Transitioning: Thoughts for Today

[Guest LizMarie]

I've been doing this for a while elsewhere so after the long holiday weekend, I've decided to bring it here as well. As often as I can remember, and I'll try to post thoughts daily, I'll post positive thoughts about self, change, and becoming authentic to yourself here. If you wish to add positive thoughts, feel free. If you wish to argue, please start a separate thread.

"You are a hurricane of a girl; remember to breathe every once in a while, do not drown within your own storm." - Anon

"You can't force people to stay in your life. Staying is a choice, so be thankful for people who choose you." - Anon

"To create space for new experiences, one needs to clear out the old." - Diane Adkins

"You are confined only by the walls you build yourself." - Anon

"Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and start being positive about what could go right." - Anon

"Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too was a gift." - Mary Oliver

"No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don't." - Stephen King

"Sometimes you have to step outside of the person you've been and remember the person you were meant to be. The person you want to be. The person you are." - H.G. Wells

"The most creative act you will ever undertake is the act of creating yourself." - Deepak Chopra

"You must strive to find your own voice because the longer you wait to begin the less likely you are to find it at all." - Robin Williams

"No relationship is ever a waste of time. If it didn't bring you what you want, it taught you how to handle unwanted things." - Anon.

[Guest KerryUK]

What a good post Liz,

Here are a couple of my own (can't remember who said/wrote them but invaluable for helping me each day).

'Never be afraid of being the person you are'.

'Take the Bull by the horns'.

One I have learned since I started my transition:-

'Slowly, slowly catchee monkey'.

Hope they come in useful for someone reading here.

Kerry x.

[Guest]

Grab the Bull by the horns and go for the ride. - Yours truly

[Guest Lyndsey1957]

Well what you're saying is so true I've been transitioning for about a year now I've actually been on hormone replacement therapy since May 5 of this year and it's been a lot of changes between then and now and I am also 57 years old I have lost 115lbs and I feel absolutely wonderful family split on excepting me but most do my children are there for me and Im male to female and I have never been so comfortable in my entire life

[Guest Lyndsey1957]

I have to honestly say I am so lucky to be a member of this group and also I'm lucky to have friends to except me and my family that except me that has been one of the most difficult things in my life but I've never been so happy in my entire life and I finally feel free I mean I really feel free and happy. Thank you but just putting up with me love all of you. Takes a lot of courage and heart to release what we have released and actually really live our lives as it should be lived.

[Guest LizMarie]

"Never give up, great things take time." - Anon

"There will be many chapters in your life. Don't get lost in the one you are in now." - Anon

"Old ways won't open new doors." - Anon

"I literally have to remind myself all the time, that being afraid of things going wrong isn't the way to make things go right." - Anon

"It doesn't matter how this looks to other people. If this is something you gotta do, then you do it. Fighters fight." - Rocky Balboa

[Guest LizMarie]

"Look closely at the present you are constructing. It should look like the future you are dreaming." - Alice Walker

"May the space between where I am and where I want to be inspire me." - Tracee Ellis Ross

"Be stubborn about your goals but flexible about your methods." - Anon

"Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny." - C.S. Lewis

"You can't reach for anything new if your hands are still full of yesterday's work." - Louise Smith

[Guest LizMarie]

"Being negative only makes a difficult journey more difficult. You may be given a cactus, but you don't have to sit on it." - Joyce Meyer

"When writing the story of your life, don't let anyone else hold the pen." - Harley Davidson

"I believe that when you realize who you really are, you understand that nothing can stop you from becoming that person." - Christine Lincoln

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." - Thomas Alva Edison

"Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve." - J.K. Rowling

[Guest LizMarie]

"When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it." - Henry Ford

"Ask yourself if what you're doing today is getting you closer to where you want to be tomorrow." - Anon

"Never let your fear decide your fate." - AwolNation (lyrics for "Kill Your Heroes")

"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together." - Vincent Van Gogh

"Sometimes the only way to ever find yourself is to get completely lost." ― Kellie Elmore

[Guest LizMarie]

“Courage is living by the free will that one creates for themselves, not the life of monotony determined by another.” ― Michelle Cruz-Rosado

"You get in life what you have the courage to ask for." - Oprah Winfrey

"You need to understand that life isn't what you're given, it's what you create, what you conquer and what you aim to achieve." - Anon

"Once you become fearless.....Life becomes limitless." - Anon

"Doubt can only be removed by action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

[Guest LizMarie]

"Progress is impossible without change." - George Bernard Shaw

"It's your road and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you." - Sushan R Sharma

