"Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up" - D. Karnazes
It was never meant to be an easy journey, there are struggles along the way. You fall, you get up, you get frustrated but don't get discouraged. It's not easy to stay strong when all you want to do is just give up. Maintaining a positive outlook is not easy either but somehow trying to find that hope is so important and key to our survival.
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” - D. Millan. I never embraced change well in my life and I had to wait for life changing events to realise that I had to release my hold on it. I learned the hard way and journeyed through all the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
But I didn't give up and I didn't stop moving forward as much as I would have liked to. How could I possibly reach this place of transforming myself and my outlook of life?
Moving forward was the only way change happened in my life. Whether I liked it or not it was happening. I found it easier to stop fighting it and start riding the wave no matter how fast it was carrying me.
I stopped the self-pity and wallowing and started to look at what I could change and be grateful for, rather than what I couldn't do anything about. I definitely knew what I needed to move away from that was making me worse and more negative. I stopped the 'but' attitude and stuck to the 'Y E S' approach moving me more into the positive outlook rather than the negative. I moved to a country I couldn't speak the language when my children were new-born, I was no longer qualified to do the job I did in London, I received a diagnosis that at the time I thought would deteriorate my life, I became more depressed and lonelier in my 'poor me' mindset. Blamed everything on past traumas and took no accountability or ownership of my life. It felt like a cycle I couldn't come out of. Every single person has a history, it is what we choose to do with ours that counts.
Notice when your thoughts become negative, be mindful and kind without judgement to them. Those thoughts are there for a reason and have served a purpose till now. Trying to introduce a positive thought can help that flow of energy and disrupt that perpetual cycle of negative thinking. Rather than entertain these thoughts try and substitute them with a new set of beliefs. Instead of saying to myself "this will never happen", "you have no chance at happiness", "give up now, what's the point to it all?".
I started looking at what I was grateful for and started to change that list. Positive affirmations and no more "I think I can" but "I know I can".
I found that the risk of exploring hope was far too scary and the stakes were high. I took a chance, it was hard but taking that risk was my way of not standing still. Keep moving forward. You can achieve anything you put your mind to and as scary as it is have hope that everything will turn out alright in the end. Facing those fears makes them less scary daily and in turn you will see how you have already started to overcome them.
We make hundreds of choices daily, what we wear, eat, say etc. Sometimes these choices are tougher than others but they are still choices. The more you take ownership of your decisions away from chance and other people, the stronger you become. It's like exercising , your muscles will continue to grow an get stronger. The same applies for the neural connections in your brain. Start by making small decisions just so those muscles can slowly start working. Try to get to know yourself a little more every day. What active choices can you make today and what areas of your life would you like to take a more active role in?
I took this photo running up to one of my favourite peaks this week...
Don't forget to..."Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up" - D. Karnazes