Shine

Marianne Williamson said, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you to not be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates other."

For some reason, there is shame in being fabulous. There is shame in believing that simply because we are children of God, we are divine. There is shame in being grateful and confident with our bodies, our minds, and our hearts. Why is that? We can't possibly fulfill our roles on this earth - the ones God has entrusted us with - if we believe that we are anything less than divine. (Dear Me, Take note. I'm talking to you! Sincerely, Me) Because we are His children, and because we are divine, we CAN fulfill the purposes we are here to fulfill. We are fabulous, like really fabulous. We are beautiful, each of us in our own unique way. Our bodies are ours to help us fulfill our purposes. So, let's go do it. Let's shine.

I am done posting about my lessons learned from the incredible Holly Bowerman. She has inspired me. She spoke the words I have felt. She reminded me that we all live lives of hurt, frustration, fear, embarrassment, failure, and falls. But, we all have the opportunity (and responsibility) to get up and shine on. I have decided to write a book. I hope you will support me on this journey. Loves. XOXO

Feel It

"You have to process your emotions and you have to feel them if you ever truly want to let them go," Holly Bowerman.

So often we try to make our feelings go away. It sucks to hurt. It sucks to be angry. It sucks to be embarrassed. Why would any of us want to feel those emotions for any longer than absolutely necessary, like 5.3 seconds?!?!I don't have a great answer for you, other than to say that it is important to feel them. It's important to honor those feelings. If you are angry, be angry. Then let it go. If you are scared, be scared. Then let it go. My mom used to tell us that if we needed to go in the backyard and break old dishes so that we could get our anger out - to do it. I was never too good at this. In my very recent past, if I had emotions that were hard to deal with, I would stop eating. Like, completely stop eating. It was something I had control over. When I was admitted to the hospital six years ago, I weighed 103 pounds. THAT is not okay.

Now, when I am sad I cry my eyes out. I cry and cry. Then, I might text Miss Birdie and tell her that I need a reminder. That is a "life vest" that I was told I had when I was inpatient. If I can't quite pull it together after I have felt then I throw out up my white flag and ask for a life vest. If I am angry, I let myself be angry. I write a letter to whomever or whatever I am angry at or with. I usually DON'T send that letter because it's NOT nice. But I write it down. I write it all down. I sign it, then I either put it away or I throw it away. That is how I deal with my anger. Usually if I'm embarrassed, I laugh about it. Because someday it WILL be funny even if it's not today.

It's so important to understand our emotions, to figure out where they are coming from and to honor them. Then, it's important to move forward. If we don't honor our emotions, then they will come back in a very ugly manner. Let yourself feel them, then say goodbye to them and move on.

Why Do I Keep Doing Stupid Stuff?

Holly Bowerman talks about a voice in her head (which I've always heard in my own head) that says, "Have you not noticed that those don't work for you? Why do you think going back to that will give you a different result?" Isn't that a great question?!?! My head asks me that all the time, then I just tend to go right ahead and do it anyways. I totally know what the result is going to be. At least I've got that going for me!

So what do I need to do to knock this stuff off? Oh, maybe listen to the voice in my head that tells me I'm going back down the trail that led me to no good? That sounds like a great idea! One of the MANY great things I learned while being inpatient was that I have triggers. We all do. I didn't even know what a trigger was until I was inpatient. We have triggers, which means that if we know what they are we can do our best to avoid them. For instance, if coffee triggers an anxiety attack for me then I would want to avoid coffee. Or, if being in the sun for 30 minutes triggers a sun burn, I would want to avoid being in the sun for 30 minutes. It's actually pretty simple if you think about it. However, when life is a trigger it makes it a little harder to avoid life. But I can sure try.

