You. Are. Enough.

Some times life gets so busy and we get caught up in the rush of getting as many things done as possible...and we forget moments like these: As a child I used to relish in getting lost in nature, wandering off on my own, taking in the smells that carried through the orchards behind my house, taking in Gods final masterpiece of the day, admiring the grandeur and glory of billions of billions of twinkling lights dancing across the night sky, noticing the shapes and the movements of the clouds, all the while taking a moment to contemplate life, commune with my Creator, wrestle through heartaches, or work through things that were saying me down, dreaming up dreams, giving those dreams to the universe. As I'm sitting here looking over this lake at the last rays of sunlight, I realize that for the past 10 years of my life I've been so caught up with the hustle and bustle of making it, living it, doing it, surviving it, that I forgot to take moments like these to really feed myself...to remind myself that all of the things that lay deep inside are what make me enough—my story, my life, my successes, my failures. I. AM. ENOUGH. Society deems being enough as constantly going, doing, hustling, striving, perfecting oneself—changing as a chameleon would, in other words, to fit in with what our environment says is acceptable. No matter how many promotions we get, no matter how many pounds we lose, how good of a mom people say we are, how many cars, boats, the size of house we have, will never feel enough. We will never feel a true sense of belonging to things outside of us. Belonging comes from accepting, loving, and sharing with the world the authentic person that within us at this very moment and self-loving that person as we would love our companion, our child, our neighbor, our friend, our Creator. 

An Abundant Mind Set

"Thanks for having such a positive attitude lately.  You've been killing it and it's inspiring.  Thanks for being such a great example to me.  You're a power player and I'm grateful and lucky to have such a wonderful woman by my side."

I share this sweet, from my Love, with you, to remind us all of two things:

1) these are the kind of things that make a marriage work, AND 2) these are the ways we nourish and feed an abundant mind set. 

It's easy to take a person you see day in and day out, a person who sees more sides of you than anyone else, for granted. If we want to prosper in our lives we need to help grow and prosper the person that is (hopefully) standing beside us for the rest of our lives. 

Love, support, confidence, gratitude, words of praise...these are the things that grow a person, change a person, ignite the spark to one another's dreams....

The most incredible thing about this truth is this two-fold benefit: if you want to be great, inspire someone else to be great. 

An abundant mind set is believing that you can have it all, that your potential is limitless. I'm starting to learn in life that we short change our potential by either getting stuck in our own heads or by surrounding ourselves with negative, toxic people that try and hold us back by keeping us in the muck they're in. When you surround yourself with people who believe in you, uplift you, empower you, and parallel your own positive energy something beautiful happens: you ignite a flame, they ignite a flame, and pretty soon the world is on fire....guess what happens then?? EVERYONE lives ABUNDANTLY. 

 #givelove #receivelove #livetoinspire #supportthosearoundyou #gratitudebreedssuccess 

Ramblings

I'm sending this FREEBIE tip out to all you hubby's that find yourself siding (yes even after 6, 10, 12 years of marriage) with the Biebs....do you know how long it takes a woman to groom herself from her eyebrows alllll the wayyyy downnnn to her hairy big toe? The short answer is: a REALLY long and tiresome amount of time (hence the reason MOMS view shaving as a LAST priority...let's face it, if I'm gonna schedule in a shave I am going to schedule in a nap). 

Anywho (only moms say anywho), THE TIP: if your wife slides into bed next to you AND your hand just so happens to cross that invisible "haven't I given you enough after 6 years" line, AND (dun dun dunnnn) you feel something exceptionally soft and smooth, just know you can put the Biebs song to bed for the night because "what do you mean" has JUST been answered with a clear and definite sign. Oh and just in case I need to make it a little more clear and definite: you better be putting the moves on your hot wife because she's not shavin those stems and pits to appease her own selfish vanity (that comes by way of clothes and shoes). 

Let's get real, if we were living in my Utopia, Animal Rights Activists would be out of a job due to "a woman's right to bare fur" (yes, especially in public AND at the beach). So the next time you start humming the catchy and ever so cleaver phrase "what do you mean," run your hand up your wife's thigh 😉👊🏻👏🏼👏🏼. 

