Don't Be Just A Surviver~ Be a Thriver

Someone told me tonight that they just wished for me to have just a little while of no health things happening so that I could rest and enjoy life. I laid here thinking about life from the years prior to being put on disability to date. The battles were remembered but seemed like I was not feeling the emotions I was feeling at the time. I am a fighter and always will be. I try to minimize my health issues and pain with laughter for I find that makes my life so much easier to bear. And I am blessed to have loved ones who lift me up and help me keep going.

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As I was thinking about the times, the hard surgeries, the pain…I realized that what has kept me going is that I don’t let these things hold me down. It might be horrific going through the rough times, but I know I will get past them. My body is covered both inside and out with many scars and yet here I am smiling and laughing and loving life. I love how this quote describes the scars.

There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature.  A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with. 

~Harry Crews~

I think perhaps those of us that have many many scars, to us it is something we are used to dealing with and those that only have one or two….it is harder to get past the hurt and pain for they have not had to deal with it very much and so healing comes slower. When adversity is so bad…we feel like we are running against the wind and getting nowhere….but we are. It is just in increments rather than miles.

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Rock bottom is good solid ground, and a dead-end street is just a place to turn around. 

~Buddy Buie and J.R. Cobb~

Ever hit rock bottom? I have. One time was with my kidney surgery when the pain was so bad I could not eat, move and could barely talk.  I remember a friend telling me how sorry they were that I was enduring this and that it made them realize that some things are worse than death. I felt like I had hit rock bottom. But know what?  Something in me started to fight…to live. Instead of keeping on going down, I did a u-turn and started back up that mountain. It was a huge scar and stayed tender for a while and then one day, I knew it was finally healed…nothing but a memory. And I look back now and smile at one more mountain I crossed.

Watch a man in times of… adversity to discover what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off. 

~Lucretius~

When we are battling is when we are the most vulnerable. It is when there is no front to protect us, our total inner being is showing and people see who we really are. It is too hard to hide our feelings when we are battling things and so our words come from deep within and our words and our eyes match. That is one of my big things…if your words don’t match what your eyes are saying to me…antennas go off.

There are times in everyone’s life when something constructive is born out of adversity… when things seem so bad that you’ve got to grab your fate by the shoulders and shake it.

  ~Author Unknown~

We have two choices when facing adversity….give up and wallow in it or fight the good fight and do the best we can. We may not always win…but we at least go down fighting if we don’t. Sometimes I think we have to shake ourselves and say “ok stop the whining” and get back on the treadmill of life and start pedaling…one pedal at a time. Either we let our lives be spent in anger spewing at others with venom or we do something contructive.

A bend in the road is not the end of the road… unless you fail to make the turn. 

~Author Unknown~

Sometimes we can think we are the only one suffering or battling but if you really look around the world…..you will find someone worse than you. Son used to ask me why I watched shows like the woman with the 60 pound tumor. I told him to remind myself that many were worse off than me. It keeps me from feeling sorry for myself and feeling bad for the all things I can’t do. I believe in focusing on what I CAN do instead.  It is not the journey, for there will always be mountains we have to climb…it is how we climb them that matters…one step at a time.

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Adversity is like a strong wind.  It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are. 

~Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha~

There are times we  let the sorrow, the pain, the battle overtake us and we lose sight of what we have in our lives. It is so easy to let it all shadow the good things we do have. Life is not always easy but the good moments are there, if we just allow ourselves to see them.  If we spend our lives mourning it all, then we lose what we do have in our lives. I know you have seen people who spend their lives cherishing and nurturing their hurt or sorrow and building it into a lifestyle rather than working through it making themselves stronger.

Allow yourself a moment of grief when life’s misfortunes visit you.  However, do not spend your days building a monument in honor of them. 

~Dodinsky~

I think we have to believe that things will get better when they are bad. We have to work towards the positive instead of the negative and to make ourselves see the time frame. If something is only for a few weeks, it is easier to deal with than thinking it is forever. For example, my surgery that I dread, will soon be over and healing will take a few weeks and then it is over. When I think about it in those terms, it is easier to live with. Believe and believe in the good for I truly believe good outweighs the bad.

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Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. 

~Helen Keller~

This is how life is. We may be a Victim one day of circumstances, health, hurt…whatever. But the goal is to move on and become a “Survivor of” those things. And after we survive, we must go on to be come a Thriver.…one who not only survived but thrives and lives and loves in their life.

Convert difficulties into opportunities, for difficulties are divine surgeries to make you better.  ~Author Unknown~

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and the only way to be a thriver is to let go…of the anger…the hurt..whatever emotion is stuck in the past.

”Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?”

–Mary Manin Morrissey~