mistakes

The Shame And Guilt Quilt

When I was deep in my illness, I walked around constantly wrapped in the shame and guilt quilt. I had draped it over myself so long it became familiar—almost “safe.” But it wasn’t protecting me. It was hiding me.

I carried guilt, shame, regret—and I let them keep me distant from the people I loved, from solutions that could have helped, and ultimately, from myself. I believed I didn’t deserve better. I believed the quilt was my identity.

When Shame Becomes an Identity

We’ve all done things we regret. We’ve made choices we’re not proud of, acted out of fear or desperation, or compromised who we were for what we thought we needed. That part is human.

What turns normal regret into something destructive is when we let shame and guilt become our identity.
We wear them like badges. We drag them into new relationships, new jobs, new eras. We whisper:

“I’m a shame-person.”
“I’m a guilty person.”

When you think that way, nothing positive can penetrate your armor. The quilt blocks the light. It keeps out healing, connection, authenticity.

—

Why We Keep the Quilt On

There are many reasons we cling to the shame and guilt quilt:

Comfort in the familiar. Even if the quilt stifles you, at least you know it.
Belief in punishment. “I deserve this.”
Fear of change. Letting go means vulnerability.
Protection from hope. If you believe you’re unworthy, hope can feel dangerous.

For me, the quilt felt safer than the unknown. Better the pain I knew than having to trust someone else—or myself—to be different.

The Price of Carrying the Quilt

Pulling the quilt around your shoulders is exhausting. It weighs you down in unseen ways.

You avoid connection because you think you’re “too much” or “not enough.”
You hide portions of your life and truth, self-isolating in the name of “keeping up appearances.”
You stop believing you deserve healing, comfort, or unconditional love.

And still—you keep it on. Because the cost of letting it go seems higher than the cost of carrying it.

But here’s what I discovered: the cost of carrying it was far greater than the cost of releasing it.

Choosing to Shed the Quilt

The turning point for me was nearly my last. When I realized I had to step out from under that quilt—or I would lose everything that mattered.

It took:

Courage to acknowledge: “I’ve been hiding.”
Humility to ask for help.
Willingness to unwrap the quilt piece by piece, admitting mistakes, offering amends, offering self‐forgiveness.

One of the biggest revelations was this:

Forgiveness isn’t about excusing what happened—it’s about releasing what happened.

Once I forgave myself, the quilt began to fall. And with each piece I left behind, more light found me. More connection. More freedom.

What Happens When the Quilt Comes Off

When you let go of that old wrapping, a few things start to shift:

Your identity changes. You stop seeing yourself as the sum of your mistakes.
Your relationships open up. Others don’t have to tiptoe around your walls. You don’t have to hide.
Your decisions become driven by growth, not by fear of being found out.
Your mental & emotional energy frees up. You’re no longer spending 80 % of your day hiding what you’re trying to heal.

The quilt may have kept you “safe” from being seen—but spending life unseen is a cost you never wanted to pay.

How to Begin Removing Your Quilt

Acknowledge what you’ve carried. Sit with one piece of the quilt—guilt, shame, regret—and name it.
Write it out. Get the shame on paper. Speak out loud what you’ve been hiding.
Ask for help. You don’t have to do this alone. Connection replaces isolation.
Offer yourself forgiveness. “I saw, I felt, I made choices—and now I choose something different.”
Choose differently today. One small boundary, one honest conversation, one act of self-respect. The quilt loosens.
Celebrate unwrapping moments. Each time you live without the weight of a secret, light finds you.

SLAY Reflection

Do you feel like you’re still wrapped in a shame and guilt quilt?
How does carrying it help you—and how does it hurt you?
What would letting it go allow you to feel or do?
How would your day change if you didn’t have to hide parts of yourself?
What is one small step you can take today to un-wrap something you’ve been carrying?

