Love

Listening Is Loving

Everyone wants to be heard. One of the greatest gifts we can give someone is to listen to them. Listening to someone is an act of love. And practicing that gift is also a gift to yourself.

It was a gift I had to learn. Before this journey I, many times, wouldn’t listen, not truly, I had already made up my mind, or thought I was smarter than you, or, just didn’t care because you weren’t useful to me, as ugly as sounds, that was the truth. I wasn’t going to sit and listen to someone and not get something in return. With that mindset, I’m sure I missed many opportunities to learn something or to form a closer bond with someone already in my life. It’s giving someone the utmost respect, to listen, you’re saying that their opinion, or feelings, or situation, matters, and sometimes all someone wants to hear is that you’re willing to listen.

The act of listening takes patience, probably one of the main reasons I was so horrible at listening years ago, I was as impatient as they get, listening allows the other person to step into the spotlight, to have their moment to share, without interruptions, see, that’s the key component to listening, you don’t interrupt, or bud in while the other person is still speaking, so it trains us, to be patient, while we listen. It shows a great deal of humility to set aside our own wants and needs for a moment to let someone else express theirs. It allows the other person to step into the spotlight, to give them the moment to take center stage and talk about what is going on for them. And, hopefully they will return the gesture and give you the same gift. In fact, that is something I pay attention to, it’s great to be there for others and listen to them, but they should also ask what’s going on for you, and listen to you if you need to share. One-sided relationships, with only one person ever listening, is not a healthy relationship, I’ve talked about this in the past with the blog, Emotional Vampires: They’ve Come To Suck Your Life. Listening should always be a two-way street.

It also sets that standard for your relationships, it connects you to others, and if you let it, helps you learn from what is shared and possibly apply that new information to your own life. Yeah, there is always a reason why someone asks us to listen, or we’re drawn to ask someone to share with us, we may not know why at the time, but, the reason usually reveals itself.

So how is listening a loving act? It shows you care, that you’re interested, and that you are willing to set your own problems or issues aside for a moment to listen to theirs, because, you care. It costs nothing, but your time, and it could be priceless for someone else to have you as a sounding board and have your attention for a time. It’s also loving to yourself because you are honoring a friendship and the principles you stand for by giving your time to someone else while they share with you. It helps with your self-esteem, with your compassion for others, and with as I mentioned, building your patience.

Never under-estimate the power listening to someone, it is a gift that not only is given to the other person, but to you as well. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you have a difficult time sitting and listening to someone else? Why? Do you enjoy it when someone takes the time to listen to you? Why do you enjoy that? So, using the reasons that you enjoy being listened to, can you apply those to the other people in your life and understand why they would appreciate being listened to as well? When you have listened to people in the past, how did that make you feel? What new information did you learn? And, how, if any, many ways were you able to apply that to your own life? Do you see how listening to someone is a loving act? Why do you think you struggle with it? I challenge you SLAYER, to call someone this week and instead of talking about your life, ask them how they are and what’s going on, and as the they do, stay quiet, and listen, you may just learn something new.

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

You Are Not Entitled To Be Happy

Yeah, I bet that got your attention. It is up to each and every one of us to find our happy. Within every circumstance. Being happy is a choice. It’s about being open to new things, different things than the things we thought were going to make us happy. It’s about releasing the constraints of what you think you need to be happy, to let happy happen even when it doesn’t look exactly how you think it should, or needs to be.

I’ve heard people around me say, many times, “well, I did all of these good things for myself, cleaned up my life, played by the rules, and I still didn’t get what I wanted,” and I always say, “you’ve gotten what you’re supposed to have gotten, when you’re supposed to have gotten it.” Sometimes The Universe, God, whatever your belief is, saves us from ourselves, because what we think we want, isn’t what is good for us, or best for us, or, we’re just not ready for it. I always try to look at opportunities I thought I missed out on as exactly that. Things I wasn’t meant to have, or may not have been in the right place for, even though I thought I should be there or get those things. It’s about trusting you are where you’re supposed to be, and knowing that, life hasn’t forgotten about you, if you feel stuck, that’s a time to ask yourself how you can move forward, or if there is something you are doing that’s keeping you stuck, how can you contribute to yourself moving in the direction of what you want, of, well, happy. I mean, we should be finding happy exactly where we are, but it’s also OK to want to keep going, to get to the next step or level in our lives to a place, or places, we’ve always wanted to go. Just don’t forget to appreciate where you are right now, and what you’ve overcome to get there. Don’t get so caught up in the future that you can’t appreciate the now. The now is important, and it’s important to find happy in the now.

