My dark side and My challenges

Everyone has their challenges and everyone has their obstacles, their hidden secrets, their own family dysfunction... I have mine too. I promise that I am not just a happy, pretty lady who gets everything easy and has never had to lift a finger... I have my challenges and I have a dark side just like everyone else... I promise. Everyday I make the decision to love life, work hard, be grateful, and be happy.

My challenges started young when I was brought up as a poor kid in a rich town... All of my friends were worrying about where to go on their mid-winter break or what kind of car their parents were going to buy for them... I remember eating tuna fish a variety of different ways (tuna sandwich, tuna casserole, etc) and shopping at the good will - pretending it was the cool thing to do... I don’t eat tuna fish as an adult, :-)

Another thing in my childhood... my parents never asked me what I thought. They never encouraged me to have an opinion. When asked my opinion now as an adult, I have to be coerced into it and guided through it. I do have opinions, don't get me wrong. My challenge is voicing them in a way that is acceptable, interesting and well thought out.

When I was 25, I had a HORRIBLE case of acne; in fact you couldn't even see my skin because it was all filled up with cystic acne. After modeling 2 years prior, my beauty was ripped away from me. I had to rebuild my self-esteem and retrain myself to look into the mirror. I learned humility.

Money is still my challenge. It is hard for me to talk about it, to look at it, to think about it. In fact when I am done with graduate school, I will be about $200,000 in debt. Whoa!

We all have our challenges. We are not alone. Some people have different challenges than others, yet we are here to help each other overcome them. No man is an island. We learn from one another…. Happiness is my daily challenge so is self-esteem, self- worth, anything financially related. Plus I am sure there are many more challenges in my dark side that I will learn later, they are yet to come.

The bottom line… we all have something to teach and we all have something to learn. We all have our own obstacles, challenges and dark sides. I am open to learning from those who have conquered the challenges I have yet to conquer.

The thing I have learned lately is to love our challenges because they help us learn and grow. Try to know our dark side so that it comes into the light. These in particular are a great challenge. Believe me!