I love the saying below. The past really is the past. We need to learn from it, then we need to let it go. When I was in counseling 12 years ago, or so, my therapist had me do an exercise. She had me right now everything I had been told by my ex-husband and everyone else who had kept me pretty much in the gutter with their words. I wrote it all down on three pieces of paper. Well, three notebooks of paper. I wrote it all and it was so painful. Then she had me put one in the garbage disposal at the counseling center. The second one I flushed down the toilet. The third one we lit on fire in the parking lot. Obviously the symbolism of these exercises was that they were gone. They were no longer there. My mind didn't need to go there anymore because there was no where to go. It was powerful, but unfortunately my mind didn't make the connection that they were gone. Perhaps my mind didn't make that connection because I didn't exercise it enough. I didn't do exercises that kept those things at bay. I LET them keep coming back and continued to seek after people or activities who fed me with the same garbage. I made choices that just intensified the feelings of no worth, of self harm, of hatred toward myself.

At some point, I have to stop doing stupid stuff. I'm getting there. I'm not quite there, but I'm trying. I'm aware and I'm trying.

Heaven In Hell

Holly Bowerman, in "Say What You Need To Say," said, "Life isn't so much finding heaven or hell, rather life is about finding heaven while in the middle of hell."

Guess what People? I've been in Hell. It isn't pretty. Funny story: when I was a Beehive in Young Women's we had a combined activity. That means all of the youth aged 12-18 participated. All of us received plane tickets (fake, obviously) and met at the church on a Wednesday night with our tickets. We all boarded a "plane," which was the area between the Chapel and the cultural hall (gym). It was partitioned off and it was set up like an airplane. We were all sitting there, pretending to take-off, listening to the fake pilot. Then the lights went on and off and there were horrible loud noises that I still remember almost 30 years later. We had "crashed."

We were all split up and escorted to different rooms. First, I went to the Telestial Kingdom room. It was one of the scariest places I have ever been in my life. Even though we were still in the church, it felt nothing like it. I, among everyone else in there, was crying and trying to get out. It was a horrible feeling. After they shook us up to the point of being hysterical, they informed us they had made a mistake and escorted us to a different room. The lights were out, but the dim light from outside was coming through the windows. There were tennis rackets on the walls. The people in there were dressed casually. There was some music playing, but not too loud. It was a far cry from the first room, which to me was absolute Hell. We were told that we couldn't go see our families, but that if they wanted, they could come see us. This was the Terrestial Kingdom Room. I seriously wanted to go home. Then, someone came in and told us that they made another mistake and told us to follow them. They escorted us to the Chapel, which was fully lit. There were gorgeous white flowers. Hymns were being played on the organ. And, every single one of our parents or grandparents who were temple recommend holders were there, in their temple clothes. It was the most amazing feeling. Everyone was crying. We had made it to the Celestial Kingdom. I never wanted to be anywhere else.

Life is so similar! I have found myself in Hell on far more occasions than I wish to admit. Sometimes, we have to find glimpses of Heaven while we feel like we are in a living hell. We have to find the strength to look for tender mercies. We have to find the strength to find light in the midst of utter darkness.

"We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing." It's true. Once the pain of staying in something or with someone or at some place becomes too great, we finally decide to change. What if that change took place before the pain had such a lasting impact? That's something I'm still working on.

Choices

In "Say What You Need To Say," Holly Bowerman speaks of the addictions and choices that her mom made and how those affected her. She says, "It felt like she was choosing gambling and Jon over me."

Although my experiences haven't been that of my mom choosing gambling over me, my experiences have been such that I have often felt that someone I loved and was committed to chose other people or things over me and I have blamed myself for that over and over again. I should have been prettier, skinnier, more sexy, more fun, less stressed, smarter, a better lover, etc. etc. etc. I should have been someone I'm not so that they would want me, and only me.

Holly says, "It feels so personal. I found myself asking,'If she loved me, she wouldn't do this.' The pain from the rejection is hard to describe to other people... I would later understand that I wasn't too far off base when I thought it was personal. However what made it personal was the attack on themselves, not me."

I have finally hit a place in my own life where I get this. Holly said, "At the core of addiction is a lack of self-love and acceptance." I will add to that this: At the core of addiction or consistent poor choices is a lack of self-love and acceptance. It's not about me and what I am lacking. It's about making a personal choice to do what you ought not be doing.

