halfway there

. . . unquiet mind. . .

11:44 AM

on a weeknight i get home from work around 10:30 pm, if it's a good night. and by "good" i mean that all the patients got to bed on time, the swing shift was relatively calm, and there wasn't much to write in shift report. all good things. i generally come home tired. my job requires you to be on your feet for the most part of 8 hours. it's a fun job and i love it. but it can be stressful. i love my life, but life is busy, and busy means tired.
i change into pj's and turn on my Mormon Tabernacle Choir Pandora station, before starting my evening routine of teeth brushing, face washing and room organizing. after lotioning my hands with my favorite "no-stress" lotion, i take a look at my planner, add to the next day's to-do list (because i love lists), and say my prayers.
by all normal measures, i should be calmed down, relaxed and ready to sleep by then.
sometimes i'll stay up a little bit to just lie in bed and watch Netflix, read, or scroll through Pinterest. i figure some "vegging" helps calm the mind and is relatively stress free.

but it seems that no matter how relaxed i am, how much my eye lids are drooping, and how much my body begs for sleep, when i turn off my lamp, pull my comforter up and get into a comfortable fetal position in my bed, my mind goes. and goes and goes and goes.

this is the unquiet mind.

and if you give the unquiet mind a cookie. . .
it doesn't matter if i have nothing to worry about, my mind will come up with something. i'll think about all the things i have on my list for the next day. this naturally leads to thinking about nursing school. and how i need to perfect my resume, write a master's degree level essay, and get in volunteer hours, so i can beat out the 300 other applicants come June. and speaking of volunteering.... how about that Alzheimer's Association you're supposedly volunteering for? you've got to call all those physicians. who know what i'm supposed to say to them, but i need to get info. what if i sound stupid? what if i botch the conversation? what if, what if, what if?
sometimes i'll almost be asleep and then my roommate will come home. for most people, this isn't a problem. but the unquiet mind hears every sound. even the quiet noises. so the movie version of what my roommate is up to, in the kitchen or hallway or bathroom, plays in my mind. i want it to shut off, i even pray that i can just sleep through the noise. i joke that i'm like Jason Bourne, because i'm such a light sleeper, but it's really not such a great thing.
or, if it's been a busy or stressful night at work, my brain will replay over and over everything that happened. did i say the right thing to that patient who was struggling? was i being too rigid with the rules when i enforced that rule? was a being too loose with rules when i just joked around with the girls? did i write everything in shift report? did i email everyone i needed to email? and on and on.
any tangent of thought that my brain can catch on to, it grabs and clutches in an iron fist. and the rambling begins.

the worst is when i have to get up early the next morning. i plan ahead of time so that i get to bed early and can get the maximum amount of sleep. but once my mind starts, it's hard to stop. and once i realize what's happening, i get anxious about losing sleep!!! basically my anxiety causes anxiety. "now i'll be so tired tomorrow." *glances at phone.* "crap, i have to get up in four hours.... i NEED to fall asleep now."
but i don't. and for what seems like hours, i toss and turn, waiting for my brain to become silent, empty. sometimes i fall into a restless sleep, but the mind keeps running at 100 miles per hour. and sometimes, blessedly, true sleep comes.

exhausting doesn't even begin to cover it. but that is just it.

this is the unquiet mind.

blessed

. . .reasons my mum is the bomb.com

10:57 AM

. . . she knows how to give you the best personal gifts. on my mission she sent me Harry Potter stamps because she knows i love Harry Potter. . .

. . . she taught me how to love reading. we have a literal library in our basement. growing up with didn't have enough bookshelves so we used wooden boxes stacked on top of each other as bookshelves. i continue to have an addiction to books. don't let me in a bookstore because i end up buying too many books. . .

. . . she's always up for an adventure. she let me plan our entire trip to British Columbia last summer and was totally chill with eating authentic Chinese food, going to the most hippie farmer's market in the PNW, getting bubble tea in downtown Vancouver, going whale watching, and chasing cattle in Vanderhoof. . .

. . .she knows what's up when it comes to oils. one night when i was so anxious and upset that i couldn't sleep, she came and brought me her diffuser, a melatonin and some miracle oil that helped me sleep through that hellish night. . .

