change

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! You can only get better through action.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Fear Failure

Are You Afraid Of The Solution?

We can get so used to living in our own darkness that we let fear keep us from a solution. Our brain tells us that we can’t get better, our fear backs that up with unhelpful thoughts that are based on old information and stories that don’t have to be, or may not be, our present, but if we let them dictate our lives, they will continue to hold us back, and they’ll keep telling us those same old stories and those same old fears will keep us from getting well. We have the power each day to make better choices for ourselves, to take positive steps that will walk us into the light, to give us tools to live a life we deserve, and one that can be our “new normal.” It’s incredible how much pain many of us endure, at our own hands, because it’s what we’ve come to know, and even though we may not be happy there, we stay, because it’s the normal we do know, the thought of stepping out of that normal into something healthier, brighter, and better may be so scary we’d rather stay in the dark and continue to suffer there, even though there may be solutions all around us, and, people to help us get there. We are the only ones standing in our own way of recovery, or a better way of life. And as hard is it may be to believe for someone looking in at us, we might even be hanging on to that part of our life, not wanting to let go and set ourselves free. We may identify with it so much that the thought of it no longer being a part of our lives may leave us wondering who we would be without it. Who we would be, and could be, is our authentic selves. The people we were meant to be, who we aspire to be, who we can be. We can have all of the things we would like, it is going to take work, likely a lot of it, but there is no better person to invest in than yourself. Change can be scary, but look at it like you are giving yourself a software update, you are still you, but with some upgraded features to make you run more smoothly, more secure, and maybe with some new apps, or bells and whistles to make your life run easier.

All sounds good right? So what holds us back. Our friend fear. I talk a lot about find out the facts, well, fears aren’t facts, they are feelings, and feelings aren’t always accurate information, feelings can have all kinds of things attached to them that we’re not even aware of, things from our past, things that haven’t even every happened. When we live in fear we are not living in the present moment, we are living in the past or the future, when we live in the present moment, and are always looking at the facts we have, what we know to be true for sure, we are safe, we can make sound decisions, and we can start to let go of those fears that haunt us. Our brains like things to stay the same, they like to know what’s coming next, or what the outcome will be, and when things are changing fear likes to jump in and tell us it’s protecting us, but it’s really holding us back. It’s when we walk through those fears that they start to lose their power over us, and when we practice walking through those fears, our brain stops telling us to be afraid because it now has proof that when we’ve made changes everything is still OK, in fact, it’s probably more than OK and is better, so it stops trying to, well, stop us. The trick is to walk forward even if you’re in fear and trust that if you’re doing something that is for your greater good, that it’s going to be OK, and if it’s not, then you’ve learned a valuable lesson to be used for the next time, but even that is good, it’s learning, it’s growth.

I know for myself when I started to get better it felt very uncomfortable, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin because I was used to wearing the skin that I had been wearing for years and years, and even that skin didn’t feel good, I knew what that skin felt like, it was familiar to me, and when I started to make changes in my life, that skin no longer felt good, but neither did the new skin, it felt foreign, but I was told from many who had walked this path before me that it would feel uncomfortable at first, but to keep wearing it because one day it would feel great, it was just my brain trying to pull me back to the place I had been. I learned to get comfortable in the uncomfortable, and now I know when I’m there it’s because I’m changing, and, that’s a good thing. In fact, when I get too comfortable I know that’s the time to challenge myself again, that I’ve gotten lazy, so now that comfortable place I used to sit in is no longer desirable because I want to continue to grow and continue to challenge myself.

I know you can do this, I did, and I doubted I could many times when I began this journey, but I just kept putting on foot in front of the other, and I surrounded myself with like-minded people to support me on my journey. Walk through your fear, let go of the past, and step into who you are meant to be.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you let your past dictate your present? How do you do this? Why do you do this? How do you think it hurts you? What step can you take today to overcome this? Do you think you let the comfort of staying where you are keep you from moving forward? Why do you think you do this? What fears keep you from moving forward? What are these fears based on? How can you overcome them? SLAYER, I know you have it in you to become your best self, but you have to work to move forward each day, and on those days when you fall back, and you will, you have to get right back up again and keep trudging forward, as someone who has walked before you, I promise, the more steps you take, the easier the journey becomes. SLAY on.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYERS! The most important thing in life is to remain teachable.

