Turn it Around Tuesday

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you
~Brian Tracy


My world ended the day I found out I had Neurofibromatosis.  The world I was used to anyway.  The truth that had been following me my whole life, in silence, was now screaming to be set free.


But I felt anything but FREE.  My diagnosis came with an enormous sense of guilt and anguish.  My reality was now something I couldn't deny....or hide from.


Nothing could have prepared me for the day someone else would recognize what the tiny bumps on my body were.  I wasn't ready for it.  I didn't want to hear it.


My whole life had been about NOT acknowledging the problems in my life...and simply blaming others (especially God) for what was happening.


Everything tied together, that day in the obstetrician's office.  I had no where to hide and no one to blame...but myself.

I spent the next few months finding excuses or ways to explain away my ignorance about NF.  I even got angry and began a blog that was all about the crap in my life and what it was doing to ME.


For me, there was no freedom in knowing or understanding that I had Neurofibromatosis.  Knowing just made me more mad!


What changed for me?  How did I make a "Turn Around"?


The change came when I began to realize the true impact I could have on the things that were happening, by simply looking at them in a different way.  Sure  those THINGS still were horrible and awful...but the way I handled those THINGS could change the way I was affected...as well as how those around me were affected.


It's not easy...This is something I have to focus on all the time.  But instead of looking at the challenges in my life, as something being done to me...I now take these challenges and wonder what I can do to them.


THRIVE ON