Good morning SLAYER! You’ve done better than you realize. You’ve helped more than you know. You’re closer than you think. Find your purpose and get out there and be your best you!
New blog goes up Sunday, until then…SLAY on!
Author: Carrie Genzel
Hey! I’m Talking To You
I think it’s time for a pep talk and let go of all the preconceived about who you are and who you should be. YOU SHOULD BE YOU!
It’s easy to get lost in the social media black hole, or the messages put out by advertisers, about who we’re supposed to be, what we’re supposed to look like, and what we’re supposed to watch and listen to. Those things are very persuasive, and so can the people in our lives. If we’re not putting pressure on ourselves, others can put pressure on us to be what is expected of us. Many of us feel like failures when we don’t measure up to these ideas and parameters. But, if that’s not who you are, and not what you want to do, don’t do it. We are not here to please others, we are here to learn who we are and what our own unique purpose is, and we’re not going to find that living a life for someone else, or, by trying to fit into an unattainable mold we see presented to us as the norm. Who the heck wants to be the norm anyways? Be you.
When I speak to young adults it’s hard to listen to them tell me that they don’t feel good enough, or to hear them beat themselves up because they are not like the other kids. I say good! Don’t be like the other kids. But, it’s easy for me to say that now after 12 ½ years of work on myself, and learning to love myself for who I am and what I stand for. When I was a young adult I hated myself, even as an adult I hated myself, and the last thing I wanted to do was to stand out because I worried that you might ask me a lot of questions, questions I didn’t want to answer because I thought if you knew the answers, you wouldn’t like me. So, I understand. But, what I continue to share with anyone who will listen is, what sets you apart makes you special. Unique. Whole. Beautiful. Bold. Strong. And one badass. Love who you are. Embrace who you are. Celebrate who you are. And, if there is something that you don’t like, something that you think is getting in the way of being your best self, then take action to change it. But only do it for you.
It’s about finding acceptance, even in the dark places, of our true selves. In fact, especially loving the dark places because that is where we are most vulnerable. Those are also the place from where we should share ourselves, it’s those places that connect us to others like ourselves and give us strength as we use those places for good, and we take those places back and make them our own. Never be ashamed of who you are and where you’ve come from. It is what has made you into who you are today. And who you are today is awesome. And if you’re not feeling your awesomeness go out and take some action to find it. But I want you to know, that I already see it. It’s in you, let it shine.
Never let anything get in the way of being your best self. Know that what you have to offer is special, and no one else’s. You may come in a different kind of package, but the gifts inside are pure magic. Share those gifts with those out there who may appreciate them, who may need them, or just to show yourself how magical you are. Only you can say what’s right for you, so own who you are and go out and show us all. SLAY on!
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you find you get stuck thinking you should be or look a certain way? Why? Where are you getting these messages? Do you think they’re healthy? Do you think you’re setting yourself up to fail by setting unreal expectations for yourself? Why do you think you do this? What is a more loving way to encourage yourself to change? What don’t you want to change? List 5 things you like about yourself. Of those 5 things, what can you use to share with others who can use those things? Share them SLAYER, share you, and never doubt that what makes you makes you special. Love who you are, all of you, and live out loud, expressing your true self for all to see. Shine bright SLAYER.
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
Slay Say
Good morning SLAYER! Don’t like the way you feel, how do you want to feel? Think about that feeling until you feel it, then, take action to make that feeling your reality.
New blog goes up Friday, until then…SLAY on!
How Do You Want To Feel?
I was speaking with a friend the other day about not feeling good about a situation and he turned to me and asked, “how do you want to feel.? That got me thinking. How did I want to feel? And as I started to think about it, I started to feel it. For a few moments I felt the way I wanted to feel, and that got me thinking. What action do I have to take so that I feel this way?
We often can get stuck in our feelings, and feelings can be tricky. They can be tied up in some many things and not necessarily with how we feel about our current situation, but can be tied to experiences and trauma from our past. I know for myself that there have been times on this journey where I gotten triggered by something, unbeknownst to me at the time, and I have reacted to how I’m feeling thinking it is a genuine feeling about where I am currently at, but it’s not. Something or someone has hit that trigger and it’s pulled up something that has nothing to do with the person standing in front of me. It used to baffle me. My hair-trigger reaction to things seemed to flare up immediately, and if I didn’t pause to think about why I might be feeling the way I was I would just react and react to whomever was standing in front of me, only to feel badly later on, or, if I was really not present, blame them for something that they were never involved in at all.
