let go

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! If life was meant to be controlled, it would have come with a remote.

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

State Of Slay Control

Are You Addicted To Control?

Before stepping on this path I was very addicted to control. Control to me felt like safety. When my world felt unsure, when I didn’t know what was around the next corner, or when I felt like people were watching me, wanting me to fail, I tried to control everything I could, even things I couldn’t. I was always tightly wound, trying to keep things together, and trying to make things happen the way I wanted to. It exhausted me. It also frustrated me, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t control everything, no one can.

That need to control became like a drug. It was something I chased. And when I was able to control something I got a shot, or hit, that gave me a high, and then I was off for the next fix. And when I couldn’t control something the feeling and realization of that always hit me hard, and the bullshit committee in my head would get loud telling me I wasn’t good enough and was a failure. And as my life continued to spin out of control that need for control grew inside of me, like a rope I was desperately trying to hang onto but was slipping out of my hands. Control, for me, was a way to counteract my fear, so when I was told I had to let go to save my life, I was terrified.

Letting go of my need for control didn’t come easy, and sometimes I still catch myself trying to control things, not nearly like I did before, but, there is still a part of me that reaches for that when I feel like my world is, well, out of control. My disease will also disguise it as other things, like food, shopping, relationships, so I don’t notice it at first, but it all comes from the same place, fear. We, as human beings, can’t control everything, it’s impossible, so living a life hellbent on control is only going to drive you into the ground. For me, it’s where my disease wanted me, because it could then keep fuel on the fire that I was a failure, it was a place I was most vulnerable, and the endless need for control kept me so busy I couldn’t see what was truly happening and why. Once I made an effort to stop it, with the help of a counselor, support groups, and others like me who were on the same path, that is when I finally saw the truth in what I had been doing, and how I had been living my life. Coming to terms with why was a hard pill to swallow, but knowing the why helped me to stop the behavior. As I always say, what is the root of the problem? It is finding the answer there, that allows you to get better.

Today I no longer try to control, in fact today when I was thinking about an opportunity I would like, I immediately heard myself say to myself, you’ve done the footwork, now let it go. And that is how I live my life today. I do the work towards a goal or opportunity, I ask myself if there is anything else I can or should do, and if the answer is no, I let it go. That is the place I live in today, that is the place I have to live in today to live a healthy and happy life. And trust me, it is a much easier place to live, and much less exhausting. No matter how hard you try, you don’t have the power to control life so stop trying, control what you can, accept what you can’t, and focus on what you can change to be your best you. That you can control.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you obsess about things? Do you try to control things in your life? What do you try to control? Why? Are you able to control it? How does trying to control things benefit you? How does it harm you? Write down all the things you try to control. Write down a Y or N if you are able to control those things. Count how many Y’s and N’s you have. Which have more? Do you feel that if you don’t try to control something that something bad will happen? It won’t SLAYER. All you can do is the work that’s in front of you, do the work, trust that you’ve done what you can, and let the results go, you have no control over what the results will be, so stop trying to control something you can’t. Let go, live your life, and set yourself free, you may just get more of what you want by learning to control you need for control. SLAY on!

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

Hate Only Wears You Down, It Does Nothing To Your Enemy

I know for myself, I don’t have the luxury of carrying around resentments. Those resentments end up consuming me. They become larger than the actual issue that sparked the resentment, and, really, all I’m really doing by carrying around my anger or hate around is I’m giving the person it’s directed to all my power. Hate does wear me down, I know, because I used to carry a lot of it around. I was always the victim, nothing was every my fault, and when things went wrong, or someone hurt me, all of my power went into that hate, and I would set out to hurt that person as much as I felt I had been hurt. The only problem is, I was only hurting myself over and over, and the other person was walking around scot free. We only hurt ourselves when we carry around hate, something I had to learn on this path if I was to live a healthy life.

