I find great truth in your article, and have drawn the same conclusions in my own life. Excellent work!

I was wondering if you could expand on this point I’ve highlighted above. I’m not sure I completely understand.

If somebody wrongs us, they must be held accountable for their actions. However, the responsibility falls on us to clean up the mess. There’s a difference that isn’t always clear.

A situation like that happened to me. I wrote an article about it — it turned out to be the biggest lesson I ever learned. People are going to impact you. And when they do, it is your responsibility to handle the situation. Whatever happened is unfair, but it doesn’t change the fact that the burden is still on you.

That said, the person who impacted you must be held accountable. I’m not going to pretend it didn’t happen, and I’m not going to let them off the hook until they acknowledge what happened and take responsibility for their actions. They may never do so, and when that happens I will limit or end that relationship to prevent being impacted by them, as they’ve given me plenty of demonstration of their character.

I don’t wish them any ill will, but they can’t be in my life.

NOW… that said, I do believe in learning lessons and communicating what I have learned. If I write a book or an article about what I learned, in the context of using my experience to teach other people how to navigate these situations.

Of course, the perpetrators might see what they want to see, feel attacked, and accuse me of being passive aggressive and immature — and yes, this has happened to me, too.

I won’t deny being hurt whatever event had happened, but I have used it as a teachable moment, which I feel is the best thing I could do. I always ask — what is the best way to benefit from this?

Another writer Chloe Cuthbert created an article titled “If it happened to you, the story is yours”, and this explains my thinking:

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people want you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”