Author: Carrie Genzel

Nothing Changes If Nothing Changes

Why are we so averse to change? Well, we’re certainly not averse to the circumstances changing in our lives that we don’t like, we just don’t want to have to change to change it. Therein lies the rub. Change starts with us. In order for anything in our lives to change, we have to make changes in order for that to happen. Did that just make you break out in hives?

Change used to make my anxiety level shoot up immediately. I hated change. I can still sometimes be resistant to it, but now it’s more about when a website changes its interface and I can’t find anything, or a favorite restaurant changes its menu and gets rid of my favorite dish, why do they do things like that? I have learned on my journey so far that I need to make the changes I want to see happen, I need to do the footwork, without that nothing changes.

I used to live my life in this constant cycle of same. One day just like the next because I kept doing the same things. I hated where I was, but I only knew one thing and I stayed there, just spinning my wheels to insanity because every day was just like the last. I kept thinking that life would just change it for me, by somehow just wishing for it, without any more effort from me than that. Well, if that’s you I’ve got a newsflash for you, it won’t change, and if it does, it’s probably for the worse, not better. You have the power to make a change and to set your life in a new direction. When I did that for myself, for me, it was reaching out for help, that act set the course of my life into one of recovery, of hope, of better choices, of self-love and healing, that one act of change changed the entire direction of my life, which as lead me right here.

Knowing what the power of change has done for me, I now look at change as a powerful act, something I can do because it’s within my control, I can choose to make different choices, better choices, I can make choices that are loving to myself, that honor myself, and when I do that, my life always changes for the better. Instead of looking at it as work, I now look at it as taking my power back instead of acting like a victim of life, I can make positive changes that will take me in the direction that I want to go, life will always do it’s dance, but if we can change our steps or learn some new dance moves, we can learn to dance along with it, even if we get knocked down from time to time, when we fall, we learn, and we make different choices the next time that same dance comes our way.

If we are not changing, we are not learning, we are not challenging ourselves, and testing what we are capable of, what we believe we deserve, and showing the universe we are willing to do the work to get it. When we demonstrate our willingness to change, the universe listens. And sometimes it starts right there, just by being willing, even before we are ready for the act, just the consideration of it can bring about change.

We all have sat in a state of frustration and thought, when are things going to change, they’re going to change when you do, so why not start today? What’s stopping you SLAYER?

SLAY OF THE DAY: Are you averse to change? Why do you think that is? What about change scares you, or makes you uncomfortable? What do you think your biggest roadblock is to change? How do you think you can overcome that? In the past, have there been instances where you have made a change and the result was different? Site those examples. Do you see that you making the change or changes caused things in your life to change? What stops you today from making changes? What in your life today, that you have control over, can you change to live your life in a healthier happier way? What’s stopping you? I challenge you SLAYER to be open to that change, to consider it, and of course, to take the necessary steps to make that change for you. Find it in you to overcome your fear to change, and make that fear less than the fear of staying the same. SLAY on!

S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Happiness can always be found, even on the darkest days, if you remember to leave a light on.

New blog goes up Tuesday, until then…SLAY on!

State Of Slay Find Happiness

You Are Not Entitled To Be Happy

Yeah, I bet that got your attention. It is up to each and every one of us to find our happy. Within every circumstance. Being happy is a choice. It’s about being open to new things, different things than the things we thought were going to make us happy. It’s about releasing the constraints of what you think you need to be happy, to let happy happen even when it doesn’t look exactly how you think it should, or needs to be.

I’ve heard people around me say, many times, “well, I did all of these good things for myself, cleaned up my life, played by the rules, and I still didn’t get what I wanted,” and I always say, “you’ve gotten what you’re supposed to have gotten, when you’re supposed to have gotten it.” Sometimes The Universe, God, whatever your belief is, saves us from ourselves, because what we think we want, isn’t what is good for us, or best for us, or, we’re just not ready for it. I always try to look at opportunities I thought I missed out on as exactly that. Things I wasn’t meant to have, or may not have been in the right place for, even though I thought I should be there or get those things. It’s about trusting you are where you’re supposed to be, and knowing that, life hasn’t forgotten about you, if you feel stuck, that’s a time to ask yourself how you can move forward, or if there is something you are doing that’s keeping you stuck, how can you contribute to yourself moving in the direction of what you want, of, well, happy. I mean, we should be finding happy exactly where we are, but it’s also OK to want to keep going, to get to the next step or level in our lives to a place, or places, we’ve always wanted to go. Just don’t forget to appreciate where you are right now, and what you’ve overcome to get there. Don’t get so caught up in the future that you can’t appreciate the now. The now is important, and it’s important to find happy in the now.