We, as human beings, only know a little, we can only see what’s in front of us, and where we’ve been, but we only have our own perspective, we can’t see the bigger picture, how our lives fit into the overall tapestry of lives all around us, and even beyond, because we are all connected in many ways, and everything we do, as it does with others, affects those around us and far beyond, beyond we even realize, or could ever know. Each decision we make, each action, has a ripple effect, and it keeps rippling out, maybe for a lifetime. I know myself that, there are many people who have affected my life and their actions still are active in my life today, even though it may have been many many years since that interaction. Trust, that the people who are and are coming into your life are meant to be there for a reason, some for a long time, and some for a short period, but no one comes in without a reason, good, bad, it’s all about learning, loving, and well, finding our way to happy, even in the moment.

My favorite word that is used to define happy is buoyant, which means able to stay afloat or rise to the top. That describes my happy. When I think back to the unhappy time in my life, the years and years of unhappy, I was sinking, I was not afloat, it took me shedding the pain, shame, and anger of my past to learn to float, and today I float at the top, and I am happy.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you get angry that you are not happy? Do you feel like life owes you happiness? Why? Why do you think you can’t find happiness? Have you ever felt happy? When was that? Why were you happy? How do you think you lost it? How do you think you can get it back? Do you trust that you are where you’re supposed to be? If you are not happy in that place, is there something you can do to get yourself out that you are not doing? Why haven’t you done it? Do it SLAYER, find your happy, and if you are getting in the way of your own happiness, let it go, go get your happy, it’s worth the work, because you deserve to be happy. SLAY on!

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYERS! Demonstrate love by giving it unconditionally, to yourself. As you do you will attract others into your life who will also love you without conditions.

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

State Of Slay Owe Yourself

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Never walk away from the one who truly matters, you.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay In Love

Don’t Abandon Yourself

Before stepping on this path I abandoned myself every day. I did it for years. I stopped caring about myself and let my toxic thoughts run my life. It was like I just left the front door open and was daring someone to come in and take everything that was left because I placed no value on what I had to offer. It was a pretty awful way to live, if you could call it living. I was just the shell of a person going through the motions of life, doing what I could to seem normal on the outside, while I was dying on the inside. Until one night, just one random night, when I found myself at the darkest place you can get to, I got really scared, and I finally asked for help. I didn’t realize until I started to get better that I had abandoned myself years before, I had given up, not thought I was worthy, and just left myself there with nothing to defend myself. Looking back it makes me sad to think I did that, because now I am so fiercely protective of who I am and what I stand for, but I did, and I’m not the only one. Why do we abandon ourselves, the one person we should be there for, show up for, and support through thick and thin, why do we walk away from the one person who should mean the most?

For me it started when I began to believe that I wasn’t worthy of the good. That I was less than. That I was weird and awkward, and if you got to know the real me you wouldn’t like me. That’s where it started, and that thinking took me down a very dark path. Because I didn’t believe in myself, I started to do things that I wasn’t proud of, keeping those things a secret, hiding them, and me, from the people who loved and cared about me, which perpetuated my narrative of me being someone who didn’t deserve good things. That lead me to thinking I was a bad person, which led to worse behavior, self-destructive behavior, which brought me down even darker paths, and so on, until I had gotten myself to a place so dark and so alone that even I didn’t want to be there with myself.

We are the only ones who can fight for us. Sure, people can stand up for us, but if we don’t believe we deserve it, or can attain it, it doesn’t do us much good to have a cheering section when we don’t believe should be cheered for. We have to cheer for ourselves, believe in ourselves and fight for ourselves. No matter what anyone says or does, if we don’t believe what is being said it will fall on deaf ears, it will do us no good, because no one else can do the work for us. Now, I certainly have learned to love myself because others loved me first, they showed I was lovable and worthy of love, but I had to find my own self-love or I wouldn’t still be here, I had to find that flame inside of myself and had to learn to fan it so it could grow bigger. I had to show up for myself. I did that by telling people my truth, by getting help, by finding a group of people who were also fighting the same fight I was, I had to be open to try new things, and I had to try to stand up for my well-being and mental health. It wasn’t easy at first, and I had a lot of help in the beginning, but each time I did I gained more self-esteem, more self-worth and more self-love. Each time I was able to show up for myself my flame got brighter, and as it did I got a lot more protective of it because I had fought to get it to burn bright after living in the darkness so long.

