Doubt to Confidence

It is a strange realization when you realize that the love that you have for yourself is conditional.  The love that I have for myself is conditioned upon what I am able to accomplish.  If I am able to get a lot done, finish all of my goals, accomplish what I set out to do and when my life is going well and I am living up to my expectations of myself I am confident and making good and decisive choices because I love myself.  When I am not doing the above things I am not confident and I have a hard time making choices and I second guess myself.  Those are the times when I do not love myself.  If I could continue to love myself despite mistakes and setbacks then I would be able to bounce back out of those setbacks much easier.  Rather then having to prove to myself that I am worthy to be loved I could just forgive myself and move on making confident choices again.

I am shamefully a yeller.  I am fully capable of being a sane and level headed mother but when I do not love myself and when I feel guilty and when I do not love myself I also feel like others should not love me either.  I tend to want to be a grouch and distance myself from others.  I was having the worst night and unfortunately for the plate involved because it ended up shattered.  I was just yelling about everything mostly about everything that I had asked the kids to do which they had not done.  Not that my rampage was not shameful enough and of course the guilt was building up I then had the sweetest children in the world, if I do say so myself, tell me, “We love you Mom.”  What sweet spirits full of unconditional love for me.  I am humbled and learning from their sweet example to me.  Despite my rampage and the broken plate they still loved me, could I do the same thing and love myself and others unconditionally just as my kids did for me and the Savior does for us.  Through this experience I can see a glimmer of light as to what the pure love of Christ is,  It is unconditional and perfect.

Lessons in Progress:

1.)  When you feel like you are not good enough, have not done enough, and are not confident in your choices...choose to love, yourself.

2.)  "We’re not sayin' you can change him,

‘Cause people don’t really change.
We’re only saying that love's a force
That's powerful and strange.
People make bad choices if they’re mad,
Or scared, or stressed.
Throw a little love their way.

Throw a little love their way.
And you’ll bring out their best...

...Father!
Sister!
Brother!
We need each other to raise

Us up and round us out." (Wilson, Frozen, 2013)

Love can change how we treat ourselves, others, and become vulnerable to others.

3.)  Getting hurt is just apart of life we are going to disappoint ourselves and those we love but love, forgiveness, and trust are what we are learning and unconditional love can help pull this off.

The Thing I Could Do Without

I have been torturing myself with worry my whole life.  Mostly worry about what others think about me.  I went through a long time where I lost myself and became someone I didn't like, because I worried about what others thought.  I have really been working hard on finding myself and happiness and I am finding it slowly but surely!  I have many wonderful friends and family and professionals :) that have been helping me. Loosing myself in service and love towards others makes a huge difference it is really amazing how we can find ourselves through service.

 I am a passionate, assertive, friendly, outgoing, sensitive, and goal oriented person.  Sometimes in my passion for the ideas that I have and the strong love that I have for my family I can be outspoken.  I wish that people would form their opinions about you based on what they know of you and not what they hear.  I have been spoken badly about and I had such a negative response from others who thought they knew me and tried to defend themselves.  I am not judging anyone I am not accusing anyone I just want to be able to walk in the school where my children are and feel welcome and not be judged and be able to have open and honest conversations. I want to collaborate and communicate on level ground.  The frustrating part for me is that I worked so hard to try and make the school more safe not only for my kids but for so many other kids that were struggling and the other families get to benefit and I get to take the heat and judgement.  I feel like why did I speak up for everyone else when I am the only one who gets judged for this and did not receive support.  Why did I do this for others I feel like my kids are actually jeopardized because of me speaking up.  So why help the student body when it hurts my kids.  The worst part is to be judged by someone you do not even know.  I want to just go explain myself and make people understand the pain I was going through and the frustration of trying to help everyone on my own.  I just want to be done with the parent committee at school if all it is gong to do is jeopardize my personal relationships and my kids relationships in order to help the student body.

To make matters worse my husband lost his job and the rumors people are spreading are just vicious!!! I am very angry at the people starting such rumors and spreading them.  You can tell that people who used to be friendly to you are no longer friendly.  Or when friends ignore you and be cold it is hard not to be angry about the rumors when the rumors change your life and how people treat you.

