Author: Carrie Genzel

Slay Talk Live

Hey SLAYERS! Join me this coming Wednesday, January 9th, for another SLAY TALK LIVE at 5:30pm PT / 8:30 pm ET.

It’s an hour of live chat on all things State Of Slay. We laugh, we cry, and share our experience, strength and hope and let our light shine for those in need.

While we can’t always control the events around us, we do have power
over how we experience those events. At any moment, we can individually and collectively affect the course of our lives by choosing to
direct our attention to the aspect of ourselves that is aware, and to
awareness itself. The choice of where we put our attention is
ultimately our most powerful freedom.

— The Heart of the Mind

If you haven’t join us before, here’s what you missed last month.

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Fear is often the result of imagined consequences rather than reality.

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

state of slay fear life

If You’re Fighting You’re In Fear

Before walking this path I was always proud of being a fighter. I would fight because I thought I was right. I would fight because I wanted to prove you were wrong. I would fight, just to fight. But what I didn’t realize is that I was fighting because I was in fear.

Looking back almost every decision I made was fear based, I never would have said that, in fact, I would have told you back then that I wasn’t afraid of anything. That was not the truth. My whole life I lived in fear. Fear you wouldn’t like me. Fear I wasn’t good enough. Fear I wasn’t smart enough. Fear of loosing what I have or not getting what I want. If there was something to fear I was fearing it. To mask that fear I would overcompensate and try to act strong, which many times caused me to pick fights to make myself feel better, or at least, smarter than you, and the lower I felt, and the lower my self-esteem was, the more aggressively I would fight, like somehow I could fight my way into feeling better, but I never did, it only made me feel worse over time. Oh sure, I might get a small hit of satisfaction from my “win,” but that would wear off and I was back to feeling bad again.

When I think back to those many years I lived in fear, most of my actions back then were the opposite of how I truly felt, as though I thought I could just force myself into feeling something different, but none of my actions were authentic to who I was or what was really going on.

Today, I don’t feel the need to lash out to those around me. I don’t have a need to be right, because I am comfortable in who I am today, I love who I am today, and, I am no longer motivated by fear. That’s not to say that I don’t have any fear about things in my life, but I don’t act out on it, and I know that if I did I would just have to apologize or make amends for it later, which doesn’t seem worth the fight, not today, and today I don’t need to find outside battles to try to fill an inside problem, I’ve learned to love myself and I’ve learned to fill myself with good things, with an abundance of self-love and all of the things that make my heart and soul shine, which is the antidote to fear. The counter action to fear is self-love, self-love conquers all, once you are able to find that the fear starts to fade away and those battles that used to seem so important, or even mandatory, are replaced with wanting to spread goodwill and to help those around us. So next time you’re get ready to fight, ask yourself, what am I so afraid of? SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: What are you most afraid of? When you’re in fear, do you act out? Do you try to hide your fear? Are you aware that you might be trying to hide your fear? Why do you think you have fear? Are those reasons based in fact? Or, are they based on stories you’ve been told about yourself, or, stories you’ve told yourself? What if you stopped telling those stories? Do love yourself today? If you do, what do you love about yourself? If not, why don’t you love yourself? Are those reasons legitimate today? Are these things you can change or improve on? What can you do today to focus on the good in you? When we focus on our good and share our good with others we start to lose our fears and when we lose our fears we lose our fight and need to be right. Let those moments when you want to fight be an indication that you are in fear and instead of putting on those gloves and stepping in the ring, ask yourself what you are most afraid of, the answer will likely lead you to the place you need the most love, heal that place, love yourself in that place, and don’t fear that place, that place is you, at your most beautiful vulnerable self, let go of that fear and let love in.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! There is no good or bad in the universe, only action and consequence.

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

State Of Slay Consequences Today

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Consequences

Are You Happy With The Consequences You’re Getting?

As we start the new year it’s a great time to do a check on where we’re at in our lives. To look at what we like, what we don’t, and to ask ourselves if we are happy with the consequences we are getting? As I have said many times at State Of Slay, our lives are what we make of them, they are the result of choices we are making and if we don’t like the results we have the power to change a lot of that if we make different choices. Now, there are always things that are out of our control, but even within those circumstances we do have a choices on how we react to those things. So, if we’re not liking the consequences you’re getting in your life, then you have the power to take different action, or, choosing a different reaction.

