humanness

Love And Tolerance

I remember feeling very little of this towards myself or others when I was living in the dark. I was full of anger, judgment and disappointment. I looked at everyone and everything through that filter, and myself with that filter, and, magnifying glass. I never felt good enough and as a result looked to tear down others to build myself up, but that never worked, long term anyway, but if you had asked me back then I would have told you I had a lot of compassion, and I believed I did, but it was all part of the lies my head would tell me to keep me suppressed in that place.

When I made the commitment to get well and seek treatment I heard the words love and tolerance. Those words made my skin itch. My heart liked those words, but my head told me they were weakness, and would leave me vulnerable and in a place to be hurt. I had to learn to override my head and listen to my heart, that’s where my love and tolerance had to originate from and I would envision it there. The thing is, I wasn’t a bad person, I did feel for others and was compassionate when I felt good about myself, but it was my sickness that would quash any attempt to find or show tolerance of others, and certainly any for myself, because that let some light into the dark place I was living and I may have realized I didn’t have to stay there, or, that I belonged there at all. So, now, with this new knowledge, and a new plan for living, I set out to let the light in, and start to practice this new way of life.

It was easier at first to show love and tolerance to others. I could see how maybe they also were struggling or doing their best even if what they were doing wasn’t what I wanted or to my liking. I looked for the similarities in our stories and it helped me to relate, and, at times, even find some forgiveness there. I also had to learn to keep my nose out of places it shouldn’t be. My previous way of life had me butting in all the time, thinking I knew better or could solve other people’s problems because I was smarter than all of them… something that seems quite comical since my life was spinning out of control, but as is often the case, it’s easier, and more comfortable, to shine a spotlight somewhere else so that one can continue living in the dark and not look at your own stuff. So by not involving myself where I didn’t belong that focus shifted back to me. That word self-love was still difficult, and I still had little tolerance for myself, but I had found some as I found it for others. As I continued to look at how I related to those around me, and was able to find love and tolerance for those people, I started to find it for myself. I too was doing the best I could with what I had, and, was working to get better. I too was human. Wow, that was a big revelation, and the key that opened the door to finding compassion for myself and my own journey. I was human and allowed to make mistakes, and learn and grow from them. And if there was something I didn’t like about myself, I could work on making those changes, if there was something I didn’t like in others, well, that was none of my business.

Today I do try to go through life with love and tolerance in my heart, but, because I am human, there are times that fear, anger or a little ego might take over, but because I accept my humanness, I can let that go and return to a place of love and tolerance without it taking me out to the dark places of my past. Love and tolerance shines a light into the darkness and brings us to a place where we find the forgiveness in who we are, and those around us. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you have love and tolerance for yourself? How do you show love and tolerance to yourself? If you don’t, why don’t you? How can you bring some love and tolerance to your life? Do you show love and tolerance to others? How do you do this? How does showing love and tolerance for others affect how you show it to yourself? Are there areas where you can improve on the love and tolerance you share or show yourself? Love and tolerance softens relationships or situations that might have dominated our thoughts and feelings in the past, it allows us, and others, to be human, to make mistakes and find some commonality and understanding with those around us, and in turn, for ourselves.

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

When You Don’t Speak Up, You Set Yourself Up To Blow Up

I was just sharing the other morning with a group of women I meet up with regularly that before walking this path I would never share how I felt. I often shared my opinion, especially if it made me look good, or smart, or better than you, but I never shared my feelings, my fears or anything I felt was negative in my life. I stuffed down anything I thought was bad, but those feelings and thoughts didn’t just go away, they may have sat there for a while, and watched as I piled on other thoughts and feelings, and then, BOOM, there was an explosion and they would blow right out of me. That blow up can manifest itself in a lot of ways, it can take form of a verbal assault, it can manifest itself in self harm, self medicating, or physical abuse, it will take whatever form you are willing to give it, but it will take form eventually.

Keeping things inside doesn’t make them better, in fact, most of the time, it makes them worse. Holding in what you feel and think will cloud your decisions and result in actions that do not serve your best interests, and not only can they get you in hot water in life, they can also be the cause of health and physical ailments which will further aggravate how you feel and cause you to sink even lower to a depression. No matter what may be bothering you, it is important to always find a way to let it out. Talk about it, cry about it, walk it off, laugh it off, work it off, share it, pray about it, write about it, but get it out, let out those words, those thoughts and let them go, the moment you do, they lose their power of you.

At some point we must come to a place where we can trust someone enough to share who we really are, what we really are, and what we’re thinking. It took someone sharing their true selves with me, who recognized himself in me, to get me to open up, and once I did, a huge weight was lifted off of me. After a lifetime of stuffing down my feelings, numbing them or masking them as something else, it felt incredible to just let it all out. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone, at times, feels they’ve failed or have found themselves in places they never thought they’d be, but when we share those things with another individual it restores our humanness, it gives us permission to learn, to keep us humble and to allows someone else to see our vulnerability, it’s in that place that we get our power back, and we’re able to share that power with someone else.

We hold the key to our own relief. Let out your truth, no matter what it is, before you blow up and it all comes out in a way that you may need to apologize for later, or, maybe in a way that you can’t take back. When you speak up you release the pressure giving yourself time to heal, to exhale and to find a way back on the right path. We are all human, we all make mistakes, we all have feelings and we all struggle from time to time, when we share our true selves, in the moment, we open ourselves up to be teachable and we allow ourselves to connect with someone who may need to hear what you have to say, or, may just understand exactly what you’re going through. Accept that you will make mistakes, or feel hurt, or don’t know what to do, allow yourself to experience those things, to be those things, and to let those things go. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you tend to share how you feel or keep your feelings bottled up? How do you feel when you don’t share? Do you tend to keep things under wraps until you explode? How do you feel after an explosion? What can you do stop the next explosion from happening? What scares you about that? Why do you feel you can’t share your thoughts and feelings with others? Have you had bad experiences in the past? What made them bad? How can you change that moving forward? Release the pressure and share what you may be holding inside that can cause the next blow up, that bomb can always be diffused with the truth, your truth, and can help you avert the next disaster.

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