Life is Best… When We Improve the Lives of Others! We can feel you NY and NJ…

Being “involved” in improving the lives of others is not anything about self promotion or a pat on the back.  Hopefully, our motives are pure and we really are concerned with making the Earth a better place for all.  After all, we are just passing through and this is only a temporary home. However, what we choose to do while we are here on Earth matters greatly.

It matters little whether we volunteer at: church,school, or community OR we quietly give of time, expertise, or finances that no one is aware of but ourselves.  However, what matters is that we all do something!   I believe this applies so much to the immediate test of Natural Disasters of our friends, families, and loved ones in the Northeast.  Even a small donation of 10 dollars (or two cups of Starbuck’s) can help those who have lost  so much or everything.  www.AmericanRedCross.org .

Many of us feel empty…  or that there is something missing in our lives.   How wonderful it would be if that void was filled with the only thing that heals… helping others!  Perhaps, this could be an avenue of healing that doctors could use on many patients in many venues.  I’m just saying.

No matter how difficult our own life is… there is always someone who is suffering and challenged more.  This is at the core of my personal philosophies; it is always necessary to volunteer and help others. Always!  For most of my life I have been involved with young people.  There are many projects and organizations to which I devote my time.  At first, while I was in college… it was to figure  out who I was and why I had been abused.  When I stepped back and examined it more closely…  it became clear that there were concrete ways to improve life as given… not only for myself, but for others as well.

Working with the  Special Olympics has been part of my life for over two decades.  Here were individuals who embraced  not what they don’t have or will never be, but rather in small triumphs and personal success. They are role models of integrity.  It was with this organization that I first involved my “unteachable/unreachable” students.  It never failed to amaze me that these not so young high school students (sometimes as old as 21) somehow in the end … “got it.”  Their own stints with Incarceration, Probation, Drug Abuse were all self chosen. The challenges given to others in life, sometimes are not.

BUT ALL HUMANS ARE CHALLENGED!  The students who fought me the most when I announced, “We will all be helping at this year’s Special Olympics” were the ones who absolutely gleamed with pride at the end of the day.  They were also the first to ask if they could do it again, next year. Helping others is something everyone can do.  Everyone!  It is the healing and answer for everything.

I am sharing some of my own personal experience only as an example.  Everyone is challenged in life.  It can be the loss of a home, job, or a loved one; and those  can happen again and again. It can be a physical, emotional, or social affliction of a family member… or ourselves.  It can also be loss of direction in life that brings with it a profound loneliness and isolation. Sometimes, this is drug and/or alcohol related.

What I am suggesting is that by not focusing on ourselves, and instead focusing on those around us that need attention and help in improving their situations… Life is Best!

But, here’s the warning: DON’T JUST SAY/THINK YOU WILL HELP IMPROVE THE LIVES OF OTHERS… Really do it!

Imagine the world then?  New York, New Jersey… we got your back!

The Gift of Forgiveness

 Forgiving someone who has wronged us is not so easy.  However, it is ultimately healing and the only way to move on from the hurt or injustice that has been done to us.   This goes for any type of injustice we have incurred: physical, emotional,or verbal. I am convinced of that fact; I also practice it. We are always hurt, but it need not prevail in our current lives.

If we dwell on what has been done “to us” rather than what we “do for ourselves” we are powerless and don’t heal from the inside out.  Rather, we are merely putting a scab on a wound that might at any time be ripped open.  This is not in any way suggesting that we continue to keep the offender(s) in our day to day life, but rather distance ourselves with a quiet dignity.If it is meant to be, in time.. .a relationship might take place, but only if the “offender” has been rehabilitated.  Again, this goes for all types of abuse and all personal injuries that are done “to” us.
BUT… I can not say it often enough: WE ARE NOT PRODUCTS OF WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO US…RATHER WE ARE PRODUCTS OF WHAT WE HAVE CHOSEN TO DO FOR OURSELVES.
God is merciful; let us practice that as well.   Sue

Child Abuse: choose to see it; choose to be part of the solution!

SPIRIT UNBROKEN is now in its  2nd printing!  It is today released for Kindle, Sony Reader et. al

I most humbly thank all supporters as well as Facebook families, Twitter, and Internet followers.  Let us all work to make a difference in the lives of children… everywhere.  We have just but dented the surface.   www.suebrownauthor.com

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Almost 40 million people living in the United States alone,  are survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Since research has shown that almost 1/3 of people having been sexually abused never disclose this experience to anyone, the actual number of victims must be considerably higher than the given statistics.  Therefore, logically, it’s closer to 60 million survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse in the United States and The District of Columbia, today.

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1 in 4 girls are sexually abused before their fourteenth birthday!

1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before their sixteenth birthday!

The median age for reported abuse is nine years old.

90% of all victims know their perpetrators.

Nearly 70% of child sex offenders have more than one victim.

70% of child sex offenders victimize between 1 and 9 children. Almost one quarter of them victimized 10 to 40 victims.

Girl survivors of sexual abuse are three times more likely to develop alcohol and drug abuse or psychiatric problems in adulthood, than girls who have not experienced sexual abuse.

Boy survivors of sexual abuse had a greater than an 80% chance of substance abuse, 50% had suicidal inclinations, and 23% actually attempted to take their own life. 70% received psychological treatment. 31% victimized others!

70-80% of sexual abuse survivors report excessive drug and alcohol abuse.

40% of all childhood sexual survivors suffer long-term effects that require therapy.
Although these statistics are real, they can be changed. The abuse stops with us. We need not pass the dysfunction forward to yet, another generation.