Check It Out and Please Contribute Your Input! Empowering Exercise in Resiliency

[HeLookaLikaMan]

Hi All,
I want to share an exercise I’m doing and invite everyone to participate, too!

It’s an exercise in RESILIENCE suggested by Paul McKenna, PhD. in one of his self-help books I’m reading.  The exercise is two steps.  First, come up with something “bad” that happened to you.  Next, list at least five ways in which it could be perceived as a positive—the more ridiculous the better.


So, I chose being a long-term AIDS survivor and all the attendant suffering as my "bad" thing, and here’s what I came up with:



Five ways in which this could be perceived as a positive:

1.   I am more compassionate and attuned to the suffering of others as a result of having had the intense human experience of suffering debilitating illness attended by certainty of death over a period of years.

2.   I can legitimately see myself as a survivor of a great ordeal.

3.   Because the illness allowed me the luxury of not working, I have had time to do a great deal of introspection, spiritual development and personal growth I probably wouldn’t have had time to do otherwise.

4.   Because of the illness and the resulting disability, I was eligible for state-sponsored vocational rehabilitation, which provided full support for earning a bachelors degree, which has enriched my life.

5.   I met some great people I wouldn’t have otherwise met—one of whom is my doctor, who is a personal role model and an exemplary human being.



I hope some of you will make your own list about how being a LTS has been a positive for you and share it here!  I would really like to read them! 

Thanks!!