I just read a wonderful talk by President Hinckley and one of the stories he talked about was a Mayor who was falsely accused of stealing something.  He spent the rest if his life defending himself to others and even in his death bed he was exclaiming that he hadn't done it.  How sad to live your life defending your honor.  The talk is here.

Lessons in progress:

I may not be able to change what others say about me and I'm not going to be able to change how others treat me because of it.  But I don't have to change me to fit what they think and I don't have to try and convince them that I'm not who they think I am.  All I have to do "is nothing" but be myself.  And if I loose friends over this then I guess they aren't truly friends.  If people cannot change their opinion of me after seeing how kind and compassionate I am, then I cannot do anything more about it.

I can still be me and be passionate and say how I feel in a respectful way and the part that I can get rid of is.... The worry about what others think about me.   I'm not changing me again so I better just stop worrying about what others think.

Release control and do my part and that is all I can do.

Forgive and remove the anger.

Photograph by Tenika

Thanks to my husband, family, and friends and teachers who support me through these hard times!

One pumpkin

My husband got out the fall decorations for me and the girls were just having a ball putting them up. It's so cute that they love to decorate and I have to let go of my obsessive behavior and let them just do it!  They did and it looks very nice :) I'm proud of them!

Anyway that really isn't the point of the story, as the box opened I was reminded of the box that I opened a couple years ago.  The moldy box!  Judge if you may but I had no idea that a gourd was a living vegetable I thought it was more like Indian corn, dried out and non perishable.  As you may have guessed by now I put it in the box with the rest of the fall decorations.  One little small baby pumpkin and a year later, the box was opened to a very moldy box and a whole bunch of ruined fall decorations.  Needless to say that I was very disappointed especially over my wooden pumpkin decoration that was ruined.  Okay now I have a point.  It just made me think about life, and about how one little or big thing can ruin the whole box.

Lessons in progress:

1) If we focus on the bad and let it sit and fester it will ruin all the good too.

2) Focusing on the positive won't necessarily remove the bad but it will help  you see that there is more good then bad.

3) When the bad seems to overwhelm the good look under the mold do some cleaning, move on, and make it work.

To Dream or not to Dream

Sometimes life just doesn't turn out the way we dreamed it to be or the way that our heart was set out on and sometimes we just have to trust that The Lord had given us another path that may be a lot better then the path that we had pictured.

Life's Disappointments:

We are so excited to have another little baby come and join our wonderful family.  We have felt blessed ever since we found out about this new little one.  We knew that we were walking in the steps that our Heavenly Father had planned for us.  Everything was just falling into place for us.  When we decided to have another baby we also found our first home that fit our family and that we were able to afford...which was looking almost impossible prior to this.  Additional income for the family also presented itself and was a blessing.

     

So I'm guessing you're wondering where the disappointment came in.  Ever since I was a little girl I had pictured being a mom and I had imagined having boys grow up in my family.  Part of my personality is to include details.  In fact, I had the exact family and the exact home down to the decorations pictured out and how my yard would look...etc.etc.  My husband and I have three beautiful little girls and are having what is most likely our last baby.  The ultrasound day came and we found out the gender of our baby....another girl.  Neither my husband or I were surprised.  A rush of feelings swarm us both.  Of course we will love this little baby and we know that we have a loving Heavenly Father who gives us what we need and that he knows what is best for us and our family.  I tried to pretend that it didn't bother me at first knowing that I would love this baby as I love all my children and the thought of being disappointed about a wonderful life coming into the world broke my heart.  So I wanted to pretend I didn't care what gender of baby I had.  As I listened to my husband poor out his heart of father and son outings that he would not be invited to and football games that he would never see his son play in my heart felt for him.  I realized that my dream had also been broken, of course I cried though.  He was glad that I cried first so that he didn't have to. :)  I quit frankly was mad at Heavenly Father for doing this.  I know he has a good reason but what the reason is I do not understand at this point.  I have often found myself wondering, "Why do I dream?" "Why do I care about what I have and what I don't have?" "Why do I try or hope?"  I have a hard time letting go of these dreams that I pictured in my mind as a child.  And perhaps they were my escape from any pain that I felt, they were my happy future that I so longed for as a child.  I cling so desperately to these exact dreams that when they fail I feel as if I have failed and my happy future is somehow gone never to return.  What I'm learning is that dreams must change not stop.  I may never have a baby boy but that doesn't mean I have to stop dreaming.  I may never have my own personal swimming pool, and I may never have some of the dreams that I've dreamed.  Just because I haven't been given my version of happiness doesn't mean that I won't have another version of happiness.  When we cling to dreams that won't happen I think it makes a person angry.  I could be angry the rest of my life for not getting what I want and what I think I deserve or I could take what I am given and be grateful for it and embrace it and make a new dream.  Dreams give us hope, dreams help us grow.  I can't control everything.  All I can do is figure out why was I given a family like my family growing up and why was I given a second chance.  What is my special plan and mission and how can I continue to dream and to find my happy place now.  

