of rage! My sisters and I were loading the car with our luggage and other travel essentials and afterward, we went into the living room to wait for my parents. My mother was in the kitchen. My father walked into the living room and asked, “Who left the TV on?” Before anyone could answer, he picks up the remote control and throws it at the TV. We had one of those big screen TV’s with an actual screen; it was not glass, so when he threw the remote control at the screen it made a big hole from the impact. Everyone was silent. Then my father said, “Now no one can watch the TV. Let’s go!”

Everyone got in the car to proceed on our trip and my father was still angry. He was going down the line asking my sister and me individually why we left the TV on. I didn’t know why the TV was on. I know I didn’t turn it on. I also didn’t understand what the big deal was about the TV being on because we had not left the house yet. My father was driving, my mother was in the front passenger seat and my sisters and I were in the back. All I remember next is my mother chiming in to say it wasn’t necessary for him to throw the remote control at the TV screen and he told her to shut up, she kept talking so in response he floors the accelerator and didn’t let up. The car was going faster and faster! We were all scared and I knew my mother was too because she stopped talking. The car was moving at a high rate of speed along a curvy road and my father was not slowing up one bit! My mother said, “We need to get gas” and that’s when my father slowed the car down enough to turn into the gas station. He got out the car to pay for the gas. I grabbed my purse and started looking for spare change so I could call someone on the payphone to come get me. As I got out the car I said to my mother, “Y’all can die if you want to, I’m going to call the police.” I was familiar with that gas station because we passed it just about everyday, I just didn’t realize the payphone had been removed until I ran around to the front of the gas station looking for it!! It wasn’t there!! I turned back to look at our car and noticed my father had made it out of the store and back to the gas pump, so I ran inside the gas station, scared and in tears and I asked the attendant if I could use the phone. She told me I couldn’t go behind the counter, so she handed the phone to me and I bent down so I would be out of view, and before I could dial the number I saw my father coming. He walks right up to me with his red eyes. I was literally shaking and he yells, “Who are you calling?!!?” I said my friend and he walked out the gas station. I looked outside and my mother was now at the driver side of the car with her hand out asking my father for the keys. She came in the gas station to get me and we left. She drove us back home and the whole ride my father was yelling. I can’t remember another time I was so scared in my life and I thought I was going to die! We made it home and the next day we got in the car again and headed to the beach like nothing happened the day before. My father never apologized for his behavior, for scaring us or for anything. My mother never talked about the incident either. When we got back to the house from our vacation, my father had a repairman come fix the screen to the TV and that was it. Almost thirty years have passed and I still remember that day like it happened yesterday.

I remember when I was 15; I was asked to be a model in a local fashion show. At the last minute, the stylist who was doing my hair asked my mother if I could spend the night over her house so that she could start on my hair that evening and finish it early the next morning. My mother agreed and my stylist asked us to meet her at the venue so I could go with her. The whole 15 minute ride to our meeting spot my mother seemed very annoyed with me although she didn’t say a word to me. When we arrived, we both got out the car and I started walking to the front door and she said, “Danielle I need to talk to you for a minute…” so I stopped in my tracks and turned my attention to her. She said, “Your father said you didn’t say anything to him before you left the house…” I was little confused because I didn’t even see my father on the way out the door, we were rushing and I honestly wasn’t even thinking about saying bye to him. No disrespect…it just wasn’t on my mind. So I didn’t respond to her statement, mainly because I didn’t know what to say. She continued, “I’m not going to let you break me and your father up. I will put you out before I let him leave me over you. You’ll be leaving the house soon and I’m not going to be by myself.”

I was crushed inside. I didn’t know what to say. My voice was completely silenced by her words and misplaced emotion toward me. I simply said, “Ok” and I started walking in the building and she got in her car and left. I was numb the whole night. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t know what to think. All I knew was at 15 years of age I didn’t want to be somewhere I wasn’t wanted even if it was with my family.

By the time I graduated from high school, nothing much had changed in my life and as a result I just wanted to leave my parent’s house and move far away from them to have peace. My time with them showed me and taught me what I wanted in life, love, happiness and relationship, as well as what I didn’t want. When I went away to college, life was finally looking up for me! I had my own apartment, I was in school, I was working and I had peace. I felt like my desires were in arm’s reach! It was my junior year of college and my mother called me as I was on my way out the door to go to class. She said she needed to talk to me and she would call me later. I paused for a minute…and then I asked her if she was moving to Georgia. My father had retired from the military and decided he wanted to move to Georgia. I knew he was already there because my sister told me he left a few months earlier. After a brief pause, she said, “Yes, and I want you to come with us. Atlanta has a lot of opportunities and it will be a great place for you! Don’t you want a new start?”

