History Repeats Itself

This is something that I have struggled with my whole life. I am currently in a similar situation. Brought on by different circumstances but I have been having these same thoughts and feelings. It has been destroying my happiness and affecting my little family. I just hope I can get better at this concept and teach Eli and my other future children the importance of staying present. I wrote this 2 years ago, but boy does it still ring true for me now! I am grateful I wrote this and can read back on it, I pray that it can bring hope for you too.

                                   

“Get Out of Your Head and Live Your Life”

March 24, 2014

I am taking a Marriage and Family relations class this semester and am learning so much! Today we talked about emotional communication. In part of our discussion we talked about repairing relationships after we may have hurt someone we love. We talked about being accountable and responsible as well as forgiving. Forgive yourself to forgive others. Embrace your own humanity so we can relate to others with openness and kindness. Don’t let your own guilt get in the way. These were all points that were made. Now! Before VERY recently I struggled with this in my life. I wasn’t forgiving myself for past mistakes therefore I wasn’t forgiving others, I wasn’t realizing that those people are human too and if I wanted forgiveness I needed to forgive them, relate to the mistakes made, and be kind. I was letting my guilt get in the way! I couldn’t help but realize this connection in class.  Later, we discussed simple ways to stay present such as; Stay in the room-what do you notice around you?, check in with your body-reconnect your body in the present, focus on your breath-take 10 breaths, stay differentiated- YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS!!! Now last night I had a wonderful experience and talk with my amazing husband and some of the same things that were discussed in class today were the same things we discussed last night.

I kept applying it to one thing…THE ATONEMENT! I realized (with some help) that the last part of receiving this INFINITE gift is forgiveness on our part. After going through all the necessary steps of repentance, we must forgive ourselves and forgive others. This is probably the hardest part. I wasn’t feeling the forgiveness that I was free or forgiven by my Heavenly Father and Savior because I guess I didn’t believe I deserved it. That was a lie! I had all these thoughts in my head, all this anger, these “what if’s” and it was KILLING me. Literally ripping me apart! I felt like I wasn’t forgiven of these past mistakes because I wasn’t feeling that I was. Well, after a night full of a great husband listening and helping me I finally got it! I finally realized why I wasn’t feeling the forgiveness that I so desperately wanted! It was simply because I wasn’t forgiving myself! I was letting those “what if’s”, anger, guilt and shame fill my very being. The Lord wants nothing more for his children to be happy. to feel free. He is often more merciful than we are upon ourselves. we must forgive ourselves to free ourselves from unnecessary guilt. We must let it go!

YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS!!! When my professor said this I realized how true it is!! “We are not our thoughts” he says “That would be awful. What we sometimes think is not the person we are. Everyone has thoughts that come into our minds because we are human. We all have some strange thoughts sometimes but that is not who we are” That really hit me and I felt the strength of that truth. Now, of course if we are not careful and entertain some thoughts we get, then they can turn into words and actions but the whole point of this was to get out of our heads. Not punish ourselves for what may pop up but when they do to just come back to the present and not live inside your head. At least that’s what I got. The last point made before class ended was, notice your thoughts and let them go- Leaves on a stream. So when thoughts of unworthiness or thoughts that I know are not from God come into my mind I notice them but let them go. “Yeah I have made mistakes and I am not proud of it but that’s not who I am anymore.”

I think people tend to over exaggerate things and make up scenarios in their head that aren’t real...GUILTY... Some people may let thoughts grow and be entertained and all it brings is unhappiness...GUILTY AGAIN... I, as every other human alive, am imperfect. I make mistakes. I have sinned. I have felt regret, shame, guilt, and anger, for myself and towards others. BUT! the amazing thing is that my Savior, Jesus Christ has sunk below all things therefore I need not linger in the past. I am learning the power of forgiveness right now in my life. I am learning how to forgive myself and how to forgive others, to not hold on to my past mistakes or others past mistakes. It is definitely not easy but I can already feel the change in my life, the happiness that comes.