I'm not going to lie I am going to be disappointed when I think about it for awhile.  It's best for me to be disappointed now and to deal with the emotion so that I will be ready and happy and excited when she comes.  There are a many great things in my life and there are a many great things to look forward to with a new baby coming whom I am going to love and who is going to be a wonderful addition to our family.  Each child is different in their own way.  I'm not going to have the child that I want them to be no matter what gender of child I get.  My job is to love them and nourish them and help them learn and grow and learn and develop who they are.  

Now I just have to find some new dreams.  Good bye old dreams and hello new dreams.  Can't wait to meet my new baby girl!

Lessons in Progress:

1.)  Prayers that feel unanswered are only answered in a way that we can't see now.

2.)  Dream big, try hard, fail hard, dream again, try again, fail again and keep going.

3.)  Don't hold on to pride, admit disappointment.  

4.) Don't let lost dreams create anger, let go and make new dreams.  (they may not be as bad as they seem :)

5.)  Give thanks for what I have been given!

Happy Thanksgiving All!!!

Photo By Tenika

Sick

So much for managing the Halloween Candy like I had hoped.  The girls took their bags and hid under their fort and ate goodness knows how much candy today.  I did find out how much late tonight when my four year old came in my room saying, "I'm sorry mom I didn't know I was going to throw up."  I had a nice and patient response and I was really trying hard to hold it together.  Until I went in the room smelled it and saw it.  I quickly got to work after the dread of the moment had passed.  I gathered sheets and cleaners and rags and took things to the washing machine to start the laundry all the way trying to hold in my frustration of the moment and not to mention the throwing up that my body so  wanted to do itself.  It wasn't until I remembered that I didn't have any laundry soap and that making it was on my list of to do's for tomorrow that I had a total meltdown.  I guess I should explain that not only was I up in the middle of the night cleaning up puck with no laundry soap I was also sick myself.  I've been sick with a cough and it will just not go away.  I had it for two weeks and then I was better and then it came back, argh!!  So it had taken me awhile to fall asleep in the first place and I haven't been sleeping very well for who knows how long since the coughing and when you are sleeping well and get woken up after not sleeping well you are already on edge.  The smell of the throw up was just unbearable and since I'm pregnant it seemed to be amplified by ten and I'm surprised I didn't loose it myself.  Anyway moving on...so I guess now after writing this I could see why I might have a meltdown after all this on top of being tired and sick myself.  I gave in and lay on the laundry room floor in tears and whaling like a baby.  I must have been loud because my husband woke up and came asking what he could do to help.  I however could not respond because well I was too busy whaling and moping and feeling sorry for myself to answer.  Anyway in the end I made some laundry soap and my hubby helped clean up the mess and the child and everyone else is sleeping happily in their clean beds while I lay here awake, hence the blogging at this hour.  The coughs once again are keeping me up.

