Good morning SLAYER! The people who care are the ones who love you, who are aware and concerned, not the ones who want you around only to make themselves happy. Surround yourself with people who celebrate and support you for being you!
Choose wisely SLAYER.
Good morning SLAYER! We all get knocked down from time to time, but it’s how we come back that makes us SLAYERS. Dig your heels in and come back strong, you hold the key to your destiny.
New blog goes up Sunday, until then…SLAY on!
Good morning SLAYER! We are what we tell ourselves, so feed yourself with positive thoughts and surround yourself love and with what nourishes you.
New blog goes up Tuesday, until then…SLAY on!
Good morning SLAYER! When we stop looking for happiness in our past, we open ourselves up to finding happiness within ourselves and in those places that love, support and nourish us today, and what we may find is, those things we thought held the key to our happiness, we never really needed at all.
New blog goes up Tuesday, until then…SLAY on!
We’ve all been guilty of this. We look for someone’s approval who’s never given it. We go somewhere that no longer serves us, looking for something that no longer exists. We do the same things over and over when we’re not the same people, so why would the same things make us happy? We, well, many of us, are creatures of habit, and when something used to make us happy we continue to go back to that well and look for more, but sometimes that well is empty, or, it’s not really what we need anymore, and it’s up to us to stop going there looking for something that no longer exists, or no longer works for us.
I am guilty of that from time to time. I’ll fall into an old pattern looking for love, acknowledgement or inspiration where there isn’t any, maybe there never was, or there just isn’t anymore. I have this hope that it’s there, and then get my hopes dashed when it’s not. But it’s my fault for looking in those places in the first place. I know better, and then I beat myself up for searching in those places. Well, I used to beat myself up, I don’t beat myself up anymore, I ask myself why I was looking there in the first place, because the reason is going to tell me something about where I’m at emotionally and spiritually, and what I need to work on or fix for myself that day.
I know for myself that when I do go looking for happiness in the wrong places I have some work to do, the odd time I might just be doing it by rote, just a bad habit from the past, and without thinking about it, a go-to, but most of the time there is something behind it. It may be low self-esteem and I’m looking for validation, or it may be low self-esteem and I want to validate it by not getting validation, oh yeah, I’ll still do that too sometimes. It may be that I’m hoping someone will prove me wrong and show me love, acceptance or encouragement. No matter what it may be showing me, what’s it’s telling me is that I need to find a healthy way, myself, to feel fulfilled, and not place that responsibility on other people, places and things. And sometimes that can be hard, to do the work ourselves, especially when we feel like the people in our life should be there to support us, to love us, and reassure us when we need it, and yes, that’s wonderful when they do, but that’s not their jobs, it’s ours. And seeing as our well-being is our job, we need to stop going to those people, places and things looking for something that’s not there. If you know there’s no water in a well, why would you go with a cup looking for water? You wouldn’t would you, but we do it in our lives.
We need to take responsibility for our own happiness, we need to make ourselves happy without relying on people or outside things to do that for us, now I know that sounds like it’s a lot harder than just reaching out and trying to find happiness first, but the truth is, unless we are able to make ourselves happy, us, ourselves, none of that will ever truly make us happy. It might for a short period of time, but there will always be something missing, an emptiness that never gets fulfilled, I know, I lived like that for most of my life, and even at the “happiest” times of my life, there was always a darkness, or fear, or black hole inside of me that could never be filled. We fill that black hole when we surround ourselves with who and what honors who we are and how we live our lives, when we honor ourselves by listening to what we need, by giving back when we can and sharing our happiness with others, by gifting ourselves the time to do the things we love, the things that charge our batteries, that fires us up, and get us excited and inspired by life. And sometimes it’s just as simple as smiling. Of letting things go. Of acknowledging we did the best we could and that’s enough. Of letting love in, and learning to trust ourselves so we can love. And, by not looking for happiness where we know it’s not.
Happiness is within, it is there for the taking if you do the work to find it, and when you do you’ll find you’ll stop looking for it where it is not, and surround yourself with the people, places and things where it is, so you can share your happiness with those around you.
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you look for happiness in places where you’ve lost it before? Why do you think you do that? How can you stop doing that? Do you find happiness within yourself? If not, why do you think you’re not able to? What’s stopping you from finding that happiness? You are SLAYER, you. No matter what your circumstances, there is always a way to find some happiness within yourself by honoring who you what you love, and sometimes, who you love. Sometimes just sharing your love with others is a way to find love in yourself, and when we do you stop looking for it in those places it no longer exists. Write down 5 non-material things you love about you SLAYER. Put that list in your pocket and carry it with you. At the end of the day, take it out, read it, and smile. SLAY on.
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
I’ve been told I have quick reflexes, I’ve also been told I can have a barbed tongue, so the combination of those two things made for a lot of lashing out with hair triggered responses. I’ve mentioned this before, but it always bares repeating, life is not a game show, we don’t get extra points for speed, so why not take a moment, take a breath, and pause before you act.
