"My brother molested me. For years, I buried myself in working two jobs while attending College full time followed by a high pressure consulting position that required 90 hour work weeks. When I wasn't working I was partying, late night's lots of booze and dangerous situations with men I barely knew. Finally I started counseling and learning techniques to work less and start experiencing life. Sure enough the more time I was made to "feel" the world around me the harder things got. Truly experiencing life (rather than avoiding it) was painful -- I started to have time to see how much I hated myself, how much I hurt inside, how much I wanted to run from this pain.

Today, I have a kind and respectful relationship with my brother, I admire my brother who is raising children and share stories about managing daily life decisions. Today, I am grateful I have a brother. All of this is true because of forgiveness. Forgiveness came easily thanks to the Self Awareness Weekend, an intensive counseling weekend Andrea Lambert and her team led me through a process to heal the hurt, understand the total impact of my brother's actions & completely forgive.

Forgiving my brother has given me life. Because of forgiveness I am completely free. I have hope, direction and peace of mind. Since forgiving my brother the world has opened up and sent all of its goodness forward. Since forgiving my brother I have been empowered to start a business, have married a wonderful man and feel strong enough to start a family of my own. I believe that my brother felt hurt from being the perpetrator as I felt hurt being the victim. Forgiveness has given us both the freedom to let go of those hurts and experience the joy of being siblings who can care for and support each other with every part of their being. This makes my heart smile."