lost

Tough vs. Strong

Before stepping on this path I used to think tough and strong were interchangeable. I thought they meant the same thing. I had been through a lot in my life and I considered myself tough. I wore that like a badge of honor, but what I didn’t realize that what I was so proud of was keeping me sick, keeping me isolated and contributing to my loneliness.

Being tough, for me, meant putting on my armor, keeping everyone out, and keeping my sickness in. Being tough wasn’t kind, it wasn’t compassionate, it was cold, it could be mean, and it fed into my disease, it gave it fuel to grow and spread, and it kept me ashamed enough to not tell anyone, and the longer I lived that way the sicker I got. And even as I was getting sicker, I thought I was getting tougher, but really it was just my disease that was getting tougher as it rapidly took over and I got lost inside of it. That tough exterior was hiding a soft interior, one of a sensitive girl who was hiding behind that armor, to survive, she thought, but was slowly succumbing to her disease. We tell ourselves stories, to survive, to walk through pain, and my perceived toughness was a story I told myself to make it better for myself, to make the way I was living my life easier to accept, to make excuses for it, and if I was to get better, I had to drop that toughness and get vulnerable. The prospect of that terrified me, but the thought of totally becoming consumed by the way I was living terrified me even more.

Getting vulnerable, I thought was a form of weakness, at the beginning, it was something that frightened me, as someone who had lived as a tough girl for most of her life. Letting that armor go and standing in my truth wasn’t easy. But as I did it, as I let each piece of that armor go, and stood tall, I found my strength. It took time, and a lot of work, but living in rigorous honesty helped me to build that strength, and in time living in and speaking my truth is what gave my strength, and still does. My vulnerability, and learning to be vulnerable, gave me strength, and still does, because I learned in my vulnerability that I was OK, just as I was, that I was not my past, and that I had the power to change my story, there was strength in that. Strength, to me, is owning who you are, of not caring what others might think if you share your truth, of standing up for what you believe in, and who you believe in, and not being afraid to love. My strength is loving, kind, compassionate, supportive, inclusive and open, it’s always changing and growing because I make sure I remain teachable, and allow new things and possibilities into my life, I find my strength in all of these things, as well as a relationship in something bigger myself, something I tap into for guidance, and, more strength. But for all of that to grow, I need to remain vulnerable. It is our vulnerability that gives us strength, it allows us to connect with others and to ourselves. It teaches us that we are enough and what we have can help others if we share our truth with them.

I am proud of my strength today, and don’t miss that old armor I used to wear and carried around. That armor never did protect me, it stopped me from becoming the strong woman I am today. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you consider yourself tough or strong? When you think of your toughness, what does that mean to you? Do you feel like it’s a good thing? Do you see how it could be hurting you? How do you feel about being vulnerable? Have you been vulnerable in the past? What was the result? How did you feel? Did you choose the right person or people to get vulnerable with? Do you see how letting yourself be vulnerable could gather strength? Can you write about a time you were vulnerable with someone you felt strong as a result? What does strength mean to you? Do you feel you are strong? How so? How did you get your strength? SLAYER, let go of the past, of your fears, and let yourself speak your truth, stand in your truth, don’t be afraid to be vulnerable, it just may be the strongest thing you do as you discover your own strength.

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

This Isn’t Who I Am, But It’s Who I’ve Become In This Moment

I know this feeling all too well. I remember thinking this when things got really dark. When the self-hatred overtook the light that used to burn inside of me. I didn’t like who I was, I didn’t like to look at the person staring back at me in the mirror, and I knew that wasn’t me, but what I’d become. When you’re staring at yourself from that place, the journey back seems impossible, to far to travel, you don’t like where you are, but fear you’ve gone too far the other way to make it back, to return to the you you once where. Or maybe you never knew who you were, or never liked that person either. So the journey then is more about self-discovery, to places you’ve never been, and that alone may paralyze you and keep you right where you are.

But going back to knowing this isn’t who you are. How did you get here? What lead you to this place? And why isn’t this place you? These are questions we need to answer. It’s easy, sometimes, when we make small concessions each day, to slowly lose ourselves, let ourselves slip away to something that may seem easier, or look better, or may be the promise of something new. But when we let who we are slip away, slowly and slowly we lose sight of who we really are, and what we deserve. We start to think we deserve this place, the place we find ourselves in, and we try to convince ourselves we’re OK there, even though we know we’re not. It seems easier to stay than to fight and get out, so we stay, sometimes for many years, sometimes a lifetime. And each time we stay when should go, a little part of us dies there, until one day, maybe we can’t get out, or can’t see the light we used to have inside of us. That is why it’s always important to stay true to who you are, what you desire and what you can take action on. And always take that action when you can. It’s much harder to fight your way back when you’ve gone too far. I was lucky enough to have done that, many years ago, to find that little spark of light inside of me and fight my way back, it took a lot of work, and it took many years, but here I am.

