Tag Archives for change

Best Lupus Blogs of 2015!

I am humbled to announce that Undefeateddiva.com has made healthine.com list for Best Lupus Blogs for the second year in a row.

When I initially started writing I did it to help people to not feel alone in their journey. I quickly realized I wanted to not only help but INSPIRE. I have had the most beautiful journey since. Thank you to healthline.com for seeing this and helping my vision come true by giving me a bigger platform to reach.

Check out the list here Best Lupus Blogs 2015

With love and humility,

Undefeated Diva

  

Beauty in truth…

There is beauty in truth, even if it’s painful. Those who lie, twist life so that it looks tasty to the lazy, brilliant to the ignorant, and powerful to the weak. But lies ponly strengthen our defects. They don’t teach anything, help anything, fix anything or cure anything. Nor do they develop one’s character, one’s mind, one’s heart or one’s soul.

José N. Harris


This could not be more true, today and everyday. This is a lesson I learn time and time again but as of late I have been drowning in the theory. The opening sentence in this spoke to me in a way that moves the soul, “There is beauty in truth, even if it’s painful.” I could not ask for a more beautiful life but it has come with some painful truths. The new journey I am on has brought with it some of thee happiest and most bittersweet moments in my life to date. To be honest with myself, the last several years has been derived of a series of decisions made both easy and some of the most difficult and gut wrenching. There is nothing more difficult then making a decision that not only effects you but that of your child. Decisions that are not small in magnitude, but life altering and will change the course of his life forever. In the end, I had no choice but to face the truth. To face that it would be painful and ever sobering. My decisions were not for the faint of heart. I stand a little stronger today and in those moments when I feel weakest I look at thee most beautiful little face and find my strength. 

So here is to the truth and to the painful beauty that often follows those truths.

Love, Laughter, and Happiness

XOXO,

Undefeated Diva

Changes and Hard Times

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
Frederick Douglass

Life albeit comedic in its own masochistic way, is beyond beautiful. If we allow it to be. It’s so easy to fall into a place of sorrow or pity when one is continuously hit with life altering situations. It’s easy to fall into the whole of self doubt and pain. Never truly considering that if you are living to endure another situation then you pulled through the last one!

In the recent year I have had to make some of the hardest decisions I believe I will ever have to make. The ending of what started as a beautiful chapter is never easy. While going through it I never looked ahead because I was too busy sulking in the pain of the change I had created. A change that was forced by the hand I was dealt. I sulked, I cried, I threw the ultimate pity parties… Because the clouds were so gray I refused to see past them to the sunshine. I sit here a year later from my initial decision a new person. A person with a new found resolve. A new lease on life. Had someone told me a year ago that my life would be the way it is today, I would have never believed them! I would have never believed that I would be sitting here with the peace I feel. Because as the quote below says some of the most beautiful things come from changes or mistakes. It is not always easy to see when your going through them. To be honest there are times I didn’t want to see past what I was going through, because I honestly could not deal with much more than what I had on my plate.

No matter how I dealt with my past, I stand today a complete person. A person with a resolve so strong that no one but myself and God could tear down. I am proud to say I’ve made it… And there is no doubt life will throw its curves at me but at least I will have the knowledge of knowing I will survive and out of it there will be something beautiful, even if that something beautiful is something as small as a stronger piece of me.

Xoxo,
Undefeated Diva

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Loss

Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.

Walter Anderson

Loss of any magnitude is arduous. Yesterday was a very sad day. Yesterday a father lost his son, a mother lost her baby boy, and then I heard of the passing of a special woman. Two losses in one day. Two families are experiencing paramount loss this week. So yesterday was a day of remembrance for me. I sat and thought of all the loss, all of the pain, but above it all… I considered all of the beautiful both of these people left this world.

In a time of loss, we feel sadness, unbearable pain, and at times we feel that we cannot move forward. In times of loss we forget to remember the happy. It is only natural to forget to live in the happy, because the experience of loss can be soul shattering. Yesterday I spent the afternoon and evening hugging my sister and laughing at her antics. I spent the time thinking about all I have in front of me and the beauty that grows within. I spent the time remembering my co-worker and promising myself I would dig out the recipes she wrote out for me prior to my moving. Most of all, I sat and thought that there is so much more I need to do with the time I have… SO I need to get on it!