S – See the quilt you’ve been wearing
L – Let the light of truth and forgiveness in
A – Align with your worth beyond your mistakes
Y – Yield to freedom—un-wrap, un-hide, unleash the real you

Call to Action: Join the Conversation

I’d love to hear from you.
What part of your shame and guilt quilt are you ready to set down—and what might you gain when you do?
Share your story in the comments. Let’s walk out of the shadows—together.

And if you know someone who’s still carrying that quilt, send this to them. Sometimes, someone else saying: “You don’t have to keep carrying it,” is enough to help the process begin.

#SlayOn

Never, Never Again

There were so many times in my life, before walking this path, that I would say never again. And yet, I would repeat those same behaviors over and over, even the ones I knew were self-destructive and were taking down an even darker road than I was already on. My attitude, always, was, well if I’ve already messed up this little bit I might as go whole hog and hit the “f*ck it button.” There was no middle ground, I was either doing great, or down in the dumps, I gave myself no room for anything in between. Living within those tight parameters I was setting myself up to fail, most of the time, and truthfully that’s where my head wanted me, to constantly be failing so I would increasingly get worse and think there was no way out. But there was.

When I finally fell to my knees and was able ask for help, I was told it takes time to break old habits and to begin a new way of life, and that even if I made mistakes, or failed in my opinion, that was part of the recovery process. That I had to wrap my head around. Failure was part of the process? Well, the truth was, it wasn’t really “failure,” it was all just part of the process, something I had to learn as I fell and got back up again. I also learned that those falls were where I learned the most, so they, for me, were an essential part of the process. I had to find comfortabililty in the gray areas between what I viewed as “right” or “wrong.” Being OK in the gray wasn’t easy at first because the minute I wasn’t perfect at this new way of life and slipped back into old behaviors or patterns, that negative bullshit committee in my head would pipe up and say, “see, you can’t do it!” In fact, they would scream it. And, I had to learn to say, “you’re lying, I can, watch me.”

Change takes time. It takes of trying, over and over again, until it becomes less effort. Until it becomes a part of who you are and not something you have to think about anymore. You are going to fail, or fall, or make mistakes, that’s part of making changes, but the important thing is to not give up, to keep going, to do better next time, or try again. Don’t put those parameters on yourself and say never again, you may do it again, you may do it many times before you stop doing it, and even when you stop doing it, you may do it another time. Allow yourself to have some wiggle room, to be in the gray space in between, where you’re trying your best, and that’s good enough, it is actually more than good enough. It was pointed out to me in my early journey that I had done things the old way much longer than I had the new way, so it wasn’t fair to beat myself for falling back to what I knew or once did, but I always had the chance to do it better the next time. And that’s what I did. It’s been over 13 years now and sometimes I can still fall back, but I know now that when I do it’s just a moment and it’s not who I am today, and maybe I fall back from time to time to remind myself where I don’t want to fall back to, and that’s OK, because today I know the right choices for me and what I need to do to live this life I’ve worked so hard for, a slip from time to time isn’t the end of the world, it’s just part of the process.

Allow yourself to make mistakes, and when you do, never say never again, say, I’ll do better next time, or I’ll try to, or, I did my best today. No one is perfect, and embracing those times we may fall back, and learning to look at them as learning opportunities rather than failures is the mindset that will get us to the place we’re working so hard for, I know, because I got there, and I know you can too. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you feel like you’ve failed if you fall back on old behaviors? Do you beat yourself up for it? Do you set strict parameters for yourself that you can’t possibly live within to grow and learn naturally? Why do you think you do this? How do you think you can ease those parameters to let yourself grow and make mistakes as part of your process and journey? What do you think will happen if you do? Let yourself live in the gray area sometimes, let go of the restrictions of right or wrong and let yourself find your way, always striving to do better the next time if you haven’t made the best choice in the moment, let yourself find the right way and not beat yourself up for the mistakes along the way, those mistakes might just be what’s guiding you to the right choice the next time.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Your past mistakes are meant to guide you, not define you.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! You can only accept mistakes and flaws in others to the degree that you accept your own.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! The person who tries to keep everyone happy often ends up the loneliest, focus on making yourself happy, and loving who you are.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Your past does not determine who you are, your past prepares you for who are you to become.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Most important thing in life? To remain teachable.

