In this morning’s NY Times, there is a review of a new book by Jennifer Scanlon on Helen Gurley Brown of Cosmopolitan magazine fame, who is described at the original Carrie Bradshaw of ‘Sex and the City’. While she was a woman of much substance and fame,  HGB had a very interesting life coming from a rural background in the Ozark Mountains to become one of the most successful editor of one of the most powerful women’s magazine of the 20th century.

In the article, Brown is quoted as saying “If you have some daily anguish from some cause that’s not really your fault – a rotten family, bad health, nowhere looks, serious money problems, nobody to help you, minority background….(did she leave anything out?)…...rejoice.  These things are your fuel!”

In my book The 10 Health Habits of Fun, Fearless People, the first healthy habit is The Road to a Powerful Future is a Rocky Past.  Based on my own upbringing, and the experiences of my lifetime, I learned the hard way that all the junk of life is fuel for what I have become; strong, compassionate, vulnerable and forgiving.  A journey to claim the power of who I am developed through the school of hard knocks that sent me lessons I didn’t know I needed.

I left behind a lifetime of abuses, both generationally, and in my own life that were fueled by fear.  Most people are terrified of life.waiting for the hammer to come down on us to punish us for our transgressions.  We run from our fears, pretend that they really don’t exist, and divert ourselves from the the possibilities of change, because we fear what change will do to us.

Krisnamurti, Indian philosopher said this about fear:

“Fear is one of the greatest problems in life.  A mind that is caught in fear lives in confusion, in conflict, and therefore must be violent, distorted and aggressive.  It dare not move away from it’s patterns of thinking, and this breeds hypocrisy.  Until we are free from fear, we may climb the highest mountain, invent every kind of God, but we will remain in darkness.”

But the flip side of this is as you learn to handle your fears by making different choices, you start to accumulate the strength through courage scenario.  You know what you don’t want, and the task becomes what do you want?  This is the heart of the change process.  It’s not so difficult once you’ve made up your mind, and whatever the tragedies, abuses and losses you’ve incurred, the strength you’ve acquired getting over it, creates a powerful future.

So the questions for today is….Are you willing to do the deep transformational work to make changes that will create a better life for you.

Are you committed to being the best you can be?

What is it worth to you to use your rocky past to create a powerful future.

Fear is an illusion. It is imagination based.  If you can use your mind for negativity, how much better will it be if you use it for positivity.

Create your powerful future from your rocky past.  You weren’t given the rocks to carry for nothing.

This is your power.  Use it wisely.