Good morning SLAYER! You never know who else you may help just by sharing your truth, but it will always help you.
New blog goes up Sunday, until then…SLAY on!
Love
Today I’m Feeling Blue
I write this today not because I want people to ask me how I’m doing, or to tell me it’s going to be OK, I know that, and please, I’m fine, but I write this today because it’s important to acknowledge how we feel. I’ve written before how it’s OK not to be OK, and it is, but I think when things are not OK, or they don’t feel OK, or we’re just feeling down, we don’t always voice it, and it’s just as important to voice that truth as it is when we’re doing great.
When I first stepped on this path and I started attending regular support groups, it was great to hear people making progress and how their lives had improved, but it was just as important, and maybe even more so, to hear when people were going through a rough patch because if I wasn’t feeling great that day I knew I wasn’t the only one, and that because I wasn’t feeling great I wasn’t doing it wrong, it was just the ebb and flow of life. So, that is why I share this with you today.
What is going on? It’s been an emotional week in a lot of ways, some things have come up from my past, I’m working on getting something new started and am excited about that, and there some things that are out of control that I’m frustrated with, so good and bad, the ebb and flow, but I think it has just weighed down on me emotionally. I do a lot of things every day, I wear a lot of hats, and I do always take time for myself and recharge, but sometimes I just feel heavy. And I’m feeling heavy.
Now I know this will pass, I have some really fun things to look forward to this weekend, and I have a lot to be grateful for, and I am, and when I get to this place emotionally, I know that means it’s time to get to work, to look at what is weighing me down and come up with some solutions of how I can make those lighter, or what I am able to change. It’s rare now that I have these days, it feels so foreign to me now, I used to live my life in these days, one after the next, so to have one pop up only once in a while is the result of a lot of hard work, work that I know to do to move past this place I’m currently in.
It’s a good time to take stock, to look at my life, the people in it, the choices I’m making, and see if all of it is aligned with who I aim to be, who I’ve worked to be, who I aspire to be, to look at what can change, or maybe what needs to change. Me feeling heavy is a sign that some things are off, or I’m holding on to some things I need to let go. We can only ignore the things we should be addressing for so long before they all catch up to us, they don’t typically go away unless we send them away. So it’s a time for me to take some extra time for myself, to reflect, to get quiet, to recharge and to take action.
Again, I write this today because I made a commitment and a vow to myself to always be honest here at STATE OF SLAY, and today, this is my honest self, and I do that because I always encourage you to do the same and I always intend to stay accountable for my own actions, so if you are also feeling blue to today I send you my love, we are in a position to make some changes, and that, really, is a great place to be, and something we have control over. If you are feeling blue you are not “doing life wrong” you are feelings your emotions and you may have some things you need to address. We get to decide the narrative of our story, we get to decide if we’re going to have a good day or bad day, and even though I may have a heavy heart, I am still going to have a good day, because I am choosing to, and when I choose to and I choose to focus on the good I will find myself in the good, and that I know to be true, and you will too. SLAY on.
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you acknowledge when you are feeling down? Do you tell people? Do you have a special someone you confide in? How do you feel after you share your truth? Do you sometimes find a solution by sharing your truth with someone else? Do feel lighter after sharing your truth? If you don’t share your truth, why not? What holds you back? What do you do to release it? Do you release it? What changes or actions can you take today to release some things you may be hanging on to? What do you need to let go? Let go of what you no longer need, or what weighs you down, let it go, and set yourself free. Smile SLAYER, it’s going to be OK.
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
Slay Talk Live Video
Hey SLAYER! Didn’t join us tonight for SLAY TALK LIVE, here’s what you missed!
Are You Afraid Of The Solution?
We can get so used to living in our own darkness that we let fear keep us from a solution. Our brain tells us that we can’t get better, our fear backs that up with unhelpful thoughts that are based on old information and stories that don’t have to be, or may not be, our present, but if we let them dictate our lives, they will continue to hold us back, and they’ll keep telling us those same old stories and those same old fears will keep us from getting well. We have the power each day to make better choices for ourselves, to take positive steps that will walk us into the light, to give us tools to live a life we deserve, and one that can be our “new normal.” It’s incredible how much pain many of us endure, at our own hands, because it’s what we’ve come to know, and even though we may not be happy there, we stay, because it’s the normal we do know, the thought of stepping out of that normal into something healthier, brighter, and better may be so scary we’d rather stay in the dark and continue to suffer there, even though there may be solutions all around us, and, people to help us get there. We are the only ones standing in our own way of recovery, or a better way of life. And as hard is it may be to believe for someone looking in at us, we might even be hanging on to that part of our life, not wanting to let go and set ourselves free. We may identify with it so much that the thought of it no longer being a part of our lives may leave us wondering who we would be without it. Who we would be, and could be, is our authentic selves. The people we were meant to be, who we aspire to be, who we can be. We can have all of the things we would like, it is going to take work, likely a lot of it, but there is no better person to invest in than yourself. Change can be scary, but look at it like you are giving yourself a software update, you are still you, but with some upgraded features to make you run more smoothly, more secure, and maybe with some new apps, or bells and whistles to make your life run easier.
