Author: Carrie Genzel

Motherly Things

Today is Mother’s Day, and we honor our all of our Mom’s on their special day, but we also honor those women in our lives who do motherly things. Those women who go above and beyond to share themselves with us, who listen when we need an ear, and who step in when they see a motherly act is needed, or would be appreciated. None of these women needs to do this, they are not obligated to step in at times when our own Mothers may not be available, able to give us what we need, or, just see that we need a little extra motherly love. Sometimes too, we find a special bond with these women, that even though they may not be family, they become our chosen family, or they may be family, an Aunt or other relative, who we’ve connected with in a special way. These women don’t have a day dedicated to them, and most of them would tell you they don’t need one, but it’s on a day like today that we can also honor all that they do for us, and perhaps, what we also do for them.

Relationships aren’t a one way street, or they shouldn’t be, there should always be an exchange, and even when we feel we have nothing to give, we may be giving enough just by receiving what they have to offer. Acceptance is a great gift to give, and one we hope to all have. We hope to be accepted for who we are, but we also hope that what we give is accepted in the hopes that what we give may make someone else’s day better or brighter. Those things can be as simple as a smile, a wave, a hello, or remembering someone’s name next time you see them, it’s about letting someone in, even for a moment, and letting them know they are important. Those motherly women in our lives know this, and make us feel special time and again with their warmth and generous spirit. They make us laugh, they let us cry, they check in on us when we get quiet and they know when to give us our space. They can be the unsung heroes of our lives coming in to save the day or just adding something special when we need it most.

I have been lucky enough to have had these women in my life, I am also blessed to still have my Mother, but it’s always nice, no matter what city I am in, to have women in my life who stepped in and shown my motherly love. It took me a while to accept it, and trust it. When I started this journey I didn’t trust women, quite honestly, I didn’t trust myself, so I had to learn to open up and let women into my life, I always had a small group of female friends, but aside from my inner circle, learning to trust was something I had to work at, that meant first trusting the right women, and trusting myself to find them. It wasn’t just about what looked good on the outside, I had to look for the qualities I was working on finding or achieving myself, women I could look up to, women who understood where I had come from and where I wanted to go, women I had things in common with, and women I could share with no matter how bad I thought things were. And, those women were out there, I did find them, and still do today, and as a result, of walking along those incredible women I too have been thanked for my motherly advice or caring, something that never would have happened before, but it’s because of those motherly women who taught me to think outside of myself, to look for the next right thing and to stay present, that I am able to offer that to other women who may need that today.

As we celebrate our Moms, let’s not forget those motherly women who share themselves with us and enrich our lives. Salute them and let them know just how much what they do means to you and how they’ve impacted your life and maybe, as a result, you’ve impacted someone else’s because of the example they’ve given you. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you have women in your live who do motherly things? Who are they? What do they do? What do you they mean to you? How can you show your appreciation for what they do? How has their love changed or helped you? Have you been able to share that love, wisdom and knowledge with others? How? Do you look for opportunities to do motherly things for those who may need it or appreciate it? When we let love in there are many who step up to show us their love, and show us how to love, let’s show them how much we appreciate that love today but showing them love in return for all they do.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Give love because it’s what you feel, not what you want to receive.

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

State Of Slay Pure Love

Giving Love To Get Love

We often hear that love is meant to be unconditional—yet many of us struggle to live that truth. Giving love can feel risky. What if it’s not returned? What if it’s overlooked? But here’s the hard truth: when we give love with the expectation of getting it back, we cancel out the purity of the love we are offering.

Love that comes with strings attached isn’t love at all—it’s manipulation in disguise.

The Motives Behind Our Love

If you’ve ever caught yourself giving love to gain approval, recognition, or affection, you’re not alone. Many of us fall into people-pleasing or approval-seeking patterns without realizing it. But true love is not a transaction.

When you give love only to get it back, you’re no longer operating from the heart. You’re playing a game of give-and-take that diminishes both your sense of worth and the authenticity of the connection. Love is love, period. Anything else is a tactic—not truth.

Learning to Check Your Heart

I’ve been there. I’ve given love with the secret hope of getting something in return: validation, security, even power. It took honesty and accountability for me to see that this wasn’t really love—it was ego.

Early in my recovery, I was told something that stopped me in my tracks: “Don’t give love if you expect anything in return.” At first, that sounded impossible. How could I give without hoping for even a little acknowledgment? But the more I practiced it, the more I understood: love without expectation is the only love that strengthens both the giver and the receiver.

