What Defines You? Redux

Barb Polan
Barb's Recovery

January 11, 2014

This will be worth it, so please watch this before going on:

Called Worlds Ugliest Girl Response Unbelievably Beautiful Literally Cried 

I’ve blogged about this before: “What defines you?” Post-stroke, my mind and my life have been singularly focused on recovering from stroke. I wake up in the morning knowing that I’ve got yet another enormous challenge that day, another day of trying the best I can every minute. But I work hard to have goals that are not stroke-related: I write, cook and bake, plan and attend social events, nurture friendships, and read book after book.

As she explains in her TED talk, Liz rejects others’ definitions of her, their negativity, and explains how she found for herself what defines her, who she is, rather than defining herself by her syndrome. She turned around the bullying and deprecation hateful people directed at her and used that to fuel her success, to propel her toward her own goals, not toward the expectations of others.

Her advice to the audience is: “Use that negativity in your life to make yourself better … I guarantee you will win.”

I think that stroke survivors, even when they try to not define themselves by stroke, have negative self-talk. They tell themselves that they have a lousy gait, an inadequate way of expressing themselves, they can’t do this, and this, and something else important to them. They know precisely what they do wrong when they walk - their hamstring is too weak to bend their knee properly, they step toe-heel instead of heel-toe.

They are their own bullies.

I’m included. I think: after a lifetime of blending in, I’m making a spectacle of myself in public and people stare, or I’m invisible because no one looks at me; I have bedhead because I can’t fix my hair properly; I’m gaining weight because I can’t exercise enough; I can’t hurry if something happens like a fast car approaching a crosswalk or having to go after my dog because he chased a car down the road; I can’t wear the sweater I want because donning a sweater over a turtleneck is very hard – why haven’t I learned how to do that yet?

“I look awful when I dress up – there’s the brace exposed below my hemline, my clunky shoes, my slumped shoulder; I hate looking at myself in pictures – my once beautiful smile makes one eye bulge and my posture is pathetic.

“I’m a lazy slob because I did only one set of exercises today, instead of the four I meant to.”

If I followed Liz’s advice about the bullies around me, I would do my best to define myself by ignoring the bully in me. She knows it’s difficult, but also knows:

“Brave starts here.”

If you ignore your internal bully - that hater inside you who critiques everything you do - what defines you?

See the original article:

What Defines You? Redux

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