good

I See It When I Believe It

Before getting well, I was often heard saying the opposite, “I’ll believe that when I see it,” which was almost always followed by an eye roll. I had a very skeptical mind that always went to the negative. I looked for the negative so that’s what I saw. I believed that’s what I deserved because I believed I was a bad person and I was ashamed of how I was living my life. Even when good things did come, I thought something negative would follow it to balance things out, robbing me of the enjoyment of that good. It never occurred to me to look for the good, or even that it was there before I stepped on this path.

When I made a commitment to get better I was encouraged to look for the good. I was in the darkest place I had ever been, so the thought that there was anything in my life that could be labeled good seemed far-fetched, but I was reminded that I was standing in a place of willingness, willingness to find a solution and get better, that alone was something good, and, that was something I could hang onto to start. Looking back, that was a lot of good, it took a lot of courage to come forward and share my true self, true pain and true thoughts and feelings, but I knew my life depended on it, so I gathered up all the courage I could to step forward. As I continued my journey I was constantly challenged to find the good, and to believe in it. Some days it was difficult to find it and I had to hold on to the simple facts that I had made it on this journey so far and that was positive, that I had love and support in my life and I was still alive. I had to break it down to those simple facts some days just to get by. But with most things, the more we do them the easier they become, and the more I started to look for the good and positive things in my life the more I found. I wrote them down at first, and some days still do, to remind myself so that if I came up against negative thinking I could pull that list out of my pocket and read them to myself. Just the act of reading or saying those things out loud could sometimes change my thinking. I also was encouraged to reach out to others when I was having a negative day, and not to talk about how bad I felt, but to ask them how their day was. That act also, many times, turned my thinking around, and most of all, got my thinking outside of myself. For me, the root of my troubles centered in my mind, my thinking, my thoughts wanted to keep me in the dark and isolated from everyone, so by doing things that took me out of my own thoughts or the negative thinking I had become accustomed to, my thinking started to change and so did my perception of the world around me.

I know today that I have the power to see what I want to see. I can take any day, any situation, and make it positive or negative, it’s all in how I look at it, or what I choose to take away. When I believe I deserve the good, when I believe I have good in my life, I see it, and not only do I see it, I feel it and share it with others. It becomes like a magnet, and that energy I give out brings back the same energy. But it starts with me believing. As a recovered “victim of life” that makes me feel pretty powerful.

If you believe it, you’ll see it. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you tend to see things from a negative perspective? Why do you think that is? Have you always been that way? If not, what changed? If you have, why do you think that is? Have you tried to find the positive in your life? How has that gone? Have you found it? Have you lost it? How? What if you made a commitment to look for the good, the positive, in your day today? Write down all of the things you find, and put it in your pocket for a rainy day. Practice doing this every day until you start to notice the positive on your own. Life is really what we make it, and when we believe it, we can see it.

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

Just Look For The Green Lights

Everyone, at times, goes through periods where it’s hard to see the positive in our lives, maybe that lasts for only a few hours, a few days, or perhaps a few years, or more. I know, for myself, there were many years that I only saw the negative, and even when positive things did happen, I would find something negative to wrap it up in.

I was listening to someone share their story the other morning, a story that was much like mine, and she was talking about a time in her life when she couldn’t find the good. She had said that someone had suggested to her to count the green lights on her way home. She said she did, and when we got home she called that friend and said, “six, there were six green lights,” and she noticed when she said that she had a smile on her face. She had, even just for that moment, found something positive. I will put that one in my tool box for a day when I may need to count the green lights on my way home.

My life today is much more positive than negative, but my mind always looks for the negative. It will try to ruin any good day with fixating on things to bring some darkness to an otherwise great day, and if my guard is down, that darkness may just cloud over the brightness of that day. My disease is also very cunning, and as much as I’ve learned over the 13 plus years about myself and my disease, so has my disease, so it’s always looking for ways to work around that hard work I’ve put into living a happy and healthy life, something as simple as looking for green lights can turn that around.

It’s about focusing on the good. We, if we take our power back, can change our thinking, or mood, by what we choose to look at, surround ourselves with or engage in, sometimes it may just be a moment of relief, but it’s there for the taking if we take it, but the more we choose to take it, or the more we try, the easier it becomes to look and find the good, and the more we do that, the more the bad doesn’t feel good anymore. It’s also about believing we deserve the good. And we do. We all do. We have to believe we should have and do have good in our lives and we need to actively seek out positive things. Trust me, they’re there. The fact that you’re reading this right now is positive.

