Acknowledging that You are a Gift

By Sharon Gorman, D.C.

In our attempt to remain humble we often overlook the successes that we achieve and the miracle that is our life. I know for me I can hardly accept a compliment. If someone tells me I look good because I lost weight for example, my mind starts thinking that I would look better if I hadn’t messed up a little here and there and would have lost more weight by now. Even when I look back on my past successes in life my mind wants to think of the incidents or part of the incident that didn’t turn out the way that I wanted it to. I have trouble acknowledging myself for what I did right. Sometimes I get so critical of myself that I have trouble focusing on the things I did right at all. When something happens real good I discount it my mind. I have trouble seeing good and no trouble focusing on the bad.

I remember when I was a kid I was chosen to take some courses given by college professors while I was in high school in this pilot program the school district had developed. I was chosen along with one other student from the high school to do these courses along with 2 other students chosen from each high school, about 30 kids all together. I don’t really know why I thought about it today yet I realized that when I thought it through again that at the time I was sure it was just a freak mistake that they had selected me. I knew so many kids they should have chosen before me, I thought that maybe all of them were busy so they settled for me. This is obviously how I thought when I was just a teenager. If I don’t think things through and grow then I continue with this toxic thinking. As I replayed my early years in my mind after this, I started to see how I did this over and over again throughout my life. I started to realize that if I couldn’t acknowledge the good things that happened to me in my life or the good things that were said to me and about me than how can I ever have a healthy self esteem. If I could only see the bad how could I feel good about myself and the contributions I have made and am making in my life. How can I be bold enough to see myself achieving all the things that I can in my life, no matter what they are.

If I can’t see the good that I do and the right things that happen for me how can I possibly see them in other people. So much of being a good manager of people has to do with empowering them and seeing them for their potential and hopefully inspiring them to greatness. I have found that more often than not with my staff that they are able to rise to the occasion as long as I can hold the vision of their success in their ventures and of course I have to have the systems in place for them to operate and feel successful. It is very hard to inspire others when I am slow to recognize myself and inspire myself. When I focus on what is right about me I can act more in line with the way I hope I can act and I can hold the others in my life accountable to that standard.

One time I called my husband Ron from Atlanta. I was away for a couple of days and obviously had too much time on my hands. My mind had too much time to go to a bad neighborhood. My husband always tells me that I shouldn’t spend too much time in my head, there is no adult supervision. Anyway, the point is that I had been beating myself up that something hadn’t turned out the way that I wanted it to and now it presented itself as a true challenge (some people might have called it a problem). Well, he heard it in my voice. The first thing he said after we exchanged hello’s was “Put down the bat.” I knew just what he meant. And you know what, if beating myself up about the situation would have made the situation any better than maybe I could have rationalized the beating, but that wasn’t the case.

It usually isn’t the case. Beating myself up just leaves me beat up. It doesn’t help anything. A matter of fact it makes things worse because now do I not only have a problem to deal with but now I have to deal with it while I am trying to recover from a beating or worse yet, I’m trying to solve it while I am still beating myself up and insist on not putting the bat down until everything turns out exactly the way I think it should. That’s when I have to remember that I am trying to live God’s will not mine. I try to remember to lighten up and realize that there are no such thing as accidents.

I have to remember that whatever doesn’t kill me will make me stronger and I’ve got to remember to get busy doing the things that will help. I’ve got to remember to pray. I’ve got to remember to reach out to someone who can help me by either providing me emotional support or to someone who has already dealt with a similar situation or has the knowledge that I need to make the best choice that I can at the time. I need to decide what action to take or if no action would be appropriate at the time yet most importantly I’ve got to remember that this too will pass and look back at my previous “wins”.

I see myself as a winner. I see myself as strong. I see myself as a person with a reasonable amount of self esteem. I can see myself this way because I see my successes. I acknowledge the source of my strength and I am grateful for the opportunity to have an incredible life because I am open to the experiences of the moment because I live in the light and not in fear (most days). I allow myself to be human and realize that mistakes are part of the equation. I learn through my experiences and so situations are placed before me so that I can get insight and get stronger. For this I am grateful.

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Dr. Sharon Gorman is a graduate of Life Chiropractic College. Upon graduation, she associated with her mentor Dr. James Sigafoose. She opened her own practice in June of 1985 and in 3 months was seeing over 100 patients a day. Within 4 years, she had established four chiropractic practices seeing combined over 5000 patients a month. Now, married with 4 children, she still practices part time and manages 3 successful practices. She is a speaker at Dynamic Essentials, New Beginnings, Parker Seminars and is the founder and hostess of the Focus Philosophy Weekends. Visit her website at: www.focuschiropractic.com