Today with a heavy heart, I look to do one thing I want to do on my list. I look to research some other things I want to do. Today I am going to strive to change some of the things I have been talking about changing. If I remember anything about my beautiful co-worker, it was that she had a flare for life! She was never afraid to stand up for what she believed in. She never was afraid to try something new. She was never afraid to help someone in need. To me, that is what life is about.

So today, get on it my fellow spoonies. Get on living. What are you going to do today? Pick something small off of that list in your mind you want to do. Even if you are stuck in the doctor’s office today or at the hospital. Pick one thing. Don’t forget, always feel free to share!

XOXO,

ME!

Getting to know the new me…

Sometimes it’s the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination.

Drake

I have searched for the eject button on the recent path of my journey, to no avail. In the years since my diagnosis I have done what I always do, plow through, head held high, never looking back. As of late that methodology has not been as comforting. Life’s lemons are still sitting on my porch waiting to be made into it’s potent beverage. I have stared at them not quite understanding what to do with them, as my normal kick ass, straight forward approach has had me coming up drained and in the same place. Stagnant and drained are pretty substantial words to describe my current state of being. I have pondered and scoured for an answer to the “why” and it wasn’t until several days ago that I found the answer.

Let me be clear, my friendship with my chronic illnesses is nothing new. We are several years in and I thought that I had gotten a nice hold on them. What I wasn’t ready to admit to myself or the world around me was that, I no longer knew who I saw in the mirror. She looked familiar, she sounded familiar, but all in all not the same person. Really, it should have come as no surprise to me but it surly was. As I was in my beautiful world of deep cleaning and ridiculously loud music this week, the answer to the why was so very clear.

I no longer knew myself.

For someone that knew who she was and where she was going in life at a ridiculously young age this was a catastrophic blow. It all made sense though. The feeling of being lost and alone even when I was surrounded by the people that loved me most. The feeling of unease and uncertainty when I had the best support system someone could ask for. It all made perfect sense. When all you know is this semblance of a person that handles life with a vigorous fire that can never be snuffed, then you find yourself confused and depleted from life’s lemonade, you can’t help but feel shaken down. Right now, in my life I am getting a shake down. One day I woke up and I was in another body that had unimaginable pains, unclear thoughts from what could only be described as a foggy state, and a back bone that no longer stood straight. Who was this person? How did this happen?

Getting diagnosed wasn’t the hard part, reacquainting myself… well, with myself has been the most excruciating experience. Trying to do this while living life on life’s terms, well now your asking for too much. Having to work, be a wife, a daughter, and fuck it a productive member of society… All the while trying to understand what happened to you… Now that’s a damn epic mission. Nevertheless, I realized it and all of the missing pieces came together. I hadn’t realized that it was going to be a grieving process or even a process period. The vibrant woman was now a slower moving version of who she used to be. A more jaded and fatigued version of who she used to be. The woman that looks back at me in the mirror is tired, depleted, and honestly a little angry… Not the old me that was the fire spitting free spirit with endless energy. Can I place all of the blame on chronic illnesses? Well sure I can but that’s not who I am. I take responsibility for my actions and my part in the situation. I could have done more about my illnesses. I could have done some more soul searching. In the end, I won’t look back at what I could have done, to me thats a waste of perfectly good brain cells that I should preserve for days that the brain fog sets in.

So where do I go from here I asked myself. Well to the beach of course! So I find myself at the beach, searching for answers to questions I thought I already had the answers to. I am searching for answers and way to steer this new way of life for me. To figure out how to still be that firecracker powerhouse that is determined to teach the world all the while possessing a body that does not match the soul.

What I have come to realize in all of this is, this is normal guys. I am no different than anyone going through any struggle. It is real, it is normal, and it is going to be O.K. Now I just need to find sticky notes to help with the brain fog and some great heels!

Until Next Time.

 

XOXO,

Undefeated Diva!

Today’s soul soothing quote!

Innovation is NOT born from the dream, innovation is born from the struggle!

Remember this in the middle of your struggles!
Remember this in the middle of a storm!
Remember this in the middle of chaos!

For the only certain thing in life is CHANGE. To obtain positive and life altering change, sometimes chaos, storms, and struggles are necessary!

Xoxo,
Undefeated Diva