Goodness gracious, what hasn't happened in my life in the past couple of weeks? My boyfriend's father and little brother were struck by a car while driving a motorcycle, which left both of them in intensive care on Father's Day. My boyfriend's father lost part of his leg, and his little brother's entire right leg was completely shattered. He got to keep his leg, thank God, but he now has rods and plates in his leg and will have multiple surgeries for the rest of his life. It is a miracle that their brains and nervous systems are okay, especially since my boyfriend's father's helmet ejected off immediately. When we got the phone call about the accident, life momentarily stopped. Nothing, and I mean nothing else mattered.
Moments like that are what life is all about. They are the backbone of who we are as individuals, and they come to define us all, and the way we live our lives, to different extents. It's great when life is good and happy, and we all love being happy, but it is the tough times and "bad" things that force us to grow, to change, to become stronger, and to remember what is most important in life. People are so scared of getting bad news, and I always have been too, but the bad things in life are what make us appreciate the good things so much more. The tough times force us to be stronger, to reevaluate how we have been living/acting, to slow down, and to accept how much we really do need other people. Life can be tough and it often makes us feel all alone in it, but we are never alone. I believe God is always with us, in us, and we all have family and friends that run to help. Quite often, bad things remind us how much other people care, and how much we really are loved. Most importantly, tough times and unfortunate circumstances remind us to be grateful for all the little things, for our health, for the family members and friends we do still have, for the ability to drive a car or workout, for the job we do have (however much we complain about it), and for the air in our lungs at this very moment. No matter how bad things are, there is always something to be grateful for.
Although my boyfriend's dad and little brother will spend the better part of their summer in a hospital bad, I am grateful that they are both still with us. I am grateful that for as terrible as the accident was, that it wasn't worse. I am grateful that their brains and spines are still in tact. I am grateful his little brother was able to keep his leg, and that his father was able to keep his knee. I am grateful that all the blood transfusions and surgeries went well. I am grateful that they will both recover and go on to lead full, happy lives. When my mom died of breast cancer, I was immediately overwhelmed by grief, loneliness, and fear. I was, however, also immediately grateful for the time I did get with my mom - 17 years. I knew that I would've rather had her for 17 years than any other mom for the rest of my life. Watching her battle with breast cancer and lose was the most difficult thing I have ever been through, but it has also made me so much more appreciative of the rest of my family, so much stronger, much more empathetic, and it also set my feet on a career path revolving around healing; healing from grief and other traumatic events, acceptance, forgiveness, self-love, and dealing with the tough stuff in life so it doesn't continue to hold us back for the rest of our lives. I believe this is what I was meant to do with my life, but I never would've discovered it if I wouldn't have lost my mom. My mom's death gave me my story and helped me discover my life's purpose. It changed my life forever.
I know how hard life can be, trust me, but it could always be harder. When bad things happen, try to focus more on the good than the bad. There is always SOMETHING to be grateful for. Try not to let fear, anger, self-pity, revenge, or grief settle so far into your heart and mind that you forget the lesson. Bad things always happen to teach us something. There is nothing my mom's death hasn't taught me. Similarly, there is also so much my boyfriend's family tragedy has reminded me of. I was complaining about how much my feet hurt lately (I have two running injuries and possibly rheumatoid arthritis as well), but last time I went out for a run I thanked God I had two feet to run on. Painful or not, I am grateful to have my feet. And when my legs started burning on a hill, I thought of his father and chanted his name to help me push through. I am grateful that I can run at all. We never know what tomorrow holds. Our lives can change forever in the blink of an eye. But rather than living in anxiety and fear of this, let it motivate you to live each day to the fullest, to let people you love know how much they mean to you, to try hard not to take the simple things for granted, and to to always appreciate and enjoy every moment, good or bad, because you never know how many more you have.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
People Who Do "Bad" Things Or Make It Hardest To Love Them Are Those That Need To Be Loved The Most!
