What is Strength?

So what is strength? No, I'm not talking about the kind of strength where we go and see how many kilos we can lift or how hard and fast we can hit a ball. I'm talking about inner strength. Strength of the heart, strength of the mind.

So what is it? It astounds me how many people I know when they are feeling down say things like: "I'm so weak," and "I feel so helpless," or "I wish I was stronger. If I was stronger I could handle this better." It astounds me because I feel as if no one is ever told how strong they really are.

Strength is a very vast thing. And depending on perspective it can be a very tricky thing. People think you need to be strong and never let your pain show. Others feel that if you are able to put your vulnerabilities out there you're stronger than those who make walls of steel around their hearts. But I want to shed that comparison and put a new perspective out there for people to think about, and I hope it helps everyone who is feeling weak and down or out of bounds realize just exactly how strong they are.

Strength is thinking about that easy way out - but not taking it. Strength is every day living, handling the stresses of every day life as it continuous on. Strength is taking the pain of being walked on and handling it, then moving on and having the courage to trust again eventually. Strength is taking care of your loved ones, whether it be poor health or they just simply rely on you - providing that security and care for them is absolute strength. Strength is doing what you feel needs to be done - making hard decisions and executing them even if you are afraid of the outcome, even if things are not certain. Strength is moving forward - no matter how hard it is to keep going. Strength is facing your fears - even in the smallest of ways. Strength is determination and resolution.

Strength is living. Everyday it takes strength to continue with our lives. We all have stories. We all have problems. And every single one of us is strong for getting up and getting on with our lives despite our problems.

So even if you feel down trodden and helpless. Keep moving forward. You've been strong enough to do it all this time. You're strong enough to keep on going.

Monumentally Inconsequential

When the sun is shining brightly, the temperature is comfortable and there is a gentle breeze kissing the skin of your face, how do you feel?

I suppose there is not really one answer. It would depend on your mood, your circumstances, and your frame of mind. It's not always fluffy clouds and wide skies, and stars that we can reach for. Sometimes even on the bluest, brightest of days our skies are dim and dark. 

Have you ever felt monumentally inconsequential? Have you ever felt so useless you wondered why you keep on walking? Felt that nothing you ever did makes any sort of dent in anything you've ever wanted to accomplish so in all honesty the smartest choice is to give up? Have you ever fought the urge to just flop on the ground in the middle of the street and say: "I give up. Nothing I do will make a difference anyway,"?

Yeah. You're not alone. If you have people around you, look at them. Scan the room. I bet four out of five people have felt that way too. Monumentally inconsequential. In fact, I'll be honest. Today, even now as I'm writing this, I myself am feeling it. 

I have no motivation to continue on with my book. I'm looking for a job that feels like it just does not exist any where for me. I need to start school for a career I'm terrified I'll be old by the time I eventually get there. I feel like I am treading the deep waters of my own life. I am not swimming forward, I'm not even drifting to the sides or backwards. I'm just...dead in the water. 

But do you know what is actually monumentally inconsequential? That monumentally inconsequential feeling is. It doesn't matter how hopeless or lazy, or useless you are feeling. It's important to remember during these times that your existence is not inconsequential. There is someone or something who is counting on you to keep going. Keep treading the water until the current gives you an opening to move in the directions you need. That no matter how hopeless you feel, Hope is always just buried underneath it, waiting for you to reach down and grab it through the muck of that despair. It's important to realize that if you have no motivation sometimes you just need to buck up and do it before that inspiration hits no matter how hard it is.

We will always face times where we feel ...monumentally inconsequential. Beat down and hopeless. Unmotivated and gutless. We are human. It's a part of our lives. It is from these times that we reflect most heavily on "Why me." And though it may not feel like it at the time: it is a lesson that will help you for the next rocky part of your life, and adventure. 

We take these moments of monumental consequentiality and we have a choice: We can either let it drag us further down. We can let the pessimism of life win, and convince ourselves that we are  a victim to life and everyone and everything in that life, and we are always miserable. Or we can use the good times and good people to help uplift us. We can dredge on past it - even though it feels as if we are walking in waist high mud. We can keep going, and keep trying no matter how hard, how painful, and how draining that effort truly is (because believe me, I know EXACTLY how mentally and emotionally draining these tedious times in life can be). And we can conquer.

We are NOT inconsequential. Not a single one of us. Every body. And I do mean EVERYBODY has a purpose. A goal. A life. And all of us milling about our daily lives, living day to day, defeating every moment of feeling inconsequential effects our world. Creates a synergy. A purpose. 

Every single one of us is monumentally consequential - even if we do not recognize that we are.

The Lure of Cruelty - The Reward of Kindness

"It's so much easier to be bad than good. It feels so much more empowering to be cruel than kind. It's so much harder to be wise than ignorant, so much more painful to open our eyes and see the world around us as it is. But have you noticed how much more rewarding taking the hard way of life can be?"

