move forward

You Are Not What Happened To You

We can hold ourselves back, or limit ourselves, by thinking we are only the things that have happened to us, or the labels people have placed on us. We can stay stuck not allowing ourselves to move past the trauma or experiences we’ve had believing that we don’t deserve better, or can do better. Well, here’s the truth. We are not what happened to us.

We are individuals who have survived a lot, who have fought our way out and tried to do better for ourselves. We are warriors. Heroes. We can rise above our past and soar. But we have to believe we can. We have to take what we can from our past, learn from it, and let the rest go. We need to forgive ourselves for not knowing better, not doing better, not having the tools we may have needed to keep ourselves safe, but we can do that now. We can decide, at any given moment, to stop living under the shadow of what happened to us and take our power back, or maybe find it for the first time. We all have it, it’s in there, it’s burning within us, let it out, let it shine, let it propel you forward. No matter what the circumstances are that may have brought you down, that may have held you down, or may have let you down, they only hold power over you today if you let them, and they only hold power over you if you’re living in the past. As SLAYERS we live in the here and now. We live in the present. We live our life to our fullest potential, but hanging on to the events of our past, or wearing them as a badge of shame, does not allow us to be who we are meant be, who are truly are at our core.

We can’t fault ourselves for not knowing our own worth, or value, when we were never taught we had any. We can’t fault ourselves for things that happened to us before we had a voice, or before we knew better. We have to let those things go. Let those people go who may have hurt us, lied to us, or deceived us. They don’t get to hold their actions over our heads today, they are not our present, and they have already taken up too much of our time, time, for the most part, we have kept giving them as we hold on to what was done.

Today, you have the power to shed all of that weight you’ve been carrying around, all that pain, hurt, damage, you have the power to let it go, it doesn’t serve you, so drop it, shake it off, wash it off, whatever you have to do to say enough, I am more than this! You are. We all are. Those things that happened to us have shaped us and molded us, and, there can be some good use to those things, we can share our experiences with others who may also be suffering, and we can learn from those experiences so we don’t let history repeat itself, but, aside from those things it serves us no purpose to hold on, to live in a place that tells you that’s all you are because you are so much more. Surround yourself with like-minded people, with good people, supportive people, who love you for all that you are, who cheer you on, and are there to hold your hand when the path gets tough. You can shed the past and turn it into something beautiful, because you yourself, at your inner-most center, are beautiful, and when you allow that self, that true self to shine, you are the real you, the you that is your most you, the you right here, right now. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you often let the past weigh you down? Do you still stew over things that have happened to you even though there isn’t anything you can do to go back and change it? Do you let your past hinder your present? Does your past hold you back from the goals you have today? How do you see yourself doing that? What can you do to overcome it? How do you think holding on to your past helps you? When you think about yourself, what words would you use to describe yourself right now? What words would you like to use to describe yourself? Start describing yourself with those words, that is who you are or meant to be. Let go of the past, and step into the true you, the you you’ve been keeping in the shadows behind all those things you let define you. Be your best you and shine bright.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! When you’re too caught up in what’s happened in the past, you miss what’s right in front of you.

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

State Of Slay Stuck (1)

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Rock bottom has built more champions than privileged. Use the tough times to build strength, and knowledge for the next time.

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

State Of Slay Grow

 

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYERS! The most important thing in life is to remain teachable.

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

State Of Slay New To Learn

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! When you let go of who you were, you allow yourself to become who you are meant to be.

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

State Of Slay Courageous

Release The Investment In Your Suffering

Some of us have invested a lot in our suffering over the years. For some of us it has become our identity, the fabric of who we are, and how we present ourselves to the world. But what is it really getting us? How is it helping us? It’s not.

We may feel it protects us, we may feel we belong there, we may not know how not to live without our suffering, we maybe be told it’s what we deserve, we may tell ourselves that we deserve it, we may not even know we’re living in our own suffering. I used to fall into a few of these scenarios, but I mostly identify with feeling that I belonged there and playing the martyr. I always thought I was hard done by, that bad things were constantly happening to me and I played the victim, but then I would also tell myself that I deserved them. Therein was the insanity of my brain. But I had invested a lot in my suffering, and when I didn’t think I had suffered enough I created my own suffering to make sure I was getting enough. I also used my suffering to manipulate other people into feeling sorry for me, to get what I wanted. I figured out every way I possible angle of suffering I could to torture myself and to use to gain what I wanted. But when I stepped on this path and I was told I was going to have to let it go, I got scared, suffering was all I knew, and, I had invested a whole lifetime into it, that’s a lot of work to throw out, and, what would I replace it with?

