Learning

These are the things that I have been learning lately:

- Relationships are always more important then projects.
- I can't take responsibility for other people's lives.
- I HAVE to take responsibility for MY life.
- I HATE biology. Scientific study... whoa boy that's lameness.
- Just because I am a leader, doesn't mean I have to control everything.
- My heart will be restored, it just takes time.
- God wants me to trust him... so he can bless me.... as my faith grows... so will the blessings. <---- I LOVE that one =)
- Listening includes asking questions, not sharing personal experiences.
- I really should get back to my reading.
- My new task chair is the COOLEST chair EVER! See pic below =) =) =) Except for mine is in RED!!!!

Sensitivity

These past few weeks have been busy and draining. Last night, well, last night was different. I was able to relax and just enjoy the company of my wonderful kids and amazing boyfriend. It was good to just relax and laugh again. Life turns into busy-ness so easily for me. I can run around in circles with the best of them, but when I do that I lose sight of what God wants me to be doing. I am not honoring him with my time.

I am still going through the process of learning to listen to my heart, and not distracting myself from how I truly feel. It is still kicking my butt and I realized that one of the reasons I probably stopped listening to how I feel is because I am OVERLY-SENSITIVE and EMPATHETIC. Which means that when someone else feels like crap, I end up feeling like crap too. I don't take control of how I feel, I allow my environment to dictate that for me. Then the other side of that is that my tender heart becomes easily hurt. Throughout my life I learned to protect myself though and I built walls all around me. I learned not to listen to my sensitivity and taught myself to let things roll off my back. I love the idea of "mellow". I wanted that so desperately that I began to deny what my heart was really saying. I became a girl that didn't cry and I saw crying as a weakness. It was awkward and I didn't know what to do with it.

God is cleaning up the mess that I made and it hurts. I've been having to express how I am feeling to the people that I love, even if my head wants to tell me it is ridiculous and I shouldn't feel that way. Well, I do feel that way. I need to honor myself and my feelings by being honest about them. The amazing thing is I am learning to do that simply for myself, and not because I have an expectation of some sort of response from who I'm talking to. It's been great and I am really blessed God is changing this in my life.

I added some pictures from our trip to the coast a couple weeks ago. Enjoy!

Heart to Heart

I am learning to listen to my heart. It sounds like a pretty easy task, but it can be nearly impossible some days. When I am struggling with stress, or under pressure, all I want to do is distract myself. Distract myself from my heart in any way that I can. I probably wouldn't even have realized this if it weren't for my amazing Michael who is always wanting to know: where is my heart at?

So, I am learning to listen. I listen and I push away all of those distractions away... and by doing that I am able to have an amazing connection with God and the people that I love. The best way for me to start is by reading the Word of God and praying. It is amazing what a difference this can make in my world. I am so excited about being able to be open and honest with myself, and the people around me.

Naturally, my heart a lot of times can be filled with junk. When I am able to express that though, to talk about it, and lay it at the feet of God. Wow... the junk is able to get cleared out... and I feel SO much better. It can be really difficult to start, but when it happens it is absolutely phenomenal. I have been so blessed to find a man that loves me enough to go through this process with me. One of my favorite things about love, is how it makes us want to be better people, because we know that the people we love deserve our very very best.

Have you listened to your heart today???