All sounds good right? So what holds us back. Our friend fear. I talk a lot about find out the facts, well, fears aren’t facts, they are feelings, and feelings aren’t always accurate information, feelings can have all kinds of things attached to them that we’re not even aware of, things from our past, things that haven’t even every happened. When we live in fear we are not living in the present moment, we are living in the past or the future, when we live in the present moment, and are always looking at the facts we have, what we know to be true for sure, we are safe, we can make sound decisions, and we can start to let go of those fears that haunt us. Our brains like things to stay the same, they like to know what’s coming next, or what the outcome will be, and when things are changing fear likes to jump in and tell us it’s protecting us, but it’s really holding us back. It’s when we walk through those fears that they start to lose their power over us, and when we practice walking through those fears, our brain stops telling us to be afraid because it now has proof that when we’ve made changes everything is still OK, in fact, it’s probably more than OK and is better, so it stops trying to, well, stop us. The trick is to walk forward even if you’re in fear and trust that if you’re doing something that is for your greater good, that it’s going to be OK, and if it’s not, then you’ve learned a valuable lesson to be used for the next time, but even that is good, it’s learning, it’s growth.
I know for myself when I started to get better it felt very uncomfortable, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin because I was used to wearing the skin that I had been wearing for years and years, and even that skin didn’t feel good, I knew what that skin felt like, it was familiar to me, and when I started to make changes in my life, that skin no longer felt good, but neither did the new skin, it felt foreign, but I was told from many who had walked this path before me that it would feel uncomfortable at first, but to keep wearing it because one day it would feel great, it was just my brain trying to pull me back to the place I had been. I learned to get comfortable in the uncomfortable, and now I know when I’m there it’s because I’m changing, and, that’s a good thing. In fact, when I get too comfortable I know that’s the time to challenge myself again, that I’ve gotten lazy, so now that comfortable place I used to sit in is no longer desirable because I want to continue to grow and continue to challenge myself.
I know you can do this, I did, and I doubted I could many times when I began this journey, but I just kept putting on foot in front of the other, and I surrounded myself with like-minded people to support me on my journey. Walk through your fear, let go of the past, and step into who you are meant to be.
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you let your past dictate your present? How do you do this? Why do you do this? How do you think it hurts you? What step can you take today to overcome this? Do you think you let the comfort of staying where you are keep you from moving forward? Why do you think you do this? What fears keep you from moving forward? What are these fears based on? How can you overcome them? SLAYER, I know you have it in you to become your best self, but you have to work to move forward each day, and on those days when you fall back, and you will, you have to get right back up again and keep trudging forward, as someone who has walked before you, I promise, the more steps you take, the easier the journey becomes. SLAY on.
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
Solutions Grow More Solutions
When I was still new on this path I was stuck on a problem and wanting to be right, and because of my need to be right the problem was getting worse, I was complaining about it to a good friend of mine and she turned to me and said, “do you want to be a part of the problem or a part of the solution?” That made me pause. My stubbornness and need to be right was causing more of a problem, which wasn’t giving me peace, or even satisfaction of being right because I was making the problem bigger, I should have been in the solution, in fact, I should always be in the solution. For the most part now I am, but sometimes that stubbornness returns and I can stir up trouble.
Staying in the solution, or looking for one, is a place were we should be, and it’s a place, when we live there, where more and more solution grows. Like anything else, the more we fertilize something the more it grows, when we live our lives looking for the solution we will find more solutions and our thinking will shift away from forcing our way or point of view to not only looking for what is best for us, but what is best for the situation and those around us, to a collective solution, and one that isn’t causing us to bend or test our morals to get the desired result we’re looking for. To be fair, to be honest, to look at things from all angles, and not just our own. Living in the solution is a state of mind, and the more we live there the brighter our days become.