We, as human beings, only know a little, we can only see what’s in front of us, and where we’ve been, but we only have our own perspective, we can’t see the bigger picture, how our lives fit into the overall tapestry of lives all around us, and even beyond, because we are all connected in many ways, and everything we do, as it does with others, affects those around us and far beyond, beyond we even realize, or could ever know. Each decision we make, each action, has a ripple effect, and it keeps rippling out, maybe for a lifetime. I know myself that, there are many people who have affected my life and their actions still are active in my life today, even though it may have been many many years since that interaction. Trust, that the people who are and are coming into your life are meant to be there for a reason, some for a long time, and some for a short period, but no one comes in without a reason, good, bad, it’s all about learning, loving, and well, finding our way to happy, even in the moment.

My favorite word that is used to define happy is buoyant, which means able to stay afloat or rise to the top. That describes my happy. When I think back to the unhappy time in my life, the years and years of unhappy, I was sinking, I was not afloat, it took me shedding the pain, shame, and anger of my past to learn to float, and today I float at the top, and I am happy.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you get angry that you are not happy? Do you feel like life owes you happiness? Why? Why do you think you can’t find happiness? Have you ever felt happy? When was that? Why were you happy? How do you think you lost it? How do you think you can get it back? Do you trust that you are where you’re supposed to be? If you are not happy in that place, is there something you can do to get yourself out that you are not doing? Why haven’t you done it? Do it SLAYER, find your happy, and if you are getting in the way of your own happiness, let it go, go get your happy, it’s worth the work, because you deserve to be happy. SLAY on!

S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Spirituality doesn’t come from religion, it comes from your soul. Let your soul guide you, and connect with what speaks to you on your journey.

New blog goes up Sunday, until then…SLAY on!

State Of Slay Spiritual Experience

Alone In A Godless Room

That sums up my life before stepping on this path. Even just reading the title of this blog, I feel a pit in my stomach, just remembering how alone I felt, and that no one, or nothing was watching over me. I had put myself there, and little did I know, there was something watching over me, but because I didn’t connect with it, or anything, I felt alone, in the dark. Now God can be many different things to many people, and none of them are wrong, many may refer to the Universe, their Higher Power, Goddess, and many others, nature may be your God, and none of them are wrong, for me, I use different words, but it’s all the same thing for me, I feel like when I really need to dig in, when I’m feeling alone, or lost, or confused, I use God, it sounds official, and much bigger than me, and when I’m just cruising through my daily life I tend to use other names, but ultimately I’m connecting to the same thing, a “God” of my understanding, and, design.

My connection to my Higher Power is really important to me today, it’s like a strong friendship I’ve cultivated over the last 12 years, one where I decided who and what I was talking to, and who was talking to me. I’ve shared this before on STATE OF SLAY™, a few times, but most prevalent in the blog A Power Greater Than Myself, the night I should have died alone on the beach, and the moment, when I thought I was going to die there, and when I reached out and asked for help in the dark, I heard a voice say to me, “it’s going to be OK,” to me, that is my God, and, everything did end up being OK, even though I shouldn’t have made it off that beach. Today, I do believe there is something out there, much bigger than me, watching out for me, and when I reach out to it, listen for it, and look for the signs, my life does seem to go a lot smoother. It may not always go in the direction I’m thinking it should go, but it’s going in the direction it’s supposed to go. And in that journey I always find miraculous things I wouldn’t have found otherwise.

Today I trust that guidance, I look for it, listen for it, and understand when it comes that is then that I need to take action. Guidance is only valuable if you take the necessary action after we receive it, otherwise, it’s just us trying to run the show when we don’t have all the information.

Which brings me back to being alone in a Godless room. My life before this path was me trying to make things happen the way I wanted them to happen. To manipulate, cheat or steal to get the result I wanted. I tried to be my own God, or director, and try to force the people, places and things in my life to do what I wanted them to, which of course, I was not able to do, and, only got me more frustrated, depressed, and angry. Also, thinking I knew better kept me out of the light, it kept me in the problem, and that problem kept getting bigger as I tried harder and harder to control everything around me without sharing with anyone what was going on. That room I was sitting in got darker, and smaller, like the walls were closing in and it was getting harder and harder to breathe. But, what’s interesting is that, on the last night of living in my darkness, when I got really scared, I instinctively reach out and prayed, to what I didn’t know, because I didn’t think I was worth anything actually listening, let alone, helping me, but I still prayed, and I asked for help, and the next day I woke up and heard a voice say, “you’re done,” which to me meant, you’re done living like this, and I miraculously picked up the phone and asked a friend for help. My God, Higher Power, the Universe, whatever I choose to call it, works in my life when I work to have a relationship with it, but looking back, even when I didn’t, it still was there to watch over me.

