truth

Does The Quiet Scare You?

When I was living the dark I surrounded myself with a lot of noise. I didn’t realize I was doing it, or that I had stopped doing the things that used to ground me, or allowed me to find peace. My disease didn’t want me to find that peace, it wanted to keep its negative voice running constantly in my head. It wasn’t until I made a commitment to get better that I realized that the quiet scared me because when things were quiet, my negative voices got louder and it was terrifying.

Thinking back to the way things used to be, I always had music on, and loud, in the car, earbuds in while walking, the TV on at home, or stereo, there was always something on to drown out the silence. The silence held many truths, the truth of my situation wasn’t good, or something I was ready to face, there still was good in the silence, in the distance, but it was still there in between the negative chatter. When I made the decision to face my demons and get better I was faced with finding that peace again in the quiet, but at first, it was far from peaceful. Just thinking about sitting, for even a minute, in the quiet made my anxiety spike. It was like, each time I stopped and found some quiet, I was treated to a slide show of all of the things I was ashamed of and all of the ways was I was not enough, or a horrible person, turning that around took some work.

I had to learn to breathe through the uncomfortableness of the quiet, and I had to learn to distinguish between productive positive feedback and my disease trying to pull me back down, hitting the delete button on those negative thoughts became very liberating, but also accepting that they will come up, and still do, and not giving them any value, or judging myself for them. I remember being told in a meditation workshop to acknowledge those negative thoughts and then watch them pass by like a cloud. That imagery helped me to start to let them go. So much of my progress in learning to enjoy the quiet came from practice and patience, and, not judging myself when I wasn’t able to sit in silence, there were going to be good days and bad days, but really, as long as I was trying, none of them were really bad. Again, stopping the judgment and expectations of what I thought it was supposed to be. That was something that I carried over to all aspects of my life, at least, I work to do so. To observe, and if it doesn’t help me, move me forward or nourish me, to let it go. Now, some things are easier than others to let go, and sometimes the process takes time, or, I just get exhausted hanging on for far too long, but it always feels good to let it go without having to fix it or make sense of it, or make it look perfect. Even if it’s messy or unfinished, if it doesn’t serve you, let it go. Watch it pass by like a cloud.

Now I am able to sit in the quiet, in fact, I enjoy it, because, as I’ve shared before, I find many answers there. It is very rare today that I have music on in the car, or earbuds in as I walk outside, I enjoy the time alone, listening for answers and signs that are meant to guide me to where I am supposed to be, I missed many of those drowning out the quiet. Today the quiet is one of the best tools I have to connect with something greater than myself and to feel connected to what’s out there, it is part what anchors me and is a part of my foundation.

If the quiet scares you ask yourself why. Ask yourself what frightens you there, and also ask yourself what you may find there. I assure you, if you can find a comfortableness in the quiet it may become your biggest ally. Let go of preconceived notions of what you think it should be and just let it be, let it be your own experience and your own sacred space, a space where you can settle in and make it your own. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you make time for quiet in your day, or do you constantly bombard yourself with noise to drown it out? Why do you think you do that? Have you ever enjoyed the quiet? If so, what changed? What do you experience in the quiet? What would you like to experience in the quiet? What can you do to change what you experience in the quiet? How can you become more comfortable in the quiet? Our quiet space is our space, we can make it anything we want to, as long as it is contributing to our peace and positive direction in life.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! What’s behind your walls?

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

Do You Build Up Walls To Protect Your Disease?

When I was living in my disease I built up walls. I thought I was building them up to protect me from all of you. From the big bad cruel world that was out to get me. But what I was really doing was building walls to protect my disease so I could stay sick. I didn’t want to stay sick, but that’s what’s tricky about mental illness, it controls our thoughts and actions without us even knowing it, making us think what we’re doing is our idea, when it’s really not, or in our best interest. Those walls that I built to protect me, only protected me from getting well, and behind those walls I kept getting sicker.

When I think back to those years I struggled with depression, suicidal thoughts, and bad habits and decisions that did harm to my overall mental, spiritual and physical health, my decline was so seamless I didn’t even notice it until I felt overwhelmed by it. I had been setting up my own decent into darkness for years and years, and as each year passed, I built up more and more walls to keep me from connecting from those people, places and things that could have had a positive influence on me. I didn’t want a positive anything in my life, even though I thought I did, but truthfully as the years went on I didn’t feel I deserved it, so I set myself up to fail, to fall deeper and deeper into the dark until I almost wasn’t able to find my way out. I would have been offended back then if someone had said I had disease, much less that I had been protecting it, but that is the truth of what was going on, and I am responsible for my part and acknowledging my disease was the first step in taking my life back.

We all can build walls to protect us from things we think are there to harm us. But how many of us have built them to protect us from getting help, or better, and we’re actually protecting our disease and keeping ourselves sick because that is what we know and think where we’re supposed to be? What are our walls protecting exactly? Only we can be rigorously honest and ask ourselves that truth.

For some of us, our sicknesses have become our identity, it’s what connects us to others who will not judge us, because those we spend our time with our just as sick, or perhaps sicker. We keep ourselves tethered to people and things that keep us just out of reach of the help we may need, or even a positive voice that may shed some light on our path. For me, I had been doing that for so long, it was absolutely terrifying to step out into the light, to feel exposed and unsure of the next step, but it also felt liberating to no longer feel tied down and ashamed the place I found myself, and, in doing so, I found a little bit of hope that I could move forward from that place and it wasn’t my destiny to stay stuck there. The truth is, we are never stuck, unless we allow ourselves to be, there is always hope, there is always help, and there is always a way out, but we’ll never find those things hiding behind our walls all by ourselves.

Tear down those walls you may have built, or, at least look around them, to find the light you need to light your path. Stop protecting what harms you and start fighting for yourself and where you are supposed to be, a place that allows you to be your best self, reaching your full potential and your dreams of what you could become. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you build walls to protect yourself? From what? From whom? Is it possible you are protecting your disease, or sickness, bad habits or fears that keep you away from connecting with people who may love and support you? Why do you think you do this? When did you start doing this? What can you do to stop doing this? How does it harm you to do this? Find the courage SLAYER, to reach out, to connect with those like yourself, with those who have overcome obstacles of their own and who may offer you a hand to pull you out from behind those walls you’ve built for yourself.

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