Several weeks ago I wrote the article, “Challenged by Family and Friends after Brain injury”.
In this article I spoke about learning how to accept ourselves when family and friends can’t or won’t accept us in our reality.
In another article, “Brain Injury and What Might Have Been?” I spoke to a familiar question “Why Me?”.
In my life I struggled with the question of “Why Me?” after my brain injury until I began to consider the question of, “Why Not Me?.
What I discovered about the Question of “Why Me?”
Many times the question of “Why Me?” unknowingly becomes an “under tow” for the brain injury survivor. The “under tow” that keeps “pulling us under” through disappointment and discouragement. The “undertow” that keeps us focused on doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. The “undertow” that distracts us and keeps me from seeing the door that has been opened for me that I could walk through.
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” Helen Keller
Empowering “Why Not Me?”
As my awareness and acceptance grew, so did the realization that I could indeed be empowered. With my awareness and acceptance I began to experience a new freedom. A new freedom that gave me the ability to make different choices. Choices that empowered my life and well-being. In my Moving Forward Following a Brain injury e Book I share information that helped me see and act on these different choices.
At the bottom of this article there is a link to my Moving Forward Following a Brain injury e Book.
Square Peg in a World of Round Hole
For many years I found myself feeling like a square peg in a world of round holes. My denial fostered the belief that there was some thing wrong with me by being a square peg. In my article, Feeling like a Square Peg in a World of Round Holes, I share that by accepting and celebrating myself as square peg I could stop struggling to fit in. By doing so, I began to accept and thrive as a individual living with a brain injury.
Affirmation
I can grow where my feet were planted. “Planted” in the realm of my circumstances by learning to accept who I am as square pegs. I don’t have to be like anyone else to prosper. I can learn to use my gifts, talents and abilities in ways that work for me. I can give to the people who want what I have to give. I don’t have to be anyone but myself. I don’t have to convince anyone. I can explore the answer to “Why Not Me?“.
Quotes that Inspire to Consider, “Why Not Me?”
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who are alive.” Howard Thurman
“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Albert Einstein
“Insist on yourself, never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half-possession…Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Regardless of your lot in life, you can build some thing beautiful on it.” Zig Ziglar
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” Maria Robinson
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” Henry David Thoreau
Resources Spoken about in this Article
Brain Injury and What Might Have Been
Moving Forward Following a Brain injury e Book
Feeling like a Square Peg in a World of Round Holes
Challenged by Family and Friends after Our Brain Injuries
Leave a Reply