trust

When We Stop Looking The Answers Find Us

We’ve all been there. We hit a block where we can’t find something, can’t figure something out, or can’t remember something. We keep trying and trying, getting more and more frustrated until we finally give up, and it’s then that we find the answer, or just find what we were looking for. There are countless examples of this in my life, so many in fact that I finally got the point. When I hit a block I stop. When I’ve exhausted all possible avenues, I stop. I don’t try to force it. I don’t beat myself up for not being able to do what I am looking to do in that moment. I stop. Because I know now that I am not meant to know or find what it is I’m trying to find in that moment. It’s hard to walk away, at least it can be for me, to leave something unfinished, or unfound, to just trust that it’ll come when it’s meant to. But it does. Life has proven that to me time and time again.

For me I think that it’s always a test in my faith that there is a plan and an order to things that just might not be on my own timeline. That if it’s meant to be it’ll happen, because it typically does. But we can drive ourselves to exhaustion trying to force something to happen when it’s not meant to, and all of our force will still not make it so.

Before stepping on this path my life was run on fear, and to counter that fear I tried to control everything, I thought that was my safety, to force things to happen when I wanted them to happen. The only trouble was, I don’t have that power. Sure, I can do it some of the time, but most of the time it was beyond what I could control and then I would get angry and resentful, and that’s exactly when the negative self-talk would pop up and tell me that nothing was going to go my way, that I didn’t deserve good things, and I wasn’t smart enough or talented enough to figure it out, and so on and so on. I’ve talked about dropping the rope before, to let go, and not let that rope drag us behind whatever we’re chasing or holding onto. It is about dropping the rope, but it’s also about just learning to let things come when they will. I know, for me, that they will. And, typically it’s shortly after stopping to try that the answer comes, or I find what I was looking for. It always makes me smile. Most times I say ‘thank you’ out loud. Thank you to me, for doing what was right. And, thank you to the universe for providing the answer, or showing me what I was looking for.

It’s about easing off, and trusting the process, the journey, set your intention, and then looking for the answers, the signs, that are out there, and, they are out there, if we just stop, let go, and look around. Sometimes it takes longer than we may want, but it will come. And, you’ve stopped the cycle of trying to force something that wasn’t mean to happen when you wanted it to, relieving yourself of unnecessary anger and frustration. Giving yourself that gift is really another form of self-love. For me, when I hit that wall, I try to do something else that I enjoy, walking away from whatever it was I was trying to do or figure out, and moving on to something I like, it makes it easier to leave something unfinished and keep moving forward.

Sometimes we aren’t meant to know something or find something when we’re looking for it. Trust your path, trust the timeline of your own journey and when you hit a dead end, know that may not be the end, but the end in that moment, maybe the lesson really is to trust it will come, and when you do, that’s when the answer will appear. Trust me SLAYER, the answers always come when you are meant to know them.

SLAY OF THE DAY: If you get stuck on something or can’t find something do you keep looking even after you’ve exhausted all possibilities? How does this make you feel? How does it help you? How does it hurt you? Have you experienced a time when you stopped and went on with your day only to find what you were looking for or found the answer when you were no longer looking for it? Do you trust that the answers will come when you are meant to know them? If yes, why? If no, why? Give examples when the answers came later. The answer typically do SLAYER, they may just not come at the exact moment we want them, but, they typically do when we are meant to have them. Let life unfold as it is meant to, and know there is a reason for that, even if you don’t see it at the time. SLAY on!

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Don’t like the way you feel, how do you want to feel? Think about that feeling until you feel it, then, take action to make that feeling your reality.

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

State Of Slay Happiness 3

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Take steps toward your goal, thinking of each step, not the reward you’re expecting as a result, the result is the affect of each step, and that in itself is the reward.

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

State Of Slay Plan Actions

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! When things go wrong, don’t go with them.

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

State Of Slay Bad Things

Our White Lies Don’t Protect Us, They Damage Us

I used to tell little white lies, and some big ones too, and tell myself I was telling them to make things easier, to not hurt someone’s feelings, or to protect myself from someone else, but all I was really doing was looking for an excuse not to tell the truth, and by not telling the truth I was not only damaging those relationships, but I was damaging myself. I was also living a life that was not based in truth. My life, then, was based in fear. Fear of missing out, fear of loosing what I had, fear that you wouldn’t like me, fear I wouldn’t get what I wanted, fear I wasn’t good enough, fear of…well, fear. So when a life is ruled by fear, the truth, is not the first thing that comes to mind. My life was built on so many half-truths, or white lies, that it constantly felt like a house of cards that was about to tumble to the ground at any moment. That feeling, that life I built for myself, kept me in a steady state of manipulating the truth. I twisted the facts to suit my needs, to tell the story I wanted to tell, one that always favored me, because in my mind, the chips were stacked against me, so why shouldn’t I try to level the playing field? What this thinking, and this way of life got me, was more and more fear. To the point where I couldn’t keep track of all the lies anymore so I retreated and hide by myself, alone in the darkness.

