My email reminder that it is time to pay for this website came. I thought about the past year. The posts, comments, and how much time I put into maintaining/adding content. Some days the thoughts fly off my finger tips creating posts that I am pleased with. Other days, well, are other days. The main thing I am learning is I am changing and growing, therefore, I am thriving. I wonder some days when dark thoughts shroud my mind. Flashbacks still take my breath away in their vividness and pain they can inflict. I feel a bit resentful that pain from childhood continues to haunt me while I am a grandmother. It feels unfair. I feel frustrated. I feel discouraged. Then I write a post, someone kindly let me knows that what I wrote helped them. I remind myself that I can make something good out of ugliness. Shit can be made into fertilizer. Cruelty can become compassion. Everyone has traumatic experiences, our reactions vary, perceptions are different, our recovery not the same. I felt helpless for years. Counseling gave me tools that I learned. I am not helpless. I was taught to believe I was helpless. I learned how to take back my power. I learned how to accept, process, and trust my memories. I am blessed to have an amazing counselor that understood PTSD. He trained me to became self sufficient. This website is partly because he challenged me to take the horrendous experiences I lived through and make something good come out of it. The idea morphed several times before becoming this website. I plan to keep writing on this website. I work at looking up other sites, other pages, and other people that share my desire to thrive and help others do the same. We are on a journey not a race. Helping others along the way I believe is the point. I look forward to sharing what I learn so that when others pass this way they will know they are not alone.
Post from my other website: http://weareone-ruth.blogspot.com/2010/09/potato-egg-coffee.html
Potato, egg, coffee
After twenty minutes he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them a bowl. He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup.
Turning to her he asked. “Daughter, what do you see?”
“Potatoes, eggs, and coffee,” she hastily replied.
“Look closer”, he said, “and touch the potatoes.” She did and noted that they were soft.
He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.
Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face.
“Father, what does this mean?” she asked.
He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and coffee beans had each faced the same adversity – the boiling water. However, each one reacted differently. The potato went in strong, hard, and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it
became soft and weak. The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard.
However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new.
“Which are you,” he asked his daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean? “
In life, things happen around us, things happen to us, but the only thing that truly matters is what happens within us.
Which one are you?
I first read this in an email sent to me years ago. I tried finding the source but all I did was find multiple copies on different blogs and lots of recipes. (I Googled potato, egg, coffee) When I tell the story I change the coffee to hot chocolate since they both work the same and I like drinking hot chocolate. If anyone knows the author I would appreciate being able to give credit to the person that wrote it first.
PTSD - Accepting, Coping, Thriving 