well-being

When Someone Inserts Their Sickness Into Your Life

We’ve all been there. Minding our business. Doing the best we can. Just trying to get by. When BAM, someone sucker punches us with something totally out of left field. Accusing us of things that aren’t true, or based in facts, claiming falsehoods, pointing fingers at us. I used to get angry. Vehemently defend myself. Engage with that person. Now I see it for what it is. Someone else’s sickness, or disease, seeping into my life. It doesn’t make it right, but it doesn’t mean I need to get sucked in to their drama and issues.

Most of the time when someone lashes out at us, accuses us of things that aren’t true, or bends the truth, it’s a sign that they are in distress. They are struggling with their own battle and instead of recognizing or looking at what may be causing their behavior, they look for a scapegoat to aim their frustrations on. They may not even know they’re doing it. But, when any of us has a problem, if we’re irritated, angry, jealous, fixated on someone else instead of looking within, that is our problem, and solely our problem to fix, unless someone has acted out toward us, it’s up to us to find out what the root of the issues are that we’re trying to mask by making it someone else’s problem.

I used to engage in this behavior a lot. Because back, before I was on this path, I always made myself the victim. In my eyes, everyone else had it easier than I did, and everyone was against me. And I was spiteful, oh yeah I was. If I felt you had wronged me I certainly didn’t want to see good things happening for you, and I spent a lot of energy finding out if they were, and then figuring out how to diminish your good fortune.

I don’t live like that today. Gratefully so. I am genuinely happy when good things happen for other people, even the people who may have wronged me. Because what I am responsible is my side of the street. And if I am doing what I can, to the best of my ability in each given moment, then I should be OK, regardless of what anyone else thinks I should be doing. No one else has a right to tell me I’m doing me wrong, because no one else knows me as well as me. Now, I certainly have people in my life who, when I’m not acting like I typically do, will call me out on my behavior, and I welcome that, I do the same for those I love and care about, we keep each other in check, but ultimately, no one else walks in my shoes each day, so no one can really know what it’s like to be me.

When someone inserts their sickness into my life it can be shocking, it typically seems to come out of nowhere. Because, for the most part, that other person has been sitting with their pain for long enough that it finally has to come out, and then there it is, right in your face. But it’s not my job to fix them. It is my job to share my truth, my side of things, and if the situation is right, perhaps suggest a conversation about it if one can be had in a respectful and productive way, otherwise, I will excuse myself from the situation entirely because I know it’s a situation I cannot win, it’s not set up to be played fair, it’s only meant to tear me down.

I understand, coming from a place where I practiced this behavior often, but today I live my life in the light, I am always open to have someone join me there, but will not step back into the darkness of my past and let my old behaviors take control and pull me down in the dark. I’ve worked far too hard to allow myself to do that. When someone inserts their sickness into your life, let it go. Make clear your side, make clear your intentions, but don’t engage with a fighter who has rigged the game in their favor. You have nothing to prove. You have nothing to gain. You only need to be you. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: If someone comes at you with accusations do you immediately come out fighting? Why do you feel you need to do that? How does that help you? How does that hurt you? What if you didn’t? What if you took a breath and thought about what might really be going on? Why the other person has chosen to come after you? And what their pattern of behavior has been with you up until this point? What their pattern of behavior has been with others up until this point. Start to paint a bigger picture than that moment. Once we take our ego out of it, and not take it personally, often we are able to see what is really going on, and typically what is really going on, has nothing to do with us. Stay on your side of the street, and keep it clean.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! If life was meant to be controlled, it would have come with a remote.

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

State Of Slay Control

Are You Addicted To Control?

Before stepping on this path I was very addicted to control. Control to me felt like safety. When my world felt unsure, when I didn’t know what was around the next corner, or when I felt like people were watching me, wanting me to fail, I tried to control everything I could, even things I couldn’t. I was always tightly wound, trying to keep things together, and trying to make things happen the way I wanted to. It exhausted me. It also frustrated me, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t control everything, no one can.

That need to control became like a drug. It was something I chased. And when I was able to control something I got a shot, or hit, that gave me a high, and then I was off for the next fix. And when I couldn’t control something the feeling and realization of that always hit me hard, and the bullshit committee in my head would get loud telling me I wasn’t good enough and was a failure. And as my life continued to spin out of control that need for control grew inside of me, like a rope I was desperately trying to hang onto but was slipping out of my hands. Control, for me, was a way to counteract my fear, so when I was told I had to let go to save my life, I was terrified.

