grow

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Your silence does not protect you.

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

State Of Slay Freedom Ends

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Loving yourself is the greatest revolution.

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

State Of Slay Love Yourself 2

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Love yourself so much you fill in all the cracks.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Love Mirror

Bringing Love To Your Wounds

Often times we are the ones who hurt ourselves the most. And even in times when someone else may be hurting us, we allow them to do it, whether directly or indirectly, by engaging with that person or putting ourselves in the situation to begin with. But, most times we are the ones who do the most damage to ourselves, we suffer the most by our own hand. Sometimes we do it by not giving ourselves credit for something we’ve achieved, by punishing ourselves for doing something wrong or not knowing better, for missing an opportunity, missing a deadline, or not speaking up for ourselves. We continue to bully ourselves for these things and keep picking away at a wound that is already there. We get ourselves into a viscous cycle of self-attack, self-defense, self-imposed guilt, and self-imposed blame. But it’s important to seek out the right within the wrong, or even question whether the act was “wrong” in the first place and not merely just a chance to learn or do it better next time. This journey, this path, we are on is about learning and growing, if we all knew everything and did everything perfectly every time, none of us would know how great it feels to find success after a previous failure. It’s those “failures” that build our strength and show us who we are, if we’re able to use them as tools to build a better us.

Before setting out on a path of recovery, I only focused on what I thought was bad about myself, or inadequate. I had a constant loop in my head telling myself what and who I was not. When someone would compliment me I would quickly point out why I didn’t deserve the compliment and shoot it down. I would beat myself up for having a lack of clarity and or for indecisiveness, which many times came from fear of doing what I really wanted, that I labeled it as a sign of weakness. I could tell you all the things I was not, but I couldn’t tell you why, and the reason I couldn’t was because in reality it wasn’t true, it was a narrative I would tell myself to keep myself sick, to keep myself isolated from those around me and to prevent myself from achieving what I was too afraid to believe I deserved.

It wasn’t until I found the courage to see the right beneath the wrong that things started to change. I had to change my thinking and I had to learn to trust myself. That shift happened by learning to take a compliment, and if I truly didn’t believe I deserved it, to just say thank you, not talk back and try to take it away. I was taught that when I argued and said I didn’t deserve it, that I was actually telling that person they were wrong, or a liar, and that wasn’t something I wanted to do, so a simple thank you helped me through that to start. I learned to trust myself by doing trustworthy things, to be accountable for my actions and words, and be open to the belief that I deserved good things, so when they came my way I could humbly smile and say OK. All of these baby steps took time, along with others, that slowly helped me let go of my self-imprisonment and learn to let myself live, mistakes and all. I had to learn to bring love to my wounds, and it was that love that would eventually let them heal.

We often focus on all the things we think are wrong with us, what we lack, but what if, just for today, you offered yourself some love and acceptance so you can move beyond what you may not have been to what you can do. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you focus on what you think your shortcomings are? Is that all you see? Why? When was the last time you let yourself take credit for something? Do you take compliments from others easily? If not, why not? Do you give compliments to others? How does that make you feel? How do you feel if someone doesn’t accept your compliment? Do you see how when you don’t accept a compliment yourself that the other person may feel that same way? What if today you focused on all the things you are instead of what you’re not, and see how that focus may change your day, you never know SLAYER, you may just try it again the next day just to make sure you were right.

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

Humility Coming From Pain

I know for me, it took a lot of pain before I found any humility, it actually took me getting knocked down to me knees, time and time again, until I finally surrendered. Up until that point, I thought I knew better, knew what was best for me, and usually, what was best for you too. My ego kept me sick, and it kept me from having meaningful honest relationships in my life. I was never going to find or see a solution when my ego was running the show, and it was my ego that nearly cost me my life. Humility is where we’re teachable, it’s where the light comes in and the healing can start. It’s that place where we give ourselves permission to ask for help, and where we find the willingness to do the work to find peace. Why do we put ourselves through so much pain until we are able to find humility?

I used to think that humility meant weakness. That it meant I couldn’t fail or make excuses for myself, that I had to have it all figured out, and be successful in everything I did. Now that is one tall order I was never going to live up to, no one could. And, not at all what humility actually is. I also used to confuse humility with self-deprecation. I would tell myself I was being humble but really just putting myself down or not taking credit for a compliment or appreciation of a job well done. That was as close to humility as I ever got, self-abuse to beat my ego down for a moment before it inflated back up to it’s super-sized proportion.

When set out on a path of recovery, I was told I needed to stay right-sized. That struggle inside of me of thinking I knew everything but that I was also a piece if crap didn’t know what to do with that. What size was right? I needed to find some humility and figure it out.

