Action Trumps Acceptance: Become the Creator

Christopher Reeves modeled for me
what it means to live in acceptance of what is
without letting it define what could be

Acceptance is a good place to be.

Learning to recognize and let go of what's not mine, learning to see myself as separate from others yet a part of a bigger world...

Was and is a big deal.

Acceptance of what was...

And of what is....

Is huge.

Freeing.

Empowering.

As I learn to accept those things that are outside of my control....

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change


Courage to change the things I can


And the wisdom to know the difference....

I got hung up on the first line of accepting what I cannot change.

But its the second line that gave me the power to shift from being a passive participant in life to becoming the creator of my life.

Hows that?

I came to understand that acceptance of what is beyond my control is only the beginning.

And that I'd missed the rest of the story - that I had become a passive observer of life....

Rather than the creator of my life.

Learning to live beyond that deep sense of powerlessness that left me hopeless is where I found my power....

And my hope.

You have the power to create your own unlimited life...

Regardless of what it is that you have come to accept as beyond your control.

Living in passive acceptance is different than living in acceptance. 

Healing is about learning to let go, yes.

Healing is also about learning to live....


And live well. *

Today....

Try simply observing the times you may be feeling distressed, overwhelmed...powerless. 


Ride that feeling....to and through the anger, the grief...the fear.


Now look up...


And realize that this moment...


All is well and you....


Are the creator of  your "best life". 

Learning to let go is hard.

Learning to accept those things we cannot change or control is hard.

Learning to live is learning to accept those things of the past that haunt us and hunt us.

And accepting that today...

Truly is mine to create.

Acceptance is trumped only by Action.

Accept - yes.

But never settle.

You have the power.

It lives within you....

To shape and create the today that will take you to your tomorrow. 

It may not be what it might have been had you not suffered.

But it will always be the life that wasn't if we cannot let go of the life that was and the one that will never be because of our suffering. 

Action is the card that trumps acceptance and becomes the fuel that empowers us to push on and through to create our best life when today is hard because of yesterdays hurt.

Always here...

Always amazed by you:)

Susan

* Link: The Best Therapy for "mental illness": Recovery is about learning to live well. That is all. 

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Your assignment if you choose to accept it...

What I think of you is not as important as what you think of you.

Get it?

As SRBT's* many of us learned early on that in and of ourselves we held no value. 

That we were unworthy of being loved simply because we existed.

That we had to earn the love of others but there was a secret about that rule that we weren't told..

That no matter what we did...

It was never

ever

ever

going to be enough.

We learned from a very early age that in and of ourselves we held no value and...

that our value came from others

and

that we had to learn to "read" others

looks

mood

physical appearance

(do they look mad, happy, like they are pleased with what I did or said?))

How are they holding their head....

uh oh

shit

the hand on the hip

the furrowed brow...

better watch out....

to determine what our next word or action might be.

We didn't learn to read others expressions and behaviors to validate their feelings, wants and needs as theirs but

to learn to read others expressions and behavior to validate our feelings, wants and needs as being the right ones for us....

based on what others decided

wasn't going to

piss them off

or

make them happy.

Learning to see myself as separate from others and 

that what others said and did is about them

not me

was

hard. as. hell.

Yet...

this was also the beginning of learning to see myself through the eyes of

enough

valid

worthy

and....

:)

just downright

fricking

brilliant! 

in my own right.

Granted....I should have learned that lesson as a child.

I should have been told I was magnificent..

that I was going to make an amazing doctor one day

That I could be a ballerina

an architect

or any damned thing I dreamed of.

That I could find my light and follow it...

I should have learned to value myself for who I was

not what I could give, sacrifice or do.

But I didn't.

So now ----

the decision is up to me to learn to see myself as who I am and want to be

vs who others told me I was.

So what I think of you - or anyone else - is not as important...

as what you think of you. 

The trick was learning to recognize that those silent subtitles that ran in the back of my mind...

stupid

bitch

wh*** (thanks dad for that one)

idiot

wrong

bad

stupid...

Those are the lies as I see myself through the eyes of those who thought so little of themselves that they had to make me less....

so they could be more.

We can rewrite the program by learning how to be aware of whose voice we are listening to....

And choosing to write our own program.

What do you see when you see "me"?

Learning to let go of the hope the wish and the dream for something more than what I had is how I was able to determine what I would get.

True story:)

Now...your assignment if you choose to accept it:)

Go forth and rock this thing...

multiply them there good thoughts and do your own hostile take over....

Claim your tomorrow by refusing to let your yesterday take over your today:)

Uh huh.

