positive

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! One word can change someone’s entire day.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Good People

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Together we can do so much!

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

State Of Slay Together We Are Strong

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! The waters may be rough, but it’s our choice whether we succumb to the waves or learn to surf.

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

State Of Slay Calm Sea

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! If you don’t like something change it, if you can’t change it change the way you think about it.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay What We Look At

Slay Slay

Good morning SLAYER! We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.

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

State Of Slay Think Without Acting

When We Love Ourselves Love Finds Us

This seemed like a good topic for Valentine’s Day, and one that may stir up some feelings about self-love. As someone who spent most of her life hating herself I know the power we have over what we attract into our lives. That’s not to say if we don’t love ourselves that we won’t, can’t, or don’t have love in our lives, because I know we can, I did, even when that self-love wasn’t there, but when we do find or have that love for ourselves it invites more love in, and, we tend to look for the love we already have and want to share our love with others.

Love is contagious, who doesn’t want to feel, receive and give love? It can heal almost anything, and what I may not be able to heal alone, it can certainly help with the process. Finding love for myself came with some work on my part, but I knew I had to find it to get better and to live the life I had dreamed of. To get to the place I am now I had to first find forgiveness in myself, for all the unloving things I did to myself and to those around me. I had to let go of the guilt and shame I carried around that held me back and blocked me from finding self-love. I had to take responsibility for my actions but I also had to accept that I was doing the best I could with the tools I had, and, with untreated mental illness, my best thinking often set me on a course of self-sabotage and self-destruction. I would never criticize someone with cancer, diabetes or Alzheimer’s so why would I criticize myself for the disease I had that had clouded my judgment and stole from me for most of my life. Finding that acceptance and using it as a tool to grow from where I was, to do better and to start living in a positive way was the place I started on my journey to self-love. I made a point, each day, to find gratitude in who I was, where I was and where I wanted to go, and some days that proved more challenging than others, but even just thinking of one thing was enough to change my outlook. I gave back where I could to others struggling like I was, which got me out of my own head and relieved me of the negative thinking that had plagued me my whole life. I made a lot of changes, took direction from others and professionals and I began to feel better. Slowly, by practicing loving acts towards myself and others I was able to say, out loud, that I loved myself, and when I did my life changed, and I began to look for love in each day. I also began to share the love I had with others, even by paying someone a compliment are congratulating them on a job well done. Walking this path with love in my heart ultimately brought me a love I didn’t know I could have and a man who I now share a love with that continues to grow each day.

Finding love for ourselves may seem like an impossible journey, but nothing is impossible if we try and make changes in our lives that support our efforts to find that love. It’s a journey that takes humility and a desire to search for those things that we feel make us lovable and what allows us to share our love with those around us. We all are worthy of love, even if we don’t feel we are, but when we open our heart to the idea of it, the magic of love may just open your heart enough to show you just how lovable you really are. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you believe you are lovable? If not, why not? Have you always felt that way? If you haven’t, what changed? Are there moments in your life that have been able to find self-love? What were they? Why don’t they stay or why did they go away? What can you do today to show yourself love? How can you share that love with someone else? Today, since this is a day to celebrate love, look for all of the love you have in your life and all of the ways you can show yourself love in return, just being willing to look for it opens the door enough to come in.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYERS! Life has a way of evening things out, focus your energy on your own success.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Best Revenge

Don’t Ever Pray For Justice, You Might Just Get It

We’ve all been wronged, hurt, or misled, and it’s easy to sit in our hate or anger wanting revenge, or justice, but when we sit on that space and want negative things to happen to others, we invite the darkness in. We allow that darkness to take over and dominate our thoughts and soon it makes it’s way to our actions, or, by sitting in our hate we have brought on punishment to ourselves. It’s easy to judge someone else for what they’ve done, but we may be guilty of our own crimes, and forgetting our own actions we are just as guilty and shouldn’t be so quick to only look at the actions of others. We always have a choice of how to respond to what happens to us and when we invite revenge to come in we may just get a dose back we’re not expecting.

When I made a choice to walk this path I was eager to point the finger at all the people who I thought had wronged me, who I blamed for all of my bad behavior and bad decisions, but it was pointed out to me that in most cases, the exception was when I was child, I had a choice in who I allowed into my life, who I engaged with, who I chose to trust, and how I interacted with each of those people. It was easier to play the victim and blame everyone else for my problems and to sit and plot my revenge or wish bad things on those people who I thought had hurt me. The truth was, I hurt myself, time and time again, by the choices I was making, and by sitting in that misdirected hurt I became angrier and more depressed, praying for justice didn’t make me feel any better, it fueled my hate and if I was really being honest with myself, it concerned me that the same fate I wished upon others could be coming for me. Living in the light I have been encouraged to wish what I would want for myself for others, even when they have wronged me. Now, that can be a tough one, but I have done it, many times, and it does work to keep me out of negative thinking and keep me in the light. When you’ve been hurt instead of praying for justice, pray they receive everything you would want every day for 2 weeks, trust me, you will feel better, and that anger will pass. And by doing this you let the light in, you focus on the positive and from that place real change can happen, good change. It’s like the blinders come off and we can see clearly, the whole picture, and not just what we want to see because it suits the narrative we want to tell. We, as adults, always have a part, and perhaps what has happened is there to show us changes we need to make, or to teach us something, perhaps, just maybe, we should be thanking that person for that lesson rather than condemning them.