A resentment, they say, is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. You can wait all you like, but the only person you’re killing is yourself. Letting our hate go goes back to a few topics I’ve written about before. One, taking responsibility for our part. Typically, we always have one. Now, that doesn’t mean someone shouldn’t take responsibility for their actions, but we have to look at what our actions where in the offending situation because we may have been able to prevent getting ourselves there in the first place, or even, could have made choices that would have led to a different outcome. Now, there are times when we do what we can and the result is not what we would have wanted, or, someone does do something that is meant to hurt or harm us, and our part may only really be that we shouldn’t have trusted them, and, knowing what we know now, we won’t in the future. But even when we have been wronged carrying that anger around only now harms us. Which leads us to acceptance. Yes, that can be a hard pill to swallow, but it truly is our only freedom from resentment and anger. I’ve mentioned this many times before, all the “bad things” really are are information. We place value on them as to how bad they are, but really, if we only look at them as information to help us in the future, we take their power away. It is valid to be frustrated, or disappointed in the outcome, but it’s when we dwell on the circumstances that we start to get into trouble. Let yourself feel, but then learn to love on. Talking about how you feel often is the first step to releasing those feelings, and to getting on a path of letting go, or even, forgiveness, even if it’s just in yourself for engaging with the person in the first place. But, give yourself a time limit to move on, to get yourself moving forward and not getting stuck in the past.

We as SLAYERS learn from our past and continue our journey forward. Sometimes, those bumps in the road, are harder to recover from than others, but we keep trudging forward. In the times when we struggle, we reach out, we share, we write, we do what we need to do to let go what has happened so we can get back to being our best selves, make the best decisions for ourselves in each given moment. And, when we’re really hitting our stride, we may even thank those people who we would consider our enemies, because they made it possible to learn these skills, and learn that we are bigger than what happens to us, we are here to learn, we are here to shine our light, we are here to find our purpose and to share what makes us uniquely us, we don’t have time to muddy that up with hate for something we no longer have control over, what we have control over is the here and now, and here and now, we are strong. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you hold on to resentments from your past? How does this help you? How does this hurt you? What is something you are holding onto that holds you back? Why can’t you let it go? Why should you let it go? What can you do to let it go? What can you do differently in a situation like that next time so you don’t get a resentment? What choices can you make moving forward to keep yourself from having experiences like the one that you resent? I challenge you SLAYER this week to let go of something you are holding onto, to talk about it, to let it out, and let it go. You don’t need it. You’ve learned from it. You’ve had the experience. Now cut the cord that holds you to it and set yourself free.

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

Our Darkest Parts Can Bring The Most Light

Those parts of us, the darkest parts, those parts that we may think we should hide, the parts we had to fight the hardest to overcome, or are still fighting to overcome, the parts where we may have almost lost ourselves, those are the parts that can bring the most light. I used to be ashamed of those parts. I would hide them at all costs, never sharing my truth with those around me, even when asked. I thought they made me a bad person, weak, or not capable. It took a lot of pain and suffering, alone, to realize that maybe me hiding those parts wasn’t the best course of action, because hiding them was only leading me down one path, and that path had a dead end.

For me, I was fortunate to have gotten to myself to a place of such desperation that I finally had to let those dark parts out. Share them. And find others who were also working to overcome their dark parts. It took time, and practice, learning to let go of the fear of what I thought you would all think of me and just be honest about where I was coming from, what I was thinking, and what I had done to get myself there. What I discovered is that as I shared my dark parts they felt less dark, because I was able to bring some light to them and learn to make better choices to shift my path onto a better one. And as I continued to share, and continued to get better, I started to see that even though I still have a long way to go to get better, I was still able to shine the light I had on those who were just starting their journey. To them, I had made great strides from the darkness and was living positive healthy life that they had only dreamed of. A lesson that, no matter how far down we may think we are, there is always someone else who may be, or feel, lower, who can be helped by your experiences, courage and story so far. Even on our darkest days, we still have something to offer.