I guess on the positive note I will be able to find a lesson somewhere in this experience.  Not really what I want but I'm learning that what I want isn't always what's best.  I feel frustrated that when I need something it is nearly impossible to get it.  And I'm finding myself asking, "Why is it if I need it and it will help me had Heavenly Father made it so I can't have it."  Like now I'm sick and I need rest to get better but it is nearly impossible to get it.  Why is it that I am told to be patient but I'm given hormones and sickness and no sleep all at once making it almost impossible to have it.  Well the reality is that I don't know why and I probably won't know why for sure until I die.  So what I do know though is that I'm not here to do this on my own.  Or at least that's the way it is intended.  Heavenly Father never said it would be easy he only said it would be worth it.  So keep looking up and keep looking ahead and keep going and making progress.  We have been given hope through the atonement of Jesus Christ and we have been given other people in our life.  Sometimes I really try hard to push them away because I don't want to admit that I'm to the point of a meltdown on the laundry room floor.  I'm glad that my hubby was around to help too.  I also have lot's of wonderful friends and family that offer support.  A blessing I've gotten is to reread a conference talk that I love that reminds me to "Look up.”

Lessons in progress:

1.) When you don't understand why just trust.  Trust that even though it's not what you want it's gotta be what The Lord wants.

2.)  Don't push people away, they are our angels on earth.

3.)  Recognize that it is hard and that I am going to mess up more times then I get it right and that there is hope in the Atonement.

4.)  When I can't sleep it’s okay there are things that need to be done anyway.  So don't stress it just makes it worse.

5.) It is the small things that we do everyday that make a big difference.  Like small coping skills like writing and breathing and meditating and healthy foods......

Bravery

Sometimes it takes just one person to stand up and say something isn't right.  Sometimes it takes a lot more than that.

I went for a walk down by the river and I saw a lot of beautiful things.  It always clears my head to be out in nature.  Even though I may not be the one to change the world...one small step for change and one small step for progress is a great accomplishment.

Lessons in progress:

1.) There is a lot of work to be done and the best I can do is one small step at a time!

2.) I cannot always change others or events by what I say or do so I must remember that change does not reflect effort.

3.) The world is a much bigger place then me, there is much more out there then my small little corner.  Looking at the bigger picture helps open your mind to so many possibilities and much gratitude.

Accept Defeat

When things go wrong and there is nothing more that you can do to fix it then sometimes it is time to accept defeat and keep moving forward.

The Necklaces

My girls got necklaces this year for Easter. They had pendant fairies on them with tiny jars of fairy dust. I knew the girls would love them and they did. They put them on right away and took great care of them. The next day one of my daughters had her jar of glitter in her mouth and was kind of chewing on it. And it breaks and fairy dust, aka glitter, goes everywhere including all over her mouth. I would be upset and could tell that she was but she was hiding it from us very well. I took her upstairs to get away from everyone and to clean the glitter off of her tongue and make sure that she didn't get cut. I asked her if she was sad about her necklace and immediately the wall she had up fell and the tears began to fall. "I'm really sad mom." And even though it was just a thing and maybe doesn't mean much to me I felt for her. I felt bad knowing that she tried to have a strong face because she knew that she really shouldn't have had that necklace in her mouth. It was her fault. So she should pretend like it doesn't bother her? It was okay for her to be upset I understood how she felt and I held her and let her cry and let her be disappointed. I had a friend who told me they were having another baby really close to another baby they had and she said, "I know it was my choice but I still want to be able to have feelings and share feelings when things get hard, because I know they will."

Within minutes of the first incident my other daughter tripped and fell and saved herself from falling into the entertainment stand but as she did her new necklace flung forward and hit the entertainment stand and broke. She didn't notice until later when one if her sisters saw the glitter on the ground and told her. She was sad and felt bad that her new necklace was ruined.

Later that same day the daughter with the only left jar of fairy dust didn't want to give me her necklace because she was afraid I would break or loose it. She promised herself that she wouldn't let hers break, so she put it in her coat pocket when we got ready to go swimming. When I left the house and saw the coats sitting by the front door I thought I better bring them because even though they weren't needed now, on this early spring day, they would need them when it was dark and cold and they were wet leaving the pool. So I grabbed the coats. Later, when my daughter realized I brought the coats she looked for her necklace and couldn't find it she had thoughts of a lost and broken necklace and worried about it until we got home. Luckily, we found the necklace on the porch outside the front door but unluckily the necklace had been stepped on and her glass jar was broken and there was glitter all over the porch. She was devastated. She was sad that her new necklace was broken but more then that she was upset that she had broken her promise to herself. I gave her hugs and understood why she was so upset. I hated breaking promises to myself and others.