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

State Of Slay New To Learn

You Can Unlearn What You’ve Learned

So much of our behavior was picked up by what we’ve learned along the way, or what we’ve been taught by others, but just because we’ve always done something one way, or those around us have, doesn’t mean it’s the best way for us today. Many of us can get stuck in the past and continue to practice behaviors that no longer suit us, or perhaps never did, because that’s the way we’ve learned how to do it. But, just as you can learn something, you can unlearn something and try something new, something that might work better for you, something that honors who you are today, or who you’re aspiring to be. So how do we break out of old patterns and start making new, healthier, ones?

First, recognize the patterns. Start paying attention to those times in your life when you feel things aren’t working or you’re not getting the desired result. Ask yourself what you could do differently. How you can make changes to get the result you’re looking for, or at least with the intention of it. Look for areas in your life where you find yourself saying things like; “this always happens to me,” or “people always treat me like,” or maybe “I never get to…,” start looking for the patterns and make a note of them, write them down, when they come up, think back to when you started noticing the patterns in your life, were they always there, did something change, did you change, but most importantly, how can you start to change those patterns?

Be accountable. It does us no good to talk about change, to have the intention of change, without taking action to make change happen in your life. Taking action also includes take responsibility for past actions that have gotten you to a place of dissatisfaction or dishonoring who you truly are. Own the actions of your past. This may seem like a negative thing, but in truth it’s positive, because you acknowledging the mistakes of your past to make better choices, positive choices, as you move forward. I am a firm believer in not faulting ourselves for things we never learned, or were taught from someone who may not have had the best teacher themselves, we can’t fault ourselves for not having the right tools, but we can fault ourselves for knowing we don’t have the right tools and continuing to use them anyway. If you need someone to back you up on your changes, tell a trusted friend what you’re setting out to do, sometimes just saying it to someone else will keep us accountable to ourselves and keep us working toward our goal.

Keep your emotions in check. I’ve said this many times, feelings aren’t facts, they can trick us, they can be from situations and relationships that are not a part of our present life, so watch what comes up when you start to make changes, because when we change our behaviors old feelings like to sneak up on us and throw fear our way to stop us from doing things differently, they may even tells us we can’t change, but we can, so watch for those emotions as they try to get in your way. Unchecked, they’ll pull you back to the original place you’re working to move on from. If you can identify where and why they’re coming up, you’re better able to navigate around them and be honest with yourself about your fears and feelings from the past. Fears are a good indicator that you are not living in the moment, you are living in the past.

Find the lessons in any situation. I always say, it isn’t, or wasn’t, bad if you learned something from it. When we find ourselves in a place we don’t want to be, there’s always a lesson there, and then it’s up to us to not find ourselves there again, but, for many of us, it typically takes more than one lesson to drive the point home, but it doesn’t have to. If something doesn’t go well, or end up the way you had intended, look for the lesson in that, learn what you can do differently the next time, and when the same situation comes up, and it will, look for the warning signs and navigate around it.

And lastly, when we consciously make an effort to make different choices things change, we change, and we start to make choices that are better for ourselves, choices that honor who we are today, and not the person of the past. We have a choice each and every day how we are going to engage with the world, how we are going to behave, react, how we are going to allow others to engage with us. That is all up to us, and no one else gets to dictate that except us. Turn off the “auto-response” of how you always have done things and ask yourself why, and if that way still is in line with who you are today.

