Thought for the Day

From Iyanla Vanzant's Acts of Faith - Daily Meditations For People of Color

"If you are willing to deal with the past,

you can make the moment you are in rich.
-Oprah Winfrey

We are products of our past, the environment of our childhood.
For those of us who had painful childhoods, we are determined

to get away from our memories. We cannot!

Our past is a part of our today. We carry it in our hearts.
We model what we saw, heard, and experience as children.
It is called a pattern. We do what was done to us.
We behave the way we saw others behave.

Unwittingly, with great deal of denial, we repeat the physical,

emotional and mental patterns set by our families.

The only way to stop the cycle, to break the pattern,

is to go back and deal with the pain.

We must relive the memories before we erase them.
We must confront the people in our minds

and say now what we could not say then.

We must explore the feelings, unpack the guilt,

and free ourselves from the baggage we picked up at home.

You may repeat this: "The buck stops with me."