choice

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Repeat after me: I release the need for old habits in my life!

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

Repeating Old Behaviors

We know we’re doing it, we know we shouldn’t be doing it, and yet we do it, repeating old behaviors that no longer suit us, and maybe never did, but they were what we knew, or what we were taught, or, what we used to get by when we didn’t know or have the courage to do something better. They can feel, sometimes, like getting into our favorite pair of jeans, or a comfy sweater, but, that moment fades when we catch ourselves doing it, or someone else does. There are times too where we don’t even realize that we’re doing it, those old behaviors have become so ingrained in how we operate that we seamlessly dive in without a thought or the awareness that we’ve pulled ourselves back on our path. All of that is OK, no one is perfect, or gets it right all of the time, but what we need to do to move forward and release ourselves of those old behaviors that hold us back is to recognize and acknowledge them, and not just when we get caught.

Before stepping on this path most of what I did I did without much thought, and, if some thought went into it it was focused on justifying my bad behavior. I reacted quickly or dove in doing what I had always done. I didn’t realize that most of what I was doing was actually harming myself and my chances of living the life I wanted. In fact, by participating in my bad behavior I was preventing myself from ever making things better for myself and my thoughts and actions were actually causing me to slide down deeper into a place that I almost didn’t get out of. When I finally realized what I was doing I had to get honest and I had to call myself out and identify all of that bad behavior.

Change isn’t always easy, especially when what we do and say is ingrained in us from an early age, or we’ve convinced ourselves we have found the best way to navigate through life. For me, I could no longer deny my actions when I found myself emotionally and spiritually bankrupt. There was no lower bottom, except death. So, when I set out on this journey of recovery and I resisted letting go of old behavior, I had to remind myself of how bad it had gotten doing it my own way, and if I was to get any better I had to let go of those old behaviors and replace them with healthier ones. They say, practice makes perfect, I haven’t found that to be true, but practice does make it easier, and it’s OK if I’m not perfect as long as I am doing my best in the moment. You see perfection used to be what I strived for, and never feeling I was able to achieve it I labeled myself a loser, which gave me permission to act out in ways that harmed myself, my relationships and my chances of learning and growing from the place I was. But to get better I had to let go of my perfectionism and embrace the idea that I was going to make mistakes and fall back on old behavior, but that wasn’t an excuse to throw out all the progress I had made and allow myself to engage in that old behavior. Making mistakes was part of the process of growth and if I was able to use it as that, I would do just that, grow from there.

We all have things we like to do even when we know it’s not the best choice for us, but indulging in that old behavior doesn’t move us forward, it doesn’t help us make better and stronger choices and it holds back from being our best selves. Acknowledge when you are repeating old behaviors and set yourself on the right path for success. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you recognize behaviors from your past that you still practice today that may not be the best for you? What are they? When do you notice them come up? What do you tell yourself to let yourself engage in that behavior? Or, do you not realize you are doing it until later, or not at all? What behavior stands in your way to being who you want to be, or know you can be? What can you do to change that? It’s OK to make mistakes and fall back on your old ways, but work to make better choices and soon you may find that many of those old behaviors don’t feel so comfortable anymore.

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

Slay Slay

Good morning SLAYER! Holding on is believing there is only a past, letting go is knowing there is a future.

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

Are You Disconnected From Yourself?

For much of my life, I felt like I had stepped out of myself and was observing my life from a distance. Not having a way to feel my feelings in a healthy way and a way that promoted my growth, I hide from my feelings and eventually, when the pain got to be too much, disassociated from them and myself. It was a very lonely existence knowing I didn’t have myself on my own side, and feeling like someone else, or something else, was running the show. And even on a night when I made a decision that could have proved to be fatal, I sat back and watched it happen until the fear of what I had done brought me back to myself long enough to surrender and ask for help. It’s frightening to think about now, as I have worked over the past 14 years to be present and in the moment, no matter how uncomfortable or painful that might be, it is important to me to feel my feelings and work through them in a healthy and productive way. To get to this point in my journey, I had to get honest and I had to learn to feel.

I had, at a very young age, stuffed down my feelings. I was afraid to share how I felt, feeling I would be judged for it, made fun of, I would not look smart, or, that I was wrong feeling what I felt. That thinking caused me a tremendous amount of anxiety, which made me feel even more self-conscious and made me disconnect from myself even more. Not giving myself permission to feel my feelings I never learned how to process them when they came up, so I started looking for outside things to change how I felt or to mask or numb what I didn’t want to feel. I constantly lived in my own head, creating other places for myself to go, then I started to control what I ate, then how I did things, having to do them in very specific ways or that anxiety or feeling of dread would pop up again, and on and on it continued, until what I needed to do to stuff down my feelings became bigger and bigger, and, would later threaten my life. Having to sit in the uncomfortableness of my feelings was difficult at first, but I was taught to breathe through it and to acknowledge how I felt, but then let it go, some things were easier to let go than others, but the more I practiced it the easier it got. I began to write down how I felt, which I found to be helpful in showing patterns of when my feelings popped up and what they were attached to. I worked with a counselor to help me make sense of the feelings I didn’t understand, and I began to carve out some quiet time each day to find some peace and to focus on finding a foundation I could build on in this new journey. Feelings aren’t facts, and most times they are tied into something that has nothing to do with our present circumstances, they are old ideas, stories and narratives we’ve told ourselves, or have been told, that we cling to making them our truths even when they are not, or may not be anymore. But feelings can be indicators that something is wrong and can be used as tools if we acknowledge them and process them as such, and they can be wonderful, positive and something we can cherish and enjoy. The bottom line is we have to stay connected to who we are and what we feel and making sure what we feel is accurate, or take note of what they’re telling us as they might be what we need to know to move forward.

Staying connected and present can be challenging at times, we don’t always want to feel our feelings, but avoiding them only puts up a wall between them and us, and the more we avoid them the higher that wall becomes until we may not be able to see ourselves anymore. Stay connected to who you are and know that, even if you don’t want to feel what you feel, feelings pass, and they may be trying to tell you something you should know. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you feel like you are connected to yourself? If not, why not? Why do you think you disconnect from yourself? How do you think it helps you? How does it harm you? What type of feelings you do try to avoid? Why is that? How do you avoid them? Do you go to unhealthy lengths to avoid your feelings? How do you do that? What can you do to stay connected with yourself and how you feel today? What type of things can you do to keep that connection? We are not meant to live a life disconnected from who we are, we are meant to find a connection within ourselves and to what is around us, to live in harmony within our own lives but within a community that we identify with and fills us with joy. Find your own joy within as you love yourself and honor yourself in each present moment.

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