I could essentially write one sentence to sum this up, but when does a writer ever sum it all up in one sentence, ha ha? I won’t go too deep with this… or very deep at all because it gets a little more personal than I’m comfortable with. I think the biggest experiences that have helped me grow the most have involved betrayal. In my past, not so much nowadays, but I had been betrayed by a woman, by a best friend, and by a small group of close friends back in my 20’s, and a little bit in my early 30’s. Why would betrayal help me grow the most? Simply because it helped me build a nice thick set of armor over my heart and mind. It also allowed me to learn to see patterns in people, and I’m almost always able to sniff out a lie. These types of lessons hurt at first, but once you pick up on the patterns of people, you can easily tell good from bad, mean from nice, and fine tune the skill of determining if a person has a motive or is genuine.
I understand this might sound rough, but I’m honestly grateful for the life lessons because like the daily prompt here states: they helped me grow. Over time, I’ve been able to shrink my circle of trust, and I’m just way better at reading people. That can go a long way.
There are other experiences that have helped me grow, but perhaps I’ll save those for another time. This was more to show that some bad things that happened to me back then shaped me into the strong and confident person I am today. I know who I can trust, and I don’t look over my shoulder when I’m around people.
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