My Life Is...

I subscribe to Rachel Coleman's blog. She's the Signing Time creator and stars in the videos with her daughter. She recently posts a nice blog about what life is. It touched me and I wanted to share it with you. She has a great blog and I highly recommend subscribing to it if you are a part of the disability community and just want to relate to the experiences of another family. www.signingtime.com/rachel

Here's the blog post

My Life Is…

Published by Rachel Coleman at 9:42 am under Crazy Little Thing Called Life

My Life Is…

Almost three years ago I noticed something about my life. I noticed that when I looked at all I was dealing with in work, family, home, and with my kids… when I looked at it all or even a part of it, I found myself saying, “Wow, this is really hard!”

I started to note each time I called my life “hard,” and when I told someone that things were “hard,” and I even noted when I thought that word. Loading a wheelchair into the car was hard. Traveling was hard. Miscommunications with Leah were hard. Lifting Lucy was hard. Communicating with my husband Aaron was hard. Filming and writing music was hard. Meetings were hard. Getting home before the bus arrived was hard. I also noticed that each day I was hitting the snooze button on my alarm clock over and over in a futile attempt to postpone getting up and dealing with my “hard” life.

Wow, “hard” was a powerful word and it was running rampant in my thoughts. It was almost a default word, a word I felt stuck with. I decided to try a little experiment. It was simple really. I would give up using the word “hard” to describe everything and I would find a new word or phrase to replace it with.

Was my life hard? Is my life hard? There are plenty of people who tried to convince me that my life really was hard, because in their eyes they completely believed that what I had was much harder than what they had. I didn’t care. I just couldn’t stand living with that thought about my kids and my family any more. Is having Leah really hard? Is Lucy hard? I dropped the word “hard” out of my vocabulary.

Now, what could fill that space? What would best describe my life? And how exciting to stand in front of a blank sheet of paper titled “My Life Is…” and be able to choose the next word. It was a little daunting. What would I choose to call my life?

I didn’t take the task lightly. I looked from many angles. One thing I saw was that I was managing a lot of unexpected circumstances. My life hadn’t gone the way I expected and I found myself wondering if anyone’s life goes the way that they expect. That would be so boring! I mean really! What if your life turned out exactly how you thought it would? My life could never be called boring. It was quite the opposite. That was it! Three years ago I wrote the words I now use to define and describe my life.

My life is an unexpected adventure!

It was simple and true, and so much more empowering than what I called my life before. For the past three years now, I have been living my life from that perspective and I think that anyone one who knows me or even watches from a distance would agree. My life IS an unexpected adventure.

This year, instead of a New Year’s Resolution, I invite you to take a look at the words you use to describe your life. Listen to the thoughts that are telling your story. If you have a default word, that leaves you clinging to your mattress, I invite you to take some time and fill in the blank for yourself with words that you choose.

My life is…

I can’t wait to hear what you come up with!

~Rachel