How do you keep going when the battles are drawn out, each day feels pointless, and you are so, so tired? When the darkness feels never-ending and nothing seems to get better? How do you keep picking yourself up off the ground, and talk yourself out of fear and back into battle?
How do you fight for You?
Resolve.
The ability to keep going comes down to one thing: you have to resolve inside yourself that giving up or staying this way is not an option.
It has to be the undercurrent pulling you toward Life. And to get in the flow of that undercurrent, you have to surrender to your soul’s instinct to Live, to Grow, to Shed What No Longer Works or Supports You, to Transform, to find New Ways of Being.
You have to be willing to let those parts of you that are keeping you stuck, die.
You have to be willing to say “I don’t know the fuck where I am or how I am going to get there, but I am going to find a way to Live.”
And you have to mean it.
We discredit the power of decision. And we underestimate the power that comes from making a conscious, intentional decision.
We have, overall, as a society, dismissed the strength of willpower. Perhaps because we don’t like to face our own power, because if we face our power, we’re responsible to manage it in our lives. Perhaps also because there are some things that willpower can’t change, and willpower has gotten a bad rap for being a “quick answer” to dismiss the depth of someone’s situation.
But what if, we have more power than we think we do?
What if by making a true decision, one you feel all the way in your gut, one your whole being commits to… resolve…. we can change a great many things? What if instead of waking up feeling like life sucks and there’s no reason to get up, we could make a decision to fight for the day, to fight those negative thoughts, to say NO to them. And what if, by the power of your will to direct your thoughts and focus on something positive (like all the things you have to be grateful for in this very moment while life sucks), you begin to change?
Now, I realize that to get to that point you might need medication, you might need counseling, you might need to read an article like this that presents you with a new way of thinking…. but eventually, the only one who can decide how the life is going to be is YOU.
Decide. Not just wake up and see what life brings. Not just wake up and see how other people disappoint you again. Not just wake up and expect more misery and feel worse and worse.
But decide. Decide that you’ve had enough. That your repetitive negative thoughts have had way too much control over how your life feels now. That PTSD, depression, anxiety — are part of who you are, but they DON’T GET TO DEFINE WHO YOU ARE.
We waste years giving up our power because we don’t realize that we actually have the power to decide how we will be. Or what our mindset and attitude and perspective on life and on life WITH PTSD, depression, anxiety will be.
I am NOT being dismissive of how these diagnoses impact you, or of the fact that they make it very hard to think differently, or feel differently.
BUT, I am saying that there comes a point where you either let these diagnoses swallow you whole and control your entire experience of life — OR you take back your willpower and decide to control what you can. And what you can control is a decision to let these things defeat you and make you an utterly miserable person, or to accept these things as part of who you are, but to find every possible way to live your best life anyway.
That may mean going after alternative therapies. That may mean learning about new perspectives on life. That may mean finding religion. That may mean looking for every type of therapy, treatment, philosophy, spiritual practice until you find one that shifts your perspective toward Life.
What it will always mean is that you have to give up your identity as someone who has no power.
You have to give up your beliefs that life sucks, you’re doomed, nothing will ever change, people just hurt you, you are just stuck with this shitty life. You have to give up your beliefs that your diagnosis gives you an excuse to act like an asshole, or treat people like shit, or destroy everything in your path. (Yes, I know you have rage and anger to deal with, but you are responsible to find ways to deal with it — and there is help out there and there is a part of you that can resolve to find a way to heal the anger.)
You have to own your life and take back your power to change how you think.
There are so many resources out there. Books, speakers, spirit/mind/body leaders, people who can teach you how to see your Self, suffering, death, life, beauty, grief, joy, love differently. People who can teach you how to take what life has delivered to you, and change your attitude and outlook so that you aren’t controlled by the anger and bitterness and negative perspectives.
But none of this can happen unless you DECIDE that you are going to do whatever it takes to find it.
All it takes for change is one thought that you’ve never had before.
Just one thought.
Start reading and listening to authors like Mike Dooley, Mark Nepo, Wayne Dyer, Rob Bell. Start feeding your mind with thoughts you’ve never had before.
