Monthly Archives: April 2019

“Never allow any obstacle or adversity to define who you are.”  Chris Mitchell

Today, I am proud to announce the first “Celebrating Your Life” award. I created this award when I heard the remarkable story of Chris Mitchell. What he has overcome is astounding and truly inspirational.

Chris’s mother was exposed to the German measles which caused Chris to be born with several imperfections. He was born with cataracts which resulted in him being legally blind, a constricted aorta, and with some of his intestines resided outside of his body.  When he finally started to talk, his severe speech impediment was evident.

In addition to his physical challenges, he also had mental challenges including a verbally abusive father. He was diagnosed with ADHD. His ADHD contributed to his struggles and setbacks including being expelled from high school and college.

He overcame these obstacles.  He convinced an internet provider to institute a college internship.  After the semester the company offered him a part-time job even though they were not hiring at the time. In spite of his being legally blind, he has done a variety of jobs including radio announcer and web designer.

As an adult, Chris had an ischemic stroke to his spinal cord which took away his ability to walk, stand or even feed himself. This was his biggest challenge especially because he was engaged to be married.  With the help of his fiance (now wife), he fought hard to regain his ability to feed himself, the ability to walk again and try to get back his independence.  He has written an autobiography and he now inspire others to conquer their challenges.

It has not been an easy life.  Chris has asked himself, “WHY ME?”  However, he never gave up, he figured out how to move on and to triumph over his obstacles.  He found hope in his faith.

In Chris’s words, “God has a reason why he allowed this to happen in my life and if I search for the answer while allowing God to guide my steps, I knew I will find it in time. It took me years of searching and contemplating, but I now know that every one of my imperfections were given to me for a very special reason – and that is to make a positive difference in other people’s lives. Today every health issue I faced as a child has given me the ability to both be empathetic and connect with people I meet who have failing health challenges or disabilities. Today I use all the trouble that my ADHD and/or stubbornness got me into to mentor young people.  Using those experiences, I show them that we all make mistakes. I also share with them that regardless of the size of our mistakes, those bad decisions do not have to define who we are.Today I use the struggles I faced as I fought to get my life back after my ischemic stroke to my spinal cord to inspire others to overcome any adversities in their lives.”

If you want to know more about Chris, you can checkout his website: https://imchrismitchell.com/

Staying in Touch: Barbara Hirsh can be reached at info@LiveKinder.com  I love hearing your kindness stories.  Please sign-up for almost weekly kindness message at www.LiveKinder.com or follow LiveKinder on Facebook! 

“Embracing your chaos might be the path to finding peace.”  Rachel Hollis

I recently read the #1 New York Times best-selling book, “Girl, Wash Your Face,” written by Rachel Hollis who was named by Inc. Magazine as one of the “Top 30 Entrepreneurs under 30.”

Her book is a self-help book focusing on how women, especially moms, can effect change in their own lives. People either love or hate her book.  She has almost 10,000 reviews on Amazon and 82% gave her 5 stars out of 5; but 9% gave her only one star.  In my opinion, the one-star reviews say more about the reviewers than the book.  Even though I am not the target audience (no one has called me girl recently); I found a lot to ponder.

My favorite quote of the book, “I’m not going to talk about finding your peace; I’m going to talk about embracing your chaos…Ironically, I think embracing your chaos might be the path to finding peace.” We all have chaos in our lives, when a child spills milk or a bird poops on us, when we get a flat tire or other unplanned incidents. Chaotic incidents are part of life.  Rachel explained we deal with chaos and the resulting stress in three ways: we ignore it, battle it, or drown in it.

We ignore the chaos by pretending it is not there.  We work harder and harder.  We push through it, telling ourselves we can muddle through it.  In the short term this can work. The problem is the effect the stress has on your body in the long term.  It can show up as hives, insomnia, in a myriad of other ways, or in Rachel’s case as Bell’s palsy.

The second way we deal with chaos is by battling it. We sometimes battle it on a different field from where it originated.  We clean everything in sight. We do everything to look picture perfect, hoping we can get our inside to match our perfect outside.  The trouble with the battle is we will eventually lose.  We believe we can do enough or organize enough or plan enough to make sure nothing is difficult.  However, we will only make ourselves feel like a failure when life is too challenging, and chaos happens.  In the end, it makes us angry; we feel out of control and disappointed.

The third way we deal with the stress of chaos is to drown in it.  We get overwhelmed, we see stress everywhere, it feels insurmountable.  It never gets better, so we wallow, we complain, we crawl under the covers and let chaos win.   In the short term, a long nap may energize us.  In the long term, if we don’t get up and swim, we drown.

Rachel states the problem with all these things is that it implies you are the one in control.  To some extent that is true and is the main theme of her book.  You are in control of yourself.  The problem is you cannot control the actions of others: the dog throwing-up, the serviceman showing up late, the storm blowing of your roof shingles, your friend not using the right emoji in a text message, or a thousand of other unplanned acts.  When you think you can control others, you’ll find yourself angry, frustrated, disrespected and stressed. When you can’t control others, anger and hate replace empathy and hope.

Another of Rachel’s wise quotes, “When you assume you’re in total control, you don’t take time to seek out a relationship with God, you use alternate means to try and manufacturer some peace.”  I believe peace, joy and contentment come from God’s love that resides in your soul.  When you live with God’s love in your heart, you can embrace the chaos and choose peace.

Rachel advises, “Remember that someone else is praying to have the kind of chaos you’re crying about.  What I mean is, the things you think are so difficult could be someone else’s dream come true.  I don’t say that to make you feel bad, or to negate your difficult experience; but perspective may help you see your chaos is a gigantic blessing.  Adjusting your view can work wonders.”  This advice has helped me.

So, when things don’t go as planned, how do you deal with chaos?  Rachel’s advice, “Start by giving yourself some grace.”  Start by being kind to yourself.  Find your peace in God’s love.

Staying in Touch: Barbara Hirsh can be reached at info@LiveKinder.com  I love hearing your kindness stories.  Please sign-up for almost weekly kindness message at www.LiveKinder.com or follow LiveKinder on Facebook!