Good morning SLAYER! The only obligation you have is to be your authentic self. No matter what others’ expectations may be for us, who we are, and what role we play in their lives is our decision, no one gets to dictate who we should be, that role is ours alone, and one we should be proud of.
New blog goes up Friday, until then…SLAY on!
Many thanks to fellow SLAYER Carol Hansson for this interview and for talking to me about my inspiration and hopes for STATE OF SLAY. SLAY on!
To read interview, click link: Movie TV Tech Geek: Carrie Genzel talks ‘Supernatural’ fans and her State of Slay
OK, we’ve all said it when we didn’t really mean it, when it would make us look good, we wanted something, or just wanted someone to go away, but, sorry isn’t good enough, even if we do mean it, what we need to do is amend the behavior that caused the incident in the first place. All too often we throw out ‘I’m sorry” without giving it much thought, like putting a band-aid on something without treating the wound. What we really should be doing is striving to do better, and to amend what got us there in the first place.
This falls under a lot of the things I’ve already talked about, was it acceptance, did we not accept a person or situation, did we manipulate, lie, or steal, or is it our people picker, is our “people picker” still off and we chose to get involved with someone who is not honoring our authentic selves or the way we’re living our lives, did our expectations get us in trouble, did we have expectations around something or someone and felt let down, what were our intentions, were our intentions true, and did we get the facts to find out what the other person’s intentions where? All of these things, and more, can get us in sticky situations that may need to be corrected, but sorry isn’t enough.
Sorry to me is something you say when you bump into someone, or speak over them by mistake, not in situations that involve decisions we’ve made or situations we’ve chosen to participate in. If we’ve made a conscious decision to engage and we’ve messed up we need to make an amends, not just say sorry.
So, what is the difference? Making an amends to someone, or yourself, is making a commitment to do better in the future, to work on not getting yourself in that situation as you move forward, and to repair any damage you may have caused. Sounds heavy right? Well, here’s the deal, it may sound like heavy lifting but what it truly does is lighten the load. Making an amends to someone is really the gold medal of apologies because it not only says “I’m sorry” but it takes it one step further by saying, “and here’s what I plan to do about it.” An amend takes action! And, that’s what we’re all about SLAYERS, taking positive action in our lives. I have seen firsthand in my own life how, seemingly irreparable relationships, or situations become not only fixed, but stronger after an amends. It can be scary to stand in front of someone and say, “I messed up, I’m sorry my actions caused, x, y, or z, but, here’s what I’m going to do about it.” But, I’ve seen miracles happen. Now, in making this declaration at no point do we make excuses for our behavior, we, using the “just the facts Ma’am” approach, declare what our part was, and then what we feel we can do to make it better. We also don’t point fingers at anyone else, remember, we are in charge of our own lives, who we are, what we feel, and what we do, so it’s not anyone else’s fault but our own if we messed up, and we all mess up, it’s how we deal with it after that makes us SLAYERS, or slackers. It’s about keeping our side of the street clean. We’ve worked hard on our streets, we don’t want to run around throwing garbage all over it.
Now, there might be times that we cannot, or should not, make an amends, oh, now I got your attention now, those of you looking for a way out, but we should not make an amends if it will hurt or do damage to the other person or persons involved, there’s a special amends for those things, a living amends. In those cases you can make an amends to yourself and make the commitment to yourself to change that behavior, continue to do better while moving forward. We may also find ourselves where we are not able to make an amends to someone because they are unreachable or have passed on, again a living amends works in those circumstances too, and, what I’ve done in the past is written a letter to that person then burned it to let it go.
No one is perfect, but a SLAYER doesn’t back away when ownership of a mistake needs to be taken, we stand up, explain what was done, and we take responsibility to do it right the next time. SLAY on.
SLAY OF THE DAY: Write down the names and situations where you think you owe an amends. Is there a person or institution you own an amends to? Are you hesitant to do it? Why? Next the names you’ve written down, what can you do, moving forward, to better the situation that has you owing an amends? Make a commitment to watch out for those as you move forward and instead of repeating it, do the next right thing.
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
Good morning SLAYER! When we don’t get the facts of what others’ expectations are, and we don’t share our own, we set ourselves up for heartbreak. We have the power to stop that. Get the facts! Share your facts! SLAY on!
New blog goes up Sunday.
I was never a yes person. Before starting on this journey when I was asked to do something new, something I wasn’t sure about, especially with people I didn’t know, I would say no. It was too scary. What if I wasn’t good at it? What if I looked foolish? What if no one liked me? It was all too risky to jump into something without knowing the outcome. This comes back around to letting go and not having control of any given situation. Consequently I missed out. I missed out on trying something different, maybe something I would have liked, and perhaps I would even have liked the people and made some new friends, perhaps, but I wasn’t open to new people in my life, unless I could tell they were just as messed up as I was, or maybe more, at least then I wouldn’t feel so bad about myself. But when I decided to make an effort in my life to be positive and to do things differently, I was encouraged to always say yes. ALWAYS say yes I thought, that’s crazy. A series a “buts” came after that suggestion was made, we’ll get to those “buts” another day, I thought of every scenario of what I might be asked to do and it gave me anxiety to even think of saying yes to things when I didn’t know what would happen, but I had made a commitment to get better, so I took the suggestion.
