ReMindEd   •   October 11, 2017

Saw this today and couldn’t not write about it here. I always speak and write on the topic of designing your own life: add in a conversation about forgiveness, freedom and letting go of the past hurts and that’s about every theme I like to talk about. So this resonated. Imagine being able to laugh at the ridiculousness of something that someone did in the past, simply because you have moved so far on from that moment and are living a life you love, that it becomes irrelevant!

My forearm tattoo says something similar: “clothed with strength and dignity, she laughs without fear of the future”.

The opposite of strength and dignity isn’t weakness and being undignified as you may think; it’s debilitating fear of the future (anxiety) and crippling depression (pain from the past).

Strength is about overcoming failure and walking through grief, and dignity looks like recovery from shame and pain. Both lead to freedom which looks like laughing without (or at) fear! It’s totally possible guys!I’ve shared Keanu on my socials this and last week, not just because we all love him(!!), but because what I’ve written on him I’m sure he’d agree with too. And after watching the most recent ‘John Wick 2’ movie, we know he would fight for the life he wants (and does)!

We all fight for something. It’s the stand we make. And there are several you make, whether intentionally or not.

What do you stand for? If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything!

It is a fight to take the more difficult path of walking through something hard, of letting past hurts go, of being intentional about your life and the decisions and responses you make, to stand for what you believe in.

We fight also against our own unhelpful or negative thoughts, we battle often to get to sleep at night, to not eat the whole tub of ice cream, to get up early and go for a work out, to choose peace in the storm. It takes work!

And we often fight against our humanness, our desires, our fears, that may not align with our intentionality. It can be hard to choose to change! Humans love being comfortable even when that comfort is in a cage!I’ve spoken about fighting before, being from a position of rest and identity, so we work with our minds rather than fighting against them, where we adjust and challenge our thoughts or emotions that may no longer serve us, where we choose to decide to forgive even when the feeling won’t follow for a while.

We can fight from a position of rest and identity.

And it may not always be hard, but it will be challenging and uncomfortable much of the time. Anything new is. And we may have to fight the same battle more than once, but will eventually get to the battle being won once and for all.

Putting this quote on a picture with sparkles makes us think it is easier than we know it will be. It’s tough. It’s hard. But it’s so worth it. And it starts with a choice before the feeling catches up. But it can be as easy as picking it up and blowing it away…we will just need to do it more than once! But over time it’s less and less until it’s no more. Freedom.

I know I’ve covered some big topics here today. I have written about all of them before- feel free to go back through and re-read. We need to remind ourselves of truth lots of times simply because the lie is so much easier to believe. But it’s still not the truth.

Believing a lie doesn’t make it true it just makes it your truth.

I’m going to end this blog here. Be encouraged: keep fighting for the life you want, for the freedom you know is possible for you, for the past pain to be released and the future fear to have been faced and way-laid. You can laugh at your future when you believe it holds good things- and it will, because life holds so much beauty and goodness. Just like people. Just like you.

Towards freedom, Sal