Self-worth

Don’t Abandon Yourself

Before stepping on this path I abandoned myself every day. I did it for years. I stopped caring about myself and let my toxic thoughts run my life. It was like I just left the front door open and was daring someone to come in and take everything that was left because I placed no value on what I had to offer. It was a pretty awful way to live, if you could call it living. I was just the shell of a person going through the motions of life, doing what I could to seem normal on the outside, while I was dying on the inside. Until one night, just one random night, when I found myself at the darkest place you can get to, I got really scared, and I finally asked for help. I didn’t realize until I started to get better that I had abandoned myself years before, I had given up, not thought I was worthy, and just left myself there with nothing to defend myself. Looking back it makes me sad to think I did that, because now I am so fiercely protective of who I am and what I stand for, but I did, and I’m not the only one. Why do we abandon ourselves, the one person we should be there for, show up for, and support through thick and thin, why do we walk away from the one person who should mean the most?

For me it started when I began to believe that I wasn’t worthy of the good. That I was less than. That I was weird and awkward, and if you got to know the real me you wouldn’t like me. That’s where it started, and that thinking took me down a very dark path. Because I didn’t believe in myself, I started to do things that I wasn’t proud of, keeping those things a secret, hiding them, and me, from the people who loved and cared about me, which perpetuated my narrative of me being someone who didn’t deserve good things. That lead me to thinking I was a bad person, which led to worse behavior, self-destructive behavior, which brought me down even darker paths, and so on, until I had gotten myself to a place so dark and so alone that even I didn’t want to be there with myself.

We are the only ones who can fight for us. Sure, people can stand up for us, but if we don’t believe we deserve it, or can attain it, it doesn’t do us much good to have a cheering section when we don’t believe should be cheered for. We have to cheer for ourselves, believe in ourselves and fight for ourselves. No matter what anyone says or does, if we don’t believe what is being said it will fall on deaf ears, it will do us no good, because no one else can do the work for us. Now, I certainly have learned to love myself because others loved me first, they showed I was lovable and worthy of love, but I had to find my own self-love or I wouldn’t still be here, I had to find that flame inside of myself and had to learn to fan it so it could grow bigger. I had to show up for myself. I did that by telling people my truth, by getting help, by finding a group of people who were also fighting the same fight I was, I had to be open to try new things, and I had to try to stand up for my well-being and mental health. It wasn’t easy at first, and I had a lot of help in the beginning, but each time I did I gained more self-esteem, more self-worth and more self-love. Each time I was able to show up for myself my flame got brighter, and as it did I got a lot more protective of it because I had fought to get it to burn bright after living in the darkness so long.

No one is worth fighting for more than you are. It is up to you to stand by who you are and for yourself, to encourage, to love, to be proud of your true self. Don’t walk away from the most important human being there is, you, you are worth fighting for. SLAY on.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Are there times you feel you abandoned yourself? When? Why? Would you choose today to take different actions? What are they? Why do you think you abandoned yourself? Where did that thinking come from? Is that information true today? Was it ever true? How are you different from the person who abandoned themselves? How are you the same? Do you still struggle with this? Why do you think you do? Write down 5 reasons that you should fight for you. Look at those reasons at times when you feel you are backing down, when you are not standing up for who you are and fighting for what you believe. No one has the power that you do to support, love, and give strength to yourself, even if it’s just a small gesture, do something today to show yourself that you have not abandoned yourself. Show yourself some love SLAYER.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! If you told us every horrible thing that you did, or happened to you, we would still love you, you are not your past.

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

State Of Slay Power 1

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Your power comes from living in the present, it is in the present that you can take action.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Moment

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! You can only get better through action.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Fear Failure

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! 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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! The difference between who you are and who you want to be is, what you do. Silence your inner saboteur.

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

State Of Slay Drown 1

Are You Leaving Trap Doors For Yourself?

Even when we step into the light and start to forge a new path for ourselves, a path that honors who we are and where we want to go, a path that allows us to build self-esteem, self-worth, self-love, we can leave trap doors for ourselves to fall through. There are sometimes places inside of us that want to keep us where we were, that want to keep us back, that want us in the dark. We succumb to these places, and sometimes tell ourselves we belong there. And sometimes, we believe it. Why would we set ourselves up to fail?

There are many reasons why we do this to ourselves. We may still feel undeserving of success, or better things, so we sabotage our road to success, not believing we truly deserve it. Believing we should hold ourselves back from where we want to go, or feeling it’s safer there, because that’s what we know. So even if we do rack up accomplishments and succeed, we feel worse, believing we don’t deserve it, so we sabotage our success and keep ourselves from moving forward.

We may also set trap doors for ourselves as a way to feel in control. When we try new things for the first time, or set new behavior patterns we weren’t practicing before it can feel like we’re spinning out of control, we’re in unfamiliar territory, and if we’re feeling unworthy on top of feeling like we’re not sure what’s coming next our need to control can take over and sabotage the good we’re doing.

If we’re lacking in self-confidence as we walk our new path we may feel like a fraud as we gain success, we may feel like we may be found at as not deserving, not talented enough, and not worthy of the place we find ourselves. We may feel that if we’re found out sooner than later, we have a shorter distance to fall, so why not pull the rug out now and save ourselves some pain of a fall later.

There can be many reasons why we leave trap doors for ourselves and get in the way the of our own success, but at the root of the problem is owning our own self-worth, believing that we deserve good things and deserve to succeed in what we are working for, without that we will continue to believe that we don’t deserve to be in the winner’s circle and we will continue to get in our own way. When we stand tall, take contrary action, doing what’s good even when we may doubt we deserve it, taking the compliment, humbly, even though we may not feel it, and accepting the success, even when we may not feel we deserve it, something happens, something changes, the good starts to come in, little by little, we start to live in a place of yes, a place that allows us to grow, to succeed, to win, and, we start to believe we deserve to be there. Step around those traps doors, even better, dance around them, and stand firm in who you are, what you offer, and what you believe, stand tall and allow yourself to be your best you, and continue to work towards what you want. You have the power to make your dreams come true, just make sure you step out of your own way so you can find them. SLAY on.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you set trap doors for yourself? Why do you think you do this? How do you think it hurts you? Why do you think you don’t deserve to have success in your life? What if you believed you should? What if you could? What steps could you take to allow yourself the freedom of allowing success or good things in our life? Write them down. When you find yourself in a place of self-doubt, or self-sabotage, look at that list SLAYER, read it out loud, and stop yourself from getting in our own way and believe that you deserve all the things that want for yourself. Get to work SLAYER, dream, believe, achieve.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! When old patterns are broken, new solutions can be found.

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

State Of Slay Dysfunction

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Sometimes the only way to win is to walk away, that doesn’t mean you’re giving up, it just means that you accept that some things can’t be solved at this moment and time, and the best solution, is to not engage.

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

State Of Slay Let It Go