Stronger

Happy 3rd SLAYversary

SLAYERS it’s been three years since I started this blog with my first post Gratitude Is The Best Attitude. We have been through a lot together in these 3 years, we’ve laughed, we’ve cried, we’ve hugged, we’ve listened, we’ve supported each other, and all of you have enriched my life and filled my heart for every one of those days.

THANK YOU for SLAYING with me as we walk this road, all we have is today and today we are stronger because we have chosen not to walk alone and together we are stronger.

SLAY on!

3rd SLAYversary!

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Trust the journey and know that a setback is merely a chance for a stronger comeback!

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

State Of Slay Believe In Yourself

Loneliness Is Curable

If someone had told me that my loneliness was curable before stepping on this path I would have laughed. I had always felt lonely, even in a big room full of people. I always felt apart from everyone else, different, and those feelings kept me from connecting with others. I always had friends, and had several long-term romantic relationships, but I never really let anyone in completely, fearing that what they would find in me they wouldn’t like, because I didn’t like myself on the inside. That feeling of loneliness was always present in my day-to-day life. What I didn’t realize is that I held the key to that loneliness, I could let people in and find a peace and love in myself to wipe out the loneliness I felt.

Just as we hold the key to most of our suffering, we hold the key to our recovery from our past. For me, I found a way to connect with a spiritual way of life, to find a belief in something greater than myself. That took some time, even though I had always believed there was something out there, I was told it was up to me to find something that I could connect to and nurture a relationship with. I set out to find something that wanted the best for me, that was there to guide me and watch out for me, and I started to talk and connect with that idea. That alone wasn’t enough, but it was a great start. As that connection grew stronger I started to feel less alone, and that along with making an effort to connect with others like myself, who were on a similar path, those feelings of loneliness started to subside. It wasn’t always easy at the start, to reach out to people I didn’t really know, but it helped to focus on our commonality and those things I knew we shared and when I was able to do that asking someone to meet for a coffee or for their phone number became less scary, and as I did that and formed new friendships and relationships my life got richer and fuller. I still maintained many of the friendships from before, but it helped to form new ones with people who understood the journey I was on.

We, many times, impose our own loneliness, we sentence ourselves to be alone, because we may not feel worthy, or may not like ourselves or convince ourselves we don’t deserve to have good people in our lives, we do, but we have to believe we do and then set out to form those friendships. And, if you live in a smaller community where it’s more difficult to find people like yourself, find them online, find groups or fandoms that you can relate to, and that have common interests, goals or ways of life that coincide with yours. They’re out there. There are so many ways to cure your loneliness, all it takes is some effort on your part, no matter where you find yourself, no matter what interests or excites you, there are people just like you who will not only accept you, but embrace you, so let them know you’re out there and invite them in. Your loneliness is within your control, take your power back and let yourself live as your true self, allowing others to celebrate who you are along with you. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you feel lonely? When do you feel lonely? Why do you think you feel lonely? Have you always felt lonely, or was there a specific time or event that started your loneliness? Do you feel like there is something missing from your life? If so, what is it? Are you able to identify it? Do you have a spiritual belief or relationship in your life? If so what is it? When you connect with something greater than yourself, do you feel less lonely? Does connecting with it give you comfort or make you feel more confident? Do you have trouble making new friends, or seeking out new people with similar interests or a similar journey? If not, why not? What gets in your way? Find the courage, SLAYER, to reach out those like yourself if you’re feeling alone, work on engaging with those people and find a commonality with them you can connect to. You can cure your own loneliness, but it takes work, so get to work and kick loneliness to the curb!

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Our greatest good is what we can do for others.

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

State Of Slay Change The World

Believing In Yourself May Be One Of The Most Daring Things You Can Do

Believing in myself wasn’t something that came easy for me. I spent most of myself doubting my abilities, talent and worth. I may have started the day, or even a task or goal, with all the intention in the world of believing I could do it, and not just do it, excel at it, only to let the voices in my head talk me down and tell me I wasn’t good enough to get it done. And then would begin the vicious circle of beating myself up for not doing something to my ability or being to afraid to let myself shine as I knew I could. I would then slip into a depression believing I would never get what I want or achieve my goals because I was too afraid to reach for them or I wasn’t good enough to get it. It would take days, weeks, sometimes months to work up the courage to get back out there and try again, and sometimes I would find the success I was looking for, but even when I did I would label it as luck, not really believing I deserved it and would then worry it would be taken away. That fear, that disbelief in myself only grew stronger as I got older, and my disease grew along with me, it was harder to overcome, even paralyzing at times where I would freeze not able to do anything because of the overwhelming fear of failure.

