Core of Courage: Part 3

The Core of Courage: Part 3

It has been a while since I last wrote about courage, but it is never far from my heart and mind. My heart is where I go to consult with courage, intuition, and life purpose. It use to be more difficult to summon courage, I use to have to coax it out and nurture its existence.  It hid away under the negative self-inflicted “hyper sensitive” label and rarely tap into courage at will.

Today, a random stranger on the street had unkind, unwelcomed, and unwarranted words toward me. This man said, “I may be dumb but at least I am not blind”. I could have lashed out. I could have cried. I could have perseverated on the ignorant remark. Perhaps in the past these would have been my response. But now, I stand and live in the wake of courage. I did not respond, I moved forward silently yet proud. The silence was not a sign of weakness but a way for me to go in deep with courage and consult my heart for guidance. For ignorance is not bliss, ignorance is sad and also a wonderful time for lessons to be learned. It is often a lesson for you, not something that you must teach another. It is you time to act with grace, dignity, and surrender to the process. Instead of me scolding these remarks, I find it best to live my life which is full of passion, conviction, courage, and unwavering devotion to others. My life is based on a heart of service which can only be accomplished if I allow ignorance to wash over me momentarily but never allow it to penetrate my soul. Ignorance is temporary despite the words wanting to continuously echo in the depths of the mind, causing indefinite torture. Breaking the cycle of this echo chamber allows for tremendous freedom of the mind, body, and spirit. This freedom is a place where judgments are cast aside and heart based living is crowned king.

In my silent response, I thought to myself what this mans life must be like… I believe him to have been homeless but perhaps that is ignorant for me to assume. Either way, he is struggling.  For that my heart goes out to him.

Something that I have realized though, is that people believe that they can say whatever they want, whenever they want, to anyone. In my so-called disability I have discovered tremendous discrimination. Even in the past couple of weeks I have had to go into battle with my spirit so that it would not become broken. Perhaps we should clear up some assumptions, albeit this is a sarcastic list, but it is a real list none the less.

Top things to say to a visually impaired person

1 How many fingers am I holding up?

2 Shout loudly, does not matter what you are saying… assume the person also cannot hear.

3 Likewise, assume this person is mentally disabled and slow down your speaking rate dramatically and in a very obvious tone that is equally patronizing and somehow slurred.

4 Ask them if they want to touch your face.

5 Inquire how they get dressed in the morning

6 Rather, assume that they cannot do anything, ever for themselves.

7 Despite it being 2016 and the amazing technology available assume they read brail

8 Use phrases like, “the blind leading the blind”; “I see, said the blind man”

9 Complain about having to wear contact lenses or glasses and what a burden they are for you

10 Only talk about their eyes and vision with them… nothing else, EVER.Assuem they have nothing else to say, discuss, or think about. I mean, like, ever.

Alright, that is all I have for now but rest assured I have countless stories of heartache, discrimination, and ridiculous tails. Today was just another instance of ignorance but even more importantly, a chance for me to practice humility, grace, and courage. 

Here are other things that you should know:

1 Yes, of course, I miss seeing. I think bout it every single day and wonder how my life would be different. How I would be, where I would be, and why this happened.

2 Yes, I remember what everything looks like, including colors.

3 Yes, I do think that I will see again.

4 No, I will not be disappointed if I never do see again.

5 No, you do not have the right to just ask me anything you please about my surgeries, eyes, vision, and life.

6 Yes, I am a regular, average, normal person.

7 NO, I am not mad at you for wondering.

8 I would love to educate you.

9 I realize that I would make a great chiropractor because it requires my hands, not eyes.

10 Yes, I can see some things still such as light

Sometimes grace comes with a side of sarcasm but only because at times it is exhausting defending ones life purpose. But, this only means that I must dig deeper and give more of myself. If I could tell you my deepest secrets it would be that I feel guilty how much I secretly miss being able to see. That I feel guilty that this has happened to me. But that I am also so grateful to be me. I am so grateful to have lived this life and seen and not seen so many things. That if I could, I probably would not change anything. I just ask, that everyone no matter what is given a chance.

This goes beyond disability, race, gender, religion, etc. I wish that we can all learn to go in deep and act with greater grace. Every single person on this earth deserves to be loved, radiate love, and to give love. Every person possesses unique gifts that everyone else can learn from and then reflect out to others. Every person is important and should be respected.

It may appear that I Am just this white woman, well educated, doctor pontificating from my privileged princess pedestal but I am really in the trenches every day. I will dig until I hit in the core of the earth if that is what it takes to get my message out to the universe.

Thank you for indulging my sarcasm today… it can be exhausting living in the trenches of courage but there is no place that I would rather be!

In love & light,

Dr. Elizabeth M. Wisniewski

Vitalistic Visionary, Yoga teacher, Chiropractor

 

Shift Your story & Reshape Your Life

Shift Your story

Our life stories are often told from the tops of mountains and bottom of the valley. The highest highs and the lowest lows, both equally shadowing over the process of how we arrived at those specific destinations. Our processes, practices, struggles, lessons, and moments of clarity are glossed over and cast aside. They seem like the boring parts of the story, with the focus being on the dramatic landscapes of our own heaven and hell.

