Escaping

I should be writing this in my journal, but I'm on the computer and didn't want to forget what's on my mind before I could put them to paper. This blog is probably the second most appropriate place I have to write them down. 

In January, I began a new daily regimen. I woke up early, prayed, studied scriptures, journaled, read out of self development books, and was training to run. I did this consistently, maybe missing a handful of days in the course of four months. I was happy with myself. I loved the changes brought about by my choices. 

Now I am 16 weeks along with our fourth child. Morning sickness began 8 weeks ago, and so did my attempts to escape. This doesn't refer to any sort of physical risk or abandonment. I mentally and emotionally was trying to escape my life. 

If I drank socially, it would be comparable to becoming an alcoholic. Drowning my sorrows.

But my vice isn't alcohol. 

It's not as simple to isolate. My vice involves wasting time, entertainment, laziness. And I took them to the extreme to escape. We don't have a tv or netflix account, so I couldn't just find a series to endlessly watch, or go to movie after movie, but I used youtube and network websites to view current seasons of The Voice and a few episodes of America's Got Talent - but the production of that show made me think too much of Rome's "bread and circuses" and the decay of civilization and I did not continue watching. I would watch Ellen clips and just continually search for something to pass the time while I suffered through the constant nausea and puking. I rationalized that nothing more could be expected of me in my condition.  

I tired of the headphones and switched to reading. Three or four series I completed in two and a half weeks. I did nothing with myself, showering weekly. Nothing with my kids, my 5 and 6 year olds were  caring for the 1 year old. Even if I physically needed their help, I was emotionally shut off to them. My ipad was an extension of me. I didn't go anywhere without it. I looked at it and only it. 

Yes, I was sick. No I couldn't have done more physically. But I let my mental disciplines slip and never even tried to regain them. I just slid into my escape. It was easier. 

I decided tonight that a physical sickness does not need to impair my mental health. When I refer to mental health, I refer to self talk, attitude, correct thinking, and education. I had abandoned all improvement in those areas and am suffering greatly for it. 

So I gave Mike my ipad to hide. Yes, I'm on a laptop. It is less portable, more cumbersome, but not without temptation. So my first actions will be to make the right choices first every day. Daily devotional and good reading, journaling, and my educational/leadership cds first. Then if facebook or pinterest beckon, I can make better time choices with them. Ten minutes rather than mindless searching for entertainment for hours. 

If you can change how you think, you can change your life. 

This is my first step to the life I really want for myself. 

A New Chapter

Ever feel like you're ruining your kids? I do. Then, I set to work on my husband so that at least one of us doesn't completely screw it up. He appreciates that. Lots. Where's the sarcasm font?
We've been blessed with the association of some amazing people. I feel that I've been brought to this point in time where both my husband and I are ready to make a change in our lives, to have a better marriage, and to be better parents, and to have a more fulfilling life with friends and fun and a purpose, and we have the resources available to us to be successful in those goals. We are students in a leadership community called LIFE - Living Intentionally For Excellence.

I was thinking today about how I got to this point; how it all started. I think it would be worth recording because, you see, Life is a networking company. And if there's one thing consistent with networking, it's that people quit it. In fact, outside of Life, the statistics are that if 200 people start this year, in two years, all but four of them will have quit. (These are NOT the statistics of Life.) So, I haven't done the work to get the income results I want and still, nine years later, to the month I first signed up (Sept 3, 2003), I haven't quit. I have had periods of inactivity, but I've always held on, knowing this is supposed to be in my life. So this is the story of why I believe with all the energy of my soul that this is my purpose, as well as why I feel that now is the time for it all to come to fruition for me and my family.