I was fine in my own little corner of the world, but then the thought of “new” was so enticing to me! After much thought, I decided to take the leap and I moved!

A few months of being in the same space as my family, I quickly saw nothing had changed and I had to go! As an adult, I now had options and I knew I didn’t have to be in a toxic environment. I met and started dating the man I would eventually marry. I loved him unconditionally, but I didn’t like him or his ways, and I didn’t know why until years later. He wanted me to move in with him and I dragged my feet because I didn’t want to be “shacking” and I told him that, and his response was always: “I’ll marry you in a year if living together works out for us,” so I moved in with him instead of getting my own apartment. Life was so familiarly toxic with him. As bad as I wanted to leave, I stayed. A baby and five years later, we got married and I regretted it a month into the marriage, but I was also too embarrassed, scared and weak to leave. I wanted to leave before we got married, but I thought about everybody else and I believed his empty promises to change and be a good father to our child and a good husband to me, even though I could clearly see his actions said otherwise.

I remembered my time as a little girl and I was proactive about making sure my daughter was prepared for the world. I put her in a home daycare when she was 18 months of age while I was at work so she could get used to being around other people and children her age. When her father had his violent outbursts I did the best I could to shelter her from the dysfunction, but it wasn’t until after I had my second child that I knew I had to leave my marriage. I was dying inside. I didn’t have the desire to live anymore because I was in so much emotional pain. I realized I was living my childhood all over again, except now I was the wife and mother. I was literally waking up every morning to take care of my children…they were my lifeline. I chose to take a loving approach to parenting and be intentional about showing them I love them unconditionally in my every word, deed and action. I had so many heart-to-heart talks with God asking Him to rescue me; not understanding it was God who was waiting on me!

There’s always that 1 situation that affects your soul in a way that pushes you to your breaking point and causes you to make a life-changing decision. For me, it was the day the man I married put his hands on me in an angry rage. It wasn’t the first time, but it was the last. I had enough and it was time for me to make an intelligent decision concerning the future of my life and that of my children’s lives. I decided that weekend I would move out while he was at work and that’s exactly what I did.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” (Psalm 34:18)

Healing is your innate ability to transform the brokenness from the pain of your past to 100% wholeness, empowering you to walk in your divine power, use your voice in the spirit of unconditional love and thrive in your purpose as you fulfill your destiny in the earth.

I needed closure.

For me, a great deal of my closure came thru my willful surrender to my healing journey and God’s perfect plan and purpose for my life. I understood I had to forgive my past and everyone in it, including my parents. My healing allowed me to understand my parents are a man and a woman who once were a little boy and a little girl, who experienced their own traumas in life, from which they too learned how to exist in life, love and relationship from their level of perception of their experiences. Thru my healing work, I was able to accept that they did the best that they knew to do and I have to love them unconditionally, which I absolutely do!

Closure is essential to your healing and wholeness, without it you continue to live in the past thru repetitive unhealthy cycles, brokenness and nonproductive patterns. Your conscious decision to forgive, is what allows you to move forward in your life by shedding every vibrations that no longer serves your highest good, and gives you the strength and wisdom to choose you every day!

All of the experiences I have lived thru were preparing me for this moment.

I learned a lot about myself in the heart of my healing journey. I first had to understand I needed healing. All I knew was I was tired of living in pain, in spite of my full force effort to simply be happy and enjoy my life in peace. My healing work exposed the heart of my soul’s wounds, and I was able to see that I was only attracting to my life that which was in me-spiritually, mentally, emotionally and on a heart level, as a result of what I had absorbed from the experiences I lived thru along my life’s journey. I knew what I wanted-unconditional love in every aspect of my life, and I also knew what I didn’t want-chaos, unrest and the feeling I was only being tolerated. I was also made aware of how we have a tendency to box up our feelings, problems and voice in a nicely sealed box within us, so we don’t have to deal with its contents at the time, and we create a replica of who we want to present to the outside world so that we’ll be able to survive it successfully. As long as I kept all my wounds boxed up, they would continue to fester and spill over into every aspect of my life, and I didn’t want that for my children or me.  I thank God for my life’s journey thus far, every experience I have lived thru; for my healing, growth and continual evolution into the woman He created me to be. Without it, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Blessings, peace, light & love to you always💜

Are you ready to heal? Answer your soul’s cry and begin your healing journey thru mentorship. I would love to mentor you!