I am gonna be honest… May is kind of kicking my butt. There are things to do on top of more things to do. I have seen memes going around talking about “Maytember”and how May is the new December. I second that. For sure.
So today is a short post with a question.
I have a Deck of cards with prompts on them. They are created by Morgan Harper Nichols who is a poet and artist whom I love very much. You can find her amazing stuff on Instagram
or on her website Garden24.com.Her card deck is called “Darling,” and has a full set of prompt questions. Here is the one I am posing and answering today.
We can talk for a long time about strength and weakness. How it is all based on perspective, experience, personality and many other factors. Something that is seen as strength for me may not be a strength for you. Riding on a roller coaster may be a normal thing for some but may be a huge show of strength for someone else. Things like setting a boundary, opening up with a vulnerable conversation, saying what you need, doing things for yourself when you are a chronic people pleaser, can all be shows of great strength for some and seen as normal or not a big deal for others.
It’s all a matter of perspective.
I am going to share the first thing that comes to my mind with this question for me.
In 2021 I left the church that I was raised in. The religion I was taught to define myself as since I was a baby. The community I had found a home in my entire life and especially since I moved across the country when I was 25. I left. I walked away from a place and organization that was causing me so much anxiety I could barely function Saturday evenings knowing I needed to go to church the next day.
Some people inside this community may think that I was making the easier choice. That I was actively choosing something “over” the God I had been taught was very real. Some people see this as weak.
I can assure you: I have never been as brave as I was when I decided to leave. I didn’t feel brave at the time. I felt terrified.
And therein lies the rub. I had never been so scared and I have been on a JOURNEY since then.
But let me tell you, leaving everything I knew was one of the hardest and strongest choices I could have made. This may not be true for you. You may say that it wouldn’t mean that if this was your experience. You may think that it was not a show of strength to listen to my own inner heart, spirit and wisdom and walk away from something that had a lot of things that were familiar and easy. A routine that was as second nature to me as breathing. A doctrine and set of beliefs in certain ideologies that gave me a lot of answers to life’s questions.
It was a decision that absolutely was a show of strength and will for sure still even be thought by some as a show of weakness.
What about you? What would your answer be? What does strength mean to you?
Also, can we not spend our time judging other people for their choices? I think there is a lot to be said about making our own choices and supporting those we love through their’s even if we don’t understand them?
I hope you are staying afloat during this crazy-ass month.
Sending love to you out there in the ether,
Stef
A song that I love about how life is full of lots of hard things and we can also handle it.