Spirituality

The Power Of Words

I was having a conversation the other day about the power of words. The words we say aloud, and most importantly, the words we say internally to ourselves. Our words have more power than we think. Our words power what we think. Our words can change how we feel and can change how others feel. They can uplift us and can tear us down. But we get to choose what words have power over us, and what words have what meaning to us and our lives. And, we get to choose how we use our words.

When I was struggling to find the light in my life my inner dialogue was powerful, I gave it the power to keep me there, to only see the darkness, and I let my words speak a narrative that wasn’t authentic to who I was, but would tell the narrative I wanted to tell. The more I said them, them the more I believed them. My words kept me sick, and were making me sicker. I sought out people or situations where I would find the same words, so I was never hearing anything different. I didn’t realize that my words had the power they did, or that I even had power over them, it just seemed like a running dialogue of negativity that I couldn’t escape from.

It wasn’t until I made the choice to find a solution that I started to realize the power of my words, and, how I could get power over them. If I was going to get better and start loving myself, I had to start using my words for good, my good, and stop letting them tear me down. At first I struggled to find the words that were going to start a positive change in my life, but I was encouraged to look for what I was grateful for, what I saw in my life that was positive, and start saying those things out loud. To start, it wasn’t easy, but even if I could think of one thing, I would write it down, put it in my pocket, and when the negative words started to flow, I would take that piece of paper out and say those positive words out loud. The key for me was to say them out loud, to hear myself say them, and as I practiced this I began to find more positive words to say and more things I was grateful for. Those words started the change, and I started to realize that my words could make change, in myself, and those around me. I realized that I had the power to do that, and set out to lay down the foundation of positivity in what I was saying. I also began to realize that my words could move me forward in a direction I wanted to go, that they could propel me to a place that I had only dreamed of, and because I was saying it, and because I was doing the work, that place was now within my reach.

Today I work to choose my words carefully. I use them to shoot forward, like an arrow, of where I want to go, I use them to stamp out my fear, to congratulate myself when I overcome something in my life that I have been challenged by in the past, I use them to encourage myself, and those around me, and I have learned to listen and seek out others who speak the words I speak or want to speak. When we learn to use our words to guide ourselves in the direction we want to, we take power over our words and where we’re going, our words are more powerful than we think. Use your words carefully because you are listening. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you understand the power of your words? What do you use your words for mostly? To lift you up, or tear yourself down? If you use them to tear yourself down, why do you make that choice? How does it hold you back? What words do you use around others? Do you speak more kindly towards others than yourself? Why is that? What if you chose to speak kinder words to yourself? What do you think the result would be? Feel the power of your words, the power they have within yourself and out in the world, and you decide what energy you want to put behind them, that choice is yours.

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

A Power Greater Than Myself

I should be dead. Well, I probably should be dead a few times over, but in one particular case it was confirmed by medical professionals. Looking back there were many times in my life when something or someone seemed to be looking out for me, probably more than I really know, and until I started on this path I never really believed that I deserved to have anything look out for me, I wasn’t worthy in my eyes, but it’s interesting that, even believing that, when I knew I was in real trouble, and had stopped caring about myself, and what that meant, I reached out and asked for help, to what or whom I did not know, I just screamed out through a stream of tears in my living room, “I can’t do this anymore, I need help, help me!” When I woke up the next morning I literally heard a voice say, “you’re done,” and something just clicked in my head and I thought, “OK,” what that meant to me was I was done living my life the way I had been, lying to everyone and stuffing everything down inside was a big part of it, so I picked up the phone and asked a friend I trusted for help. That started my journey to self-love and healing.

I wouldn’t say I’m a religious person, but I would say I’m spiritual. Over the last 11 years plus years I have formed a relationship of my own understanding that connects me with my spiritually. Sounds pretty elusive I know, when people reach out to me to ask me how I know something out there has my back, I say to them, I have many reasons, there are many times I was saved from something, or myself, but this one in particular is pretty hard to ignore. This is a true story of what happened to me a few years ago, what happened changed me forever, and because of what happened, I am writing State Of Slay.

It was President’s Day, a long weekend. I was in Los Angeles and feeling lost, feeling out of sorts, disconnected. I had been to a wedding at the beach a few days before and had thought to myself, I live in LA and I never to go the beach, when I was a teenager I went often, it settled my nerves, and quieted my mind, I never do that here, I wonder why. So, on this holiday Monday when my nerves needed settling, I decided to set out for the beach, in Malibu. I drove down the winding roads and found a spot to park along the Pacific Coast Highway. I left my cell phone in the car thinking, I don’t need it, I just want to be one with the ocean. I took my car keys and a bottle of water and headed down to the beach, found a quiet spot away from the crowds and took in the waves and sand. I finally found some peace. So much so I hadn’t noticed how long I had been sitting there and that everyone else had gone home.