Time for a confession readers. When I was younger... I was on a very dark path. Numb to the feelings around me, I took a grim satisfaction within myself in hurting others. I wasn't ever violent. I was much worse. I was cruel with my words.  

 It wasn't until I was older that I realized how lonely I was because of this. I made a change. And it was hard. I had to lose my temper. Which meant letting go of my anger towards everything around me. And it was terrifying. My anger at the time was my only strength I felt. It was what made me open my eyes in the morning, and breath during the day. It was what made me tick and function. I felt my very existence  filled with anger and bitterness and even loathing was a way to spite everyone and everything that had hurt me.

To be honest, I had been bullied in school for a long time before I got to this point. It is just a part of what made me into the dark creature I was. I justified hurting others by telling myself they would hurt me first if I did not. They would turn on me. They were all liars anyway. 

I am told I have a gift with words. A way about describing things, and putting things into perspective. And I had that when I was younger too. However I used it to maim and hurt people. I was full of anger. And animosities. I was hurt, and scared, and bitter.  There are reasons for it.. but the reasons are not important. The point was... I was incredibly awful. Making people cry or wary, hurting the feelings of those closest to me. It make me feel stronger. Braver. Untouchable. Invincible. I had a wall of spiteful hatred built around me and it kept everyone at bay: something I hated and something I relished. 

I was safe. From everyone. But as I grew older I realized that it wasn't right. And as my mother, who is also my mentor and teacher in Shamanism tried to help me grow past it so I could take up my heritage and birthright... she said words to me that have forever been engrained in my mind: "It is so much easier to be bad than good, baby."

These words were said to me one night while crying in her arms, asking her WHY I had turned into what I was, and why the people had done the things they did to me to make me that way.  Why were they  so cruel to me? And why did I feel the need to be cruel to everyone else?

These words, after I had calmed down and reflected on their meaning made everything make so much sense to me that it frightened me. It was true. It was easy to ignore the crying girl on the curb and just keep walking, or the broken down car on the highway. It was so much easier pretending not to notice that kid over there bullying the other. It was so much easier to bully other people than to look at them with equality and kindness. It felt so much better to feel stronger than the people around me. 

And that was why people are cruel. It's so much easier to simply not CARE. Because caring gets you hurt. Helping gets you walked on or over looked sometimes. TRYING seems useless. And for what purpose? It's so much easier to dwell in your own negativity and loathing than it is to let it go. 

Let me tell you. Even the kindest shamans understand. It's was so hard to let go of all the anger inside me as a young teenager. Trying not to let it consume me everyday until I wasn't angry at everything everyday was like being clawed from the inside out by horrible talons.

But I did it. And when I let go of all the ugly within me, I found someone I can stand. Someone I like. Someone who cares, no matter how much it gets me hurt. Someone who loves whole heartedly the stranger on the street, or the ones who are closest to me. Someone who tries, no matter how many times she fails. Someone who is willing to sacrifice time and energy to help another. 

Sometimes...it's still hard. There have been so many times where myself, or my Shaman mother, or my warrior brother, my elders or tribal brothers and sisters have wanted to give up. To not care. To give up what we know an just dredge forward and give into our own negativity. Or my lost little sister wants to give up on growing up and trying to find her place within her own world. We are tested. CONSTANTLY we are tested, and bullied and thrown around or taken advantage of.  But we are there, urging each other forward. Nursing our wounded positivity and love for the world back to health. Reminding each other why are who are we are and what we are instead of like everyone else. Repeating the things to our teachers TO our teachers when they too become tired and heavy.

And the reason we do this, the point of keeping our chin up when our life is loaded with heaviness... is because it is more rewarding. We get pleasure out of healing a wounded animal or person. We find joy in the smiles of happiness we get from a grateful person. The warmth of someone trusting us, and becoming a part of our world, and the pride of someone moving forward and making themselves better. If you are a cynical person you will understand it this way only: It's because we selfishly find being kind far more rewarding and pleasurable than being cruel. 

But we are not only rewarded with these things for our endurance of resisting the temptation to be cruel. We have a family, a tribe that surround us with absolute love. Even from far away. We find karma favours us and sometimes when we desperately need a boost from life we get a huge one. And we are not lonely in our irrevocable bond with each other and with other people. We are respected, and admired, just as we respect and admire each other and ALL of those who choose to be kind, or better themselves.  Life is kinder. Sweeter... and we can appreciate ourselves, and look at ourselves with pride as people.

It IS so much easier to be bad than good. But being good leaves a much sweeter taste, a more fulfilled feeling. And hey. It also turns out I feel stronger for it too. I feel much braver being kind than I did when I was cruel.