The guidance of our wisdom is always available to us, but at times can be a bit hard to hear amidst the noisy chatter of our fearful thoughts. But once we do begin to hear it and understand its significance, there's no going back.

Whether you're confronting someone with a "victim" mentality or transforming your own negativity, being empathic is vital. Elevating you to the realm of the heart, empathy allows you to non-defensively understand, even have mercy on antagonizers.

The word "need" is being disgraced from our vocabularies -- which to me is erasing the humane component out of humanity. If properly embraced, it's what makes us human.

Looking back at such experiences we often realize they weren't nearly as bad as they seemed. In fact, sometimes they even turned out to have a lot of benefits, yet at the time they seemed like disasters.

"Isn't withdrawing from conflict just running away?" you might ask. Yes, it is. But there is a huge difference between withdrawing and disengaging. The difference is about your intention.

This week I will not only be celebrating America, the land of the red, white, and blue. Instead, I will be celebrating myself, my journey, and the fact that, over the past five years, I've gone from fearful victim to fearless survivor!

While no one deliberately seeks out someone who is closed, negative and needy, if this is you, this is what you will attract into your life. If you want a loving relationship, then you need to do the work of learning how to take emotional responsibility

How can we think about getting upset in a manner that might bring a level of serenity to our lives? The key is, I think, that we need to be responsible for what upsets us.

What could you do to make your life less frustrating and more successful? Are you willing to own the outcome you prefer and do what you must to move from helpless to helpful?

Self-imposed victimization, begins after the fact, when you continue to blame or bemoan the circumstances and therefore give up doing what you can to improve.

The vital question moving forward has less to do with what happened and whom you can find to blame, and more to do with what you can do now that something has happened to you.

Unfortunately, in my line of work, I deal with cases where the victim has not survived. Recently though, I had the rare opportunity to meet and speak with a victim who had survived rape.

It's all about reconciliation, which doesn't necessarily mean reconciling with the perpetrator. Reconciling with oneself, making peace with the event, is what allows people to live and find resolution.