And here’s the surprising part—when love did come back to me, it felt even more powerful. Because I knew it wasn’t coerced or earned—it was freely given, just as mine was.

The Freedom of Pure Love

We all have motives. That doesn’t automatically make our love wrong. But when love becomes a tool for control—when it’s about getting rather than giving—it loses its meaning. It won’t fill the void we’re trying to fix.

The truth is, love doesn’t need to be returned to be valuable. Every time you give love without expectation, you affirm your own worth. You remind yourself that your heart is strong enough to love without conditions. And when love does return, it’s not a reward—it’s a gift.

SLAY Reflection

  • Do you give love without expecting it in return—or do you secretly hope for something back?

  • When you’ve given love with motives, how did it feel different from giving freely?

  • What happens to your sense of self when you love without conditions?

  • Can you recall a time you received love that was given without expectation? How did it impact you?

  • How can you begin practicing unconditional love today, even in small ways?

S – Stop and check your intentions before giving love.
L – Let go of the scorecard. Love isn’t a tally sheet.
A – Accept that love is enough on its own.
Y – Yield to the freedom that comes from giving without strings.

Call to Action: Join the Conversation
I’d love to hear from you.
Have you ever caught yourself giving love to get something back? What shifted when you began to love without expectation?
Share your story in the comments. Let’s cheer each other on.

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Denial of what you feel destroys your self-worth, self-acceptance and self-love. Our feelings teach us where we are in life and show us what we need to work on. Honor you. Honor your feelings.

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

State Of Slay Feel It (1)

Slay Talk Live Video

Hey SLAYER! Missed us tonight for SLAY TALK LIVE? Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.

SLAY on!

Feelings Can’t Kill You, But Avoiding Them Can

We can’t outrun our feelings forever. We try. We bury them, numb them, distract ourselves from them. But in the end, what we avoid will eventually rise. And for some of us, like it was for me, it can become a matter of life and death. This is a story about learning to feel again—and finding freedom on the other side.

The Fear of Feeling

Before I started walking the path of recovery, I did everything I could to not feel. I didn’t care if the feeling was good or bad—I just didn’t want it. I got so good at pretending everything was fine that I started to believe it myself, until all that was left was the heaviness I’d shoved deep down. The more I numbed, the more detached I became—from others, from joy, from myself.

I turned to anything I could: food, shopping, relationships, alcohol, travel. And it worked, temporarily. But the feelings always bubbled back up. The older I got, the harder it became to keep them down. I was a pressure cooker on the brink of exploding. And when I couldn’t keep the lid on anymore, it nearly destroyed me.

What I Didn’t Know Then

I thought the only way to escape the pain was to end the struggle altogether. I believed no one would understand, that I was alone in what I was feeling. But that wasn’t true. I was just hiding so well that no one had the chance to see me. Luckily, someone did. Someone who had been where I was bravely shared their story with me—and gave me just enough hope to reach out.

It didn’t happen overnight. It took time, more suffering, and finally a breaking point. But I reached out. And that changed everything.

The Tsunami of Emotion

When I began my recovery, I was told I’d have to learn to feel again—and that it would be OK. That idea terrified me. I hadn’t felt my feelings since I was a kid, and those childhood wounds were exactly what I’d been running from. But I couldn’t keep running anymore.

And when I stopped, it hit like a tsunami. Decades of anger, shame, fear, resentment, grief, and heartbreak came crashing in. There were days I could barely get out of bed. Days I clung to my mattress or curled in the bathtub, afraid I’d drown in it all. But you know what? I didn’t drown. I survived. And each time I allowed myself to feel, the intensity lessened. With the support of others, therapy, and time—I began to heal.

Feeling Doesn’t Mean Failing

What I’ve learned is that feelings are just information. They’re not good or bad—they just are. They tell us what we care about, what hurts, what needs our attention. Feeling them doesn’t make us weak. Avoiding them is what breaks us down.

It took time, but I began to see that not only was it safe to feel my feelings—it was necessary. And it was also OK to feel good. That was a big one. After so much pain, it took work to believe I deserved to feel joy. But I did. And so do you.

Choose to Feel

Today, I still check in with myself often. Some feelings are harder than others. Some still scare me. But I know I can face them now. And I know I don’t have to face them alone.

Your feelings can’t kill you—but avoiding them can. They are part of your story, and they deserve to be heard. You deserve to feel, to process, to heal. Take your time. Ask for help. Let the emotions teach you something. Let them show you who you are.

Because when you stop running, that’s when the real journey begins.

SLAY on.