This statement now has a different meaning for me, if I’ve become something else in the moment, and it isn’t who I was, it is now a positive thing. It now means, for me, that I’ve surpassed where I was and have moved on to the next version, the 2.0 version, well, it’s probably more than 2.0 at this point, but you get the idea. That statement can also be used be positive once you’ve started to live as your authentic self and continue to push yourself to grow and expand who you are and the world around you. You know I’m one to always look for the positives in life, and this is an example of just that. I’ve had moments over the past 12 ½ years of being on this journey that have surprised me, I’ve surprised myself in who I am in a moment, because even I didn’t know I was capable of something, or of becoming someone so much bigger than who she was, or even imagined could be in terms of my capacity to love and give back. It’s amazing what you’ll find if you always make sure to stay true to yourself, to stand strong and fight for you.

It’s important to know who we are, otherwise we won’t know when we’ve lost what we’ve had, we may feel off, or different, and that can give us a sign we’re off course, but when we truly know who we are, and know we don’t feel like we are, it’s a sign to get to work and to get back to that place that lets our hearts shine. It’s also, on the flip side, a great marker for when we’ve exceeded who we were to become the beautiful people we are today. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you have a strong sense of who you are? Do you like who you are? Is that who you are today? If not, why not? How do you get back to who you are? How did you get lost? What choices did you make to get yourself there? Or have you noticed the opposite, that because of your choices and hard work that you’ve exceeded surpassed who you were to be who you are today? What changes have you noticed? What do you love about who you are today? What else can you do to keep feeding that journey, that path you’re on to becoming an even better brighter version of yourself? Who are you in this moment? Is that person who truly are? Or do you have work to do to reclaim your true self? Find that place again SLAYER and use that as a launching pad to take you to places you have only imagined. SLAY on!

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

The Hole In Your Soul

Before stepping on this path that best described me, I had a hole in my soul. I didn’t know that I did, I just knew I had this emptiness inside of me that I could never seem to fill. And I tried, with so many outside things. But nothing I grabbed for could fill that hole, that emptiness, that darkness inside of me. The more I tried to fill it with distractions, with things, with people, with anything I could get my hands on, the emptier it felt, until finally I just felt like I was one big hole inside, just completely empty. I’ve shared this before on SLAY TALK LIVE that when I look back at pictures of myself from those years, I can see the emptiness inside, the deadness in my eyes, and the pain I was trying to hide. The picture attached to this post is an example of that.

It took a major breakdown to realize that I needed help, that I needed to try something different from what I had been doing my whole life to try to save my life because I was on a collision course with death. When someone mentioned to me that only I could fill that hole, and that it was an inside job, I got scared, I hated who I was and thought I was doomed, there was no way I was going to be able to infuse any kind of positivity into the darkness I felt when I hated myself as much as I did. If that was the key to my survival, I thought, there was no hope. But managed to find some hope, I found it within others who had done, or were filling that hole inside of them, who were working on themselves to better their lives, I saw it in them, and that was enough to want that for me too, I didn’t know if I could get it, but I made the decision to try, and not just try, to fight for it, because my life depended on it.

It started out by starting over. By throwing out all things I had used to get by, to survive and start with blank slate. Those things, in the end, weren’t really helping me survive, they were only masking the problem and would eventually kill me. So it was time to clean house, and I did. I have never been so terrified in my life, I felt like I was standing naked in front of a stadium full of people, but if I was going to get better I had to learn a new way of living and stop hiding. I had to learn to forgive myself, I head to learn how to love myself, and I had to learn how to live my life in the light, that all seemed like a tall tasks, and at times, impossible, but nothing really is if we commit ourselves to it and get to work. I had a lot of help, and I mean a lot, and I got to work like it was my job, because it was, the job of getting well, of fighting for me and my survival. I did it in steps, and did what I could in the moment, knowing that this was a life-long path, that I didn’t have to do everything all at once, or perfectly to move on, I only had to do what I could in that moment, and trust that was enough for now to move on. I had a lot of guidance from those who had walked before me, and also a counselor who helped me work through my anger and frustration about my past, and make sense of it as I moved forward. I can’t say it was easy, but I found my light.

Looking back I realize that the answer to all my problems was finding that self-love and compassion for myself, of letting go of the wheel, per se, and stop trying to run the show, stop trying to control and manipulate life to suit my needs, and trust that there was a plan, trust that I am always exactly where I am supposed to be, and if I don’t like that place, learn why I’m there, so I can move on. That hole in your soul is fillable, but it can’t be filled out outside things, it can only be filled by you, by love for yourself, by forgiveness, and by connecting with something bigger than yourself to find your place. Finding this for yourself is not an overnight project, it takes time, years maybe, but it can be done, today I feel full love, and no longer reach out to fill a void, that hole has been filled, and what is there today is what I share you with here on STATE OF SLAY.

SLAY on my friends, SLAY on.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you feel like there is a hole in your soul? What have you done to try to fill it? Has it worked? What has it done? How do you think you can fill that hole? What do you think is missing? What can you do this week to work on filling that hole? Nothing and no one outside of ourselves can fill that hole we feel inside, that is an inside job, learning to love our insides is the trick, but it is the first step to finding peace within ourselves and our way out of the darkness.

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