What if we retold our stories based on these processes? How would we reshape our story and inspire others around us? Social media often shows the happy times in life or offers a place to receive instant sympathy. What if we used it more for support, guidance, and collaboration? This may allow our virtual lives to better match our authentic day-to-day grind, triumphs, and tribulations.

I am first to admit I participate in showing a lot of the positive aspects of my life on Facebook. I do not want others to know when I am sad or struggling. I will share in person while teaching yoga some of the process and then after I have moved through a lot of it, I then will share on this blog. Part of this is that I do not want my friends to worry or perhaps want my patients to know that I am human just like them. Although my goal in being positive on-line is to serve as inspiration, I recognize that it is selfish not to teach processes, practices, daily rituals, and the joy in finding “the lesson”. So here I am, calling myself out… I need to step-up for myself, my life purpose, and for everyone around me.

So, showing the positive things only is kind of ridiculous, right? Do you find yourself doing something similar? Do you feel like you need to be a superhero to everyone around you?

Some of my best examples include events from my childhood that were severely burned into my brain and caused tremendous consternation in my life. I will speak of them on stage while giving a motivational talk, but often do not show that process of how I got from point a to point B.

I wills kip over the fact that I had to go to years of talk therapy just to get over one line that my mother said to me on her death bed when I was 14. I realize now as an adult that she was in massive pain and did not know what she was saying. At 14 though having your mother tell you “your 4.0 GPA is not good enough” was extremely traumatizing. I spent the next three years of high school in a therapist office once per week. I have zero shame around this and find it liberating to admit.  Her words haunted me in every aspect of my life. I never ever felt like I was enough or good enough. I felt like I had to reach perfection and still that was not enough. This journey was daunting, dark, and often lonely. Her words isolated me and it took time to regain my power.

I would love to jump ahead now in this story… Now, in my early 30s I am confident, happy, and find perfection in all imperfections. But, life does not work that way. The “nog good enough” cycle sometimes still dashes around in circles in my brain. It longs to pull be back into its ugly pattern of destruction. There was no magical solution or single reason that I became strong enough to overcome its powers. It took lots of hard work that resulted in picking myself back up time and time again. IT took moving thousands of miles away for undergrad, surviving 30 surgeries, moving across the country again for graduate school, failed relationships, starting a business, yoga teacher training, and daily struggles in between. Each rejection turned into redirection. Learning to look for the lesson instead of the cure or instant gratification. These were all of my little foothills in-between the highest highs and the lowest lows.

I did not wake-up one day and have a lightning bolt hit me, knocking the feeling of unworthiness, sadness, and despair over losing my eyesight.  It has taken years for me to overcome this, accept the circumstance, be able to talk about it with others, release shame, and achieve all of my highest aspirations.  The process was extremely slow, scary, and life changing. For years I felt like I lived on a teeter-totter, not fully confident in my abilities because of my so-called disability.  The interesting thing is that I believe part of the reason that I have been able to achieve as much as I have was born out of pure stubbornness. When someone told me that I could not do something that would make me so angry and would push me to do it. My stubborn tenacity was motivating and allowed me to make my way through undergrad, graduate school, even yoga teacher training. My innate intelligence was telling me to keep going even when my adrenal glands were shot, I was homesick, and in physical pain.

Another thing that I feel is important for me to disclose is that I live in a lot of physical pain. The pain is literally in my face, my eye pressure is constantly changing and creating problems for me. Before getting under regular chiropractic care and Standard Process vitamins over ten years ago, I put in up to 12 steroid drops per day to keep my eye pressure steady and stable. I had horrific headaches, sometimes migraines, and a lot of neck problems from having to sleep sitting up for months at a time. Today, I experience less pain than before but still live in a state of chronic discomfort.

At night, my retinas will react and put on a fantastic light show whether my eyes are open or closed. The bright white light would be described as “blinding” if I could still see! It is so bright that it hurts in a way. It keeps me awake, causes deep frustration, and is not something that I normally openly share.  So, how do I get through this? Well, these days I will read a book on my iPhone, meditate, write, or get up and do something creative like make a necklace. There is no point in me lying there irritated so I now know that I must shift my focus. That is the lesson, because there is no cure to this disease process. This disease is teaching me how to live on a deeper level so that I can in return teach the world.

I am so far from perfect, but now a find worthiness in all of my imperfections. I refuse to be defined by my eye disease or the fact that I grew-up without my mother. Those are blips in my story and they did shape me but they are not me. I am more than those individual stories, I am more than what meets the eye.

Can you identify the stories that are shaping your life? How can you dig a bit deeper, reveal your process, and then share it with others?  How can you better live a life of purpose, ease, and grace from your most authentic self?  It is time for you to be brave and re-shape how you tell your story. Be a light in this world and help others transform themselves.

In love & light,

Dr. Elizabeth M. Wisniewski

Vitalistic Visionary, Yoga teacher, Chiropractor