Gratitude, how to beat the blues

Last Thursday I had an exceptionally excellent day and was feeling very grateful- so I was reminded that I had been meaning to write about gratitude for a while now.

There are days, and I'm sure everyone gets them, when life-for whatever reason- feels lame and slow. You feel stressed without a reason, or sometimes depressed. I have found gratitude to be the best cure for that awful sulking feeling. 

I had this friend named Rachel- at the end of each day we would cross out the day on the calendar to mark the passing of time. Only I marked mine with an X and she marked hers with words. At the end of each day she would 'cross the day off' with things she was grateful for that day. I've found that as I follow that example I'm a lot happier. I'm not as good about doing it daily right now- but on days or weeks when life feels bad I pull out my calendar or planner or whatever and write down things that I'm grateful happened that day. This can include the humorous, the terrible (because it will turn into memories that you will laugh at later), the happy, the delicious, whatever. 

Just taking time at the end of each day to be happy for your life can make you a lot happier with your life. Promise. :) 

Example page. My favorite ones looking back are "accidentally walked into men's bathroom but no one was inside" and "tripped and fell into bathtub before date"  

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.” 
― Seneca

So here are some pictures from lately of things I have been grateful for. 

The flowers at Thanksgiving Point

Minimizing- getting rid of clothes I never wear. I'm also doing this thing where I've turned all the hangers around backwards and every time I wear a shirt/skirt I can turn the hanger back normal. At the end of one year anything still left backwards goes. 

Free concert at the park...he's a one eyed one horned flying purple people eater...wearing short shorts.

All the roses blooming at work! I love my job. :)

Canoe trip day! There were these three boys in a boat, and the one in the middle refused to sit down...it was very entertaining.

I got these sweet pea seeds from someone's house in Idaho last October (I suppose stole would be the correct term), and this year I planted them. So far 9 are growing!! Exciting! 

Chickens and trampolines

Reading on the front porch. Right now I'm reading Oliver Twist and "Leadership and Self Deception"

I think my favorite banana bread recipe so far- the Lion House recipe

Another free concert in the park- this time it's dueling pianos. 

Dad- "They just ruined another one of my favorite songs" He's 'critically' enjoying himself. 

Mom- Singing and dancing along.

Caution...when carrying honey jars, make sure the lid is screwed on tight- can be very sticky to clean up.

Five things I learned, knew, and became on my mission that I don't want to give up.

To not be ashamed to be GOOD.
Coming from Utah, being a mormon, I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been called goody-two-shoes or molly mormon or made fun of for being "innocent". Well I did- for lots of reasons: not drinking, not wanting to listen to inappropriate songs, for my language (aka not swearing and not feeling comfortable with dirty talk). And it used to bother me that I couldn't fit in.
I changed my mind and decided it's actually cooler to be pure and to be good. Why do we need to be rebellious or bad or break the rules to be considered cool? It's harder to keep them, to stay strong....but I'd rather be on that side.

To not live life just so others can see you live it.
Do you know what I mean? With all the social media and pictures I sometimes feel like life becomes a production instead of a life. Are we doing things because we want to? Or are we doing them to post about them? Just food for thought having been separated from the social media world for a year and a half.

To remember that more often than not Satan tempts us through convenience.
I once had a great district leader on my mission. He told us as missionaries Satan knew he couldn't get us to fall by tempting us to break the word of wisdom or anything big like that. But he did know that little rules missionaries have like waking up at 6:30, leaving the house right after study and lunch...there are all these little rules that are inconvenient and easy to break without feeling like it's a big deal. But that was just perfect for Satan. He doesn't need us to break some great law and get sent home from our missions- he just needed to keep us in the house for 30 min. more (because imagine what we could do in those 30 min!), or start our day off slow, etc.
Poison by degrees.  Know what I'm sayin? (Alma 47:9-19)
SO. Connection to the real world. At first Satan does not need us to just leave the church or break some great commandment. Maybe he just wants to catch us on the little inconvenient things.  If he could get us to just not read our scriptures, or to go to sleep without praying, to skip out on church every once and a while when it's not easy to go....そんなかんじ

