I FAILED THE TESTS OVER AND OVER.

We have all had circumstances in our life that have dropped us to our knees, praying to god to help us and having us question how we will ever go on. Moments where we wonder if there is a god, why he would have us feel such pain, fear and horrific feelings. Whether it’s a death of a loved one, divorce, financial issues, whatever the situation might be, we often struggle to reach out to people in fear of what they might think of us. Fear of being judged. So, we go on day by day, putting our happy face on in public, while our heart is breaking on the inside. When I closed my business in 2011, I did this for years. I suffered in silence, not reaching out because I felt that my business closing and my marriage suffering because of it was completely my fault, I had done it to myself, so I should stay silent. WHAT WAS I THINKING?

I can tell you what happened. I spent years in internal hell. I walked around like a shaken-up champagne bottle that was ready to explode at any moment. Close friends and family would have perceived my life as great, my Facebook feed looked like I was living an amazing life. That was exactly what I wanted. So long as it looked like everything was ok, and nobody knew my inner secrets, then I was fine. But I was the furthest from fine. I was full of anxiety that I had no idea how to control, I cried all the time, and when I finally had enough, I got so sick it landed me in an ambulance heading to the hospital. 

What I know now is, the tragedies in life, and the darkness and fear that we feel and go through are all blessings in disguise to form us into the true human beings that we are meant to be. We can either decide to take the gift or we can sweep it under a rug and choose not to deal with it. There is always light to be found in the dark, and it’s our decision if we choose to accept the gift through fear, or to continue feeling sorry for ourselves and wondering if we will ever get out of our mess. 

It is a choice. You can choose to do the work, which is hard, a daily task to complete on our already long list of things to take care of, but it is the choice between learning from the darkness and using it as fuel to jet towards the light or staying stagnate and living in our misery. I sat in misery for a few years, myself. I would start reading the self-development books to try and learn how to cope with all the pain I was feeling, and it would all sound so great. For a few weeks I would follow the mantras, read the books, journal, and meditate, and then as soon as something got tough, scary or rocked my world again, I quit. This shit doesn’t work. It’s all a bunch of bull shit. Then back to misery I went. I would sit there for another several months, before I would start the journey all over again. I gave up on faith, God, Universe, more times than I am willing to admit.

About a year and a ½ ago my best friend got me onto podcasts. I would listen to Oprah, Tony Robbins, Lewis Howes, Lori Harder, just to name a few. What I started to notice listening to these amazing influencers, is all of the great self-development leaders and the people they were interviewing, were all practising the same things that I would start and give up on after a week or two. They were all doing these practises for peace in their lives. Then it hit me. The difference between how these great leaders are doing these exercises, and how I was doing them was when the going got tough, I quit, and they didn’t. They pushed through even on the hard days. Even on the days where it was difficult to say I am confident, I am strong, I am fit, I am a great mom, I am a great wife, etc., etc. They still did the work. They still found the time to journal, to mediate, even through all the crazy. Our brain has a direct connection to the words we use to talk about ourselves. If you walk around and say, my life sucks, I am so over weight, I hate my house, that is exactly what will continue on for you. When you feed your brain with positive affirmations, sure it may take a while before you fully believe what you are writing, but I challenge you to give it 30 days and see the shift that it makes in your mentality. The next difficult thing is to carve the time out to do it. Personally, for myself, after I drop my daughter off to daycare, I have about a 10-minute drive to work. This gives me a good chunk of quiet time to say out loud to myself what I am grateful for, my I AM statements for the day, and a quick prayer. You do not have to believe in god to pray either. You can pray to the universe, or you can pray to yourself, putting your intentions out into the world, and stating out loud what you are needing guidance with, and what you are grateful for will help start to shift your mind towards feeling great. I promise. These actions however do not stop life from happening. I used to think if I started manifesting, journaling and being on top of my mantras that it would immediately stop anything bad from happening to me again, but things will still come up. The universe will throw tests at you, especially on the things we are working on the most. Why? To test us and see how we react. To see if we have actually learnt the lessons that we are supposed to take from the fear. The tests are designed to see if we have gained the strength to handle tough situations in the future. 

I failed the tests over and over. Multiple times. It wasn’t until my stress and health got so bad that I lost my eye site in my left eye, and started getting ill due to stress, that I knew I had big changes to make. And the change didn’t happen over night either. To be honest it took me almost a full year to get to this point where I am now so incredibly grateful for all of the messiness I went through, because I am so much happier where I am now. I love how beautiful my marriage is, I am so grateful for my amazing daughter, family and friends. And still now, not every day is wonderful. I still have rough moments, but they are moments, not rough days or weeks. I feel it, allow it in my body for 5 minutes, I grab a journal and write it out, or I pray it out, or I self-talk myself out of my situation, and ask… What is this trying to teach me? What lesson can I learn from this situation? 

I want you to know that you are completely capable. No matter what circumstance you are going through, you can and will get out of it if you are willing to do the work. You have to make it your job to feel good. It does not happen overnight, but consistency is key and the more you work on it the faster you start to recover from your traumas. Stop looking at fear and defeat as just that, Fear and defeat. Start looking at the obstacles as opportunities to grow. I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, if you can work through these challenges, it will shape you into the person that you are meant to be. For example, when I was struggling with my career and the direction I was headed, and I would apply for a job I would get so excited and start thinking about the possibilities and how amazing life would be if I got this job and got out of my current job that I hated. When I didn’t get the job, of course I was disappointed. The old Angie would have given up looking for a new job, believed my life could never get better, feel sorry for myself and saddle up for years of misery at the job I was in. Now, I would grab my journal I would let myself write out all the feelings that I have in regard to not getting the job, then I would look for reasons why I didn’t get it:

·     Maybe, there is a better job out there for me with better hours.

·      There is a job that aligns with the direction in life that I am headed.

·      The hours wouldn’t have worked well with Mila’s cheer schedule.

·      It was great interview practise for my next job interview. 

Write out the disappointed feelings first, because we are allowed to feel upset, we just don’t want to sit in it for too long, feel it and then shelve it and put it away. Then look for the positive and KEEP GOING. Roadblocks are just obstacles leading you in the right direction. If you can recognize that and understand that sometimes things don’t work out for a reason and that it’s redirecting you to something even more amazing, you will be able to be more confident and excited, instead of upset and disappointed. That job I didn’t get, allowed me to get a career with a company that I enjoy. My job allows me to be with my daughter and take her to all her extracurricular activities, I am able to book the morning off work to take my daughter on her field trips, it allows me the time to blog and do photography (my passion), and I am making just as much money without putting in hours and hours of overtime. I am grateful I didn’t get that first position I applied for, as it would have never landed me the life I am living right now.

I could write pages on this topic, and it will continue to show up in blog posts in the future. It’s important to know that everything in our lives is changeable if we are willing to do the work. People absolutely can change 100% but in order to do that we have to change our mindset and work on ourselves every day. If I can do it,  I know you can to.  I hope you all have a fabulous week. If you enjoy my blog, please feel free to subscribe to my newsletter. My blog will come directly to your inbox every week. Feel free to share this blog on social media, or with a friend you think might enjoy it. I would be truly honored. Until next week. XO, Angie