The first step of humility for me was asking for help. A phone call that opened the door, and it was from that step that I was able to find some humility from there, but it took some work to get my ego “right-sized” and admit that not only did I not know everything, I probably knew very little. In fact, considering where I found myself, I probably didn’t know much of anything in that moment. That was scary, but also exciting, to know that, if I let myself, I was about to embark on a new way of life that was going to teach me how to live in a healthier happier way. I had to push that ego aside over and over, as being teachable was the most important thing I needed to get better, and still is today. I needed to look at my part of things, and my part was all over the misery and heartache I had felt in my past, and learn to forgive myself and not blame others for my mistakes and choices that had gotten me to that place. I had to learn what true humility was, and I had to learn that when I let my ego run the show again that the only result was pain, pain that would eventually bring me back to humility.

We don’t have to wait for pain to push us to humility, but for many of us that’s what it takes. Sometimes a lot of pain. I am grateful that I was able to endure the pain I was to find my humility, and that I have learned over the years what true humility is and how to use it properly in my life. I know today that we are all important, and what we say, feel and do has the same level of importance and worth, we are all here to contribute and to share who we are and what we are, the best of what we have to offer, but none of us are better than any other, we are all here to learn, to grow, and, to remain teachable, because if we lose that teachability we probably setting ourselves up for more pain. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Has pain lead you to humility in your life? How so? What pain of you caused yourself with your lack of humility? Do you consider humility a bad thing? Why is that? How have you seen humility be a positive attribute in your life or the life of others? What can you do to find more humility in your life? No human being knows everything, and what we do know is limited to our perspective and experience, it is important to always remain open to new ideas and concepts, as well as the knowledge that there the world is much bigger than what we see everyday. We all have a great contribution to make, to share our best selves, but no one’s contribution is better than anyone else’s if it comes from your true self and shared from our heart.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! There’s nothing left for you in that space back there, so let go and move on.

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

State Of Slay The More Anger

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! If you are still trying, you have not failed.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Stumble (1)

Remeber Your Why, Remember The Magic

We often can get so focused on achieving our goals or going after the next thing or relationship that when we have it we don’t appreciate it in the moment. We work hard to change, nurture relationships with others and push ourselves to go after what we want, what we find magic in, and then when we get there we’re already thinking about what comes next, or forget that the relationship or promotion or whatever it may be comes with day-to-day work to keep and maintain it, and ultimately, to have it grow. When we find ourselves in that rut it’s important to remind ourselves of the magic that person, place or thing had for us that pushed us to go after it in the first place.

There are those of us who are addicted to the chase. Addicted to the next great thing, and are never satisfied once we get it. We build it up in our heads to be something more than it could ever be so once we get it we’re let down or unsatisfied by the reality of what it actually is. I know for myself, I used to be guilty of this. It was like I looked at everything from a child’s perspective, always making it out to be much more than it really was. My expectations were never based in reality, and there was no way anything was every going to reach the level of what I thought it was going to be. As a result I was always let down or feeling empty, and many times thought I had failed, even though I had exactly what I had wanted or worked for because it always felt empty.

It’s important to base our expectations in reality, to go after our hopes and dreams, and allow ourselves to hold some magic around them, but make sure that we’re not setting ourselves up to be disappointed by delusions of grandeur that we build up in our heads. And, even if we keep our expectations in check, to make sure we remember why we wanted what we have in the first place, and appreciating where we are and what we’ve achieved. And remembering that all that we achieve takes a lot of work, and it takes that work to make it work. Many times we’re too quick to throw in the towel when we realize that what we’ve fought so hard for isn’t going to maintain itself or run itself, it takes daily maintenance to keep things running smoothly, and to move things forward to the next level.

We all have the right to dream about what we would like for ourselves, and it’s alright to find some magic around those things, but make sure you keep those dreams and goals in check and not let them get so grandiose that they can never live up to what you’ve built up in your mind. Remember your why and keep that magic that propelled you to start in the first place, and maintain those things as you roll up your sleeves and get to work on what you’ve worked so hard for. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you tend to build up things in your mind that they never reach your expectations? How do you do this? Give an example. Do you let your expectations ruin your enjoyment of what you accomplish? Once you attain what you’ve worked for, are you able to remember your why and keep the magic of what you thought the accomplishment would give you? Are you willing to do the work to keep that magic going? Are you always looking for the next thing and once you get what you want move on to something else forgetting where you just were? Why do you think you do this? How you can you prevent yourself from doing it the next time? It is our nature, SLAYER, to keep striving for more, but it’s important to appreciate what we’ve worked for and accomplished, to remember your why for doing it in the first place and not get discouraged when it requires some work to keep the magic going. Take a moment to pause today, and find the magic in your life.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! If you cannot do great things, do things in a great way.

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

State Of Slay Expectation