Judy and the creation of a Warrior Princess

I was talking to a mate yesterday who was a bit dejected by problems he was having with gig outside of the US.

He was a bit down and had the "Oh, well, par for the course" kinda feeling.
I wouldn't let him give into a pity party.
I told him to be positive, but I was rebuffed with, "I was positive until this happened. You should live my life. I doubt that thinking positively will change that."

I let him vent and then texted him later, saying no matter what, I still believed and even if he couldn't sum up enough positivity for himself, I had the faith of Pollyanna to still think positively for him.

Yes, the last few years haven't been easy for him, but he's not alone.

Maybe because of the way I act, people believe that I'm some sort of Golden Child. Hah!! My brother was the Golden Child. I was just the scrappy runt of the litter. What I've managed to achieve has come from years of hard graft and many self sung choruses of We shall overcome, thank you very much.

Sure, I had doting parents that gave me a good start, but they couldn't protect me from all of the nasty things out there in the big bad world. If they could, there would be two unmarked graves, containing the defiled corpses of my attackers.

Of course hind sight is 20/20 and retribution solves naught.

What saved me was my Mum's friend Judy.

Judy was the quintessential white 1970s, Ms. magazine reading woman. She was no great beauty but tall and thin and very interested in ERA and politics of that time. All in all she was a bit barmy, but a good egg. After being viciously raped, she was left naked and traumatized in the bushes on the side of a road, and it was hours before anyone found her.

Afterwards, Judy was never quite the same. I'm not making a judgement call, as every story of rape or abuse is as individual as the victim. It was horrible and difficult for her to move on, but seeing what happened to her sparked something in me. Although I could never have suspected what I would face years later, I vowed if anything similar ever happened to me, I'd never just shut down and withdraw from the world as she needed to. And even when it did happen, and parts of me were conflicted, I chose to believe that I could get something positive out of it and to believe I would have the strength to move on. If I didn't, my attacker would win and I couldn't let that happen.

In this life, your survival depends on you being the ultimate winner.

So from that nightmare, I awakened with two things: Belief and Fight.

I became a warrior princess. And everytime I choose to fight, and refuse to simply lay down and give up, I win.

Even when I lose the battle and make a tactical retreat, I clean my wounds, sharpen my steel and I press on. I may lose a series of battles but because I persist, because I believe, I am positive I will win the war.

And sure regular physical training is at the top of the list, but I've other elements to my arsenal. And while my armour of mental discipline, the shield of meditation, and the swords of visualiziation and positive energy could easily be dismissed as New Age hokum, in a time before quantum physics, Galileo was considered a heretic and a nut job too.

So despite what others think, as Shakespeare penned in Hamlet "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy"

And this Warrior Princess has got her MOJO workin', positively.