The under-estimated power of motivation.

I sat staring into puffy eyes, tangled hair from sleep, and a desperation seeping forth from her chapped lips ... she was the mirror reflection of what tired looks like. Hunched over the countertop, the words spilt from her mouth, "Will this ever get better?"

I asked her, "If I told you no, would you believe me and never try? If I told you yes, would you ask me how?"

The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
- Walter Bagehot

I asked her, "What do you love most in your life? What is the one thing that you would lay down and die for?"

She answered, "My birthson."

So I told her, "Start there. If he's what you love most, if he's you're every reason, start living the evidence of that. Love doesn't look like depression. Love doesn't act like hate. Love doesn't live by regret or reason. Motivate yourself to do this one thing well ... and love him by loving yourself enough to succeed in all things you do."

"Do what you love, do what you have a passion for, and life becomes so much easier." Oprah Winfrey

She replied, "What does my doing what I love have to do with my son?"

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone, and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. -- Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love.

She lowers her head and says, "He may not even notice though ... how can I be sure that if this does get better he won't hate me for not being depressed that I gave him away? I don't want him thinking I didn't care ...but more than anything I just want to know that he'll want to know me I guess." How To Make It In Show Business by Steve Martin: "Be so good they can't ignore you."

She stood a little straighter, lifted her head, and for the first time her eyes opened all the way as she looked towards me and whispered, "That's what I want."

If you want a thing bad enough to go out and fight for it, to work day and night for it, to give up your time, your peace, and your sleep for it...if all that you dream and scheme is about it, and life seems useless and worthless without it...if you gladly sweat for it and fret for it and plan for it and lose all your terror of the opposition for it...if you simply go after that thing you want with all of your capacity, strength and sagacity, faith, hope and confidence and stern pertinacity...if neither cold, poverty, famine, nor gout, sickness nor pain, of body and brain, can keep you away from the thing that you want... if dogged and grim you beseech and beset it, with the help of God, you WILL get it! -- Les Brown, Live Your Dreams.

That day ... as I stared myself down in the mirror in my bathroom and talked myself into motivation I did one last thing before embarking on the challenge I'd given myself:

I gave myself permission to succeed. The risk was worth taking.

I could live my life void of joy and success because I wanted my son to believe I'd missed him ... but there was no guarantee of him even thinking that. I could very well waste my life hoping for something that would never exist, in the meantime ruining the relationships I could have had with others, and never achieving anything based on fear. The result of my living this way could very well even damage a possible reunion because by the time reunion came I'd be so buried in self-hate and depression I wouldn't be able to see my own son through the mire.

I had nothing to loose. So I chose the other way. The risk was worth it.

What are you holding back from because of your fears? What in your life is hindering your ability to do what you love? Do you have a deep seeded dream or passion for something but because of your shame and guilt from relinquishment, you fear you're not worthy of succeeding?

What risks are you willing to take?

There is Success in Healing.

But we must choose to harness the power of motivation in order to achieve it.

What are you motivated by today?