With the help of counseling and therapy I now have a better sense of what those triggers mean and what the root of them are, so that when one flares up, I can, when I take a moment, realize what the true source of that feeling is. Feelings tend to have a lot of baggage, and far-reaching tentacles in our lives. But feelings also aren’t’ facts. Feelings can tell us a lot about ourselves and what’s going on for us, but we can also manipulate them, or have a skewed perception, of what the true facts actually are. I used to romanticize a lot of things, or, make them far worse than they really were. It was all about really high highs and really low lows for me, when really, a lot of those things, probably fell more in the middle. But the memory of them, and my feelings of them, where at either a 1 or a 10. and, I would get stuck there. To the point where it seemed like I either didn’t care or I was in a complete rage, with no warning. Sometimes that can still happen, and when it does I know I have more work to do there, it’s a sign that I still need to work on what that trigger is and how to make peace with it.
But back to feeling the way you want to feel. Just by thinking about that, you do feel that feeling. It’s like an instant shot, and it may only stay for a moments, until our brain kicks in and brings you back to reality, but, if it can do it for a few moments we know we can go there, it’s attainable, we can get it, so the next question is, how?
You know I’m always about taking action, it’s what keeps us on a positive path, and makes us warriors. So, what can you do today to feel the way you want to feel? When you ask yourself that, the answers come, and if they don’t, just start by taking some positive action, any positive action, and keep asking yourself that same question. Sometimes, we can’t do it alone, I know I couldn’t at the beginning, and sometimes I still need the help of someone else, so don’t put pressure on yourself to have it all figured out right away, it takes practice, and there’s no prize for doing it alone.
Choose to feel the way you want to feel, and if you don’t, take action to go after that feeling. Even the thought of that makes me feel good. Take action to feel good SLAYER.
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you tend to get stuck in the way you are feeling and feel like there’s no way out? How would you rather feel than how you’re feeling right now? What can you do to attain that, or, get closer to it? What have you tried in the past? What has worked? What hasn’t worked? What have you still not tried? What would you like to try? Try it SLAYER. Think right now, about how you want to feel, and before your brain kicks in to say you can’t, say yes I can, and go after that feeling. SLAY on!
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
Slay Say
Good morning SLAYER! When you are able to be comfortable in uncertainty, infinite possibilities come into your life.
New blog goes up Tuesday, until then…SLAY on!
Possibility vs. Comfortability
We all love the possibilities of possibilities. Possibilities are new. Fresh. A place we may have never gone before, or a place, we’ve always wanted to go. And as exciting as possibilities are, they can also be scary, because, of all the same reasons. Those reasons can sometimes paralyze us and keep us in a place of being comfortable instead of taking the chance on something new, even if the place we’ve been comfortable is no longer so. We may also believe that what we deserve is what we have, even if it’s not a good place, because it’s what we know, and where we’ve always been. It takes courage to take action on possibilities because possibilities aren’t a sure thing, and they are a new thing we’ve possibly never conquered.
Speaking from my experience of always have a head full of dreams and, yes, courage to reach for them, but, fear I wasn’t good enough to actually accomplish them, or be worthy of them, I know this tug-of-war all too well. I love the idea of new possibilities, but I wasn’t always confident enough in who I was, or believed I could get them. The place I was, I told myself, was comfortable there, but it was a horrible place, it was a horrible place I knew, so it became comfortable, even though I didn’t want to be there, and, the longer I stayed the harder it was to get out. We often stay in situations because we know it, rather than go after something that is better for us, healthier for us, and where we’re supposed to be. Typically those things, those possible things, aren’t the safe choice, or the easy choice, but they are the choices that make our soul smile, they are the choices that will allow us to be our best selves, our authentic selves. And sometimes, that’s what scares us. Especially when we don’t truly know who we are, and what we deserve. That’s the journey that comes before taking action on all those possibilities, self-awareness, and yes, our favorite, self-love.