When I stepped on this path, this path of light, this path, had no room for lies, only the truth. That scared me. But I had lived so long not telling the truth, a path that led nearly lead me to my death, that I knew it was time to start telling the truth. As terrified as I was, I knew, my life depended on it. I started with the friends and family who meant the most to me, I just let it all out. Shared my truth. I wasn’t worried about what they would think of me, I just knew I had stop hiding, so I jumped in, full throttle. The response was positive, supportive, and that felt good, but I knew I had to keep going. I had to make this my new way of life if it was going to work, going to stick, and if I was going to continue to heal, continue to grow.

When we tell white lies it chips away at our self-respect, we tell ourselves that our truth isn’t good enough, and that we are not good enough. And if we can’t be truthful about ourselves we start to suspect others are doing the same, believing that they are lying to us, or trying to manipulate us, as we are to them. It’s a vicious cycle. And one that doesn’t end unless we stop and start telling the truth. If we can’t trust ourselves and our truth, how can we trust anyone else? That trust, that truth, starts with us. In fact, it’s all we really do have control over, we don’t really know truly what someone else’s truth is, but we control how we share ours, that we share ours, and so no matter what happens, we know we’ve been truthful and that we have nothing to hide, and when we find that place of truth for ourselves, we find self-respect, we find self-love, we find self-worth. We also find our relationships get stronger, and those that don’t, were perhaps, weren’t built on truth in the first place, but the real relationships, those lasting relationships we all desire, those, those get stronger.

I’ve learned on my journey that telling the truth really is much easier. Even during those times when I think it will be hard, I’ve always found that when I share the truth, or my truth, most times, it’s received far better than what I had anticipated, and if it isn’t received well, that’s some useful information to have. Most people prefer us to be honest with them, certainly anyone in my life surely does, and I them, so start to practice being honest in your life, even those little white lies we think can’t hurt anyone, hurt us most of all, but chipping away at who we are and what we stand for. Always stand tall and tell your truth, you never know, one day, your life might depend on it.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you find yourself telling little white lies? Why do you think you do this? What’s the last one you told? Why did you tell it instead of the truth? How do you think it helped you? How do you think it hurt you? Do you think the person you told it to would be upset if they found out? Would you be upset if you found out someone had told the same lie to you? Are you in fear of being found out? When you tell a lie how does that make you feel? How does it make you feel to tell the truth? I challenge you SLAYER, to tell the truth this week, to walk through your fear of being honest and see how that changes you, how that makes you feel. Be you. And, SLAY on!

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! You are exactly where you are supposed to be. It doesn’t mean you are meant to stop here, but it does mean you are meant to learn here.

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

State Of Slay Trust The Process

If Things Go Wrong It’s Just An Opportunity to Learn Or Do Better

We can place so much importance on something going a certain way, but no matter how much we plan, or prepare, or will it to happen, sometimes things go wrong, off course, or not at all how we intended. We can get caught up on that being a failure, and beating ourselves up for not doing it right, messing up, or add it to our long list of evidence that we are not good enough. All a failure really is is information. It’s just more facts, and those facts are telling us certain things. They may be telling us we should have done more footwork, more investigation, they may tell us we put our trust in the wrong person or people, they may tell us that our expectations were far too high and no one could have reached the goal we had set ourselves, that we may have set ourselves up to fail. Oh yes, some of us do that, I know I did in the past. Something you label as “wrong” is really just that, a label, and, well, wrong. We’re the ones who give it importance, or look at it as something negative, but most of the time we label it that way because we didn’t get our way. Nothing is right or wrong until we give it that value, so, how do we take those “wrong” things and make them into something positive.

Well, we can stop labeling them wrong to start. We can start looking at them as tools to learn from. Lessons that, if we choose to, can point us in the right direction of where we should be going, or how we can be doing better.