When I made the decision to seek out help, when I found the courage to admit I was in trouble and was willing to make changes in my life to live a healthier and happier life, I did hear those same voices telling me it wouldn’t work, or I would fail, but this time it wasn’t just something I wanted, this was my life that was on the line, and walking through that fear of failure was necessary for my own survival, so I just started to walk.

I learned as I began my journey on uncharted waters to trust myself, to trust that I was being guided to where I was meant to be, and that there was a reason why things were happening in my life, good, bad or otherwise. Looking back, yes, I had let many opportunities pass me by, and even though those missed opportunities frustrated me, or made me angry for letting them go, they helped me learn acceptance, no matter how I felt, I couldn’t change the past, so I had to take what I could learn from it and let it go. And, remembering how I felt about those missed opportunities, I would not let myself miss those opportunities from now on so I didn’t have to feel like that again. That was something I had control over, doing the best I could and then letting the results go, because if I had done my best, that’s all I could have done, and can ever do, the rest isn’t up to me, and once I did that I was able to find love in myself, even in who I had been because she didn’t know better, I was able to start believing in my own self-worth. That seemed impossible when I started this journey, but it slowly came as I continued to forgive myself for my past and began making loving decisions for myself each day.

When we don’t believe in ourselves we make it almost impossible for us to succeed. We need to believe. We need to believe we are worth it, we are capable of it, and we need to believe we deserve the good we seek out. That may seem like a tall order, but it can be done, you’re reading the words of a believer right now, one that used to not believe so much she got in her own way most of the time. Find the love within yourself to believe, find the forgiveness to let go of mistakes from the past, and find the life you truly deserve, dare yourself to believe. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you believe in yourself? If not, why not? Does this come from actions or decisions in your past? Does this come from what you’ve been told by others? How do you stand in your own way? Why do you do this? Why do you think it’s OK? Give an example of something you didn’t accomplish or get because you didn’t believe in yourself. How did you feel after? You have the power to change that SLAYER. You are capable of anything you decide to do, you just have to believe you can and set out to do it. Anything is possible if you think you can. Start by learning to love who you are, and honoring that person, learning to trust what you want and look for opportunities to go get it. You can have those things you dream about, with some work, and, a belief that you can.

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

The Living Dead – Numbing Parts Of Yourself And Letting Them Die Off

For most of my life I lived my life like the living dead. I was living a life, well, going through the motions, but was numbing our stuffing down those parts of me that were too painful or I didn’t want to face. I had done that for so long that it became normal to shut down my feelings and thoughts until some of them started to die off. Some of those parts I didn’t even notice were gone and others I was glad to see go because I thought it made my life easier not to feel them. I thought those parts dying off made my life easier. But what was happening is I was slowly becoming dead inside and the only thing I was making easier was for the negative voices in my head to take over and control my life.

My whole life I had tried to fill a void inside of me with outside things, something I was never able to do, and couldn’t do, but by numbing parts of myself or letting parts of me die off I made that void even bigger. My brain was telling me that this was a good thing, but what it was really doing was letting my disease progress and start to take over from those parts of me that knew better or would resist. I look back at myself at that time and I looked dead. There was no life in my eyes, and there have been times I haven’t even recognized myself in photographs. If you had asked me during that time how I was I would have said great, but I would have been lying. I would even lie to myself, but underneath my own bullshit I knew it wasn’t true, that I was dying, and I was letting it happen. It got to a point where I was almost completely dead inside, and the rest of those parts of me that hadn’t died, were in grave danger of forever being numb, but I somehow found one tiny bit of light left, one little bit of hope that I hadn’t killed off, and that little bit was enough to give me the courage to reach out for help before I had let go all together and succumbed to death itself.

Today, after many years of work and learning to love myself, I have also learned to feel my feelings without being afraid of them. No matter what life throws at me I won’t allow myself to numb what comes up, and I certainly won’t allow any piece of me to die off because I’m afraid of it. That does make some days difficult, it can be uncomfortable to sit in my feelings and then have to find a way to work through them, and I do it. I do it because I’m worth it. I’m worth the work, and I know that today. And so are you.