I got up to start walking back to the car and the beach, the one I had walked on a few hours before, was gone. The tide had come in. I looked up the beach the other way and it was a long way before there was another set of stairs going back to the highway and the sun was rapidly going down. I thought, well, how deep could the water be, I had walked on the sand hours only a few hours before, I’ll just walk through it. All I remember next is thinking two things as I stepped into the water, a) wow, the water is really cold, and b) the current is really strong. The next few things I remember are only quick flashes of memory, some were very clearly hallucinations, but I remember being cold, wet, in pain, and scared.

My next very clear memory is sitting on the beach in the dark, soaking wet, shaking uncontrollably, and not being able to stand up, my limbs had stopped working, my body was shutting down from hypothermia. I sat there looking far down the beach to see the lights of the Santa Monica Pier and the Ferris wheel going around thinking, there are people on that pier having a great night, laughing, having fun, and I’m sitting here dying, alone, in the dark. There was nothing I could do to help myself, I did have flashes of being in the ocean, and of crawling out, my shins each having huge welts from knee to ankle from my skin sliding along the wet sand. I sat there angry, angry at “God,” the universe, whom or whatever! How dare you have me go through everything I have, fight to overcome it just to kill me on a beach alone, F**k you, I thought. I sat in my anger for a while, but I was beat. I looked up at the stars and said, “I surrender, you got me, there’s nothing I can do, I can’t even stand up, I surrender.” At that moment I heard that same voice and it said, “it’s going to be OK,” I didn’t know what that meant exactly, but I felt this wave of calm and peace come over me, and I sat there looking at up the stars thinking I was going to die there alone.

I woke up to bright white lights and suddenly a woman’s face that said “she’s awake!” I thought I was dead. I truly did. There was a lot of activity around me suddenly and a barrage of questions. Who was I? What happened to me? Did I know where I was? I didn’t know any of the answers, including who I was. It was terrifying. I looked down to see I was wearing a wrist band that said “Jane Doe,” I knew that was wrong but I didn’t know what my name was. I was told I was in emergency in Santa Monica, that a man had found me unconscious on the beach in the morning, I had been out in the elements all night, and that he called 911, insisted on travelling in the ambulance with me, had stayed in emergency, but had since left. I was asked who he was, and in that moment I saw a picture, not a memory of him, but a picture of a man and I heard that voice again, it said “angel.” I didn’t know who I was but I knew enough not to blurt that out loud. I said, I didn’t know.

Later when my doctor arrived she had said, well, this is exactly what she said, “well Carrie, if you were a cat you just blew eight lives, I don’t know how you’re alive and here right now.” I had a major concussion, head trauma and severe hypothermia, I was dehydrated, and, had amnesia, I had only remembered my name by the afternoon, I still couldn’t tell them where I was or what year it was, I just didn’t know, and I certainly didn’t know the details of what had happened, I still don’t.

It was determined, by the neurologist, that I must have fallen when I stepped into the water and hit my head on a rock, that I got pulled into the ocean in a state of unconsciousness or semi-unconsciousness, fought my way back to the beach, or just got spit out by the ocean, and had battled the elements all night and into the morning before I was found.

I was told I should have drowned or succumbed to hypothermia, or both, but for some reason I didn’t.

I struggled with that. Why did I survive? It took me a long time to find an answer to that, it took a lot of counselling, journaling, and a lot of meditation.

But the point of this story today is that, when someone asks me why I believe in a power greater than myself I say, I should be dead, but somehow, after being thrown around in the ocean all night, spit out onto the sand, and someone I don’t know, and will ever know, found me and made sure I was safe, how can I not believe that something or someone is looking out for me? When I had no power to take care of myself, something or someone else did.

Back to my answer of why I survived. I believe it is to be of service, to share a message of strength and hope to those who may need it, to tell my story and share with others, and what came out of that realization is this blog, which is just a start, but a step to say thank you for my life, a life that something or someone thought was worth saving. Each word I type in each blog is my gratitude, my way of saying thank you, to that force that watches over me.

I too think your life is worth saving, in fact I know it is, and I am happy to have you come and sit with me on this beach anytime, if you haven’t found that force, or voice yet you will, if you try, and until then I want you to know, it’s going to be OK.

