My grandmothers were amazing women.  I have long said that if I could be half the woman either of them was, I would have really accomplished something.  As amazing as they were and as much adversity as they overcame, you don’t know who they are.

But you know Helen Keller.

Born normal, Helen lost her sight and hearing during an illness as a toddler. Without that horrific event, she would likely have grown into a normal woman who overcame normal things, to live a normal life and leave a normal family.  And she would have been just as anonymous to the world at large as my grandmothers. She would likely have been just some old lady.

Several times recently, I’ve seen this Helen Keller quote on Facebook: “Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.”

Now, my first thought in response to that quote is (frankly) snarky, centers on the word “see” and you can probably guess what it is.  However, when I yank my head around to being a grown-up again, I think of how remarkable this statement really is.  I may claim to be the Positive Thinking Blog Goddess, but the only reason that title is available is because blogs weren’t around when Helen Keller was alive.

Can you imagine what her life must have been like without sound or sight? I can’t even fathom it. I would think that it was particularly difficult if she had memories of those senses from her early childhood. Regardless, she didn’t just deal with the loss of her senses; she kicked butt.

Her disabilities, her struggles and the people who helped her with them made her a great woman in history. If any piece of that trifecta had been missing, she would have ended up being a totally different person – perhaps an even greater one, but, likely, just somebody’s grandmother. Without blindness, Ray Charles would probably have just been some guy.  With a present father, Bill Clinton might have been just another lawyer. These people turned difficulties into stepping stones.

These past few weeks, I have struggled (and continue to struggle) with some things.  During these times, the temptation to eat like a Labrador is great. Difficulties are real tests of our resolve and of our new coping mechanisms. I cannot say that mine have been successful every time; but, I can say that I’ve actually lost about three pounds. Net effect is that I win. My struggles and issues don’t put me in the realm of those people, surely; but, I’m okay with that.  I don’t need to be a great speaker, musician or politician. I need to be a good human and these present difficulties, as badly as they annoy me, make me better – more compassionate, more patient, more humble.

One day, I will likely be “just some old lady” to most; however, I work every day to become a grandmother worthy of imitation to at least some.

Fair warning – the part of the Positive Thinking Blog Goddess is being played today by Senora Buzzkill.

Aside from helping people solve problems and protect themselves, my favorite part of my job is getting out and meeting all kinds of interesting people. I recently had coffee with the fascinating Kate. During the course of conversation, the subject of Hope arose. Kate shared her theory that Hope is neither created nor destroyed, rather, it is redistributed. Her thoughts captured my imagination, which has just run amok with them ever since.

Within an isolated system (a person) Hope can be neither created nor destroyed, only change form, like both mass and energy. I’m sure this parallel is all kinds of Swiss cheese with logical holes; however, I like the notion of it – the Law of Conservation of Hope.

We were discussing Hope as it relates to coping with cataclysmic loss – of a parent, child, spouse, sibling, friend or in cases of natural disaster. I looked for instances of Hope’s metamorphosis during times of loss for me: my mother’s death after a long bout with cancer and my dear friend’s death in a car wreck.

I did some research on Mother’s diagnosis of mantle cell lymphoma and found no survival rate for that particular kind of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. My research did not leave room for hope of survival for Mother, only that perhaps she had been misdiagnosed. Even that quickly changed. Hope then centered on handling this correctly – in a way that would be honest with my son (but not gruesome), supportive for my mother and as healthy as possible for the rest of us. Those hopes ended up centered on controlling the collateral damage – people don’t get cancer, families do – and finally hoping that it would all be over soon. (And we’re not even going to discuss the incredible guilt that goes with that!)  Finally, the hope was that I would get my life back. The metamorphoses of Hope in this experience were over 3.5 years.

Joey’s death was much more abrupt. I found out in a 6:30 Monday morning phone call. I hoped Larry was wrong. Then I just hoped that I would remember to breathe again. I hoped that for weeks. Then, I hoped there would come a day when I wouldn’t miss him. Now I hope that it never does. These metamorphoses have continued for 20 years.

