Do you feel lucky?

When you think about your life, family and accomplishments, do you feel lucky? I don’t. I feel fortunate. The difference between luck and being fortunate, in my opinion, is believing in a higher power, something larger than yourself. Luck, is feeling you don’t deserve something good or bad. Have you ever asked yourself why something happened to you, said to yourself that you haven’t done anything to deserve such tragedy or tell yourself there was no reason for a particular event to transpire? Luck, is an assumption that whatever happened wasn’t supposed to happen; it just happened because you were in the right place at the right time OR in the wrong place at the wrong time. I lived many years of my life feeling unlucky all the time. My motto was:  If something bad can happen, it will happen to me.

Feeling fortunate, on the other hand, is an attitude that everything happens for a reason and a purpose. Today, I believe there is no such thing as luck, good or bad. Everything in your life happens for a reason: a flat tire when you are late and in a hurry, your child’s teen pregnancy, falling and breaking bones. Name something, anything, you’ve gone through and know there was a reason and purpose for that event. Even the things you perceive as “bad luck.”

Sometimes we humans have difficultly realizing when something we perceive something as bad or wrong, or unfair, happens to us that it is happening for a reason and something good will come of it in the end. First, we suffer, then we will find the pearl in the oyster (and there is a pearl in the oyster.)

You choose how you see life. You choose to perceive events in a particular way and feelings and emotions will follow according to your perception. You choose to feel sorry for yourself and ask “why did this happen to me.” You can also choose to take a negative and turn it into a positive. You choose to turn to plan B when plan A didn’t work well. When I didn’t get what I expected, I used to get mad because I didn’t get my way. Now, when something turns out differently than I expected or wanted, I say to myself that I wasn’t supposed to get what I wanted in the first place, I was supposed to get what I got. Then I ask myself “what can I do with what I was given?” “Why was I given this particular thing?” When I went through a major depression in 2008-09, I wondered why me. I didn’t want to be depressed so therefore I shouldn’t have to have it. Today, after being diagnosed with dysthymic disorder and put on daily medication, I know why me. It happened to me because a higher power knew I would write a book about my experiences in order to help others and create awareness about a seldom-talked about mental illness. The universe knew I would speak up, experience how much better life could be and encourage others to seek out solutions. God knew my attitude would change; I would see things completely different than before and would turn my life around in ways I could have never imagined otherwise. It wasn’t my plan, but it was His.

Whatever happens to you, whether you perceive it as good or bad, happens for a reason. It happens according to Gods plan, the divine plan, the way the universe sees fit. You, me, us, we as individuals, plan our lives according to what we want and tend to lose sight that we are here for reasons that may be unknown to us.

Nothing is lucky, accidental or coincidence. Everything is unfolding exactly the way it is supposed to. It is all according to the big picture; the picture, you and I, in the flesh may be unable to see or comprehend.

Next time you win the lottery (or don’t win the lottery) or you have what you would call a bad day, think about what you were supposed to learn from it. For example, I used to get angry sitting in traffic, even light traffic. It would ruin my entire day. Now, I know that when I get stuck in traffic, it is my opportunity to hear something on the radio I needed to hear and I would have missed had I made my appointment on time. Or, maybe it prevented me from being in a car accident had I crossed a certain intersection two minutes earlier than I did.

Maybe, my work called a few minutes later to tell me to take the day off so I didn’t need to worry about arriving late anyway.

There could be a dozen reasons why something didn’t happen the way you wanted it to. You may discover the reason a day, a week or a month later. Or a maybe you’ll never know discover the reason. But you have to trust that everything in life, from big to small, happens for a reason. You must trust a higher power is at work in your life and that higher power knows best.

 
.....Robyn Wheeler is the author of Born Mad, an in-depth view of her struggle with chronic anger, frustration and thoughts of suicide and her eventual diagnosis of Dysthymia.

