Vlog: Being Told You're An Inspiration

Have you been told you're an inspiration?  What was the reason?  Did they give you any specifics as to why they thought you were inspirational?  

And, how did you feel about it?  How did you respond?  Did it inspire you to do more for others?  More for yourself?  Did it help you break out of your comfort zone and try something new?  Did it inspire you to become a speaker, letting other people know about your chronic health issues; to become an advocate for others?

Or, did you feel like a fraud?  They were inspired by you but you may feel as if you really haven't lived up to it.  You are unsure of yourself, you're self-conscious, perhaps.  Insecure.

What do you do with this?  How can being called an inspiration change that negativity in you to positivity?  How can it energize you?

When someone calls you an inspiration, what should you say?  Well, here are some ideas:

• Simply say "Thank You."
• Ask the person how you inspire them
• Tell the person how they inspire you.

How can you use your inspiration?

• Speak about it at local organizations, schools, hospitals, health fairs
• Do volunteer work at hospitals, schools, shelters, community events, health fairs
• Help others with similar health issues to cope, improve their situation, and be inspired.
• Write about it in a blog or book
• Write a column for your local newspaper on coping with health issues
• Contact the association connected to your chronic health issues to see if you could write articles for their newsletter or magazine.

Any other ideas?  I'd love to hear from you!  And, please share your experiences with this topic.  Have you been told you're an inspiration?  How did you react?  Positively?  Negatively?  Let's talk about this.  

Friendship and Life Changes

As I've mentioned before, friendships are very important to your well-being.  They comfort you, laugh with you, defend you, and provide companionship.  

But what if you make a major change in your life?  Will they still be there?  Will they know how to handle the new you?

Some changes that could affect friendships are:

• Weight loss:  Your friends may be jealous of your ability to lose weight.

• Eating healthy:  You're new eating habits don't fit in with their beer and pizza mentality.

• Stopping smoking/drinking/abusing drugs: Sometimes the only thing you have in common is a bad habit.  When that's gone, the friendship is gone too.

• Values:  If you have been friends with people who steal, lie, cheat, are disrespectful to others, and change your ways, you may find out that they no longer want to hang out with you.  They aren't willing to change with you.

• Political affiliation:  This has been a hot one in recent years.  Your friends don't understand how you could possibly buy into a party they feel no affinity towards.  You've been friends for years, but suddenly you are dirt.  The tension is too intense and they dump you.  Over politics.  Bye!

• Job--financial status:  You may lose touch with friends from work who you no longer see on a regular basis.  You may not have anything but work in common with them, so you drift apart.  You also may lose friends if you suddenly find yourself in a lower or higher tax bracket.  They can't seem to relate to you anymore.

• Marriage:  Your single friends may drift away after the hoopla of the wedding and reception.  You have new responsibilities and priorities that don't necessarily fit into their single lifestyle.

• Having children:  When you start a family, your single friends, again, may not be keen on this new you.  You aren't the footloose and fancy-free friend you used to be, so they back away.

• Sexual orientation:  When you "come out," some friends may totally freak out and abandon you.  The same can be true if you decide to go through gender reassignment surgery.    

• Divorce:  Your friends may feel torn between you and your former spouse.  They care about both of you, but they feel like they are being forced to take sides.  It could become too much of a strain for them, so they walk away from the friendship.

• A move:  Even though friends can keep in touch with you via Skype, phone, email, texting, and visits once you leave, for some it just isn't the same as day to day in-person contact.  You're each experiencing new things that you can't necessarily explain or share intimately from a great distance, so they eventually fade away. 

• Illness:  Of course, your closest friends will most likely understand when you're sick. But others may get tired of waiting for you to feel well enough to go out shopping, hiking, to the theater or a favorite restaurant when you used to be ready and willing to go on the fly.  You're just no fun anymore.

• Death:  Again, you're closest friends will generally stick by you after you've suffered a personal loss.  But others may not know how to respond or what to do, so they back away.

• Betrayal:  If you betray a friend's trust, you have a good chance of losing her.  Without trust, everything else you had with that person is gone, done, over.

Friendship is a tricky thing.  Some friendships last decades while others only last a weekend.  The important thing is that you stay true to yourself.  Do what feels right in your gut.  Make the changes you need to make in order to live your best life, and your true friends will be right there beside you, supporting you every step of the way.  

Have you lost friends due to changes you have made in your life?  

Do We Create Our Own Reality?

Do we create our own reality?  I've been thinking about this lately, so I went digging for some information on the topic.  What I found was a mix of "thoughts become things," and "we participate in creating our reality, but we don't have the power to make things happen just because we're thinking in a certain way."  Just because we are thinking negative thoughts, doesn't mean we caused our plane to crash.  Similarly, just because we are thinking positively, doesn't mean that our life will be perfect.  There are other forces involved.  Other people may block our progress, make us angry, lead us down a questionable path, bring us laughter to change our mood for the better, and so on.  We have no control over what others do, and what they do may influence what happens to us.  We also can't control environmental forces.  We may have this awesome outdoor wedding planned, but it could very well be flooded out by a summer monsoon.

What we do have control over is our reaction to what happens to us.  Our attitude is everything.  Rather than avoiding or denying things in life that don't set well with us, we meet them head on, accept them for what they are, and remain empathetic and compassionate toward ourselves through the difficult process.

To me, our attitude colors our perception of what reality is.  Positive thoughts can cause positive actions, just as negative thoughts can cause negative actions.  If we are positive and take on challenges with a can-do attitude, I think that affects our reality, making it better.  If our attitude is negative then we will perceive a negative reality.  And that affects outcomes.  Say you are walking along, thinking of a concert you'll be attending on the weekend; it brings positive thoughts that result in you humming the tunes you'll hear at the concert, smiling at everyone you meet, holding doors open for people, and the like.  On the other hand, if you are thinking negative thoughts about a fender bender you were involved in, getting madder and madder by the second at the incompetence of the  driver who rammed into your car, then as you walk along that same street you might very well scowl at people and slam doors in their faces. 

I spent a lot of time in an alternative reality when I was growing up--my daydream world.  Without it, I don't think I would have been able to deal nearly as well with the reality of my health issues, surgeries,  and people staring at me and teasing me.  Yes, the health issues were my reality.  I couldn't change that.  But the daydreams helped me figure stuff out, have practice dialogue with a doctor about a question had, deal with health issues, solve problems in a safe, fun environment, or just chill out and have fun with my imaginary friends, laughing, being confident and successful, and imagining myself healthy.  I was in charge of my fantasies, so I was in charge of how it helped shaped my reality.  So I did make my own reality by the way I acted and handled crises, and the fantasies helped me de-stress and learn to cope healthily with my chronic health issues.  

What is your take on this subject?  Do you feel as if you create your own reality, or are other forces at work?  Have you ever had a daydream world you escaped to now and then to help you cope with health issues?  I'd love to hear your thoughts.