I speak about hard things.
Things that others hide and shelter away. They do this because society has told them not to allow others in, you'll get hurt, not to show your true self, because you will get made fun of, not tell others what REALLY is going on because either no one will care or they will tease or mock you. Fear far too often rears its ugly head.
Well, I refuse to be silent anymore!!
I refuse to be silent about my life, my habits, and my traits, my illnesses, and disorders, my medical issues.
I refuse to be silent about my beliefs, I refuse to be silent about my political feelings, I refuse to be silent while my black brothers and sisters are just trying to be treated like everyone else, I refuse to allow my dear mother earth to be a victim of our humanity, I refuse to sit by and watch loving creatures be slaughtered for our consumption, I refuse to sit by while hatred or nastiness spews out of the mouths of others only to tear them down to lift themself up, I refuse to stand by to anything anymore...
mostly, I refuse to allow others to silence others anymore.
Yes, I will be that speaker that speaks about hard things because we need to hear about those hard things to learn how to overcome, to move forward, to heal. We need to know others have gone through what we have gone through.
An old adage we often hear is "Misery loves Company. is true. We prefer not to suffer alone. We desire and yearn for the company and the understanding of others. We need to know we are heard. We heal from that connection, to know someone else out there understands what we are going through. It bonds us to each other.
Through my speaking career, I have learned there are others like me. The more I spoke, the more people came up to me afterward and said "Thank you for sharing that. I too have been struggling through or have struggled through that and It's nice to know that someone else has too.
I decided to start speaking about hard things one day out of the blue. I felt very much like stopping the world so I could get off. After a while I found myself saying to myself "I can't be the only one! I just can't!" I can't tell you when that day was or what was the final catalyst, but I will tell you, every time I share something real, raw, authentic and vulnerable about myself, I always end up reading, hearing, or talking to someone who says "I have empathy for where you have been" and I reply, "That is the gift I have been given in this life, to acquire empathy for the hard things in life so that I could say to you,' I have empathy for where you have been."<3
My book is called Falling to Fabulous: A Phoenix Rising because I truly feel that I fell.,.. for you. I rose from the ashes...for you.<3
None of us have a guarantee in life when we will go. Have faced cancer twice was like facing a hungry lion barely escaping within an inch of its grasp. All those things you think are so important, suddenly aren't. The things you look back on your life, should not be regrets. You realize how precious life is yes, but I came out of it also realizing how precious humanity was. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
I want my time left on this earth, for however long that will be, to be a wonderful experience full of peace, love, and happiness. I want to help my fellow human beings.
If that means sharing and speaking about those hard things, then that is what I will do. And when I am gone, the world will look back and hopefully see a Legacy of love in my wake. <3