I used to be so stubborn I wasn’t able to get past the “loss” as I saw it, but once I started to use stubbornness for good, and got more determined to learn from my mistakes than getting caught up in not getting things my way, I started to lose that strong grip I used to try to have on all the people, places and things in life. As as I started to let go and trust that I was on the path I was meant to be on, and, that if I did the footwork to the best of my ability, even if the end result wasn’t what I had wanted or hoped for, it was what was meant to be and there was likely something within that loss that would help me grow and move forward. It’s really all just a matter of perspective, when we choose to look for the good, we see the good. Now, don’t get me wrong some loses do sting, but I’ve seen enough examples in my life of times when something didn’t go my way, only to realize later that I wasn’t ready for it, or it really wasn’t the best for me, or, there was something else waiting for me, that I have an easier time to let things go…most of the time. Getting into action, always lessens the blow.

If I’m able to look at my part, to look at where things went left instead of right, I can usually find some items that I can take action on, so that next time something like that comes up, I am better prepared to make a decisions for myself that are more aligned with who I am today, and where I am supposed to go. We don’t know everything, just what we can see and hear, but we can do our best to take the next right action or direction and not get stuck on it only be one way.

As a SLAYER we strive to walk through life with an open mind and an open heart, to learn to flow with life and all of it’s waves, twists and turns, and to learn as much as we can as we go. Once we label something bad, or wrong, we shut off much of that learning. By looking at what we can do to improve or what we can take away from a negative situation, we are setting ourselves up to grow and to trust that we have what we need at any given moment. Get out that detective hat once again and look for the facts, and, how they can start working for you. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: If something goes wrong, do you slide into a depression, or state of anger? How does that help you? How does that hurt you? What can you do to avoid that reaction next time? Think of something that seemingly went wrong recently and write down what you can learn from that experience, what you can do differently next time. Try to look at things through that perspective, to always try to strive to be better than you were yesterday. This is a lifelong journey SLAYER, there are no shortcuts, but there are do-overs, so why not make yours with better choices by using the information you’ve been getting to give yourself an easier path to navigate.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Change will not happen if you’re waiting for some other person or some other time.  You are the change you are looking for. You can make the change you seek.

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

State Of Slay Chapter

You Are Not Entitled To Be Happy

Yeah, I bet that got your attention. It is up to each and every one of us to find our happy. Within every circumstance. Being happy is a choice. It’s about being open to new things, different things than the things we thought were going to make us happy. It’s about releasing the constraints of what you think you need to be happy, to let happy happen even when it doesn’t look exactly how you think it should, or needs to be.

I’ve heard people around me say, many times, “well, I did all of these good things for myself, cleaned up my life, played by the rules, and I still didn’t get what I wanted,” and I always say, “you’ve gotten what you’re supposed to have gotten, when you’re supposed to have gotten it.” Sometimes The Universe, God, whatever your belief is, saves us from ourselves, because what we think we want, isn’t what is good for us, or best for us, or, we’re just not ready for it. I always try to look at opportunities I thought I missed out on as exactly that. Things I wasn’t meant to have, or may not have been in the right place for, even though I thought I should be there or get those things. It’s about trusting you are where you’re supposed to be, and knowing that, life hasn’t forgotten about you, if you feel stuck, that’s a time to ask yourself how you can move forward, or if there is something you are doing that’s keeping you stuck, how can you contribute to yourself moving in the direction of what you want, of, well, happy. I mean, we should be finding happy exactly where we are, but it’s also OK to want to keep going, to get to the next step or level in our lives to a place, or places, we’ve always wanted to go. Just don’t forget to appreciate where you are right now, and what you’ve overcome to get there. Don’t get so caught up in the future that you can’t appreciate the now. The now is important, and it’s important to find happy in the now.

We, as human beings, only know a little, we can only see what’s in front of us, and where we’ve been, but we only have our own perspective, we can’t see the bigger picture, how our lives fit into the overall tapestry of lives all around us, and even beyond, because we are all connected in many ways, and everything we do, as it does with others, affects those around us and far beyond, beyond we even realize, or could ever know. Each decision we make, each action, has a ripple effect, and it keeps rippling out, maybe for a lifetime. I know myself that, there are many people who have affected my life and their actions still are active in my life today, even though it may have been many many years since that interaction. Trust, that the people who are and are coming into your life are meant to be there for a reason, some for a long time, and some for a short period, but no one comes in without a reason, good, bad, it’s all about learning, loving, and well, finding our way to happy, even in the moment.

