Hi, Cherrios! I'm just going to embed my response in blue.

[quote=Cherrios;1569222]Hi Lynn09, (I am responding to both of your last responses together)

I have already received my masters...By the way, what did you get your masters in?

I have been trying to find a job but since that has not worked out, I have concentrated on running/working out more and more. Also, thinking about becoming a Personal Trainer. So the reason I needed a break (today) was to stop thinking about all of this stuff. I agree - That's a LOT of information to examine and think about, and to decide what does or does not make sense to you, what does or does not work for you. We've covered a lot of territory recently in this one thread alone! -

But it literally baffles me that it is SO hard for me to do what has been said. It should be easy for me to accomplish what has been said since it is just deciding to do one thing over another...simple! It isn't like I am training for an IRONMAN. You said this too in your next to last response - Don't get me wrong, Cherrios - although this is straightforward and simple, that doesn't mean that it's easy. Right; but, like you have said before, even once you decide what change to make, it's a matter of figuring out the precise "how" of going about making that change.

(And you are right, I want nothing less than the genuine article - you don't really want anything less than the genuine article - anything less than the REAL thing, do you? - I just believe that this is what I was before the accident because that is what I know.) And I agree I won't achieve reaching the person I was before the accident, but I can get really close, which will have to be good enough.

Also, since I had just ran in a 5K, I was in some pain, and trying to work through what you said and dealing with the pain my legs were feeling was overload. A break was necessary!

Absolutely! That pain may be one of the things that "drives" you so hard - the act of running despite the pain is perhaps an act of defiance - your way of not allowing it to have power over you - not allowing it to control or define you. However, you must remember that pain does produce other physiological effects - causes the body to produce stress hormones that can have detrimental physiological effects that may counteract some of the physical ground you have gained.

what are you thinking about while you're running? - [And when I run, I concentrate on the things I can control....like my breathing, my posture, the fact that if I keep going I will finish the race. And like with everything that I do if I can help someone else, the pain I am feeling goes out the door....meaning I concentrate on helping them finish. Like today I kept an older gentleman running, he kept me running too, but I kept telling him that he was AMAZING to attempt the 5K since there were hills and it was FREEZING! He already did the hard part, now it was just a matter of finding the energy to finish.] Yes, distraction is a very good tool to use to deal with pain, plus you gain a sense of self-worth and value by helping someone else achieve their goal. This is what I meant by my statement about populating your life with activities that will give you enough immediate gratification to ward off discouragement while working to achieve long-term goals. This is what you may derive from being a Peronal Trainer.

It takes time for you to absorb, process, assimilate, and implement all that you and I and Byz and others here have talked about since you came to PC, as well as what you have discussed with your T and others in your real life. - I guess I think I don't have time.....it's like if I died tomorrow would I be satisfied...NO! Actually, more people would do well to feel that way about their lives - never stop trying, never stop learning, never stop reaching, never become enslaved to the mediocrity of the status quo. So I try to make things happen...waiting for something to happen does not sit well with me. I feel that accidents are bound to happen, so we need to do what we can when we can. Maybe I am anxious or on edge...I don't know, but when I hear about something I feel the need to make it happen right away. Naturally - you know how quickly and easily the opportunity can be taken away from you. I guess I have never been the one to take my time....I am even going on this date on Monday, which scares me to death, but I feel I should since I am 25 years old and have never really been in a relationship since my accident. Time was taken away from me, so I am now trying to catch up. Ahhh...this explains a great deal! You were only 12 years old when that accident occurred? No wonder you are having difficulty. Time wasn't the only thing that was taken from you. You spent some of the most important developmental years of your life focused solely on trying to recover from your injuries instead of developing the self-confidence, learning the social skills, and developing the emotional maturity that would enable you to be decisive and bold now as an adult!! Your physical body may be chronologically 25 years old, but your emotional and social development was interrupted and has been delayed, so to speak. This is probably why you are having difficulty dealing with your emotions - especially your anger. At age 12 and through the rest of your teens, you were not equipped to deal with the emotional trauma you incurred as a result of that accident and did not have the opportunity to develop the emotional maturity to deal with it. No wonder you felt and still feel so victimized by it - so abused! Of course you focus more on maintaining and improving your physical condition - that's all you know - that's pretty much what you have spent more than half of your life becoming experienced at doing.

