Saying “YES!” to life
One of the things that I hate most about myself is that I easily go into pity party mode when things in life don’t always go the way I had hoped they would.
My childhood was not the best one. I grew up in an alcoholic home where I was at times abused in a physical, emotional and mental way. Dealing with an illness was not enough, that I had to worry a lot over being exposed to cigarette smoke from a very young age. So having both parents with their own addictions was no doubt hard at times.
Then at the age of 10, I was raped. I didn’t know what it was at the time but I knew it was wrong. It has only been in recent years that I exposed this harsh reality to my family because I was so ashamed.
And then on top of everything, because I was “different”, I was often teased and bullied a lot in school. Between my sickness and feminine ways, I often didn’t fit in with the minority and that often led me to be left out and alone.
Then in my late teens I joined a religious organization that turned me into a robot and changed who I really was, at the core. It took almost losing my life to realize that I needed to break out of it and I have had to lose many friends and people who claimed to love me. Much, much heartache I have faced. Then dealing with being gay on top of it all and now having to go through a divorce and re-inventing myself…..feww I’m worn out just telling you about my life!
So no doubt I haven’t had the perfect life, but who has? I’m such a huge fan of Kelly Clarkson’s latest hit “Stronger (What doesn’t kill you)” It’s so true when you think about the words. Anything that doesn’t kill us, actually makes us stronger for the future. I spent so much of my life being angry at the world, angry at God for not giving me a better life that I didn’t stop and think about everything in my life that was good and going well.
One of the things that I hate most about myself is that I easily go into pity party mode when things in life don’t always go the way I had hoped they would.
My childhood was not the best one. I grew up in an alcoholic home where I was at times abused in a physical, emotional and mental way. Dealing with an illness was not enough, that I had to worry a lot over being exposed to cigarette smoke from a very young age. So having both parents with their own addictions was no doubt hard at times.
Then at the age of 10, I was raped. I didn’t know what it was at the time but I knew it was wrong. It has only been in recent years that I exposed this harsh reality to my family because I was so ashamed.
And then on top of everything, because I was “different”, I was often teased and bullied a lot in school. Between my sickness and feminine ways, I often didn’t fit in with the minority and that often led me to be left out and alone.
Then in my late teens I joined a religious organization that turned me into a robot and changed who I really was, at the core. It took almost losing my life to realize that I needed to break out of it and I have had to lose many friends and people who claimed to love me. Much, much heartache I have faced. Then dealing with being gay on top of it all and now having to go through a divorce and re-inventing myself…..feww I’m worn out just telling you about my life!
So no doubt I haven’t had the perfect life, but who has? I’m such a huge fan of Kelly Clarkson’s latest hit “Stronger (What doesn’t kill you)” It’s so true when you think about the words. Anything that doesn’t kill us, actually makes us stronger for the future. I spent so much of my life being angry at the world, angry at God for not giving me a better life that I didn’t stop and think about everything in my life that was good and going well.
I wasn’t saying “YES!” to my life!
The reality is that sometimes bad things happen to good people and things happen that are totally out of our control, but saying “YES” and accepting what happens to us, rather than fight and feel all kinds of emotions is actually empowering. For example; I now have to face the reality that I need to undergo a surgery that will take hours to break open my rib cage, take out bad lungs, then hook up new ones. I have to go through weeks of recover. On top of all of that I have the work that goes into this beforehand and then I have no guarantee this will actually work! So with those facts in mind, I could throw a pity party, I could make everyone’s life miserable, I could bring on unneeded stress to my family and friends, but I don’t want to. Instead, I’m going to say “YES!” to life. I’m going to accept my reality and deal with what I can.
Many things happen in life that we have absolutely no control over, but we DO have control over how we react to it, many options in fact. But having a positive approach has brought much calmness to my life and has enriched my journey.
My mother is a very wise woman, and she too has had to learn some lessons the hard way. I remember since my young adulthood, she taught me the serenity prayer;
God grant me the serenity, to accept the things that I cannot change
Courage to change the things that I can
And the wisdom to know the difference
I am a believer in God, so the first step I do is to leave things in his hands and ask for serenity, or peace. Then I try to accept the things that I cannot change; I cannot change the fact that I have CF. I cannot change my past. I cannot change others.
Then I ask for courage to change the things that I can; I can change my attitude towards having CF and really set an example for others living with this terrible disease. I can embrace many of the positive things that a life threatening illness brings on. I can change how I view my past and really learn from it and help others through their pain. And though I cannot change others, I can work harder at expressing myself to them, and try and help them understand different things.
But here’s the hard part, the wisdom to know the difference. Sometimes when we are right in the middle of
a heated situation, it’s hard for us to identify the difference between the
two, and that is where serenity comes from. The ability to identify what we really need to worry and stress over,
and what we don’t! The reality is that sometimes bad things happen to good people and things happen that are totally out of our control, but saying “YES” and accepting what happens to us, rather than fight and feel all kinds of emotions is actually empowering. For example; I now have to face the reality that I need to undergo a surgery that will take hours to break open my rib cage, take out bad lungs, then hook up new ones. I have to go through weeks of recover. On top of all of that I have the work that goes into this beforehand and then I have no guarantee this will actually work! So with those facts in mind, I could throw a pity party, I could make everyone’s life miserable, I could bring on unneeded stress to my family and friends, but I don’t want to. Instead, I’m going to say “YES!” to life. I’m going to accept my reality and deal with what I can.
Many things happen in life that we have absolutely no control over, but we DO have control over how we react to it, many options in fact. But having a positive approach has brought much calmness to my life and has enriched my journey.
My mother is a very wise woman, and she too has had to learn some lessons the hard way. I remember since my young adulthood, she taught me the serenity prayer;
God grant me the serenity, to accept the things that I cannot change
Courage to change the things that I can
And the wisdom to know the difference
I am a believer in God, so the first step I do is to leave things in his hands and ask for serenity, or peace. Then I try to accept the things that I cannot change; I cannot change the fact that I have CF. I cannot change my past. I cannot change others.
Then I ask for courage to change the things that I can; I can change my attitude towards having CF and really set an example for others living with this terrible disease. I can embrace many of the positive things that a life threatening illness brings on. I can change how I view my past and really learn from it and help others through their pain. And though I cannot change others, I can work harder at expressing myself to them, and try and help them understand different things.
Listen, I’m not saying that I have this attitude all the time, and it has taken a lot of work on myself to get to this place, but I can tell you that accepting and saying “YES!” to what life throws our way has certainly given me a fresh perspective and has allowed my life to be less hectic and has brought me much joy and peace.
“Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.”
~ William James
xo
Jamie Leigh Fransis
