Let's Talk healing. Let's Talk Growth.

December 15, 2019

I don’t know how the rest of you feel about it, but the overwhelming amount of people that are on their journey to healing and growth is such a beautiful thing to be witness to. Thank you social media for creating a platform that can be used for such a powerful movement. I think back to 5 years ago, the place I was in mentally, and how drastically everything has changed since then. I found hope through quotes, through music, through words. I watched others that were actively working on self-growth with awe, with a desire to do the same but not really knowing where to start.

To be honest, I was really afraid of it. It took a really long time before I found the courage to choose things that don’t necessarily feel great in the moment, but will in the long run, over those things that feel good right now. Instant gratification is such a devious little bugger.

What a rollercoaster this thing called life is. We tend to not love that part but yet we pay money, and lots of it, to go ride real rollercoasters. Ironic much? Why is it so hard embrace the real life twists and turns and flips upside down?

Growth cannot happen without grace. We have to acknowledge all parts of us – including all of our shortfalls. We have to own up to being wrong. We have to own up to mistakes we have made. We have to find a way to practice self-love, and forgiveness. And most of all, we have to put our pride aside and just be.

Just be. What does that even mean? Well, I’m still working every day to figure that out I think. It’s really easy to get caught up in life and excuses and obligations and just all of it. I can’t tell you how often I over-extend myself. I’m really good at making plans and goals and intentions and then I find myself saying, “WTH, when on earth do you plan on doing all this Amanda?!”

To me, to just be means to honor where I am in this moment. I acknowledge where I have been – physically, mentally, emotionally, and honor where I have not yet gone. It’s finding an appreciation for myself and giving credit for the strides I have taken. I might not be anywhere close to where I want to be but I’m a heck of a lot closer than I was last year, last month, or even yesterday. I am so far from perfect – which is such a subjective term anyways. Your perfect, my perfect, his perfect, her perfect…are all so drastically different and it’s highly unlikely any of those are even attainable or realistic. So let’s just scratch that all together.

I am me. Plain and simple. And every day I have the opportunity to wake up and be whoever I want to be. That is such a powerful thing that is so often forgotten. I forget. But then I remember again, which is the important part.

We have been given this one life. Live it. Please. Just live it in whatever way is important and meaningful to you.