What was hard yesterday may not seem so hard today.
What was hard a year ago may seem easy today. "Problems" you faced as a child seem foolish today. Embrace the struggles in your life.... Do not judge your hardships. Do not take what is hard today as something insignificant or as something you can't overcome. Embrace your struggles, look them in the face and figure out how to overcome them. You have no choice but to keep overcoming your hardships and keep growing mentally and emotionally. Take on every difficult time, be thankful for the strength it's giving you,the lessons it's teaching you and the faith you are blessed with to get through it. Do not judge your hard times or those of another for we do not know their hearts or their minds. Hard times in life open up the door for us to truly appreciate the good times! Difficult times open up doors we never dreamed possible; IF you bloom from those times! If we do not go through hard things, we do not know what greatness feels like! Just like working out makes you physically stronger, hard times makes us mentally and emotionally stronger. Hard times make you spiritually and faithfully stronger....IF YOU allow it! Appreciate the struggle, Learn through the struggle, Grow through the struggle, Look around you as you go through struggles....who is there with you? What can you trust? Who and what can you rely on? What good do you see? What good can you find? What makes you happy? Find glimmers of light when you're going through a hard time and have faith that this too shall pass...because it will!! I have been through those times and I have survived and overcome and SO CAN YOU!! I leave you with one of my favorite poems that has gotten me through some gloomy days. (I had this written on my planner for 2016)
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LIFE.....it's a word that encompasses so much! A word that I don't think can truly be defined. This word changes meanings as we grow, as we age and as we evolve. Sure the word "life" can be defined in a dictionary, it can be described by scientists and doctors, but much like love; life and living is in the eye of the beholder!
If you asked me today what life means to me, I would say being true to your heart and soul. I would say following your wildest dreams and loving every second with those who mean the most to you. Life to me means knowing every minute and every second is a gift and that we are not given life, but rather life is given to us. Life is something that is complex, yet so simple. Life is love, Life is here and now, Life is intertwined with others, Life is the act of living, Life is beautiful, Life is hard, Life is in this moment, Life is energy, Life is helping others live, Life is this planet, Life is breathing, Life doesn't make sense, Life makes perfect sense, LIFE IS YOU....LIFE IS ME! Tell me what life means to you...comment with what life means to you! There's a few things I've learned over the past year......
The difference in the people that say they love you and the people that TRULY love you. That you will always face challenges...but it's up to you and only you how you deal with them. When that challenge is over will people think you are a strong, loving, caring kind person? Will you be proud of yourself for how you handled that hard time in your life or will you be ashamed? The way people speak of you and treat you is a direct reflection of their character NOT yours! There is family and then there is FAMILY. Family isn't always blood but family is ALWAYS love "I would never have asked for this trial, but I would never give it away." Hold your head high...believe in yourself...love yourself...be kind to yourself...trust your intuition and trust your heart. Forgiveness to those who have hurt you is hard...forgiveness to those that don't apologize or see their wrong doing is even harder. "Go where you're celebrated not where you're tolerated." But be kind, loving and tolerant. One of the hardest lessons...especially when it comes to people who are close to you..."It's none of your business what other people think of you." "Often it's the deepest pain which empowers you to grow into your highest self" Karen Salmansohn There will always be evil and hate....that does not mean you have to feed into it, listen to it or agree with it. Be YOU! Feed the love, ignore the hate. Grow, learn, love, blossom....bloom! Remember that no one is going to make your dreams come true....it is your job to wake up daily, work hard, stay focused, stay dedicated and move toward things that are seeded deepest into your heart. Enjoy every step of your journey and never wish you are already at the end of it. One of the hardest and most fulfilling lessons learned in life is that it's none of your business what others think of you. I have heard this, read this and been told this by influential people in my life, but until I was faced with this challenge the words meant nothing.