God is so good! I am so grateful for that tender mercy that I received today. I am so grateful that I was able to learn and expand on this truth in one of my college classes. I never thought that I would learn something so powerful or be able to relate what I was learning in one of my college classes to gospel principles. I see the Lords hand in my life and feel His immense love! What I received today was an answer to my prayers and that answer came for going to class today. Prayers are truly answered in the most unexpected ways. We are not alone and God will go to unmeasurable circumstances to make sure we know that! <3

                                       

End of Semester Madness

So it is the end of the semester!! AAAHH!! This is Brance's last semester of college! So awesome! He is definitely ready to be done. It is crazy for us though, so many projects, papers, last minute assignments, and studying for finals. ... Well for me anyway. Brance has a few but since he only has two this semester it's not too bad. We are stressing and burnt out. I just want to share a couple of the projects we have been working on this semester.

Aspen

Interactive Bulletin Board:
Here is a link to my YouTube demonstration.
This project was super fun and with the help of my genius husband, it turned out to be a success. Brance gave me the idea and I just took off with it. It was so much fun! (:

Virtual Field Trip:
We had to choose a place in our community to take "the kids"
I chose the Cedar City Library. It was so fun and I think I am going to take Eli to those awesome events in the summer! YAY LIBRARIES!

WOYC: Week of The Young Child
Okay! If you don't already know about Week of The Young Child, it is a nation wide event. For a whole week there are really awesome, fun, educational activities just for young children. It is promoting the fact that the early years really do count! SO IMPORTANT!!! 

For one of my classes we split into groups and were placed on campus to set up a table with some activities of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, ART, and Math) My contribution was Shake-it-Up paints (I got this idea off of Pinterest) A great way for kids to learn about color mixing and enjoy some art! There is a big debate about whether art should be involved in schools or not (STEM vs STEAM) .... I'm not even going to get into it here. I just have one thing to say....ART IS IMPORTANT PEOPLE!!! ;)



Brance - These aren't all for school but they are still really awesome!

Cyber Defense Competition
If you didn't already know, Brance is an awesome hacker ;) He was on the SUU Hacking team and they placed 1st in  the Regional competition and 7th in Nationals! IMPRESSIVE!!
















Yahoo!
There was also this time when Yahoo! was offering a $6,000 to anyone who could hack their new security system (this is common for sites like this to do because they want to test it out on real life hackers) Brance worked on this with one of his awesome hacking friends, Josh, and they actually cracked it ONCE!! They couldn't get it to work all the time though so they didn't win the cash, but how cool is that!?!?!?

"Project Satellite" (the code name, real name will be revealed when it is completed...stay tuned)
Right now he and some of his other really awesome programming friends are getting together to build a tool that displays stats for Halo players. It is still in the works, but believe me when I say it is going to be awesome...trust me...I've seen it (;

JOB
Not to mention that Brance does crazy awesome stuff for his work all day everyday! He's made massive changes to their website that are super awesome....and in case I haven't said it enough...its AWESOME (; He is such a hard worker! <3

As you can see we have been really busy! Brance has had an awesome college career! We can't wait for him to graduate and see what else life has in store for him. He will do great things...after all, he already has!!

WISH US LUCK WITH FINALS!!

Flash Back!!!

So in my first post I shared a link to one of the blogs that I have created in the past. Looking over it and reading my posts back then is pretty cool! I read this one that I wrote not too long after I got married. So funny that I still have these feelings sometimes and its been 2 1/2 years! I should really listen to myself....

Enjoy this flashback! 

