Lori, your story is very touching. People will always ridicule and criticize something they don’t understand, something that does not fit into the model formed by society, if we are in any way different from that model. At the end of the day, it is not what other people think. It is what we think. It is hard to do that when we are children surrounded by negativism. As I pointed that out before 97% of people are negative, but it does not mean that we have to be one of them.
One plastic surgeon did research on women who had deformity in their faces. After successful operations, when the women were really pretty, many of them still hid their faces as they still saw themselves as being ‘ugly”. Why is that? The real beauty comes from inside. You have to see yourself pretty first before anyone can see your beauty. Changing outside without changes inside is not going to do the trick. We are like the snow flakes. You will never find another one like you and I or anyone else. We have so much to offer to the world. We have so much potential. It does not matter what our physical appearances are.
I walk with a cane, Lori. Incurable disease of my nervous system. Am I normal? For me, the question rather is, would I like to be “normal”? My answer to it is NO. For me “normal” is a person that lives with all the limitations put by our society. No, I don’t want to be “normal”. I helped so many people to change their lives and I will keep doing this for the rest of my life. I don’t want anyone to be “normal”.  Who is “normal”?  To me a “normal” person is an average person who goes to work with a job which he or she often does not like, lives from a paycheck to paycheck or have little savings, have 2.3 children, and have a chance of getting divorce around 40%. I want every person to feel special, unique, because they are. I want every person, to be really happy and successful with a job or career they love, and experiencing a true love. Is that possible? Yes, absolutely.
Please, read Bill’s comment on Today’s World Blog I posted in November about negativity. See how he has found his way out of negativity. Thank you for your comment Bill.