SLAY Reflection

  1. Do you avoid certain feelings? What are they?
  2. How do you typically numb or distract yourself when emotions get hard?
  3. What’s one feeling you’re afraid to face—and why?
  4. Who in your life could support you in feeling safely?
  5. What might change if you let yourself fully feel, without judgment?

S-L-A-Y:

  • Stop numbing and start noticing.
  • Let your emotions rise without shame.
  • Ask for support when you need it.
  • You are allowed to feel—and to heal.

Call to Action: Join the Conversation
I’d love to hear from you.
What’s one feeling you’ve been avoiding—and what’s one small way you could start feeling it today?
Share your story in the comments. Let’s cheer each other on.

And if you know someone who’s struggling to feel, send this to them.
Sometimes, all we need is a nudge.

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! The best is yet to come.

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

State Of Slay Not Yet

The Yets

Many of us know we need to make changes in our lives, or may need outside help, but we delay what we need because we set boundaries or lines that we haven’t crossed yet. The yets are those things we have yet to do, those things that would make us see just how bad things have gotten and really prove to us that we need help or need to make some changes. We compare ourselves to others to gauge whether we’re there yet, we make sure that we spend time with others who we see as worse off than we are because we’re not there yet, and we try to diagnose ourselves with other things or make excuses for our behaviors or choices because we aren’t ready to admit the truth, yet. The yets keep us sick. The yets are also something that keep getting pushed further and further back to bigger stakes and more drastic results so that we can keep living the way we are and we never cross that final yet, until we do. Some of us do cross that final yet and never get the chance to recover. I’ve known people who never got that chance, there wasn’t another yet waiting for them, and even though they might not have wanted to die, that final yet was too much to come back from, or, they just ran out of chances.

We seem to think, when we’re living in the yets, that we’ll have infinite tries to get it right, infinite yets to cross, and infinite time to do it in. We don’t. And, what we don’t seem to realize in the yets is that just as we have control over how many yets we give ourselves, and how bad they get, we also have control of when we can say enough and stop the trajectory we’re on and seek help, or make some changes so we never get to that next yet. As I’ve said before, we hold the key to our own suffering, and we also hold the key to our own well-being.

The key for me was seeing that the yet that was waiting for me was death. There were likely some other bad yets I would cross before that last one, but at the rate I was ticking off the yets I would likely bypass those, and that suffering, to jump to the end. The reality of that end scared me enough I surrendered and asked for help. There’s a saying, you don’t have to ride the truck all the way to the dump, and it’s true, you can, but what’s waiting for you there is a pile of garbage, you can get off at any time, and likely should have already. I chose to get off the truck before it’s final destination and get help.

If you find yourself in a place of saying you haven’t done THAT yet, you’ve probably already crossed some lines in your life you’d thought you never would, and, you’re probably not living your life in a truthful and honest way that honors you and your spirit. The only place where the yets should be in your life is when you’re pushing yourself to grow, to push your own boundaries, to go after your dreams, to make positive choices in your life, because the yets can also be used as a positive tool to keep you moving forward so you don’t stay stuck.

See if you can turn your yets around and make them work for you to get you on a path of recovery, positivity and growth. Set yourself up for success by placing a road map of yets in front of you that will get you to the destination you’ve dreamed of, and, if you don’t know all of the yets that will get you there, start with the ones that you know, and trust that the rest will reveal themselves when you’re ready for them. Make your yets work for you, not destroy you. As in most things in life, the choices is yours. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you have a list of yets you said you would never crossed, but have? What are they? What yets have you yet to cross? What do you think will happen if you do? Do you think you can come back or recover from them? What if you don’t, or can’t? What stops you from making positive changes in your life so you don’t reach your next yet? What can you do to change that? How can you make a positive list of yets to replace the old ones? What can you do to get to your first positive yet? We can use what used to destroy us to make us better, it’s just about changing our aim and focus, making better choices, and being accountable to this new way of life. We can choose to live our best life yet, one day at a time, starting right now.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYERS! The only thing more exhausting than having mental illness is pretrending you don’t have it.

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

State Of Slay Strength And Courage

Mental Illness – THAT Label

When I was suffering in my disease I didn’t tell anyone what as going on with me. I carried a lot of fear and shame for how I was living my life and thought that if I did tell someone the thoughts that ran through my head, and the things I was doing daily just to get by, that I would be locked up and labeled crazy. I had watched others in my life suffer with mental illness, and I was determined not to be like them, but determination wasn’t going to change the facts, I was in the throes of mental illness and I was loosing the battle.