Thank you, and your welcome

I love how music immediately transports you to a time and place you either long to re-live or long to forget... 

This one popped up on my Indie Pop station this morning and I immediately remembered one of the best times in my life, one of the best decisions I ever made: dating this fantastic guy. 

Memories resurfaced of rolling all over my Springville apartment— laughing till our bellies hurt, making silly, funny videos, hanging out at coffee shops, rolling down the window and singing/screaming "champagne supernova" to all the passerbys, all the late night ramblings and phone conversations, waking up one morning to find my favorite perfume on my doorstep, finding love letters in my mail box, getting a knock on my door in the wee hours of the morning because he couldn't wait to show me my wedding ring, making the poorest decision to hit up Del Taco at 2am and getting sick afterwards...

One song can resurface so many memories...love it. Thanks for making our first beginnings some of the best memories in my life! 😘😘 mike moncur

The Epiphanies of Motherhood

The Epiphanies of Motherhood (yes they come once in a blue moon) 

An epiphany I had yesterday as I'm getting frustrated doing Beckahms hair before school for the umpteenth time, and as I'm trying to put Amari—who's endlessly fidgeting—down for a nap: our eyes are our little ones window to the world. It's through our eyes they learn what love is, tolerance, compassion, self-esteem, light-heartedness, kindness, respect, confidence....

As they grow and venture into this great big world I pray that they will choose to associate with good friends who make good choices,and not mimic the behavior(s) of those making poor choices. Yet, what kind of behavior are the mimicking from me—the person they are around nearly 24 hours a day for the first 4 years of their life? 

Parenting is the hardest job I've ever added to my resume simply because it causes me to take a step back and self-reflect—on a daily basis— how my habits, my example, my attitude, my behavior, affects my children—whether positively or negatively. 

Parenthood is also one of the greatest jobs I've ever added to my resume because it's the job that pushes me to change, to grow, at such an accelerated rate—sometimes from 0-60 in a matter of minutes (literally).

When my child looks into my eyes do they see the world as an annoying, frustrating, sad, anger-ridden, unfulfilling, busy and stressful place? Or do they learn that the world is kind, patient, tolerant of their mistakes, humorous, forgiving, and full of unconditional love? 

Sometimes (okay let's be real, most the time), it's hard to remember that the saying "treat someone the way you would like to be treated" applies to children just as well as adults. Would I then want someone rushing me around all of the time? Would I want someone so busy and stressed to get from one place to the next that there's no time or place to experience the "in betweens?" Would I want someone always taking away my freedom, and not allowing me to make mistakes so I can learn the power of choice and consequence? Would I want someone being so guarded and fearful of allowing me to venture out and explore this world by myself, on my own time, at my own beat? Would I want someone that makes me feel like I'm an annoyance? Like my voice doesn't matter? Like there are bigger, more important things to be doing in this great big world than being "stuck" with being in the presence of me? Would I want someone to tell me (reassure me rather) that my fears, my frustrations do not matter? 

As Amaris wiggles started to dissipate and as he calmly, quietly searched my eyes before drifting to sleep, I knew this epiphany was teaching me that sometimes the disconnects between us and our children happen (much like us with our Father in Heaven when we forget to get on our knees) because the window is foggy—we've forgotten to clear away the smudges and the smears, to take moments like these to be present with our children, to connect with them, to let them know we believe in them, we love them, that no matter how small they are that they DO matter. Sometimes we need to pause to make the window a little more clear, more visible: to be the correct reflection of the world we want our children to see, to BELIEVE, to KNOW.

Late Night Epiphanies

Why my late night epiphanies/confessionals always seem to come at the most inopportune time—when my "little angels" are in a "perfected state" (aka asleep), and my drool has a date with my pillow (aka exhaustion)—is a question that will haunt me till the day I retire from mothering (aka NEVER).

Okay enough with the "aka's". The epiphany I had as I lay in this pitch black room next to my comatose husband (who is richly blessed to give in to slumber) is:

Look for the opportunities each day presents to either ignore, tear down, OR build up the character of your children.