Nine years ago, my ex-boyfriend invited me to attend a meeting with him for Quixtar. I laughed at him. I had heard my boss when I was 16 go on and on about what a scam it was. I didn't know what he was talking about, but years later when it showed up in my life, I assumed the information from my boss's rantings was correct. I can't even believe myself now that I wouldn't even consider new information.
Anyway, I had sort of a date scheduled for the night the meeting was on anyway. My roommate and I were going to let a couple guys cook dinner for us, even though I'd been turning them down again and again, but I finally consented. Well, Monday night, the night before this "date" and the turned down meeting, I went to a single's ward activity. We played a game where everyone was in a circle, sitting in a chair, with one person in the middle. The person in the middle names something and everyone it applies to has to jump up and switch chairs and not be the last left standing. So the person in the middle calls out that everyone weighing more than 180 had to jump up.
A little background here real quick. Weight has always been my struggle. I was anorexic for four years in high school and after breaking up with the ex of this story, I was starving myself again. This recent starvation was the only reason I didn't weigh more than 180 at that time. I was still overweight, but I hadn't eaten more than a couple hundred calories each day for weeks.
So, the guy who was supposed to be my date the next night ended up in a chair next to me, and as soon as the commotion died down, turned to me and said, loud enough for everyone to hear, "Why didn't YOU get up, Julie?"
To a girl who starves herself, this public humiliation was beyond anything I could handle. A couple of the girls said I should have punched him, but I just quickly gathered my things and attempted as dignified of an exit as I could.
When I got outside, my ex was out there. I immediately approached him saying, "I suddenly need a reason to be unavailable tomorrow night. Can I still go to that meeting?" He was beyond excited, and then said that I needed to listen to something first and he sent me home with something called a 'dream box." It was a dvd. Maybe even a VHS, haha. Either way, it talked about achieving your dreams and living the life you've always wanted. I was sold that night, before I ever went to a meeting or even knew what I was about to see.
Without that date I had refused so many times and the insensitive comment I practically ran from because I couldn't face that part of myself, I would have never given myself the chance to get the right information. That is one aspect of why I believe God directed me to this.
Here's another:
My brother in the previous months had tried to sponsor me in his own Quixtar business. He did it over the phone and I had no clue what he was talking about. "What do you mean I can buy toilet paper from myself? I don't sell toilet paper!" I was 18, and never ever had wanted to be a business owner. I don't even think I realized he was trying to get me into Quixtar, since it didn't trigger my 'scam' response. He was sooooo upset when he found out I had signed up with a different team. But it was this team and those people who providentially attached themselves to a different team that ended up founding the LIFE business.
I wouldn't have had LIFE if I had signed up with my brother. I would have quit my Quixtar business and started and quit a handful more of any MLM that crossed my path. But my team? I've never quit. I started building it as a 18 year old single, dreaming of the day I could build with my husband. Then while dating my future husband, I sabotaged his efforts because of my own immaturity and laziness. I just wanted to spend time with him, and he ended up quitting. I didn't quit, but I became inactive. Every transition and change the business went through, I went through with it. I stayed subscribed to the training materials but stopped going to the meetings. When my second child, and youngest at the time, was two, I pulled out all the stops and went at my business full force, but my husband wouldn't join me. It was "my thing," according to him. But he babysat the kids, so that took care of that concern. Then I got pregnant with my third and was so sick I couldn't continue on my own. So once again, I put the brakes on.
Why is it so easy to put the brakes on our own success? Oh, you know what? I'm going to have to stop growing because I'm puking every half an hour and have temporary resident in my uterus. Life is happening, so I just need to pause this whole growing and becoming better thing. Success just needs to wait until my life isn't "happenin'."
But here we are, we have a home that only has three bedrooms, the size of postage stamps. We remodeled and ran out of money before we put a bathroom sink into the master bathroom, so we have to use the guest bathroom to get ready. Our two oldest share a room, and our baby sleeps in the office. They have no room to play in the house. We have no room for a growing baby. We don't have anywhere else to put our office stuff. So he doesn't have a room he'll be able to play in. My husband's job put him on a fast track for promotions, which put him in a transitional position that he hates but has to have experience in in order to move on. But he can only be promoted if someone dies or quits. So he's now stuck in a job he doesn't like, and then because he drives while on company time, his gas saving motorcycle is a liability and our gas saving geo doesn't show company pride, and so his supervisor told him he had to get a new vehicle. And the whole new vehicle scenario, which I won't spell out here, basically completely screwed us over and in the two months we've owned it, we are now waiting for it to be repoed. We have screwed up credit. Partly from mistakes, but partly because we short sold our out-of-town house so we could move in with and take care of my husband's dying mother two years ago. We lost all of our savings on this stupid vehicle that we couldn't get a good interest rate on, and couldn't use any equity in the home we just paid off so we could get the couple thousand needed to "Love it or leave it" with the dealership. This part probably doesn't make particular sense, but it just needs to be known that we are in the middle of a financial storm after several years of being able to save some, pay off debt quickly, and still spend in a leisurely manner. Somehow we have nothing to save, nothing to pay our bills beyond the minimum, and nothing to spend leisurely, and it all came about because of the new position at work and the dumb truck. But guess what happened? My husband, after me praying for the six years of our marriage, and wishing for the three years I was single to build my business with my spouse, is at his second "Tuesday," which is the weekly Life meeting.
Everything in our life brought us to this point where he's driven to try something different. I can't do it with my nursing baby. I have a few more months before I can get a babysitter and go with him. But he's starting. He's learning.
And I'm dreaming again.
I see the people we're going to grow to be, the marriage we'll have, the parents we'll be. I see the trips and the homes and the friendships and the fun that will be a part of our life. I see everything I've ever wanted on this path we've reembarked on, and now together, I know we're going to reach it. We're supposed to.
Why else would I have been insulted badly enough to get out of a date I never wanted to agree to, to join a business with a team of strangers rather than with my family, to find out that only through these particular people would I have access to Life now?
My Heavenly Father knew I would need it, right now. And I'm so grateful.