Before stepping on this path I left a lot of shrapnel in my wake, a lot of bodies, and a lot of damage, I was like a ticking time bomb all the time, and if you dared cross me I would go off without notice. That was an awful way to live. I always felt on edge, and I hurt a lot of people, unsuspecting people who never saw it coming. At the time I would always justify my behavior, telling myself that they shouldn’t have crossed me in the first place, or should have been smarter, or faster, but the truth of the matter was, I was acting impulsively and defensively without giving any thought to how my reactions would affect those around me. When I made a commitment to love and honor myself, I also made a commitment to do the same to those around me, and I had to learn to pause before I reacted. That took some time, as I always had my finger on the trigger, to loosen my grip felt like the most difficult thing to do, but I found freedom there, freedom to take a moment to think about my next move, what the next right thing was, and I learned that a lot of times I didn’t ever have to react at all, or have an answer, I could take a step back and relax until I had an appropriate response or answer.
It can be easy to lash out at someone who has hurt you, embarrassed you, or is disrespecting you, but when you do you’re not only punishing them you’re also punishing yourself. You’re continuing the cycle of hate, anger, and disrespect, it may feel good in the moment, but those actions stick with us, attach themselves to us, and just add more negativity to an already negative situation. As SLAYERS we stand tall in who we are, we honor and love ourselves, and we don’t add problems to existing problems, we, if we can, are examples of a better way, a more peaceful way, a way that is about solving problems, not creating them. And, it’s not about being pushovers, it is about setting boundaries, and letting people know how we expect to be spoken to, but also adhering to that and speaking to people in the same way we wish to be spoken to. Hence the pause. The pause gives us a moment to collect ourselves, to think things through, and to respond with grace, dignity, and compassion if we can. I know you might be thinking I’m crazy right now, but try it, see how it changes things and how you stay calmer, less angry, and more in control. It doesn’t matter what the other person, or people, are doing, what matters is how you react, that’s where you get to choose, and sometimes that takes some thought, and sometimes it takes checking in with someone else you trust before responding. As I said, life is not a game show, if you don’t feel you can respond with a rational mind, in an appropriate way, or are just not sure how you feel, pause, and don’t answer until you feel you are ready. Sometimes I have to say to someone that I’ll need to get back to them, or we’ll have to revisit the issue another time because I know I am emotional, or confused, or just too upset to talk in an open and compassionate way, that’s OK, better to wait then have to apologize for an outburst or angry comment later, pause, wait, respond when ready.
No one is timing you on how quickly you return a call, email, text, or comment, make sure you are ready, and have all the facts straight before jumping into a conversation you might regret later. Give yourself the gift of time and honor the time you may need to answer, you’ll have far fewer regrets later.
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you often feel like you have to answer as quickly as possible, even when you may not feel ready? Why do you think you feel that way? Do you see how your defenses from your past can flare up and skew your perspective and your response? What can you do to slow yourself down? Take a breath SLAYER, ask yourself what’s really going on and what your next right step is, take your time, and respond when ready.
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
I used to think that everything had to be either black or white. If something didn’t fit in one of those two areas I would make it fit, bending it, manipulating it, twisting it to fit into the narrative I wanted to tell so it could be put neatly into the box I wanted it to. In doing so I was forcing things to only ever be one of two things in my mind, right or wrong. Life isn’t always that simple, many times it’s many things in between, and as much as I myself fought back to not to be put in a box, or be labelled as any one thing, I was doing just that with the people, places and things in my life. Much of that had to do with my need to control, to force things to be a certain way because it made me feel safe, smart, or better than, but I wasn’t living in truth, and I was missing out on appreciating all of the amazing things that live in the grey area, including myself.
When I started on this path, the grey area made me very uncomfortable, it felt unsafe, unmanaged, not defined enough, but as I started to open my mind, to see that things didn’t always fit in one of two places, the grey area started to become exciting, a little like the Wild West, where anything could happen. First I had to get comfortable with that, even though it seemed exciting, it felt scary, a little dangerous, and unpredictable, it was about learning to be comfortable in the uncomfortableness, which at first made me want to crawl out of my own skin, but I was encouraged to sit there and was told if I did, I could find peace there, and eventually grace. I did. And when I did it opened up a whole new world for me. A lot of life happens in the grey areas, and no matter how much I would force it into one of two places, a lot of things didn’t belong there. Most things don’t really belong there. Most things fall into the middle, and deserve to be left there. And when we leave them where they are supposed to be, even honor them for being there, we find grace. We stop fighting, manipulating, twisting them into something they are not, and honor them for being exactly what they are. This may sound like an abstract concept, but when we think about ourselves, who we are, what we stand for, who and what we love, typically, we don’t just fit into one neat box either, there is some grey, and maybe a lot of grey in the areas that matter, so as much as we wouldn’t want to be forced into a box that we didn’t fit in, neither should other people, places, and things. It’s also acknowledging our own growth. As we walk on this path, learn, and grow, what we believe, experience, and the way we live our lives, changes, our parameters get bigger, wider, and more vast, we accept things as they are, no matter how messy or perhaps how undefined they are, and let them be, without trying to change them, we let them live just as they are, and when we do, we find our grace.
