Originally Published February 24, 2003 -- Your
Wellness Guide
Overcome Childhood Hurt to Thrive
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I was a loner and had few friends as a child, but now I am the author of
10 books, happily married, and living a balanced life.
I am a
former victim of childhood bullying and sexual harassment at school,
but now I have formed an anti-harassment organization and regularly
provide media interviews.
I
started a life as a kid no one wanted and no one wanted near. Now I
am an author and worldwide lecturer. |
Contemplating these recent stories told to me, to one degree or another,
we all are victims of childhood hurt. But, how do we deal with those
wounds as adults?
Self-ascribed “Funny Guy” David Samson (www.funnyguy.com)
told me that he grew up in Brooklyn in the ‘50s by the docks. “It was a
tough immigrant neighborhood. Gangs. Tough kids from tough families.”
Unfortunately, David wasn’t so tough. “Besides being skinny and small, I
didn’t have the personality to take the violence and the fights.”
Once into
high school, David discovered he had the ability to make people laugh. So
he wrote skits and plays, produced shows, and ran an underground
newspaper. “Eventually the tough guys wanted to do what I was doing,” he
said from his Beverly Hills home.
He says that
you have to take the hurt and the abuse and make yourself a better
person.
David
believes that you have to go beyond just being successful and, instead,
have an enriched life, including helping others without being threatened
by them – giving of your time, talents, and expertise.
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Photo: David LaPorte
Rhonda Britten, life coach on NBC's "Starting Over" daytime
television series,
witnessed the murder of her mother and suicide of her father yet now
is an inspiration to others and thrives as an adult. |
Dr.
Debra Mandel (www.drdebraonline.com), author of
Healing the Sensitive Heart,
says you don’t have to keep living in the past.
In
order to heal from childhood hurt you have to “whole-heartedly
embrace the concept that (the hurt) is self-contained. We have to
acknowledge that the pain we feel in the present is our own
creation,” says Dr. Mandel while on her book tour in Phoenix,
Arizona.
“Healing comes from within, not from someone else or the
perpetrator. No one has to be any different in your life except for
you.”
She
talks about not just being a survivor but, rather, being a
thriver.
Dr.
Mandel says that thrivers are resourceful, focus on how they want to
behave, and make peace with what they don’t have control over.
“Thriving is about choices and saying ‘I can do this.’”
Thrivers also behave “self-caringly” says Dr. Mandel. They get
enough sleep, eat right, and take care of themselves like they
should have been taken care of when they were a child. |
Fearless
Living
Author and Star Life Coach on NBC's "Starting Over" daytime television
series, Rhonda Britten was 14 years old when she was the sole witness to her parents’
murder and suicide.
She was
going to a Sunday brunch with her parents. Before getting into the car,
her father pulled out a gun from the trunk and shot her mother in the
abdomen, with the bullet passing through her mother into the automobile’s
horn.
Then, her
father kneeled himself in front of her and shot himself in the head. All
Rhonda could hear was the car’s horn for the next 30 minutes until the
firefighters could turn it off.
“I thought I
must be a loser or worthless, otherwise I would have been able to do
something,” Rhonda related to me from her Los Angeles home. “But, I
didn’t have the capacity to save my mother or stop my father.”
After trying
to kill herself three times and endangering her life with alcohol abuse,
she decided to turn her life around.
“At 25 and
after my third suicide attempt, my sister looked at me like I was
hopeless, as she dropped me off at the psychiatric ward. The look on her
face told me she thought I wasn’t going to make it anymore. That was the
moment I decided to put my parents in their proper place and live my own
life and take responsibility for it.”
Besides her
multiple books and television work, Rhonda now oversees the Fearless
Living Institute (www.fearlessliving.org).
“I’m not interested in surviving, just thriving,” says Rhonda.
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