“Get out of where the stress exists,” Brett Portelli.  I needed this reminder.  For years, nearly two decades of my life, I settled somewhere because I thought it was the safe path.  I thought it was the responsible thing to do.  I blatantly saw people try to undermine and sabotage me and I sought a position of power so I would be able to honor my voice and even exert some control at some point.      None of that worked and I realized none of that was meant for me.  There are certain environments that, for whatever reason, thrive in stress.  They thrive in pain and they seek to bring others down.  They are the energy vampires.  It’s possible to attain energy in these places but it isn’t healthy and it will always leave us wanting more.  All our lives we are inundated with a path to take and the majority follow it even if they don’t want to.  We can decide that we want to live where we create energy, not drain it from others.

We have the power to make the choice to leave the environments that don’t support our growth.  We have the power to decide what we want to do with our time and energy and how we want to create that energy.  It isn’t limited.  We just thrive in different ways from different things.  The key is to know what works for us.  Thinking we are being noble or responsible by staying in an environment that hurts us mentally, physically, or just barely helps us get by is nothing but a drain.  Someone else is thriving off of our energy and work.  Here’s the secret: we are allowed to cut ties and walk away.  It may be scary as anything unfamiliar is at first.  But that decision can be the best decision of our lives.  The day we take ownership of what we want and set the boundary for what we will and will not tolerate shifts the sail toward a bigger destiny than we thought.  Even if we can’t see the big picture, taking that first step is a huge choice. 

I also want to send this reminder that what we are told is the safe choice creates safety in a box.  It can be the most dangerous choice we make because it suffocates us while telling us it’s trying to keep us safe and protected.  It’s more dangerous when we feel the discrepancy between our thoughts/desires and our actions.  When we feel the difference between what we are capable of and what we actually spend our time doing.  It will eventually drive us mad unless we spend so much time in distraction that we forget what we ever wanted in the first place.  Don’t ever give up our desires, don’t ever stop listening to the inner voice telling us what we are capable of.  Make choices that support those dreams, those thoughts, and believe that anything is possible. It can be done.  Make the first move and look at then environment around us—if it helps us, great. If it hinders us, it’s time to consider changing it.  And if we can’t change it then we need to consider removing ourselves from it.  No one will fix it but us—we can and we are meant to.  Remove the stress or remove ourselves from it.  Move forward.