Life does it’s dance, and a lot of the time it’s dancing to a totally different tune than the one in our heads, but instead of trying to force our dance to it’s music, just enjoy the music, and trust it’s the music we’re supposed to be hearing, it gives us an opportunity to learn a new dance, or to adjust the one we already know. Try new things, accept differences in others, and trust that you are being introduced to these things to help you on your journey, to guide you on your path, and to lead you to where you are supposed to be going. Find the grace in the grey, and let that open your heart to a brave new world.
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you try to put everything in your life neatly in boxes or categories? Does the grey area scare you? If yes, why? Why do you think you need to have everything categorized neatly into one or two boxes? Would you like to be categorized into only one or two boxes? Do you think you fit into some grey areas in your life? If so, in what way? Can you see that others’ may also fit into grey areas? Can you accept that? When you can SLAYER, you are on your way to finding grace, and you are on your way to a new freedom, opening your eyes to the infinite possibilities that the world has to offer. Let go of old ideas and SLAY on!
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
I used to hang on to anything and everything like my life depended on it, what I didn’t realize is that my life depended on me dropping the rope and letting go. I don’t mean I was literally holding a rope, but I was tethered to people, places, and things trying to control each and every situation in my life, trying to manipulate it into what I wanted it to be, what I expected it to be, what I thought it should be. It wasn’t until stepping on this path that I learned to, “drop the rope.” It was difficult at first, to let go and walk away, trust that if I had done the footwork the outcome was now not up to me, that I had to trust that the result of that work would be what I needed it to be, not necessarily what I wanted it to be, but what I needed at that given time. Scary. But holding on tight only got me to a place of despair, of pain, of dishonesty, of, well, close to death. It took things getting that bad for me to finally listen and take the suggestion to drop the rope.
Dropping the rope can be scary, especially when we’ve always held on tight, when we’ve believed that hanging on was the safest choice, or the only choice, and that holding on could make things go our way. It can’t. If things are meant for us, they will come, they will happen, so holding on, worrying, causing ourselves anxiety and pain isn’t going to make things come to us any faster, or more often than they are meant to, it’s only stealing our serenity, happiness and health. Drop the rope.
For a lot of us it goes back to our childhoods, of feeling different, or alone, or like things were out of our control, things we didn’t like, things we wanted to be different, so we held onto that imaginary rope thinking if we did things perfectly, or a certain way, it would be OK. And, as we grew into adulthood, we continued to do that, we continued to hold on tightly to that rope, even when it didn’t seem to change things or make things sway in our favor, we still held on, fingers burning, palms bleeding, we held on tight. For me it took a breakdown to see that it wasn’t working, to see that nothing I did to try to control things could make things always fall in my favor, and no one always has things fall in their favor, it’s just not how life works, there are some who seem to be ‘luckier’ than others, but no one wins all the time, so what I was trying to do wasn’t even possible to attain.
So, how do you win? You win by doing what you can do to help things go in your favor, by putting your best foot forward, by doing the work, make your intentions known, share your expectations with others, and then, stay out of the results. Oh yeah SLAYER, I said, stay out of the results. Once you’ve done all you can, you step back, exhale, and let it happen. As scary as that may sound, there is so much freedom in doing that, so much power, you, are taking your power back, trusting that the work you’ve done is enough, and if it’s not, learning from that for next time, or accepting that it wasn’t meant for you, and focus on something else, or the next time you will try again. But when we hang on, way past when we should have, we lose a part of ourselves, we loose our self-respect, dignity, we lose our power, it’s the act of letting go that gives us strength and showing the world that we are strong enough to do it, it shows the world that we are confident in who we are, we are sure of our decisions, and work we’ve done to get to this point, and it gives us peace.
If something isn’t working for you, let go, as the saying goes, “you don’t have to ride the garbage truck all the way to the dump, you can get off at any time.” It’s time to do what’s right for you, make the commitment to let go when something doesn’t serve you, or, you’ve done all the work you can, let go, drop the rope, and show yourself some love.
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you hang on too long? Why are you afraid to let go? What do you think will happen if you do? Write down an example of when you held on too long. How did that make you feel? What was the result? Make a commitment SLAYER, to drop the rope, to let go when it no longer serves you, to know when there is no more work to be done, and to walk away, and trust, that you will be taken care of, and you’ll be stronger for your courage of acceptance. SLAY on.
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
Good morning SLAYER! The best thing you can do for yourself is believe in you, and do what’s best for you, without worrying about the results, or what that looks like to those around you. Be your best you for you!
New blog goes up Friday, until then… SLAY on!
Good morning SLAYER! Sometimes the most loving thing to do for yourself is to not engage, to not get in the ring and fight, and finding enough love in yourself that you don’t feel the need to prove your worth. Sometimes the braver action is to not take action, for your own peace of mind. SLAY on!
