hope

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYERS! When we have hope, we can do anything.

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

State Of Slay Hope

Hope: The Greatest Gift Of All

I was sharing recently on SLAY TALK LIVE about giving the gift of hope and that it was that gift, that someone gave me years ago, that saved my life. It was the tiniest of sparks, but it was enough to get me to reach out for help. To reach for more than what I had, and to believe that it was possible to get it. I’m not talking material things here, I’m talking life, I’m talking self-esteem, I’m talking self-love. I hated myself and didn’t think that I deserved anything good in my life. The voices that I was listening to, the voices that had gotten so loud, told me I wasn’t worthy of more and because I wasn’t sharing my truth with anyone, those voices, even though they were lying to me, became my truth. I was lucky to receive that gift of hope from a friend, and I was lucky I was able to see that light in him, and that I recognized the darkness from where he came. There is no greater gift, to see that there is a solution, a way out, from someone who found it themselves. And as incredible as it was to have gotten that gift, it is also a gift to give that away. By being someone else’s light, their torch, and that tiny bit of hope that gives them a glimpse of what may be possible for them.

We do that by sharing ourselves with others, by being honest about our own story, or journey, and what we overcome, or have overcome, to get where we are today. We can listen to them, encourage them to speak their truth, and show them kindness. For me it took someone who had walked the path before to share his story for me to see that there was a solution for the way I was living my life, that he had done it, and maybe, so could I. My outlook had gotten so dim, but the light was just enough that I picked up the phone one morning and asked for help. It is by sharing that we connect with others, it is by sharing that those things we think are our deepest darkest secrets lose their power over us, it is by sharing that we start to get well. But offering someone hope can be as simple as listening to someone. As simple as letting someone know that they matter, that their voice is being heard and that their experience is valid. Sometimes it’s just listening, looking someone in the eye and saying, “I know,” or “I hear you.” In the end we all want to be loved, we want to know that we are not alone, and we want to connect with others we feel understand who we are, or where we’ve been. We want our dignity back, and we want to know how to get it back, even if we were the ones that took it away in the first place. Hope allows us to open the door to a better life, to a better us, to the possibility of doing things differently, and the possibility of different results. When we have hope and we see it in action, we start to fight for it, we start to fight for what we want, and when we do our path gets brighter, and when the light starts to come in we start to see things for what they are and not what we’ve told ourselves or built up in our heads. From hope comes healing.

People have overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles because they had hope, whether internally themselves, or because it was given to them from others, but when we have hope in our hearts we have a fire burning inside of us that can propel us to make change, to fight for what we want, to resolves issues, to survive, and, to flourish. Hope won’t do it alone, because along with hope we have to roll up our sleeves and get to work, but it’s hope that will get us through when things get tough, when we get tired and when that voice tells we can’t win, hope tells we can. Hope is the greatest gift, hope saved my life, and I know the power in giving that away to someone else, in fact to keep it, we have to give it away, to see that spark in others, to see that light start to get bright for those who were living in the darkness. How can you SLAYER, pass on hope to someone in your life? To someone in your community? To someone in need of your light?

SLAY OF THE DAY: Have there been times in your life that hope got you through a tough time or a difficult decision? List those times. Have there been times that your hope burned brighter from helping someone else, and giving them hope? How did it? When you feel in need of hope, what do you do to find it? Or, how can you find it? Who or what in your life gives you the most hope? How can you share your hope with others? How do you feel when you do? Shine on SLAYER, and share the light that burns inside of you with those around you, when we give hope we get even more in return, and it turns our flame even brighter. SLAY on!

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

Believe In Believing

I’m a firm believer in the laws of attraction, what we give out is what we get back for the most part, and we attract what we believe we deserve. When I was living in the darkness, depressed, and feeling less than, I would constantly get pummeled by “bad things” and talk about my bad luck, but the truth of the matter is, I believed I wasn’t worthy of having good things so it was the bad that came, or at least, it was only the bad I saw and embraced. If the good came I feared it would be taken away, feared I didn’t deserve it, or feared that something bad would happen to counter the good, but it was all just fear made up in my head, perpetuated by the fact that I was isolating and only listening the voices in my head, the bullshit committee, who wanted to keep me in the darkness, and alone. I didn’t believe I was worthy of good things so most often good things didn’t happen to me, although I’m sure more did than I knew because I was so focused on the bad I probably didn’t see many good things that did come my way, or excused them away as coincidences or mistakes.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that things will get better, or we deserve better, but when we do, there’s a little light comes on inside of us, and that light attracts other light, and other individuals who’s light is also on. I have to tell myself, at times, to believe in the good, to trust that the good is coming, or will happen, and many times when I do, and focus on that, it does. Believing has real power. Believing sends a message to our subconscious, and the universe, that we want and are creating good things for ourselves. When we say we can’t do something, we set ourselves up to fail, we tell our subconscious that we can’t succeed and we set up a situation for ourselves that makes it harder to win.

So how do we start to believe? It starts by changing our thoughts, changing the way we live our life, and, changing the way we speak to ourselves. Our thoughts turn into beliefs, if we continue to work on thinking positively about ourselves and our situation, we have the power to transform our thoughts into beliefs. For me, when I was in a negative place, I used to write down 10 things I was grateful for, every day, things I couldn’t buy or own, and I would put that list in my pocket and carry it around with me. When I felt negative or down, I would take out that list and read it out loud, and think about that list. Now, some days that list was really hard to write, and the really dark days I wouldn’t make it to ten, or would struggle to make it to ten, but I would try, every day, and as I did that list started to get easier to write, and as I continued to do the things I was proud of they would make it on that list, things I had done differently, things I had succeeded in doing, things that had slowly become easier to do, and as those days turned into weeks and months, I started believing, I started believing in myself, I started believing that I deserved the good, I started believing that things could change because they were, I was changing, and the bad didn’t seem like a good place anymore, like a place I wanted to be, or deserved to be, I looked for the good, and worked for the good, and believed in the good. The good came.

Some days are harder than others to believe, we all have struggles and life can get challenging, and dark, but if we can keep the light of belief on inside of us, it makes those days easier and allows people who love and care about us come around to help and support us. Belief is like a beacon of hope that we can shine from our hearts for ourselves and those around us. Shine on. Believe.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you have trouble believing in good things? Do you believe you deserve good things? If not, why? You’ve taken the time to read this SLAYER, so you have enough hope and belief to seek out the answer to why you don’t believe, that means you have some belief in you that you can. Focus on that, let it grow, shine brighter, surround yourself with those people who also believe, in themselves, and you, let your light shine as they do theirs, SLAYER, you’re worth it.

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