I was also upset with myself for giving them such a breakable gift. I thought that they were tough jars but I was mistaken. I also thought they would just love them. Well, they did love them enough that they were so upset that they were broken. I felt like I set them up to fail and that wasn't my intention at all. I could easily find other jars of fairy dust to give them to replace the broken jars but sometimes it is just best to accept my mistake and move on. There were some great lessons we learned from the jars of magic glitter we sprinkled about:

Lessons In Progress:

1.) Even though it may be your fault that something bad has happened it doesn't mean that you are not allowed to have feelings about it.

2.) When something you love gets ruined or broken or lost its okay to be upset about it.

3.) When your kids or others feel upset about something that you wouldn't be upset about. Find a situation in which you felt the same way they are feeling and your heart will melt!

4.) Because I wasn't angry with the kids I was able to help them and see their side.

5.) When you don't end up doing something that you said you would do, despite your best efforts, it doesn't mean that you are a bad person or that you are a failure. It doesn't mean that you should stop trying or that you aren't able to do something that you put your mind to, it doesn't mean that you don't have integrity. It means that sometimes things go the way we want or try but most of the time they don't. There is something better in-store for us and we must trust and accept that we don't always control everything and that things will work out for us.

6.) Trying to go back in time and fix things won't work. Accept that you make bad choices sometimes and just move on. You can't always get back what is lost.

7.) Its good that we don't have to worry about making up for what is lost because the savior makes up what we can't do. He knows those struggles we are going through and even when we mess up he is willing to put his arms around us and let us cry.

It never ends

 

So I spent days and weeks working on this post and then when I finally posted it none of my typing was on it so now here is goes again typing it all again a perfect Segway into my thoughts on this topic...

 

 

I'm a goal oriented person.  Goals motivate, activate, and create a sense of accomplishment when I finish them.  I love that feeling when I complete a goal or check something off my TO DO list.  "Yes, I'm finished, I did it!"  As I think about finishing a task it makes me also think about how tasks and goals never end and they just keep going and life just keeps going and there really isn't an end at all because our work just starts again...

 

 Housework....This is one of those obvious tasks in life that simply never end.  The moment you think the laundry is done someone's dirty underwear is in the hamper.  The minute you finish the dishes someone needs a drink.  And it's inevitable that the rest of the house gets dirty and just needs cleaned over and over.

 

 Trials...We always have them it's a fact of like.  Fortunately there is relief from a trial and then unfortunately we get another one and the cycle just keeps repeating itself.  I'm grateful for the knowledge that God doesn't give me trials that I cannot handle.

 

 Emotions...These also never end.  Wouldn't it be nice if once we felt them and then they'd just go away and we'd be done with them.  That's what I like to pretend I can do, it doesn't work because they come anyway.  When something particularly painful happens those emotions come back really often for awhile when we think about what happened or when something happens to remind us of the event.  And we have to work through them again and again it gets easier and once we keep on going life gets easier.  Emotions are a good thing they give us information.  When I feel something I've started asking myself, "What does this tell me about myself and what I believe." Instead of, "Oh goodness I've already felt that just go away please."  It's a lot more helpful.

 

 Forgiveness...When we are forgiving someone it happens this way too, we don't just say that we've forgiven someone and then forget about it.  When we feel angry about it again we forgive again it's a process.

 

 Life...Like the wreath above our life keeps going.  Because of Heavenly Father's Plan for us we can also have eternal life and that can give us peace, joy, and hope in the journey.

 

Lessons in Progress:

 

1.)  Don't give up, Keep going!

 

2.) Enjoy the Journey!

 

3.) Once I reach a goal, make more.