As I write this and think about the green lights in my life, I realize that I have always appreciated those green lights, and when I hit a string of them, it does always make me smile, but it’s also not attaching negative feelings to a red light, because we can look at those as a gift as well, a moment to exhale, to pause, before we restart our journey. I do still really love the green over the red though. But it’s about looking for the good in everything. Nothing happens to us without there being a reason, we may label it good or bad, but there is always something to take away from every event, experience or relationship, we learn, we grow, we are challenged to rise to the occasion. Nothing changes in our comfort zone, so when those difficult challenges come our way, they may have been sent to us to get us to change, to reach out or move forward because we’ve stayed somewhere too long.

Life can get difficult at times, especially during periods of change, but if we look for the green lights, the positive things in life, we start to see more of the good we have in our lives. Next time your out, count the green lights on our journey. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you typically look for the negative or positive in your life? If you find yourself in a negative place, how do you look for the positive? How do you find your way out of the negative? What happens if you don’t? What do you typically find as the reason for those negative times? What can you do moving forward to change that? When are minds get dark, that is the time to actively look for the light, it is always there if we look for it, and we no longer attach ourselves to the darkness of our past. Focus on a positive future.

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

Losing Touch With Who You Used To Be

I’m often reminded of who I used to be. Gratefully, I get many chances to share my story of where I came from with people like myself, who are on this same path, or just beginning their journey, and it’s in sharing what I used to be like that I realize how far away I am from the woman I was. I am relieved, as she was in a lot of pain and suffered a lot at by her own hand, but she’s still a part of me and the reason I work each day to keep her in the past.

It’s important to remember where we’ve come from, how much we’ve changed, and the work it’s taken to get where we are right now, and the more we focus on the good, on this moment, the here and now, the more we let go our painful past and those parts of us we had to let go to get to this place. It feels good to feel so far away from who I used to be, but I’m also reminded that if I don’t take care of myself, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, that woman, from the past starts to creep back into the present. She’ll never go away, and there’s a part of me that knows it’s important that she doesn’t, so I don’t forget the woman I’ve worked so hard to leave behind. But the more I live as my true self, the me of today, the more I let go of her and lose touch with that me and focus on my life today, a life I can be proud of.

When I was in my disease, and who I used to be, I never imagined the me of today was possible, all I saw was darkness and those things I hated about myself. The negative bullshit committee in my head would tell me that my life was never going to get any better and neither was I. Life seemed so bleak, without any light, and I wasn’t so sure I even worthy of the light, and so I kept sliding back into the darkness. I thought, who I was kept me safe, but what it did was kept me isolated and away from a solution. I identified with who I was, I knew her and I suppose, I hid behind her when life felt too overwhelming or I didn’t want to feel what I was feeling. It was hard to let her go, she was the me I had known most of my life, the me I had grown up with and the me I thought I’d always be, but there was a new me waiting on the other side of humility, courage and hope. Slowly, as I began to build who I am today, I let go of who I used to be, and she, over time, melted into the background.

We get to choose who we are, and if we don’t like who we’ve become, we can do the work to change. It may take some help, it certainly did for me, a lot of it, but with love and support from those who were walking the same walk I was on, and some professionals, I was able to let go and let the love surround me until I felt safe, and from that place of safety I was able to change, a little at a time. You can too. It is within our power to lose touch with who we were as we become or focus on who we are meant to be, to let go of old ideas and concepts that no longer serve us, or never did, to forge a new way of life that let’s our heart and soul shine. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Have you lost touch with who you used to be? How have you done that? What have you done to change? Why did you make those changes? How did those changes allow you to let go of the old you? What parts of the old you do you still cling to? Should you let them go? How can you work on letting them go? What are you most proud of today of who you’ve become? Focus on that SLAYER, those qualities that make you you and allow you to be your best self, and keep challenging yourself to find more of those qualities, the more we focus on our positive attributes, the more we find, until soon, we no longer feel the need to hang on to who we used to be.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Our greatest good is what we can do for others.

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

State Of Slay Change The World

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Celebrate who you are and what you’ve been through, it’s prepared you for where you are right now…and, what’s to come.

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

State Of Slay Celebrate

Yay! Congratulate Yourself, Especially For The Tough Sh*t

We recently got a puppy and are in the throes of house-training. We’ve had some hits, and some misses. A lot of misses. So when we get a hit, there’s a lot of celebration in the house. There’s always an immediate YAY and a lot of congratulations, and those celebrations aren’t just reserved for the wins at home, they can happen anywhere, and do. We laugh sometimes because, now, without even thinking about it, when our puppy does something good, we burst into yays, no matter where we are. And not only does she get excited, but it makes us laugh as well. It got me thinking today, in mid-yay, that we should cheer ourselves on just as much, maybe even throw out a verbal YAY when we do something great or something new. We all deserve some yays in our lives and some celebration.