For me, once I learned who I was, and learned to love that person, I wasn’t OK with staying comfortable. I wanted to test out the new me on all the possibilities I saw in front of me, or had been dreaming of. Being comfortable didn’t feel comfortable anymore, because I knew if I felt comfortable where I was, I wasn’t learning, growing, or challenging myself enough. It was when I felt uncomfortable that I knew I was in the right place. That might sound a little strange to those of you who are sitting pretty where you are, but trust me, we don’t want to be sitting anywhere, we want to be in motion!
When we constantly challenge ourselves, who we are, and what we’re capable of, the possibilities are endless. Anything can happen. And often does. Just by saying yes and jumping into life, so many possibilities have come my way that would have never crossed my path had I stayed safe and where I was comfortable. It’s about getting out there, walking that high-wire, and knowing you’re safe, that there is a net under you. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? You fall? We’ve all done that before, and we’re all still here to tell the story. It’s in the falling where we learn most, so if you’re falling, you’re doing something right.
Let go of the comfortable and reach for the possibilities, it’s within that journey that we really start to shine, and it’s within that journey that what was once comfortable becomes uncomfortable because we know we deserve more than we have, or something different, because we are now different. Challenge yourself SLAYER, the possibilities are endless.
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you tend to stay where you’re comfortable? Why do you do that? How does that help you? How does that hurt you? What possibilities have you not explored because of fear, or not believing you’re worth it? What action can you take this week to go after one of those possibilities? Do it SLAYER. Take some action that makes you feel uncomfortable, but will take you one step closer to the possibilities that you dream about, you just never know, that far out of reach goal, may just be within your grasp.
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
Rebounding From Regret
It’s rare today that I regret things. When things don’t go my way, or something negative happens based on choices, or I decision I made, I now, typically look at that as learning. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting anymore, it still does, but I look back to see where I could have done something differently, or made a better choice. That type of thinking keeps me out of regret and back into action because it’s in action where positive changes, or better choices, are made.
I wasn’t always thinking that way, in fact, for most of my life I was full of regret, and full of anger about past events. I was angry at others, blaming them for the outcomes, or I was blaming myself and beating myself up further, telling myself I was a piece of crap because I messed up again. That vicious cycle kept me in the darkness, and propelled me even further down.
Regret, really, is useless. We can’t change the past, we can’t go back and change what we did, so why do we spend so much time regretting the choices we made when we can’t do anything about them? What we can do is make better choices moving forward. To learn from our past and use that to help us in our present day. There may be things that we can fix, or make better from our past, and with the knowledge of what we had done, we can use that to possibly amend or make repairs on the things that didn’t go well, or we misunderstood, that, is truly the only way we can change the past, by taking positive action today. Again, it goes back to perspective. We can take a seemingly negative situation and make it positive by learning from it, or fixing what we can with the knowledge we now have. When we think of things that way, we don’t really have anything to regret. Now, there are things that we can’t go back and change, or make better, the opportunity may have past and there is no going back, I’ve had many of those, but again, it’s about learning from those experiences, and, forgiving yourself for not having the knowledge, or courage, or experience in that moment to do the right, or best thing. We can’t look back at who we were and expect ourselves to have been who we are today. We have to acknowledge that we are on a path of self-discovery, and that we typically learn the most when things go wrong, or possibly hurt, because we pay more attention to those things, so the reason it may have happened in the first place is a positive reason, to get us to change. There are no coincidences or accidents, I’ve said this before, even accidents aren’t really accidents, they may not have been what we had intended or wanted but there is a reason for everything, and sometimes it’s not your reason, but the other people, or person involved, but, usually there is something we can all take away from each experience, good, or bad, it’s just how we choose to look at those experiences that sets us a part.
I had an experience yesterday that I was really disappointed in. It was something that I may have been able to control somewhat, but it had a lot to do with me not feeling well and I wasn’t as sharp as I usually am. I was upset. And I found myself, for a brief moment, starting to get down on myself, and then I stopped and got into possible solutions. As a result, I was able to come up with one. Now, that is growth and learning. Instead of getting angry at myself and regretting all of my actions leading up to that moment, blaming them for the place I was now finding myself in, I started to look for other options. As a result I stayed out of self-hatred and self-pity and stayed in the self-love.
Regrets don’t move us forward, only back, they keep us shielded from the present and what we can do to make things right, or better for ourselves, they keep us from learning, from growing, they pull us back into the shadows when we need to stay in the light. Let go of past regrets, learn from them, use them to build a better you, and one day you may find that have nothing to regret, what do you think about that?