To remember that the atonement is for everyone.
I mean everyone. The sinners AND the perfectly good people who just struggle. I think it's easier to understand how the Atonement of Christ can help a sinner- anyone who's messed up and wants to turn around- to change and find forgiveness, they can through Him.
 But I don't usually feel like a sinner who needs to change my life around. So is it still for me? YES! I'm here to tell you yes it is. I just want to say that on the nights I felt so discouraged or hopeless, the nights when I was just tired and frustrated, when I was angry that things weren't the way they should be, when I had regrets or felt like I definitely was messing up or not doing/being enough, I could pray to God and ask for that peace that comes through the atonement and it came. It comes when you need it and when you ask for it. It does come, and it is unmistakably from the power of the atonement.
Christ wants us to move forward. Not to focus on negative emotions or the past.

To remember that it's enough.
My dad has this saying he's said to me a couple times in my life when I was stuck. It goes something like "Just do what you can and I'll make up the rest" or "Do your best and I'll make sure it works out."
I like to believe God wants us to know that too.
My mission was great and I saw many miracles and I'm sure lives were changed. I do think it was  successful. But there were many times where I was doing my best but not seeing any results and so my perfectionist side jumped out and said why aren't you doing more? (More than was possible.) Which made me feel I wasn't nor could ever do or be enough. But doing more than is possible is not what was required, trying your best was required and if you're doing that- don't worry. No need to feel down. Try your best, but lighten up.

I had to add the fall-ish feeling pictures. Doesn't it feel like it's becoming fall already?

Oh, the things you can learn in a year

Warning: this is my cheesy new years post. Mostly written for myself. And kind of long.
One year goes by quickly. But thinking back to what was going on at the beginning of a year- it was so long ago. I've learned so many life lessons in that short/long time. So life lessons/ high times of the year in pictures and words. The year has three parts to me: Winter semester, summer, and Fall semester.

Heading back to college after a particularly challenging first semester where I found myself still determined, but a bit discouraged. I moved in- still quiet, unsure, and wanting to restart again- to an apartment of loud, fun, confident, kind girls. Learned that people I'd always imagined were a certain way were just like me. In fact they all were just normal people like everyone else.
This is where I most felt self worth. This was a home where love was commonly told and shown instead of just assumed. This was a place where I was pushed out of my shell and decided it was okay to like myself and what I was becoming. I learned a good deal of social skills so that when I met people the first word used to describe me would not be: shy. I was taught that any dream I could come up with can be achievable and I gained friends that constantly built me up and allowed me to become who I wanted. I felt wanted.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I found my love for floral arranging and that my medium of art is flowers. 

And I found that peace and closeness to God is easy to feel in the fields of Rexburg in the quite, and under a star filled sky. 

The Summer where I learned the importance of being friends with your family, I creatively explored crafts and floral arrangements of my own, traveled to my hearts content, found out how to create my own adventures and learned how to be content on my own, gardened, learned I didn't need to put quite so much time into my looks in order to feel good about myself, worked on a hot catering bus of crazy women who taught me to take everything with a grain of salt, and worked delivering sandwiches and made friends with people who didn't have the same standards as me and made me realize I had some figuring out to do to find my own personal testimony of the gospel, and saved up a enough money for the next bit of college. 

And then in a return to college I figured out how to make friends with teachers and get through days of insane amounts of studying- I figured out how to get by the weather and the homework loads. I learned how to make time for the people that I cared about, people that taught me lessons of trust, service, and more confidence. And on my own as I searched for answers I really found my own testimony and love for the gospel. Which came just in time as I figured out I was supposed to start my mission papers. And I started to see that God has a plan for me even before I know why or can give up my own stubbornness and go with it. 

And most importantly- it all, always works out.

I learned how to cook a lot more things, despite a couple of failed attempts, became obsessed with family history, and stepped away from some time wasting habits on the computer. I traveled to Hawaii, spent a lot of nights wrapped up in warm sheets out of the dryer in the laundry room to friends and family far away (first semester in college with no family around), and I had way too many corn experiments and late nights in the library. The adventures continued....

sledding on cookie sheets

the corn experiments winner

A whole year summarized in one. 

Next year will be full of lessons from my mission in Japan. Starting February 20th.