As I got better and many years passed, and, my light got brighter and brighter, I realized that talking about those dark parts was not only essential for my continued growth, to remind myself where I had come from, but also sharing them was like a beacon to those still sitting in the dark. I say this all the time, if someone who has never been through darkness the way we have gives us advice, or offers some suggestions, we are most likely not going to listen or take them, but when someone has come from the places we’ve come from, and offers up what they’ve done to get out, that is something we’ll connect with, and may inspire us enough to take action in our own lives. Never think that your past is something you should hide, or shouldn’t share. On the contrary, share your past, your story, your dark parts, because you never know who can be helped by it, and I guarantee, you will.

Today I make a point to share my dark parts. I share them to show others that there is hope, a solution, I celebrate those dark parts because they give me the opportunity to give back, to be stronger, to share with all of you. Those parts of us in the dark are the parts that connect us to others, and we give them permission to share their dark parts which may in turn shine some light into those dark places. It is the darkest parts of us that, when we share them, give off the most light. Share your truth. Let those dark parts shine bright.

SLAY OF THE DAY: How do you feel about your dark parts? Do you keep them hidden? Do you share them with others? If you don’t share them, why don’t you share them? What are you afraid of? Has someone shared their dark parts with you? How did that make you feel? Did it make you feel that you weren’t alone? That you had a connection to this person? You sharing your dark parts can do the same, not only for them, but for you as well. When we share those parts of ourselves that live in the dark, they get brighter, they loose their power over us, and can bring comfort to someone else. It’s important to share our truth, not only for ourselves to but show others that they are not alone. Let yourself shine bright, share the dark parts and allow yourself to be honest about your journey, that honesty will not only help you grow, but will give someone else hope they can as well. SLAY on!

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Seek and you shall find. But somethings we are not meant to find when we are seeking. A quite mind always produces the answers we are looking for.

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

State Of Slay Still

When We Stop Looking The Answers Find Us

We’ve all been there. We hit a block where we can’t find something, can’t figure something out, or can’t remember something. We keep trying and trying, getting more and more frustrated until we finally give up, and it’s then that we find the answer, or just find what we were looking for. There are countless examples of this in my life, so many in fact that I finally got the point. When I hit a block I stop. When I’ve exhausted all possible avenues, I stop. I don’t try to force it. I don’t beat myself up for not being able to do what I am looking to do in that moment. I stop. Because I know now that I am not meant to know or find what it is I’m trying to find in that moment. It’s hard to walk away, at least it can be for me, to leave something unfinished, or unfound, to just trust that it’ll come when it’s meant to. But it does. Life has proven that to me time and time again.

For me I think that it’s always a test in my faith that there is a plan and an order to things that just might not be on my own timeline. That if it’s meant to be it’ll happen, because it typically does. But we can drive ourselves to exhaustion trying to force something to happen when it’s not meant to, and all of our force will still not make it so.

Before stepping on this path my life was run on fear, and to counter that fear I tried to control everything, I thought that was my safety, to force things to happen when I wanted them to happen. The only trouble was, I don’t have that power. Sure, I can do it some of the time, but most of the time it was beyond what I could control and then I would get angry and resentful, and that’s exactly when the negative self-talk would pop up and tell me that nothing was going to go my way, that I didn’t deserve good things, and I wasn’t smart enough or talented enough to figure it out, and so on and so on. I’ve talked about dropping the rope before, to let go, and not let that rope drag us behind whatever we’re chasing or holding onto. It is about dropping the rope, but it’s also about just learning to let things come when they will. I know, for me, that they will. And, typically it’s shortly after stopping to try that the answer comes, or I find what I was looking for. It always makes me smile. Most times I say ‘thank you’ out loud. Thank you to me, for doing what was right. And, thank you to the universe for providing the answer, or showing me what I was looking for.

