Bridling Fear and Reinstating Passion

All the best writers I know are the best because they take raw emotion and they take real life experiences and they craft their language in such a way that it elicits those emotions in their readers. It evokes something inside of them that makes the reader recommit time and time again to feeling more deeply, to thinking more profoundly, to loving more soulfully.  It reminds them what it is that gets their blood rushing and what it feels like when their soul starts to soar. It's anything but words on a page. It is emotion crafted so carefully and so seamlessly that it forever changes the way the reader thinks and the way he feels.

All I've ever wanted was to be one of those kinds of writers. One that has a knack for taking a ballpoint pen and an empty sheet of paper and turning it into something that changes a life, even if it is only my own.  Powerful people have literally changed the world with their words. I don't know that anything I could say would have the power to change the world, but then again, why couldn't it?

***

It was never my intention to stop writing. It just kind of...happened. The thing is, though, that it was anything but sudden.
I could blame it on a lot of things. I could say that I don't have time or that I don't have anything to write about. I could say that I lack confidence, or that once I start writing something I wonder why anyone would even want to read it. And while all of those things are at least a little bit true some of the time, that's not really it at all. What is it that stops any of us from doing the things that we love?   I guarantee that it's not our love for those things.

I would be willing to say that the number one dream crusher in this world is FEAR. Fear that we'll fail. Fear that we'll fall. Or maybe fear that we won't. People are afraid of all kinds of crazy things.
I wrote once, about my fears. An inventory of sorts, I guess. It was an assignment. An assignment to write down every single thing that I could think of that scared me.
At the end of it, I sat there with literally pages and pages of ink staring back at me, my fears suddenly tangible. And then I realized a new fear. The fear that I'd let all those other fears hold me back.  But the realization of that newest fear also led the way to literally the most freeing moment of my life.  I'll never forget how liberating it felt to expel all of that fear that my being had held captive for all those years.
And then, I started over. I woke up the next day feeling like I could conquer the world. Seriously. I think I was the happiest then that I've ever been. I'm positive that I've never felt more fearless.
Somehow, though, over the last 4-ish years, fear has crept back in, and it has done a great job of just sneaking its little self into my life...again.

So what was it that really made me stop writing? Fear for sure. Fear of feeling too vulnerable. Fear of letting my emotion seep from my fingertips. And yet, it's that emotion that I admire so much in other writers.
They say that passion should be bridled, but I have learned that it should most definitely not be suffocated.  So here I am, declaring my passion over my fear; Reminding myself after far too long that I am stronger than any of those fears.

Disclaimer: (Are these supposed to go at the beginning? oh well...) I'm super happy! Life is peachy and I am #blessed. I'm not letting go of my fears because I'm unhappy with my life. I'm letting go of my fears because I was reminded that I don't need to be afraid. All I really need is a whole lot of faith and a little natural-born passion to carry me in the right direction. Everything else will work itself out. I believe that with all my heart.

What School Never Taught Me

School has done a lot for me in my lifetime. It taught me how to be literate, it taught me to be curious and have a love of learning, it taught me how to use the alphabet in math, whether I liked it or not. It taught me about hypotheses and hypotenuses.

But there are things that school never taught me. Things that no amount of formal education could ever teach me, or prepare me to learn. And yet, they seem to be the things are absolutely the most important to learn.

Like how to be recover from a broken heart. Or how to be resilient when tragedy strikes. Or how to be empathetic. And how to love.

All those years of theorems and formulas all worth nothing in the end. Everything that is really worth learning almost always has to be learned the hard way. The painful way. The way that makes us do the most growing-- emotionally, spiritually, mentally.

By way of recent events, I was reminded of how crucial it is that we learn these lessons in life. It was nothing that school could have prepared us for, but somehow, naturally, through the course of our lives, we develop such knowledge.

Through developing personal relationships we learn about love. We learn how to love, how to be loved, and how to keep love alive.

When those relationships suffer or are strained, we learn what it's like to have a broken heart. And we learn how to recover by rekindling strong relationships, or perhaps, building new ones. And someday we hit a point where we forget how bad that broken heart once hurt.

