"Yesterday I was clever, I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise so I am changing myself." ~ Rumi

As a teenager I must admit I did NOT feel different from every one, I did NOT feel alone.  I did feel for a long time as if I was a character in my life's play watching my life happen without direction or any control on my part. No one taught me I could be in control of my life because they did not know it either.  You cannot teach what you do not know. 

I have lived through the darkness of suicidal tendencies since teenage years without alcohol or drugs. These thoughts are real at the time you think them, but if you know these thoughts are not reality but rather a genetic chemical imbalance in your DNA and that these dark thoughts will pass in time, if YOU CHOOSE to be patient, you will live through it and can begin to look for the good in your life and the world around you rather than see only the bad.  (Actually these thoughts are a wake up call for you to change.)

But YOU have to CHOOSE to control your thoughts, CHOOSE to be patient, CHOOSE to look for the good in life and the world. A great practice to learn how to do this is found in "www.thework.com" with Byron Katie. If you need help doing the work you can find many videos of her doing the work with people on YouTube.  Byron Katie's work has helped me and it can help you IF YOU DO the work.  I studied her work for 14 months daily before I understood how to do the work. It will take the rest of my life to continue to choose the truth of it.

The truth I know for sure, is all of us choose the thoughts we think every moment and if we think positive thoughts it will lead to more positive thoughts as negative ones lead to more negative thoughts. Through reading books on self-help I read from the local library,(as a teenager) I began to change my thoughts and my life, but I could not change the people around me.  I have since learned it is not my job to change anyone but me.  It is my job to remove negative influences from my life and if that means moving far away from a group of people who judge you, or do not support your desires and dreams, then do it. I did.  Take as long as YOU need to become strong in confidence of self. Then...

You can come back one day of YOUR CHOOSING when you can withstand the negative judgments without a flutter of an eyelash, because you are standing on solid ground of who you are and what you believe.  It is strange the way this works, once you know who you are and where your boundaries are, you lose the need to defend yourself in word or action. You can just be present in peace.

Byron Katie teaches, "Defense is the first sign of war."  And God knows we don't need any more war in our world especially in our families especially at holidays.