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

You Can’t Compare

Even though I am writing each day. talking about loving your authentic self, owning who you are and celebrating that, and I do that, I found myself recently, while I was working out, admiring someone else’s figure and wondering why I don’t look like that. I stopped myself and had to give myself a pep talk. Why do we as human beings compare ourselves with those around us, or those we see in the media, or on social media? Each of us is unique, and in terms of our bodies, we are all built differently, our skeletal systems, muscle mass, metabolisms, it makes no sense to compare ourselves with anyone, we’re not all playing with the same equipment. After my little pep talk mid-workout I had to laugh at myself, thinking, you know better, but we all do it at some point, and the trick is to change our thinking and appreciate who are we, what we’ve been through, how hard we work, and for the many ways we are all blessed. So, how do we do that if we’re stuck in comparison mode? Here are a few ways to get you back on the road of self-appreciation and self-love.

1) Focus on your victories. As much as we live in a culture of always wanting more, and wanting it bigger and faster, we need to focus on our own successes, what we’ve accomplished and overcome to get to where we are today. When we focus on our own personal wins we don’t tend to compare ourselves to the other people around us, we may have people in our lives who inspire us, or push us to the next level of being our best selves, that’s healthy, but you can’t compare apples and oranges, none of us are exactly the same, so focus on you and what others are doing becomes less significant in our lives.

2) Focus on the bigger things in life. It can be easy to caught up in wanting material things, but those things don’t give back to us. When we focus on giving back, on love, on empathy towards others, on humility, and being part of a community we tend to compare ourselves less to those around us. Make sure your time is spent on things that matter most, not just things to puff up your ego or to collect as trophies.

3) Appreciate others instead of competing against them. We live in a competitive world, and a little healthy competition can be good, but not when it becomes the sole purpose for you doing anything, and winning becomes your most important goal. Learn to work with others, compliment them when they do well, and work together as a team, when we build relationships and a community around us we don’t find the need to compete for the spotlight and to always be the best.

4) No one is perfect. I’ve talked about this before. We’re all here to learn. We all make mistakes…that’s how we learn. If we’re not making mistakes we’re not learning, we’re not growing, we’re not pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone to move on to where we’re supposed to be, we’re staying stuck. Every triumph comes with obstacles, so no one is getting a free ride over you. When we look at others through this perspective it helps us find compassion for them, and us, and it helps us connect with them instead of looking at them like they’re our competition.

5) You’re only competing against yourself. Really, at the end of the day, you are your only competition. You are the only one if playing with the exact same circumstances, tools, and parameters as you. Only you can compete against you. Let that be your motivation, your guide, your push, to be a better you than you were yesterday.

When we focus on ourselves, what we can be doing to broaden our world, to challenge ourselves and to give back we lose the need to compare ourselves to others and to put ourselves down for not being something we can never be, someone else. Celebrate who you are and were you’ve come from, and, set some attainable goals to challenge yourself and be your best you.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you constantly compare yourself to others? What about those people do you admire, or envy? Why do you think you can’t have a version of those things for yourself? We can never be someone else or have their exact life, and even if we could we’d probably find it wasn’t as rosy as we made it out to be in our minds, so of those things you admire, what can you do to find those or work on those in your life? How’s that self-love coming along SLAYER? Making progress? Or still struggling? Write down 5 things you admire about yourself, that you cannot buy. Write down 5 things you overcame last year that you are proud of. Now make a list of 5 things you would like to overcome this year. Get to work SLAYER, it’s all within your reach.

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

You Don’t Have To Repeat The Past

Looking back before I stepped on to this path my life was a series of repetitious bad decisions. I kept doing the same things and expecting different results, the true definition of insanity. How were things going to change if I wasn’t? Well, they weren’t. I was proud of my stubbornness, and my ego was holding me back by telling me I knew better, it was all of you that were wrong. But in truth, I was stuck in a cycle that was never going to get me to where I wanted to go, I was so stuck I couldn’t even see where I could go, my blindfold of bad decisions kept me from seeing that I had other options, it was my choice to continue to make the same bad decisions over and over, even though I had the power to change that.