It’s about easing off, and trusting the process, the journey, set your intention, and then looking for the answers, the signs, that are out there, and, they are out there, if we just stop, let go, and look around. Sometimes it takes longer than we may want, but it will come. And, you’ve stopped the cycle of trying to force something that wasn’t mean to happen when you wanted it to, relieving yourself of unnecessary anger and frustration. Giving yourself that gift is really another form of self-love. For me, when I hit that wall, I try to do something else that I enjoy, walking away from whatever it was I was trying to do or figure out, and moving on to something I like, it makes it easier to leave something unfinished and keep moving forward.

Sometimes we aren’t meant to know something or find something when we’re looking for it. Trust your path, trust the timeline of your own journey and when you hit a dead end, know that may not be the end, but the end in that moment, maybe the lesson really is to trust it will come, and when you do, that’s when the answer will appear. Trust me SLAYER, the answers always come when you are meant to know them.

SLAY OF THE DAY: If you get stuck on something or can’t find something do you keep looking even after you’ve exhausted all possibilities? How does this make you feel? How does it help you? How does it hurt you? Have you experienced a time when you stopped and went on with your day only to find what you were looking for or found the answer when you were no longer looking for it? Do you trust that the answers will come when you are meant to know them? If yes, why? If no, why? Give examples when the answers came later. The answer typically do SLAYER, they may just not come at the exact moment we want them, but, they typically do when we are meant to have them. Let life unfold as it is meant to, and know there is a reason for that, even if you don’t see it at the time. SLAY on!

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

Rebounding From Regret

It’s rare today that I regret things. When things don’t go my way, or something negative happens based on choices, or I decision I made, I now, typically look at that as learning. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting anymore, it still does, but I look back to see where I could have done something differently, or made a better choice. That type of thinking keeps me out of regret and back into action because it’s in action where positive changes, or better choices, are made.

I wasn’t always thinking that way, in fact, for most of my life I was full of regret, and full of anger about past events. I was angry at others, blaming them for the outcomes, or I was blaming myself and beating myself up further, telling myself I was a piece of crap because I messed up again. That vicious cycle kept me in the darkness, and propelled me even further down.

Regret, really, is useless. We can’t change the past, we can’t go back and change what we did, so why do we spend so much time regretting the choices we made when we can’t do anything about them? What we can do is make better choices moving forward. To learn from our past and use that to help us in our present day. There may be things that we can fix, or make better from our past, and with the knowledge of what we had done, we can use that to possibly amend or make repairs on the things that didn’t go well, or we misunderstood, that, is truly the only way we can change the past, by taking positive action today. Again, it goes back to perspective. We can take a seemingly negative situation and make it positive by learning from it, or fixing what we can with the knowledge we now have. When we think of things that way, we don’t really have anything to regret. Now, there are things that we can’t go back and change, or make better, the opportunity may have past and there is no going back, I’ve had many of those, but again, it’s about learning from those experiences, and, forgiving yourself for not having the knowledge, or courage, or experience in that moment to do the right, or best thing. We can’t look back at who we were and expect ourselves to have been who we are today. We have to acknowledge that we are on a path of self-discovery, and that we typically learn the most when things go wrong, or possibly hurt, because we pay more attention to those things, so the reason it may have happened in the first place is a positive reason, to get us to change. There are no coincidences or accidents, I’ve said this before, even accidents aren’t really accidents, they may not have been what we had intended or wanted but there is a reason for everything, and sometimes it’s not your reason, but the other people, or person involved, but, usually there is something we can all take away from each experience, good, or bad, it’s just how we choose to look at those experiences that sets us a part.

I had an experience yesterday that I was really disappointed in. It was something that I may have been able to control somewhat, but it had a lot to do with me not feeling well and I wasn’t as sharp as I usually am. I was upset. And I found myself, for a brief moment, starting to get down on myself, and then I stopped and got into possible solutions. As a result, I was able to come up with one. Now, that is growth and learning. Instead of getting angry at myself and regretting all of my actions leading up to that moment, blaming them for the place I was now finding myself in, I started to look for other options. As a result I stayed out of self-hatred and self-pity and stayed in the self-love.