"Others may give up on you, but the most important thing is to never give up on yourself." - Anon

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise." - Victor Hugo

[Guest LizMarie]

"The dream is free but the hustle is sold separately." - Anon

"I'm on the hunt for who I've not yet become." - Sara Bareilles

"Whatever you believe about yourself on the inside is what you will manifest on the outside." - Anon

"There is no passion to be found in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living." - Nelson Mandela

"Forget all the reasons why it won't work and believe the one reason why it will." - Anon

[Guest LizMarie]

"The best is yet to be." - Robert Browning

"There is something beautiful about having the chance to rewrite your future." - Anon

"Do not wait until conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect." - Alan Cohen

"Believe you can and you're halfway there." - Theodore Roosevelt

"The secret to change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new." - Socrates

[Guest otter-girl]

"The most creative act you will ever undertake is the act of creating yourself." - Deepak Chopra

It's also absolutely the most radical act too!

Thanks for this list.

Rach

[Guest LizMarie]

"You can't start the next chapter if you keep re-reading the last one." - Anon

"Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today." – Will Rogers

"If you're still looking for that one person that can change your life, just take a look in the mirror and that person will be looking back at you." - Anon

"Forget it enough to get over it, remember it enough so it doesn't happen again." - Anon

"We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." - Carlos Castenada

[Guest LizMarie]

"Life has no remote. Get up and change it yourself." - Anon

"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." - Mark Twain

"If you don't make the time to work on creating the life you want, you're eventually going to be forced to spend a lot of time dealing with a life you don't want." - Kevin Ngo

"Once you choose hope, anything is possible." - Christopher Reeve

"In the waves of change we find our true direction." - Anon

[Guest LizMarie]

"Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it." - Anon

"Sometimes things take time. Be positive, stay patient, and things will get better." - Anon

“Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.” - Yoda

"Often when you think you are at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else." - Fred Rogers

"Push yourself because no one else is going to do it for you." - Anon

[Guest LizMarie]

“It is not the mountain that we conquer, but ourselves.” - Edmund Hillary

"Waking up to who tyou are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be." - Alan Watts

"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it." - George Bernard Shaw

"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure." - Paul Coelho

"You choose the way you see yourself. Don't let others do the casting." - Anon

[Guest April Kristie]

When I first started transitioning I used these "truisms" to help explain my sudden (in their eyes) change in gender expression:

"Tomorrow" never comes

If not now...when?

You only have one life to live, it is yours and no one else's, live it

[Guest LizMarie]

Thank you, April!

"If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old." - Peter F. Drucker

"Nobody succeeds beyond his or her wildest expectations unless he or she begins with some wild expectations." - Ralph Charell

"At times when it seems like your life is not going the way you anticipated, it may just be that things are actually falling into place and you can't quite see the big picture... yet!" - Sherri Bishop

"Live your life. Take chances. Be crazy. Don't wait. Because right now is the oldest you've ever been and the youngest you'll ever be again." - Anon

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." - Confucius

"When people walk away from you, let them go. Your destiny is never tied to anyone who leaves you, and it doesn't mean they are bad people. It just means that their part in your story is over." ― Tony McCollum

[Guest]

"Expose yourself to your deepest fear;

after that, fear has no power, and the

fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes.

You are free."

Jim Morrison

[Guest LizMarie]

That's a beautiful and powerful thought, Joann. Thank you!

"Choose the path that your heart leads you on." - Anon

"The mind is a powerful force. It can enslave us or empower us. It can plunge us into the depths of misery or take us to the heights of ecstasy. Learn to use the power wisely." - David Cuschieri

"Stop comparing your behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reel." - Anon

"Sometimes the hardest part isn't letting go but rather learning to start over." - Nicole Sobon

"Take a chance, because you never know how absolutely perfect something could turn out to be." - Anon

[Guest]

I wish I would have been able to write that myself, LizMarie.

[Guest LizMarie]

"Your body can stand almost anything. It's your mind that you have to convince." - Anon

"Rule your mind or it will rule you." - Buddha

"The future depends on what we do in the present." - Mahatma Gandhi

"If we wait until we're ready, we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives." Lemony Snicket

"A negative mind will never give you a positive life."- Ziad K. Abdelnour

[Guest LizMarie]

"Don't be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"To begin any great journey, you must take the first step." - Anon

"He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life." - Muhammad Ali

"Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle." - Christian D. Larson

"If you want to fly you have to give up the things that weigh you down." - Anon