truth

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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

It’s Not The Pain That Helps Us Grow, It’s Our Response To It

Before I stepped onto this path, I walked through a lot of pain.

Not gracefully.
Not reflectively.
More like a storm spinning out of control—reactive, destructive, and exhausting.

I told myself, and was often told by others, that the pain was making me stronger. That suffering was proof of growth. That endurance alone was somehow building character.

But looking back, I can see the truth much more clearly now:

The pain wasn’t strengthening me.
My response to it was weakening me.

And in many cases, I was the source of my own pain.

That realization wasn’t comfortable—but it was freeing. Because it showed me that growth was never about how much pain I endured. It was about what I did after the pain showed up.

Pain Is Inevitable Suffering Is Optional

Pain is part of being human.

We get hurt.
We get disappointed.
We get blindsided—sometimes by others, sometimes by life itself.

But pain alone doesn’t create growth.

Pain without awareness creates repetition.
Pain without reflection creates cycles.
Pain without honesty keeps us stuck.

What determines growth isn’t the pain itself—it’s whether we react from old wounds or respond with clarity.

And there is always a choice.

Reaction Keeps Us Stuck Response Moves Us Forward

There’s a difference between reacting and responding.

Reaction is impulsive.
It’s emotional.
It’s driven by fear, old stories, and survival patterns.

Response is intentional.
It’s grounded.
It’s guided by truth instead of triggers.

When I reacted to pain, I made choices that caused more pain—burning bridges, sabotaging myself, repeating patterns I swore I wanted to escape.

When pain wasn’t self-inflicted, that was where growth became possible—if I was willing to respond instead of explode.

The Myth That Pain Builds Strength

One of the most damaging stories we tell ourselves is that pain itself makes us stronger.

That belief often keeps us tolerating what we shouldn’t.
It keeps us in harmful relationships.
It keeps us justifying self-destructive behavior.

Pain doesn’t build strength.

Choices build strength.

The strength comes from what you learn.
From what you release.
From what you decide not to repeat.

The old narrative—that suffering proves worth or resilience—often keeps us returning to the same sources of harm, believing it’s “part of the process.”

It isn’t.

Getting the Facts Is How We Grow Safely

One of the core truths I return to again and again is this:
When we have the facts, we are safe.

Not the feelings.
Not the assumptions.
Not the stories shaped by past wounds.

The facts.

Looking at pain honestly—without embellishment, blame, or denial—allows us to understand its source. And once we understand the source, we gain power.

Power to choose differently.
Power to set boundaries.
Power to walk away instead of reenacting.

Pain becomes useful only when it’s investigated.

We Always Have More Control Than We Think

Here’s the part that changes everything:

We don’t control whether pain shows up—but we do control how much we let it stay.

We can:

Let it fester
Turn it into resentment
Use it for sympathy
Or learn from it and release it

Sometimes simply letting pain go is growth.

Not every wound needs a deep dive. Some lessons are learned by choosing not to engage again.

And when you’re living from self-love and honesty, destructive reactions stop feeling good. Self-sabotage loses its appeal.

Because why tear down something you’re finally learning to build?

Pain Is a Teacher Not a Home

Pain is meant to inform you—not define you.

It shows you where boundaries are needed.
It highlights what isn’t aligned.
It reveals patterns asking to be broken.

But pain is not meant to be lived in.

When you respond with curiosity instead of chaos, pain becomes data. And data leads to discernment. And discernment leads to peace.

That’s growth.

Turning Pain Into a Gift

You may have never paused to ask yourself how you typically respond to pain.

So the next time it shows up, try this:

Strip away the story.
Remove the emotional overlay.
Look at the facts.

What actually happened?
What role did you play?
What part was within your control?
What can you learn?

When you do this, pain stops being something that happens to you—and becomes something that works for you.

The greatest gift pain can offer is information.

And information, used wisely, changes everything.

SLAY Reflection

Let’s reflect, SLAYER:

S: What do you believe is the main source of pain in your life right now?
L: How much of that pain are you creating, allowing, or repeatedly engaging with?
A: When pain shows up, do you tend to react or respond—and how is that serving you?
Y: What could change if you chose to learn from pain instead of letting it control you?

Call to Action: Join the Conversation

I’d love to hear from you.
How has your response to pain shaped your growth—or where do you feel called to respond differently now?
Share your story in the comments. Let’s cheer each other on.

And if you know someone who’s stuck believing pain itself is the path, send this to them.
Sometimes, all we need is a nudge.

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! You are only one decision away from a totally different life.

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

Contempt Prior To Investigation

I used to think I knew better. I thought I knew better than all of you, and I thought I knew if I was going to like something, even if I had never done it before. And because I lived in a negative space, I often said no to things without ever trying them. Before someone could even finish asking me to join in or participate in something I had already made up my mind I didn’t want to do it. Some of that came from fear, fear of never having done it and now knowing what the result will be, or, maybe looking stupid because I didn’t know what I was doing. My first reaction to any invite or suggestion was no. As a result, I missed out on a lot of things, a lot of opportunities, because I had already condemned something before it happened.

When I stepped on this path, I was encouraged to say yes. Yes was a word that made my anxiety shoot up immediately. What if I didn’t like what I agreed to do? What if I didn’t like the people? What if they didn’t like me? What if? What if? But I knew if multiple people kept encouraging me to say yes, I had to try, I had to say yes to saying yes, no matter how nervous that made me. I had to watch myself, in the beginning, I had to watch that I didn’t jump in each time with a quick no, I would breathe, make myself listen and then tell myself, regardless of what it was, I had to say yes, just to try. If I didn’t like it I didn’t have to do it again. I made a commitment to myself, that in that first year I had to say yes, so the year of yes began.

The first few times it was tough, saying yes, but as I kept doing it it got easier. And, I was discovering some new things about myself. When you say no all the time you don’t give yourself an opportunity to grow, to learn, to test yourself. As we move through life, our wants and needs change, as we do, but when we’re not testing the waters to see what works best for us today, we stay stuck and keep doing the same things, or nothing, and not growing to our potential. Saying yes does take courage, and faith, that you’re being asked to say yes for a reason. Nothing happens randomly, typically things come to us when we need them, or should take part in them, so we can take away what we should to move forward, or possibly, change the direction we’re going in completely. So when we keep saying no, we’re not only stuck, we’re not were we’re supposed to be.

Now after almost 13 years of saying yes, I can say that the yes’s have been very good to me. Yes has gotten me to a pretty incredible place today, and one I wouldn’t have had to courage to say yes to if I hadn’t had years of practice of saying yes, because this yes, is life-changing, and has taken a big leap of faith that what was given to me was exactly where I am meant to be, and I know that with every fiber of my soul. When we say yes, the universe says yes back. We open the road of possibilities and allow the flow of new ideas and new challenges that are meant to prepare us for the next yes, and possibly, prepare us for the biggest yes yet. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Is your immediate reaction when being asked to do something a no? Why? What happened the last time you said yes? Why don’t you say yes more often? What do you think will happen? When you think about the times you may have said yes, how do you feel about those choices? How do you feel when you see other people saying yes and getting remarkable results while you’re still saying no? You can be one of those yes people SLAYER. Challenge yourself this week to say yes, at least twice. Ignore the negative voices that tell you to say no and just say yes, say it without even thinking about, just blurt out yes! You may just discover some new things about yourself, and may even meet some new people who are also saying yes. Surround yourself with people who say yes, try new things, challenge yourself to move forward, to uncharted waters, and say yes to exploring who you are and where you are meant to be. One yes may just change your whole life.

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