. . . every year my mum cooks us whatever we want for our birthday dinner. she's even made me chicken tikka masala and let us eat in the living room, sitting on the floor, whilst listening to Indian music. . .

. . . she puts up with having (almost) ALL adult children! and only one of us is married so basically that means she gets to hear the rest of us complain about dating and every other part of hashtag adult life. she's pretty much a therapist who doesn't get paid anything. we're pretty much goobers as you can see below. . .

. . . she is so selfless! she took care of my aunt who had cancer and liver failure during the last months of my aunt's life. she did all this while doing her calling, working from home, preparing to teach her home school english literature class, and keeping up with us kids. . .

. . . she's helped all five sons get their Eagle Scout Award (and let's face it people she probably did most of the work). and helped me and my sister get our Young Womanhood Recognition Award. now she's Young Women's president and is helping all the YW in our ward! what a rockstar. . .

. . . mum taught me how to be grammatically correct. and yes, even though i'm a scientist at heart, i am still bugged by bad grammar and bad spelling. . .

. . . she taught me the importance of getting an education and more importantly, of following my dreams. she supported me 100% in going to Africa, even helped me fund raise money to go. she supports me in my current job. she helped me survive BYU by reminding me I didn't want to flip burgers for a living. she's continually supporting me as a apply to nursing schools. and she is supporting me as I run for the Huntsman Cancer Institute in June. . .

. . . probably the most impactful thing my mum has taught me is to have faith, to follow the promptings I receive, and to keep going even when things get hard. my mom has had many trials, but she has always stayed faithful and true to her covenants. she reads her scriptures and prays fervently. she attends the temple. she loves her church calling. she tries to be a better person all the time. she's not perfect, but she is perfect at trying. . .

love you mum!!!!

**disclaimer: i use "mum" because i wish i was british. obvi.

daring greatly

... what i learned in 2015 ...

11:53 AM

holidays

reasons halloween is the bestest

9:58 AM

atonement

. . .the road that made all the difference. . .

8:35 PM

in the last month i've been thinking about endurance and giving up. i think that in each of our lives their comes a point when we have to decide what our commitment is to our Heavenly Father and his Gospel. we have to decide if we are really going to endure, no matter what comes our way, or if we will flake out at the first moment.
i attribute my "moment" of deciding to the eighteen months i spent as a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. i'm not saying that i wasn't a committed, devoted member of The Church before my mission, but i'm not sure if i could have endured as well the trials i've faced this year without the experiences that led me to realize that i was not giving up on the Gospel, or on God!

about a month ago i was having a particularly hard day. i sat on the phone at 11 pm, crying my heart out to my mom, with an almost empty box of tissues in front of me. "why," i sobbed, "when i have done everything God has asked of me, is this trial happening? this is so unfair! i just don't think i can keep going." i went to bed feeling pretty angry, because my life was not fair. but when i woke up the next morning i realized that giving up was not an option. in fact, i don't even really know what "giving up" would look like. it was that morning, through a mind groggy from a sleepless night, that i looked at the world through puffy eyes and realized that i was and always will be 100% committed to the Gospel. even if life seemed so unfair, hard and confusing, there was no going back.
when i was little my dad told me a story of a man who came to Joseph Smith and told him that he left the church, he would never persecute and speak out again the church, but he would go back to being neutral. Joseph told him, that once you have made a covenant with God, there can be no going back to neutral. because once you know- you know. once you have committed- you can't go back to being who you were before you were committed. either you keep going- you "press forward with a perfect brightness of hope"- or you turn against God and his Gospel.

on my mission i learned valuable lessons about endurance. i learned about working hard, all day, every day, no matter if it was blazing hot, pouring horizontal rain, or 30 degrees below zero (Celcius). it wasn't an option to stay in our apartment. i learned about exact obedient. before my mission i honestly questioned if exact obedience was even possible. but i quickly learned that it was. i learned about the Atonement and what it feels like to repent and be forgiven. i learned about the importance of following your priesthood leader. i learned about charity and helping those around you to change and endure. i read the stories of the Book of Mormon and the Bible that exhibit the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it was like i was there. i could feel the joy of the Nephites when Christ appeared to them and blessed them. i felt the power and majesty of the restoration of the Priesthood. i learned about sacrificing for the Gospel. and i learned what it means to be fully consecrated to the Gospel. i saw examples of people who would leave their families to come teaching with us, or who would take in new investigators like they had always been best friends, or who would throw a birthday party for a girl in the branch because her mom was in rehab.

