Thriving or Surviving?

Life is a series of choices. 

Every day we decide what we put our effort into, how our mood is, how we react, what we think, what we feel, all of it. 

It doesn’t feel that way until you choose to understand it and to continuously work to understand it more deeply.

In the heat of the moment- the easier path is getting swept up and lost in your emotions, to blame others for what is happening, and to get stuck focusing on what they can do differently. 

The answers you seek do not appear in thoughts of wishing. 

The harder path is to pause and breathe. 

The harder path is to learn a new way. 

The harder path is full of awareness of self. 

For a long time I needed to take a little and leave. I wasn’t ready to jump all into this new way of living. I thought that I was, but I wasn’t. I could pretend all I wanted but it didn’t matter. If my actions and thoughts didn’t align with my core beliefs – it wasn’t happening. 

I didn’t realize that I was lying to myself at that time. 

I truly thought that I was ready. 

Yet my big dreams weren’t happening. They weren’t unfolding like I envisioned they would. 

That part shook me to my core and it wasn’t going to unfold until I changed my way of doing things. 

When I stopped focusing my thoughts and energy and how much “should” be happening and how much I “wanted” to happen and I started looking at why I wanted it and what more I could do to put myself closer to my desires, the more naturally it all started to unfold. 

My thoughts started to automatically drift to this line of thinking over my previous negative loop that was keeping me stuck. The more effort I put into being aware of how often I went back to the loops,  and actively rerouting my thoughts into something more productive, the more I could see that every time I tried to force myself into change- the more resistance I created. 

I slowed down and started making my main focus on my awareness of how often I was grateful, I naturally created more moments of gratitude. 

Life started feeling exceptionally different and I couldn’t ignore it. 

This was the key. 

I tested it over and over unintentionally by jumping back and forth from what I used to do- and what I was trying to do which only sealed in my understanding that the things I used to do kept me stuck. Gratitude set me free. 

It was at that moment that I realized I took A LOT of life advice from survivalists. I never saw them as survivalists before. It wasn’t like they were talking about setting up their end of the world plan. It was in the way they talked about change. They were tough, they were strong, they were no BS types of people. Forcing themselves to keep going and keep moving. Every single day. They were tough on themselves and others because they understood what they were all really capable of. 

They had unlocked something that I wanted. That fire. That passion. That knowledge. That dedication. 

It seemed like the easier path. I had so many examples. So many varieties on how to do it, so much inspiration when I was falling short. 

It worked sometimes, but most of the time- it led me to falling back off and heading straight back to what I was comfortable in. 

Once I could see that clearly- I could see it everywhere. On all of us. 

Life is hard. I’ve heard that, said that, and felt that for a lifetime. I thought that the only way through was forcing your way through. 

This new level of awareness was opening my eyes to things that I never would have been able to see before. I was blinded because everything I thought I knew- was wrong. 

It was the first time I really started realizing just how conditioned we all really are. I started to truly understand that the process of removing our old beliefs meant leaving behind everything you’ve ever known, including ourselves. 

 It meant – not completely starting over, but trying again with a new perspective. Going in eyes wide open and learning things in a whole new way. 

That meant switching my thoughts, feelings and beliefs about living. 

Life isn’t hard. Being led by my emotions was hard. Being conditioned to live as others expected me to was hard. The way I was responding to experiences and the way I was thinking about life was what made it feel so hard, like something I had to get through. 

It was in the way that I looped my negative thoughts, fears, and feelings and the way they often felt unintentional. I felt like I didn’t have any control over my thoughts, emotions or what was happening “to” me. That’s what it felt like at that time- everything was happening to me. 

I couldn’t see anything good and I couldn’t let it go. I was unaware and I stayed stuck.

It wasn’t life. 

It was me. 

I gave all the hard things powerful energy. 

I have been through extremely challenging moments and I didn’t have the tools I needed at the time to do it any differently than I did. 

That’s a part of the journey I wasn’t accepting either. 

Some things you have to go through to get the tools you need. 

There was a time that it wouldn’t matter what you said to me- I wouldn’t have heard you. I was not only stuck – but I was convinced that was the only way.

I was committed to my path. 

Nothing was going to change the way I felt. 

It was all up to me. 

I never could have known that 8 years later one of the most devastating  experiences of my life would change my everything. I never would have guessed that everything I learned would help save a life. Without that experience I wouldn’t have reacted as I did or had the confidence to make people move the way I did. 

I never could have known that I would heal this way. 

I never could have known all the beautiful lessons that I would carry with me for the rest of my life because of those life altering situations. 

They didn’t make any sense at the time and I still to this day wish it could be different, but that is why I work so hard.

I can see now that the dreams I am building on do change things. 

I can see all the people that I have helped find their way instead of struggling along. 

I am aware of the connection and the safe space to truly be ourselves I have built. 

I am aware of how it’s all connected in a way that I can no longer deny. 

All those years ago, I never believed I actually made it out.

All I could see is a life stuck on a loop because that was all I knew, all I thought about. 

When you stop searching for the easy path, the familiar, the things you think you want- and you lean into the resistance to learn more about yourself- your why… it naturally unfolds. Your life organically starts to feel like your own. You are able to see the beauty in all the pieces of your story.

I never thought that I would come to life in the hard spaces, but honestly it makes sense. My life has been packed with them. That’s why the loop was so easy to get stuck in. I had known it and relied on it for a long time. 

I spent a lot of time in the past healing a lot of deep hurts and I got stuck again in a loop of healing. It started to feel like I was healing the same things over and over and was never truly going to be healed enough to move forward. 

I had to look at it differently and with brand new eyes. 

I needed to learn when to leave. I had to make a choice. 

I started looking back at so many of my lessons and seeing all the times I stayed long past when I knew that I was supposed to go. Leaving where I was felt scary and full of unknowns. What if there was nothing to catch me? What if this was the wrong move?

My thoughts got stuck in another loop of fear- which kept me scrambling – trying to force the next thing so that I could safely move on to the next phase of my life. 

The thing that would save me is trust in myself and life. Trusting my journey and knowing that this feeling always leads me to something I need. 

If I wanted to move- I needed to stop looking for proof that I would be okay. 

This time, it was testing my blind faith in myself and life. 

Nobody was coming to save me. 

There wasn’t a blueprint for what to do next. 

I could leap or be pushed out with another hard lesson. 

The choice was mine. 

Facing my fears was the way through. 

Trusting in myself more deeply while knowing that even if it doesn’t feel like I have what it takes to make it- I do. 

I always do. 

I always have enough while I am learning more. 

It is impatience and fear that tricks me into thinking that is not true. 

I must greet them. 

I must understand them. 

No matter what I face, I thrive, I rise and I turn it into something beautiful. 

Every piece of it brought me here and I have so much gratitude for that.