Some women suffer more adversity and have more life challenges and obstacles to overcome than others. Why is that? Is it bad luck? Is it the law of attraction? (better bloody not be I hear some of you say because that’s just stupid considering some of the hideous acts, unjust events and horrendous things that happen in life) Is it because you deserve it? (Not my words, some people actually tell me they think that) Is it because it’s your lot in life? Is it because of something you were told as a child?

Well all I can say is that if it wasn’t bad luck for me to be a 3rd generation domestic violence sufferer (each with guns involved), a 2nd generation childhood sexual abuse (my daughters were the 3rd), rape, single mum living in hiding with 4 small kids on my own, cyclic doomed relationships etc, then what was it about ME? It’s hard not to think like that. Obviously it ran deeper than being just about me but I’ll refer to that reason later.

Some people are way ‘unluckier’ than I was and it breaks my heart. Will we ever know why bad things happen to good people? I doubt it, but all we can do is share our learnings so others may not have to suffer like we did. Do you agree? The positive to come out of any of life curve balls would have to be the life ‘learnings’, if we’ve been in the right head space to get them of course. I wonder what yours are? Have you ever taken stock of them?

I remember dragging myself to a psychiatrist several times during my life, however the time I went to see this one in particular was when I’d been living in hiding for almost a year. I remember as I sat in his office, after soaking many tissues and spilling my guts all he had to say was, you’re not going mad, everything makes sense for what you are going through. Well, that was NOT what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear you ARE going mad and we will help you now and you can go to sleep and realise it was all just a bad dream. Instead I had to simply walk out and go pick the kids up from school and live another unpredictable terrifying day.

Some of the things I went through are too horrific to discuss here however I will say that my suffering was not in vain. In fact it’s made me so strong I now know nothing can take me down.

If I didn’t eventually DECIDE to turn my life around, take stock of my learnings and refuse to continue the cycle (even if it did take me 30 years) the Institute of Women International would not exist. A cosmetic company would have missed out on at least $30,000,000 (that’s a lot of lipstick for someone who never used to wear it) in sales. I wouldn’t have written a book. I wouldn’t have been able to fund some of my children’s important milestones and travel overseas several times a year for 14 years. I wouldn’t be able to donate to charities as I like to do. The thousands of women I now know I would never have met.

In fact, its bloody scary to think where I would be. ‘Dead’ would not be an underestimation and quite probable. I was spiralling pretty badly in the end. My cycle was out of control and heading down a very steep slope FAST.

You see I found myself on the floor of a phone box in the middle of nowhere and when I sat up and looked outside over the bonnet of my car and headlights, through the windscreen I saw 4 little kids and a dog playing and I knew, in that super silent moment that life HAD TO CHANGE.

Finally I saw my life like never before. The raw truth of my accumulated life choices were staring back at me. You see after you have an epileptic fit (that was my first one ever at 30+ years old) there is this total silence where you are without your fears, emotions, beliefs, misty stained glasses of disillusion or even your wits. What was with me was just love and quiet. Pure love and in that blessed moment I knew there was no turning back EVER from the silent vow I made to myself, or what would come of my kids? They never asked for this crap. That decision was set in concrete and that was that. I WOULD CHANGE OUR LIVES FOR THE BETTER!!!!

What I learnt FIRST and foremost and I know HAS TO HAPPEN for anyone to turn their life around is to make a ‘no option’ commitment to yourself that you will DO WHATEVER IT TAKES to make life better. That was definitely THE FIRST STEP IN A FORWARD DIRECTION for us.

Thats not easy as some of you will attest to. In fact life did get worse after than BUT as I lay there in the foetal position, feeling crushed yet again, I still knew I would not go back to my old ways. I lay crying, praying I guess you’d call it. I was simply asking out loud through my tears for an ‘opportunity’. I pleaded into the nights for about a week. My prayers were answered. Was the opportunity at the time obvious? NO! Did I seize every opportunity? YES! I become bolder and put myself out there.

Wind my life 20 years forward and I have to say I have never gone backwards from that moment.

So what did it take? Well, it’s taken the commitment mostly along with educating myself on how my mind was holding me back and how to not allow that to happen by me taking over and knowing when it was just tricking me, or recognising when it was just an old habit trying to come back. There’s always a ‘test’ after a commitment and even that’s not real, its just a play from the unconscious mind.

so why 30+ years of pretty severely bad s$%T of a similar nature and then 18 years of a blessed life that has its ups and downs and losses and all sorts of things happen, however never have I gone back in financial abundance or contentment. My desire to empower other women was born from my adversity. What will be born of yours? Could your purpose lie in the learnings that stem from your adversity too? Often people find their life purpose hidden more in their struggles than their triumphs.

Bad luck does tend to follow pessimism and feeling hopelessness in plague proportions. Whenever I get pessimistic where I’m asking problem-based questions (eg. Why me? Why now?) that have no answers and not solution-orientated ones (eg. what can I do to improve this?), I feel myself slipping back. That’s when I know I have to snap out of it or it will begin the cycle again. I wake up again. HOPE comes from empowering yourself with the facts without emotion. You made it this far and you’re ok. Why think you won’t make it all the way and be ok?

We’ll never know why bad stuff happens that is tragic, and frankly I don’t think we will, however to be strong and to roll with the really bad stuff that can happen in life, it takes developing your mental muscles, being able to self talk yourself out of the darkness. It takes knowing it won’t last and that you WILL be ok. Self development, self growth and self understanding HAS to happen for life to change.

To make new choices takes a NEW mindset.

It takes understanding how your own mind works. I personally have spend tens of thousands of dollars just learning how my mind works and it’s made me much more money in return and will continue to for my entire life. AND most of all I am happier, healthier (no more epilepsy), gave up smoking and lost weight to name just a few other benefits.

Don’t be afraid to put yourself first and invest in your personal self development and improvement. I see now in hindsight that the reason for my old life story to be worth anything at all, my learnings have to be passed on. I cannot sit idly by and watch women not take action to better themselves when they are so miserable or struggling because of silly beliefs about themselves.

Challenges are a part of life, however, the cyclic nature of similar types of events or ones that make you feel in a similar state (mine was rejection and fear mainly as well as many more), you DO have way more power over than you give yourself credit for. Did you know we even inherit a pre-disposition for certain experiences to occur? Yes it’s true according to the science of epi-genetics. In fact there’s an epigenetic university near you they are that common however they intend to find a pharmaceutical solution. Take matters into your own hands ladies and experience some of our solutions to this.

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Why not share YOUR life learnings in the comments below that you’ve had over the years, especially the first biggest ones that caused you to change your ways and find more happiness. Anything that you realised that made you have less bad experiences in a certain area of your life.