What I did replace it with is self-love, was with respect, with learning who I was, what my voice sounded like, and filling that void with good, something that made my stomach turn at first because the old me, the one who relished her suffering, didn’t want the good to come in, because who was I without my suffering? Without my suffering to hold onto like a life raft, I had to learn who I really was, because when I took the suffering away I was a bit of a blank canvas, so much of my time went into perpetuating my suffering I didn’t know how to bring in the good, and it felt scary to release the bad. But what I’ve learned on this path is that when things feel scary that is good, it means there is change happening, change that is needed, it means I’m walking on uncharted territory and trying something new, and I know from doing it time and time again over the last 12 years that something great always comes out of that. I’ve learned to get comfortable in the uncomfortableness of change. I’ve learned to look forward to it even, crazy right? It’s when I just feel comfortable that I know I’m not moving forward, and it’s easy to stay stuck there, to hang back, to settle in, but nothing great happens when we stay stuck, it’s when we reach out, take a leap of faith, and do what we’ve never done before that the shifts occur, that the magic happens, so now, when I start to do something new, to challenge myself and I start to feel uncomfortable, I know that that’s when I need to find comfortableness in that place, because a new normal is approaching, a normal that I have never been to before, a normal that will become comfortable and take me to the next uncomfortable place.

The key to all of this is to let go of your suffering, your suffering is an old story you used to tell yourself, it no longer serves you, it is holding you back from becoming your best you, of realizing your dreams, of making your life bigger and brighter, and of you realizing that you are not defined by your suffering, you are defined by your actions, by who you are today, but who you aspire to be. Let go of past and step forward into who you are meant to be.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you hang on to your suffering? Do you have a hard time letting it go because you’ve invested so much time into it? So much of your life? What do you think will happen if you let it go? How will it hurt you? How will it help you? Do you see how it holds you back from moving forward? Do you see it’s not who are truly are? You have the power to let it go, to shed your suffering and start anew, to discover who you really are, who you want and are meant to be. You wouldn’t keep wearing an old pair of shoes that are worn out and no longer fit you, so why are you still wearing a worn out story that no longer fits you today? Let it go SLAYER, and find the real you. SLAY on!

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYERS! When we have hope, we can do anything.

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

State Of Slay Hope

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Every next level of your life will demand a different version of  you. There’s always more to unlock, continue to challenge yourself.

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

State Of Slay Level Up

 

Level Up

I was never much of a gamer, and if you’re asking yourself what a gamer is, you’re probably not much of one either. Growing up my brother was always into video games, I would sometimes sit and watch him for hours as he mastered the game and always managed to find those secret parts to it that unlocked something special or take you to a secret level. I was always intrigued by that as a kid, those secret places with those magical things that not everyone knew about. Life has those things, I feel like I’ve found many over the past 12 years, those times I opened my eyes to something or because I let go and had faith, unlocked something new. One of the reasons I decided to start STATE OF SLAY was to give people the secrets that I’ve uncovered, and a lot of them aren’t so secret, we just haven’t been aware of them, or we haven’t chosen not to see them, or implement them in our lives, but as someone who has, I can be your guide based on my own experiences in the hopes that you can also, in your own life, find those secret and magical places so you can level up.

It’s easy to stay stuck where we are. We can feel comfortable there, even if it doesn’t feel like we should be there anymore, sometimes the fear of not knowing what’s outside of what we know is stronger than the place we stay that no longer serves us. We want to get out, but we stay, telling ourselves it’s better where we are, and safer. We may even tell ourselves we deserve to stay in that place. We don’t. What we deserve is to continue to grow and expand our lives, challenge ourselves, and move forward from the places that keep is stagnant and stuck where we are. For me the first secret to unlock a brand new life was to be willing to look for it. Willingness was the key to the first door. From there I reached out to someone I trusted, someone I knew had been through that door and I asked for help. Asking for help unlocked a lot of doors and brought me in contact with countless people who all helped me on my journey, those who had been there before, and those who were exactly where I was on my path. Once I had these people in my life the secrets and magic in the game of life kept unlocking, especially as I kept working on myself and was learning to let go of my past and work on learning to love myself. That path has led me down some winding roads, but those roads have brought me so much more goodness than hardship, and when I think back to the dead-end I was on, even my best day there doesn’t compare to my worst day here. I have leveled up many times, and, if I continue to work, will again many more times.

We all have the opportunity to get a higher level than where we are. But we have to take that first step. We have to be willing to go after it, no matter what that brings, or what we may need to face. In the end I may have learned a few things watching my brother all those hours many years back, I learned that perseverance is what it takes to win, and that when you look for it, there is always something magical on the horizon.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Are there moments in your life that you feel you leveled up? What were they? How did you get there? Are there moments in your life when you know you should level up, but you stop yourself? What stops you? What are you afraid of? Or, why don’t you think you deserve it? What areas in your life today would you like to level up? How can you achieve this? If you don’t know, who can you go to for advice to find out what steps to take? Do you share your hopes, dreams, and goals with others in your life? If not, why not? What scares you about that? I challenge you SLAYER, to level up, in whatever way that means to you. I challenge you to be honest with yourself, with those around you, and if you don’t have a good group of people around you to help get you there, find them, they’re out there. Walk with them and walk through your fear to go after what you want, or where you are being directed to go, go there, stand tall, and level up to where you’re supposed to be next. SLAY on.

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