Author: Carrie Genzel

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Never let yourself get in the way of seeing things as they truly are.

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

State Of Slay What It is

Looking Through Your Own Tinted Glasses

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we see life through our own lens. How easy it is to adjust the tint to suit the story we want to tell—or the one we’re trying to avoid.

Because the truth is, when we keep those glasses on, we keep ourselves from seeing what’s real.

The Comfortable Distortion

When I was living in the dark, I wore every shade of tinted glasses you can imagine. I’d change the lens to match my mood, my fears, or the lies I was telling myself.

Reality? I didn’t want to face it. It was too painful. Too overwhelming. Too raw.

So I hid. I convinced myself that my version of the story—my distorted, safer version—was enough. I ignored the cracks in my life, the hurt I was causing myself and others, and I justified it all with the filters I chose to wear.

But eventually, the truth caught up with me. And when it did, I realized how small and dark my world had become.

Taking Off the Glasses

It wasn’t easy. Seeing life without those filters meant facing the choices I’d made, the damage I’d done, and the lies I’d told. It meant admitting that I was the one holding myself back.

But in that hard truth, I found something I hadn’t expected: hope.

I discovered that even when the view was painful, it was honest. It was real. And it gave me a path forward.

As I began my journey of recovery, I learned to live in reality. To lean on others who were also learning to live in their truth. To reach out for help when my reality felt overwhelming.

And over time, I realized that reality—messy, uncomfortable, imperfect—is where life really happens.

Seeing Life Clearly

These days, I still feel the temptation to slip those tinted glasses back on when life gets hard. But I remind myself that hiding doesn’t solve anything. It just keeps me stuck.

Reality can be painful. But it’s also where growth lives. It’s where connections deepen, where healing begins, and where we finally get to see ourselves—truly see ourselves.

And the more I practice living in the clear, the more I realize how much beauty there is in truth.

SLAY on.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Reflect & Rise

Do you tend to hide behind tinted glasses to avoid facing your truth?
What fears or stories are you using those lenses to cover up?
What might your life look like if you took them off today?
How can you begin practicing honesty with yourself and those around you?
What’s one small step you can take today to start living in the clear?

Call to Action: Join the Conversation

I’d love to hear from you.
What’s one truth you’re ready to face today?
Share your story in the comments. Let’s cheer each other on.

And if you know someone who’s struggling to see reality, send this to them.
Sometimes, a small nudge is all it takes to lift the veil.

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Repeat after me: I release the need for old habits in my life!

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

state-of-slay Repeat

Repeating Old Behaviors

We know we’re doing it, we know we shouldn’t be doing it, and yet we do it, repeating old behaviors that no longer suit us, and maybe never did, but they were what we knew, or what we were taught, or, what we used to get by when we didn’t know or have the courage to do something better. They can feel, sometimes, like getting into our favorite pair of jeans, or a comfy sweater, but, that moment fades when we catch ourselves doing it, or someone else does. There are times too where we don’t even realize that we’re doing it, those old behaviors have become so ingrained in how we operate that we seamlessly dive in without a thought or the awareness that we’ve pulled ourselves back on our path. All of that is OK, no one is perfect, or gets it right all of the time, but what we need to do to move forward and release ourselves of those old behaviors that hold us back is to recognize and acknowledge them, and not just when we get caught.

Before stepping on this path most of what I did I did without much thought, and, if some thought went into it it was focused on justifying my bad behavior. I reacted quickly or dove in doing what I had always done. I didn’t realize that most of what I was doing was actually harming myself and my chances of living the life I wanted. In fact, by participating in my bad behavior I was preventing myself from ever making things better for myself and my thoughts and actions were actually causing me to slide down deeper into a place that I almost didn’t get out of. When I finally realized what I was doing I had to get honest and I had to call myself out and identify all of that bad behavior.

