Take a seat at the table...

  

    Life is hard and you don’t need to complicate it further by carrying around unnecessary heavy things. Let it go! I am big on repeating myself, so let’s say that again. 

 

    Life is hard and you don’t need to complicate it further by carrying around unnecessary heavy things. Let it go! -Shelby

 

    I also like to give myself credit for things because I spent a large portion of my life giving away my credit and power. Giving others credit where credit wasn’t due. 

 

    Speaking of giving away my power, I think it’s so important to talk about what exactly that means. You can give away your power with virtually anything and I’ve noticed that I do it a lot when I am anxious about how people will view me or what they’ll think of me if they don’t like what I’m offering. 

 

    I give away my power to freedom of expression when I worry about what people will think of: 

 

• My art
• Writing
• Thoughts
• Creative works
• Personal aspirations
• Weight loss journey
• Body
• Mind
• Spirit

 

    Pretty much anything that makes me who I am! Which is the dumbest thing ever, we’ve discussed this before! I DO NOT care what others think of me...

 

    I DO NOT CARE WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF ME!

    I DO NOT CARE WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF ME! 

 

    I can scream that as loud as my lungs would allow and it still wouldn’t be loud enough. I’ve had to heal from so much! More than I care to admit but part of having a caring heart, bad anxiety and being a 4 on the Enneagram scale means that I feel things much deeper than the average Joe. 

 

    Now don’t get it twisted, I know we all have stuff we don’t talk about and stuff we’re going through. That’s what has unfortunately kept me from my life though; not talking about stuff and keeping it bottled up is how I landed myself in a major downward spiral. 

 

    Healing is never a straight line and it shouldn't be, it takes time, energy and TAKING YOUR POWER BACK! 

 

    I gave away my power like this: 

 

• Waiting for permission to do something.
• Not speaking up when I know something was wrong.
• Not taking what I want but instead letting others around me take it.
• I constantly put the needs of others before my own.
• Going against my better judgment because I was too scared to speak up.
• I played smaller than I was. I had to fit inside that box!
• I let people abuse me mentally and physically.
• I ate my feelings instead of talking about them.
• I let others make decisions for me, even if at the end of the day it hurt me or made conditions worse for me. 
• I didn’t stand up for myself when people put me down, abused me (mentally or physically.)
• Continuing to let people use me as their savior when I couldn’t even save myself. 

 

    Most came in the smallest packages, the tiniest power sucking packages! Cute to look at, wrapped in pretty paper and topped with a bow. But they were the complete opposite! They were exhausting, demeaning, painful and so hard. But that ‘s the thing with power sucking people and things. They don’t discriminate or have sympathy for people who can’t stand up for themselves. Or people who are struggling trying to find their voices! 

 

    Life is hard and it doesn’t do us any good to carry around all the heavy things from yesterday. Let it go, sit it down and allow yourself to heal and take back the power that is rightfully yours. It doesn’t have to be mean or vicious! But being an advocate for yourself is something that we’ll always have the power to do as long as we believe we deserve to use the power we have within us. 

 

    Put those heavy things down, baby!  

Use your voice to be an advocate for yourself!

Don’t wait for your seat at the table to open up, create a fucking chair, make room with your elbows and sit down- it’s rightfully yours.

 

 

XOXO