Hating is a heavy weight to carry around, all day, every day, as is fear, as is self-recrimination. They cloud everything, even to the point of watering down even the best experiences in your life so that the joy those experiences should bring become not much more than mediocre, and that's no way to live.

Except for instances in the entertainment industry, I have never heard the words "I feel sorry for you" used as anything other than a weapon. In fact, I cannot think of a single phrase packed with more insincerity than that one.

Last time, I talked about that maddeningly endless litany of seemingly unanswerable questions that can feel like pinballs bouncing around in your head...

Last time, I closed by talking about what it felt like when I had to admit to myself I was a victim of a crime, and that what I wanted most of all was to take back my personal power.

Not that I would ever trivialize the enormity of being a 'survivor' -- after all, I'm one, too -- but once the initial relief of realizing I'd attained that goal had abated, it wasn't long before I began to wonder, "OK ... now what?"