There’s something very freeing about losing the anchors that have always defined you. Frightening, sad, but exhilarating in a poignant way, as well. You’re free to float to the moon or sink to the bottom of the deepest ocean. But you’re also free to explore. Some people confuse that with drifting, I suppose. I like to think of it as growing.

Article from tinybuddha.com
by Harriet Cabelly

“The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it.”  ~C.C. Scott

A blueberry muffin–that’s the last thing we spoke about before she went under.

I didn’t know it then, but it was to be the final conversation my (middle) daughter and I would have for a very long time. I was trying to distract Nava by talking about food; in this case the promise of the rest of her muffin when she came back from the bronchoscopy.

We were thrown a steep curve ball out of left field when Nava went for an exploratory procedure and ended up on  a respirator in a drug-induced paralyzed coma.  Almost 3 months later, to a miraculous survival, she was slowly awakened, but not to any muffin; rather to a  life that would require a strength of spirit, body and soul unlike anything we could’ve ever imagined.

Nava was in an uphill battle to rebuild her life, muscle by muscle, limb by limb as she relearned and reclaimed each bodily function.

Her spirit,  attitude and disposition carried her through this torturous climb and that carried me through, as well.  You could say I piggybacked on my daughter’s positive, brave, fighting spirit.

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(Source: believeinrecovery)

Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don’t.

Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you - all of the expectations, all of the beliefs - and becoming who you are.

article from tinybuddha.com

“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” ~Paul Boese

I have been heart-broken far longer than I think anyone should ever be.  When my relationship ended, like a rock star, I blazed through the “mourning period” and bypassed the “become a new person” phase, then promptly got completely lost.

I kept busy; went out with friends, watched movies, learned to cook, and invested in retail therapy. But I never actually let go. I felt it was impossible to move on. It’s been three years.

At my worst, I’d remember moments with vivid intensity. Real moments like the way my arm felt draped across his chest at night and imaginary ones of an alternate reality where we were still together. Truly believing that my happiness was intertwined in that relationship, I was certain that he would come back.

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(Source: believeinrecovery)

Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, you 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.

article written by Jennifer Boykin

“Instead of complaining that the rose bush is full of thorns, be happy the thorn bush has roses.” ~Proverb

I am a member of a mercifully small subset of society. I am the mother of a dead child.

Twenty years ago, my daughter Grace—my first child, my only girl—was born prematurely and died 32-minutes later. As I write this, I am astonished that it has been twenty years since I met my daughter for the only time.

Time stopped for me when Grace took her last little breath. And I was certain that my life could never start again. 

I was wrong.

Here’s what made all the difference in my healing:

Over time, I learned to bless the thorns in my life. I began to see that the thorn and rose define one another. Since, one cannot exist without the other, we can only enjoy the rose when we embrace the thorn.

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(Source: believeinrecovery)

article from stevepavlina.com

Suppose you have the bad habit of dwelling too much on the same negative thoughts.  And suppose there’s no outward physical manifestation associated to them.  It’s just negative thinking, like “I’m so depressed” or “I hate my job” or “I can’t do this” or “I hate being fat.”  How do you break a bad habit when it’s entirely in your mind?

There are actually quite a number of ways to decondition a negative thought pattern.  The basic idea is to replace the old pattern with a new one.  Mentally resisting the negative thought will usually backfire — you’ll simply reinforce it and make it even worse.  The more you fire those neurons in the same way, the stronger the pattern becomes.

Here’s a little method I use to break negative thought patterns.  It’s basically something I conconcted from a combination of the swish pattern from NLP and a memory technique known as chaining.  I usually find the swish pattern alone to be weak and ineffective, but this method works very well for me.

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(Source: believeinrecovery)

article from tinybuddha.com

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.” -Charles Swindoll

One day everything seems great in your world; maybe not perfect, but overall things are going to plan. And then something happens.

You lose your job. Or someone you love. Or your home. Or maybe even your health.

It isn’t fair. You don’t deserve it. You didn’t see it coming. You didn’t plan for it. You have so many feelings and frustrations you don’t know what to do first–or if you want to do anything at all.

It would be easier to sit around feeling bad. Looking for people to blame and complain to. Rehashing what you could have done to make things happen differently. Or what you would have done if you only realized before. Or what other people should have done to help you.