We are constantly faced with individuals who scrutinize and question us, people who if given the opportunity will suck us into their negativity and unhappiness, but it is our duty to our higher selves to release these people's perceptions of us. When we can learn that it truly is none of our business-our hearts will be free, our souls will be happier and our lives will be more fulfilling. I found it to be so incredibly hard to do this, I let the thoughts of others bring me down, put me into a dark place and affect how I lived my everyday life until one day I decided I had enough. I no longer wanted the thoughts of others to hold me prisoner. I no longer wanted to be unhappy over things I had no control over. I no longer wanted to be held back, I no longer wanted to give my life over to people who didn't even honor or care for me..... but until that moment of what seemed like darkness I could not really get over what others thought of me. So instead of going to that dark place where you have let other's judgements affect your life, I challenge you to release the thoughts now. I challenge you to focus your time and energy on things that create goodness and love in your life. Do not give other people the power to control your life. Do not let the love you have of life and others be taken away because someone's misinterpretation of you. You are amazing! You are full of love and light! You are constantly evolving into your best self. You are you! Allow NOONE to take that from you! Honor and spend time with those who want to grow and flourish. You see not everyone has love and enlightenment in their heart. Not everyone wishes to empower others so guess what...........it's none of your business what they think about YOU!! When we can truly grasp that statement we will be so much happier and have so much more room in our lives for progress. PS...I absolutely believe this process was part of my journey and was something that I could not overcome without experiencing it first hand, but if you can learn to let go before you let the thoughts of others have had such an impact you can spend that time growing in other ways. When I conquered this I felt liberated and free! My path before me seemed to open up! We literally build walls in our lives, but we also have the ability to move those walls and create new paths. GROW...CONQUER...EVOLVE U.... I have to take a moment to thank all the wonderful women(and men) in my life that show on a daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly basis that I am living my life just as I should be. I am human just like you and I have moments when I doubt myself and my life, but then I take a look around at my life and know with good faith that I am just where I'm supposed to be. So I ask you to do the same.
I talk to women it seems like daily who are questioning so much in their life and harboring anger about events or people in their lives. We (women) are often guilty of carrying around the struggles of others, resentment of a lifetime and misinterpretation of what we truly are blessed with. Then we continue to ask ourselves why we aren't happy...how could we be when we are being weighed down by things that are beyond or out of our control? It's time...It's time to release anger, resentment and the problems of life. It's time to focus our attention on the greatness of life! Be gracious for all those magnificent things that enter your life on a daily basis! Do you have a roof over your head? Have you been blessed with children? Do you have a job? Do you have food and clothing? Do you have friends you can turn to? Do you have family who loves you? Do you have a bed to lay your head on? Are you blessed with eyes to see? Ears to hear? A nose to smell? Skin to feel? A heart that beats? See.....there is so much beauty in life! Now pray, believe, have faith and focus on all that is good. Release the negative and focus purely on the positive! You will begin to see a change in your life almost instantly! Be who you are destined to be by believing, living with happiness in your heart and the ability to release those things which you cannot control. Have confidence and faith in your life and YOUR JOURNEY! YOUR LIFE IS YOUR JOURNEY..NOONE ELSE'S. I recently decided to do a brief talk on how to "Get Happy." The weeks prior to the talk it seemed a natural thing to talk about, but as the day grew closer I realized I wasn't really in a "happy" place, so I questioned even staying on topic. But as life often is....this was to be a learning experience.
Upon beginning my research I discovered people approach happiness generally in two different ways. They either try to discard and escape the present and fake being happy or they try to heal to be happy. In order to be truly happy, an emotion that comes from deep within, we must discover what takes us to that moment of happiness. What triggers that pure joy that overcomes your soul?! To find this out we must first find out why we are sad or angry. Yes you read that right.....to find out why we are happy it is often necessary to find out why we are sad. Our life is Yin and Yang, happiness and sadness, up and down, life and death. To experience the "bright" parts of life it is vital and necessary to experience the "dark." After all how do we know what happiness is without sadness? How do we know the day without the night? How do we know heat without cold?How do we know health without sickness? .....The answers to all of these questions is we don't. There is no possible way to experience or understand something without experiencing its opposite. And it doesn't mean that you personally experience everything sometimes we can learn from others exeriences-but you have to be open. So what do we do with the moments of sadness? The moments of anger and resentment? WE HONOR THEM! It is your duty and responsibility to find out why you feel, what the world refers to as, the negative emotions. Behind every emotion is usually an underlying trigger or reason you feel the way you do. It could be something from your childhood, from last year or yesterday that brings you to the feelings you have regarding a certain thing, a certain person or even why you interpret a certain smell the way you do. The process of discovering why you feel the way you do is different for everyone. Some people meditate, some people seek the help of a professional counselor or spiritual leader and some people may even write about the past to discover the truth of today. Uncovering past emotional ties can be hard, upsetting and scary, but I can promise you this-when you take the time to know yourself and your soul you will live a better tomorrow. A happier and more intelligent tomorrow. Once you have discovered why you feel anger and sadness then the journey to happiness begins. You can let go of the past, of the anger or grief and learn how to be happy. You can then learn to recreate an energy from your heart and soul that is seen not only by yourself but by others. But there's a catch...I can tell you how to become happy until I'm blue in the face. I can walk you through it step by step in a variety of ways, but until you open up your heart and soul to not only the world but to your own mind and allow the transformations...IT WILL NOT HAPPEN! With all this being said about finding happiness be aware of this->Moments of sadness, anger and unhappiness are a part of life. They are natural processes which we must go through to grow, to appreciate life and to be human. What should change is how we experience and deal with these emotions. Do not let anger and sadness overcome your day, your week or your life. Learn to grow from sadness. Learn to appreciate and honor sadness. Learn to appreciate sadness but not let it control you. Just like anything else emotions are not YOU. Happiness is an enhancement to your life....it is not your life...it does not define you nor does it define your days. YOU define your days. YOU control YOUR life and YOUR MIND. You have power within you to do whatever you wish or desire. YOU have the power to walk across the street, the power to be happy to be sad, the power to be YOUR TRUE SELF. Find your power. Find yourself. Find your happiness. Write the word power across your hand or hands for the next week. Look at it often and literally feel your own power. Be gracious, be kind, be loving, be appreciative, learn, love and grow......... We've all heard the saying you have to be happy with yourself before others can be happy with you, or you have to be your own bestfriend first. While I think both of these statements are true, the process can be difficult. Due to my husband previously being in the Marine Corps we moved 5 times in the past 8 years. The process of moving I thought had become second nature. About a year after we move I get in a little slump and really miss my friends. I know when it's happening and I know that soon I will find my groove in the new place, but that doesn't mean it makes it any easier.
