live in the light

Walk Up From The Basement

We forget sometimes that we have the power to walk away from a situation that no longer serves us, or maybe never did. We don’t have to stay down in the basement. In the dark. We can walk up those stairs and live the life we want, have dreamed of, and truly deserve.

We sometimes keep ourselves in the dark, thinking we deserve to be there, or don’t deserve any better, but we are the only ones who our holding ourselves back, we are the ones telling ourselves those lies that prevent us from finding our own happy ending, or maybe beginning, but finding our happy. It’s out there for the taking, but you have to have the courage to take it.

Before walking on this path I lived in the basement of my own life. And I was the only one in the house! No one was keeping me down there except myself. And I had lived there so long that I couldn’t remember living anywhere else. I didn’t like it there, but it was what I knew. I told myself it was safer there, even though I felt alone there. I thought I deserved to live in the darkness, where it was cold and damp. It clung to me when I tried to step into the light, like it was reaching out for me from the shadows, and I would let it pull me back down, retreating from the world and from my true self. I played the victim and would say that I didn’t deserve good things because I was a bad person. I wasn’t a bad person, I just wasn’t being good to myself. And didn’t believe in myself.

When I finally found the courage to reach out for help, I was told that my recovery, the improvement of my life, was in my hands, that I had the power to change, and I was the only one with the key to unlock the door and step out into the light. It had never occurred to me that I had that key. I used to blame everyone else, or just the world in general, for my life in the basement, but it was me who kept me down there all along. And once I had realized that it was my job to come up those stairs and live the life I was meant to live. Letting myself come up from the basement was the first of many big steps. Learning how to live outside of it came next, and it wasn’t always easy, as that basement was always calling me with it’s familiarity and it’s cloak of sadness a part of me still believed felt right. Change can be difficult. But it can be done. And as I kept taking more and more steps into the light, that basement didn’t seem so appealing anymore. And that feeling of familiarity started to fade. I started to crave the light, and living in it, and eventually threw away the key that opened that basement door.

We all have a choice, ever day, where we want to live, not necessarily physically, but mentally and spiritually, but we have to believe we deserve more than we have, if what we have doesn’t fill our hearts and minds with love. We are only as stuck as we allow ourselves to be, and sure, sometimes circumstances may make it difficult to extract ourselves from our current situation, but it can be done, and if need be, there are always people out there willing to lend you a hand for a better opportunity or place you can call home. Share you truth, let go of your fears and start climbing that staircase, there’s a bright future waiting for you up there. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you keep yourself locked in the basement when you should be living your life upstairs? Why do you think you do that? What do you do to keep yourself there? What can you do to get yourself out? What do you imagine your life would look like out of the basement? Have you lived in the basement so long you’ve forgotten, or don’t know? You hold the key SLAYER to your own freedom, but first you have to believe that you deserve to be set free. You also have to let go of the lies you’ve told yourself, or maybe someone else has told you, to let yourself live freely in the light. It’s all there, what you want, what you imagined, on the other side of that basement door, you locked yourself.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! It’s normal to come down after a big event in our lives, prepare yourself for the dip after the high, and don’t forget to live your life for today, not the one you just had.

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

State Of Slay Today

You Matter

This week we lost two creative, talented, successful people to suicide. Both came as a shock, to me, and most people. How could two different people, seemingly both “having it all”, make the decision to take their own lives? It seems unfathomable, except to those who have been there, who understand the despair and anguish that goes along with anxiety, depression, mental illness. Yes, those conditions do not discriminate between those who have all the things, we may think, will make us OK, or better, and those who may not. It can come for any of us, I know because it had me in it’s grips for most of my life, and, on a bad day, can still get the best of me when I’m not taking care of myself, because even though I’ve made the choice to live a life in the light today, my disease still wants me dead, and as I grow and learn to be a better and healthier woman, my disease is also learning what I am and looking to find a way to navigate around the obstacles I’ve put in it’s path. I know if I stop choosing life, death is waiting to take me in it’s arms.

It’s also a wake-up call. To me, and hopefully those out there like me, and, those who are still struggling. We may tell ourselves that if we get the new job we’ll be OK, the new girlfriend/boyfriend, the vacation, the new apartment/house, a move to a new city, we may tell ourselves that if something in our lives changed we would be OK, and the truth is it won’t, not if we’re not OK right now. Sure it’s nice to have nice things, but nothing can fix us if it’s an inside problem, that we have to tackle, head on. For me it was a matter of life and death. Trying to hide what was going on, not sharing it with anyone, and isolating myself from people who cared, those negative voices got louder in my head, and because they were the only feedback I was hearing, they sounded like the truth. They would tell me I wasn’t good enough, that I didn’t deserve good things, that I was a bad person, that I should be ashamed, and that it would be better if I just wasn’t here anymore, in fact, no one would even notice, or care. None of that is true. None of that is fact. All of that is my disease. But, when you’re not sharing with others, no one can tell you it’s wrong. I know what’s it’s like to stand there, alone, in the darkness and make the decision to end the pain and suffering, thinking that’s the only way out, the only way to stop the pain, it’s an awful place to stand, it makes me feel physically ill just thinking about it, but I can also say, as a survivor, that there is a solution, and, you will be missed, and that action will not only take you from our lives, but will have a ripple effect of pain, anger, and confusion for years to come, maybe even a lifetime.

