I’ve heard some say ”you’re not broken, you’re…”
To be honest, I don’t even know how that ends. Because the truth is, we’re all a little (or a lot) broken. We live this thing called life. And guess what? It’s not perfect. It can be really ugly at times. And it will break us at some point. And then watches to see how, or if we put ourselves back together.
And therein lies the beauty. We get to choose how we react to that brokenness. We get to decide if we let ourselves completely crumble and lay on the ground like poor broken Humpty Dumpty, or if we get up and piece ourselves together like beautiful broken Japanese pottery that’s been patched with gold.
We are all broken to some extent. But those cracks get filled with gold (if we allow them to be). They allow us to shine. To teach what we’ve learned through our hardships and to help others in the process. They make us relatable. Because I don’t know about you, but there is no way I could ever relate to someone who puts there life out there like it’s perfect. I don’t even trust someone who appears to live a perfect life. You know why? It doesn’t exist.
Being broken is not a bad thing. It just means we’ve been through trials. It means we’ve been knocked down and have had to find our way back up. It means we’re human and we’ve lived a little life.
It builds us. It’s part of us. It makes us who we are.
Being broken is nothing to be ashamed of. To me, it’s the exact opposite. It’s your chance to say, yeah I’ve been through this and made it out. Stronger, shinier, better, and ready to help others going through it now.
Broken isn’t shameful y’all, it’s beautiful. Embrace all your brokenness and hold your head high. You made it!
Limiting beliefs…we hear that term a lot these days. But what exactly does that mean? What are limiting beliefs? Can we overcome them or are they a forever thing?
Let me first say, they are absolutely overcomeable (if you didn’t know that was a word, you do now). I know this because I’ve overcome so many self-limiting beliefs and continue to do so on a daily basis.
So what are self-limiting beliefs? Anything you tell yourself, that you believe to be truth, that holds you back. The things you tell yourself that keep you from moving forward toward your big scary goals. The things that keep you from being the person you could be, and likely are meant to be. We can truly be so mean to ourselves. But why? And when do these things start?
You guys, we didn’t start out with this kind of thinking. If we did we’d never learn to talk and walk. Seriously, I didn’t tell myself, “you’ll never be able to say that word right, so don’t even bother” or “you’re going to fall as soon as you try to move away from that couch. Don’t do it!” Y’all! These thoughts didn’t cross my mind when I was a baby and they didn’t cross yours either. But look what we did! We learned to talk. We learned to walk. We did it!
So, why is it so hard to have that kind of belief in ourselves now? Chances are you’ve failed at something at this point in life. Like really good. Like impossible at this point that you haven’t. Somehow when we fail at something we begin to beat ourselves up and allow ourselves to believe it means we are incapable of accomplishing whatever it is we’re trying to accomplish. (This is when you go back and get a pep talk from baby you about getting up and trying again.)
There’s also a really good chance others have said some not so nice things to you. And unfortunately that whole “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” isn’t really true. Words do hurt. And it can be so much harder to heal from mean words than it can be to heal from a broken bone.
We go through life collecting all these negative beliefs and words about ourselves. And we tend to hold onto them and let them build. Before long we believe them as if they are the God’s honest truth. But here’s the thing y’all, they’re not!
Our truth is exactly what we make it to be. If we believe without a doubt we will fail and not be able to come back to accomplish that scary thing, we will fail and not come back to accomplish it. If we believe there’s a chance we will fail but we push through anyway, knowing we will get back up and keep trying like our amazing baby selves would, we will!
Our minds believe everything we tell them! Tell them all the good things. Feed them with all the personal development. Surround yourself with people who believe in you and lift you up. Follow the inspiring people on social media. Be good to you! Never tell yourself something you wouldn’t tell your best friend. Build yourself up and love on you like you would on those you want so badly to see succeed.
Ok, I’ll step off my soapbox now. I could seriously go on and on about this. I’m slightly passionate about helping you believe in yourself. ;)
Y’all, I’m going to get real for a minute. Daily life has been a struggle for me the last few months. I’d blame it on fibromyalgia but I know it’s not that. I’ve never struggled quite like this with my fibro. I learned at a very early age (I was diagnosed at the age of 19) how to manage that and live a normal, active life with it. But man, since testing positive in October of last year, life has been a struggle!
If you follow me on social media (and if you’re reading this, chances are real good you do), I’m willing to bet it looks like I’ve got all my strength and energy back. It looks like my life is back to normal. Let me tell you, it’s not.
I took a step back from my “normal” job to focus on my health. And I’ve been doing that. I’ve been moving my body, even on days I don’t want to and working on getting my nutrition back. But let me tell you, those things are hard! Moving through my workouts is a struggle more often than not. My body just doesn’t want to move. I drag and I move slow. Nutrition isn’t horrible but could definitely use some help in the veggie department. Thank you loss of taste. And then the brain fog and concentration issues. Ugh!
But I keep going. Giving up on my health is not an option.
You’ve probably also noticed I’m moving forward with my fitness and nutrition classes and working on getting my business up and running. Again, I refuse to give up. Giving up is not in my genes.
So I push. And push. And push. My body frequently tells me I need to slow down. And I try. But I also know there’s a fine line between rest and laziness. Finding that line is not always an easy one for me. I tend to overdo it before my body forces me to rest. But I’m trying. I’m trying to trust the flow of this new norm. I’m trying to trust my body to tell me what it needs most.
I am forever learning to trust the flow and trust the process. But let me be honest, as long as that flow and process is in a constant state of movement, I’m good (mentally). When it decides to slow down, or heaven forbid, take a break, I struggle.
One. Day. At. A. Time.
How many times have you found yourself thinking, “I just can’t get motivated.” “I don’t have the motivation to make it happen.”
Y’all, what if I told you there will never be enough motivation to keep you going every single day? What if motivation isn’t enough?
Motivation will forever come and go. We’ll have down days. We’ll have distractions. We’ll have celebrations and events. We’ll have….fill in the blank here. Because I think you’re getting my point. Motivation just isn’t always there. If we go solely off motivation to keep us going day in and day out, we’re not likely to meet our goals.
So then, now what?
My experience has told me you have to have a strong enough why and belief in yourself to make it happen. If you don’t have those things, even your days of motivation are going to be done haphazardly, because there’s no real direction or belief you’ll be able to continue on the hard days. The days motivation doesn’t care to show up.
So I encourage you to find your why; your big reason for your goals. What almost brings you to tears or makes you cringe if you don’t reach your goals?
Then pick up some personal development and start loving on yourself! Move your body, choose foods that fuel your body and mind. Don’t say things to yourself you wouldn’t allow your best friend to say to herself. Because y’all, our minds believe everything we tell it.
I promise it will be hard. Learning to love myself is quite possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Loving others comes easily. But if you don’t take care of you, how are you going to truly take care of others? You can’t fill from an empty cup.
I also promise the effort is well worth it.
Start making you a priority. Start with loving you. The rest will fall into place. Even on days motivation doesn’t show up.
You owe it to yourself to show up for you as much, and then some, as you do for others. You are worth it. You deserve the very best. You are enough. You are amazing.
Now, go look in a mirror and read that last paragraph back to yourself.