We learn to be resilient by going through hard things. No one is immune, but we each learn in our way and time how to really be resilient to tragedy and heartache and suffering. That doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt, it just means that somehow we figure out how to bounce back anyway.

And empathy becomes a natural characteristic that we attain from the growth of the tragedies we experience in life.

Each lesson comes at a price, and it's not a cheap price either. You've heard that phrase, "You get what you pay for"? I think that's true in life as well. These lessons that life teaches us come at a high cost, but what we get in return is always worth the price, even though it may not seem like it at the beginning.

There's a scripture in the Book of Mormon that explains it so perfectly. 2 Nephi 2:11 emphasizes opposition. Somehow, when it's all said and done we realize that the price we paid to learn these painful lessons actually, in turn, gave us so much more than we could have ever imagined. When our hearts are broken, our capacity to love automatically increases. The deeper we feel sorrow, the more potential we have to also feel happiness.  And that is beautiful.

I think about the sorrow that I've seen in life, and the sorrow and heartbreak that I have seen others endure, and it is nothing if not empowering. It is inspiring to see the way that we, as human beings, have the potential to overcome, well, anything. It's amazing to see how people come together to show empathy and love when tragedies strike in the lives of others. It somehow motivates in all of us, the desire to be the best version of ourselves.

And in the process of becoming the best we can be we will probably say the wrong things, or awkwardly try to serve, or fumble back and forth with responding to the innate desires and promptings that we are given to reach out to others.

But I think that the most beautiful part of the process is the way that we all grow together, and in the end, God has promised that we will all become better and stronger because of it. And for that, I couldn't possibly be more grateful.

Let the Games Begin!!

Today in class we discussed goal setting. Then, as our challenge, the boys got to pick a goal that all of the girls had to do in the next week. And then all of us girls got to pick a goal for the boys.

[[Now, it is important that we remember that boys are mean. And stupid. And that they don't think about the consequences of their actions.]]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand continue.

So the goal that was made for the girls was to give up all social media for a week. (Wednesday to Wednesday). That means no Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest for 7 days.  Challenge accepted. But we got to get them back (:

As restitution, we challenged them to go an entire week without watching sports. None. Not on the tv. Not on the internet. No highlights. No exceptions. And to make it better, this is playoffs week! Well played, ladies.

Go team!!

Now Let the Games Begin!!!

The Gospel

The Gospel is beautiful.  It encompasses all things.  There is NOTHING that the Gospel can't do for us when we live it and when we seek for the companionship of the Holy Ghost.  Sometimes I forget that.

Sometimes I get so far gone that I forget how amazing the Gospel is.  God is great, and He reminds us.  And that's just what I needed today.  It was a rough day, and for a lot of it, I honestly felt like I had nobody to turn to.  No one to ask for help.  I wasn't miserable because of that though.  I was miserable because the principle of repentance was crashing down on me like a ton of bricks--and it was heavy.  I can definitely say that 3 hours ago, I didn't know how I was going to pull through.  I had lost hope, and Satan had gotten his hands around me.  It felt like he was choking the spirit right out of me.  I would have rather been dead.

And then Victoria came home.  She is a wondrous human being and seriously helped me so much!!! All it took was a few minutes of talking with her and I instantly felt better.  And then I read my Patriarchal Blessing.  And then I prayed.  a lot.  And then I read Helaman 5.  And now my whole perspective is changed.

It was enlightening.  Like for real.  

Suddenly, I have been reminded of how great God is.  How much He loves me.  How phenomenal & all encompassing that the Atonement is.  I have been reminded that just because we fall, it's not the end.  I have been reminded that God has so much planned for me in my life.  And I remember now that through the Atonement and with the companionship of the Holy Ghost and with the help and guidance of my Heavenly Father that I really can overcome these challenges & weaknesses and do all of the things that God has prepared for me to do.  

So much has been lifted off my shoulders.  And I have realized how blessed I am.  Even in this day where I felt like it was literally the end of the world, I have found blessings.  

And that's what this life is all about.  To notice that God is in our lives even when we do recognize that He's there.  He is there to help us stand back up when we fall.  He is there to guide our footsteps.  And He is there to remind us that when we have give up on ourselves, He hasn't given up on us and that He never will.  

God is great.  He really is.