subject: Disabilities - Overwhelmed by Your Challenges? Coping by Being Other-Focused [print this page] Disabilities - Overwhelmed by Your Challenges? Coping by Being Other-Focused
I love what I do for a living. Not only do I love being a life coach for individuals with medical and physical challenges but I love creating my own business. I love the challenges involved. My private practice has become like a piece of clay that I get to sculpt any which way I want. I get to create the type of events I wish to hold. I get to write the articles and pretty much choose the topics I wish to write about. Yes it does get lonely at times. It most certainly does. However, that's not because what I do for a living is a lonely business. Its because right now I haven't learned to shift out of my own inner loneliness. Once I move through that, nothing in my life will feel lonely anymore. Its a work in progress =). One day at a time. One step at a time. One breath at a time.
I know all about mindfulness. Cognitively, that is...if that statement alone even makes sense. However, at my deepest level it is the thing I strive in my life to master before I die. My life has always been about living in the moment - yes....but my moments have been mostly moments of fear. Living with Spina Bifida & Post Traumatic Stress Disorder have provided me with a gift I never expected to gain from all this...being grateful for the simple things. Like not being alone any longer after spending time in the basement running from a changing sky of darkness where you fear an F5 Tornado is going to come out a calm sky of white clouds where only drizzle is expected. THAT is PTSD in all its glory. Not so glorious to say the least.
So, here is my question to you. I spent the morning in the basement frozen in fright until the contractor arrived to continue painting my office. He may never know that gift of relief he provided for me just by showing up at my darkest moment. Again, there's the gratitude. So, is it possible to shift gears from the focus of fear and everything being about you and your safety and your challenges to placing the focus back on others to continue on with your day as if nothing ever happened? Here are my personal thoughts on that one.
There was a time when my challenges use to take EVERYTHING out of me. I mean everything. As a matter of fact, I use to think that if people had any idea how much time I spent "down for the count" or "shut down" as I use to call it - for the entire day - days on end - they would be disgusted with me. That was ok actually believe it or not b/c nobody could have been more disgusted with me than ME. It just wasn't possible. I thought the worst things of myself that nothing anybody else thought of me would make any difference because I had already covered all grounds FOR them. So, how then does one not only shift OUT of this and onto OTHERS but begin to find GIFTS in all that? I am here to tell you that in fact, it is possible. It truly is. However, the difference between wanting to make the shift and actually making the shift? A DECISION. A decision to get up, brush yourself off and withstand whatever criticism you are given, and become like the Clydesdale I mentioned earlier in the week on Facebook & Twitter. Just in case you missed that one:
"Visualize a Clydesdale with side blinders on. Regal, strong and focused, he sees only where he is going. He believes without a shadow of a doubt that he is going to get to where he has set out to go. He moves forward with grace and confidence. He is not guided by where he has been nor is he concerned by what others think of where he is going...BE the Clydesdale and ANYTHING is possible."
When I made the decision to get back on my feet and finally follow my spirit and serve the disabled community by providing coaching services, I MADE THE DECISION TO BE THE CLYDESDALE. THAT made ALL the difference in the world between seeing this through and doing what I had always done which was dropping all focus on others and placing it back on me again...and giving up...and walking away from whatever I was pursuing. A decision makes ALL the difference in the world. However, sometimes we have to get to a certain place in our lives before we actually recognize what a decision LOOKS and FEELS like before we can get there. Sometimes that a place nobody else but ourselves can take us to.
So, how then do we go about coping with our own challenges by being other focused. See, the difference between when I was on my knees a few months back in a very deep, dark place of despair and hopelessness where I simply wanted God to make the decision FOR me that this journey was over, and standing on my feet with my "blinders" on is simply this. My ego (the horrible self talk from within that tells you all the reasons you aren't good enough to live on or with purpose, had run its course. I got tired of my ego. It had done enough damage. So for me, the place at which my shift happened was when I realized that I had two choices. I could spend the rest of my life in this corner, in despair, in pain, or...I could find purpose in all this - gifts, if you will.
Now, for everybody the journey looks and feels different. For me - I used prayer. White-knuckled prayer. "Please help - I can;t do this anymore"...."I can't do this anymore"...Interesting how in my pain those last few words became the ONLY words I could get out. For the first time in my life there was silence in my head (if you know me you know how rare THAT is! lol). Absolute silence. For the first time in my life I recognized a clean slate. I recognized power in that moment of choice. Do what you have always done (First part of the definition of "Insanity" by the way - lol) OR DECIDE that from this point on I will never, ever again listen to my ego (that's another article at another time in how to recognize the ego in more detail but you get the idea I hope). So, if I was never, ever going to listen to my ego again then what am I left with?
My spirit. Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh - Much better =)
So, the first thing I did for the next 24 hours was listen to my spirit. I had knowing if you will, to just "be". So, I did. I felt lifeless from all the crying that day but now I would surrender and have complete and total faith......Everything will be OK. I didn't know how but this time? I didn't have to know how. I just had to have faith. The details of what came next are nothing short of unbelievable but those details are ones that I am saving for a little "project" I am working on.
From there it was clear. If I rode out the moments, in the moment itself of fear and fright, knowing that it would require me to be white knuckled for a temporary time period and then made the decision to let THAT moment go and be in the NEXT moment - THEN and ONLY then - I could do this. I could get up, brush myself off and cope with my challenges by shifting to the needs of others when I wasn't paralyzed by fear.
So, in essence, its my own form of mindfulness even though I'm not sitting there observing my fear - I'm in it. So no - it doesn't fit the current definition of mindfulness nor does it serve well. But its all I've got for now and for me, if it means that the perspective of 'ride out the moments of fear' and live in the moment of "other-focused" by using the gifts taken from the fear....well,......then.....I will trust that for now its where I am meant to be and for the gifts in ALL my moments, I will shift now to gratitude.
Thank you God. Thank you so much for it ALL.
January 2010 Move Through Your Challenges; Claudia De Mauro Owner & Foun
Now Pay Close Attention --
Bringing targeted followers to your twitter account and turning them in the cash paying customers is a problem of the past.[Reason #1] You can easily have over 5,000 targeted followers on your twitter account.
[Reason #2] When Using Twitter Follower Supply obtaining thousands of followers has never been easier.Using a proven system for acquiring targeted twitter followers Twitter Follower Supply is able to send thousands of targeted twitter followers to your twitter account within days!
Just look at this:
- The average twitter follower is worth $1 - $5.
- Twitter traffic now accounts for up to 30% of business traffic.
- Twitter followers are twice as profitable and reliable as email addresses.
