
Being a strong person does not necessarily mean that you have muscles or that you are unflappable. It merely means that you are the kind of person who can accept what life has to hand you, and you can take that and turn it into something even more amazing. The thing is that when we are lost in our own world of things that go wrong or situations that feel beyond our control, we sit back and we tend to let our minds wander to a place of āIām not good enough to handle this,ā or āHow am I going to get through this,ā and we donāt focus on the strength we have.
When my husband and I decided to have a third baby, we knew we could handle it. We were really good at babies one and two. My deliveries were simple and fast, our babies both slept through the night within the first week they were alive, they were both well-behaved babies and toddlers; we knew we could do a third baby. Weād always been able to take our girls anywhere we went, travel with them, enjoy meals in public with them, and we never worried that they would misbehave because they were just so good.
They were 5 and 2 when we made that decision. I became pregnant right away. We hoped for a boy, but we knew what we were doing with little girls, so we werenāt too worried about the babyās gender at that point. We had no doubts in our mind that three kids would be a simple piece of cake. We had no idea the morning that we went into the doctorās office for our 20-week ultrasound that weād find out that I was carrying twins and that our entire world was about to change.
We felt shock. For many days we were just shocked. We were worried that we couldnāt handle two babies at one time. I work from home, my husbandās job was very demanding, and we had two other kids at home. We worried, and we felt a little bit sorry for ourselves for a few days. Fortunately, we are strong people in the mental capacity, and we got over it. People ask us all the time how we handle four kids and our busy lives. Lots of wine and great grandparents is what we say; but the truth is that we are just strong people who handle what life hands us. And that, my friends, is why you should know what strong people do in order to get back up and succeed.
Embrace Change
When life hands you lemons, make something better out of them. There is a long list of recipes for lemons that are so much better than you might imagine. There is a lemon martini, lemonade, thereās sangria. You can make whatever you want out of whatever changes life throws at you, but you have to open your arms and welcome that change. When you look back over the course of your life at the changes youāve experienced, how many of them killed you? Right; not one of them.
Celebrate Life
Life is not something that should bring you down all the time. Sure, itās not always fun and yes, we all have issues. But at the end of the day, you have a lot to celebrate, so why not celebrate it? So what if your job sucks sometimes, or you lost your job or you have so many things to fix in your life? You also have a lot to celebrate, like your kids and your marriage and your health. So be thankful for those things and celebrate them. Everything else manages to work itself out in the end, but thereās no reason you cannot choose to be happy in the midst of trouble.
Donāt Complain
Listen, we all have plenty we can complain about it in life, but why bother? No one wants to be around people who are constantly in a bad mood complaining about everything. I know I donāt. I know you donāt. I know that complaining about life doesnāt change it. Instead of complaining about all that has gone wrong in your life, just change it.
Stay in Control
You, my friend, are in control of your own life. You are always in control, even when you donāt feel as if you are in control. You are the person who is responsible for your own actions and reactions and when you remember that, you can change your life. Being strong is about being able to handle all that life throws at you. You might not be able to fix it or even understand it right now, but you can control how you react to it and how you choose to view your life. Make it worthwhile.
Photo by Getty Images
Comments
Loading…