I'm glad that you are going on that date...it's long overdue. But, you need to be very patient with yourself because you have some ground to make up. And you need to be very careful with your heart, too. Try to focus mainly on the social interaction in order to gain experience and develop self-confidence in interacting socially with others before pursuing romantic involvements. Learn how to have fun!! (Sheesh! Do I ever sound like an old lady!!! )

And..... you are so clever.....Consider this, even if the accident had not happened, you still would not be the same person today physically or mentally that you were 13 years ago - you're not even the same person today that you were yesterday. That former "you" no longer exists - You are right the girl that I was before the accident does not exist anymore....but I just want to get back to where I was physically. I want to rewind time for this purpose only.....I would have been such an athlete. The night before my accident, I went to my soccer practice where my dad commented on how strong my legs were when I kicked the ball. And this explains a great deal, as well. You were an athlete - that aspect of your "identity" was more developed at the time, and most of your self-confidence and positive feelings about yourself were rooted in your physical strength and abilities. So, when we humans get frustrated by what we don't know how to do, we will do what we know in order to alleviate that frustration.

I understand - truly I do. I ran track when I was younger - sprints, 440 relay, high jump, etc. I had always been athletic, in good physical shape, and wanted so much to pursue athletics, especially gymnastics. I wanted to be a Physical Education instructor (that's when PE was required in junior and high schools). However, after the doctors found that malformed vertebra in my lower spine when I was 20 y/o and did 3 surgeries to fuse it to another vertebra to stabilize it and "repair" what they could of the neurological damage, my hopes and plans went out the window - including having children. I was devastated by all that loss, and I felt just as victimized by it as I did by being abused throughout my childhood by my parents and siblings. Although I worked really hard despite the constant pain (which is still with me to this day) to regain my physical strength, I have never been the same since. But, I realized back then that I had to deal with the situation as it really was, rather than what I wanted it to be.

In a previous post, you said, "This accident should never have happened...why do things like this happen? " The short answer is, "Because that's the reality we live in." Considering all that can possibly happen to human beings during a lifetime, I guess it would be more realistidc for us to ask, "Why not?" - more realistic to expect such things and more to happen to us.

I do hold myself to a high standard - Possibly measuring yourself against an unattainable standard, and punishing yourself for not being "perfect" enough to attain it? This is that "glass-half-full-or-half-empty" perspective - focusing on what you can't do, rather than celebrating what you can do. - I do this because I know I can accomplish what I could have done before the accident. It might be unattainable at first, but nothing stays that way. And I agree, nothing is perfect in this world, but I considered what I could do before the accident....perfect. I only focus on what I can't do because I know I can EVENTUALLY do it!And I do this - If someone else says to you what you already know in your own mind to be true but are afraid to admit, it's easier for you to give yourself permission to accept it; you exert CONTROL over your body and your emotions through suppression and denial. - because I know I can do whatever it is. I have to think this way because I would lose it if I couldn't do something as I did before. I totally get this - reclaiming what was taken from you so abruptly, violently, and unfairly. A way of righting a terrible wrong committed against you - a way of getting justice for the grave injustice committed against you without cause or provocation.

The trick is to populate your life with enough of both to maintain balance and ward off discouragement. - My problem is that I concentrate on one thing and forget about the other things. This especially happens when it comes to working out, since I think this is what I should concentrate on. Doing is my problem! Because you really are not experienced at doing anything else other than working out.

Again, feeling that you are not entitled to be angry is a way of punishing yourself for being angry about the accident and the difficulties you are experiencing dealing with how your life and how you perceive yourself (identity) have been so radically altered by it. You deny yourself permission to feel anger and other emotions - so how do I express my anger in a constructive way? Or do I? You've already made a significant adjustment there by, as you say, taking your anger out on yourself instead of lashing out at others. This still is not the best way to deal with it, but how are you supposed to direct it at an event - an accident - an intangible? It was a mindless, souless thing that happened without malice or purpose - just like that birth defect in my spine. Who or what is there to blame? to hold accountable? I just now realized that I have never felt any anger at all about that birth defect and the impact it had and still has on my life, probably because I was emotionally mature enough at that point to view it realistically and not take it personally. The only thing I have been angry about is the fact that my parents refused to believe me about the constant excruciating pain in my lower back and legs I experienced throughout my entire childhood. But, you had not had the chance to develop that level of experience and emotional maturity when your accident happened. I'm going to have to think about this some more to see if I can answer your question about how to express your anger in a constructive way....hmmm.....