This time our move was a bit different, we were no longer surrounded by our "Marine Corps family," there were no more events to attend where we met people in the same situation, there were no more groups for wives and no more people I knew from a previous duty station. While in the beginning the lack of familarity was exciting and fun, now the one year mark has rolled around and I've felt myself feeling a bit lost.....this is when I realized I have to get to know myself all over again. When your life has changed so much in such a short period of time, sometimes you lose a bit of yourself. Sometimes life transforms your soul right before your eyes. For me the change has been extraordinary, but it took some time for my head to catch up with my heart and new life. It takes time to get to know yourself, to find out what you believe in and to find what means the most to you in life. Sometimes we discover things about ourselves that may be scary, sometimes we discover things that have been hidden for years and then sometimes we find we are content with our lives just the way they are. Finding new things about yourself can be liberating and empowering, it can open new doors and I personally think re-finding yourself yearly is a necessity. I love the moments when noone is around and I can be alone with my thoughts and my soul. My favorite place to soul search is in nature or on a long car drive. It's truly amazing what you can discover about yourself when you let your mind and heart become open and free. I challenge you take time for yourself. To just let your mind wonder and see where it ends up. To meditate and see what you discover....I challenge you to find yourself and not be scared of what you may find. Be open to change, be open to growth....be open to your TRUE SELF! There are these moments in our lives that change us. Moments in which we feel our life take a monumental shift. We feel the Earth seem to move...perhaps off track or maybe you feel like your world shifted back into it's orbit. In these moments the world may seem to slowdown, it may even seem as if it's not moving at all. But how did we get to these moments? What decisions were precursors that brought us to the point where we can feel our Earth shift?
I think its our subconscious. Sure we can feel ourselves moving through life, making the movements, we know we are making decisions. But are these decisions and movements we are making a result of our conscious mind? We see our hand moving towards the drink, we feel ourselves in the moments, we can literally taste the foods we love that we know are ultimately killing our bodies....but we continue to make these movements....why?! The answer is deeper than because the food tastes good or its socially acceptable to drink. As I "missed out" on meals the past few days I knew I wasn't missing out at all. Sure they all smelled good, I'm sure the food tasted amazing, but deep down I knew I was taking steps to improve not only my physical being but my mental health as well. No it wasn't easy to just juice for 5 days but it was a test of my subconscious as well as my conscious mind. I've been able to dig deep into my thought process and figure out why I've made decisions (or not made them for that matter). The food I haven't eaten has served as a symbol of the crap I'm clearing out of my mind. And it's worked. The "food" aka subconscious has ruled long enough... I had so much old harbored anger, resentment and frustration. It was all hiding deep in my mind and it was time to get it out. Time to clear the webs, the mud and the muck. Sometimes we have to dig deep into our thoughts, deep into our past, deep into maybe even our surroundings to find out what has brought us to this point in our life. Once we have uncovered those things that have caused us to act, then we must begin the process of detaching those things from our current self. Letting those ships sail away and seep out of our soul. That is the part I am struggling with and embarking on.....the releasing of the subconscious. Separating the old from the new. While I respect those thoughts, emotions and feelings, they are not honoring my future self. They are not allowing me to grow, to flourish or to better myself. So it's time...it's time to detach.... to release... to move forward......I encourage you all to take steps forward to improve your mental and physical self...step outside of what you normally do to see a greater version of yourself. |
Author35 year old mother, wife, fitness professional, entrepreneur, triathlete & lover of life! Archives
April 2020
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