As I’ve said in previous blogs, before stepping on this path I believed that life was just something that happened to me. I didn’t think I had much say in how things went, and when things went badly, I always blamed someone else for the result. I also was making choices that could only result in bad consequences which allowed me to continue telling the narrative that I was a bad person who didn’t deserve good things. It wasn’t until I committed to working on self-love and living in the light that it was pointed out to me that I had more power than I thought in all of those things, in fact, I, in many situations, caused the negative outcome myself. It was tough to accept that at first, as it was much easier to point fingers and blame others for my misfortune, but once I was able to wrap my head around that, and, find forgiveness in myself for all those consequences, I realized that I had much more power than I ever thought. That, was something positive I could focus on. If I was able to cause so much chaos in my life, could I not use that same energy and power to now bring good into life? I found that I could, and I still do everyday.

We have the power to change much of what we don’t like in our lives, even if it’s just our attitude or perspective of what we don’t like, but many times it is our choices and actions that may be bringing us unfavorable results, and instead of wallowing in our unhappiness or feeling sorry for ourselves, we can choose to make better choices moving forward to produce different results. That’s pretty powerful. Life is not something that just happens to us, we carry much more power than we realize, and when we live our lives in the light, take positive action, give back when we can, and focus on the good, those are the things that come back to us. If we find ourselves in a negative place, we can look for one thing that is good, one positive thing, or one thing we can find gratitude for, that is a start, that is enough to set us in the right direction, and once we find that one thing, we can keep building from there, keep training ourselves to look for the good, the light, and we will find hope, and if you find yourself not able to find the hope in your life, use mine, use me as a light, and use my hope to show you that you too can come out of the darkness and take your power back, I did, and I know you can too. Shine on. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you feel like you don’t have any power in your life? If not, why not? Why do you feel so powerless? Think about a situation you feel powerless against, what can you do, even small, to take positive action within that situation? Even if it’s just changing how you look at it, or realizing you do have some power, that is a positive step in the right direction, a step that could lead to bigger steps and eventually a better way of life. Write down an example when you have taken positive, or different, actions than you have and saw a more favorable result. Use that example to fuel your actions moving forward, and make a commitment to make positive choices and to use your power to create positivity in your life and create the life you see and want for yourself.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Happiness is an inside job. Don’t assign anyone or anything else that much power over your life.

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

State Of Slay Happy First

Happy Hygiene

We always seem to know when we’re not happy, some of us also like to bring attention to our unhappiness, but as you SLAYERS know, I’m all about taking action, so those who may be complaining I ask you, what are we doing for our happiness hygiene? It’s up to us to make sure our life is filled with things that make us happy, and, just like our basic hygiene, our overall health depends on us making sure our happiness hygiene is on point as well.

Before I was walking in the light I was definitely failing in the happiness hygiene department. Everything I was doing was working against my own happiness, but I would admit to myself back then that that was true true. All of my actions were harmful, but I would tell myself I was doing things that were good for me, that they were acts of “self-care,” but I was really just trying to stuff down what was really going on, hiding behind the outside things I was using to try to fill the hole I felt inside. I had spent my life trying to blame others for not being happy, and using whatever I could to get a hit of instant gratification, that I never truly asked myself what made me happy, I don’t think that I really wanted to feel happy, even though I would tell myself that’s what I wanted, because if I wasn’t happy I could keep telling myself the story that I didn’t deserve it  or couldn’t attain it and keep falling down deeper into the pit of darkness I was living in. It wasn’t until I made a commitment to do what was right for my overall mental health, physical and spiritual health that things started to change. And I needed to bump up my happiness hygiene big time.

It wasn’t always clear to me what best for my happiness when I started. I took suggestions from others who had walked the path before me, I listened to my counselor and I set out to discover it on my own, to try new things and see what felt right. The more I did this the more I found healthier choices to replace my bad old habits, and as I continued to do this, the happier I felt. There were still moments when my old thinking would try to sabotage this new way of life, but the more I practiced my happiness hygiene the more I was able to quiet those voices and I began to start to crave the happiness, not the old habits that used to fuel me.

