Life is hard and it's OK

I recently read an article from Time about how to deal with anger based on neuroscience. Basically it said that according to science,  neither suppressing anger or venting it helps. The only thing that can help you feel differently is if you distract yourself, or in essence, change your perspective. For instance, if someone is blowing up at you and you tell yourself "it's not about me, they must be having a bad day," you can feel totally calm despite the confrontation. 

This has really stuck with me and I think it can apply to other things as well. I know my husband has learned the only thing to help with anxiety is to accept it and experience it. I know when I have negative thoughts I can't address them, I have to shift to a different thought pattern. It's about re-writing your mental dialogue. That supports what we learn in the gospel, that in our trials our eternal perspective allows us to have peace.

Last night I had a chance to apply this in another way. It hit me that having a child disobey you is a very unpleasant feeling. But as I was praying about it I realized maybe it's not bad to experience unpleasant feelings. I cannot control my child. The scripture came to mind, "Thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high." [D&C 121:7-8] If you endure it well! It's not about avoiding discomfort, it's about doing the right thing. So applied to parenting (my life right now) that means learning how to be a good parent, rather than trying to control my child.

So without getting into specifics of how to parent, I think as in all things, this is a balance of finding God's will - what He wants us to change (and we can only change ourselves, even if that means how we influence our child) and what he wants us to accept.

Lately I have been surprised at how delicate my faith is. Things can be going well and I can feel great one day, and the next feel completely discouraged. Maybe it's part of the package of being a young parent with little sleep, constant change and unpredictability, and not much time for personal devotions or exercise. But I think it is probably just life! The covenant path is not an easy one!

This article in the January Ensign, Revealed Realities of Mortality was also very insightful. Hard work is our common lot, and the way to become more like God. Marriage and parenting are also the vehicle to our refinement and exaltation. This sentence definitely resonated with me right now:

"Bearing children is neither easy nor convenient, but it is a commandment that helps us realize the real blessings of mortality.

So I am trying to embrace that life is hard and turn to the Savior for help. This world is so evil, and life has so much opposition. But I am choosing faith. And I believe that will help me find joy in the journey.

my Joy

To Arizona

I feel like I owe Arizona an apology. Anyone who knows me will know I have whined a lot about living here. I'm sure it's been obnoxious even.

While this Is still not where I want to settle and raise our family, I just want to acknowledge that Arizona is not all bad and explain that my strong negative emotions came I believe as a result of a combination of many circumstances. Yes the summer heat is horrible, but it is also the ghetto complex we live in, the loneliness I felt for a long time, being pregnant during the summer, my husband being in grad school etc.

On the contrary, today I feel there are many beautiful things that are special to me about my time here.

Sunsets, those desert bushes that smell amazingly like water, the mountains and stars.

Mostly the friends. I know once we finally leave this place and settle into our new home who knows where, my heart will ache for the many wonderful and deep friendships I have formed here.

God's Help this week

Can I just share how much Heavenly Father helped me this week? I’ll try to share just enough specifics to illustrate my point, but not so many as to bore (hopefully!).

Last week…was a rough week.

Being sleep deprived from being up with a baby, and parenting a 2 ½ year old can be quite difficult for anyone. Lately I had personally been struggling with mood swings, anxiety and honestly a lot of anger. Not a fun place to be. I felt overwhelmed with all the challenges and discouraged about my parenting. I wasn’t finding relief. I knew something was wrong but didn’t know how to fix it.  

Sunday night I vented to my parents about how discouraged I was and how many things were going wrong with parenting Elena. They were sympathetic as always and gave ideas of how to do things differently. They also sent up some prayers for me which I know helped. 

Monday I finally at least got relief. Since Jeff was home for the holiday, and since he’s awesome, he gave me multiple lengthy breaks from Elena. That at least helped restore my sanity. 

I had prayed many times over the past weeks to help me resist being angry and feel more love. This weekend I added prayers to help me figure out my parenting style, because what I was doing was not working, and it was making me frustrated, thus causing the anger I think.  

I don’t remember the specific moment or prayer that turned things around, but I know that Tuesday I felt changed. I felt the patience I had tried so many times to achieve. I felt relief from my anxiety. I had inspiration about subtle changes I could make in my parenting that were very effective. I came to peace with things that were holding me up. I felt hope for better sleep because the baby is doing better at night. And I have finally started to iron out our weekly schedule that will involve more social time for Elena and more breaks for me. That’s a formula for a happier mom and happier family! 

