“I’ve watched too many people try to make other people happy and it takes away from their own joy. He loved me and he still made these choices. I had to understand it wasn’t about me -at all.”
Cortney Donelson
“I did everything to deny who I was, because if you are not good enough for your mother, how do you reckon with that?”
“I had my back to where the gunman came in..so the people facing me saw it first..We were under the table as he made his way closer and closer to us..I didn’t feel fear or panic and I don’t know if that’s a reaction the body goes into.”
Helen Connolly
“I found myself in Afghanistan..engaged in a war fighting an enemy that was extremely effective. War is a corrosive, caustic thing…”
“I went upstairs to say ‘goodnight’ to her..but she wasn’t in her bed and out of the corner of my eye in the dim light I could see she was standing in her closet..(but) she wasn’t standing in her closet..Five days later, 900 people came to her wake.”
“Amanda was crying and she said, ‘I wish daddy was here’. I said, ‘I wish he was here too’..it was an unbelievably bad time.”
“He was a very, very special and beautiful human being..I could not deny he was the right person for me..but to hear that Jason had committed these horrific crimes just broke everything into a million pieces, and that is where the journey began.”
“I was responding with peace rather than one more bitter person in the world who was vengeful.”
Anne Marie Cockburn
“I was terrified of everyone in a police uniform and thought they were going to kill me…I had to figure out how to continue living.”
“She was standing in the shelter doorway..so thin and malnourished, dirty clothes and she smelled..what could we do?”
“When I saw the face (of the terrorist) I heard a voice inside saying ‘forgive them, they know not what they do.”
“There were three Jewish boys in my class and no-one would talk to us. They were intimidated by fear. It was horrendous.”
“Okay, you lost your parents but..there is something else to share with the world rather than your victimised self.”
“I was 7 months pregnant..I learned my (then) husband had hired two friends to murder his father and the murder was carried out.”
“I was cutting drugs for my father at the age of six… we thought violence was normal”
“I had to recognise what this pattern was in my life, and it goes back to early childhood abandonment….This path I went on ..strengthened the neural networks that created the pattern in the first place.”
“We heard the noise and everyone fell to their feet – we were each being shaken like a rag doll”
“Any parent of a child with disabilities goes through stages of acceptance. I had to grieve to begin with, to let go of a lot of dreams and replace them with other dreams.”
“I was sentenced to 25 to life for being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm..I was really scared..I didn’t know if I would ever get out..I realised that I was the problem, and I was also the solution. I had the power to create something different.”
“The woman that killed my child was drunk, she..picked him up from childcare.She had been drinking and hit a tree….people just showed up..to support us.”
“I was diagnosed with HIV, and at that time it was a death sentence…I was diagnosed later with Leukemia..I stopped my cancer treatment but John died holding my hand”
“I was West of Scotland body-building champion and now I can’t brush my own teeth.”
“I wasn’t content. I was seeking this perfection. I thought that’s what people did.”
“At the core of what I was doing and how I was acting, it was all about me….In some ways I was a victim…but it was my decisions that led me down this path.”
“I began to hyperventilate, screaming and going into shock. I convinced myself I couldn’t carry on without Will. It wasn’t possible.”
“I am finding a way to become a stronger, better person despite a diagnosis of Myelodysplastic Syndrome.”
“I hit my head on the ocean floor and broke my neck. I was lying face down in the water and I have never felt so alone even amidst thousands of people.”
“Thriving is feeling comfortable in who I am and what I stand for. I’ve stopped living the script my father gave me.”
“When you’re sad…do things to make you happy…go to a friend’s house..”
“On the 13 September 2014 my brother David was murdered by ISIS and a video of his death put on the internet for the world to see.”
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Without compassion, you will never truly connect with another human being.