Tidal Wave

Owl City is my new favorite--their lyrics are beautiful.

The Essence of Life

I received an email today with the following message; it has really put me into some dangerously deep thought. Enjoy--and seriously, take to heart:

Love, simply stated, is the essence of life. It can put the smile on your face, the bounce in your step, and most importantly, the joy in your heart. Even when your whole world is crumbling around you, one person holding your hand, looking into your eyes, saying "I love you" is enough to get you through.

Love is to attitude as the rain is to flowers. Surround yourself with people who love you, and whom you can love back. This, more than anything else you can do, will provide the music for your life and the fuel for your soul.

Just recently a friend included a wonderful poem by Robert Ward in her letter to me. I hope you like it as much as I did.

I wish you the courage to be warm when the world
Would prefer that you be cool.
I wish you successes sufficient to your needs;
I wish you failure to temper that success.
I wish you joy in all your days; I wish you sadness
So that you may better measure that joy.
I wish you gladness to overbalance grief.
I wish you humor and a twinkle in the eye.
I wish you glory and the strength to bear its burdens.
I wish you sunshine on your path and storms to season
Your journey.
I wish you peace in the world in which you live and in the
Smallest corner of the heart where truth is kept.
I wish you faith to help define your living and your life.
More I cannot wish you, except perhaps love, to make
All the rest worthwhile.

Sharing is Caring

“What makes loneliness an anguish is not that I have no one to share my burden, but this: I have only my own burden to bear.”

~ Dag Hammarskjold

Share good news and bad news with those you trust. I think sometimes we neglect to share the good with the bad when we talk to certain important people. I have a friend, Kevin (a.k.a. Broface), and when I feel anxious or depressed, I want to talk to him. He hears about everything I feel that may be negative and would like to expel forever from my life. However, I make it a point to tell him the good things in my life as well. We cannot use people as emotaional trashcans. When someone’s important to you, share all important news. Ask them about their important news. By remembering to include good things happening in your life, you can see that your life isn’t so bad and the other person won’t feel that they are just “the person I go to dump all my problems on.” That’s a big burden to carry, so lighten the load for both of you. (Elein Dodge, my favorite person of all time--http://yourbiggestfan30.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/“what-makes-loneliness-an-anguish-is-not-that-i-have-no-one-to-share-my-burden-but-this-i-have-only-my-own-burden-to-bear-”-dag-hammarskjold/)

So I definitely am not very good at this, but as I have more recently been improving (drastically, if I may brag a bit), I can see what a drastic change it has made in my life. I love to help others, but I feel like a burden when I'm on the other end--but that's okay! The fact that you share your burden with someone else, may in fact help that other person in the end!--true story, it's happened with me a thousand times. That's why we are all here together--to strengthen and lift one another. It's a pretty ingenious system if you really think about it.

In BYU WSR February Newsletter, this is one of the TOP things you can do to beat the winter blues, and find happiness in life all together!

Share your feelings with someone you trust.

In this blue place, it is common to try to avoid negative emotions

and you may even feel associated shame and embarrassment. Try

reaching out and sharing your experience with someone you trust

and who will validate your feelings.

So open up--and empathetically listen to others as they open up to you.

life IS good

Mental sunshine will cause the flowers of peace, happiness and prosperity to grow upon the face of the earth. Be a creator of mental sunshine. ~ Anonymous

I love those moment when you smile and think, I LOVE LIFE! I honestly can't say what it is--of course, the fact that it was Sunday and full of warmth and spirit helped I'm sure--but yesterday I had one of those days--an entire day! It was absolutely beautiful, and I wish I could share that immense joy I feel with the entire world. I'm going to ride out this wave of happiness as long as I possibly can. :) I suggest to all of you to feel the beauty and the joy and the seriously awesome happiness that there is out there--life is amazing, if you let it be!

Have a wonderful day everyone!!!!!!! :D

One Word

IF...

©

If

Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Get up the guts and go for it

“Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.”

~ Dorothy Thompson

Be courageous. Although this can imply throwing yourself at oncoming traffic to save a little child, but that’s not the only type of courage. Courage in standing up for what you believe in. Courage to apologize when you’re wrong and courage to forgive when someone apologizes. Courage to let go of a love when it’s not meant to be. Courage to fight for love. What do you need to be courageous about? Evaluate your life and see where you can step up and be a little more courageous than before. You can do it!

(http://yourbiggestfan30.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/only-when-we-are-no-longer-afraid-do-we-begin-to-live-dorothy-thompson/)

Stop playing scared

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

~Les Brown

Don’t give up on your goals. There are times that I just want to give up because I haven’t lived up to my goal. But it’s my goal for a reason. I want to reach it. Sometimes when we reach for the stars, we fall flat on our bottoms. But, if we don’t keep reaching, we’ll never know how it feels. So get up and dust off your bottom. You can do it. And even if you never reach the star you want, you’ll land in a place that’s even more beautiful that you had once imagined. I believe it.

(http://yourbiggestfan30.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/shoot-for-the-moon-even-if-you-miss-youll-land-among-the-stars-les-brown/)

Tuesday, February 16 – Push past fear...

Courage is acting in spite of fear.

We all feel fear at some time or another. It cannot be denied. Fear is a natural emotion in the face of possible danger, whether it’s the risk from actions that could threaten our lives, or from new experiences that could threaten our happiness.

Being courageous is knowing that courage is not an absence of fear – it is acting in spite of fear. We acknowledge the fear we feel and are determined not to let it stand in our way. Let’s work at living this principle!

(From: fillyourbucket-bounces@edit.byu.edu [mailto:fillyourbucket-bounces@edit.byu.edu] On Behalf OfMichele Bray)

I had a volleyball coach that would tell us that we needed to stop playing scared; defense is great, but without the offense or even an aggressive defense, we weren't going to get anywhere at all. When you play scared, you may get along just fine, sure, but you miss out on so many other opportunities. It's okay to be scared--I'm scared all the time; I worry like you would not believe--but that doesn't mean that I have to hide away in the corner hoping that I don't get hurt. Sometimes you've just got to get out there and go for it. That's what people do--leap and hope you can fly. Sure, you might drop like a rock, wondering the entire way down why the heck did I jump? But if you never jump, you'll never learn to fly.

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, totally worn out and proclaiming. "Wow, what a ride!"

Get out there and enjoy the ride--it's time to start LIVING life.

Do it.

"I am in love - and, my God, it is the greatest thing that can happen to a man. I tell you, find a woman you can fall in love with. Do it. Let yourself fall in love. If you have not done so already, you are wasting your life."

--D. H. Lawrence

Why are we all so afraid of being in love? I used to be--at times I still am--but love is the greatest blessing. Sure, it hurts like you would not believe, but in the end, can't it be just as wonderful? Let love in...

but I do see you