Turn on the light, and reach out to what speaks to you, what your heart connects with, and what you believe walks with you on your path. If you don’t know, today is a great day to find out.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you have a belief or understanding in something greater than yourself? If so, what is it? How did you come to believe, or discover it? If you don’t, why don’t you? Is there something holding you back? Can you think of times in your life when you feel you were saved from something, or a situation you had gotten yourself in? Write down those times. I guarantee you SLAYER, you have them, we all do, whether a near miss on the road, not getting hurt or injured when you should have been, or perhaps you may have gotten out of a situation you shouldn’t’ have. There is a bigger force at work around us, much bigger than ourselves, maybe it’s time to tap into it, and maybe make it your own, something you feel comfortable with so you are not sitting alone in a Godless room. SLAY on.

S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYERS! Demonstrate love by giving it unconditionally, to yourself. As you do you will attract others into your life who will also love you without conditions.

New blog goes up Friday, until then…SLAY on!

State Of Slay Owe Yourself

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Never walk away from the one who truly matters, you.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay In Love

New Interview For Hollywood And Beyond

SLAYERS I encourage to listen to this wonderful interview by Steven Brittingham for Hollywood And Beyond on the inception of STATE OF SLAY and what I do each day to live in my life in a state of SLAY.

Don’t Abandon Yourself

Before stepping on this path I abandoned myself every day. I did it for years. I stopped caring about myself and let my toxic thoughts run my life. It was like I just left the front door open and was daring someone to come in and take everything that was left because I placed no value on what I had to offer. It was a pretty awful way to live, if you could call it living. I was just the shell of a person going through the motions of life, doing what I could to seem normal on the outside, while I was dying on the inside. Until one night, just one random night, when I found myself at the darkest place you can get to, I got really scared, and I finally asked for help. I didn’t realize until I started to get better that I had abandoned myself years before, I had given up, not thought I was worthy, and just left myself there with nothing to defend myself. Looking back it makes me sad to think I did that, because now I am so fiercely protective of who I am and what I stand for, but I did, and I’m not the only one. Why do we abandon ourselves, the one person we should be there for, show up for, and support through thick and thin, why do we walk away from the one person who should mean the most?

For me it started when I began to believe that I wasn’t worthy of the good. That I was less than. That I was weird and awkward, and if you got to know the real me you wouldn’t like me. That’s where it started, and that thinking took me down a very dark path. Because I didn’t believe in myself, I started to do things that I wasn’t proud of, keeping those things a secret, hiding them, and me, from the people who loved and cared about me, which perpetuated my narrative of me being someone who didn’t deserve good things. That lead me to thinking I was a bad person, which led to worse behavior, self-destructive behavior, which brought me down even darker paths, and so on, until I had gotten myself to a place so dark and so alone that even I didn’t want to be there with myself.

We are the only ones who can fight for us. Sure, people can stand up for us, but if we don’t believe we deserve it, or can attain it, it doesn’t do us much good to have a cheering section when we don’t believe should be cheered for. We have to cheer for ourselves, believe in ourselves and fight for ourselves. No matter what anyone says or does, if we don’t believe what is being said it will fall on deaf ears, it will do us no good, because no one else can do the work for us. Now, I certainly have learned to love myself because others loved me first, they showed I was lovable and worthy of love, but I had to find my own self-love or I wouldn’t still be here, I had to find that flame inside of myself and had to learn to fan it so it could grow bigger. I had to show up for myself. I did that by telling people my truth, by getting help, by finding a group of people who were also fighting the same fight I was, I had to be open to try new things, and I had to try to stand up for my well-being and mental health. It wasn’t easy at first, and I had a lot of help in the beginning, but each time I did I gained more self-esteem, more self-worth and more self-love. Each time I was able to show up for myself my flame got brighter, and as it did I got a lot more protective of it because I had fought to get it to burn bright after living in the darkness so long.

No one is worth fighting for more than you are. It is up to you to stand by who you are and for yourself, to encourage, to love, to be proud of your true self. Don’t walk away from the most important human being there is, you, you are worth fighting for. SLAY on.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Are there times you feel you abandoned yourself? When? Why? Would you choose today to take different actions? What are they? Why do you think you abandoned yourself? Where did that thinking come from? Is that information true today? Was it ever true? How are you different from the person who abandoned themselves? How are you the same? Do you still struggle with this? Why do you think you do? Write down 5 reasons that you should fight for you. Look at those reasons at times when you feel you are backing down, when you are not standing up for who you are and fighting for what you believe. No one has the power that you do to support, love, and give strength to yourself, even if it’s just a small gesture, do something today to show yourself that you have not abandoned yourself. Show yourself some love SLAYER.

S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! The lessons are right in front of us, you just have to be willing to learn.

New blog goes up Tuesday, until then…SLAY on!

State Of Slay Reason