You matter. We want you here. You deserve good things, and you can get them, but first you need to get help. Talk. Share. Reach out. There are so many ways to do it today. You can call someone, a help or crises line, you can chat online, talk to someone in person, just take action, no one will judge you, but they will offer to help. When I finally reached out for help it was such a relief. A relief to let go of the huge secret I had been carrying around with me. To finally be honest, to come clean, and to find the courage to say I was in crisis. My life changed the day, I found an abundance of people willing to help, but I had to take action before I started to get better. Now, as I said, on a bad day those demons still come calling, and they always know just what to say, but today I know they’re lying to me, and I know if I can’t battle them alone, that I have a whole army of people to back me up and fight them with me. You also have that army, you just have to call it into action.

Pick up your sword SLAYER, and go to battle, for the most important person there is, YOU.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you let your demons get the best of you? How do they do that? Why do they do that? Why do you let them? Would you allow anyone else to speak to you that way? So why do you let them? Do you reach out for help when you feel overwhelmed? If not, why not? If you have, what was the result of that? When you are struggling, do you make sure you let people know? If not, why not? SLAYER, we are all more alike than not, we understand and are here to help, we all support each other through the tough times and as a result we all rise. We stand together, tall, proud of who we are, even on those days we feel small, because we will not be defeated, we are warriors, survivors, we are SLAYERS!

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

Never Cursed

Before walking this path when bad things would happen to me, or when things didn’t go the way I wanted them to, I would say I was cursed. Others would say it me too, so I believed that I was, or I would say that maybe I had been someone really awful in another life and was now paying the price. I believed I was cursed for most of my life. It wasn’t until I changed my life and made a commitment to live in the light that I realized I had never been cursed at all, well, maybe by my own thinking, but that it was my need to control everything that caused my frustration, and my expectation that everything and anything would go wrong that made my cursed theory a self-fulfilling prophecy. I expected the bad, so the bad came. I also played a part with some self-sabotage as well to really get the negative narrative spinning that I wanted to tell, and could use that for sympathy to manipulate others and to see if I would get a break because I could get someone to feel sorry for me. Yeah, that’s an attractive way to live. It felt as ugly as it sounds, because it was. So here’s the thing, I was never cursed, I was choosing to only see the bad, the negative, and sometimes created it myself, to stay in the muck and dirt because I believed I belonged there. And if that sounds like you, it’s time to clean yourself off and come clean about the story you’re telling yourself, and those around you.

The truth is, life happens. Good, bad. It ebbs and flows. And sure, it sucks when we get disappointed, or hurt, or slapped with an unexpected surprise that may be hard to deal with, but that’s life, it’s how we deal with it that makes us who we are. I’ve talked quite a bit about expecting the good, because when we expect good, many times the good comes, and even when something perceivably bad happens, trying to find the good in it, or at least the lesson learned. For me it was about practicing some contrary action, which I’ve blogged about in the past as well, when my brain would go to the negative, focusing on something positive, searching for it, even if it was small, to turn my negative thinking to positive thinking. It took time, and sometimes still I’ll slip back to negative thinking, but for the most part I stay in the light and expect the good. We tell ourselves stories, either to back up the story we want to tell, or because it was a story that was told to us as children or by others even in adulthood, but what really matters is not the story, but the truth, what are the facts, those won’t steer you wrong. But it’s always looking at the facts for what they are, not skewing them to lean the way you want. Live life and life’s terms. Now I know that statement may scare some of you, especially you control freaks, I know you’re out there, I used to be one of you, but there’s so much power in letting things go, and truly accepting things as they come, it’s far too much work, and exhausting, to try to spin everything to fit the story you’re trying to tell, to manipulate the facts, to manipulate the people around you. You are not cursed anymore than you are a genie, but you do have the power to make some magic happen in your life, focus on the good things, and focus on getting more good in your life, that’s when the real magic happens.

At the end of the day, you have the power to reverse that curse, and change the outlook you have on your life, let the light in, accept what you cannot change, and make changes where you can, and focus on the good, after all, the energy we put out is the energy that comes back to us, so step in the light and make a plan to stay there. SLAY on.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you think of yourself as being cursed? Why? Do you tell people you are cursed? Why? What do you think will happen if you stop saying that? What if you stopped thinking it? What if you just took the “bad” things in stride and walked through it, never labeling it or giving it more weight than it deserves? Do you have trouble finding the light in your life? Why? How have you tried? Make a list of 5 things that you are grateful for, that you cannot buy. When you have trouble finding the light, look at that list, visual light around those things, and yourself, and see if you can add 5 more by the end of the week.

