Somewhere along the way, we started labeling ourselves by what happened to us. 

The divorced woman. 

The grieving husband. 

The cancer patient. 

The abandoned child. 

The parent with an estranged son or daughter. 

The person who lost everything. 

But what if we looked at it differently? What if instead of defining ourselves by the storm, we defined ourselves by the fact that we made it through? 

Think about your life for a moment. 

Maybe you’ve buried people you loved or sat in a doctor’s office waiting for test results. 

Maybe you’ve survived a divorce, betrayal, addiction, financial hardship, loneliness, depression, or heartbreak and there were days you weren’t sure how you would make it to tomorrow. 

Yet here you are, breathing, living and reading these words. 

You survived, not because it wasn’t hard, or that it didn’t hurt and knocked to your knees. 

You survived because somehow, some way, you got back up. 

We spend so much time calling ourselves victims of our circumstances that we forget the truth: victims stay trapped in the story. 

Survivors keep writing new chapters. 

That doesn’t mean the scars disappear or the memories stop hurting. It simply means the difficult thing didn’t get the final say. 

You did. 

The next time you find yourself replaying everything you’ve been through, pause and ask yourself one question: ‘Am I still here?’ If the answer is yes, then congratulations. You survived 100% of your worst days. 

And that makes you something far more powerful than a victim. It makes you a survivor. 

Wishing you love and light,

~Anne Dennish~