Letting go of my need for control didn’t come easy, and sometimes I still catch myself trying to control things, not nearly like I did before, but, there is still a part of me that reaches for that when I feel like my world is, well, out of control. My disease will also disguise it as other things, like food, shopping, relationships, so I don’t notice it at first, but it all comes from the same place, fear. We, as human beings, can’t control everything, it’s impossible, so living a life hellbent on control is only going to drive you into the ground. For me, it’s where my disease wanted me, because it could then keep fuel on the fire that I was a failure, it was a place I was most vulnerable, and the endless need for control kept me so busy I couldn’t see what was truly happening and why. Once I made an effort to stop it, with the help of a counselor, support groups, and others like me who were on the same path, that is when I finally saw the truth in what I had been doing, and how I had been living my life. Coming to terms with why was a hard pill to swallow, but knowing the why helped me to stop the behavior. As I always say, what is the root of the problem? It is finding the answer there, that allows you to get better.

Today I no longer try to control, in fact today when I was thinking about an opportunity I would like, I immediately heard myself say to myself, you’ve done the footwork, now let it go. And that is how I live my life today. I do the work towards a goal or opportunity, I ask myself if there is anything else I can or should do, and if the answer is no, I let it go. That is the place I live in today, that is the place I have to live in today to live a healthy and happy life. And trust me, it is a much easier place to live, and much less exhausting. No matter how hard you try, you don’t have the power to control life so stop trying, control what you can, accept what you can’t, and focus on what you can change to be your best you. That you can control.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you obsess about things? Do you try to control things in your life? What do you try to control? Why? Are you able to control it? How does trying to control things benefit you? How does it harm you? Write down all the things you try to control. Write down a Y or N if you are able to control those things. Count how many Y’s and N’s you have. Which have more? Do you feel that if you don’t try to control something that something bad will happen? It won’t SLAYER. All you can do is the work that’s in front of you, do the work, trust that you’ve done what you can, and let the results go, you have no control over what the results will be, so stop trying to control something you can’t. Let go, live your life, and set yourself free, you may just get more of what you want by learning to control you need for control. SLAY on!

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! The struggle makes you stronger.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Brave

Hate Only Wears You Down, It Does Nothing To Your Enemy

I know for myself, I don’t have the luxury of carrying around resentments. Those resentments end up consuming me. They become larger than the actual issue that sparked the resentment, and, really, all I’m really doing by carrying around my anger or hate around is I’m giving the person it’s directed to all my power. Hate does wear me down, I know, because I used to carry a lot of it around. I was always the victim, nothing was every my fault, and when things went wrong, or someone hurt me, all of my power went into that hate, and I would set out to hurt that person as much as I felt I had been hurt. The only problem is, I was only hurting myself over and over, and the other person was walking around scot free. We only hurt ourselves when we carry around hate, something I had to learn on this path if I was to live a healthy life.

A resentment, they say, is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. You can wait all you like, but the only person you’re killing is yourself. Letting our hate go goes back to a few topics I’ve written about before. One, taking responsibility for our part. Typically, we always have one. Now, that doesn’t mean someone shouldn’t take responsibility for their actions, but we have to look at what our actions where in the offending situation because we may have been able to prevent getting ourselves there in the first place, or even, could have made choices that would have led to a different outcome. Now, there are times when we do what we can and the result is not what we would have wanted, or, someone does do something that is meant to hurt or harm us, and our part may only really be that we shouldn’t have trusted them, and, knowing what we know now, we won’t in the future. But even when we have been wronged carrying that anger around only now harms us. Which leads us to acceptance. Yes, that can be a hard pill to swallow, but it truly is our only freedom from resentment and anger. I’ve mentioned this many times before, all the “bad things” really are are information. We place value on them as to how bad they are, but really, if we only look at them as information to help us in the future, we take their power away. It is valid to be frustrated, or disappointed in the outcome, but it’s when we dwell on the circumstances that we start to get into trouble. Let yourself feel, but then learn to love on. Talking about how you feel often is the first step to releasing those feelings, and to getting on a path of letting go, or even, forgiveness, even if it’s just in yourself for engaging with the person in the first place. But, give yourself a time limit to move on, to get yourself moving forward and not getting stuck in the past.