Change isn’t always easy, especially when what we do and say is ingrained in us from an early age, or we’ve convinced ourselves we have found the best way to navigate through life. For me, I could no longer deny my actions when I found myself emotionally and spiritually bankrupt. There was no lower bottom, except death. So, when I set out on this journey of recovery and I resisted letting go of old behavior, I had to remind myself of how bad it had gotten doing it my own way, and if I was to get any better I had to let go of those old behaviors and replace them with healthier ones. They say, practice makes perfect, I haven’t found that to be true, but practice does make it easier, and it’s OK if I’m not perfect as long as I am doing my best in the moment. You see perfection used to be what I strived for, and never feeling I was able to achieve it I labeled myself a loser, which gave me permission to act out in ways that harmed myself, my relationships and my chances of learning and growing from the place I was. But to get better I had to let go of my perfectionism and embrace the idea that I was going to make mistakes and fall back on old behavior, but that wasn’t an excuse to throw out all the progress I had made and allow myself to engage in that old behavior. Making mistakes was part of the process of growth and if I was able to use it as that, I would do just that, grow from there.

We all have things we like to do even when we know it’s not the best choice for us, but indulging in that old behavior doesn’t move us forward, it doesn’t help us make better and stronger choices and it holds back from being our best selves. Acknowledge when you are repeating old behaviors and set yourself on the right path for success. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you recognize behaviors from your past that you still practice today that may not be the best for you? What are they? When do you notice them come up? What do you tell yourself to let yourself engage in that behavior? Or, do you not realize you are doing it until later, or not at all? What behavior stands in your way to being who you want to be, or know you can be? What can you do to change that? It’s OK to make mistakes and fall back on your old ways, but work to make better choices and soon you may find that many of those old behaviors don’t feel so comfortable anymore.

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

Slay Slay

Good morning SLAYER! Holding on is believing there is only a past, letting go is knowing there is a future.

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

state-of-slay Hurt Holding Back

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Negative thoughts don’t protect you, they make you smaller.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Believing Negative Thoughts

Cherishing Our Character Defects

When I stepped on this path I was encouraged to write down what I thought were my character defects. Defects? That seemed harsh. I mean, clearly, there were some things that weren’t working in my life, after all, I had gotten myself to a place where I could no longer find a way out on my own, but defects, let me digest that for a moment. When I looked up the definition it said that a character defect was a fault, failing, weakness, I didn’t like that one, flaw, shortcoming and inadequacy, it implies moral and psychological failings, yikes! It took me a while to wrap my head around, what I considered, harsh language, and yet, on the flip side, the words I would have used to describe myself at that moment in my life would have been far harsher than those. Outside of just my ego not wanting to admit I had character defects that there preventing me from having the life I would like, it was realizing that many of them, I may have grown fond of, and, may not be willing to let them go.

We all have behaviors, things we do, that we may realize are probably not the best, but we’ve been using them for so long that they feel comfortable to us, or, we practice them out of habit, not even realizing we’re using them. So the first step for me to making a list of things I use or did that ultimately harmed me, or stood in my way of freedom, was to recognize them for what they were. I started out with pen in hand and began writing down what I thought were bad qualities, still thinking of myself as a horrible person, that pen starting flying across the page as I feverishly started to purge what I thought were the worst of my worst defects. And as I wrote, my ego tried to take some of them back as helpful or tools I needed to protect myself, or keep others in line, that’s where I had to get honest. See, I found myself in a place of complete darkness and despair because my ego and negative thinking had been running the show, I had used those defects to get me right where I was, which was total emptiness, so I had to let go of anything that was not going to contribute to my greater good, every one of them had to go. It helped that I was told to write the positive attribute next to each defect I had written down, that way when I caught myself falling back on old behavior I had a quick reference to the opposite behavior to combat the negative. And I wish I could say that just that alone wiped them all out, it didn’t, I still struggle with some today, 14 years later, but, the point is to be willing to let them go, or change, and focus on practicing contrary action, finding a positive attribute to replace the one that is not working for me, and retraining myself to not romanticize the negative into something I need or want.