Don't Take It Personally

Don’t take it personally

When they anger and rage

When they sulk and cry

Don’t take it personally

When they accuse you of being unfair

When they accuse you of hating them

Don’t take it personally

When they feel entitled and

Demand they get their way

Don’t take it personally

When they use sarcasm and insults

Don’t take it personally

When they don’t speak for days

And think life is out to get them

Don’t take any of it personally

For it is not about you

It is about them

Their mental illness is not

Your personal problem

It is theirs

Don’t take it personally

love them anyway

and know it is not your fault

don’t take it personally

it is the nature of the best

it is their imbalance

making them act that way

and theirs to correct

Don’t take it personally

.....Robyn Wheeler is the author of Born Mad, an in-depth view of her struggle with chronic anger, frustration and thoughts of suicide and her eventual diagnosis of Dysthymia.

Syndromes you never knew existed

Being a curious person and growing up in Southern California, I have only been out of the country once, in 1994 to Costa Rica. So I am often curious as to other cultures, customs and beliefs in other countries or areas of the world. And while I was reading the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV-TR), (I’m not crazy, just fascinated by unusual disorders) I ran across a glossary of culture-bound syndromes. I thought I would share some of them with you because maybe I’m not the only one who never knew they even existed.

·        ghost sickness is often associated with witchcraft and is a preoccupation with death and the deceased commonly observed in many American Indian tribes. Various symptoms can be attributed to ghost sickness including bad dreams, weakness, feelings of danger, loss of appetite, fainting, dizziness, hallucinations, confusion, and sense of suffocation.

·        hwa-byung or wool-hwa-byung is a Korean fold syndrome that means “anger syndrome” and is attributed to the suppression of anger.

·        koro is a Malaysian term that refers to an episode of sudden and intense anxiety that the penis will recede into the body and then cause death

·        amok is a dissociative episode characterized by a period of brooding followed by an outburst of violent, aggressive and homicidal behavior directed at people and objects. This behavior pattern is only found in males residing in Malaysia, Polynesia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Puerto Rico and among the Navajo.

·        pibloktoq is an abrupt dissociative episode accompanied by extreme excitement of up to 30 minutes’ duration and frequently followed by convulsive seizures and coma lasting up to 12 hours. During the attack, the individual may tear off clothing, break furniture, shout obscenities, eat feces, flee from protective shelters and perform other irrational or dangerous acts. Pibloktoq is found primarily in the arctic and subarctic Eskimo communities. (Maybe it the subzero temperatures that make them crazy-I know it would me!)

·        susto is a folk illness among some Latinos in the United States, Mexico, Central America and South America. It refers to an illness attributed to a frightening event that causes the soul to leave the body and results in unhappiness and sickness.

·        taijin kyofusho is a distinctive phobia in Japan that refers to an individual’s intense fear that his or her body, its parts or functions, are displeasing, embarrassing or offensive to other people in appearance, odor, facial expressions or movements.

·        zar is a general term applied in Ethiopia, Somalia, Egypt, Sudan, Iran and other North African and Middle Eastern societies that refers to the experience of spirits possessing an individual. Persons possessed by a spirit may experience shouting, laughing, hitting their head against a wall, singing, weeping, apathy and withdrawal.

·        spell is a trance state in which individuals “communicate” with deceased relatives or with spirits and is associated with periods of personality changes. Spells are not considered to be medical in nature but may be misconstrued as psychotic episodes in clinical settings. Seem mostly among African Americans and European Americans from the southern United States.

·        brain fag is a condition seen in West African high school or university students in response to the challenges of schooling. Symptoms include difficulties in concentration, remembering and thinking. Also head and neck pain, pressure or tightness, blurring of vision, heat or burning. Students often state their brains are “fatigued.”

.....Robyn Wheeler is the author of Born Mad, an in-depth view of her struggle with chronic anger, frustration and thoughts of suicide and her eventual diagnosis of Dysthymia.