and i like to think that a little of what i learned, experienced, saw and felt became a part of who i am.
the moment that i decided to be a fully committed, 100% obedient missionary, i chose, also, to be that kind of disciple of Christ. not just to be outwardly committed for 18 months and then go back to my former life, but to change as much as God wanted me to. and then to continue to change each day and each week. because despite my mission being a pivotal time in which i chose to follow Christ forever, i know that if i do not do the small daily things [prayer, scripture study, service, fasting, church attendance, repentance, temple worship] i can quickly become lazy, apathetic and lax.
and i want to be committed. forever.

John 6:67-69

"Then said Jesus to the Twelve, Will ye also go away?

"Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.

"And we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God."

i hope to always respond with the same conviction as Peter. and then show through my life, like he did, my commitment to Christ.

daring greatly

. . . mental health awareness. . .

9:22 AM

i've been wanting to write about this for a while now. but things like fear and not knowing what to say stopped me. but part of life is saying things, no matter how hard or uncomfortable it may be, that are important to you.

a few years ago i started to address my anxiety for the first time. it was scary and humbling, because i didn't want those around me to see me as "weak" or "sick." i didn't want my siblings to know that i needed help. i wanted to be strong. i went on my mission and was thankfully blessed to experience very little effects of my anxiety, but since being home (almost a year now!) i have struggled with anxiety. when it came to a point where i felt paralyzed- emotionally, mentally and physically- i got help. for a little while there i was relying so much on weekly meetings with my therapist. i took some brave steps and removed parts of my life that were causing me the most anxiety (and i know that were not right for my life) and struggled to get back to "normal." it's hard to come back from a mission, but it's even harder to come back and be stripped down figuratively "naked," and then try to figure out who you are after that. but i've been working at it, and i know for a fact that i'm doing so much better than i was seven and eight months ago.

there have been very few people in my life who understand what anxiety is. people tell me just not to worry so much. or people will say, "oh that's just your anxiety." i've had people tell me that if i just had more faith then i wouldn't struggle with anxiety. most people don't know how to help me when i am feeling very anxious- and they don't really want to be around me when i am anxious. on top of that some people don't really think you are struggling.

now i'm a big advocate of squaring your shoulders and doing what needs to be done. i also am living proof that the Atonement can heal you. but i also believe that God gives us certain trials that he might not take away for our whole lives. and he expects us to get the best help we can (see Like a Broken Vessel by Jeffrey R. Holland). so i've been seeing a therapist for the majority of this year. i'll admit, it's a bit shameful to admit to people, and it's not something that most people know about me.

because it makes me feel vulnerable.

and most people don't know how to react.

in this year i've learned that i am not my anxiety. it does not determine who i am, really. it doesn't define my character and my personality. my anxiety will never stop me from being the best i can be and from making my life a happy one.

staying close to God has helped me so much in this journey. in the moments that i wondered if there was anyone there, i felt his arms of love around me and i have felt angels surrounding me. this "trial" has blessed me with greater empathy for those who struggle with mental illness. it has allowed me to really relate to the girls i work with. it has kept me humble and on my knees. it has brought me closer to my mom and dad.

so yes, there is good that has come from my mental illness.

i just want anyone who is struggling with a diagnosed [or undiagnosed] mental illness to know that there is hope and help! there is hope through Jesus Christ who truly suffered for everything that we go through. He know how to succor you! and there is help- support groups, therapists, family and friends.

i am so thankful for the family and friends who have been there for me throughout my journey. i am thankful for a wonderful therapist who has helped me dig deep and really understand my anxiety and perfectionism. most of all, i am thankful for a loving Father in Heaven who is always there for me.

i want to help break the stigma of mental illness. having a mental illness does not make you "crazy" even though some times you feel like you are going crazy. mental illness is real, but it doesn't mean that you have to be paralyzed by it. you can live, hey, you can thrive, in spite of a mental illness.

so let's reach out. be a little more compassionate. a little less judgmental. and open our minds and our arms to those who are struggling with mental illness around us.