We all have things we may know hold us back, keep us from moving forward or build a wall between us or others. We may feel these things are our friends and keep us safe and out of harm’s way, but really they themselves are harming us by not allowing us to engage with others and be our best selves. Look at your behaviors and patterns for what they are, not what you want them to be, and be willing to let the ones go that are holding you back from where you are meant to be. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you recognize behaviors or patterns in your life that would be labeled as a character defect? What are they? Do you hold on to them knowing you should let them go? Why? What stops you from letting them go? Do you romanticize them? How does this hurt you? How have they prevented you from receiving what you would like in your life? What can you do to change that? Write down the character defects or flaws you see in yourself, not to beat yourself up, to use a tool to change, and next to each one write the positive attribute to the negative, then you have a path to removing the negative and focusing on the positive. It takes work and a willingness to change, but it’s worth it when you begin to make better choices that reflect the light within you.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYERS! The more you deny your feelings, the more power they have over you.

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

State Of Slay Connection

Are You Disconnected From Yourself?

For much of my life, I felt like I had stepped out of myself and was observing my life from a distance. Not having a way to feel my feelings in a healthy way and a way that promoted my growth, I hide from my feelings and eventually, when the pain got to be too much, disassociated from them and myself. It was a very lonely existence knowing I didn’t have myself on my own side, and feeling like someone else, or something else, was running the show. And even on a night when I made a decision that could have proved to be fatal, I sat back and watched it happen until the fear of what I had done brought me back to myself long enough to surrender and ask for help. It’s frightening to think about now, as I have worked over the past 14 years to be present and in the moment, no matter how uncomfortable or painful that might be, it is important to me to feel my feelings and work through them in a healthy and productive way. To get to this point in my journey, I had to get honest and I had to learn to feel.

I had, at a very young age, stuffed down my feelings. I was afraid to share how I felt, feeling I would be judged for it, made fun of, I would not look smart, or, that I was wrong feeling what I felt. That thinking caused me a tremendous amount of anxiety, which made me feel even more self-conscious and made me disconnect from myself even more. Not giving myself permission to feel my feelings I never learned how to process them when they came up, so I started looking for outside things to change how I felt or to mask or numb what I didn’t want to feel. I constantly lived in my own head, creating other places for myself to go, then I started to control what I ate, then how I did things, having to do them in very specific ways or that anxiety or feeling of dread would pop up again, and on and on it continued, until what I needed to do to stuff down my feelings became bigger and bigger, and, would later threaten my life. Having to sit in the uncomfortableness of my feelings was difficult at first, but I was taught to breathe through it and to acknowledge how I felt, but then let it go, some things were easier to let go than others, but the more I practiced it the easier it got. I began to write down how I felt, which I found to be helpful in showing patterns of when my feelings popped up and what they were attached to. I worked with a counselor to help me make sense of the feelings I didn’t understand, and I began to carve out some quiet time each day to find some peace and to focus on finding a foundation I could build on in this new journey. Feelings aren’t facts, and most times they are tied into something that has nothing to do with our present circumstances, they are old ideas, stories and narratives we’ve told ourselves, or have been told, that we cling to making them our truths even when they are not, or may not be anymore. But feelings can be indicators that something is wrong and can be used as tools if we acknowledge them and process them as such, and they can be wonderful, positive and something we can cherish and enjoy. The bottom line is we have to stay connected to who we are and what we feel and making sure what we feel is accurate, or take note of what they’re telling us as they might be what we need to know to move forward.

Staying connected and present can be challenging at times, we don’t always want to feel our feelings, but avoiding them only puts up a wall between them and us, and the more we avoid them the higher that wall becomes until we may not be able to see ourselves anymore. Stay connected to who you are and know that, even if you don’t want to feel what you feel, feelings pass, and they may be trying to tell you something you should know. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you feel like you are connected to yourself? If not, why not? Why do you think you disconnect from yourself? How do you think it helps you? How does it harm you? What type of feelings you do try to avoid? Why is that? How do you avoid them? Do you go to unhealthy lengths to avoid your feelings? How do you do that? What can you do to stay connected with yourself and how you feel today? What type of things can you do to keep that connection? We are not meant to live a life disconnected from who we are, we are meant to find a connection within ourselves and to what is around us, to live in harmony within our own lives but within a community that we identify with and fills us with joy. Find your own joy within as you love yourself and honor yourself in each present moment.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Sometimes the hardest part of the journey is believing you’re worth the trip.

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

State Of Slay Just A Reminder