Muriel's childhood crippled her emotionally. She began visits to the hospital's psychiatric ward when she was in her teens. By her late forties, she'd seen dozens of counselors, therapists, and psychiatrists. She was on a cocktail of anti-this and anti-that medications so potent it could have subdued a blue whale. She had logged no fewer than 61 rounds of electric shock therapy. But nothing really helped.

The problem was what others had done to her: cruel things, malicious things, godless things ….

One day she walked into the office of a new therapist. Muriel was cynical. She had low expectations. The therapist heard her story, and simply asked a question: "How would your life have been different if someone had come alongside you when you were 14 and showed you your strengths instead of telling you that you were sick?"

"In all those years," she said, "I'd never considered that. And then I saw it: I wasn't stuck in my life as I knew it. My life could be otherwise. I decided there and then to live it otherwise. I changed my mind about who I was, which allowed me to change everything almost instantly."