Cru’s Letter

Every hardship you face presents a choice…

I know it doesn’t always feel like a choice but I promise you, it is.

I remember a time when I didn’t own my life. Maybe I had “free will” as they call it, but I didn’t feel free at all.

I felt like a prisoner.

Now, from the outside, my childhood looked pretty damn solid:

A mom that would’ve done (and still does) anything for me, a family that always wanted to see me win, food on the table, a bed to sleep in, and a curious mind that I got to know really well.

I used to have the deepest conversations with myself and if you can imagine, it’s never worn off. I remember feeling like maybe I was the chosen one that would eventually be told I’m a spy or something awesome (still waiting).

My daydreams were funny but they always revolved around some kind of way out…

Why did I want to be told I was a spy?

So I didn’t have to go to school anymore. So I didn’t have to leave my mom’s side ever again.

These things scared me, you know.

Life if all kinds of fun until the very things that make you feel safe are gone.

I spent A LOT of time alone growing up and I can’t say it was the worst thing but it sure as hell wasn’t easy. It shaped the way I connect with myself and stay on my own team because, why make enemies with the person you can never get away from?

I learned to entertain myself with little sport sequences I came up with where I’d throw a ball at the wall and then dribble it to the other side of the room, kick it off the wall ten times, pick it back up, and then go dunk it on one of those door basketball hoops.

I got pretty creative with it and I started to recognize a pattern when I would come up with these games…

Every one had some kind of wager.

“If I make this shot, I’ll win a million dollars and never have to go to school again.”

It almost brings a tear to my eye to think back to these times and remember how much stress and fear was stored in my 8 year old brain that I was always “competing” for a way out of.

School was a mental jail for me which I’ve talked about plenty. It didn’t make me feel physically unsafe necessarily but it till somehow managed to make me feel like I was dying because I was stuck in a place I hated with no way to escape.

All I could think of was a way out and I never considered that “through” was even possible.

I remember thinking for so long that I would just keep living in fear unless someone saved me from the way I felt (this is where my hope came from that it was all a big set-up and the spy federation was sure to reach out soon lol).

My decision became clear after years of cowering in the face of my relationship with school.

School, however, represented something much bigger…

The part of life that you can’t always control but have to show up regardless of.

So do I:

I had sunk below plenty of times. Maybe you’ve heard my story about running away from school and if you haven’t, you will eventually but that is just one of countless times I chose option two.

My journey to rising above started with the acceptance that if I choose to let my fears own me, I’ll keep digging myself into a hole that dissolves my potential.

The way you choose to respond to hardship becomes the story that you tell yourself into over time.

I didn’t want to be owned by my fear of school but I’m honest enough to recognize that I told myself into that years-long spiral of victimhood. With every time I chose flight instead of fight, I created evidence that I’m not in charge of my own life.

When you face obstacles in life, it is your responsibility to rise above so you tell yourself into the right story. I can’t tell you exactly how to rise above in your life in this email but if my story resonates with you and you need deeper guidance with rising above, book a 1:1 coaching consult with me here.

Feel the fear flowing through your veins, feel the stress flooding your mind, and have the strength to rise above.

It’s more than okay to be intimidated by life but it’s not fair to let that intimidation own you.

-Cru