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Posts tagged with “dignity”

Standing Up for Yourself Doesn’t Make You Any Less Kind

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“Being a good person doesn’t mean being a doormat… You can be kind, giving, and full of love, but that doesn’t mean you have to accept disrespect or allow your boundaries to be crossed.” ~Unknown

I can still vividly remember sitting in my seventh-grade classroom, forcing a laugh as my classmates made jokes at my expense. My cheeks would burn red, but I’d smile along, desperately wanting to belong. For years, I mistook my silence for kindness, my nervous laughter for good nature. I didn’t realize that by laughing at myself, I was slowly chipping away at my own self-worth.…

How I Found Hope in my Father’s Terminal Cancer

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“Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty, even in times of greatest distress.” ~Milan Kundera

When my father received a terminal cancer diagnosis, I went through a wave of different emotions. Fear, anger, sadness. It opened a completely new dictionary that I had not had access to before. A realm of experiences, thoughts, and emotions that lie at the very bedrock of human life was suddenly revealed to me.

After the initial horror and dread at hearing the news had subsided, I was surprised to find a new sense of meaning and …

When a Mother Fails to Love: What’s Helped Me Move On

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“You keep meeting the same person in different bodies until you learn the lesson.” ~Brandon Tarot

Like most girls in junior high school, I tried out for all the cheerleading squads every time tryouts came around—basketball, football, even wrestling. And like 95% of the girls, I never made the squad.

My kicks weren’t high enough, my splits weren’t split enough, my arms weren’t board-straight enough, I couldn’t jump high enough—and, let’s be real here: I wasn’t pretty enough and I wasn’t popular enough. After all, we are talking about junior high school.

But eventually, the one tryout came around that …