Two Hearts, Two 

Lives, One Love

March 29, 2014

Being married is such a great way to learn. I have been so humbled as I have been married. There are things that I thought I was good or that I thought I knew and it turns out that I really don’t have a clue. There are things that I assumed every marriage is like and I have been completely wrong. I am just so grateful to have a loving and patient husband and Heavenly Father who understands and helps me learn. I know that there are plenty of lessons to be learned and boy am I glad I have a long time to learn them and to progress. I have learned that it is okay to be two separate people. I sometimes forget that we are two separate people who need to do our separate things. I used to think we needed to and expected to do everything together and that I couldn’t do what I have loved doing my whole life anymore. That sounds completely ridiculous when I say it out loud but that is what I truly thought. I sort of hated when my husband would play video games or just want to ride his freebord. I would get so upset because I hated that those things were taking away time from us and thought they meant more to him then me sometimes. Now of course that is not true! I thought that when your married you had to dedicate every waking moment to your spouse and forget about the things you used to do, boy was i relieved when i found out that wasn’t true! One day it all accumulated and I got frustrated and pretty upset because I felt/thought I could not longer do some of the things I have always done and I was missing those things, I felt I was loosing who I was and who I loved being and I just wasn’t happy. After a few great talks with my husband and Heavenly Father I have realized that I have been completely wrong and a little silly for thinking those things in the first place. I don’t have to get upset when my husband just needs to veg and play video games or go out and ride his freebord. I don’t have to feel like I can’t listen to or do certain things anymore. After all it’s two lives coming together. we’ve grown up in completely different situations. Our ways of relaxing or “vegging out” are completely different. We think differently and enjoy different things while still enjoying similar things and that is totally okay. It doesn’t mean we don’t want to spend time together or don’t love one another we can still do what we love to do and be our own person while still being one.

When I got married and pretty much my whole life, I have always had this fairy tale image of what marriage/love was supposed to be like, (Thank you romance and Disney princess movies/books….GEEZ!) but the truth is, we make our own fairy tale and the Disney/romance movies/books are just that, MOVIES/BOOKS. Of course their situations and life’s are always going to be perfect because well, its not real. Sometimes it is hard to believe but a good marriage and lasting love come with hard work and dedication. It doesn’t always just happen. I wouldn’t change a thing about how beautiful that is. I am so glad that I get to learn, grow, put in the hard work and dedication with my husband to make our family strong! There is no better gift than marriage! I am so grateful for it. I am so grateful for my loving and understanding husband who doesn’t laugh at me or think I’m crazy for the way I think sometimes. I am so very grateful to my Heavenly Father for blessing me with such a wonderful man and blessing us for the wonderful sealing power so we can be together for time and ALL eternity! With all my friends and so many people my age going on missions I often feel like maybe I should have gone. That could have been the plan for me but it was either get married or go on a mission. My love for Brance consumed me every waking moment and even in my dreams. I know I was supposed to marry him and I couldn’t risk loosing him to someone else. Everything just worked out so perfectly from how we met to when we got married to where we are now. Our whole relationship so far has been filled with this light, tenderness, and love that I cannot begin to explain. There will be other chances for me to serve the Lord and perhaps the biggest way I can do that is within my own family and community. I know those thoughts are not from God because when I look back everything just worked out so perfectly and mine and Brances relationship is something quite special! I will be forever grateful to my loving Heavenly Father for blessing me with such an incredible husband! I cannot wait to see what lies ahead for us!

                                           

Blog number.......I lost count!

Okay. So this is like the 4th blog that I have created... https://nothingquitelikeus.wordpress.com/ as you can see from this blog...I am not very good at keeping up with these things. BUT I am really going to try this time! Hopefully it will work out because I think having a family blog would be so cool! It's like an online journal! \(*0*)/

SO! I want to do a few things here:

1. Rose, Bud, Thorn

So I recently went to an amazing presentation called Mindfulness, Love & Relationships. At this specific presentation, Kristen Race talked about how to thrive not just survive. She gave many suggestions about ways to accomplish this. One of my favorites was the "game" Rose, Bud, Thorn that she plays with her kids every day. Rose is a good experience, thorn is a mistake you learned from, and bud is an act of kindness you observed or initiated. I LOVED this idea. I hope to be able to share these on our blog daily...but lets be honest, it probably wont be daily at fist. Just be patient with me as I get better at this blog thing (:

2. Family fun

We are really looking forward to the adventures coming are way, especially this summer. I hope to share those here as well.

3. Randomness

There will be a good share of randomness on here. From wacky pics to some deep stuff. ENJOY!

So yeah! There are a lot of things that I hope to put up on this family blog. As the days pass and adventure takes place, I hope to create this online journal. So come along, be a part of this adventure - laugh with us! cry with us! welcome new life with us!

LETS DO THIS THING!!