From what other things you said in your response, I guess I am wondering "How" I stop needing to control things...stop being in denial. It is all centered around my accident, but how do I approach this idea of taking hold of my life in the way possible? You can only relinquish that need to control things when you feel safe. You found out that the world is not a safe place, and that you can't trust anyone or anything to protect you from random, senseless, unjust, and unprovoked events. The truth is that there is very little that we can control outside of ourselves or beyond this moment in time - we can't control random events any more than we can control what others choose to think or how they choose to behave. The only thing we have any control over at all is how we choose to respond to whatever happens around us and to us. So, the only way any of us can feel some sense of "safety" comes from being able to trust ourselves (self-confidence). We must be able to trust that no matter what happens, we will do our best to make certain that we respond according to our core philosophies which are how we choose to define ourselves; and that the core philosophies we choose to embrace and exemplify produce responses that are appropriate, courageous, wise, compassionate, honorable, and just. It's a matter of how we choose to define our identities - who we choose to be in any given moment regardless of the situation or circumstances, and regardless of our physical packaging.

So, I guess the question is really how do we become appropriate, courageous, wise, compassionate, just, and honorable people in order to respond accordingly? It takes seeking knowledge and wisdom to discern the real priorities in life. It takes time, experience, and repetition - just like learning anything else. It takes being fully present and aware in the moment. It takes honest self-examination and conscious determination to develop those characteristics - to be the person who actually possesses (or is possessed by) those characteristics. It takes developing the courage to choose to do the right, honorable, and just thing rather than the expedient thing in every situation - and, of course, it is in making that choice again and again that we develop the courage to continue to make that choice.

It takes focusing more on who you want to be rather than what you want to do. I have found that it doesn't much matter what you do, but rather how you do it and why are what really matter. If you are focused on becoming the kind of person you want to be, focused on the character traits and identity you want to develop, you will be able to gain the knowledge and experience you need just about anywhere. To clarify, when I was able to work, my personal core philosophy was that regardless of whatever job I was doing, the people (bosses, co-workers, customers, etc.) were always more important than the job - that the people were my real job regardless of where I was or what I was doing - that the personal welfare of the people I came in contact with was always more important than my position and paycheck, and that I would never close my eyes to another person being abused or dehumanized, or to illegal, unethical, or unjust acts committed by anyone even if standing up for what was right jeopardized my livelihood. I always did my paying job to the very best of my ability, but I would not sacrifice the welfare of another human being in order to do it.

I think this is part of what you missed out on as a result of having to be so focused on your physical recovery during those important developmental years - you didn't have the opportunity to fully develop your own personal core philosophies to determine what you want your life - your story - to be about; not just what you want to do, but why you do whatever you do the way you do it.

Whenever I'm trying to figure out how to deal with a situation, I always fall back on my philosophical beliefs - what perspective on, approach to, and method for dealing with the situation is in alignment with and supported by my basic core philosophies? This has helped me to refrain from making decisions about how to respond to the situation based on my emotions (especfially my anger) and in a manner that is not consistent with the person I want to be - and what a battle that is at times!!! It's the difference between revenge and justice, cleverness and wisdom, etc.

So, perhaps the real starting point is to decide what kind of person you want to be regardless of your circumstances, and regardless of your physical condition since there really is no way to control those things completely and indefinitely? Previously, you said that you "learned to act...happy, strong, content, unstoppable, etc." Perhaps the real question is what core philosophies would help you develop the character traits that would enable you to actually be "happy, strong, content, unstoppable, etc." regardless of your circumstances and/or physical condition? And, perhaps by focusing on embracing the core philosophies necessary for developing those character traits would enable you to figure out how to go about making the changes in your life that you want to make. Perhaps the problem is that we've been skipping that step (?).

Please pardon my ramblings - I've been think-typing, so whatever has been going through my mind is on the screen. But, sometimes it is a matter of figuring out the right questions to ask first before you can find the right answers and solutions.

Thank you! Cherrios! I don't know if you're going to be thanking me for this one, but I gave it my best shot! Whatever the case, I'm on your side. Let me know what you think. lynn09 [/quote]