2012

I am so happy for a new year. While 2012 is a year where I learned an enormous amount, I am glad it is over. It has been the hardest year of my life. Thankfully the last couple of months have felt better. At the end of the year, I want to remember those things I have learned.

I learned about what happiness is and how you can have it each and every day in your life. I can have 23 hours, 58 minute of severe hard pain during the day but for 2 minutes, something good happened that can and did bring me happiness. And on those tough days, and on the good ones, you have to look for it. You have to look for the moment in that day where you felt happy. For me, it is as simple as getting to eat a delicious dinner or watching something on TV that makes me smile and lifts pain from me for a moment. Every single day has had a different way of making me happy but in each day, I found happiness. So that is how you do it, that is how you have happiness in your life always and to be happy all of your life. You choose to look for that bit of happiness. I look forward to the day when I am so happy that my heart feels like it will completely explode, but for today, I will take the peaceful moments of happiness that truly bring me happiness.

I learned that this life isn't about most of the time being easy and a little bit being hard. It isn't that most of the time is really happy and then a hard time in between. I have come to see that life is hard with really happy spots along the road. I would say that there is something hard for each person most of the time of their lives. It may not be hard for me what someone else is going through, but what I am going through may be a cinch for them to get through. All I know is that hard times come to each person. It is inevitable. It is because we are here to learn and to grow. Yes we grow in good and great times, but I feel like doing hard things and going through hard times seems to increase our learning capacity to its fullest. This isn't a bad thing because even when it is hard, you can still find your happiness in each day.

I have learned to love me. I am not even close to where I want to be or need to be on this, but I am far beyond where I have always been unconsciously. I have been in counseling since June of this year and I have learned an enormous amount about me and how I deal with things and why I deal with things that way and how it can potentially affect my future children. I have learned that I learned how to be from how my mom was, not necessarily what she told me. My mom tells me that she is proud of me in every single card she gives me and to my face. She tells me I am beautiful and wonderful. She always has. But what my mom is to herself is cruel. She tears herself down about her weight about her status, really about everything. But then she will nurture those around her and praise them. While my mom told me all of those nice things, I learned what she did. I am kind and loving to others and very nurturing to those I love most, but I am plain out mean to myself. I damage myself with my thoughts. I expect perfection and can never achieve that and anything less is a failure to me. Now if you were to ask me if I held a standard like that to others, even those closest to me, I would never, ever do that. In October I felt like I had taken many steps back from healing and feeling better because I felt horrible again for a few reasons. When I went to see Janice(counselor)she said that Ian wasn't hurting me anymore, I was hurting myself. Well that is just stupid! Why in the world would I hurt myself??! But it is true. I am very logical. That is how I got through when I was younger trying to carry my own load. I would see what "could' be happening and the worst possible situation because I wanted to be ready for it. So to myself, I would say that Ian was going to get married to his girlfriend and that he loved her more than anyone else and she is the one for him. Now this could very well be true, but why in the world would I be thinking that in October??! This is destructive and once I saw that I was doing it and not being nice to me, I started talking to myself(and I felt funny for doing it) and telling myself that I was okay. I would tell myself logically things I knew and acknowledged things I honestly didn't know. I was nice to myself and nurtured myself. I still can feel myself fall back into saying mean things to myself but as I notice it, I just try and nurture myself.

Ian. What I learned about Ian. By October I had clearly seen and felt that I missed big red flags with Ian and I knew that I didn't want to be with him. Maybe if he had some serious counseling, but really, I never ever, ever saw anything ever happening again, especially because I didn't feel like he was my perfect fit...at all. He couldn't have been my dream because my dream is a man treating me the way I would treat him and let me just tell you, I will give my all to the right man. Ian wasn't my dream and whatever he is giving the other girl still wouldn't be enough for ME, even now. It is more the pride of it and satisfying the feelings of feeling enough for someone and be worth fighting for. But in the end, was he worth my fight? No, because he wasn't fighting for me and chose himself and will continue to do that in future relationships. I don't want to be married to him to have a daughter have a dance recital and have him not come because work was more important....no, not good enough, or better said, not even close to the right fit. Anyway, I hit bottom with this situation because it is a situation that has happened over and over and over in my life starting with my mom.

