Embracing the Future The Students Approximately eighteen months after the workshop and the initial post-workshop review, I met with two of the students who had taken part in the research as interns with ZPRA Veterans Trust. The aim was to determine the long-term impact of the TOL process given the hostile environment the participants faced almost on a daily basis. So I wanted to find out how they had been coping and to hear about their experiences in the “real” world. Overall they were still finding the workshop experience helpful. They had apparently developed buzz words such as “moving on, positive mind, positive attitude,” and so on. In fact, in a six page transcript of the interview the phrase “moving on” and its derivatives was mentioned 17 times. While not much can be deduced from this, in terms of generalizability, it was nevertheless intriguing to note the frequency with which these two participants used these phrases. It does however; suggest that at least participants had internalized the language learnt at the workshop. Both participants indicated that they had had to learn to move on. This was said in the context of what it means to heal. “N” equated moving on with having a “clean heart” and, for her, it meant the application of the life skills learnt during the TOL workshop. The other, Participant “L”, expressed it thus: So the most important thing I learnt is that we have to move on sometimes. ...sometimes we don’t get an apology from someone who has hurt us but we have to move on. We have to go on by ourselves, it’s not about the other person, it’s about you personally... if you don’t heal by yourself, you will always be living in the past; and if you hold on too much to the past, you tend not to grow as a person; it causes trauma to you... (italics added). I was then curious to know what they actually meant by this term: moving on. I felt that this was perhaps a key concept in the whole process, and their understanding might provide insights into how they made it work in their lives. Participant “N” had this view: ... there are some conditions that have to be met for you to like heal; ...because when you say you are moving on with life, it’s not like just looking forward and going looking ahead. You have to like look back at the past: That’s ok—this is what went wrong... so instead of focusing mainly on those parts that pull you down in life, you focus on the positive.... It means you are no longer burdened by those burdens from the past, but then it’s looking forward to challenges in the future.