Your day today doesn’t have to look like your yesterday, you have the power to change old ideas and patterns that no longer fit in line with who you are. Make different choices, make choices that honor you, and soon those choices will become your new normal. SLAY on.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you often just do what you’ve always done, or what you’ve been taught, without asking yourself if those ways still suit you, or ever did? Do you often find that you’re not getting what you want, or the desired result from your choices or actions? Do you see patterns in your life where the same choices are causing you pain, disappointment or frustration? What can you do differently to change those outcomes? What behaviors do you recognize in yourself that no longer serve you? Make those changes SLAYER, just because you’ve always done something one way in the past doesn’t mean you have to continue to do it that way, unlearn what you’ve learned, and, learn something new, learn a new way, try new things, and find a way to find more self-love, honor and respect for yourself by making better choices for yourself.

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

Release The Investment In Your Suffering

Some of us have invested a lot in our suffering over the years. For some of us it has become our identity, the fabric of who we are, and how we present ourselves to the world. But what is it really getting us? How is it helping us? It’s not.

We may feel it protects us, we may feel we belong there, we may not know how not to live without our suffering, we maybe be told it’s what we deserve, we may tell ourselves that we deserve it, we may not even know we’re living in our own suffering. I used to fall into a few of these scenarios, but I mostly identify with feeling that I belonged there and playing the martyr. I always thought I was hard done by, that bad things were constantly happening to me and I played the victim, but then I would also tell myself that I deserved them. Therein was the insanity of my brain. But I had invested a lot in my suffering, and when I didn’t think I had suffered enough I created my own suffering to make sure I was getting enough. I also used my suffering to manipulate other people into feeling sorry for me, to get what I wanted. I figured out every way I possible angle of suffering I could to torture myself and to use to gain what I wanted. But when I stepped on this path and I was told I was going to have to let it go, I got scared, suffering was all I knew, and, I had invested a whole lifetime into it, that’s a lot of work to throw out, and, what would I replace it with?

What I did replace it with is self-love, was with respect, with learning who I was, what my voice sounded like, and filling that void with good, something that made my stomach turn at first because the old me, the one who relished her suffering, didn’t want the good to come in, because who was I without my suffering? Without my suffering to hold onto like a life raft, I had to learn who I really was, because when I took the suffering away I was a bit of a blank canvas, so much of my time went into perpetuating my suffering I didn’t know how to bring in the good, and it felt scary to release the bad. But what I’ve learned on this path is that when things feel scary that is good, it means there is change happening, change that is needed, it means I’m walking on uncharted territory and trying something new, and I know from doing it time and time again over the last 12 years that something great always comes out of that. I’ve learned to get comfortable in the uncomfortableness of change. I’ve learned to look forward to it even, crazy right? It’s when I just feel comfortable that I know I’m not moving forward, and it’s easy to stay stuck there, to hang back, to settle in, but nothing great happens when we stay stuck, it’s when we reach out, take a leap of faith, and do what we’ve never done before that the shifts occur, that the magic happens, so now, when I start to do something new, to challenge myself and I start to feel uncomfortable, I know that that’s when I need to find comfortableness in that place, because a new normal is approaching, a normal that I have never been to before, a normal that will become comfortable and take me to the next uncomfortable place.

The key to all of this is to let go of your suffering, your suffering is an old story you used to tell yourself, it no longer serves you, it is holding you back from becoming your best you, of realizing your dreams, of making your life bigger and brighter, and of you realizing that you are not defined by your suffering, you are defined by your actions, by who you are today, but who you aspire to be. Let go of past and step forward into who you are meant to be.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you hang on to your suffering? Do you have a hard time letting it go because you’ve invested so much time into it? So much of your life? What do you think will happen if you let it go? How will it hurt you? How will it help you? Do you see how it holds you back from moving forward? Do you see it’s not who are truly are? You have the power to let it go, to shed your suffering and start anew, to discover who you really are, who you want and are meant to be. You wouldn’t keep wearing an old pair of shoes that are worn out and no longer fit you, so why are you still wearing a worn out story that no longer fits you today? Let it go SLAYER, and find the real you. SLAY on!