My mom and what I have learned. It wasn't that my mom didn't want to be there for me, I just think she didn't know how. But I have to say that it sucks that she wasn't and has greatly harmed me in my life. It sucks that she didn't "fight" for me because she has this desperate need to be with a man and that always outweighed me. I get that need because is has been very strong in me, but thankfully it is shrinking a lot because I know how to deal with it. But still, that feeling of not being worth it and wanting to feel like I am worth it, dates all the way back to when I became an adult at age 8. I wasn't taken care of in the way a child should, soothed when I feared, I had to be the strong one for my mom and for everyone else. So that need was never fulfilled and neglect, unknowingly in my opinion, happened in a very great way. I never had anyone I could count on but myself and I was not in a good position to make it out well of the situation I was in. We were on welfare and I would see how we didn't have food and she couldn't pay the bills and always had bill collectors calling and it would stress me out because I felt like I had to fix it and didn't know how. I started babysitting other kids so that I could buy clothes from Thrift Town or if I was lucky, at Walmart. I felt like I wore used clothes. It didn't help my self-esteem. I can't explain my childhood besides using feelings of anxiousness and fear and failure and never going to amount to anything because of where I came from and never being soothed and told that it was all going to be okay. I know that if my mom understood how important that was to me back then, I am sure she would have tried harder to help and to soothe me. But those feelings never were soothed...think of a small child with those feelings...wouldn't you go and soothe them and tell them it is going to be okay? You would and I needed that and these feelings of being alone and needing to fix everything for everyone and make everyone happy created control issues for me and a giant black hole that cannot be filled of a desperate need to be loved and taken care of and someone who will fight for me and not leave because everyone leaves me in one way or the other. And those feelings have followed me here at age 30. I can't believe that I have lived so long in fear and anxiousness but I can see it in my past. So learning about these things has helped me be able to start to find a healthy way to fill that black hole and to let go of control that I really don't have.

I have learned that I have control over nothing. :) It's true. I always feel like I have to control the happiness of those around me and gratefully I have learned that I can't. I can't control what another person chooses. I used to want to control(still do a little) situations(and turned into people) so that I could prevent hurt to come to me. I can't control that. I can't control when I will find my husband. I can't control if something good or bad happens to me next week. All I can control is how I deal with whatever comes. It doesn't mean that I don't fight hard for my goals because I do fight hard, but it means that I have to live in each day and accept that I will deal with whatever happens. I still make choices every day, but I have no way of controlling how it will all turn out. Subconsciously, I have thought that I could control all of this all of my life. It is relieving to know that I can't and helps take away some of that anxiousness and need to control. Ultimately I have always wanted to make their own choice, I just didn't want their choices to hurt me. Now, I understand that their choices may hurt me and understand that I will deal with it.

I have learned that one thing that makes my black hole bigger in me is when I feel like I have to be my family's or anyone else's mom and fix everything that isn't going right in their life. I do this a lot with my mom. It is so hard on me that I can't go in and make her life better. She still has a hard life and it brings my sister and I to tears almost every time we see her. It is extremely difficult. I also feel like I have to be my brother's mom and show him how to be the best and get out of our situation. I feel like I have to make sure for all of the things that I didn't do for him as a mother. But wait, I am not his mother. He already has one. But there is this great pressure in me that I want to pull him out and do all of these things to make sure first that he knows that I love him and next, to help him succeed. I can't force him and as I know well, most things are learned through experience. So after Thanksgiving, I had a realization. I realized that when I feel those feelings of needing to be everyone's mom or even just one person's mom, that black hole gets larger and then the desperate need to find a husband to love me increases by about a hundred. And it isn't a normal wanting to find a husband, it is a NEED and a desperate need which isn't healthy. Have you heard that Ne-Yo song, "Let Me Love You"? I really want someone to feel that way about me and understand that I struggle with loving me because I didn't learn a lot from my childhood. I know my mom loves me deeply, very deeply, but her actions told me that I wasn't the most important thing and fighting for me wasn't important enough to her. As an adult, I can see it was because she didn't really understand, but good or bad, it is the truth of how I feel and therefore it greatly affects me every day. After realizing that being a mom to other's was a reason for that hole to get bigger, it was a relief because I could focus on not doing that. I have been far better at that since and it has helped.

This year for the first time on Christmas and Thanksgiving, I felt fine that I was where I am in my life and that I was single. There has never been anything more important to me than to get married. But as that hole gets smaller, I can be healthy about it. Before I would be sick at thinking that I would still not be married by the next Christmas or New Year, but I have grown healthier because my thoughts have been more of, "I have been single the last ten years and it has been okay, I can do it again this year if that is the best path." That alone is a huge progression.

I have learned how to eat healthier and control portion sizes and not eat emotionally. We didn't have fruits and vegetables a lot growing up. We were dirt poor and my mom emotionally eats and so casseroles and processed foods and pizza once a week was on the list and that is how we ate. When I served in Denmark, I was introduced to more fruits and vegetables and I really enjoyed them. So when I got home, I ate more of them, but I still didn't really know how to eat and be healthy. I would go to the gym, but what you put in your body is basically how you control your weight and honestly how you feel. I think teaching children portion sizes and eating well is a huge blessing to them. Don't make it about calories or that chocolate cake is bad food, you just teach them how to eat healthy...and healthy in my opinion includes chocolate cake every once in a while. I think my self-esteem would have been better because I would have been smaller and just felt healthier and not so weighed down. I want to teach my children how to be healthy and happy and teach them that going to the gym helps clear your mind of stress and helps you feel better inside and out. It is healthy. That is one great lesson I have learned this year. So far, I have toned up my body by being healthy, not on a diet, just being healthy. And one of my favorite things is from a close friend, she said I was beautiful before I lost weight and I am still beautiful. And that is true. I feel better now because I am healthier.

