When I started graduate school, I thought being a therapist would be fun... or fulfilling at least. I always thought that the job would be simple- I'm a good listener, I could cross my legs and sit in a comfy chair, listening to other people's problems all day. I didn't understand that when you really put your heart into it, it takes an emotional toll, so I needed to find new ways to deal.

On nights when I really need to decompress from the horrifying stories I've heard during the day or listening to the hardships that people struggle with on a daily basis, I needed an escape. Not that I don't love doing my job, but sometimes, the further it is from reality, the better the distraction.

My point is, I starting reading a book that I bought a while ago called Little Bee and I read the most amazing quote:

"A scar is never ugly... we must see all scars as beauty because a scar means... we survived."

As human beings, we brandish all kinds of scars- emotional, physical, all kinds. After a recent car accident, I was left wandering down the aisles of Duane Reade and I stumbled upon a plethora of scar creams. After thinking about it for a few moments, I decided against buying them, thinking, yeah right, they don't work anyways. Nonetheless, I did have some desire to erase the scars left by crashing my car- I wanted the physical evidence gone so the emotional trauma would go away with it.

Reading this quote, I realize there is a much better reason not to buy these creams, claiming to erase scarring: every time I see the scar over my knee or beneath my collarbone, I realize that I'm stronger than I believed possible. I survived what I didn't think was survivable and came out perfectly okay. As a therapist, this idea gets me through days when the world seems bleak- the idea that people are so much stronger than they believe themselves to be.

Getting scars in life is inevitable, but how we deal with them is up to us, and we can grow through the challenges if we learn to accept the bad with the good. May you all have the strength to see your scars as beauty.