Tag Archive | self help

7 Years – 7 Letters – 7 Truths

Sep27
7 years ago today, I took the first of many chances.
Chances–  7 letters spell the outline of what your life could be.  I’ve had to figure out how to spell it for my world.  Here’s what 7 years and 7 letters have taught me:
C– Change–  This has been the most challenging aspect for me.  The decision to change comes first.  The struggle to keep it stays the whole time.
H– Help–  Helping myself became the key to helping anyone else.  After realizing the difference between doing it selfishly and doing it productively, it has become one of my most valuable resources.  It is often the first word of advice I share with anyone struggling through a personal transformation.  Breathe in your own oxygen first in order to share your energy with others.
A– Ambition–  Setting goals can be overwhelming.  If you’re anything like me, you’re totally not OK with waiting for them.  This is where the smallest goals are the biggest.  I’ve found that setting small, seemingly mundane goals throughout my day or week has been the only way to keep the long-term ones from burning up in a cloud of flames..
N– New– We have all heard about the days being new and how we’re supposed to magically forget our troubles along with the last one.  Here’s what I’ve learned in 7 years of trying to convince myself that it’s possible.  It isn’t.  New, to me, means accepting new perspectives from wherever they show.  New means appreciating a pair of thrift store jeans you couldn’t ever wear before because there weren’t many size 28 Talls around.  New, to me, means looking back and finding the experiences of yesterday becoming an avenue for tomorrow.
C– Challenge–  Challenge comes in many forms.  One of my favorite and most loathed-  Running.  I love it.  I despise it.  It’s agony some days and pure bliss through others.  It’s a challenge and it’s ever-changing.
E– Experience–  We all have it.  How do we share it?  The point is-  We get to.  My scars tell mine quite literally.  My Frankenbody is the paper and I am the pen.
S– Silent Stories–  7 years of transforming physically, mentally, and emotionally has taught me something I never knew I’d need.  I’ve finally applied a term to this.  These are the stories your experiences tell without words.  No one may know where our past started or how it ended up to be our present.  They may judge us before they know.  Even once they do, they may still.  But our silent stories are worth more than we can ever imagine as long as we tell them each day in our actions.
7 years have given me my life back in more ways than I thought possible.  Mostly, they have handed me an infinite amount of chances. 
unnamed

(Ok.. And a sweet pair of bat wings I’ve grown to love.)  

How do you spell your chances?

The power, pain, and purpose of the anxious empath.

Jul5
Anxiety is powerful.  It exceeds what we are programmed for as human nature suggests.  It’s the tense, flailing conductor standing at the front of the orchestra- a timid of  circle strangers playing off of each other because they can’t read the notes in front of them.
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People experience worry so differently and for an unbelievably vast array of reasons.  It can be anything from the effects of reading too many current headlines to the uncertainty of any loss big or small.
During a particularly dark time, there is an unending thought in my mind that seems to carry me to the next day when everything else swirls: Where do we find the power in anxiety instead and how do we use it?
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I am an empath right down to my very core.  I probably should have been born with a disclaimer.  I experience things both on my own and by way of understanding how others do.  I will put your proverbial shoes on if you let me.  This is a gift I find equally as torturous as a curse.  Bonus-  I wonder how my own attempts to understand might become intrusive to someone else as I over-ask, over-explain, and under-chill.  In the same existence, I get to see how people operate so eclectically.  That intrigue can be overpowering in the best way:  It lets me see their intent no matter what.
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I get to have joy in getting to feel when others have it and there is grief in finding they don’t.  There is relief in knowing they feel understood and worry in the abyss of not.  It can be debilitating at times because empaths, by nature, cannot let ourselves out of our own heads.  Why? Because we’re often so wrapped up in how yours is.  We sway with the wind of whatever storm is in your world.  We do it willingly because that is exactly why we’re here.  It never goes unbalanced, though.  We get to take that same little breath of happiness when you get to feel something ridiculously exciting.  Selfish bit of a payoff for us?  Perhaps.
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We are the people tapping on the conductor’s shoulder to see why he’s so tense and if there’s anything we can alleviate for him.  Often times, it backfires and he’s just wondering why we’ve interrupted the show before we even realize we have.  At some point, we’re not letting the maestro lead his own symphony.  The code I’m quickly figuring out is that there’s a way to do that without inadvertently using his own stress against him to stop the music:
Trust.
We trust the maestro, his reasons, and his perspective.  We learn to trust that we still get to help by doing that very thing.  What seems like a mess of out of tune strings may be exactly what his entire overture calls for.
bRxenZ1
(Empath, blogger, avid Seinfeld referencer.)
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I am finding that line between the power in experiencing that and how to step aside and simply exist with understanding for whenever it’s needed.  That, to me, is using any anxiety I feel to fully see both why it exists for someone and how to trust that it will transform into something worthy of a standing ovation.
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