In my often failed attempt to do better at this thing called parenting, I realize just how furtive these moments are—how numerous, yet how quickly they come and go (from an accidental spill, to a quarrel with a sibling).

It is time to revamp the new year resolutions, and make it my mid-new year goal to take a moment—before the moment ignites a reaction— and process the situation, to ask "as their mother—the person who wants them to succeed most in their life, the person that wants to help them grow into GREAT men (cause God knows we need GREAT men in this world)—is my reaction conducive to lifting them up? Is it helping define their character? To build trust, love, and respect?"

I know it's a goal I will most likely fail at miserably at least another 100 times before 8am tomorrow morning, but the epiphany has at least sparked an interest, a resolution, to proactively do better at loving these little men God so kindly entrusted to my care.

—Sleepless in Alabama signing off

#theepiphaniesofmotherhood

Aspire to Inspire

It has been nearly two years since I wrote, really wrote something. I realized the vacancies inside myself were waiting to be filled by words, by thoughts, by lessons, by stories.  And so I did what only I could do: I picked up the pen and began to write.  I can't guarantee that I will post something on a weekly basis but I am motivated in the right direction.

Here is to the first entry after a long hiatus on Aspire to Inspire:

Each of us are born with a gift, but no matter how innate our gifts are, they do not flourish on their own; they take constant work, effort, and dedication to be developed into something useful and beautiful for us and the rest of humanity.

Gifts give us a reason for living, they instill passion, they produce hope, and when we are not giving our gifts to others and more importantly ourselves, we are living the unlived life.  

Using countless excuses of allowing myself to feel "jaded" by life, allowing circumstances, exhaustion, or much less productive activities to "steal" any free time I may have left in a 24 hour period, has resulted in the suffocation of my gift(s).  

My gift came to me when I was a little girl via pen meets paper.  Adventures developed into thoughts, thoughts developed into words, words developed into stories, and stories became my life.  My life is one big tapestry of words strung together to create moments worth remembering and moments worth forgetting.  I am all of who I am today because of my stories, and it is through those stories wherein I know that writing is to me like breathing is to us all: giving sustenance and life.  Writing has often been my priest—my go to confessional that leaves me feeling a little less weighted down, a little more relieved, a little more rejuvenated and motivated to live a better life.  

Writing is my gift.  

When I am not writing I am not living. And so although I may not be able to change my certain set of circumstances which prevent me from allowing myself any real time of "self-fulfillment", I am going to choose to stop living the unlived life.  I am going to pick up the pen and write again.  Write about things—valuable, invaluable, random, incoherent—that actually mean something to me.  Because if I am not me, who am I?  I am just another person sitting on the sidelines waiting for SOMEONE to throw me the ball, to motivate me to run towards an anticipated reward . . . waiting, waiting, waiting, for THE RIGHT MOMENT, waiting for SOMEONE to induce action, when in reality life rarely gives you the RIGHT MOMENT, and SOMEONE rarely ever comes along.  The MOMENT is NOW and YOU are the SOMEONE.  

Here's to picking up the pen . . . here's to embracing the gift, here's to living a more fulfilled life.  

My First Publication

I FINALLY got an official copy of my first publication in Stance, a journal BYU puts out bi-annually about issues relating to the family. My last semester at BYU I decided to take the chance and submit an essay for publication in this journal. I honestly didn't think anything would come of it. A few weeks after submission I was contacted by the editor who told me that out of over a hundred submissions they were only choosing 30 and mine was one of them! I can't even tell you how excited I was by the news. My first publication! I felt like all of my hard work had paid off and this was only the icing on the cake.

After re-working draft after draft I finally completed the last revision last summer and it was printed and published in their Winter 2010 addition. I finally got my first hard copy of the journal in the mail Wednesday. Even though I wouldn't classify it as my best work, I am so proud to see my name in a publication—one of my dreams come true.

I miss the way my mind would expand with new found knowledge on a daily basis while I was in school. I look forward to maybe one day getting my Masters, but in the mean time I anticipate all of the teaching moments I will have with Beckahm about such topics as literature, philosophy, the arts, etc.—so many areas of study I gained such a passion for in college.