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

I Am…

We believe what we tell ourselves, we believe ourselves more than we believe anyone else, so what we tell ourselves matters, it makes a difference, and it can be the difference of us succeeding or failing.

I used to have a yoga instructor who was a beautiful vocalist, and at the end of each class she would sing “I Am…” and then follow it with different things, I am strong, I am beautiful, I am courageous, an on she went until the end of class, it was beautiful, and it always brought a tear to my eye…well, usually both eyes, because for most of my life what came after “I Am” for me were always negative things, I am not good enough, I am a freak, I am a loser, I am weird, I am different, I am a failure, you get the point, it sure wasn’t anything inspiring, and when I started on this path my self-esteem was so low and I hated myself so much I physically couldn’t look myself in the eye and say anything positive.

What we say to ourselves we believe, and when we continue to say negative things we reaffirm to ourselves that we are exactly where we are supposed to be, that we don’t deserve the good, and not worthy of anything better. We say things to ourselves we would never let anyone else say to us. Why do we allow ourselves to do this?

There are many reasons why we say these negative things to ourselves, they could be things that were said to us as children, at home or at school, they could be the result of our own unrealistic expectations, or they could be a source of self-sabotage to keep us from moving forward or achieving the goals we want to achieve because deep down we don’t believe we deserve them. Figuring out why we say them is the key to turning that negative self-talk into positive. It takes work. All the most rewarding stuff does. But it’s always worth it. Asking yourself where the negative self-talk comes from is the beginning, working on what comes up from that, for me it took working with a counselor to make sense of it all and to start changing that negative self-talk into positive self-talk. It wasn’t easy at the beginning, it took a lot of contrary action, doing the opposite of what I had been doing, or wanted to do, to make better healthier choices for myself. It took me focusing on the things I was grateful for. Again, at the beginning, it wasn’t easy, some days the only thing I could think of was, it’s sunny outside, but, that was a start. It’s about changing your personal narrative, changing your story, you have the power to do that on any given day at any time. You can take steps to stop the negative chatter, or at least keep it to a whisper. I’ve been on this path for over 12 years and some days it still can get loud, so it’s not setting out with the expectation that it will go away completely, but about building up the tools in your toolbox for combating it, learning how to throw positive things at the negative chatter and turning your thinking around. I know that can be done because I’ve done it. Work to focus on the good each day, challenge yourself to compliment yourself on at least one thing when the negative comes up, and seek outside help if you feel you can use some extra guidance.

I no longer wake up with the negative thoughts racing through my head, today I work to come up with positive words to describe my “I Am.” I am strong, I am a warrior, I am a survivor, I am good, I am fallible, I am trustworthy, I am love, I am confident, I am happy, I am generous, I am…I am me, there is only one, and that is my superpower! And that is also yours.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you say negative things to yourself? Why do you think you do that? How does that hurt you? How does that help you? What do you think would happen if you started replacing the negative self-talk with positive self-talk? What can you do to start doing that each day? I challenge you, SLAYER, to write down 5 things you love about yourself, when you notice the negative self-talk pop up, look at that list, say it out loud, start making a habit of saying positive things to replace the negative, and know SLAYER that it is a process, if you slip back into the negative that is part of the journey, no one gets it right all the time, but you do get the chance to do it right right now. SLAY on!

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

Slay Slay

Good morning SLAYER! You are enough and you have enough to get started, even if you only have a maybe in your heart, maybe is enough. Start now.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Enough

 

New Year, New You

Today is New Year’s Eve. The end of one year and the beginning of another. I’ve never been one for New Year’s Resolutions, I’ve always made commitments to myself as I feel I’m ready for them, or ready for the challenge of them, so the idea of having to come up with them on a specific day has never really appealed to me. What I do like is the idea of a clean slate. A fresh page. A new year gives us a marker and chance to hit the restart button and start again. Now, we’re still us walking into the new year, but maybe we’re us with a different perspective, with new goals, or a drive to find what we’re looking for. It’s a time to take a deep breath and let go of the past to make room for something new. The problem I have with resolutions is that we seem to set ourselves up to fail. We set them thinking we should have them, people ask us what they are, there’s that anticipation that we have to have answers when asked, and so we set forth and make a list that we may not be fully ready to commit to, or truly have any intention of taking action on. So, if we do feel pressured to make a list, and there is no real pressure to, or we’re just wanting to set some goals for ourselves as we head into a new year, how do we make better choices when it comes to finding out what we really do intend to change, or want to change?

