I have been thinking about some thing that I feel led to share with you. In my experience I have found that there are several traps that can leave you and I feeling like we are failures. We can be led to believe that because of our brain injuries that we are failures, because of what happened to us. Consequently, we may find ourselves focusing on what we can not change (what happened to us), instead of making peace with what happened to us and getting on with our lives. As a result, we may find ourselves feeling trapped by the notion that we are now helpless, hopeless and contained within a model of recovery that fosters secondary gains, secondary dependencies and seeks to control and contain us.
In response, we may find ourselves buying into the notion that we are victims of our circumstances, subservient to a patriarchal system that communicates to us that we are unable to make empowering choices, for ourselves; to express our capabilities to create and enhance our lives as individuals living with brain injuries as well as the lives of individuals within the brain injury community.
Another trap that we may find ourselves falling into is believing that we are failures because our lives are not marked by opulence. That we are failures because our station in life, be it disabled by societies standards; does not give us the means to be able to acquire or possess what society considers to be measures of success. In response, we may have people in our lives who, subsequently; patronize who we are as individuals and by their attitudes minimize, marginalize, dismiss and discount who we are as individuals. We may subsequently find ourselves buying into the notion that our lives are of little significance and value, beyond the ability to acquire societal measures of success. We may subsequently find ourselves undercut by notion that we can not be successful.
In the process, we may find ourselves acquiescing to fill the place that a patriarchal society has set for us, to control and contain who we are as individuals living with brain injuries; to meet and fulfill their agendas. In the process, we may find ourselves going along to get along, within those agendas. In the process, we may be led to believe that we are unable to make self-directed and empowering choices to use our creativity to enhance our capabilities and our lives. Such notions may leave us fixated on what we can not do, instead of considering the possibilities of what we can create in ways that will work for us. Such notions can leave us waiting for the approval of a patriarchal system, that in practice; invalidates our voice as individuals living with brain injuries.
The good news is that through being aware of these notions, as individuals living with brain injuries; we can make choices to express our unique capabilities to create in spite of the notions that in practice seek to keep us contained and controlled. The good news is that we no longer need to focus on what we can not accomplish, because of our brain injuries. Instead, we can be aware of our limitations and deficits, stop fighting against ourselves and discover a way (s) in which to use what we have (can do) that will work for us. Through our awareness, we can choose to walk down a different street and in the process try some thing new. Some thing that is unique to our gifts, talents and abilities. In the process, we can begin to define what success means and looks like to us.
“I was told over and over again that I would never be successful, that I was not going to be competitive and the technique was simply not going to work. All I could do is shrug my shoulders and say, ‘we’ll just have to see.” Dick Fosbury (Olympic Gold Medalist. Inventor of the “Fosbury Flop” High Jump Technique)
“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.” Helen Keller
“Regardless of your lot in life, you can build some thing beautiful on it.” Zig Ziglar
“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” Mother Teresa
“Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.” Theodore Roosevelt
“Insist on yourself, never imitate. Your own gift you can present with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent you only have an extemporaneous half-possession…Do that which is assigned to you and you can not hope too much or dare too much.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along which comes the inner voice, which says, “This is the real me” and when you have found that attitude, follow it”. James Truslow Adams
“If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams and endeavor to live the life that you have imagined…You will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” Henry David Thoreau
There Is a Hole in My Sidewalk
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
By Portia Nelson
Chapter One
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost…I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
Chapter Two
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend that I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in this same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
Chapter Three
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep whole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in…it’s a habit…but,
My eyes are open
I know where I am
It is my fault.
I get out immediately,
Chapter Four
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
Chapter Five
I walk down another street.
You have my permission to share my articles and or video presentations with anyone you believe could benefit, however please attribute me as being the author of the article (s) video presentation (s), and provide a link back to the article (s) on Second Chance to Live. In the event that you have questions, please send those questions to me. All questions are good questions. Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you.Copyright 2007-2015.
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