Monsters and Demons

There is never a single moment that makes your life or your story better. We are all warriors and we all have our own demons. You can never compare another person’s story to your own because none of us will ever face the monsters that hide under each others beds. We can only find strength in each other and in how we’ve beaten our demons. Every monster combined cannot beat us if we stand together and help each other through. Our team has opened our lives to share how we battled our demons so that people know that they can beat theirs too.

It isn’t that we just share strategic ways to overcome life’s battles – it’s that we let people into our story. What the students that we share with don’t realize is that their own stories of triumph impact us greatly. When they tell us about the monsters that have wreaked havoc in their lives, their strength inspires. In my opinion, it takes much more courage for a student to come up to one of us and expose their lives one-on-one than it takes for us to get on stage and tell our stories. We don’t have to look anyone in the eyes if we don’t want to, we have practiced our stories so they are spoken easily, and we don’t have to be personal with one person directly. 

After a month of being in Ontario, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, we have met students with stories of all shapes and sizes. Some students have a drug addiction or have overcome one, some have been hurt and abused by people that are suppose to love them, some have been hurt by strangers, and some are trying valiantly battle a loved one’s monster. The point is that everyone has something in their closet or under their bed that is begging for them to fall but the beauty is that they are still standing. Our goal is to help them understand that they don’t have stand alone and they won’t have to fight forever; eventually monsters discover that they were never any match for that person and they grow weak and perish.

We can find light in all our darkest situations if we open our eyes. Light, like monsters, comes in all shapes and sizes. I’d like to think of our team as a form of light. We take our days to shed light on people’s darkness and share how we fought against our own demons. We are no better or braver, just common warriors with big hearts and open ears willing to be the ones who listen to people when it feels like monsters are the only ones listening to their fears.

– Written by Hailee, LiveDifferent Academy