This too shall pass

Sometimes I get so engrossed in what is going on especially when it's pain and that most always turns into anxiety for me because I usually don't deal well with it so I try to push it away and then well... Let me put it this way...

Beach ball..
If you push a beach ball under the water and let go of it, it will bust up out of the water. Well the farther down you push the beach ball the bigger the burst is when you let go of it. Also it is inevitable that the ball will come up sooner or later. The less you push it down the more you can control it when you do let it out. So the beach ball could represent our feelings and not only that our reaction to the feelings. The more i push them in the more anxious I become when they are underneath. I am denying myself something that is mine and the anxiety and pain take over. I can manage it much better if I deal with the pain right away and except that I'm just an emotional person.

When I let the pain grow it seems more and more impossible to get rid of it and then add the anxiety on top of sadness/ anger making it feel hopeless. Every possible solution I can come up with to help isn't working and I'm just feeling terrible. And have tunnel vision.... So something's that have helped me when I can muster up the will when I feel so bad...

1) talk to someone... Someone else can help put your pain or problem into perspective and give you empathy or help...(I find myself avoiding this at all costs as to not bother someone, which is not good I need to change the way I think about this)

2) do something that directly relates to the issue.... Deal with it before moving onto chores or activities because what happens to me is that since the beach ball is still under the water and a simple thing goes wrong the eruption happens at that and not about the issue... Like if I'm playing candy land with my kids and they start arguing I won't be patient in dealing with it... If I do chores or watch tv I'm not thinking about my problem and I'm avoiding it and I can't fully enjoy what I'm doing. So deal first... i.e. - write about it - forgive someone - pray - cry - exercise (dance) - breath and think. Identify what happened (action), then what the thought was, and then What was the feeling associated with the thought because thought = feeling

3) think about the bigger picture...realize that whatever situation I am in does not last forever...there is opposition in all things there must be bad if there is good... an eternal perspective of heavenly fathers plan can give me hope and clarity

4) try thinking of someone else who might need help. helping someone else can get us to stop throwing ourselves a pitty party!

Make it harder and harder

Why do we need to make things harder and harder on ourselves. Sometimes the best solutions are simple. Why so many regulations? Let the people govern themselves kind of thing.

School safety

Kids at our school are going home the wrong way multiple times. And I feel like the school feels that this safety issue is important but that they are making it way to complicated to fix it. They've come up with travel tags, and now they are going to color code them per bus. And the teachers have to read each students travel tag every day after school and sometimes they just don't and the bus drivers just don't always check them either. So the kids have to have a note to ride a different bus unless its for an activity and then they can just have it on their travel tag and then they don't have to have a note even though its a different bus from their regular bus. And if their travel tag isn't updated then they "will most likely be in the office," so I guess that's only if they think they know where you might be going or if your 5 year old "remembers" the right day if the week and where they are supposed to go. And even though the travel tags have a place to write down if it is the standard travel plan (or normal way they get home) for the week or they can put down the week that the travel plan should be for.  Apparently we still can't figure out if its the right travel plan or not because we can't hold parents responsible for updating the plans even thought we should really just say, "if you don't have a note you go home the way you are supposed to." Hey I lived in a much bigger city growing up and if you didn't have a note you road the bus that you were on the list to ride or walked home or got picked up like you were supposed too, simple as that.

The more ways they try to regulate it the more it's going to go wrong.  The more opportunity for them too.

My oppinion is send kids home the way they are supposed to go home even if they are kicking and screaming and then if it's wrong guess what the parent is either going to write a note like they are supposed to or if you are using travel tags they will have them updated simple as that.

Lessons in progress:

1.) I control me and not others I can only change me.

2.) The more we over think things and over do things the worse it gets. I know that so I'm going to stop thinking about this and just control me and my kids and try to relax.

3.)If at first you don't succeed try try again.  I tried voicing my oppinions about this but got the smack down.  As important of an issue as school safety it is not one that I can see myself keeping quite about.


What do you think? How do your kids get home or to daycare or activities safely after school? How many times have your kids or someone you know went to the wrong place after school in your school district? Is this a bigger problem than I imagine?