Hope is our coping mechanism. It is the thing that gets us through the unbearable as surely as it enhances the joyful.  Even for those we think have lost hope, maybe their’s centers on the hereafter being better than the now. Maybe even then, Hope exists in some form. It is, I think, the genesis of faith.

(Or maybe contemplation of Hope is the path to madness as surely as the effort to define Quality was for the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.)

This idea is really intriguing to me; so, I invite you along for a little audience participation today.  What are your thoughts? Share them with us below. (You do have to supply some basic information before your comments are sent to me for approval.  Don’t worry, though, you can give your name as Anonymous. Signing up doesn’t put you on a spam list for me,)

I really would love to hear what you think.

Mama Gump says that,” Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.” As I cleaned my house this weekend (it was still looking like Hoarders – Pre-K), I came to think that perhaps life is also like the monkey bars.

We had a set of those old, straight monkey bars on the playground at St. Francis when I was a kid. I was chubby, slow, awkward and fearful. I was afraid to play on them for fear that I would get hurt, that someone would laugh or look up my skirt. When I finally did try crossing them, I did it slowly, moving one rung at a time.  No so my friend Kelly.  She was fearless! She swung across them gracefully, skipping rungs as she used her momentum to propel her from one side to the other. Shorts beneath her uniform, she would hang upside down, wringing every ounce of joy from the experience as she was suspended there.

On the 12th, I talked about conflicts that eventually claim those who originally claimed them. The same thing is true with anything, don’t you think? We claim a job, a possession, a relationship; but, those things often end up claiming and owning us. A job becomes who I am, not what I do. I insure and guard my possessions. Friendships and romantic relationships can easily become an end in themselves. We end up possessed by things we once called our own. As I sifted through the flotsam of my life this weekend, I saw it in technicolor.

So how do we know when we need to let go of those things? If I had the answer to that, you’d be reading it in my bestselling book or watching me talk about it on reruns of my talk show (I’d be hiking in Scotland somewhere, natch).

Here’s what I do know: when I feel myself becoming someone I don’t like, it’s time to take a hard look.

I’ve had jobs where I felt taken advantage of, taken for granted, underpaid, underappreciated. I became angry stayed that way. I’ve had possessions that made me feel weighted down and panicked over how to protect them. I’ve had friendships and romantic relationships in which I have felt uneasy, unsure, undervalued and overvalued. In all of those cases, I became anxious.

I choose not to live an angry life; so, I had to leave those jobs. Katrina cleaned me out on the possessions once. I’m trying to figure out how to do it voluntarily right this very minute. And I would love to say that I was strong enough to have ended all of those bad relationships myself; however, that would be a big, fat lie. In all of those instances, the change was painful; however, to preserve or become the person I want to be, I had to make them or accept the ones others made. That’s my key – knowing who it is (or isn’t) that I want to be.

As we move through situations that require changes, here’s to knowing when to let go of the last rung and to moving through the rungs fluidly and joyfully.

So you’ve decided to square your shoulders, lift your head and get healthy.  Everyone you know is going to be supportive, right? Wrong.

The pretty one. The smart one. The athletic one. The funny one. The fat one.  We all have people in pigeon holes and we all fit in someone else’s cubbies.  It’s kind of a Cosmic Spice Girl thing without the platform shoes. When we Fat Ones decide to climb out of our cubbies, we sometimes meet resistance.

None of us makes the decision to change in an instant.  We gave it a lot of thought before we changed our lifestyles. We got used to the idea internally before we ever floated it out there in the world. By the time we get the idea into action, it’s not new to us anymore; however, to those around us, it may very well be. The aren’t used to it and, frankly, they may not like it.  We are upsetting their cubby system. We are all set to mess up their pegboard.

Fortunately, the wonderful people in our lives will make the adjustment from surprised to supportive to willing to revamp their own pegboards in just moments.  The toxic people in our lives will not. They are the ones who will say things like, “You’re so fat, what does it matter if you miss one day at the gym?” (Someone actually said that to a friend of mine. Can you imagine?) They may say, “What are you doing? Starving yourself again?” (Again, an actual quote.) Those statements are, as my mother would have said, about as helpful as a case of the clap.