Only the Mediocre Are Always At Their Best

I saw this quote today, and it struck a chord with me. I've been wanting to explain what it means to me to rise about mediocrity, as it is a bit ambiguous. Mediocrity leaves no room for improvement. It is comfortable being stagnant. It fears change, and growth. It would rather go without than pay the price to achieve something it desires. It is self-serving, and at the same time self-destructive. It stifles our potential as children of God, endowed with seeds of greatness, to become who we are, who we really are. 

The thing I am constantly trying to achieve, is the counsel given in D&C 88:119 

Organize yourselves, prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God.

I used to think with my strong organization skills, that I had created a house of order. "A place for everything, and everything in it's place," type of order. While that is good, it would be better, or even best to have a home where every morning, meal time, and evening, we came as a family to the Lord in prayer. A proper order would attend to the spiritual, and remember our God, before anything else. Constant, firm and immovable. A home where the music is always uplifting, a home where Monday night is always reserved for learning together to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and strengthen our family relationships. A home where the scriptures are feasted upon daily, and children are taught how to apply the teachings in their lives, through parents who practice the same. 

While we may never completely rid ourselves of our weaknesses or imperfections in this life, rising about mediocrity means that we never quit trying. We may strengthen our weaknesses, but we still must strive to maintain our strengths, and seek for ways to grow stronger.  

A Glimpse

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror the other day. And I don't mean a glimpse of a thinner version of me, (though my double chin is in retreat.) I think a quick anecdote will best explain what I mean. 

A friend of mine wrote in her blog about living a more healthy life, and as she typed it out she saw 'Heal thy life." I've thought about that alot, and I've been thinking about the things in my life that need to be fixed for me to be healthier, and I've been making some of those changes - slowly, but surely.  

And I caught a glimpse of the mischievous sparkle that's been missing in my eyes for some time. I saw the flash of a spontaneous smile as it swept across my face. And with that smile came a rush of long forgotten feelings of ambition, determination, and confidence, and everything that empowers me to see my potential, and feel that it's within my reach.

As I've worked to heal my life, I've been less bogged down by the things that hide my potential from me, and I'm allowing my true self to emerge.

One Step Forward, Hope it Sticks...

I feel rather foolish creating this blog about becoming better and only having one post. I think that if it can be considered a vice, that inconsistency is mine. Everytime I take one step forward, I take two steps back. I was waiting to write here until I had something wise or impressive to say. I heard once that if you haven't been reading, you have nothing to say worth listening to. It seems as though since I determined to start improving myself, every force in the universe has been sent out to keep me down. It's given me very little that I felt was worth writing about. But I guess the joy is in the journey, not the destination. Although, I think I find the word 'frustration' a lot more accurate than 'joy' to describe this particular journey.

This is called 'rising' above mediocrity, so I might as well include you in the process; the struggles to rise above and overcome my setbacks, instead of getting there and telling you how it went.

Gotta Start Somewhere

I've been contemplating how to get this blog rolling. I feel like my mind is a bit stagnant after having children, and I'm not able to immerse myself in books like I used to do. But I am growing restless. I want to be learning and put what I learn into practice. I want to strengthen my weaknesses. I want to live my dreams. And the only thing stopping me is me. I got sucked back into thinking mediocre thoughts and getting comfortable not having to stretch myself and grow. But not growing, not struggling, not achieving or learning or dreaming is starting to get uncomfortable.

And it's time to do something about it.