Maybe the details don’t matter, though if you want to talk parenting, I’d be happy to share what I learned. I just want to share how amazing it is that we can receive personal help to our specific challenges from Heavenly Father. He is so merciful, and Christ’s atonement is so real and accessible to us on a daily basis.

I appreciate that God didn’t just expect me to muster the will power to resist the strong anger I was feeling every day. I feel that God helps me get at the root of my problems, and for me it was digging up the underlying frustration I was feeling and seeing what I could do about it. I wasn’t frustrated at Elena, I was frustrated with myself, and the place we had come to because of my choices. 

The fact that I feel better now doesn’t mean I feel back to who I was before. That’s the cool thing about trials. When our circumstances are making us uncomfortable, it forces us to look inside ourselves to see if there is something we can change. It’s painful. And sometimes when I pray for help I have barely enough faith to believe that I can change. But God is a God of miracles, and when we seek Him, He changes us! I am not back to my old self, I am a new person, with new ideas about parenting and life!

The Bible Dictionary says repentance is “a change of mind, a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world.” That’s how I feel! And I’m grateful.

Peace in the Wilderness

Most people who know me know that I do not enjoy living in Arizona. On top of that, it is also challenging to be "poor" (we have a low income, but we are truly very very rich) and to live in a ghetto apartment complex in a ghetto part of town. However, this morning as my husband and I talked again about what we might do when our lease is up in April, we decided that we probably will stay, with our two girls, in this two-bedroom apartment. It's crazy! But it's just not worth moving and spending more money each month to live in something only slightly better than what we have now. So it just feels right. And I can accept that. And that will make it all the more exciting when he graduates and we move on to a different lifestyle, which, however modest it may be, will likely be plenty better than the one we're living now.

I appreciate my simple life. And I love being a mother! Not because it's always glorious or enjoyable (though what life path is?), but because I know it's my eternal calling and so it is fulfilling on a deep level. There is nothing like the peace of knowing I am doing the most important thing I could be doing. And, it is wonderful.

Check out that awesome crazy-baby-face caught on camera

A feminist once told me a woman should only be a full-time mom if that feels empowering to her. I thought that was strange. Is it all about power? Well, that could be a whole different discussion, but to me, there is nothing more "empowering," than relying on the enabling power of Christ's atonement every day to do things and become someone you didn't think possible. My transition to two children was easier than my transition to one, because I am a different person than I was two years ago! I am way stronger, more capable, more mature, and less selfish and lazy. Also, I have so much joy from my two girls, and from the perspective that they are mine forever and that each phase will last only a short time.

As the wonderful song says,

"God gave us families
to help us become what He wants us to be.
This is how He shows His love
For the family is of God."

So while there are a lot of things I'm going without right now, I am grateful for the way my simple life gives me the opportunity to focus on what I can do to become who God wants me to become. So that when we get to the point where we can have more of the things that I think will make me happy (a yard, for example), I will have learned what God wanted me to learn. Because after all, He knows  best what will make me happy.

As part of our Sunday morning routine, Elena and I watch Music and the Spoken word, and then watch a few Bible videos before she watches Baby Einstein and I shower. I love the way the Bible videos help Christ and His teachings come to life for me.

A few weeks ago we watched His sermon on "consider the lilies," and it has really stuck with me and has helped me get through challenges with peace.

Watch this and I'm sure you'll be touched by the way the actor for Christ assures us that we have no need to fear or worry about temporal things like food and clothes.



Christ said, "fear not."

Why don't we need to fear?

The things that stood out to me (and I love the way he says them in this video) are,

"Your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things."

and

"It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

Heavenly Father knows what we really need, and He loves us and wants to give us those things.

Stress comes when we see a disconnect between our expectations and our reality. This often happens when we feel we don't have enough time or energy to do the things we feel we need to do. I know having a newborn there were definitely days where I felt I legitimately had not got enough sleep to take care of a toddler and baby all day. I tried to keep this scripture in mind.

What I learned is that if we seek first the kingdom of God, everything will be ok. If we align our lives with our priorities, it removes a lot of stress! We can't do everything, but we can do whatever it is God wants us to do, if that is our desire.