I know that it’s unrealistic to remove those kinds of toxic people from our lives 100%. We might want to, but it’s not possible in a social, familial, or professional sense. The keys to handling toxic people, I believe are:

1. Identify them – knowing what they are and knowing that their toxins are their own issues reduces their power,
2. Limit exposure to them – if I put myself into a toxic environment – say a room with dangerous levels of carbon monoxide – I must limit the amount of time I spend in that environment else I will be overcome by the poison.  The same thing is absolutely true with toxic people.

We have changed (are changing, are maintaining) our lifestyles so that we can live healthier, more comfortable lives. Our relationships with anyone who doesn’t support us in that quest really need to be examined. How can they not want us to be healthier? How can they not be supportive each time we try, even though we often fail? How can they not want us to continue to strive to live better?

Looking at it another way: what kind of person wants us to continue to poison ourselves or to be in physical pain that is reversible?

I know that it’s not easy and I have honestly never had to do it, but I wonder what the response of the toxic person would be if we countered their derision with, “Exactly why is it that you want me to continue committing suicide with my behavior?” Let’s try it!  C’mon, it’ll be fun.

Listen, ultimately, we have no control over them or their behavior – their trash is their trash. Let’s leave it to them deal with it. Let’s do what is best for us.

Square pegs unite!

I’m having a tough time with some things at the moment and, yesterday, failed miserably in dealing with it.  I was down on myself and ate until I literally felt greasy and sick. I went to an Indian Bazaar and got a Picnic bar, a package of dry fruit chikki brittle and a package of puri for bhel. And I ate it all. 1530 calories of nutritionally bankrupt food. Today is a new day and I begin again. Because I need a good pep talk today myself, I’m going to share one of the best I’ve ever read:

It is not the critic who counts; nor the one who points out how the strong person stumbled, or where the doer of a deed could have done better.

The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually strive to do deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends oneself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he or she fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

-Theodore Roosevelt

I’m not sure I’m back to Roughrider status today; but, with conscious effort, I will be soon.  I will be strong enough to once again dare mighty things.

My mother was in treatment for mantle cell lymphoma for nearly three years before an oncologist told her outright that her disease was terminal.  By that time, the disease and the treatment had left her largely unable to process that information.  After that meeting, I told Dr. Steffens that if Shakespeare was right, that all the world’s a stage and we are merely players, then he should look into a new screenwriter because he had seriously crappy lines. However, I appreciated his courage in delivering them.

For years, I had a truly abysmal internal dialogue.  The script inside my mind was unhealthy, destructive, and (I thought) permanent.  Guess what.  I was wrong on that last thing.  Whew!  Right?

It turns out that I can be my own screenwriter!  Or, at the very least, I get to write my own dialogue.  I don’t always get a say in what situations I find myself; however, I do get a say in my own responses. Last week we were doing some training at work.  In the middle of my bit, I panicked and choked.  I mean, completely choked.  I forgot what I was supposed to do.  On the stage of my life, I forgot my lines. As it turns out, I’m also my director and, boy! did I give myself what-for for flubbing my lines!

But, wait!  That’s the problem, isn’t it – that I give myself what-for when I flub anything – my lines, my dinner, whatever.  Two years into this and I still speak to myself in ways that I would never speak to another or in ways that I would never allow someone to speak to my son.  So, why do I continue to do it?

I am happy to report that, although the struggle continues, it is less constant than before – which is great because, frankly, it’s just exhausting to police and eliminate that kind of language and attitude.  While it is frustrating that I still struggle, it is encouraging that I struggle less than I did two years ago. Just as with diet, baby steps in the right direction in attitude are progress.

This week, as I work through some course corrections, successes, failures, some undefined and some unrealized expectations, the temptation is strong to lapse back into the unhealthy script and its attendant unhealthy eating. Last week, I ate too few vegetables and too little overall. As a result, I was exhausted, cold, and mentally weak.  Over the weekend, however, I prepared some nutritious meals that I can quickly warm up when I get home in the evenings.  In addition, I reached out to my local support group, making me stronger this week.

You see, my play has a heroine (me), a villain (a rotating role), a couple of dogs, waaaaay too many cats and a massive supporting cast who are kind enough to write me into their plays, as well.

I may be my own screenwriter; but, my play is far from a one-woman show.