SLAY OF THE DAY: How’s your spirituality SLAYER? Do you feel connected to something you feel wants the best for you or guides you? If not, why? Try to look for the times in your life that you feel a power greater than yourself may have stepped in and helped or guided you. Keep looking for those times SLAYER, what signs do you see? If you’re having trouble finding that force in your life, use us, us SLAYERS, because together we are far more powerful than you alone, let this group of warriors, survivors, be your power, until you find one of your own. SLAY on.

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

You Are Not Alone

I used to feel so alone. I could be in a stadium full of people and feel completely alone. I didn’t realize that it was because of my actions that I felt alone. I had family, friends, and people I looked forward to seeing at work, but I always felt alone. It wasn’t until I started to work on myself and started to open up that I realized I could change that.

I was feeling alone because I wasn’t opening up to anyone, so even though I might be out with friends, and even having a good time, I had put up a barrier to keep people at a distance, again, I didn’t think that you would like me if you saw everything, so I had to keep the act going of everything being fine so you wouldn’t ask too many questions. After doing this for years and years, and things being anything but fine, that barrier seemed like an ocean, and I was standing on an island all by myself watching a ship go by full of people have the time of their life.

This ties into what we’ve already touched on, I had to let go. I had to stop worrying what people where going to think if I said I wasn’t OK, that I needed help, and needed someone to listen, I had to stop worrying that if I didn’t appear to be “perfect” people would still like me. I took a leap and trusted that the people I had so carefully allowed into my life would understand, that they wouldn’t judge me, and it would be OK. So I took the leap. I was terrified. I had never really told anyone anything that I perceived as “bad” about myself, I really didn’t know how this was going to go, but I knew that if I continued on the way I was, keeping everything in, that it would kill me, literally, I couldn’t handle it anymore, and there was just too much to stuff down, it just wouldn’t stay down.

I was shaking, but I reached out to a friend and spoke my truth. This was new territory for me, and I waited for a response. What happened was an outpouring of love, and because I let down my walls I felt closer, more of a connection to this friend, someone who had been in my life for many years, and I had never really let in. It felt so good to come clean and be honest that I called all the people in my life and told them what was going on, I suddenly felt like all of those people had formed a circle around me, supporting me, and offering me their strength when I needed it most. I realized that letting someone in and sharing, what I may think is something awful or challenging, helps us to connect to those around us, whether it’s because they’ve also shared that experience, or they just can understand. It’s those human experiences that connect us and make us stronger. It felt freeing to let it all go, and for those who didn’t understand or backed away, there weren’t many, but they weren’t meant to continue to be a part of my life, our story together had come to an end, but my journey was to continue surrounded by people who did want to listen, who cared, and loved me no matter what. It has been through their strength, and others, that I have been able to walk through some really challenging times because I know I have an army around me, and, I really am not alone because I choose not to be.

It can be difficult to find this in our lives, sometimes circumstances, or geography, make that hard, but we have so many ways to reach out nowadays, and so many ways to connect with like-minded individuals, it’s easier than ever to go and find your tribe, if it’s not already in your life, or expand the one you have, whether bonding over common interests or hobbies, or joining groups who share your goals. I also hope we can start our own circle of SLAYERS, to share our common experiences and support one another. As I’ve said, there is strength in numbers, we alone can accomplish a lot, but we as a group are unstoppable!

SLAY OF THE DAY: What stops you from reaching out to others? What do you think will happen if you do? Is this a fact or a fear? What can you do to overcome that obstacle? If you have a difficult time opening up I encourage you to do it here, to reach out, we are just like you and, we want to welcome you to the fold.

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

The ‘P’ Word

Patience. Ugh, I used to hate that word, still do sometimes, but I’ve gotten better about it. It used to be like hearing nails on a chalkboard when someone would say “be patient,” I’d want to smack them. It seemed that I had spent my whole life being patient for one thing or another, but what I had really been doing is trying to force my will on all of the people, places and things in my life. Nothing patient about that, that took a lot of energy, and typically a very aggravating result, things quite often didn’t go the way I would have had them go.

