2019-What's up!

It's 2019!!!! I decided to try something new this year. Instead of setting a kajillion goals for the whole year, I made quarterly goals. I'll evaluate my progress in April before setting new ones. We'll see how it goes (:

Each year I set my goals in 5 categories: Gospel/Spiritual, Family, Career, Education and Personal Increase. Here are a couple of my 1st quarter goals:

Gospel/Spiritual: Study gratitude and be intentional about  making time for daily gratitude

Family: Study divine qualities of womanhood, do family history 3 times

Career: Learn something new at work

Education: Read two of my new books

Personal Increase: NO SODA, Get gym membership, 8 hours of sleep per night

I've already started two of the books my parents gave me for Christmas, and I love them! 

The first is called A Hope More Powerful than the Sea (by Melissa Fleming), and it is about a girl named Doaa who grew up in Syria and later became a refugee. Early on, the city Doaa lived in was under siege by the government. Only women could leave the home for a couple of hours each day to get food for their families, and they had to watch out for snipers who would shoot people from the rooftops for fun. Doaa's family was desperate for food, so her mother left the home one day but quickly turned back because she was afraid of all the soldiers watching her. 

"Moments later, there was a knock at the door. Shokri answered it, tentatively cracking the door open. 'Who is the woman who just left this house?' a man's voice asked through the opening. Shokri summoned Hanaa, who came to the door and found a tall, stern-looking army general standing there with his machine gun strapped to his side. 

'It was me, General. I wanted to get bread for my family.'

'So why did you suddenly turn back?'

'I was too scared, General. There were too many men in the street.'

As he listed to her, the general's eyes showed a glimmer of sympathy and his voice softened. 'I insist that you get food for your family. But you need to go now, while there aren't any snipers. They're never out between noon and four.' Hanaa quickly bought the food and made her way home. Back in the kitchen she remarked, 'There is humanity left in people.'"

Very informative and compelling book so far!

A friend recommended the 2nd book to me when I told her I have anxiety. It is Self-Compassion,by Kristen Neff. It has a powerful message as well as exercises to help you evaluate your thoughts towards yourself and others. So far it's been explaining how we often look down on others to feel better about ourselves but then just end up seeing all our weaknesses and feeling awful about ourselves. What we need is self-compassion to realize we are enough. As we begin to be kind, patient and loving towards ourselves, we are able to improve and grow in a healthy way and then see others with more compassion and love.

"When we soothe our agitated minds with self-compassion, we're better able to notice what's right as well as what's wrong, so that we can orient ourselves toward that which gives us joy."

This all ties back to what my counselor has taught me about replacing my irrational, anxious, fearful thoughts with true thoughts. And it also connects to the scripture that says, "let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly." The world tells us we are not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, happy enough, rich enough, not ENOUGH. But those are not virtuous thoughts. A true virtuous thought would be, I am loveable because I am a daughter of God. I am not perfect, but I can repent. I am okay through Christ. Anyway - I'm just rambling now. These are things I feel that my parents and others have taught me throughout my life, but I hadn't been practicing enough, and probably am genetically-prone to anxiety, so it's just extra hard to be compassionate with myself! But with medication and practice, it's getting better. It's okay that I get anxious, it's okay that I need medication. I am still enough, and I am still loveable.

So those are my goals and what I'm learning! I'm grateful for the wonderful people in my life who support and pray for me. I'm grateful my mother encouraged me to be open to meeting with a therapist and trying medication. I'm grateful I live in a nation with freedom of speech, where we aren't forced to stay in our homes with no food for days or forced to leave our homes and cross oceans to survive. I'm grateful for my new nephew and time with family the last few weeks. And I'm grateful for my brother, Seth, who is serving a mission right now. 

Love, Ash