Why Do Some People Get All The Luck?
When I was diagnosed with cancer more than 35 years ago, many people said “What bad luck”. I guess they were attempting to cheer me up in some way by saying it wasn’t my fault. However, in reality it wasn’t bad luck. It was bad attitudes, bad choices and bad habits. Actions, and no action, both have consequences. Negative thinking and bad habits both reap a harvest. The old saying is “What you sow, so shall you reap”.
As I began reading some books on getting well, one asked “What is the benefit of your sickness?” That question stirred up something inside of me. It made me angry as I didn’t want to admit that by being sick, everyone became willing to support me and met my emotional needs. I was receiving the love, appreciation and attention I craved from my husband and kids. Sounds so weird, but it was true.
In my book I tell a story from when I was a little girl. My mom was really busy and to make the funds go further she always would make homemade soup, which meant chopping all the vegetables. Being a dressmaker, she also made all of my clothes. I so much wanted to be like the other kids and have something from the shop with a label in it. Her soup-making and dressmaking kept her occupied. So when we came home from school, she always was too busy to hear about our day. All of our chatter would break her concentration from the dress pattern she was cutting out from scratch. She would simply say, ‘That’s nice, beautiful, run out and play’. So off we would go. It wasn’t that she didn’t love us, she did. That was why she tried so hard to make the lovely little dresses that, to me, weren’t ‘lovely’.
The only way to get her attention was if we were injured in some way. Then she would put down the scissors or knife, dry my tears, put me on her lap to have a look at the smidge of blood. She would get some disinfectant to clean it up and put a real bandage on it, then give me a drink of fruit juice and a ‘special’ biscuit from the top shelf, reserved for visitors. I felt loved, nurtured and, as Anthony Robbins would say, “significant”. But how to get that when you are a busy mom? The subconscious will find a way if that is an important need for you…. And so it produces a black melanoma.
My immune system had been neglected nutritionally. My attitudes were negative. I was feeling unloved, unappreciated. I felt as though I was ‘doing it all’. My habits weren’t conducive to radiant health in that I didn’t take the time to feed the emotional or spiritual parts of me. So, was it ‘bad luck’ or ‘bad practices’? How often do we call something bad luck when it is really the result of bad habits or bad choices? This really boils down to a matter of ownership of our lives and actions. I came to understand that I had to take full responsibility for my life, my attitudes and my choices.
What about you? Do you have bad luck, bad habits, bad practices, and bad choices? My experience is those people who have good health habits, good healthy attitudes and have a purpose in life — thereby making good choices — tend to experience the best luck!
