Rebalyn

ruh·beh·lyn

In the hustle and bustle of life, we often forget that there is beauty in the mundane. There is beauty in the activities like:

cooking a nice meal,

taking a long walk,

sitting on the porch with coffee, etc.

Nowadays, there is so much pressure on us to be LIVING. And by that I mean going on vacation, having extravagant experiences, or going out on the town. Something that makes people say “Wow! That girl is living an exciting life!” Social media has made it seem like you aren’t truly living unless you’re doing something unique or exclusive. Filters have become the new rose-colored glasses we wear while watering the seemingly greener patch of grass.

There is no one else who lives your life. The stories you have to tell, the experiences you’ve had in your everyday life, are not worth less because they are not showy or make others envious. The moments that truly define your life can happen under the most mundane circumstances. Now, I’d love a vacation as much as the next person, but frankly, living in survival mode makes everything more difficult and planning a vacation isn’t always financially, emotionally, or physically doable…

I spent a good decade of my life living in survival mode, and I’m only 28. That’s a huge portion of my life so far! However, once I’m old and wrinkled, these 10 years will be a blip on my radar. I don’t want to look back and think, “if I had just learned to live instead of survive; taken the risks instead of sit in comfort, I could have had a remarkable life.”

I didn’t want these last few years to define the rest of my life, so it begged the question, “how do I get out of just surviving?” I had basically let the lowest vibrational version of myself take over. My life needed a coup.

According to Google, a rebellion is defined as “the action or process of resisting authority, control, or convention.”

Who was the authority figure in this scenario? Who was controlling my life? In survival mode, the control seemed to lay in the circumstances I was given and the reactionary decisions to those circumstances is what caused me to end up here. Some decisions were good, and some I deeply regret. That’s life in a nutshell, though.

When I began to take back control of my life and make proactive instead of reactive decisions, it felt like each choice was a small act of rebellion. I felt like I was going against everything that had kept me safe and what was the “right” move based on what life had handed me so far. I started straying from the path of least resistance and felt like an imposter. Who was I to pursue a great life?

I realized the rebellious feeling was because I was finally working against the notions I had learned over a decade of navigating various traumas I didn’t have the right tools for. I was rebelling against the own convention of my life.

Naturally, I have always been the friend who challenged her own friends to live authentically and fiercely, but felt I was destined to just survive and make it through. Essentially, I thought life’s baggage would always weigh me down. So, I sought out the beauty of life in ordinary, everyday things, because I didn’t think I’d ever become extraordinary.

I have learned how to make a consistent effort to remind myself of the beauty in just existing. For anyone else constantly living in survival mode or coming out of a hard season, I want you to know you’re not alone, and hopefully together, we can learn how to set our baggage down, rebel against the conventions we have caged ourselves in, and eventually, build a life we love on our own terms.

Love and Light,

B