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(Source: believeinrecovery)

article from tinybuddha.com

“Don’t fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.” ~Unknown

Too often, we allow fear, worry, and doubt to dominate and define our lives. We allow them to steal our joy, our sleep, and our precious dreams.

I made up my mind, very young, that I would push forward no matter what.

I was 17 and pregnant when I married my boyfriend. We were young and foolish, and because our only plan was “love,” I gave birth to three more daughters by the age of 22. My last pregnancy was twins.

Kristy, one of the twins, was born without a right hand. My biggest fear, at the time, wasn’t how we would make it financially, but how would Kristy make it?

How would she hold a bottle or a swing? In a culture where we worship physical beauty, how would she adapt?

Kristy faced many struggles, but she was a fighter, and she pushed back. Hard!

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(Source: believeinrecovery)

article from tinybuddha.com

“The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life.” ~Eckhart Tolle

For a very long time fear has controlled me. It has paralyzed me, kept me living in desperate situations, and stopped me from living the life of my dreams.

It has only been with age and the practice of mindfulness these last few years that I have come to recognize the fear within me, having finally begun the process of facing it.

By facing fear I don’t mean that I’ve started base-jumping, purposely trapped myself in elevators, or allowed tarantulas to climb all over my body.

I mean that I’ve sat in meditation, watched the fears arise, and rather than react to them or allow them to become part of the stories that make up my life, I’ve observed them in my mind from a distance.

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(Source: believeinrecovery)

article from tinybuddha.com

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

Let’s face it: we all dwell on the past from time to time. That’s okay—we’re human beings with emotions.  As we live life and experience it to its fullest, it’s only natural that we sometimes cling onto what once was.

But, when our desire to cling to the past affects our future, we begin a potentially unhealthy and seemingly endless battle with anchors that can hold us down and sink us.

For the past six years, I’ve dreaded spring. While many would embrace the rain, the newborn green, and the post-winter renaissance, I’d plead with the powers that be to skip past March and April.

For me, spring is a brutal reminder of a series of unfortunate events. I experienced two subsequent losses that made me think I had to be miserable.

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(Source: believeinrecovery)

article from pioneerthinking.com

Change means reinvention. Each time a major shift happens in our lives—leaving a job or a relationship, moving, losing a loved one—we have to take control of who we will become or risk never reaching our full potential.

I’ve reinvented myself several times in my life. Most adults have.

But what I always forget is that we have to choose reinvention. Each time I’ve done it, I’ve forged my new path deliberately and with foresight.

When I’ve waited for my future to find me, I’ve waited in vain, lost in confusion and sadness, or I’ve gotten tangled up in a situation I didn’t want.

One morning, after struggling for months with grief and loss, I woke up and realized that I was having so much trouble moving forward partly because I had no idea what it was that I wanted to move towards.

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(Source: believeinrecovery)

article from tinybuddha.com

“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” ~John Allen Paulos

I used to love uncertainty. I wandered my way all around this country with little more than a suitcase and a journal. Committing to anything felt limiting, suffocating even.

One day I realized it wasn’t enlightenment that pushed me to embrace the unknown; it was a paralyzing fear of creating something certain. You can’t disappoint people when you don’t form relationships with them, and you can’t fail when you never start.

So one day I decided to do the scariest things I could imagine: settle into one place, get a steady job, and start forming real relationships.

Which lasted for a while until the economic meltdown rocked my world. Now I’m back in a place of uncertainty, like so many other people.

Almost everyone I know has had to make at least a few changes to their life because of the economy. People have lost their jobs, homes, and in some cases, their sense of identity.

It’s both terrifying and exciting to have a blank page in front of you. Sometimes we need reminders to see it as the latter.

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(Source: believeinrecovery)

OVERCOMING ADDICTION WHILE COPING WITH DEPRESSION OR ANXIETY

article from helpguide.org

When you have both a substance abuse problem and a mental health issue such as depression, bipolar disorder, or anxiety, it is called a co-occurring disorder or dual diagnosis. Dealing with substance abuse, alcoholism, or drug addiction is never easy, and it’s even more difficult when you’re also struggling with mental health problems, but there are treatments that can help.

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(Source: believeinrecovery)