This is the icing-on-the-cake stage that comes three or four years into healing. Not that healing stops after this -- as I've mentioned in an earlier blog it continues in a spiral. Yet it is never quite as intense as the first go-round.
    By now, flashbacks and memories no long rule your life. You've probably remembered about as much as you need to make sense of why you are the way you are. Or were. It's not necessary to remember everything.
    You may make major changes as you move on:
            -    in your relationship with yourself
            -    in your interactions with others
            -    in how you respond to the world
    With what you learned during the first three stages of healing and understanding how abuse affected you -- in the 4th stage -- you see more clearly how patterns of behaviour, needed in childhood to survive, continue in your present life. You realize you have choice in everything you say and do and be; in how you relate to friends, to your partner, to family members; with work colleagues and bosses; in how you raise your children.
    At this stage you may decide to go back to school. Or move across country, or even to the other side of the globe, to sever ties with a previous lifestyle or relationship. You may become politically active in a cause close to your heart. Or become creative for the first time. Or deepen your creative urge. Or learn a skill you never thought you could manage.
    This is an exciting adventurous time.

Reminder: You are not invincible.
Remember: Nurture and nourish yourself, make boundaries and take space just for you.