Happy Self-Love Sunday!
Have you ever stressed about something that was out of your control? Something that has continuously hindered and bothered you? Something that makes you feel uneasy and restless, but has already occurred? I promise you are not alone and I can whole heartedly relate. And in order to better take care of ourselves, on this wonderful Self-Love Sunday, we must be kind to ourselves & recognize sometimes things are out of our control.

It can be so easy to beat yourself up over what has occurred, over the mistakes you have made, the way you wished you handled situations. But you must remember, what is done is done. And stressing yourself out about how you wish you could have changed things, is only hurting you more. You have to learn to be at peace by doing better, improving your mistakes moving forward. You must forget the mistake & remember the lesson. Don’t be so consumed over what has already happened that you can not even find any joy. You can’t move forward because you’re stuck on the past.

Now, I am a guilty party of the acts listed above. However, I have realized that hanging onto what has been and dwelling on these things is of no value to me, to my present. I have let these past situations and experiences completely steal my joy and happiness. And ultimately, that has done no good for me, my spirit, or my soul. It’s left me feeling sad, worthless, and helpless. I like to be in control of everything, but the truth is that I can not always be in control. That’s not how life works. I have to be able to trust the process. To trust that people I love will make right decisions and if they don’t, then that’s not on me. I can only love, support, and trust. And if this trust is violated, then I have to let go. I have had to learn to not whole people to their past, we all have one and sometimes we haven’t made the best of decisions, we’ve done things we no longer think about. And sometimes, the past is simply just that, the past. Now this may all sound like common sense, but I promise once feelings are involved, it’s not as easy as it seems.

Sometimes we just have to understand that things are out of our control. It’s simply impossible to always control everything. And we have to learn that things will always go how God planned them to, even if that means we get hurt by the situation. That’s a way of God showing us that it wasn’t meant for us. You may not have made the decision you wanted, you may have said something you didn’t mean at the moment. But I promise you it’s okay. While you may not be able to go back to that exact moment and change time, you can change how you move going forward. You can apologize, make more of an effort, don’t let your mistakes consume you or make you feel that is who you are. Because I promise you, you are not you’re mistakes. None of us are. We’re all human, so of course we all fall short. But, it’s what you do to move forward that makes you who you are.

Tough situations are only here to push us closer to God and make us realize our true strength. We’re always stronger than we realize. We can endure much more than we know. And I truly want everyone to experience long-term happiness. I know that every moment of every day will not be always be full of happiness, but why add onto the unhappy moments of life? Why stress about what we can not control? We must move forward and change the things that we can. Pray about what we can’t change, and ask for forgiveness for those we have done wrong and for those who have done us wrong. It’s all a process.

Our imperfections are the very things that make us who we are. But sometimes we can become so consumed with these things, that we lose sight in how wonderful we are. Remember, you can’t control the actions of others and that’s when the lovely role of trust comes into play. You also can’t beat yourself up over mistakes you’ve felt you made in the past. Today, I challenge you to let go of that hurt, that pain, gained from previous mistakes, from how others have made you feel, and just be free. Be free knowing that everything happens for a reason & that you only have the power to change how things go moving forward, and then that’s not always guaranteed. Be still knowing that you are making an effort to be better and to let go.