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

Celebrate Your True Spirit

For most of my life I lived behind a mask, a cardboard cutout of who I thought you wanted me to be, and I say cardboard because it always felt flimsy, like if it got wet it would buckle, and as time when on it seemed to get ragged from overuse, it seemed to give way to the broken woman who held it up with white knuckles because she was clinging to it with all her might. My spirit was broken, was pushed so far down under the muck and sludge I had thrown on top of it that I wasn’t sure it was even there, never-mind celebrate it. It took a lot of work to finally let it back out and to shine. I realized as I was working my way back from a pit of darkness that I needed to celebrate my spirit along the way, celebrate that I was a survivor, celebrate that drive in me to get better, to do better, and really appreciate the spirit in me that makes me who I am, at the core. Now, on a bad day I can beat up that spirit, I’m grateful that I don’t have as many of those today, because today I protect that spirit, I honor it, and do what I can to nourish it, to let it shine for all to see, because my journey has taught me, when I do, great things happen, and when I do I can encourage others to do the same. But, if you’re not quite there yet, or maybe never where, how to do we learn to celebrate our spirit and who we are as individuals?

1) As Shakespeare said…”This above all: to thine own self be true.” Never dull your shine for anyone. Be your true self, all we have to offer to set us apart from each other is our own uniqueness, and we are all unique. We may have similar interests or ideas but we all have our own twist of seeing the world and executing those ideas, so share your perspective, share your unique voice, as I always say, let your freak flag fly! No one wants a carbon copy of someone else, or someone pretending to be someone else, know who you are and be proud of that. And if you don’t know who you are and what you stand for ask yourself, invest in yourself, and head down the road of self-discovery, it’s the richest road you can travel on. Always be your true self.

2) Be Good To Yourself. Give back to yourself, nourish yourself, mind, body and spirit. Make sure you’re getting what you need to be your best self, invest in yourself. It’s easy to put ourselves last when life gets busy, but you can’t pour anything from an empty cup, fill yours up first before you start giving to others. Whatever makes your heart shine, make sure you’re giving yourself some of that every day, even if it’s just rocking out to your favorite song in the shower, whatever makes you smile from the inside out, do that, and do that often.

3) Have Fun. Don’t forget to have fun. There are many things in life that aren’t that much fun, but I am of the firm belief that we can really make most things fun, some are more fun than others, but again, it’s a matter of perspective, and, if there is something that is most definitely not fun, make sure you’ve got a plan in place for some fun after, I use that one a lot. Life should be fun, so schedule some in between those things that you have to do, and even better, see if you can’t make those more fun too.

4) Embrace Your Flaws. First off, we all have them, second, are they really flaws, or you just placing an unkind label on something you’re just not fond of, or perhaps think should be or look a certain way. I’ve talked about turning our flaws into flawsome in the past, and it’s something that really let’s our spirit shine. There’s so much pressure and negativity in the world, why not stop adding to what’s already there by thinking and speaking negatively to ourselves? Embrace who you are, flaws and all, and see if you can’t change some, if not all of them, into flawsomeness.

5) Go After What You Want. Know what you want and go for it. You are the only one stopping you. You’re not always going to get what you want, but you tried, and the act of trying may take you to where you’re supposed to be. But, you won’t get there if you don’t know, or don’t even get started. Trust that you are drawn to where you’re path is supposed to lead you and then take action. And don’t be afraid to tell people what you want. When you speak up and share your ideas and goals others may join you, or may have a suggestion of how you can achieve that goal. Speak up, be confident, and be proud of who you are and where you want to go.

We all get knocked down in life, some harder than others, but no one gets a free ride. It’s about getting back up and celebrating who you are, who you truly are, at the very center of your being, of letting that light in you shine bright sharing it with those around you, but also with yourself. Be good to you, celebrate you, love you, when you do you start to receive that love back in all that you do.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you celebrate your spirit? If not why? If you do, how do you celebrate your spirit? Are you struggling to celebrate your spirit today? What do you think is stopping you? If someone where to describe your true you, how would you want them to describe you? What words would you like them to use? What’s stopping you from describing yourself with these same words. Start SLAYER. Write down 5 things you love about who you are. Write down 5 words each day this week, never repeating the same words twice. At the end of the week, celebrate you and all of the ways that make you, and your spirit, uniquely and beautifully you. SLAY on.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Staying in love with our sadness holds us in the past, when we let go and learn to live in the light we begin to see the beauty there, and the potential of what lies ahead.

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

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