Tag Archives: challenges

Unbelievably strong

09 Friday May 2014

Posted by in Advice, Attitude, Positivity

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I am attending a 6 week course – for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to attend a course on a Monday night.  I’m not sure if that was one of my brightest plans ever but since the course is focused a lot on positivity and changing the way we view our lives, it is probably not such a bad way to start the week after all.

Then on Thursday, I opened my diary and read the following quote at the bottom of the page:
“A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner” – English Proverb
Interesting coincidence since part of the course on Monday was focused on the eternal question of “why do bad things happen to good people?”
The answer given was that bad things need to happen to good people so that they have the opportunity to grow as individuals, to become stronger and wiser humans.

I think that we so often wish that our lives were smoother and easier and that things would always go our way.
And then life comes and just laughs at you and throws something truly awful into your path.
You will struggle – not only with the problem that you are dealing wih but also with the unfairness of life and persistently questioning “why me?” .
But eventually, the struggle and the awfulness slowly eases, and you wake up and realise that you are truly strong.  You understand that you have survived and you will keep plodding along until eventually you wake up again and realise that you are awesome and life is not so awful at all.

How are we going to become skilled mariners?
By riding out those rough seas.
By realising what it takes to survive those rough times, and more importantly what we have within us that is going to help us to survive.

You are truly strong and you are truly awesome but you will never know that if you don’t first overcome!

Happy new year

09 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in Attitude, Being brave, Life journey

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This is the first post for 2014 and I seriously don’t know what happened to 2013.
I think that time goes faster as you get older… Do you remember time dragging on so slowly when you were young and counting the days until your next birthday?
I wish every one of you a wonderful, happy, healthy and successful 2014.

Except that we know differently, don’t we?
We know that there are going to be times this year that are not going to be wonderful or happy or healthy or successful.
And hopefully not all at the same time!
The great thing is that we made it through last year and we are going to make it through this year too!
Because if you learned from the unhappy, unhealthy and unsuccessful times of the last year and the years before that, you have to know (and if you don’t know, I’m telling you right now) that you are going to make it through this time too.
You made it before and you will do it again.
Because you are strong and amazing and you are a survivor.
You never really understand how strong and how brave you really are until you meet a challenge head on.

So let’s hope for the best, but more importantly, work for the best and strive for the best and then it is going to be great!
It is going to be a year for change, for new adventures, learning, growing and discovering – and we are going to do it together!
Please continue to share all of your moments with me – the good and the bad – I am honoured to have you here.

Life happens

29 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by in Attitude, Life journey, Positivity, Self growth

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This week has been very traumatic for me.

My neighbour is cutting down a tree that is over 100 years old.  And besides the fact that I think that it should be a crime to destroy nature like that, by cutting down that tree, they are affecting the design of my garden, the amount of shade that we have and our privacy.

People have had different reactions to my trauma.

They have varied from people being shocked that I should be traumatised by the loss of a tree to people totally over reacting about it.

Believe me, I have been through some terrible traumas in my life and in the greater scheme of things the loss of a tree is minor compared to some of the other things (like guns, robbers and assault) that I have had to deal with.

So what is a trauma and what is not a trauma?

Truthfully there is no such thing as one trauma being worse than another.  It is a matter of perspective – what is terrible for someone could be manageable or even exciting for somebody else.

 

The one thing that all traumas and losses have in common is that they force change into our lives and sometimes that loss of control or the sense of loss of control is worse than the incident itself.

There is a Yiddish saying (although I think that a lot of other people claim it to be their’s) that goes “Mann traoch, Gott Lauch” – Man plans and God laughs.

I’m not sure if anyone, including God, is laughing at us but the saying rings true because you can have the grandest, most well thought out plans about how your life should be working, and then something comes along and throws those plans right out of the window.

I think that John Lennon said it more accurately when he said that “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans” in his song Beautiful Boy.

While we are planning and trying to control our lives, life happens anyway.  Whether we are ready for it or not!

Perhaps we would be a lot happier if we responded to any difficulties or challenges with the attitude that we will allow ourselves to mourn our losses.  But once we are done mourning and feeling sorry for ourselves, we will bravely take the path that life is forcing us onto.

And we will travel that path with the hope that something wonderful is going to happen somewhere along that journey.

 

Open up to that something wonderful because as much as you may not believe it right now, you really deserve something wonderful to happen to you!