Don’t Just Survive, THRIVE!
One day it will happen. One day I’ll be more than just a conglomeration of symptoms which require many medications to survive, even to consume food. One day I’ll be a person again. I’ll be that girl I once was – but with something added to me, a special bestowal from decades of enduring the unendurable.
What does it even mean to “thrive?” I’ve forgotten. Did I ever know?
Yes I did. When I was a child I thrived enough for ten people. (To learn more of those days read my story, Journeying Through Hell & Back.)
THRIVING IN CHILDHOOD
I was constantly running. exploring, playing, dreaming, imagining & enjoying my immediate family & large nearby extended family of patriotic hard-working happy Italians who thought of themselves as AMERICANS FIRST & FOREMOST. Dozens of us ate Sunday dinners together (at 3:00 of course), we kids got sips of beer or little sips of wine now & then, we all played in my grandparents’ cellar & backyard with the beautiful fountain everyone swam in when they were small enough, and the beautiful grotto my grandfather made to honor the Blessed Mother. Happiness was our default position. A few of the relatives could be miserable & a little rotten but they were not the norm. I think I came out of my mother’s womb thriving. Old black & white home movies show me moving around as though the film was speeded up. Energy enough for the whole neighborhood.
UPDATE: March 2022
GUESS WHO’S THRIVING NOW?
I am! In the midst of all this autonomic madness I opened an Etsy and Amazon store through an E-Commerce course called the Low Hanging System by Rachel Rofe. I began designing mugs, bags, ornaments, jewelry, pictures, and other wares in July 2021. By that Christmas I had nearly 500 products in the store — every single one was created ME! Even as I was continuing to lose weight and began experiencing malnutrition again, this endeavor was bringing me back to life.
But it wasn’t just making mugs that brought me back to life, it was the coaching we were getting as part of the Low Hanging System. Our coach was a highly successful businessman, serial entrepreneur (along with his amazing business partner & wife, Shannon), and author of the book Integrity is Everything, the great John Lavenia. The man saved my life.
I couldn’t bear the way I felt & couldn’t even imagine being where I am today (3/19/2022). Although I’m down to 95 pounds, which is not good, I know I have come to the end of the illness phase of my life.
Like a diamond underground (thank you Ivie Barnabas), under tremendous pressure, I’m on the verge of being mined into the greatness God had planned for me from the beginning. Like any diamond, I still need polishing (and also to gain 20 pounds back), but without John’s intercession, I WOULD NOT BE ON THIS PLANET. Now I’m a real life entrepreneur running several businesses! Me? Little ol’ me? Yep. And you can do it too. But you need help. EVERYONE DOES.
In our very first LHS Coaching zoom session, without about 20 other LHS students, I stated I was “starting from below ground zero–” John leaned forward toward the zoom camera and interrupted me. He said, “Do not affirm that.” He spoke to me using quotes from the greats I had already read but not been able to properly apply in my life. Greats like Napoleon Hill, Wallace D Wattles, Neville Goddard, Dr. Joseph Murphy. Hearing their words was like coming out of a dream. Even so, the next day I did it again. I said something along the same lines of being un-able to do … whatever–because I felt so physically ill & terrible. I felt like death warmed over. This time John said, “Don’t come to my meetings & say those things. I just told you yesterday not to affirm such thoughts. So cut it out.” His words struck me right in the heart. From that moment I started to turn around. I became the most positive person in the group. People started coming to me for help……
….Then I started going to John’s Monday night Book Study–part of his Success Mastermind. My husband was seeing me transform before his eyes. He’s an intellectual anyway so Book Study is right up his alley. We loved it, became members, and found a new & wonderful group of like-minded individuals who are family now. Go get a free two-week trial for yourself. You’re mad not to! It will change your life – if you let it. BE-DO-HAVE – that’s the proper order in which one creates for himself and his family the life he’s always wanted. Success, self-mastery, and a better life are all waiting for you at JL Success Mastermind. I thank God every day for putting me in the path of this great man with a giant mind and a pretty fabulous New Jersey Italian sense of humor. Let it be your turn now. You can watch us talking books on youtube. But there’s much more to the JL Success Mastermind platform than Book Study. It is a place of learning, refreshment, cerebral stimulation, kindness, freedom, friendship & love.
I’m so grateful my path led me to the JL Success Mastermind platform.