Patience is hard, especially when you feel that you’ve lived your life as an unauthentic version of you, if you feel like you’ve never had a voice, or mattered. For me, that was the root of the problem, finding value in myself, and learning that yes, it was OK to have goals, hopes and dreams, yes, that is encouraged, but what my job was was to do the footwork, the steps that I could take to take me closer to where or what I want, and then let it go. Yeah, I said let it go! Sounds scary right? It did for me at first, I was so used to keeping everything so tightly wound that the thought of stepping back seemed like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, it didn’t feel safe. What was pointed out to me is that I only had the illusion of feeling safe because that’s what I had become accustomed to doing, trying to force a favorable outcome for myself. Growing up I felt like my world was unstable, unpredictable and unsure, so as a defense for that I started to control every aspect of my life that I could, and even try to control what I couldn’t control, which always added to my frustration, but not trying to control everything seemed too scary.  I continued to do that well into my adulthood because that was what I knew, and thought was working for me, but it wasn’t, it just brought me more pain, heartache and disappointment, but it also gave me validation when things didn’t go my way that I didn’t deserve good things because I wasn’t a good person, a self fulfilling prophecy. As I set out on my journey of self-love and acceptance I was better able to “take my hands off the wheel” as it where and let things happen as they would. I also now have a stronger connection spiritually than I did before, which has helped me to step back and let things unfold. Also after finding forgiveness in myself I was better able to find compassion in others, even people I never thought I could, because I could see how they also struggled with certain things, maybe some of the same things I did, so finding compassion in others also helped me to find patience when it came to certain people in my life.

There are a lot of layers to all of this, and we’ll get to them as we go, but hopefully the door to patience will open just a crack.

I now look at patience as a huge victory for me, and I look at it as something that takes the load solely off my shoulders, I look at it as a positive thing, I can do the work and then move on to something else and let it unfold as it will, if more work needs to be done I can get back to it and then let it go again. This alleviates so much stress and exhaustion in my day, and frees me up to concentrate on other positive things.

Patience, not a swear word anymore.

SLAY OF THE DAY: What in your life tests your patience? Why are you not able to let go? What do you think will happen if you do? Is there someone in your life who tests your patience? Why? Is it possible that what bothers you about them is something you don’t like about yourself? Be honest. How are you doing with your own forgiveness? What, if anything, is holding you back? Love yourself today SLAYER, we all do.

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

Slayer Say

New blog  will go up Friday morning, until then SLAYERS….SLAY on!

 

State Of Slay Sword

Gratitude Is The Best Attitude

Hello SLAYERS, yeah, that’s who we are, we are warriors, we are fighters, we are SLAYERS. I didn’t always believe that, and you may not right now, but I believe you are, so for now, use that, take it and put it in your SLAYER chest until you can add some tools of your own. I believe in you, you are worth fighting for, and, you matter.

I never really heard anyone say that to me until I embarked on a journey to find self love, to find like-minded individuals who, like me, had also been broken, empty, and lost. Sometimes the only strength we have is the strength of others who believe we are worth fighting for, and if that is to you I say this, you are worth fighting for!

This is the beginning of a revolution, and it may just be your own, but I’m hoping we can all do this together, and bring along many more with us. There is strength in numbers, there is strength in sharing what we think makes us weak and there is strength in lending a hand to someone who needs it. Together we can do anything, but what my hope is for us, and all of the SLAYERS out there, is that we lift each other up, to reach our full potential and live each day as our authentic selves.

Authentic self, I went through most of my life not knowing who or what that was. I don’t think I wanted to know, because I thought that girl, that woman, wasn’t good enough. I didn’t think you’d like her. I thought she didn’t matter. I was wrong. If you are thinking those things, you are also wrong, you may just have to trust me on this for now, but you are.

Sometimes on your SLAYER path we’re going to be challenged or may be encouraged to do something you don’t want to do, that’s exactly the stuff you should do! If I hadn’t done a whole bunch of stuff that I didn’t want to do I wouldn’t be where I am today, and where I am is a place of self-love, of inner-peace (most days) and of gratitude. It is hard to sit down with ourselves and be honest about who we are or what we’ve done, but, here’s the good news, that’s who we were yesterday, not today. Today we are making a commitment to leave that person behind, to learn from the past, and to move forward shedding the things that no longer serve us, so, there is nothing to be ashamed about, to regret, or to hold us back, we didn’t know better, or maybe we did but we didn’t have the self-love and strength to take the right action, we will learn how, together.

I am really excited to share my journey with all of you in the hopes that it might help yours, and that you might share yours with us to help all of us, see how that works?

Every day we have the choice to make it a good day or bad day, to focus on the positive or the negative, to give back or to take, let’s walk in the light together, be grateful, and share all that is within us to those who are out there.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Write down five non-material things about yourself you are grateful for. Put that paper in your pocket, purse, wallet, when you are feeling anxious, down, or unsure, look at it, and smile.

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