Last night I watched Trust, a newer film starring Clive Owen, and it sparked a very deep and thought-provoking conversation with my boyfriend when it ended. In the film, a 14-year-old girl befriends a man over the Internet and later meets up with him, discovering that he is actually in his thirties. He rapes her in a motel room and then never speaks to her again. She is instantly shattered, as he led her to believe that he truly loved her. She doesn't even acknowledge the fact that he raped her, having blocked it out since it was too painful. She later acknowledges the fact that she was raped when an FBI agent matches the DNA sample from her rape kit to several other samples from young girls who were raped, and confronts feelings of guilt, stupidity, not being loveable, and not being pretty. Despite several DNA matches, no one knows who the man is. Clive Owen, the girl's father, tries to catch the man who raped his daughter himself, and wants nothing more than to beat the man up and then kill him. The movie ends somewhat abruptly, with the FBI never having caught the man. There was no happy ending, as I imagine there hardly ever is for rape victims and their families. No text comes across the screen saying, "(Blank number of) rapes occur every year and (blank number of) cases go unsolved every year," like I expected from an abrupt ending. The movie was very disturbing, which, to me, means it was very well done. My boyfriend seemed particularly bothered by it, and after it ended, we talked about the film for quite a while.
My boyfriend hates when things happen to little kids in particular. He had a rough childhood himself and was robbed of much of the innocence that usually surrounds small children, so movies like this disturb him more than most. He wondered how anyone could do something like that, and why people who do such things are allowed to live. And although I understood his question and his feelings, I felt the need to say a few things to him. First of all, since my mom died from cancer when I was 16, I have been very in touch with all of my feelings surrounding her death. I have expressed my feelings whenever I felt the need to and never tried to hide from them. I never tried to pretend I was okay when I wasn't, nor did I hide my grief for the sake of upsetting anyone else. I began to realize, more and more over the years, how important it is to deal with our feelings and emotions, especially those surrounding a traumatic event. Without dealing with your feelings and working through them, how can you ever heal from them? It is my opinion that everyone walking around doing bad things, whether it be stealing or raping or murdering or dealing drugs, are people who are acting out of a place of pain. I'm not defending what these people are doing, don't get me wrong, but I'm choosing to look past the exterior actions to see what's really going on inside. Think about it. Someone who is raped as a child will most likely grow up feeling damaged, dirty, different, and unlovable. Don't you think that someone who feels like that could easily fall into unhealthy relationships, drugs, or a career as a hooker, feeling as though they don't deserve any better? Similarly, don't you think that a child who grows up with an alcoholic for a father and a drug addict for a mother will easily fall into the drug scene himself? Or, even more likely, don't you think that child, if he doesn't express his feelings to a therapist or someone else (which he probably would not), don't you think he will harden himself to his own feelings of shame and being different from most kids? Can't you see how a child like that could so easily grow up angry at the world, flunking out of school, and doing things to hurt other people because he is so hurt himself?
Perhaps it is because I went through a painful loss myself and realize how easily it can make people angry or afraid of loss, etc., or maybe it's because I started a support group for grieving young adults and have listened to stories of how easily traumatic events can scar and hurt people long-term if they don't try to work through their feelings, but I truly believe that everyone who is doing things to hurt others are doing that because they have been hurt themselves. I feel like people who steal probably started to steal because they felt they needed to, because they felt insecure or not good enough. I believe that people who do drugs aren't "bad" people, but rather people who are trying to escape the pain and reality of their own lives. I believe that people who sexually abuse animals or small children shouldn't be locked up or sentenced to death, but should be seriously psychoanalyzed and counseled to find out what in God's name happened to them to make them do such a thing. People aren't just "bad." I believe bad things happen to good people, and instead of trying to deal with them so that they can eventually heal, people start doing bad things as a result of the bad things that have happened to them. I believe that it is all the people out there that seem so impossible to love that are the ones who need to be loved the most.
What do you think?
