Choose to Be the Creator of Your Life

“Something will grow from all of this… and it will be me.”

Jodi Hills

Bad things happen to everyone. No one on earth is exempt. The most popular and successful people across this world have all suffered at the hands of others and from their own mistakes. So why is it that some people who suffer terribly rise above their suffering while others wallow in their suffering forever?

Well, those who rise above their suffering choose to grow from their suffering. They feel the pain, grieve their losses and then ask themselves “What wisdom can I gain from this? What can I learn from what has happened to me that will benefit me in the future?” They consciously sift-through all of the darkness that they have experienced until they find a golden nugget of wisdom and it becomes a guiding light for them to take back their personal power and to move forward in life.

People who wallow endlessly in the muck of their suffering never think to ask themselves, or their Higher Power, “What can I learn from all of this?” Instead they wallow in “Why? Why did this happen to me? Why do bad things always happen to me? Boo-hoo, boo-hoo, boo-hoo!” They walk around with sad faces and invite everyone they know to have pity parties for them. In reality, these people are very content playing the role of victim. They have taken on the identity of a perpetual victim and they don’t know how to act otherwise. And they fear that if the actually tried to help themselves, they’d lose a major part of their identity.

These two very different mind sets may explain why some people never hit bottom, while others do. There are many of us addicts out there who develop victim mentalities and who stay trapped in them for years. Then something earthshaking happens to us and we fall so hard to our knees that we know we now have to make a choice: Either we have to finally take responsibility for our lives and do something to help ourselves, or face total self-annihilation.

Those of us who then stop asking “Why?” and start asking “What wisdom can I gain from this?” are more likely to seek the help we need. We get up off our knees and admit to ourselves, God and others that we have a serious problem. Then, with the help of others, we find ourselves a good therapist, a good support group and any other resources we need to get our lives back together.

And all of this involves acceptance. It starts with our ability to accept ourselves just as we are in all of our imperfection; to accept that life isn’t easy for anyone, but that we can all grow from our hard-knocks; and to accept the help that we need from God and others to make our lives into great success stories.

If you are wallowing in self-pity, you have a CHOICE. You can continue to wallow in your misery forever, or you can choose to take your life back. All you have to do to take your life back is: 1) to acknowledge that bad things happen to everyone and you are no different; and 2) to choose to stop asking “Why?” and start asking “What?”—what can I learn from this and what can I do to help myself? Once you trade your victimhood for personal empowerment, you will learn and grow from all that has happened to you. You will become the creator of your life!