First, it’s asking ourselves why we’re wanting things to change, and what we’re wanting to change? What is our motivation behind seeking out this change? Why is it important to us? How will it help us or benefit us? And these answers should have answers that pertain to us, not how we’ll look to others, or if they’ll help someone else, these should be our goals or changes that will help us to become the people we want to be, who we aspire to be, because deep down we know we are those people. It’s about uncovering our true selves and getting rid of old habits we used to use to get by, or survive, or possibly hide who we truly were. Our goals or resolutions, if we want to stick with that label, should not be born out of judgment of ourselves, or comparison of those around us. They should come from a truth inside of us that we know we should change because what we are wanting to let go of is no longer serving us, or possibly never did. These goals should be internal goals, done for internal reasons, not because they’ll look good on the outside, when we do what we think we should do, or we do something to please someone else, but we don’t believe it in our heart, we are setting ourselves up to fail. We should only do what we know is right for us and do it for us, only then do we have a chance to overcome that particular hurdle and succeed.

We also have to give ourselves time. Change doesn’t happen overnight. We can make some changes, but we have give ourselves time to let those changes settle in, and also, give ourselves some leeway to know we’re going to revert back to our old ways from time to time, change takes time, and it takes practice, so even if you fall back, don’t just throw in the towel, understand that’s part of the process, learn from it, and keep going. The more you do something, the more it becomes your new normal. Failure is a part of the process. Always remember why you’re making the change and how it affects you personally. Remember why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Having the awareness that you want to change and what you want to change is a catalyst for change. Awareness is half the battle, the rest is doing it. So really look at your life, who you are, what you do, how you interact with the world around you and be honest with yourself, are you living as your true self? What areas can you improve on? What areas can you really shine? It can be hard to take an honest look at ourselves, but change doesn’t happen if we keep telling ourselves the same story and living in a place that doesn’t allow us to be our best selves. Take a cold hard look at you, the stuff that makes you flinch, or makes you uncomfortable, that’s the perfect place to stop and take a look and ask yourself why it does. Anything can be changed for the better, we all have the ability to make changes and live a fuller life. Once we make some decisions and put a plan in motion it changes our trajectory, our direction, and sets us on a new path, and if we stay true to that path, and true to us, that path will continue to give back to us and will continue to give us what we need on this new path.

Really, we can change or start something new any day of the year, but why not take some time today to reflect on what things in your life you would like to change that are in your reach to change. Write them down, and write down the steps you can take to make those changes happen. Only we know what is best for us, and only we can do the work to make sure we are and have the best for us. So roll up your sleeves SLAYER, this is a great time to dig into your toolbox and find the tools you need to be your best you this year. SLAY on.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you typically set New Year’s Resolutions for yourself at the beginning of year? Do you stick to them? If you don’t, why do you think you fail? Are they realistic? Why don’t you follow through? Searching your heart, what change would you like to see this year for yourself? How can you make these changes happen? If you don’t know, ask those around you, with those you trust or who maybe inspire you, ask them how they might go about achieving the same goal. Find those things you think are holding you back, those things you might hide behind, or use as protection, make a commitment to get rid of them, to get out from behind them, to allow yourself to be your best you and shed those things you no longer need, those things that are only holding you back. Give yourself the gift of self empowerment, of doing what’s best for you, and following through on letting your best parts shine.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Behind every negative thing is a positive thing we can learn.

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

State Of Slay Change

 

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! There are two types of pain, pain that hurts you, and change that changes you. You decide how your pain will affect you.

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

State Of Slay Stuck (1)