Showing posts with label Oprah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oprah. Show all posts

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Blossoming


You are built not to shrink down to less, but to blossom into more.
                  - Oprah Winfrey


As I may have mentioned, I am working on my Associate in Science with a concentration in Psychology as well as a certificate in Substance Abuse Counseling. Part of the training in substance abuse requires an internship at a rehabilitation center. Yesterday, I had a big interview at the very center where I had gone for outpatient recovery. I got a lot out of the program, and thus, really wanted to do my internship there.


I was nervous when I left, but the interview went well....and I got the job! I'll be working part-time, 3 days a week, sitting in on group therapy sessions and assisting around the office. 

On the ride home, I began thinking about how far I have come. In spite of periodic set backs, I have quit drinking for 7.5 years, traveled through the grey veil of depression all the way to the black abyss, and lived to tell the tale. In fact, I have gotten better - not perfect, but better.

I realized too that it has all been for a purpose - that the journey I've taken, which formerly seemed senseless, has had a purpose and that purpose is manifesting itself now. I am beginning to "blossom into more" - into the part I was born to play.

If there is one thing I have learned it's this: never settle! Never, never, never, NEVER settle for less than you could be! If your life isn't working, find out why, and fix it - change it! You have the power and the resources within. We have all been born with that innate power to change - even if we are born with challenges like mental illness. If you are savvy enough to find and read this blog, you are savvy enough to find the resources you need to get help and to live the life you were born to live.

If you are not happy with your life, change it! Do it for yourself - do it for the rest of us. The world needs more people who are not willing to settle for less, but willing to blossom and realize their purpose.




Friday, March 1, 2013

Acceptance

I think it was Oprah that once said, forgiveness is letting go of the notion that the past can be anything other than what it is. It is not necessarily being happy or content with what happened or with what another person - or you yourself - did or said, but rather simply accepting the fact that there's nothing you can do to change the past. It is what it is.

I have experienced so many mixed emotions in recovery from depression, anxiety, and alcohol addiction: the joy of rediscovering LIFE and reconnecting with my {real} self, as well as fear of the unknown...and the feeling of loss...of being cheated...of missing out on days, months, and years.

I awoke this morning struggling with the latter - trying to accept that dysthymia, anxiety, and alcoholism are diseases of the brain and not character flaws - trying to forgive myself, the genetic cards I was dealt, and the people and circumstances that converged in my head last September in the perfect mental storm that landed me in the hospital.

But, I know...today is a new day. Today I will do my best to forgive and to accept...somehow.