It really is that simple.

Its not easy...

But it definitely is not rocket science:)

Does it take one time to do this?

No.

Two times?

No.

Then how many times did I have to catch those wicked ways of the past that were torturing me today?

As many times as it took.

Does it ever stop?

I don't know

Because I'm still doing it and I'm not always doing it perfectly but...

the point is to do it...

and not give up.

Baby steps is where we start...

And we keep taking those steps and trust they will take us to the next steps.

Change is hard but it doesn't stay hard because one day its no longer change because its the new normal.

The secret was not to have done it once

but to keep doing it.

True story:)

Susan

*SRBT's = Survivors of Really Bad Things = the most amazing beings that walk the face of this earth:)


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The Issue is not the issue

Sometimes I think...

My. god.

Shouldn't I be done with this by now? 

And the answer of course?

Is....no.

Life.

Is.

Part of life is knowing that the journey is not about arriving...

But about the journey.

Its not in doing it right

But about doing it. 

And when things come up...

as they do

knowing that no matter the issue at hand

the issue is really about

knowing I know how to handle the issue. 

Seeing myself as complete and capable to push past the roadblocks life throws me is the beginning of creating my "best life"...

Whats my "best life"?

The one I choose.

Every day.
~

The secret is not that I believe in you - but that you believe in yourself. 


Although...


I do believe in you:) 


In hearts, sparkles magic and music....


Susan 

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Its the Magic....

We all have something we are good at.

Something that no one else can do.

And when we do it...

Its so easy we feel guilty as though we are playing hookey and just waiting to get caught:)

This?

Is your magic.

Yet for many who hail from backgrounds where we were not taught to see ourselves as 

magical

We can struggle with owning our magic. 

So today....this week....

Believe.

In you.

And your magic. 

Let it bubble up to the top and imagine it. 

It might be something that you've found yourself sort of 

falling into

time and time again in your life.

Or it may be something that you did

but don't do today.

You have that one thing in you.

What is it? 

Don't think.

Just feel it.

You may not remember what that one thing is but its there.

This week.....try being open to it.

And see if it doesn't come knocking...

You got it goin' on:) 

Fairy dust, sparkles and hope abounds where we dance with the wind....

Magic, I tell you....Its pure magic when we learn to live in that place where even the angels go...

"Wow! They do it so effortlessly!" 

Wink:)

Susan

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Photo

Finding purpose in my passion

We all have a gift

That is ours to share

To ease the journey

From here to there....

When I stopped seeking my purpose in the things I did and do...

I found my purpose was to share the journey with you.

May today you see your gift in the journey....

Is the journey.

Oftentimes I would find myself wondering what it was that I was supposed to do with my life. 

And a fellow traveler shared with me that by following my own path....

I would find my purpose.

That my life would define itself as I learned to define my "self". 

That my "doing" would emerge from my "being".

That my purpose would be found as I found healing from my pain.

Follow your passion to find your purpose.

It will look different that my path.


It will be your own.


It will become almost magical...


As "coincidences" happen....


As circumstances just seem to "fall into place".


It will be the thing we dreamed of....


But it may not "look" like what we'd imagined.


So listen...


To your passion...


Because this....


Is often your purpose. 


Then - let go of trying to shape it...


And simply let it happen. 


When its "hard"?


Simply step back and see what "feels" right. 


Which path holds the light?


Learning to let go of the past...is often the beginning of finding the thing we can hold onto for our future.

Always believing in you:)

Susan


The journey is always a journey that changes and grows over time we never "arrive" but we are always present, growing, changing and evolving:) 


Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

 

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About my passion

photo credits

I Don't Wanna Grow Up (and I'm Not a Toys R Us Kid:))

photo credit

Along the way in this journey I've learned to look for life lessons in the things that I used to call "problems".

The relationships that weren't working.

The drama that went with those relationships that weren't working.

The me that wasn't working. :)

The life that just in general

SUCKED

many many days.

And along the way some of those life lessons have been sort of difficult as I navigated the waters from seeing myself as a perpetual victim to survivor and finally the path where I decided surviving

was no longer

enough.

One of those lessons?

The one where I realized that as an adult....

my life

was my responsibility.

And that if I didn't like it?

Well...

It was my responsibility to do something about it.

It was up to me to make it be...

(ha! poet and didn't know it!)

Humphh..

See - the "grown up" me says...

you can't be silly like that.

The kid in me starts shaking in my boots.

The trick?

Was to find balance...