We are not meant to go through life numb, or let parts of us die off just so we can get by without feeling things we don’t want to feel. Those feelings are there to tell us things, to teach us things, and to guide us to where we are meant to be. Those feelings are there for a reason, so to take them away we are walking through life blind, and wandering aimlessly to whatever destination seems the easiest, and not where we are necessarily meant to be to help us grow and learn. If you find something too painful use that as in indicator to change, to seek out help, to understand why these memories or feelings have come up, there is always a reason for everything, so trust that you are experiencing exactly what you are supposed to and instead of grabbing for the nearest thing to numb those feelings, ask yourself what you can do to learn from what it is coming up, no matter how daunting that may seem, there is always a way to find your way on the other side of them, and find a way to let your inner light shine and burn bright. I was able to find my light in the darkness, and I know you can too. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: When you feel uncomfortable with your feelings do you immediately try to numb them or make them go away? Why? How do you do that? How does that help you? How does that hurt you? How long have you done that? Do you ever let yourself feel your feelings? What scares you about your feelings? Where you ever told you weren’t allowed to have feelings? Who told you that? Why? You are allowed SLAYER, we’re all entitled to feel what we feel, and we can use what we feel to get stronger and to let those feelings guide us to where we are meant to be next, and typically the feelings we are resisting the most are the ones that are going to teach us the most, so dive in and feel what you feel.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! One of the hardest parts of life is deciding whether to walk away or try harder. Always keep fighting.

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

State Of Slay Stronger

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! The struggle makes you stronger.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Brave

Our Darkest Parts Can Bring The Most Light

Those parts of us, the darkest parts, those parts that we may think we should hide, the parts we had to fight the hardest to overcome, or are still fighting to overcome, the parts where we may have almost lost ourselves, those are the parts that can bring the most light. I used to be ashamed of those parts. I would hide them at all costs, never sharing my truth with those around me, even when asked. I thought they made me a bad person, weak, or not capable. It took a lot of pain and suffering, alone, to realize that maybe me hiding those parts wasn’t the best course of action, because hiding them was only leading me down one path, and that path had a dead end.

For me, I was fortunate to have gotten to myself to a place of such desperation that I finally had to let those dark parts out. Share them. And find others who were also working to overcome their dark parts. It took time, and practice, learning to let go of the fear of what I thought you would all think of me and just be honest about where I was coming from, what I was thinking, and what I had done to get myself there. What I discovered is that as I shared my dark parts they felt less dark, because I was able to bring some light to them and learn to make better choices to shift my path onto a better one. And as I continued to share, and continued to get better, I started to see that even though I still have a long way to go to get better, I was still able to shine the light I had on those who were just starting their journey. To them, I had made great strides from the darkness and was living positive healthy life that they had only dreamed of. A lesson that, no matter how far down we may think we are, there is always someone else who may be, or feel, lower, who can be helped by your experiences, courage and story so far. Even on our darkest days, we still have something to offer.

As I got better and many years passed, and, my light got brighter and brighter, I realized that talking about those dark parts was not only essential for my continued growth, to remind myself where I had come from, but also sharing them was like a beacon to those still sitting in the dark. I say this all the time, if someone who has never been through darkness the way we have gives us advice, or offers some suggestions, we are most likely not going to listen or take them, but when someone has come from the places we’ve come from, and offers up what they’ve done to get out, that is something we’ll connect with, and may inspire us enough to take action in our own lives. Never think that your past is something you should hide, or shouldn’t share. On the contrary, share your past, your story, your dark parts, because you never know who can be helped by it, and I guarantee, you will.

Today I make a point to share my dark parts. I share them to show others that there is hope, a solution, I celebrate those dark parts because they give me the opportunity to give back, to be stronger, to share with all of you. Those parts of us in the dark are the parts that connect us to others, and we give them permission to share their dark parts which may in turn shine some light into those dark places. It is the darkest parts of us that, when we share them, give off the most light. Share your truth. Let those dark parts shine bright.

SLAY OF THE DAY: How do you feel about your dark parts? Do you keep them hidden? Do you share them with others? If you don’t share them, why don’t you share them? What are you afraid of? Has someone shared their dark parts with you? How did that make you feel? Did it make you feel that you weren’t alone? That you had a connection to this person? You sharing your dark parts can do the same, not only for them, but for you as well. When we share those parts of ourselves that live in the dark, they get brighter, they loose their power over us, and can bring comfort to someone else. It’s important to share our truth, not only for ourselves to but show others that they are not alone. Let yourself shine bright, share the dark parts and allow yourself to be honest about your journey, that honesty will not only help you grow, but will give someone else hope they can as well. SLAY on!

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Good communication is the bridge between confusion and clarity.

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

State Of Slay Share 2