I was thinking the other day about how I used to be and how far I have come in the last 15 years. If someone were to judge me according to my old self, I would want them to know I am not the same person that I was. I wasn’t a bad person, per se, but I was pretty messed up in my thinking and I had low self-esteem and many of the troubles that go hand in hand with that.

But I have healed a lot, set up boundaries and began thinking for myself instead of parroting what others had told me all my life. I’m pretty confident, creative and I have many projects on the go at any given time. I’m loving life in a way I didn’t before. Why? Because I found myself and dedicated myself to trying to live authentically.

What does this have to do with people deserving a second chance? Well, I’ve gone on at times about how it’s ok to turf toxic people from your life. Most toxic people don’t ever grow enough as individuals to overcome their toxicity. These ones don’t deserve a second chance. But sometimes, even when someone has done you serious wrong a long time ago, they aren’t necessarily the same person they were back then. And I realized that there is a person or two on the fringes of my life that have done some soul work and grown up a bit that maybe do deserve another chance.

It just kind of dawned on me (pardon the pun). So I had a little think about it and realized that if I can make a profound change in my life, so can others. Navigating relationships can be so tricky. People’s perceptions are often to blame for misunderstandings. We all view the world through our own filters and don’t always see things for what they truly are. And because of this, someone from our past may have changed but our old hurts and opinions get in the way of seeing that. In my case, there is someone in my life that has changed for the better but I didn’t allow myself to see it because of past issues. I would certainly want another person to give me the benefit of the doubt now that I’ve changed for the better. So that’s what I’m doing for this person. Because I’m pretty sure that sometimes, people do deserve a second chance!