We should never be wishing or praying for something we would not want for ourselves, when we do we are working from a place of victim-hood and not taking responsibility for our part or the power we have. Even if we are a victim of a random crime or accident, we still have a choice how we respond to what happened, and when we choose revenge we are also choosing to live in the darkness which only invites more darkness in our lives. It’s important to practice contrary action and send out good energy, even to those who may have harmed us, and it’s important to send it back to ourselves as well, as we likely contributed to our own harm. Send out positive energy and positive is what you’ll get back and what you’ll see moving forward. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you pray for revenge when you’ve been wronged, hurt or harmed? How do you feel when you do that? Does it make the situation any better? Do you find that your thoughts stay in the negative and affect your daily life? How do they do that? Does that feel good? Are you able to see your part in those situations? Do you think you could wish good things for someone who may have wronged, hurt or harmed you? Do you think you could try? Trust me SLAYER, when we are able to send out love, even to those who have not shown us love, we win, and we allow ourselves to live in the light and look for the positive in our lives. Light attracts light, and when we choose to live in it we find more, and, we find more people who also live there instead of focusing on those who do not.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Negative thoughts don’t protect you, they make you smaller.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Believing Negative Thoughts

Cherishing Our Character Defects

When I stepped on this path I was encouraged to write down what I thought were my character defects. Defects? That seemed harsh. I mean, clearly, there were some things that weren’t working in my life, after all, I had gotten myself to a place where I could no longer find a way out on my own, but defects, let me digest that for a moment. When I looked up the definition it said that a character defect was a fault, failing, weakness, I didn’t like that one, flaw, shortcoming and inadequacy, it implies moral and psychological failings, yikes! It took me a while to wrap my head around, what I considered, harsh language, and yet, on the flip side, the words I would have used to describe myself at that moment in my life would have been far harsher than those. Outside of just my ego not wanting to admit I had character defects that there preventing me from having the life I would like, it was realizing that many of them, I may have grown fond of, and, may not be willing to let them go.

We all have behaviors, things we do, that we may realize are probably not the best, but we’ve been using them for so long that they feel comfortable to us, or, we practice them out of habit, not even realizing we’re using them. So the first step for me to making a list of things I use or did that ultimately harmed me, or stood in my way of freedom, was to recognize them for what they were. I started out with pen in hand and began writing down what I thought were bad qualities, still thinking of myself as a horrible person, that pen starting flying across the page as I feverishly started to purge what I thought were the worst of my worst defects. And as I wrote, my ego tried to take some of them back as helpful or tools I needed to protect myself, or keep others in line, that’s where I had to get honest. See, I found myself in a place of complete darkness and despair because my ego and negative thinking had been running the show, I had used those defects to get me right where I was, which was total emptiness, so I had to let go of anything that was not going to contribute to my greater good, every one of them had to go. It helped that I was told to write the positive attribute next to each defect I had written down, that way when I caught myself falling back on old behavior I had a quick reference to the opposite behavior to combat the negative. And I wish I could say that just that alone wiped them all out, it didn’t, I still struggle with some today, 14 years later, but, the point is to be willing to let them go, or change, and focus on practicing contrary action, finding a positive attribute to replace the one that is not working for me, and retraining myself to not romanticize the negative into something I need or want.

We all have things we may know hold us back, keep us from moving forward or build a wall between us or others. We may feel these things are our friends and keep us safe and out of harm’s way, but really they themselves are harming us by not allowing us to engage with others and be our best selves. Look at your behaviors and patterns for what they are, not what you want them to be, and be willing to let the ones go that are holding you back from where you are meant to be. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you recognize behaviors or patterns in your life that would be labeled as a character defect? What are they? Do you hold on to them knowing you should let them go? Why? What stops you from letting them go? Do you romanticize them? How does this hurt you? How have they prevented you from receiving what you would like in your life? What can you do to change that? Write down the character defects or flaws you see in yourself, not to beat yourself up, to use a tool to change, and next to each one write the positive attribute to the negative, then you have a path to removing the negative and focusing on the positive. It takes work and a willingness to change, but it’s worth it when you begin to make better choices that reflect the light within you.

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