Make a decision to reclaim your life and then go out and do what it takes to do it. Yes, it may be slow. Yes, it may take time. Yes, it may feel as if you get knocked down and have to pick yourself up again… but you keep going.
You can’t change your diagnosis or what you have suffered; you can change whether or not it will define you or whether you will define your life.
It’s your choice. Until you realize that deep down within you, everything outside of you will control you and swallow you whole.
Only you can allow that to happen.
You have expressed this beautifully and you are exactly right. Thank you for sharing this!
Thank you for this, and for all of your writings and work. It helps many.
As I was reading this particular page, my first thought was that resolve sounds SO exhausting, and we are already beyond exhausted. As I thought further though, I remembered my therapist telling me that some days I will be able to do more than other days, and that IT IS OK and normal. And resolved can also mean resolute, or even implacable. So maybe, some days will be doggedly fighting up the mountain…and other days will be just being still. Surrendering not to the darkness, but to the calm. Allowing the maelstrom to rage AROUND us but at a distance, outside of a bubble. Not fighting the mess that seems too hopeless to tackle, but declaring it just for this moment irrelevant, outside, away, untouchable. Like walking away or turning your head when the toddler throws a tantrum–not rushing to place him in the time out spot, but simply wordlessly demonstrating that that doesn’t have anything to do with ME in this moment. RESOLVE, but in neutral, not expending energy we don’t have at this moment. Then at another moment, moving forward again. And when all we can do in the way of self-care at the moment is to take a deep breath, then DOING IT. Even a deep breath is an act of resistance against the panic, the flashback, the intrusive thought, the PTSD. Resolving to be steady more than strong. Focusing on the direction rather than the distance. I am not sure if I am making sense, but it helped a little to write it out. Thank you.
🙏🙏🙏Thank you. We will pray. It would be gratifying indeed if something I wrote were to help another again… What I write will help others. It is, I believe, part of my destiny in and through this lifetime. We will see!💖
I am so glad that post touched you and helped your spirit awaken to the Love that is always present for you, Ro. Hold on to the words of truth that you have written here for your own soul and may they also encourage others who read them. Hugs to you!
This is an important post. I was in tears in reading about Resolve, my resolve that Is changing as I decide to let it, as part of who I am, intimately and irrevocably connected and intertwined with the Love deep within which Loves Me, who I am and who I’ve been, through “it all” thus far, while ever-ready to help me through everything I will need help with, not alone but alive and consciously (or not, as no one I know of can Always be conscious of their/our own inner workings) aware of our/my needs to Live more fully and freely, less- to un-impeded by the perceptions I have long and oft subconsciously chosen as my own, which have seemed to harm my self more than any other power formed or aimed against me.
This was a help to me tonight, as this has been an emotional day — as if other days are not emotional! There are many times that I have wished this were so; yet, there Is a part of me, at least one(!!!), probably many parts of who I am and will be who embrace(s) Love BOTH For And From My Self.
That I was in tears tonight in reading the above tells me that I was Feeling what I read and Interpreted as I did; that it touched my vulnerability at a time when that was just what I nerded: I Want to embrace the power in me, the power to consciously choose to ask for all of the help I do and will need to find the ways that Do and Will always exist For me (exactly as I am, No Matter What) to Live the Best version of my Life that I Can. I Can! I Can Choose to seek And Find these ways essential in my getting through the pain and misery, would be hallmarks of my destiny (would be, IF I were to submit again to that pain & fear/anxiety which I at some point grew to believe were definitive of the Life granted me; IF I were to Decide to stay where I am/or have been rather than what I Choose Consciously to tonight in seeking and finding a more free, healthy, happy, optimistic, hopeful Life reconnecting to a more “ideal” version of Life in which I Can and Will Allow My self and soul, my innards and all, to be Loved & Honored, Respected & Blessed, Gifted & Graced, Infinitely talented, Chosen by Love to Live This Life Beginning Right Now as Becoming free from past hindrances to “me”/my life and my Living rather and More than just surviving.