I learned this year that without knowing it, I would expect others to fix my problem. They HAD to have the answer. I would seek comfort from them because I didn't know how to comfort myself. Not healthy. This was one of the most difficult lessons I learned this year. But I learned how to not place my problems to be fixed on anyone else but me and Heavenly Father. This will be a huge blessing when I get married because I will be able to understand that he won't be able to fix my problems, that I still have to comfort myself. Now the balance of this is something I am still trying to work out. I closed off completely and stopped really letting people in at first because my world is so black and white. But as time has gone on, I am learning to balance it.

I learned this year that life in my eyes is very childlike, it is very black and white. It is VERY hard for me to live in the gray. But life as an adult is mostly in the gray. No wonder I have been so uncomfortable! Haha. And one of the areas that hardest for me to live in the gray is dating and being interested in someone. What I didn't realize is that I was practicing that since June. But first, I started to be interested in a man at work at the beginning of December. It was an eye-opening experience. Before it was trying to get him to like me quick so that he won't go choose a different girl. If I can hurry and make him fall in love with me, he will stay and then I can get married and have my dream. Oh goodness. Well I can feel impatience in this from day one. Once I realized that I want to date someone, they need to hurry up and ask me out and see if we are going to go anywhere. Now that hurrying sends subconscious vibes to guys of desperation or too much too soon or something like that. And really I like getting to know someone to make sure I am not missing any red flags like I have in the past. So it was nice to realize why I feel so impatient. And then when I realized that, Janice pointed out that the way I am with Matt(trainer) is a great example of living in the gray and being healthy. In my mind, I have no problem being myself completely with Matt because he isn't Mormon and therefore we will never date. It doesn't change the fact that I am attracted to him and have a great time with him. That is the key. That is what I want with someone else, to get to naturally get to know each other and really be comfortable. The reason we are(and I have issues pushing him away a couple of times) is that it has been 6 months of getting to know him and building that trust. So by thinking of Matt while liking this other guy helped me chill out. I am friends with Matt and that is first what I want with the other guy. The other thing that is good is that as of now, nothing has happened with that guy and I am okay that it may never happen because it is his choice and my choice is someone who will make the effort. And I can't control it. But this situation helped be better at not sending those signals when I really don't mean to and to just chill and let it be. So that was a great lesson to learn and I am sure will continue to learn and grow. I do want him to do the work but be good with me being exactly who I am and loving me for it.

Now most importantly and this is still ongoing is my relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. When I was dating Ian, I would pray that Heavenly Father's will would happen and I was sincere in asking for this and meant it with all of me. But I thought that Heavenly Father's will for me was Ian because all signs(that I could see in my not as healthy state) were leading me to him. But then it ended and I wanted him to come back and he didn't and it just got worse and worse and cut deeper and deeper. I was mad at Heavenly Father. Very mad and in a lot of pain that I felt he could have prevented or at least take it away then. He didn't. I have never felt lower in my entire life and it was because of all of the reasons above. But I realized in October that I prayed for what happened in a sense. But I was keeping myself from Him because of how I felt betrayed by him. I have always had a shaky trust in anyone, but it extends to Heavenly Father. I don't know how to trust a parent who has my best interest above all else. In fact, I am still really struggling with this one with Heavenly Father and it is the most important relationship to me to work out. But trusting that He really is doing what is best FOR ME and struggling to know that He KNOWS and LOVES me. I am still struggling with all of this but it is something that I will never give up on. I need to know that He knows my heart and what I have been through and felt and what I want more than anything and believe that He in fact wants to bless me with it and will. So that means I am also working on faith. I will say that I have kept a journal of how I can see the Lord's hand in my life and I can see it. And just this month, I have felt his love by placing that man I am interested in, in my path because it has taken my mind off of hard memories. That for me tells me He loves me. I am working to know it more. I am also really trying to get to know Jesus more personally. I need this. I need to know them both to be able to trust them. It sounds silly, but this is huge for me. The one thing that I know for sure is that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are the only reason I am who I am today and where I am today. It is a miracle that I am where I am and successful in my life. People who suffer with the things I have in my past are drug addicts, addicted to sex and have many different partners, they are alcoholics and many other harmful things. I worthily live the word of wisdom and miraculously, I am a 30 year-old virgin. While I couldn't see them in my life growing up, they were there helping me overcome what I was in. Something I pray for often is that I will never leave them. Because I know that it is me who would leave because I am not feeling their love. I do understand that this is my path and I will stay on it and stay true to Them, even when I am working on my testimony. I am grateful to know that much and to be true to them in that way. I realized that I do have faith this month. I may feel that I am struggling with it in some areas, but I learned that I have it through actions. I read my scriptures every day, I listen to a talk from General Conference and I go to the Temple about once a week. These are actions of faith. I will keep them until my testimony is on firmer ground.

I am sure there is more that I have learned this year. But for now, that is all I can think of. While this year has been the most difficult of my life, it has blessed me as well and taught me an enormous amount and proved a blessing true that I received in July. In the blessing it stated, " in the months ahead, you will experience a trial that you have never experienced before. It will teach you an enormous amount for your future and for being a mother." That has already been proven true on both accounts. I am grateful for the hard lessons learned during 2012.