Now, having said that this girl aint perfect!! I have a lot of things that I need to work on to be a better spouse and mom. A lot. Like, a lot. But, others' poor choices aren't on me. It's on them.

Angels

I have said many times that I have no doubt that we are God's children and that so often we are absolutely surrounded by those on the other side of the veil. In "Say What You Need to Say," Holly says the following:
"I have often marveled at how we know that God's children are as countless as the sands of the sea, yet there have been times I was certain, because of how He answered my prayers, that I was His only child. I remember very clearly having the feeling of being stronger than I should have been... I was being held up by a power stronger than my own and beyond what I could see with my mortal eyes. I sensed being aware, for the first time in my life, that angels were close by and were there to strengthen me."

Oh, how I believe this and how I second everything Holly said. There have been too many times for me to count where I look back on my life and see that clearly, and so obviously, I was strengthened and carried by those who were sent to lift me. Some of these people have been angels on earth. Others have been angels on the other side of the veil. But, regardless I have been the recipient of those blessings over and over and over again. We are NEVER alone. Ever.

I love the instruction that we often get to "Pray to see the tender mercies in our lives." They are there. We just need eyes to see them and hearts to feel them. We just need to ask.

Yesterday, my Jackson had a rotten - no good - very bad day. He called me at lunchtime crying. He said he needed his mom and he wanted to go home. I picked him up and took him home. I told him that he could spend the rest of the day/night crying and being sad and upset and scared and angry. I said a prayer that God would hold him in the hollow of His hands. Then I told him that this morning, he would get up and hold his head high. He would walk tall and do what was expected of him today. I told him I loved him and that I would always, always be here for him, but that sometimes we need to take the first step to keep going. I reminded him that Heavenly Father would be with him if he asked.

I have no question that if Jackson asked in faith, he will be surrounded by angels today.

Honesty

Last Saturday, I had the honor of sitting with my sweet friend, Kristin, at a wrestling tournament. I needed her terribly badly that day. As we talked, she introduced me to a website and a book, "Say What You Need to Say," by Holly Bowerman. I STRONGLY recommend this book. If you'd like to borrow my copy, let me know! I'll send it right over! It's worth the read, and worth the lessons that can be learned from it.

Today, I want to blog about what she said about honesty.

"There is no truth I can't handle, but dishonesty destroys and hurts like nothing else I have ever experienced."

There have been so many times in my life when I felt like I was living a lie. Some of those have been because of my own choices and others were because of others' choices. My first committed relationship - after 10 months, I learned that this person was not at all the person he had told everyone he was. Awesome. So, in my mind, my life was a complete lie for 10 months. I didn't know how to recover from that. My first marriage, I knew exactly what I was getting myself into. I had marks on my body long before I said, "I do." I just didn't think I deserved any better. (I hate the word deserved) I defined myself as someone else's used garbage. I had to take what I could get. The marriage was exactly what I knew it would be, except that my children were being hurt too. My second marriage, I fully believed I was making the right decision. I went through months of therapy and I was "good." Hardly. I had done everything to hurt myself. I had given my body to anyone who wanted it. I drank away my fears, anger, sadness, depression, feelings of failure. I was living my own lie. So, when I got married and later realized that he had been sleeping with my "best friend" for the entire relationship, I once again realized that the entire time frame was a lie. He wasn't at all what he was supposed to be. I was living a life that I thought was one thing, yet it was none of that. So, why not get married a third time?!?! There have been huge hurdles in my current marriage, some that have seemed insurmountable and like there was no way to survive. We are still working at it, but honesty has to be paramount. I finally believe that I CAN handle the truth. I WANT the truth. Tell me exactly what is happening so that I am not living a lie. Nothing destroys or hurts like lies. I can handle it. Give me the option of making decisions based on facts. Let me make educated decisions for myself and my children.

I am stronger than you think I am.