Before walking this path, there very few yays in my life. What there was a lot of was negative self-talk. I was constantly telling myself I was stupid or had done something wrong, or even if something went well, I told myself I should have done it better. Nothing was ever good enough, and as a result I dug myself deeper and deeper into a depression. I didn’t feel worthy of praise. I was ashamed at how I was living my life, the things I was doing and if someone did praise me for something I thought they were lying, or they wanted something from me, I never trusted it, but I also didn’t trust myself.  I never gave myself any leeway to learn and grow, I expected myself to get it perfect right way, and when I didn’t, that kicked up right away which kept me in the dark.

The key to getting myself out of that cycle was learning self-love. A tall order at the start, but essential for my recovery, and, my survival. That negative self-talk had gotten so strong it was the only voice I was listening to, and I believed it when it said that I was never going to be good enough and everyone would be better off without me here. Learning that I was enough, that we all are works in progress, and that we learn the most from the things that don’t do our way, or, let me say it, failures, but, really, they’re not really failures because that’s where the most growth happens. In fact, in those failed attempts lies the most yays, in fact, walking through those failures and learning from them should be the loudest yays, and maybe even a little dance or hand clap. It’s most important to congratulate ourselves especially in the sh*t, we should make a point of it, in fact, I challenge you, next time, during one of those times to stand up and let out a loud YAY, because even though it may not feel like a victory in that moment, it truly is, and you’ll know why on the other side of it, so why not get the celebration started early?

We walk through a lot in our lives, and we’ve all been through some really tough things, but how often do you congratulate yourself for walking through those, and, making better choices today as a result? You may just owe yourself some yays for that. As I watch my puppy grow and learn, I realize that we are all still doing the same, we may be further along the path as someone just starting their life, but life is always teaching us new things, if we let it, so congratulate yourself as you learn each new thing. SL-YAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you celebrate who you are and what you’ve accomplished? If not, why not? What stops you? Write down an example of something you walked through that was difficult. Do you appreciate yourself for getting through that? Do you see how you learned from that experience? Do you see that perhaps you were meant to go through it to take away some valuable lessons and information? What did you take away from that experience that you use in your life today? When something goes well, or you accomplish a goal or project, do you congratulate yourself? If not, why not? If yes, how do you celebrate? Celebrate yourself everyday SLAYER, even just for getting out of bed today, hey, that’s an accomplishment in itself, and then, find as many yays in day as you can, maybe even say them out loud for some extra self-love.

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

Feelings: Changing What You Don’t Like

Feelings can help us, they can give us a sense of things, how we feel about someone, or something, but they can also deceive us, they can be tied up in old thinking, old behaviors, things that no longer serve us. When I was living in the dark, I didn’t want to feel anything, good, or bad. I just wanted to be numb,the bad feelings felt too bad, too much to handle, and I didn’t think I deserved the good ones, so I did what I could to not feel. I became so good at it, stuffing down my feelings and using outside things to shut them up, that I became dead inside. I told myself it was a way to protect myself, but I was slowly shutting myself down and, even though I couldn’t feel or hear them, all of those feelings were still there, including the ones that were hating myself for living the way I was.

When I sought help to get better, to learn to live in a healthier, honest way, those feelings all came at me like a tsunami. I used to wake up and hang on to my mattress thinking I would get blown off my bed from the sheer force of them if I didn’t hang on. I had to learn to process how I felt, to acknowledge those feelings, and to change the ones that no longer served me, or, perhaps never did. In this new way of life, I couldn’t hang on to my old ideas that had gotten me to a breaking point, I had to learn to let go and I had to learn to change what would stand in the way of my recovery.

My feelings can sometimes trick me, not as much today as they once did, but sometimes, those cunning little thoughts can make me think they’re valid to the situation I’m in, when really they’re dragging up old feelings from the past and trying to validate them in my present life. At the beginning, it was difficult to decipher if a feeling was how honestly felt in that moment, or my disease trying to pull me back. Staying present helped me filter through what was real and what was old and needed to go. Being honest with myself, asking myself how I really felt in that moment and why, what was making me feel that way, and if what was making me feel that way could actually make me feel that way or was it just my perception of what was going on based on the patterns of my life before. The waters sometimes got murky. But as I questioned it, things became clearer, for the most part, there are always some who are craftier about hiding themselves from the truth, but as I kept living in the truth, and looking at the facts, my feelings became clearer, and if I didn’t like how I felt, I learned how to change that feeling to something more constructive, or something positive, at the very least, something I could learn from, which, turned it into something positive.