We as SLAYERS learn from our past and continue our journey forward. Sometimes, those bumps in the road, are harder to recover from than others, but we keep trudging forward. In the times when we struggle, we reach out, we share, we write, we do what we need to do to let go what has happened so we can get back to being our best selves, make the best decisions for ourselves in each given moment. And, when we’re really hitting our stride, we may even thank those people who we would consider our enemies, because they made it possible to learn these skills, and learn that we are bigger than what happens to us, we are here to learn, we are here to shine our light, we are here to find our purpose and to share what makes us uniquely us, we don’t have time to muddy that up with hate for something we no longer have control over, what we have control over is the here and now, and here and now, we are strong. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you hold on to resentments from your past? How does this help you? How does this hurt you? What is something you are holding onto that holds you back? Why can’t you let it go? Why should you let it go? What can you do to let it go? What can you do differently in a situation like that next time so you don’t get a resentment? What choices can you make moving forward to keep yourself from having experiences like the one that you resent? I challenge you SLAYER this week to let go of something you are holding onto, to talk about it, to let it out, and let it go. You don’t need it. You’ve learned from it. You’ve had the experience. Now cut the cord that holds you to it and set yourself free.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! When you speak your truth you are doing it for not only yourself, but to show others it’s safe to speak theirs.

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

State Of Slay Voice

A Voiceless Child

It’s important we always speak our truth. We can become consumed by fear and keep our truth bottled up inside. We may tell ourselves our truth doesn’t matter. Or, that people won’t understand, or care. But when we don’t express who we are or how we feel we tell ourselves that we don’t matter, that our voice doesn’t matter, that what we’re unworthy, and we sink down into our own darkness, sentencing ourselves to life as if we are a voiceless child without a way to communicate that we need help.

We are not voiceless children, we can get help, but that need for that help has to be bigger than our fear of reaching out for it. At least it had to for me. There were many times, many signs, that I needed help, but fear, shame and pride kept me from doing so. To take the onus off of myself I played the victim, that I wasn’t capable or worthy of getting the help I needed. My disease also told me that I deserved to suffer, deserved to be punished for who I was and what I had been doing to get by. I did feel like a voiceless child, sitting alone in the dark. But none of that was the truth. It was just the story I told myself, the story my disease told me, the story the bullshit committee in my head told me, and the narrative I adopted because it took all the blame off myself and allowed me to keep being sick.

My biggest obstacle was fear. Fear was the motivator for most of my decisions before stepping on this path. Fear was the engine that drove my disease, drove everything negative in my life, fear ran my life. Fear is one powerful enemy when we allow it to be. It keeps us from people who care about us. It keeps us from getting the help we need. It keeps us in the dark. And that darkness can consume us. It almost did me. And my fear was so cunning, it actually had me romanticize it and make it sound inviting. Ultimately it was also fear that got me to reach out. I got myself to a place that I knew was very dangerous, and I knew had one final end, and reaching a place where I no longer cared about myself, I got more frightened than I ever had before. That fear, that new sense of terror, was the push I needed to finally speak my truth. And once I did, that voiceless child started to find her voice.

Finding your voice can be scary, but once you start to exercise your right to be heard, it has an incredibly powerful result. We learn to share who we are, what we need and we are able to reach out for the help we need. We learn that once we overcome that fear, walk though it, we stand taller, we get stronger and our community gets bigger. When I found the courage to reach out and finally speak my truth it was like a damn burst inside of me. It felt so good to let out the secrets I had been carrying around.. To not care about being judged, because I knew my life depended on me letting everything out, I knew the only way I could find a solution to how I was feeling was to share it all, and once I did, I let the some light in, and that light felt good. My head still wanted me to believe it wasn’t going to help, and that people were going to think I was crazy, or, that I didn’t deserve the help, but that little bit of light that crept in when I finally spoke up, that light overpowered those negative thoughts, and I kept running toward that light until I felt I could just sit in it for a while and let it shine on me.

Today I live in the light. The darkness doesn’t feel like home anymore. Sometimes I might dip a toe back in the darkness, my head will get me to just check it out, but I get back out because the light is now home. You can find the light in your own life by speaking your truth, no matter what it is, find someone to tell it to, it’s within that moment that the light will come in, and that voiceless child within you will find their voice and fight for the most important person there is, you. SLAY on.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you identify with feeling like a voiceless child? How so? Why do you feel you have no voice? Have you allowed yourself to lose your voice? Have you told yourself that your voice doesn’t matter, or that it won’t be accepted? Has someone else told you that? Why do you believe them? I am here to tell you that your voice does matter, YOU matter, and when you speak your truth magical things start to happen, for you, and those around you. You may just learn how much alike you truly are with those around you, that that loneliness you feel can be quashed with your truth. It is our truth, our story, that connects us to those around us, we all have shared experiences and the only way to learn what they are is to share them with others. Find your voice, step out of the darkness and speak your truth.

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

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Tetris taught me one thing, if you try to fit in, you disappear.

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

State Of Slay Same

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Be you’re best you, everyone else is taken.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Normal

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! You have two hands, one for helping yourself, and one for helping others.

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

State Of Slay Hands