Regrets don’t move us forward, only back, they keep us shielded from the present and what we can do to make things right, or better for ourselves, they keep us from learning, from growing, they pull us back into the shadows when we need to stay in the light. Let go of past regrets, learn from them, use them to build a better you, and one day you may find that have nothing to regret, what do you think about that?

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you tend to regret things from your past and hang on to them? Why do you think you do that? How does it benefit you? How does it hurt you? What can you learn from those things you regret? What can you do differently for next time? Are there ways you can now improve or better those situations you regret today? If so, what are they? Stay in action SLAYER, always focus on what you can do to make a situation or experience better, and if there is nothing, looking at you part and what lesson you can take away from those times to give you some positive actions to take the next time. SLAY on!

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Don’t let the shadows of your past darken the the doorstep of your future.

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

State Of Slay The Past

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Your past does not determine who you are, your past prepares you for who are you to become.

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

State Of Slay Shape Your Future

Your Past Does Not Define You

Well, unless you let it. Many of us have come from difficult, troubled, or tragic places, sometimes beyond our control, it’s easy to get labeled, or label ourselves as victims, or as those people from our past, but that’s not who we are.

I used to dwell on the past, use it as an excuse to for bad behavior, for not treating myself well, for doing self-destructive things, to me, and those around me. I told myself that it didn’t matter, that I was a bad person, and that I was entitled to it because of my past, I was wrong. Perpetuating that story or narrative only got me deeper into the darkness, and yes, there are times in our lives, or circumstances, that are beyond our control, but as an adult we at some point need to take responsibility for who we are and how we’re living our lives, and not use those things as a crutch to behave badly or to not do better for ourselves. We as adults have the power to change our stories, or to start new ones. To say that the past is the past and let it go, or move forward. Some things are easier than others to let go, but nothing is impossible. There may be circumstances that change us forever, but we then get to decide who we are in that new normal, and how we can make a difference, to ourselves, or others. I found a way to take seemingly negative events in my life and use them to connect with others, to share, to offer hope, those things, the past, now has positive purpose in my life, and because of that, all of that darkness is now surrounded by light.

No one gets to tell us who we are, or should be. Only we get to decide. And if someone is only willing to see us the way we were, or in a certain light that is not true to who we are today, then perhaps we need to let them go. It is also up to us who we share our lives with, and as we learn and try to live in the light it’s important to share our lives with those also doing the same, or, at least trying.

Using your past to hide is like continuing the abuse, the bad behavior, or reliving the difficult circumstance over and over again, only you are the one who’s doing it to yourself. To me, that makes it worse. It’s up to us to break the pattern, it’s up to us to say that’s not who we are, and it’s up to us to rise above and not let that define us. There may be residual effects from our past that we need to deal with in our day to day lives today, but we deal with them, we take them in stride, and not let them stop us from moving on, from living the life we want for ourselves today, from succeeding where we once may have failed. Everyone has obstacles to overcome, some more than others, but finding a way to work through them, work around them, or, incorporate them into the life we want is what sets us apart from those who stay stuck and never reach their full potential.

Let the past go, talk about it, work through it, tell yourself that you are not what has happened to you, or even what you may have done to yourself, not if you change that behavior today, and when you are able to do that there is no shame in where you’ve come from, because you are no longer that person, you are better, stronger, brighter, you are who you are truly meant to be, and to get there, it takes some falls, some lessons, and some forgiveness. Let go of what no longer serves you, look for opportunities to turn your past into a positive path for you to walk today, one that allows you to be your best self and allows you to let go of what no longer serves you. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you let your past define you? Do others label you based on your past? How does that make you feel? Or, are you the one who labels yourself? Why? How does that help you? How does that hurt you? What can you do today to overcome your past? Who in your life can help you do that? Who supports you in this effort? Who do you admire for rising above their past? What can you learn from them? What can you apply to your own life to do the same? SLAYER, we all have the opportunity to let go, make peace, or re-purpose those parts of our past that are not who we are today, so don’t let anyone, or yourself, hold you back from being your best you.

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