Elevation

When the universe begins to force you to elevate.... do you run or do you push through? For a while, the universe has been trying to force elevation upon me. Instead of tackling it head on and experiencing the "growing pains," I decided to run. I started running because it was more comfortable to stay where I am than to elevate and experience new heights and beginnings. Elevation occurs in many different forms. We can elevate in our jobs, school, friendships, relationships, our dreams, and more. Sometimes the comfort of routine and habits, even if they are bad for us, feel so much better than the hard work with elevation. One question I had to ask myself was, "how can I elevate, if I am always running from the unknown?"

The unknown can be such a scary place sometimes, especially if you cannot see the path in front of you. But sometimes, the path that you cannot see is the greatest choice for you. The unknown is frightening because we have no idea whats ahead. I had to learn to see the beauty behind not knowing. Here is an example from my person experiences. Growing up, I have always had abandonment issues due to the lack of my fathers love in my life. This caused me to get into an unhealthy cycle of jumping from relationship to relationship trying to seek and feel the "approval and love" from a man. Although this cycle became draining and tiring, I continued to do this for years. Being single was an unknown thing to me, I had absolutely no idea how to be alone. Heck, the thought of being alone itself used to scare me shitless.I realize now that I continued to harm myself because of my fear of the "unknown." It turned out, being single is one of the best choices I have ever made in my life. I had no idea that the path I was afraid of the most, turned out to be one of the most beautiful paths that I could ask for. As I look back, the universe was trying to force me to elevate the whole time.

Elevation requires self-love, self-reflection, and self-awareness. By practicing self-love, and creating a healthy mind, body, and spirit, we can build the self-confidence required to elevate in most areas of our life. I lacked self love for a long time, this caused me to not apply to certain jobs, to walk away from great opportunities, all because I felt like I was not good enough internally. When I started counteracting this with affirmations and self-care routines, I began to feel confident enough to step into those great opportunities. Instead of thinking of all the reasons I was not good enough, I begin to realize all the reasons why I AM good enough. But thats only one part, we have to use self-reflection to recognize the unhealthy cycles, so we can elevate out of them. Self- reflection is crucial to any type of success in this world. We have to take the time to view our inner selves, accept the good and the bad, and then proceed to change the things that we would like to become better at. Sometimes it is hard to look into that mirror, especially when we know we possess some "toxic" traits. But, this is necessary for elevation in any part of our lives. To be self-aware is to be disciplined.

Discipline is the backbone to anything that you want to accomplish in this world. For example, a lot of us want a nice body and to become healthy, but how many of us actually have the discipline to go the gym? A lot of us have a dream that we want to accomplish, but how many of us actually have the discipline to buckle down and work for what we want? I am not ashamed to say that I lack discipline in many areas of my life. Discipline, is a never ending battle. Everyday we wake up and have choices. Discipline is making the best decision for yourself, even if you absolutely do not want to. I have been dying in the gym lately, but because I have instilled discipline my overall fitness has elevated tremendously. Nobody tells you how hard discipline truly is. You have to use your self-awareness to recognize when you are lacking discipline and correct yourself accordingly. You have to push yourself so you can elevate and create a better you overall.

Elevation requires so much time, so much change, and a lot of courage. I am not here to lie to you and say that it is easy. By all means, it is one of the hardest things. We are all able to overcome the hurdle by understanding some necessary steps that are required to achieve elevation. We cant be afraid of change. You have to create self love to gain the confidence needed to elevate. We have to self-reflect to recognize the problem areas in our life and create a plan in order change them and grow. We use self-awareness to instill discipline into our lives, in order to push ourselves to success, even when we do not want to. We have to force ourselves into the unknown, even when we are afraid. We have to break unhealthy habits and cycles, so we can grow into the best version of ourselves. Elevation is not simple and it is not easy, but it is one of the best things that we can do for growth.