We are not slaves to our feelings. We can use them to our advantage. We can let us show us what we like, what is good for us, who we should spend time with. We can let them warn us of repeating behaviors from our past, of people, places and things we probably not be around. We can learn to change them to fit in line with how we’re living our life today, or how we want to. Don’t like a feeling, change it. But only with healthy means.

For me if I’m feeling down, I ask myself why. I ask myself if this is a real, valid, feeling, based on facts, or if this is something imagined, or rooted in fear, once I get to the bottom of that feeling I can then work on changing it. I can do something positive for myself, which sometimes is as simple as going for a walk. The reason I might be feeling down is that I haven’t been getting out as much as I should, and those feelings may come from a need to get some fresh air. Sometimes, it’s as simple as that.

When feelings come up that make us feel uncomfortable there may be a reason for them, and once you find out why, or even if you haven’t and you just don’t want to stay in that place, find the counter action to change that feeling, once you’re in a better place, the reason you felt what you did, might become clear as day, and that gray day may just end by you liking what you feel. SLAY on.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you feel like you are a slave to your feelings? Do you feel like you have no control over them? How do they hold you back? How do you they help you? If they don’t, how can they? How can you use your feelings to guide you to where you are supposed to go, where you should be? How you can you use them to your advantage? How you can learn from them? How can you change them when they are not serving you? This all takes time SLAYER, it takes practice to acknowledge how you feel and learn why you do, but the more you look at the facts, what you know to be true, the easier it gets, and when things don’t seem right, they’re probably not, let your feelings guide you back to a place of self-love, of forgiveness, and the light, it’s from those places we learn to trust our feelings, and learn from them, instead of being enslaved by them.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Get into the habit of being grateful.

New blog is up Tuesday, until then…SLAY on!

state of slay interrupt

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Every day may not be good but there is good in every day.

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

state of slay worrying

If You’re Fighting You’re In Fear

Before walking this path I was always proud of being a fighter. I would fight because I thought I was right. I would fight because I wanted to prove you were wrong. I would fight, just to fight. But what I didn’t realize is that I was fighting because I was in fear.

Looking back almost every decision I made was fear based, I never would have said that, in fact, I would have told you back then that I wasn’t afraid of anything. That was not the truth. My whole life I lived in fear. Fear you wouldn’t like me. Fear I wasn’t good enough. Fear I wasn’t smart enough. Fear of loosing what I have or not getting what I want. If there was something to fear I was fearing it. To mask that fear I would overcompensate and try to act strong, which many times caused me to pick fights to make myself feel better, or at least, smarter than you, and the lower I felt, and the lower my self-esteem was, the more aggressively I would fight, like somehow I could fight my way into feeling better, but I never did, it only made me feel worse over time. Oh sure, I might get a small hit of satisfaction from my “win,” but that would wear off and I was back to feeling bad again.

When I think back to those many years I lived in fear, most of my actions back then were the opposite of how I truly felt, as though I thought I could just force myself into feeling something different, but none of my actions were authentic to who I was or what was really going on.

Today, I don’t feel the need to lash out to those around me. I don’t have a need to be right, because I am comfortable in who I am today, I love who I am today, and, I am no longer motivated by fear. That’s not to say that I don’t have any fear about things in my life, but I don’t act out on it, and I know that if I did I would just have to apologize or make amends for it later, which doesn’t seem worth the fight, not today, and today I don’t need to find outside battles to try to fill an inside problem, I’ve learned to love myself and I’ve learned to fill myself with good things, with an abundance of self-love and all of the things that make my heart and soul shine, which is the antidote to fear. The counter action to fear is self-love, self-love conquers all, once you are able to find that the fear starts to fade away and those battles that used to seem so important, or even mandatory, are replaced with wanting to spread goodwill and to help those around us. So next time you’re get ready to fight, ask yourself, what am I so afraid of? SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: What are you most afraid of? When you’re in fear, do you act out? Do you try to hide your fear? Are you aware that you might be trying to hide your fear? Why do you think you have fear? Are those reasons based in fact? Or, are they based on stories you’ve been told about yourself, or, stories you’ve told yourself? What if you stopped telling those stories? Do love yourself today? If you do, what do you love about yourself? If not, why don’t you love yourself? Are those reasons legitimate today? Are these things you can change or improve on? What can you do today to focus on the good in you? When we focus on our good and share our good with others we start to lose our fears and when we lose our fears we lose our fight and need to be right. Let those moments when you want to fight be an indication that you are in fear and instead of putting on those gloves and stepping in the ring, ask yourself what you are most afraid of, the answer will likely lead you to the place you need the most love, heal that place, love yourself in that place, and don’t fear that place, that place is you, at your most beautiful vulnerable self, let go of that fear and let love in.

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