This is a YouTube video titled "118: Choosing Love" created on October 4, 2019. It features a personal monologue by Sam sharing insights about emotional growth, vulnerability, and the importance of choosing love despite past hardships and emotional suppression. The content is reflective and motivational, focusing on personal experiences with family, relationships, and self-improvement.
Welcome to Fit for your Mind Friday where I share an insight from me to you. Choose love. Oh my gosh, you all. For years, for years I would gag at statements like that. To me, it felt weak, it felt mushy. And look, I did not do weak or mushy. In fact, I would roll my eyes at mushrooms. And if someone would cry in front of me, I'd get super uncomfortable. I'd judge them. I'd even say, maybe you should go take a minute to compose yourself. Oh my. My gosh. In corporate America, I used to pride myself on being a solid person that knew how to let someone go because I could do it without emotion. Wow. The sad part is I attracted people in my life that live this way too. Because it made me feel right. Was I cold hearted? Yes. Now did I know it? No. You see, I thought I was just strong, cold hearted people. They're that way for a reason. You see, they were hurt badly and now they are afraid to be hurt again. You see, when I was a little girl, my dad and I loved my dad. But he would tease me when I would cry. He'd make fun of me. In fact, he used to hold a mirror up to me and say, look at the baby crying and imitate me. I can remember that. I felt like crap. He never ever told me that he loved me. Now I believe that he did. He was my dad and he was my world. And he took care of me and he did things for me. But my dad, he never ever told me he loved me. Not once, not ever. Whenever I was hurt, I learned that to show emotions was weak. So I learned to stuff them. And when my dad died when I was just 22 years old, I couldn't even shed a tear. To me, I felt I'd be disappointing my dad if I did that. Now look, I'm not mad at my dad. He did the best that he knew. When I married my first husband and I saw him standing at the altar crying, I got super uncomfortable. My gosh, I could not look him in the eyes. I remember walking down the aisle looking at him with water in his eyes, thinking, please let me cry so I can fit in. I didn't know what to do with emotions and feelings. I never showed him what he needed. No wonder he divorced me. Now what happens when you don't feel emotions and you stuff them away? Well, you sell out on life. You miss what's truly important. And your body, it holds the pain. You see, feeling is where the living is. That is love. When my daughter was born for the first time I felt an undeniable flood of emotions and love that I could not stuff and that was the first time I actually felt true love. I learned then that I would have to get uncomfortable and go deep and start to unravel the wounds and rewrite the beliefs that had me thinking otherwise. Eight years ago my husband Brooks came into my life. Now he's all love. It's taken work him being patient with me him learning to make me feel safe and me doing the work and learning to trust and feel but man was it worth it. I now know to always choose love. Now part of leveling up, part of creating everything from nothing is not ignoring the feelings. It's not ignoring the rough times it's not ignoring the emotions when you can truly feel the feels when you can truly be present in the moment when you can truly choose love and look for the good in things that's when you get to create everything from nothing and it becomes effortless. Sam.