It is up to us, everyday, to do what’s best for us. We have that choice, and power, each day. We can choose to feed our sickness, or negative narrative we’ve been used to telling, or we can make better choices for ourselves and do the things that make us happy, truly happy, and keep us healthy. The more we do this the more of these happy tools we have in our toolbox, so when we need a hit of happiness, we have many to choose from and they’re easy to reach for and bring into action. We are not meant to suffer, we are meant to be happy, and one of my favorite happy tools to use today, now that I’ve found my own happiness, is to pass that gift on to someone else who may have lost theirs, or, doesn’t know where to find it just yet, because there is nothing that makes me happier, than sharing my happiness with someone else. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: How is your happy hygiene? What grade would you give yourself? Do you have healthy tools to use that give you happiness everyday? Do you use them? If not, why not? Do you still have tendencies to do things that harm you? If yes, why do you do that? How does that harm you? What can you do to stop that behavior? Why haven’t you done it? If you have stopped that behavior, what are 5 tools you use to find happiness in any given day? Are these tools something you can share with someone else? Have you shared them? How does sharing them effect your happiness? Has someone shared theirs with you? How has that made you feel? We are all meant to be happy, sometimes it takes time to figure out that we deserve it, and sometimes it takes time to figure out how to get it, and, sometimes it takes time to find out what it is today that makes us happy, because as we change and grow so do the many things that make us happy so we have to adapt them as we go. Let go of the thinking of your past, and focus on what makes you happy today.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! In the process of letting go you will lose many things, but you will find yourself.

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

State Of Slay Change The World

Wear The World Like A Loose Garment

Before stepping on this path I was constantly trying to control the world around me. I would manipulate things to try to force a favorable outcome for myself. I would lie. Cheat. Steal. I would do anything I could to try to get the result I was looking for. As those of you know who have tried this approach, it is impossible to control people, places and things, the only thing we can control is how we react to the world around us, and how we conduct ourselves while we’re out there.

For me, when I made a decision to live a healthier life and made a commitment to make better choices for myself, I had to find a balance of not trying to control everything, but also not just cutting myself off from the world, to observe what was going on, changing those things I didn’t like that were in my control and learning to accept the rest. The observing things and letting them go proved to be the most challenging. It was hard to just see things and not try to control what I didn’t like, right down to noise outside my window from a garbage truck. I mean, doesn’t the truck driver know I’m trying to concentrate over here!? I was told to wear the world like a loose garment. I thought, how am I going to do that? Not react or try to change things? But I learned, I had to, my mental health depended on it. I could no longer enjoy the luxury of getting so tied up in things being my way, and that being the only way, it wasn’t healthy for me, or those around me. I had to start letting things go, so I took the loose garment approach and set off on my goal to start observing and stop obsessing.

It wasn’t easy at first. Just noticing things, things that bothered me, or weren’t “right” or things that could be done better, but I had to ask myself if it was my business in the first place, and most of the time, it was not, I had to ask myself if anyone had asked for my suggestions, and, most of the time, they had not, and I had to ask myself if I wanted to be right or I wanted to be happy, well, I wanted both, but many times, that wasn’t an option, so I had to choose happy. I practiced just acknowledging things as they came up, without reacting to them, that wasn’t always easy, but like anything else, the more I did it the easier it got. When I found it difficult to let something go I had to ask myself if it was my business to be worrying about it in the first place, most of the time, it was not. The better I got at this the less stress and anxiety I felt in my life, and, because I wasn’t trying to control the outcome I was able to see things from a different perspective, and, I found it easier to find solutions to things because I wasn’t trying to meddle in the results.

The more we’re able to wear the world like a loose garment, let things slide off of us, and not try to manipulate the results to suit our own needs, to happier we’ll be. Now, my illness used to tell me different, but today I know the truth, and I know what is best for me to live the kind of life I want to live, and that is one where I know the difference between what I am able to change, should change, and what is none of my business all together, and that frees me up to do a lot of more productive things, like reaching out to all of you here at STATE OF SLAY. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you try to manipulate things in your favor? What is the result of that? How does it help you? How does it hurt you? What happens when things don’t go your way? How does that impact your day? Are you able to let things go if you don’t get your way? If not, why not? If not, how can you learn to let things go and trust the outcome? Do you get involved in situations that are not really your business? Do you get told things are not your business? Do you still involve yourself? Typically, what is the result? How does that harm you? What if you just observed things SLAYER, and not get involved in every battle, every thing that catches your eye as something you don’t like, or need to fix? What if you choose to let those things go that shouldn’t involve you? What would you do with all the free time? Perhaps continue to work on your own self-love and self-care? Just a gentle suggestion

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