I’ve survived an abortion attempt on my own life, neglect, an attack by a serial rapist, and recently watched my eighth month old puppy survive an attack by a pit bull.  Now I am busy trying to survive a rare parasite that is making me very sick.  But I am still optimistic.

Somehow I find the strength.  Somehow I find the will to survive. 

Do I wallow sometimes in self-pity?  Yes.  Do I get in my own way sometimes?  A lot.  Do I make the wrong decisions?  Sometimes.  Do I wish I had all the answers?  Of course I do.  Am I helping anyone or myself with my words, theories and stories?  I hope so.

I’ve realized that I have a tendency to over extend myself.  I can’t do it all.  Even with my blog.  I set out to write everyday, which would inevitably become impossible and lead to not writing at all.  I’ve been humbled into submission and with this has come grand epiphanies. 

Time to slow down and to practice what I preach.  Writing my blog once a week or once a month is sufficient when my plate is already full with work.  Enjoying what I do have and let go of the notion that I should have more.   I wasn’t born to parents with a picket fence around a white house and I never will be.  Maybe I have finally come to terms with who I am, where I come from and where I am now.  I’m not rich and maybe I never will be.  I am not married and maybe I never will be.  I didn’t have the relationship with my parents that my friends have but I guess I wasn’t supposed to. 

We all have our stuff.  It’s how we think about our stuff that shapes our lives.    I have been going on and on about being a survivor.  But is being a survivor synonymous with being the victim.  Perhaps this limiting belief has created more situations in my life that brand me survivor.  Survivor now has the connotation of struggle.  I don’t need to struggle.  I don’t need to be some survivor.  I just need to be.

If I embrace how lucky I am and truly accept what I have and what my limitations are then there can be no struggle, no need to be the perpetual survivor.  Acceptance breeds happiness and quite frankly I really do have a lot to be thankful for.  So I have overextended myself, financially, emotionally and now physically but once again, it has taken all of these things to humble my way of thinking.  I am not so different from most Americans that have been faced with adversity in these economic times.  As a matter of fact I am actually doing pretty good.   I figure it this way.  If I was able to overspend now I should be able to over-save. 

At the end of the day I am lucky and I have a good life.  And as my letter from the Universe says today… Changing what you have comes from changing who you are.  And changing who you are comes from changing what you think.

Acceptance.  Acceptance doesn’t come with labels or titles or salutations.  Acceptance just is.  Acceptance is the open door that leads to true happiness.