My favorite word that is used to define happy is buoyant, which means able to stay afloat or rise to the top. That describes my happy. When I think back to the unhappy time in my life, the years and years of unhappy, I was sinking, I was not afloat, it took me shedding the pain, shame, and anger of my past to learn to float, and today I float at the top, and I am happy.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you get angry that you are not happy? Do you feel like life owes you happiness? Why? Why do you think you can’t find happiness? Have you ever felt happy? When was that? Why were you happy? How do you think you lost it? How do you think you can get it back? Do you trust that you are where you’re supposed to be? If you are not happy in that place, is there something you can do to get yourself out that you are not doing? Why haven’t you done it? Do it SLAYER, find your happy, and if you are getting in the way of your own happiness, let it go, go get your happy, it’s worth the work, because you deserve to be happy. SLAY on!

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

How We Love Ourselves Teaches Others How To Love Us

Fasten your seat belts, we’re talking self-love again today! I know, this is a struggle for some of you SLAYERS. But here’s the thing, as we learn to love ourselves, we teach those around us how we want to be loved, and how we expect to be treated by those in our lives. How we love ourselves causes a ripple effect in every aspect of our lives. It starts with us and as we learn and love ourselves we change our pattern of self-doubt, hate, disrespect, abuse, harm, and we start to replace it with healthier behaviors, loving behaviors, and as we do the people in our lives take notice, some, maybe, not in a positive way, as they’ve grown accustomed to the way we were, and, how they’ve been interacting with us, but how they receive this new information of self-love isn’t our business, what is our business is continuing to grow and love who we are and showing the world how to love us back in the same ways.

It all starts with us. Now, I understand that sometimes before we love ourselves we’re better able to love others, and for some of us, that is a great way to back into loving ourselves, as long as loving others doesn’t replace loving ourselves, but when we love others it shows us that we have the capacity for love, that we are caring individuals, that we can give love, so if we turn that back on ourselves, and think about why we love to give love to others, how that makes us feel, why we love to do it, why we think it’s important, and what we think about as we’re doing something nice for someone else, all of those things pertain to you as well. Apply all of those same reasons, feelings, motivations, back to you. And, if you have trouble at the start, ask your friends or family, what they love about you, and, write them down. Write down what they say and look at those things, take them in, and don’t listen to that bullshit committee who might be telling you that they’re lies, they’re not, look at those beautiful words and say, “that’s me, I am all of those things,” and once you can accept that, why wouldn’t you want to love that person, nurture that person, take care of that person who would be described using all of those beautiful words? Of course you would, you are a loving person, I know you are. The fact that you took the time to read this blog today tells me you do love yourself, even just a little today, to seek out the answers for you, to learn and grow for you, to see if maybe there was something you were missing on your journey of self-love.

Now, as I mentioned, not everyone might be on board with this new self-love change, and that’s OK. It might not feel OK when they resist it, but it will as you realize that if they are not willing to love you, and respect you’re new way of life, then they cannot be a part of it, our at the very least, as active in it as they once were, if they are pushing back that is not a loving gesture to you, and they might not be capable, or wanting, to change their behavior to adapt to the new self-loving you because they really enjoyed the way they’ve been able to treat you when you didn’t love yourself. Let them go. They may come back at another time, when they are ready to make the changes, or they may not, but, as difficult as it may be to say goodbye, new people will come in, people who will love you and be on board with this new way of life, sometimes it takes people time to change, and to understand the new us, sometimes it’s just a matter of time, and sometimes it’s not about time, it’s about moving on. We have to remind ourselves that when we’re living in a self-destructive, self-loathing, self-hating way of life, that we look for and attract people who will treat us that way, so when we change, they may not, but we need to stay the course of our self-love destination and trust that we will be surrounded by love as we continue to love ourselves. Trust me on this, I’ve walked this path, and not everyone made it with me down the road, but many did, and our relationships got stronger, better, deeper, as I learned to love myself. It takes work, but it can be done, and, you’re worth it.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you see how loving yourself can lead others to love you the same way? Can you think of examples in your life that by you showing someone how you’d like to be treated they’ve started to change how they interact with you? Can you think of examples when someone has pushed back, not wanting to change? Who are the people you would rather have in your life, the ones who love us enough to follow our lead, or the ones who refuse to? On the path of self-love SLAYER we aim to have people in our lives who also love us, who grow and change with us, who honor our authentic selves and lift us higher by showing us their love and support, as we do them. It always starts with us. When we love ourselves, we show them how we’d like to be loved, so set the example and then reap the rewards. SLAY on!

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