Surviving, I know. I have done it well, exceedingly so, for so long now that I find it exhausting to think about. Living, Living feels new, “foreign,” not familiar, and frightening if given half the chance or less, to react with fear, fear I long believed I did Not have! “Surprise!” — That, I say, primarily to my self; for, fear has been as a shadow to my soul, lurking ever near or stood upon when the Light’s been strong and/or clearly standing firmly above me, wishing me well, extending many hands, rays, and foot-holds while showing me the ways to an easier more smooth Life, Lit Up Cheerfully by Love, Love that I literally used to run from when it seemed to (?) contradict and counteract the pain and fear I had known so deeply as IF my own, and as IF a vital portion of my identity, when it was Really Love that was mine from the beginning of time and before its perception became a part of “me” & mine as I have believed myself & us to be.
Living Will Be new to me! I welcome the newness of Real Love guiding and holding me, empowering myself to Live more freely, with more fun, ease, faith, honor, peace, joy, Healing inside and out, within and All Around me, Teaching me How To Live Anew, anew… That kind of support is that which I Will need, And it’s t(here) for me! You are part if that. Alex and his soul are, along with the souls of more (alive in embodied forms And Beyond) more than I or any will ever be able to know or fully realize. However, when open to learning to see and accept that other people & powers in this World and Universe Do exist, on My side, on my behalf, wanting, wishing, praying for me to Live rather than merely survive, I Will become more accustomed to embracing /being embraced by the Love in my heart, in other people, in the Universe, in God as I experience and accept such a presence as belonging to as with me, as a power and part of social creation and creativity to and with whom I did, Do and shall Belong, eternally:
I’m allowed to be; to be Loved and newly free from fear, anxiety, PTSD, rage, anger, from persons, things and entities that I have, for more than Long Enough, chosen (most(?) oft unwittingly) to determine my future and present one day and night at a time As IF Divinely designed, when in Fact those were fear’s plans, decrying and laying claim to my Life As IF fear’s own: Here, I find myself pleased to see that I have been wrong! The Facts are becoming clearer to me. I am Allowed to reclaim the Life Granted and offered me one moment and day or night as each arrives right here and now; Allowed to say, “No!” to fear and the lies it led me to believe.
Fear told me that no one would love me, that no one ever could! I believed that! I believed that my Life was Not my own, but was being pulled around by the evils as I’ve seen them within and around me, seeing myself as victim because that was the strongest message about myself that I recalled from childhood and at & in many times and circumstances beyond those days and nights, where again the old self denigration began to be replayed for and by my self, giving me exactly what I had at some point chosen to believe, rather than to risk refuting the faulty so called/or seeming “foundations” of my very being, when all of those fear based, anger based, dis-eased thoughts & feelings, images, designs, were Not really mine at all. They were Not what Love intends or intended for me, as my True Creator and the Power of my creativity. They were Not.(of) the Power of Love, my true, most real foundation for who I have been, am and Can become, moving forward anew, instead of backward into a familiar yet harmful place.
It is time for me to grow to know and trust, very likely, more than ever before, in this Life, with and from which I consciously recall, and have repeated. “Enough!” — I call it out to the ways of the days “before,” while ironically after those in which Love has been allowed to Reign as A Leader in My Decision Making. To Love Most Powerful, Masterful, and Great, I ask you here, now, “Please re-enter my soul & self, my body, my mind, my environs and relationships, every aspect of who I am and Can be. Please renew me, and transform this Life to be more reflective of you, and the very best in me which you Will help me discover and reclaim, retrieve, honor, hold and receive, then share with others as You help me to dare, to Own this Power inherent in the identity of “I am,” under construction by the Best of Creators, allowed to succeed in being me, getting better at this one day and night, one moment at a time. It’s Time!
Let’s Do This!
Ooo-Rah!
Not alone!
With Help, all needed!
Ever present. Yes, Now.
Ooo-Rah! Let’s Do This!
💖
You are so welcome
Thank you…very good words.
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 19:15:56 +0000 To: fearless48@hotmail.com