I was fortunate that someone came into my life who had been where I was, someone who didn’t judge me or preach to me, he simply shared his story with me and lead by example. It took several months for that story to really resonate with me, but thankfully it did, and I recognized myself in that story and knew that that person was safe to reach out to and share my struggle with. It was that phone call that saved my life and started me on the path I live today, I have never looked back.

Why are we so afraid of the term mental illness? It wasn’t something I particularly liked as I set out on my path of recovery, but it put things in perspective for me. I had an illness. It wasn’t a lack of willpower or not being good enough that had caused me to get to such a bottom in my life that it brought me to my knees, and, nearly cost me my life, I was sick.

Mental illness covers a wide range of conditions that affect our mood, thinking or behavior. Some symptoms include:

  • Feeling sad or down

  • Confused thinking or reduced ability to concentrate

  • Excessive fears or worries, or extreme feelings of guilt

  • Extreme mood changes of highs and lows

  • Withdrawal from friends and activities

  • Significant tiredness, low energy or problems sleeping

  • Detachment from reality (delusions), paranoia or hallucinations

  • Inability to cope with daily problems or stress

  • Trouble understanding and relating to situations and to people

  • Alcohol or drug abuse

  • Major changes in eating habits

  • Sex drive changes

  • Excessive anger, hostility or violence

  • Suicidal thinking

I experienced all of these before reaching out for help. Sometimes symptoms of a mental health disorder appear as physical problems, such as stomach pain, back pain, headache, or other unexplained aches and pains. It’s cunning, baffling and powerful, and depending on what exactly you may be experiencing, it may also tell you you don’t have it. Mine certainly did, and on some days, still can.

But here’s what I’ve learned on this path of over 13 years. It can get better, and does if you seek help, and, are willing to be honest with yourself and others about what you are struggling with, if you are willing to do the work to get better, and can stop beating yourself up for something that is not your fault. We don’t criticize someone for being diagnosed with cancer, so why do we think we will be criticized for a mental health diagnoses? And if someone does criticize, it’s from their own fear or ignorance. There is nothing to be ashamed of. 43.8 million adults in the US deal with symptoms of mental illness everyday, and, with a diagnoses and proper self-care, many, like myself, lead happy and productive lives.

We need to change our perception of what mental illness means, and, what it does not mean. It does not make us weak, it does not make us less than, it does not make us losers, unable to cope, lazy, not equipped for life, it means we have certain obstacles we have to navigate around and we have to make sure we are doing what we need each day to keep ourselves in good health, mentally, physically and spiritually, that is all.

For those who dislike the label, labels do not define us, it is only a way to distinguish what is going on and what needs to be dealt with. For me, even though I didn’t like that label to start, it made what I was experiencing make sense, once I accepted that label I was able to do my homework and seek out the right kind of help I needed to get better, for me, shying away from that label would have only prolonged my suffering, and, in the end, may have kept me from getting well and which would have put my life in danger, the key to my getting well was being rigorously honest with myself and that meant I needed to accept the truth so that I could get better. I was told at the beginning of my journey that when I had the facts I was safe, even if they weren’t what I had wanted to hear, when I new what they were I could make sound decisions for my own well-being. The fact was, and is, I suffer from mental illness, except, I don’t suffer anymore, I thrive with it, overcome it and allow it to now connect me with others who may be struggling with it. Something that I once thought of as a curse is now the reason I started this blog, the reason it’s important to me to give back, to share my story because within that story and within my disease is hope, something I didn’t have when I was in denial about my mental illness.

No one wants to be different, no one wants to think of themselves as not capable, but suffering in silence is not the answer, not when there is an abundance of help out there, much of it free, to help you discover your best you, and to help you realize that a mental illness diagnoses is not anything to be ashamed about. May is mental health awareness month, a good time to look into what mental illness is and what it may mean to you, a great time to get honest and get some education around what might be troubling you or someone you love. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you have an issue with the term mental illness? If yes, why? Have you been diagnosed with a mental illness? Do you think you have symptoms of mental illness? What are they? Where can you go to seek help or guidance? Do you talk about your symptoms with others? If yes, who? If not, why not? Do you stand in your own way of getting help because of your how prejudice of what you think mental illness is or means? What if you looked into it anyway, let go of your fears or ideas of what you think it means and just look into the facts? Mental illness does not make you a bad person, 1 and 5 adults has some form of mental illness, you are not alone and you are not at fault, but you hold the key to finding relief and finding a way of life that allows you to be your best self.

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