Inner strength is really important these days. Sometimes everything around us seems larger than we are. Changes in the weather, changes in our routines, unexpected events, responsibilities, uncertainty, and all the things we carry quietly can make an ordinary day feel much heavier than it looks from the outside.
Sometimes I wonder: how do we find the strength to pull ourselves out of bed after a day that took so much out of us? How do we wake up and do it all over again? How do we still smile, use our manners, show kindness, and remain grounded in humility when we may be dealing with our own struggles underneath it all?
Maybe we don’t give ourselves enough credit for that.
We can go through an entire day thinking about who we have become, what we haven’t accomplished, what went wrong, or something negative from our past. We can be so hard on ourselves that we forget to look at everything we have already made it through.
What about everything we have done?
What about all the moments when we didn’t think we had much left in us, but somehow kept going?
What about the days nobody knew were difficult for us?
There is strength in that.
Sometimes I think about the ocean.
The tide comes in and eventually pulls itself back out. Then it returns again. A storm can disturb it. The wind can change it. Waves can crash with incredible force and then disappear into the shore. Yet the ocean never loses what it is because one wave broke differently than the one before it.
It keeps moving.
Maybe there is something about inner strength that works the same way.
There are going to be days when we feel powerful and days when we feel like we have been pulled all the way back. There will be moments when life feels calm and others when everything seems to arrive at once.
Being pulled back does not mean we have stopped moving.
Think about a wave. Sometimes it has to move away from the shore before it can gather enough force to come forward again.
Maybe we need to remember that about ourselves.
We don’t have to be at our strongest every second to have strength within us.
There are battles we carry that will never be visible to anyone walking past us. A smile doesn’t tell someone what it took to get through the morning. Going to work doesn’t reveal what may be happening at home. Taking care of everyone else doesn’t show how tired someone may be themselves.
Sometimes the strongest thing an individual does all day looks completely ordinary to everyone else.
Getting out of bed.
Showing up.
Trying again.
Being kind when we are tired.
Starting over when something didn’t work.
Allowing ourselves to rest.
Making it through another day.
Think about how much we maneuver through every single minute without stopping to recognize it. Our minds are processing. Our hearts are feeling. Our bodies keep moving. We are remembering yesterday, handling today, and thinking about tomorrow, sometimes all at once.
Yet we continue.
That makes me wonder about how we were designed and how much strength has already been instilled within us. We have this incredible ability to adjust, feel, learn, recover, and somehow find another way forward.
And maybe inner strength doesn’t mean never feeling afraid, overwhelmed, disappointed, or tired.
You can have a difficult day and still be strong.
You can cry and still be strong.
You can need support and still be strong.
You can pull back for a while and still be moving forward.
Maybe inner strength isn’t always something we have to search for. Maybe it has been quietly working inside of us all along.
So when life makes you question how strong you are, think about the ocean.
A wave can break and still belong to an ocean that never stopped moving.
A tide can pull back and still return.
A storm can change the surface without taking away the depth underneath it.
And maybe that is something worth remembering about ourselves.
We have depth too.
We have survived our own storms.
We have been pulled backward and found our way forward again.
And even during the moments when we cannot see it, there may still be strength moving within us, just like the tide.
Keep going. Your tide is still moving.
A new day starts now.
— Cher
Inspiring Life’s Journey–cher0805