As scary as it was, I started say yes. And, I can’t say that I loved everything I got involved in, or all the people, but I realized that I had closed myself off to so much of the world because of fear, and had pretended to be who I thought you had wanted me to be for so long, I didn’t really know what I liked or who I wanted to hang around with. I began to look at saying yes as an invitation to get to know myself, an adventure of learning about me, suddenly the thought of saying yes seemed exciting, and abundant, there’s a whole world out there I never opened myself up to. Saying yes became something of an adrenaline rush, like going over the first drop on a roller coaster, or learning to fly on a trapeze, I knew I couldn’t get hurt, but I felt the rush of trying something new. And, because I started doing that, I started to learn about myself, who the real me was, what I liked to do, and who I wanted to do it with. I also started to trust that the opportunities that were being presented to me were not happening randomly, they were all part of my journey and growth, and I started to look forward to them trying to figure out why they had come my way, or doing it anyway and looking for the reasons later, even if the reason turned out to be that I had just tried.
Some years back I got offered an opportunity to teach. I thought it was crazy. I had never taught anything, ever, and hadn’t been in any class since my one semester of collage before I dropped out to start my adventure into adulthood many, many, years ago. Even though I was well into my years of saying yes, I had some reservations, how the heck was I going to teach a 104 hour workshop? I explained that I had never taught before, and the response was that I had a lot of experience in my field and that was more important than having teaching experience, they said they would give me a syllabus and I would figure it out. I’m not going to lie, I think I was shaking a little bit. But, what my journey had taught me was to suit up and show up, I did the footwork and stayed out of the results. I asked for advice from friends who taught, I audited their classes, and I used the guidelines I was given. I said yes, jumped in… and it was incredible. Having now taught since that first workshop, I cherish the times I’ve had the opportunity to teach and work with others, to see their potential and growth, and to be able to encourage and champion that is such a gift. I still stay in contact with many of my students today, and they all inspire me. Had I said no, I would have cheated myself that experience.
This blog is another example of me saying yes. I have never, in a public forum, discussed any of the thoughts and ideas I have here, but all the signs seemed to point to this place, and instead of bowing down to fear, I said yes, and like teaching you all amaze and inspire me, and I cherish every one of you who have chosen to walk this path with me. Thank you for saying yes and joining me on this journey SLAYERS. And, keep saying that, YES!
SLAY OF THE DAY: Are you afraid to say yes to new things? Why is that? What are some of the things that you have said yes to in the last year? What happened when you did? If you didn’t say yes, what do you think would have happened. I challenge you to say yes this week, say yes to new things and see what happens. Things are changing SLAYER, I can feel it. YES!
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
Good morning SLAYER! It’s good to have goals and dreams, but unless you take action and do the work they’ll remain just that, something you dream about. Make your dreams a reality!
New blog goes up Sunday, until then…SLAY on!
Like this quote, or have a favorite one from the past, the SLAYER SAY line of products has just been launched in the SLAY STORE, to check them all out click here: SLAY STORE SLAYER SAY Quote Series
I’m going LIVE! That’s right SLAYERS, the second Wednesday of each month I’m going to go live and video chat with all you SLAYERS and talk all things SLAY!
You have been so inspiring and courageous in sharing your stories and struggles here on the blog and on social media, I want to open up the floor, or the web as it were, to take your questions and to talk about what the topics you want to talk about.
More details to follow on how to watch and participate so make sure you subscribe and follow so you don’t forget to join us for an hour of live SLAYER talk at 5:50pm PT / 8:30pm ET Wednesday June 14th.
To follow State Of Slay click on the menu button at the top right of the screen, pop your email address in, and you won’t miss a thing.
Until then SLAYERS….SLAY on!
Happy Saturday SLAYER! New blog goes up Sunday morning, until then, show yourself love and grace today on your journey, be patient, it takes time to fill the SLAYER chest with new tools. SLAY on!
Thank you all for of your incredible SLAYER love for my first blog. So many of you have shared beautiful messages, comments and posts with me here and on social media, which is what I was hoping would happen, we would start a dialogue, a fearless exchange of our ideas and thoughts about ourselves, and, ignite a whole lot of healing and strength.
This is just the beginning SLAYERS, let’s gather an army of SLAYERS and continue to love and support each other through this journey of self love and empowerment.
Let’s SLAY on!
New blog goes up Friday morning, until then…how’s that gratitude list?
SLAY with me on social media.