That place where I knew beyond knowing that I was ok 

just as I am

and

that it was perfectly ok

to get silly wit it

once in awhile:) 

and even drop by Toys R Us, go sledding, skating...

walk in the grass

stare at the moon

and just be

and

be

ok. 

Forever me, forever you - always perfect:)

Rock it this week, K?

Susan


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Whats the Diff? How To Tell an Average Therapist from a Great Therapist

I get it! 

Looking for "help" to heal from dysfunction or abuse in any degree shouldn't be as hard as it is. Sometimes we can spend years in "therapy" wondering just when we are going to "get" it....

whatever "it" is. 

Sometimes we wind up in situations where it doesn't seem to be working out but we are afraid to leave because we might wind up in just another bad situation.

Sometimes these not-so-helpful therapy relationships don't feel....

quite right

but we don't know

whats wrong. 

Other times we hang in there because we are being told that its not working because, well...

we aren't working it.

And there is a balance to understanding when we are avoiding our issues or if the relationship isn't helpful.

Learning how to know if a therapy relationship is a good fit seems sooooo

complicated. 

But the truth of the matter is - there are a LOT of well-meaning people out there who are really unqualified to help trauma survivors heal from the invisible wounds that get in the way of creating our "best life".

And I've been mulling over just how do we begin to identify and access the kind of help that is actually helpful vs the years that can be lost in an unhelpful and sometimes unhealthy ''theraputic' relationship? 

And I came up with what I think is a good place to start.

Check it out...

The difference between an average therapist* and a great therapist?

The former will keep you as long as the insurance pays.

The latter ones focus is to help you learn to live without them.

The former will tell you that a treatment failure is because of something you did or didn’t do.

The latter  won’t blame you for treatment failure. They might tell you its not working out – but they won’t need to make their lack of expertise your fault.

The former doesn't seem to have a plan for you to get where you want to go or they make the plan and you are supposed to be "compliant" to it.

The latter will involve you in making a plan to get where you want to go and invite you to discover your own process and help you find you way along the way.

The former may tell you things or make implications that lead you believe you can't be ok without them.

The latter will tell you can and will be ok without them.

The former may tell you that therapy will take a lifetime (residual income is a nice perk).

The latter will be able to tell you that therapy can be a tool when needed but is not necessarily a lifetime commitment. 

In the former you may be told to call when in crisis.

In the latter you may be taught how to get through crisis.

I'm sure there are more indicators that I could come up with but...

I'd like to hear what you've come up with to be able to say "I"m in a therapeutic relationship that feels safe, I feel validated, I'm learning something about myself, I know my goals, the path I will take to get there and I can see I'm making progress".

Leave your notes in the comments below....

And then go rock your world today:)

Always always ALWAYS.....admiring your spunk!


Susan

*"therapist could as easily be doctor, psychiatrist or social worker - or even a friend or family member. 


Ya...sad but true....helpers sometimes are not so helpful but they aren't the problem....its up to us to figure out what kind of help we want and then its up to us to know how to move on when its not working. 


Truth hurts sometimes, huh? 


Sorry. :(


The good news?!


This empowers us to leave that place of perpetual victimhood that keeps us stuck in that place of perpetual powerlessness and become our most powerful and amazing self!


Yup! 


NOW you can go rock it! 


I'm seeing that spunky side of you again....:) 




 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!


 

Some just don't play nice

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Empowerment is not something that can be given to us by others - or taken by overpowering others. It comes from realizing that we have the power to create the life we want for ourselves - ourselves. ~Susan 

Uh huh...

You. Me. The whole bunch of us.

And the problem lies in that those who keep trying to discover their power by overpowering others is the same as for those who think someone else has to give them their power. 

They just don't know that they already have all they need....

...that it can't be taken and it can't be given. 

Kindergarteners are sometimes cute, sometimes messy, sometimes mean and - some just never do learn to play nice.

So let me say that again....

Sometimes it takes time for us to discover that the source of our power - is us.

And sometimes those who don't know they hold the power within themselves - don't get that they hold the power within themselves.

Sometimes some of us don't get or some of us don't get it right away and we still are operating from that beginning position of trying to take our power by taking others power. Or perhaps we are still waiting for someone to give us our power.  

Sometimes we just don't know that we already have all we need....

...that it can't be taken and it can't be given.

Its not necessary for anyone to "fix" us.

And we can't find what we are looking for by trying to control or fix others. 

Its when I realized that what I was looking for was within myself that...

I found what I was looking for.

Empowerment is not something that can be given to us by others - or taken by overpowering others. 