For me, it took things getting really bad before I was even open to the idea that it was possible for change. My best decisions brought me to a place where it literally was a matter of life and death that I make positive changes in my life, and, break the cycle. As we grow up we learn certain things, we pick up things we see, hear, and experience and start to build up who are we, what we stand for, and how we’re going to operate, and unless someone, or something, teaches us something different, we tend to stay stuck in those ways, sometimes for a lifetime. I was forced to find different ways to live, healthier, more positive ways, and even though it was tough to undo a lifetime of behaviors that no longer served me, in fact, probably never had, when I finally did, it was like that blindfold got lifted off my eyes and I saw a brand new world. Life is not something that happens to us, we have the choice in how we react to it, and how we choose to engage with it. We can hit the reset button at any time and choose not to repeat the past.

Let’s start here, make a list of the areas in your life that you are not happy with, not happy with any of it, write it all down in a column. Now, write next to each item how you can do things differently, even if it’s something you don’t want to do or it makes you squirm, just write it down. Now think about those things you’re not happy with, and visualize yourself taking the opposite action, visualize the result being different than it has been in the past. How does that make you feel when you think about it? How do you make that feeling a reality?

1) Take Action – it’s always about taking action. Make a conscious effort to make better choices for yourself and stick to it. Make yourself accountable for those actions. Call yourself out. When we are accountable and vocal about what we are working towards you are more likely to follow through.

2) Conquer Fear – let go of the fear of doing something different, or upsetting someone for not doing what’s expected. The only fear you should have is staying in the same place, staying stuck, but walking through fear to get to a better place is worth it, just do it and see what happens.

3) Know You Are Worth It – you are worth fighting for, your wants and needs are valid, so take the action you need to get it. Find your own self value and know that each step you take to make your life better is worth it, because you are. Believe you deserve the things you want.

4) Allow Yourself To Make Mistakes – we all make mistakes, especially when trying something new, so don’t quite or beat yourself when you make a mistake, or if it doesn’t go the way you had wanted it to. Keep going, keep moving forward. Learn from your mistakes, let them make you stronger, smarter, better, just keep going.

5) Recognize Your Victories – allow yourself to celebrate your wins. When we make changes for the better let yourself celebrate that, feel good about that, shine. We’re undoing years, or a lifetime, of old behavior, every victory, no matter how small, is a victory and a step in the right direction.

6) Write Down Your Progress – keep a journal so you can track your progress. Write down your wins and losses and the circumstances around them so you can see your own growth, or the areas where you keep stumbling, recognizing your patterns is going to give you the map that you need to navigate around them and to chart new courses of action.

7) Persistence – keep going, keep doing it, don’t celebrate so much that you fall back into old behaviors or think you can stand down and coast, it takes a lot of work to break a pattern, and a lot of repetitious behavior of doing the opposite of what you had been doing to make it stick, keep practising and keep moving forward. Be patient with yourself.

This is a lifetime practice of making changes for the good, as we grow and learn we will find new things to focus on, patterns to break, we start to fine-tune and hone our behaviors and lives so they work in conjunction with our hopes, dreams, and goals, not against them. I can assure you it is possible, I am proof, it just takes a desire to do so, and some work. Roll up your sleeves SLAYER.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you see negative or unhealthy patterns in our life? What course of action can you take to change them? Why haven’t you in the past? Are these patterns serving you? My guess is not if you are listing them as unhealthy or negative. How can you make the changes you need to make to break your patterns and live a healthier more positive life? Write them down. Start to make a conscious decision SLAYER to take action in these areas, to do the right thing for you, and to make the changes you need to start a new cycle, a cycle that allows you live a life you want, and one your are proud of. SLAY on.

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

State Of Slay™

Where Self-Love, Mental Health & Real Life Meet

mistakes