Typically we can’t solve a problem with the same brain that created it, at least not when we start practicing living this way, which is why it’s helpful to have a group of people to bounce our ideas off of. It helps to have perspectives of a few different people to maybe put our own views in perspective. So it’s about reaching out to others for help, it’s about being there for others as they walk through their own issues, being open to feedback even if it’s not supporting your own decision or ideas, having the courage to try something new, and implementing those new things, taking action, and most importantly, finding gratitude for all that is around you, and what it’s teaching you. Living in the solution means having to have an open mind, it is when we can have an open mind and heart that we can be open to an idea or solution we may not have thought of before, or tried, and when we are living in that place, giving us the courage to try it with the support of those around us. Living in the solution doesn’t mean being a pushover and letting everyone else get their way so to not cause any further problems, it means finding a way to resolve an issue with the best possible outcome for most or all parties, or, sometimes walking way to avoid any more heartache and suffering, sometimes stepping back is the best solution instead of hammering home something that can’t or won’t be resolved currently, your self-worth is more than your need to be right, or it should be, sometimes the right thing to do for you is nothing, to not engage, or no longer engage, and to find acceptance and peace in that.
Today I try to walk into each situation I find myself in looking for the solution, and that’s not to say that old behaviors don’t sometimes flare up, but I take responsibility for my actions if I’ve done something wrong, and get back into the solution. When we start to train ourselves to think in the solution we continue to look for the solution, and, we start to find new solutions. It is a much happier place to live, and a healthier way to think, and, who wants to be the source of the problem all the time? Not anyone living authentically and practicing self-love. Focus on the good, focus on finding the best solutions you can to any problem and you’ll start to see solutions where you used to only see problems. SLAY on.
SLAY OF THE DAY: In your life, do you let the need to be right get in the way of finding a peaceful solution? Do you try to force your point of view? Or, are you a pushover, or people-pleaser, not expressing your wants and needs and letting someone else steamroll over you to make them happy? None of these are healthy solutions. Living in the solution is looking out for your own needs, but, not so much that everyone else’s are cast to the side, it’s about finding a middle-ground much of the time, listening to the wants and needs of others and seeing if you can align that with your own, and when you come to a stalemate, sometimes the best solution is to stop looking for one and taking care of yourself, not everything is solvable, and sometimes the best solution may be no solution. An integral part to practicing this way of life is to surrounding yourself with people who are also living in the solution, or trying to, and having a sounding board to talk things out with, many times the solution lies within the advice or comments from those who know us best. Then, it’s just a matter of taking action and following through, because words are just words until you take action and make them real. Make living in the solution a real way of life for you SLAYER, and watch how your life, and the solutions around you, grow.
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
Slay Say
Good morning SLAYER! The one thing keeping you from getting what you want may be the story you keep telling yourself about why you can’t have it or deserve it.
New blog goes up Sunday, until then…SLAY on!
I Am…
We believe what we tell ourselves, we believe ourselves more than we believe anyone else, so what we tell ourselves matters, it makes a difference, and it can be the difference of us succeeding or failing.
I used to have a yoga instructor who was a beautiful vocalist, and at the end of each class she would sing “I Am…” and then follow it with different things, I am strong, I am beautiful, I am courageous, an on she went until the end of class, it was beautiful, and it always brought a tear to my eye…well, usually both eyes, because for most of my life what came after “I Am” for me were always negative things, I am not good enough, I am a freak, I am a loser, I am weird, I am different, I am a failure, you get the point, it sure wasn’t anything inspiring, and when I started on this path my self-esteem was so low and I hated myself so much I physically couldn’t look myself in the eye and say anything positive.
What we say to ourselves we believe, and when we continue to say negative things we reaffirm to ourselves that we are exactly where we are supposed to be, that we don’t deserve the good, and not worthy of anything better. We say things to ourselves we would never let anyone else say to us. Why do we allow ourselves to do this?
There are many reasons why we say these negative things to ourselves, they could be things that were said to us as children, at home or at school, they could be the result of our own unrealistic expectations, or they could be a source of self-sabotage to keep us from moving forward or achieving the goals we want to achieve because deep down we don’t believe we deserve them. Figuring out why we say them is the key to turning that negative self-talk into positive. It takes work. All the most rewarding stuff does. But it’s always worth it. Asking yourself where the negative self-talk comes from is the beginning, working on what comes up from that, for me it took working with a counselor to make sense of it all and to start changing that negative self-talk into positive self-talk. It wasn’t easy at the beginning, it took a lot of contrary action, doing the opposite of what I had been doing, or wanted to do, to make better healthier choices for myself. It took me focusing on the things I was grateful for. Again, at the beginning, it wasn’t easy, some days the only thing I could think of was, it’s sunny outside, but, that was a start. It’s about changing your personal narrative, changing your story, you have the power to do that on any given day at any time. You can take steps to stop the negative chatter, or at least keep it to a whisper. I’ve been on this path for over 12 years and some days it still can get loud, so it’s not setting out with the expectation that it will go away completely, but about building up the tools in your toolbox for combating it, learning how to throw positive things at the negative chatter and turning your thinking around. I know that can be done because I’ve done it. Work to focus on the good each day, challenge yourself to compliment yourself on at least one thing when the negative comes up, and seek outside help if you feel you can use some extra guidance.
