Gulp!

Day 1 Dare & Defy AIMS FOR TODAY Name the challenge. Understand the deeper meaning beneath it. Make the choice to "go," or "no go." Sian was only twenty-nine when she was diagnosed with leukemia. The shock was indescribable. Yet Sian believes that it has changed her lifefor the better. "This sounds strange, I know, as I am only twenty-nine, and the condition that I have most commonly affects 'old' men nearing the end of their lives," she says. "But in spite of all this, I feel incredibly lucky that I have been given a jolt which has made me realize just how precious life is." Unfortunately for her, there's a further complication. Her only hope of a cure is to have a bone marrow transplant, and her brother is not a match. That means that she has to wait, and hope, for an unrelated donor to come forward. "It's weird," says Sian. "I don't know how long I will live, or how successful my treatment is going to be, but since my diagnosis I am the happiest I have ever been and value every moment. I feel really sad for people who go through life without realizing what is not important, and most significantly what is important." Sian has chosen to channel her surplus energies into helping the Anthony Nolan Trust, an organization that maintains the register of potential bone marrow donors in the UK. Her missionto spread the word about bone marrow donation and to hopefully help save people in a similar position to hers. In only four months she has run a donor recruitment clinic where over one hundred people signed up as potential donors.1 Her next venture is to organize a London Marathon team to raise funds for the trust, which she will be running in herself. (Gulp!) As a result of her illness, Sian has learned to live and love her life, however much of it there is still to come. "My wish is that other people could open their eyes and see how lucky we all are to be alive, and not to waste time by forever striving for things that really aren't that important in the bigger picture of life." There are many times in our lives when we are faced with a challenge. And we always have a choice: to step up and meet it head-on, pass it over or even let it overwhelm and consume us. But sometimes there are things in life you simply have to deal with in the moment. Because sometimes, there just isn't another day. The aim of today is to get really clear on what your challenge is, who it's calling you to become, why you're feeling afraid and what choices you've got. By the end of today, be ready to make a commitment one way or another, a firm decision about your way forward. That'll be your first Gulp! The Price of Denial Change itself can be really uncomfortable; that's why we can spend a lot of time in denial avoiding the issue, deflecting it, pretending it doesn't exist, blaming it on someone else. By avoiding the issue we don't have to deal with the pain we think we'll have to go through to get to the outcome. Keep denying it, and it'll build up over time, often turning around to bite you on the bottom when you least expect it. Take Bob, for example. Bob always wanted to be an accountant. He'd been studying seriously for his CPA exams and finally passed them all. But once he was there, it was a different story. "I knew the environment of accounting was killing me emotionally," recalls Bob. "But I was so hung up on how hard I'd worked to pass the exams. I didn't want to waste all that time. So I kept ignoring my feelings." In the end his body started to speak for itself, and he developed all kinds of strange stress-related symptoms. Bob knew then that if he didn't leave, his health would really suffer. The price of denial is high. It comes in the form of suffering, stuckness and sickness. A: SUFFERING We've allGoddard, Gabriella is the author of 'Gulp!', published 2007 under ISBN 9780553384987 and ISBN 0553384988.