I know how hard it is to work through grief. I also know how easy it would've been to get mad at God, to separate myself from the world and everyone else "who just doesn't understand," and to live the rest of my life as a victim, constantly waiting for the next bad thing to happen. When traumatic things happen to us, it's so much easier to hide from them than to deal with them. But whatever you hold back holds you back. If you try to avoid dealing with painful situations, you will never heal from them and you will become someone who does bad things, hurts other people, had a bad attitude, or constantly expects the worst out of life. Trust me. But if you are strong enough to accept that you need help dealing with something, and strong enough to let yourself feel what you need to feel, you will slowly begin to heal. Whether you write about your feelings, seek out counseling, join a support group, or at least channel your negative energy into something positive, it is just important that you get them out rather than hold them in. I truly believe that everyone out there doing "bad" things are simply people who haven't been loved enough, people who don't believe they can do things differently, and people who were never told that they deserve better. So next time someone on the road beeps at you for no reason or flicks you off, the next time you see a woman in front of you in line at the grocery store yelling at the clerk for no reason, or the next time a co-worker or family member gives you attitude or says something rude or hurtful, smile at them. Choose to see past it. Don't look at the exterior, look at the interior. Choose to love people more when they hurt you, dissappoint you, or act poorly. Remember, w
My boyfriend hates when things happen to little kids in particular. He had a rough childhood himself and was robbed of much of the innocence that usually surrounds small children, so movies like this disturb him more than most. He wondered how anyone could do something like that, and why people who do such things are allowed to live. And although I understood his question and his feelings, I felt the need to say a few things to him. First of all, since my mom died from cancer when I was 16, I have been very in touch with all of my feelings surrounding her death. I have expressed my feelings whenever I felt the need to and never tried to hide from them. I never tried to pretend I was okay when I wasn't, nor did I hide my grief for the sake of upsetting anyone else. I began to realize, more and more over the years, how important it is to deal with our feelings and emotions, especially those surrounding a traumatic event. Without dealing with your feelings and working through them, how can you ever heal from them? It is my opinion that everyone walking around doing bad things, whether it be stealing or raping or murdering or dealing drugs, are people who are acting out of a place of pain. I'm not defending what these people are doing, don't get me wrong, but I'm choosing to look past the exterior actions to see what's really going on inside. Think about it. Someone who is raped as a child will most likely grow up feeling damaged, dirty, different, and unlovable. Don't you think that someone who feels like that could easily fall into unhealthy relationships, drugs, or a career as a hooker, feeling as though they don't deserve any better? Similarly, don't you think that a child who grows up with an alcoholic for a father and a drug addict for a mother will easily fall into the drug scene himself? Or, even more likely, don't you think that child, if he doesn't express his feelings to a therapist or someone else (which he probably would not), don't you think he will harden himself to his own feelings of shame and being different from most kids? Can't you see how a child like that could so easily grow up angry at the world, flunking out of school, and doing things to hurt other people because he is so hurt himself?
Perhaps it is because I went through a painful loss myself and realize how easily it can make people angry or afraid of loss, etc., or maybe it's because I started a support group for grieving young adults and have listened to stories of how easily traumatic events can scar and hurt people long-term if they don't try to work through their feelings, but I truly believe that everyone who is doing things to hurt others are doing that because they have been hurt themselves. I feel like people who steal probably started to steal because they felt they needed to, because they felt insecure or not good enough. I believe that people who do drugs aren't "bad" people, but rather people who are trying to escape the pain and reality of their own lives. I believe that people who sexually abuse animals or small children shouldn't be locked up or sentenced to death, but should be seriously psychoanalyzed and counseled to find out what in God's name happened to them to make them do such a thing. People aren't just "bad." I believe bad things happen to good people, and instead of trying to deal with them so that they can eventually heal, people start doing bad things as a result of the bad things that have happened to them. I believe that it is all the people out there that seem so impossible to love that are the ones who need to be loved the most.
What do you think?
I know how hard it is to work through grief. I also know how easy it would've been to get mad at God, to separate myself from the world and everyone else "who just doesn't understand," and to live the rest of my life as a victim, constantly waiting for the next bad thing to happen. When traumatic things happen to us, it's so much easier to hide from them than to deal with them. But whatever you hold back holds you back. If you try to avoid dealing with painful situations, you will never heal from them and you will become someone who does bad things, hurts other people, had a bad attitude, or constantly expects the worst out of life. Trust me. But if you are strong enough to accept that you need help dealing with something, and strong enough to let yourself feel what you need to feel, you will slowly begin to heal. Whether you write about your feelings, seek out counseling, join a support group, or at least channel your negative energy into something positive, it is just important that you get them out rather than hold them in. I truly believe that everyone out there doing "bad" things are simply people who haven't been loved enough, people who don't believe they can do things differently, and people who were never told that they deserve better. So next time someone on the road beeps at you for no reason or flicks you off, the next time you see a woman in front of you in line at the grocery store yelling at the clerk for no reason, or the next time a co-worker or family member gives you attitude or says something rude or hurtful, smile at them. Choose to see past it. Don't look at the exterior, look at the interior. Choose to love people more when they hurt you, dissappoint you, or act poorly. Remember, w
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