Excerpt from LIFELINES
This attitude change from a helpless victim to one taking responsibility for her life choices alleviated that deep sense of hopelessness in bringing order to chaos. This major awakening lesson became: we can choose life and the attitude with which we greet each day. Or said differently, we can continue to drown in despair, or take concrete action and channel our pain into positive creation and connection. I was so convinced I needed to formalize this behavior change in moving forward, I wrote a pledge making it official:
“I, Melissa Bernstein, have a choice to make each day. I can either wallow in misery, imprisoned in my head ranting, raving and blaming others for my state, or choose to greet the world with positivity and desire to live life fully. Doing so doesn’t necessarily mean I will succeed, but will commit myself to being a joy and light seeker all remaining moments of my life. That means I will not allow dark days to convince me there are no light ones ahead—rather see them as part of life knowing sunlight is always waiting above the clouds. Choosing life also means I will offer self-kindness and compassion, no longer inflicting harm in criticizing, berating, starving, exhausting, second-guessing and tormenting myself. Given I will respect my entire being, I will ask others do the same, clearly expressing my feelings and no longer allowing them to offend, hurt, overuse or maltreat me. I am choosing life and making a commitment to living honestly and gratefully each day here-forth.”
At the end of the day it was actually all about control, yet not a lack of control as I had always believed. In fact, I held ultimate control over life with my mindset, my choices, and the power to write my own life story. And I could continue operating misguided by the sense each day was filled with despair, or believe differently and more optimistically that life had the potential to be joyous and fulfilling. It was entirely up to me.
We can choose to see the world
Awash in joy or steeped in gloom
For a wasteland can transform
Into a garden flush with bloom
If we open up our eyes
And simply revel in each day
Finding promise reigns supreme
With blue skies waiting past the gray
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Thanks for highlighting the importance of our choice and agency over HOW we experience what we're experiencing in the present moment. What is happening may or may not be in our control. How we interpret and react to it very much is.
I would like to know how Melissa Bernstein would address the ever occurring issue of chemical imbalances in a child's body at birth that greatly influence childhood thought patterns and then color thought and mood process as the child grows. I have been afflicted with depression and gloom since early childhood. Through years of therapy emphasizing "how to interpret" experiences, I find that just trying to "change your mood" really never helps those who were born with a sense of imminent sadness, whether through parents who imbibed in drugs, or through hereditary connections in family blood lines. If your cell system is wired to experience deep depression, in utero, I would think it is expedient to correct one's soul at the cell level in order to aid this thinking process for brighter, sunnier outlook days.
Carol wrote: "I would like to know how Melissa Bernstein would address the ever occurring issue of chemical imbalances in a child's body at birth that greatly influence childhood thought patterns and then color ..."Please read Kazimierz Dąbrowski's (KD) "third factor" to understand what I learned when Melissa suggested this psychologist/psychiatrist/physician to me. Quoted below from Wikipedia on KD's concept of Positive Disintegration:
...'the third factor', is a drive toward individual growth and autonomy. The third factor is critical as it applies one's talents and creativity toward autonomous expression, and second, it provides motivation to strive for more and to try to imagine and achieve goals currently beyond one's grasp. Dąbrowski was clear to differentiate third factor from free will. He felt that free will did not go far enough in capturing the motivating aspects that he attributed to third factor. For example, an individual can exercise free will and show little motivation to grow or change as an individual. Third factor specifically describes a motivation—a motivation to become one's self. This motivation is often so strong that in some situations we can observe that one needs to develop oneself and that in so doing, it places one at great peril. This feeling of "I've gotta be me" especially when it is "at any cost" and especially when it is expressed as a strong motivator for self-growth is beyond the usual conceptualization ascribed to free will.
