Turning vomit into triumph...

Today I started another book by Dave Pelzer. Having finished his four autobiographies, I decided to take a stab at one of his motivational books as well before hearing him speak on Tuesday. He breaks his advice into a three step plan to help others turn adversity into triumph, as promised by the cover. Although it's definitely not the page turner I had hoped for, I found it quite interesting that Step One's message and my life collided today.

This year I celebrated a joyous Easter Sunday on my knees praying over a toilet. In addition to the irony of taking on Step One's message of purging negativity in a quite literal way, one might find it curious that what gave me the food poisoning that ruined my Easter was eggs. But, in an attempt to turn adversity into triumph, I will learn from my mistakes and never eat at Waffle House again. Big mistake, huge.

As basic and repetitive as Dave's writing is in this book, I do agree with the main outline. Step One- Get Rid of the Garbage in Your Life; Step Two- Know What You Want Out of Life; and Step Three- Celebrate Who You Are and What You Have. Step One I liken to a recent post I wrote about being conscious of the people we allow into our lives. Dave discusses this too by making an analogy to someone who is trying to quit smoking. It's an awful hard thing to do when all of your friends smoke. Likewise, if you surround yourself with people who take a victim stance, ones who constantly ask "why me?", you are likely to fall into it right along with them. Step Two may be the hardest step. Determining what I want is a day to day, sometimes moment to moment, struggle for me, as shown in my dropping and picking back up on this blog. But that's ok, because it makes me stay attuned to my own personal cues for happiness. And, Step Three I'm just now learning how to do. I think quite often people make excuses for themselves to others. They apologize for themselves, which is something Dave does A LOT in this book. But I don't think we need to. We are who we are at that moment in time, and there is no need to explain any of it away. As long as we are doing our best to get by, that's all we can do. Instead of apologizing for what we see as our flaws, I say we accept them right along with all the things about ourselves that make us proud.

At the risk of sounding too motivational, I am going to stop at that. So just remember the importance behind my message- DON'T eat at Waffle House! That alone is the best advice I can give.


Here's a blah photo for a blah day. I can't wait til I feel better and can hit the neighborhood again and take random photos of random things. I love Spring. I love spending more of my day outdoors than in, unlike today. I hope you all had a much better Easter than I did!