It comes from realizing that we have the power to create the life we want for ourselves - ourselves. 

Completely awed by your brilliance!

Score! 

Susan:) 

Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

 

Learning to Love the Journey

November 24 2011

We must learn how to "be" in order to "do" effectively. Without a clear sense of "self" and "being" in our space and world our "doing" often resembles a chaotic dance where the task is to catch and correct vs. that place of conscious creation. ~Susan 

In the issues faced by those who hail from a background of family dysfunction - be that dysfunction the extreme control of a dictatorship regime to that of having no clear limits and life is a free for all....we arrive at adulthood without a clear sense of self. 

Our dance with life becomes not one where we know and trust our own dreams and desires that guide our purpose and our passion but one of trying to "figure out" what it is that everyone else seems to know that we don't. Its sort of like showing up at the office and everyone else got the memo but we didn't. 

In the work of Bessel Van der Kolk and others who are looking at the long term effects of childhood trauma - one of the key components is that survivors grow up without a clear sense of self. 

Relationships are volitile. Life is chaotic. A perpetual sense of powerlessness prevails as does a sense of hopelessness for anything to ever be different. 

How do I know this?

Because I have lived it. 

And learned to live

beyond it.

And what I've discovered is that the place to begin is not that of viewing myself as forever broken but to view myself as fully capable and complete with the inner wisdom to create the life I want for myself.

The secret is not to focus on fixing what is "wrong"...

But to focus on learning how to "be"- and be ok.

To create what I want instead of avoid what I hate.

And in doing so I have discovered that if this is where I begin my days....

That all I do becomes not a validation of my worth...

But an expression of my being. 

You can do this.

Yes. 

It sucks.

A lot.

Very often.

Yet....

the journey of a thousand miles...

or a lifetime....

begins with taking that first step and doing that again....

over

and over

and over.

The joy comes in learning to love the journey. 

Always, always in awe of your amazing courage to keep going when it really really sucks. 

Susan

Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

 

No One Could Empower Me - But Me

Changing how I viewed myself cleared the way for me to change my life

Recently I posted this at the Empowering Solutions Community page on Facebook:

I found an empowering solution in understanding that no one could "empower" me - but me. 

Learning to recognize my dependence on others to provide me with my answers enabled me to begin to see that the reason I was still "stuck" was because I was constantly seeking from others to tell me what was "wrong" with me and then expecting them to somehow be able to tell me how to "fix" this thing that was "wrong". 

When I shifted from this to understanding that being and feeling empowered was about "learning" - is when I began to feel empowered to create the kind of change that would change my life. 

I learned that learning about myself and how my life experiences had shaped who I was and how I engaged with the world and those in it - was very different than seeking from someone else to define what was "wrong" with me and then expecting them to be able to tell me how to "fix" myself. 

I learned that empowerment came from learning for myself about myself.

Lesson 1: Understanding that nothing was "wrong" with me 

This was a hard shift to make at first. 

This for the simple reason that we live in a world where we are taught to see ourselves as imperfect and needing to be "fixed". And - there are plenty of people who know exactly what we need to do to do that fixing. 

The solution for me then was not in trying to change the world around me but in learning to change how I viewed myself and the world....

through the eyes of learning rather than fixing. 

Know you ARE enough. 

K?

When I began to see life as my "teacher" instead of my "problem" ...

I became the student who was "ready". ~ #zebism

In lavish affection and admiration of your magnificence!

Susan

~

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It only takes one....

An external focus often feels crazy, blurry and confusing

In traditional self help and therapy the focus was often on avoidance of the people, places and things that stirred negative emotions for me. I'm sure the intent comes from a desire to educate and inform but in the end - this approach left me still feeling terribly powerless and guarded. I was constantly wondering who I could trust and in the end what I learned is that what it came down to was learning to trust myself. 

I recall hearing about interpreting others thoughts, feelings and behaviors instead of understanding my own. 

I was taught and learned how to assume others intentions instead of questioning mine. 

I learned to identify and label others, making value judgements about an individual based on the label I attached to them. 

In the end I realized that this external focus was not so helpful and...

that this served only to keep me on guard and wary of others; constantly questioning others motives and intent. 

It was when I realized the power to live beyond the drama of dysfunction lay not in being able to "read" others intentions and label their behavior... 

but in learning to understand why I kept returning to it - so that I could learn to live beyond it.

Learning to look within with my questions empowered me to live beyond looking to others for my solutions. 

It only takes one to stop the dance.

Uh huh.

It really is that easy. :)

Always in hope and tickled pink to see you blooming the way you are!

Susan

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