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you tend to regret things from your past and hang on to them? Why do you think you do that? How does it benefit you? How does it hurt you? What can you learn from those things you regret? What can you do differently for next time? Are there ways you can now improve or better those situations you regret today? If so, what are they? Stay in action SLAYER, always focus on what you can do to make a situation or experience better, and if there is nothing, looking at you part and what lesson you can take away from those times to give you some positive actions to take the next time. SLAY on!
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
Slay Say
Good morning SLAYER! Take steps toward your goal, thinking of each step, not the reward you’re expecting as a result, the result is the affect of each step, and that in itself is the reward.
New blog goes up Friday, until then…SLAY on!
Slay Say
Good morning SLAYERS! No one was every honored for what they received. Honor was the reward for what they gave.
SLAY on!
Results vs. Rewards
Before I started this journey, I was very rewards-oriented. If I did something nice for someone, I expected something in return—or at the very least, an acknowledgment of my good deed. And if I didn’t get that, I’d hold onto one heck of a resentment. I wouldn’t say anything about it until I could throw a zinger at them later—a quick-witted one-liner meant to sting.
I was good at those, too. I even prided myself on them.
I thought if I did the right thing, the universe owed me something good in return. But it rarely worked that way. Because when you go into a situation with an expectation, you’re not going in with a pure heart—or the right frame of mind.
Doing It for the Right Reasons
I’ve talked about this before: we should never enter into anything unless we want to do it—and don’t expect anything in return.
Oh, that’s right. That’s the only reason to do anything. Because you want to. Period.
It’s the only way to keep your intentions pure. It’s the only way not to be let down when your expectations aren’t met.
When I’m having a challenging day—or I’m just plain grumpy—it happens. I’ll do something nice for someone without them knowing. It could be paying for someone’s coffee or putting money in a meter that’s about to expire. It might be something bigger. But the point is, I do it without expecting a reward.
But here’s the twist: we do get something in return. A result. And a result is far more important than a reward.
Esteemable Acts Build Self-Esteem
Sure, it’s nice to get a reward. I think we can all agree. But if that’s your sole purpose for doing something, you’re going to be disappointed—often.
It’s the result of doing something that truly matters. When we do esteemable acts, we build self-esteem. We begin to like who we are, respect who we are, and learn to trust who we are.
I had to learn this when I made the choice to get better. I had to make a conscious decision to practice it each day.
It felt strange at first—to do something nice without the other person knowing. I was told that if they found out, it didn’t count and I’d have to find something else. So, I turned it into a little game. Like a positive secret.
I used the same cleverness I once used to manipulate people to figure out how to do something kind without them finding out it was me. It actually became fun. And the more I looked for those moments, the more I found them.
The result? My mind stayed positive because I was looking for positive things to do. And that kept me living in the light. No reward could do that for me. A reward might shine a light on me temporarily, but it wouldn’t keep the light on in my life day after day.
Choosing the Path of Growth
We live in a world that’s very reward-oriented. It’s easy to fall into the expectation of getting something for doing something.
But we SLAYERS are better than that.
We’re about growth, learning, and striving to do better. What we want are results.
Results that help us build a strong foundation. Results that keep us on the right path, doing the right things, and remembering why we’re doing them.
Esteemable acts build self-esteem. They help us shed the feeling of being “less-than” or deficient. They quiet those negative voices because we’re not just doing what’s best for us—we’re also considering those around us.
SLAY on.
SLAY OF THE DAY: Reflect & Rise
Do you do things and expect a reward? What happens if you don’t get one, or aren’t acknowledged for your good deed?
Do you feel negatively toward that person? What if you didn’t expect a reward? What if you just did good things to do them—without expecting anything in return?
I challenge you, SLAYER, to do three good things for three different people this week without them knowing. If they find out, it doesn’t count, and you’ll need to find something else.
Write down how you feel after doing them. Then write down how you feel compared to before you did them.
Keep going, SLAYER. When we look for the good, we find the good.
Call to Action: Join the Conversation
I’d love to hear from you.
What’s one small act of kindness you’re committing to this week—just because?
Share your thoughts and stories in the comments. Let’s inspire each other to keep growing.
And if you know someone who could use this message, share it with them.
Sometimes, the best rewards come from giving freely.