I no longer wake up with the negative thoughts racing through my head, today I work to come up with positive words to describe my “I Am.” I am strong, I am a warrior, I am a survivor, I am good, I am fallible, I am trustworthy, I am love, I am confident, I am happy, I am generous, I am…I am me, there is only one, and that is my superpower! And that is also yours.
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you say negative things to yourself? Why do you think you do that? How does that hurt you? How does that help you? What do you think would happen if you started replacing the negative self-talk with positive self-talk? What can you do to start doing that each day? I challenge you, SLAYER, to write down 5 things you love about yourself, when you notice the negative self-talk pop up, look at that list, say it out loud, start making a habit of saying positive things to replace the negative, and know SLAYER that it is a process, if you slip back into the negative that is part of the journey, no one gets it right all the time, but you do get the chance to do it right right now. SLAY on!
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
Slay Say
Good morning SLAYER! Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life.
SLAY on!
Royalty Radio Interview Wednesday
Hey SLAYER! I am doing a LIVE interview tomorrow, Wednesday, at 6pm ET / 5c / 3pm PT on Royalty Radio. To listen and for the number to call in with your questions while we’re on the air go to: Royalty Radio Link
Looking forward to a great talk and hearing from all of you!
SLAY on!
When We Share Our Stories, We Spread Hope
For those of you who join me for the SLAY TALK LIVE livestream each month, you’ve heard me talk about giving back, of spreading a positive message to those who need it, and of my commitment to spread a message of hope. Last night I spoke at a mental hospital here in Los Angeles. A place that is not a part of my story before stepping on this path, but probably should have been, heck, there are probably times even on this path I may have qualified for the psych ward, but it was a place I wanted to speak because of my own struggles with mental health issues, I wanted to bring some light to the patients there because, for many, is not the brightest time in their life.
We all have the ability to share who we are and where we’ve come from with others, I’ve talked about the power of that many times, and in my last blog, and how someone’s story saved my life, so it’s important for me to share mine with others. I’m a firm believer in we have to give away what we’ve learned to keep it. If we just keep it to ourselves we can lose it, we can forget where we came from, where we fought our way back from, who we used to be, it’s the act of giving it away and sharing it with others that reminds us of those things, keeps us humble, and keeps us on the right path. Tonight it reminded me of likely where I would end up, if I was lucky and didn’t harm myself, if I were to stop doing what I do each day to stay in the light. The privilege I enjoyed today of walking in for one hour and then walking out could easily be taken away if I let myself slide back into the dark hole that I once resided. The weight of that was not lost on me as I sat there and listened to the patients share their struggles and I watched as they found a little bit of hope in what we were saying. That could easily be me. In fact, when I first stepped out on this journey, that was me, I was just not institutionalized, but the fear, the desperation to find answers, solutions, was all the same, I identified myself with them, and hopefully they identified themselves in me and were able to see that there is hope, that if they are willing to do the work, to do what may not be comfortable, to do whatever it takes to get better, they can. We all can. I did.
Each one of our stories is valid. Each story has value. Each of us has something to share that can help another individual, or many, we all walk this path with many at our side, who are all doing the best they can, and together we can all help each other. We can offer someone hope. With hope in our hearts we can accomplish so much, it’s hope that opens the door to willingness, and willingness to taking action, and even the tiniest bit of it can save a life, can light a path, can be a beacon to bring someone home. It is the most beautiful gift we can give, and it’s a gift that gives back to us in return. For those of us that have come out the other side of our personal struggle, for those who have found a better way of life, solutions to those problems that used to plague us, hold us back, bring us down, we have a lot to share, even when we are still trying, working, to get out, or to a place we want to get to, our journeys so far can help someone who is just starting theirs, and may be just what they need to hear to find the courage to begin. Even on a bad day, a day when you think you have nothing to offer, you do, by being honest about your struggle you may help someone with theirs, and, you may just find a solution by talking it out. We are all here for reason, we are all here to learn, to grow, share what you have found so far. SLAY on.
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you see that your story or journey so far may be the light that someone else might need? Do you see the value in your story? If not, why? Has someone else’s story inspired you or helped you on your path? If so, how? How can you SLAYER give back and share your story with others? How can you be of service to those out there who can be helped from your journey so far? We all have a gift to give, one of honesty and truth, no matter how we may feel on any given day, our story matters, and it may just be what someone else needs to hear.
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
