The Heart I Refused to Lose

There was a time in my life when I believed the best response to being hurt was to hurt back.

I fought fire with fire.

Not because I had a heart that wanted to destroy people. I wasn't trying to become evil. I was surviving the only way I knew how.

When you're living in survival mode, this is what trauma can look like.

It can look like a little girl raising herself while, on paper, it says someone else is raising her.

It can look like becoming an adult long before you're ever given the chance to be a child.

It can look like learning that your tears won't be comforted, so you stop crying. That your voice won't be heard, so you stop speaking. That your needs won't be met, so you convince yourself you don't have any.

I don't remember anyone sitting me down and teaching me how to survive. Survival became something I learned by watching, adapting, and making decisions no child should ever have to make.

There are things children should never have to carry—wondering if the lights will stay on, becoming the emotional adult in the room, learning to read people's moods before learning to read books. On paper, I had someone raising me. In reality, I was raising myself in ways no child should ever have to.

Children don't usually choose survival.

Survival chooses them.

Sometimes, before the system ever picks up the pieces, it adds another layer to the trauma. By the time someone notices the child, they're often responding to behaviors without understanding the story that created them.

Trauma doesn't always begin with one catastrophic event. Sometimes it is built slowly through abandonment, neglect, instability, silence, unmet emotional needs, and surviving environments that teach you to protect yourself instead of knowing yourself. Layer by layer, those experiences become beliefs, and those beliefs become behaviors.

Trauma teaches you to stay on guard. It convinces you that vulnerability is weakness and that if you don't strike back, you've lost. The thought of not getting that "lick back" disturbed my soul because, in my mind, returning the pain meant reclaiming my power.

If I'm honest, it felt good—for a moment. Not because I enjoyed hurting people, but because I mistook retaliation for healing. I confused revenge with justice and temporary satisfaction with peace.

What I didn't realize was that revenge doesn't end the conversation with pain—it keeps the conversation going.

Every time I returned hurt for hurt, I was still allowing the person who hurt me to control my emotions. I thought I was taking my power back, but I was actually handing them more of it.

Healing wasn't pretending it didn't happen.

Healing was deciding they no longer got to determine who I became.

But revenge has an expiration date.

Healing does not.

Eventually, I realized I wasn't freeing myself. I was keeping my pain alive by passing it back and forth. Every act of retaliation kept me emotionally connected to the very thing I wanted to escape.

The greatest transformation in my life didn't happen when people changed.

It happened when I got to know myself.

Once I began healing, I realized that validation no longer required the payment of returned pain. I no longer needed someone else to suffer for me to feel whole. My peace became more valuable than my pride, and my freedom became more important than being right.

One of the things I find most fascinating is that so many sacred texts and wisdom traditions, despite coming from different cultures, languages, and time periods, teach the same lesson.

Though I am not a woman of religion, I am deeply spiritual. I have always loved to read, learn, and seek understanding. Rather than limiting myself to one source of wisdom, I enjoy studying different teachings, reflecting on their meanings, and asking myself:

"How can I apply this to my own life?"

I've discovered that while beliefs and traditions may differ, many arrive at the same truths. They encourage us to guard our hearts, choose compassion over revenge, seek wisdom over pride, and understand that our actions have consequences. Whether those principles are described as God's will, Ma'at, karma, divine justice, or simply living in harmony with others, they all invite us to become better human beings.

I don't read these teachings to prove which path is right. I read them because wisdom has a way of revealing itself across generations, cultures, and civilizations. When the same lesson appears repeatedly throughout history, I believe it is worth paying attention to—not just understanding it intellectually, but living it daily.

No matter where I looked, I kept finding the same lesson.

Different voices.

Different cultures.

Different centuries.

Yet the wisdom remained remarkably consistent.

Whether spoken by prophets, philosophers, sages, or elders, they all seemed to point back to the same truth:

The condition of our hearts matters.

The Bible tells us:

"Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." — Proverbs 4:23

It also teaches:

"Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not." — Romans 12:14

And reminds us:

"Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him." — Proverbs 26:27

The Quran teaches us to respond to evil with what is better and reminds us that every good and evil deed carries consequences.

The Dhammapada teaches that hatred is never overcome by hatred—it is overcome by love.

The Bhagavad Gita teaches that true strength is mastering our own anger instead of allowing it to master us.

The Tao Te Ching teaches us to answer injury with virtue instead of retaliation.

The Instructions of Ptahhotep from Ancient Kemet teach patience, humility, and restraint rather than repaying evil with evil.

The principles of Ma'at remind us that the heart is the measure of who we are. A heart burdened by hatred, deceit, or revenge grows heavy, while a heart rooted in truth, justice, and balance remains light.

Ubuntu, an African philosophy, reminds us:

"I am because we are."

When we choose to harm another person, we also diminish ourselves.

Across cultures, continents, and centuries, these teachings point toward the same truth:

Guard your heart.

Not because life won't hurt you—but because if you don't heal, your wounds will begin making your decisions for you.

Over the years, I have learned that we have to be careful with our hearts because a heart determined to sting others will eventually sting itself. Bitterness, jealousy, revenge, and unforgiveness rarely stay directed at someone else. They slowly poison the person carrying them.

Healing began the moment I stopped asking, "Why did this happen to me?" and started asking, "What is this trying to teach me?"

Then came the question that changed my life:

"Now that I know what happened to me, who do I want to become?"

I still believe in accountability.

I still believe in justice.

But I no longer believe revenge is my assignment.

Today, I choose to protect my peace instead of protecting my pride.

I choose to bless instead of curse.

I choose healing over retaliation.

I choose growth over resentment.

I choose to trust that truth has a way of revealing itself and that justice does not always require my hands.

I often wonder how many adults are walking around believing they have an anger problem, when what they really have is an unhealed child still trying to survive.

We judge the behavior without asking about the wound.

We criticize the reaction without understanding what it protected.

We call people difficult, guarded, cold, or unforgiving, never realizing those traits may have once been the very things that kept them alive.

Survival is a remarkable teacher, but it was never meant to be a permanent home.

At some point, we have to thank survival for getting us here—and then lovingly tell it that it no longer gets to lead.

That was one of the hardest conversations I ever had with myself.

Because the little girl in me believed she had to fight for everything: to be seen, to be heard, to be loved, to be safe.

The woman I am today is teaching that little girl something different.

You don't have to earn peace.

You don't have to prove your worth.

You don't have to return pain to validate your own.

You are already enough.

So I'll leave you with the same question that changed my life:

What are you feeding your heart?

Because whatever you feed will eventually grow.

Feed it bitterness, and bitterness will become your language.

Feed it fear, and fear will begin making your decisions.

Feed it revenge, and revenge will quietly convince you it's justice.

But feed it truth...

Feed it grace...

Feed it wisdom...

Feed it love...

...and one day you'll look in the mirror and realize you no longer recognize the person trauma created.

Instead, you'll finally meet the person healing revealed.

Maybe that's why the Bible tells us to guard our hearts.

Maybe that's why the Quran teaches us to repel evil with what is better.

Maybe that's why the Dhammapada teaches that hatred never ends hatred.

Maybe that's why the Bhagavad Gita calls us to master ourselves.

Maybe that's why the Tao Te Ching teaches virtue over retaliation.

Maybe that's why Ptahhotep, Ma'at, and Ubuntu all remind us that the condition of our hearts shapes the condition of our lives.

Different voices.

Different cultures.

Different centuries.

Yet the lesson remains the same.

Guard your heart.

Not because it is weak.

Because it is powerful.

And after everything I've lived through...

That is the heart I refuse to lose.