What is strength?

I define someone whom has strength to be a person that is muscular and able to move heavy objects (in proportion to their body size).

What is inner strength?

My definition- someone whom is able to get themselves through hard times and personal struggles. Usually, I think of someone who I feel has it worse off than me, for whatever reason, and has been able to lift themselves back up time and time again.

But you know what I was thinking today? That everyone, all of us, have inner strength. Even little ol’ susie who. It does not matter how big or small the struggles are.

Am I alone here in thinking  just because I feel like I have not been through a huge catastrophic tragedy in my life that my inner strength should be any less celebrated by me than those who have? Am I the only one who when someone says “I couldn’t have gotten through what you have gone through”, just takes the comment as a glib remark and thinks it wasn’t anything really? Why are some of us so quick to brush off making our way through personal struggles- things that have made us stronger in life to get us to where we are ultimately going? I answer you (or myself really) in this way, ” Heck if I know!”.

Going forward I am willing to try and embrace the hard times I have been through, no longer wanting to suppress them (for what reason I know of none) and learn from them so I can become the BEST “me” I have to offer to the world.  I share with you, if only to make them more real for myself, my major life events I believe have given me the inner strength I need to keep pushing forward:

-Growing up I was chronically ill, from about 8 or 9 years of age through early adulthood.

-My father went through a drastic life change which as a child alienated me towards him.

-My parents separated (and ultimately divorced) which put a strain on my relationship with my mother when I was a teenager.

-I became gravely ill at the age of 20 (unrelated to the above mentioned illness) and almost died. Left behind is a 4″ scar from my navel down.

-I moved to a town where the only person I knew was my boyfriend, and my closet family was hundreds of miles away.

-I was married to a man who loved me with all his heart for 6 years when I was finally honest with him and myself that I was never in love with him. The kicker is nothing bad ever happened – we did not fight, we were not jealous for any reason, we shared the same interests, had a beautiful home, an adorable cat, loving families (I could go on…) we should have been perfect for one another.

-I have broken many a heart and my heart has been broken.

Well that’s it, that’s the list (up until now at least). To me, and maybe to you, some of those events seem trivial because so many of us have been through, not the same, but similar scenarios. These events, and countless others, had all been personally gift wrapped “just for me”, to mold me into who I have become today- someone who is caring and kind, empathetic, resourceful, courageous, trusting; someone who gives all of myself because I expect no less from others; someone who takes no family member, friend or anyone I meet, for that matter, for granted; someone who does not hold a grudge to anyone and forgives easily even without an apology; someone who understands that we all are human and all have our inner struggles which have molded us to who we are; someone who is STRONG (and not just from lifting weights- yeah I do that) but whom has inner strength and knows in every depth of my soul that you do too. Just search and you will find it, trust me. Embrace your strength within. Embrace those difficult times, the times you have asked God “why me?”, take them for what they are and become the being you are meant to be because of them, not in spite of them.

Please remember- it is not what we have been through in our lives, it is how we choose to live our lives because of what we have been through (I’m sure that should be quoted or referenced~ could I really come up with something so profound?)

Feel free to share and celebrate your inner strength in the comment section below.

~As always- Live. Love. Laugh. Be Strong. Most of all BT2U~