No one is worth fighting for more than you are. It is up to you to stand by who you are and for yourself, to encourage, to love, to be proud of your true self. Don’t walk away from the most important human being there is, you, you are worth fighting for. SLAY on.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Are there times you feel you abandoned yourself? When? Why? Would you choose today to take different actions? What are they? Why do you think you abandoned yourself? Where did that thinking come from? Is that information true today? Was it ever true? How are you different from the person who abandoned themselves? How are you the same? Do you still struggle with this? Why do you think you do? Write down 5 reasons that you should fight for you. Look at those reasons at times when you feel you are backing down, when you are not standing up for who you are and fighting for what you believe. No one has the power that you do to support, love, and give strength to yourself, even if it’s just a small gesture, do something today to show yourself that you have not abandoned yourself. Show yourself some love SLAYER.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! The lessons are right in front of us, you just have to be willing to learn.

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

State Of Slay Reason

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! You never know when your words will impact someone’s life forever. Choose to be a positive impact, choose your words wisely.

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

State Of Slay Tongue

Wicked Words

We all remember the phrase from childhood, “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me,” well, there are a few variations of that, but it’s meaning, or intention, that words can’t hurt is false. Words, when used as weapons, can hurt deeply, and for many years after, even, sometimes, a lifetime. I remember saying this as a child, puffing up my chest like it was some sort of shield that could deflect the bad names or words and just bounce off me, and from the outside, those doing the name-calling, might have thought they were bouncing off me, but, they weren’t. Those names, those labels, insults, stayed with me for many years, as much as I told myself they weren’t true, I believed them and I let them weigh me down.

The things people say, when they’re meant to hurt, is verbal abuse. As kids things are said on the playground and it’s dismissed as just kids being kids, but it’s that type of behavior, that bully mentality, that sets a precedent, as does shying away from confrontation by the one receiving the insults. It’s hard to break out of being the victim when we are constantly told we are less-than, different, weird, worthless, ugly. Those words do damage, lasting damage, that can affect us for a lifetime if we don’t deal with it.

Ultimately words can only hurt us if we let them. If we don’t believe in what is being said, we will just shrug it off and see it for what it is, someone else who’s feeling less-than trying to pump up their own ego but putting us down. Typically, that’s all that’s going on. Or, someone else showing their fear because we may be threatened them in some way, just by being ourselves. In any case, if someone else has a problem with us, it is their problem, and as much as they will try to put the focus on us, it’s really them who should be in the spotlight for their bad behavior. But, a lot of the time, we take on that burden, believing what is said, or letting it cast a seed of doubt about who we are and if we’re worthy. We are worthy, and going back to the childhood rhyme, we shouldn’t let someone else’s words hurt us, and truthfully they can’t, unless we let them.

This all goes back to self-love, I know, it typically does, but it truly is the foundation of living a healthy and productive life. If we love ourselves and honor ourselves, someone mouthing off and saying a bunch of unflattering things about us that aren’t true isn’t going to hurt us, it may cause us to feel sorry for that person, or find some compassion for them, but we can see, when we don’t take it personally, where those insults are coming from, it’s how they see themselves. When we love ourselves we can see the truth in where the hate or bad behavior is coming from and we can separate ourselves from it, take ourselves out of the equation, because really, we were never really in it in the first place, it was always all about them.

But going to back to times when we were vulnerable to them, it’s time to let them go. It’s time to prove to ourselves that we are not those things, to believe it, to own it, to live our lives as us, not matter what anyone has to say about it. We are only accountable to ourselves, what anyone else thinks is irrelevant, I mean, of course we want people to like us, but it’s not our job to get them to do so if they don’t. Just be you. And when you comfortable just being you, you can work to let those words go from the past, or even present, if someone in your life today tells you you aren’t worthy. When we know who we are, and love who we are, those words can’t hurt us, they can bruise us on a day when we might be feeling sensitive, but we can shake it off, when we love ourselves that is our armor, so sticks, stones, and, any insults hurled our way, will bounce right off of our chest…and hopefully right back at the one who hurled them. A girl can wish anyway. Armor up with self-love SLAYER!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you let other people’s opinions of you shape the opinion you have of yourself? Are there things that were said to you as a child still haunt you today? What things? Are these things true SLAYER? Are they true today? They are likely not. So let them go, let them fall away, they are of no use to you. Are there things said to you today that hurt you? Who’s saying them? Why do you let them? Do you believe them? Why? Those words can only hurt you if you believe they are true, they are not. Write down 5 qualities that you love about yourself. Say them out loud. That is who you are SLAYER. Remind yourself of all the good you are, and let someone else’s opinion remain that way, someone else’s. SLAY on!

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

Slay Talk Live Video

Hello SLAYER! Weren’t able to join us tonight for SLAY TALK LIVE?

No problem, here’s what you missed!

SLAY on!

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! What if you simply devoted your time to loving yourself more?

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

State Of Slay Love Ourselves