Alright so I am mixing it up on this blog post today. I wanted to talk about real events that have occurred in my life that have truly tested my ability to be a strong individual. I have always experienced challenges and events that I faced where resilience and strength were the only options available for me to choose. My most recent Instagram post was about loving one another but after this event occurred, I truly have never been more passionate about sharing my stories to help others combat insecurity, self-doubt and the feeling that you are alone in what you are going through.

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So, this blog post I am devoting to mental health, I know we all struggle to maintain a constant level of positive emotions, but in reality, there are a lot of stressful events and tribulations in life that truly test your faith and you are left with two options: 1. Let the event cause you to constantly stress or lose hope that something better is around the corner or 2. Let the event make you grow into a stronger individual and use it as a motivational advancement. I would like to be personal in this blog because I have been through a lot in my life that I think sharing with all of you would hopefully touch on your hearts while reading this and help you to find the motivation to make life-altering changes.

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First, who you are today is a motivator for who you are going to be tomorrow. Throwing it all the way back to when I was in 6th grade, I could not run a mile if my life DEPENDENT on it. I ate sonic corndogs every single day with a java chiller and was thinking this was normal at the time, but I was overweight and considerably obese, I was bullied every day in middle school for it. We had to run a mile as an entire PE class, and I was always the one who couldn’t make it to the end on time. It had me so overwhelmed and stressed out, I pretended to be sick every day because I abhorred the idea of working out. I was the reason the entire class had to re-run the mile THREE times because I was not in shape enough to complete the 10 minute time period required to pass. It was a nightmare. To this day I can still remember and visualize that one moment in my life. That was my defining moment because I had never felt so inadequate compared to all my peers who were fit, and I was the only one out of 50 students who could not complete the required mile time-frame.

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I vowed from that day on, after failing to meet the requirements of the PE class along with bullying I can still recall and remember every word said, that I would NEVER experience that event again and I was going to start making life-altering changes. And I have NEVER been so thankful now in my current life today for that awful experience literally the absolute worst moment.

 

Truly, my FAVORITE story to tell now to almost everyone I meet is THIS STORY that I blatantly remember as the LOWEST POINT in my life, but now I can LAUGH all day about it because it’s over and done with. SO I just want to relay to everyone that what may seem like the worst day of your life in a particular time will be looked back on in years to come as an event that hopefully you are smiling about today because you made it through it and its over and done with FOREVER. That is one other note, if you like to think about your past, start thinking about how you have advanced in your life since that period rather than becoming sad that it happened.

 

Focus on what you are going to do tomorrow or even what change can you make in your life right now to ensure you have a better mindset and mental clarity for the following week and let me know how you feel one week from now with the goal to be motivated for a life-altering shift in mentality and personal strength, rather than feeling bad about the past. This whole idea that we shouldn’t think about times in our lives that weren’t so great I think is the most distorted part of reality because those moments are what shape us into stronger beings. I look back at the worst times in my life and smile and even laugh about them because I know I let them go and made sure I never viewed it again as something that will always affect me in a negative way.

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NOW THE EPIPHANY PART (I STILL GET GOOSEBUMPS). This is where I truly found myself and who I was. Going to UCSB and meeting the girls I had met in alpha phi among all other sororities were absolutely amazing human beings. I forgot what the feeling of being completely loved and appreciated meant or to be around people who actually enjoyed my company. Not to say I didn’t have an amazing support group in Oklahoma, but UCSB changed my life for the better, honestly. I also have to attribute my emotional and physical growth to StarCycle because when I became a spin instructor it was an emotional time for me because I remember everyone in middle school laughing at me because I couldn’t finish a mile in 10 min and now I am enjoying working out and was teaching extremely intense classes to 35-40 people that I had never even met before! Talk about a shift in life.

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My point of this story is to explain to everyone who asks me why am I so happy all the time or why do I always see the positives of everything even when people say things to hurt me or I experience pretty traumatic experiences? Well, it is because I NEVER let all of these negative words that were said to me in the past about how I will always be the “Big mac loving 6th grader” affect me negatively nor the traumatic experiences either that definitely took a toll on me for some time. Rather, I used every negative, bad experience in a healthy, organic way and with a loving mindset that challenges are a part of life.

 

You will always have people who dislike you, so what? You will always have someone say you are wrong or immature, so what? You will always have people tell you that you are not going places because of this, that and whatever, but I am telling you all from the bottom of my heart, you have to decide to let the negatives be the best thing that has ever happened to you because at the end of the day, not only is growing from negative events you’ve encountered in life a sign of strength, but you can influence others to not give up in themselves. You are all capable of wonderful, amazing things but I promise you the first step is loving yourself, believing that a negative event will result in a life-changing outcome (which I first handedly can tell you this is what I have experienced). In addition, being kind to EVERYONE is my life goal because I know how it feels to be bullied and ignored and it is never a fun experience so do not forget that the soul is what distinguishes the beautiful from the not so beautiful, not the outward appearance.

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Now I want to finish this by adding that I started out bullied my entire K-12 years and I NEVER at the time would have pictured where I am now. I went from barely even being able to run a mile to teaching spin classes 5x a week and Troy Aikman even took spin classes at my studio. It is these moments like this that just prove that you are NOT stuck in one place. God uses environmental stresses and major events to shape you to be STRONG. This goes for everyone also not just fitness junkies because that is not what I even consider myself to be.

 

I would like this message to motivate you to see the light at the end of the tunnel because BAD TIMES DO NOT LAST FOREVER and that is the beauty of life. You will NEVER be stuck feeling sad or depressed if you go out and CHANGE that mindset! How amazing it feels to know you can grow from all of these extremely emotionally significant experiences into a new person who doesn’t allow life to bring them down.

 

Change is the most beautiful aspect of life and it brings tears to my eyes to know that we are NEVER stuck no matter what difficult experience is happening in your life, you CANNOT let it bring you down. No one in this world is perfect, no one. But if you believe in yourself and love who YOU are, then that is all that matters. And the best part about my journey in life I look at all of those times in my life where I thought the world was over and my life will never be okay, and I see how happy I am now, all because I let time take its course with the passion and drive to become a better person both with communicating with EVERYONE and by making sure people know that they are loved because that is one thing that I we could all work on.

 

Ending note, you never know what people are experiencing in life but I promise you that by giving out the same love you desire, you will never be alone, but in order to love anyone in this world, you have to truly love yourself too, however, because how could you ever love someone else if you do not know how to love yourself?