Grief and the tides of change.

      As we enter my absolute favorite season and the weather starts to change so many feelings come with it! There is something that Fall does to my soul that is so filling, its hard to explain. Fall to me, means family, hunkering down and enjoying those around you. Blankets, pumpkin everything, hearty meals and baked goods. All the things I grew up with. It was also my moms favorite time of year.
     The change in seasons always brings up so many feelings of missed family. Loneliness as I still am trying to navigate what life without parents looks like. I often feel very alone like I am doing this life by myself (ourselves with my husband I mean). The redefinition of family has and is interesting. What do my traditions look like? Do I still have them or make my own? Honestly, putting energy into this area is overwhelming. Don't even get me started on Christmas because that just makes me want to cry.  
     I have my own family now, and we are building what these seasons and holidays look like for us, but to be honest I am a creature of comfort and don't want to do it on my own. I want what I had. I don't even know where to start with creating my own because when I do, it doesn't feel the same and I find myself being disappointed and drained. 
    Grief is a strange bird. Truly I don't know how to explain it most of the time. How it just knocks you out of thin air. How it presents itself in the weirdest situations and brings up feelings you didn't even know you had. 
   So for all of you who are experiencing grief during these seasons of change, I am right there with you <3 <3  

I work for a wellness Company....

   I work for a health and wellness company... and I'm overweight. Yep I said it and I'm about to get real with you...ok lets be honest I am pretty real all of the time lol. 

   I do work for a health and wellness company, for two and a half years and it has completely flipped my world upside down. Young Living Essential oils have changed the way I look at life in every aspect. We have become a chemically free home to the best of our ability in these two years. We have changed the way we look at health and medicine and so much more. But yeah, I am still overweight. This post might be a little too real for some people but I really felt that I needed to write it.

   See I struggle with this black and white mentality in life that if I just ..... then ____. Ha! Not how it works. I struggle with an Autoimmune disorder that makes it really hard to loose weight BUT also I really struggle with food. It is my addiction of choice. Sometimes I think that people discount what I am saying because I don't "look the part" when in fact, for me my struggle in this area shows how human I am. That I don't need to be "perfect" (hardly) to run a successful business. That although my weight and physical health is a priority that I don't need to be "skinny" to run my own business.  This is a mentality that I struggle with daily.

  I know that God set this opportunity in front of me. That he called me to be here in all my glory. In my life that is messy and un-perfect and HUMAN. I will continue to fight that mentality and keep learning how to embrace the parts of my life that need work 

Psalms 139:14

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful. I know that full well. 

Judgement isn't a bad thing

       I was talking to a friend the other day about this. This is an area of my life that I am VERY hard on myself. See, I am an INFJ (Introvert, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging). See that last word gets me all riled up a little bit, OK a lot. I don't like it. Does it make me feel better that my judging percentage is 87%?? Nope, not at all! This is where my analytical part and emotional part of my brain are at a constant battle. I often think in very black and white. I am also a very caring, considerate and can easily see the other side of things kind of person. Can you see the tension here? 
  I am quick to Judge. Quick to make a decision about something. This part of my brain is very black and white.
* Judgement: the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions.
This is something we all do. We do it daily. What to wear... what to eat... whether to say yes to something..what feels right to us. This is not wrong! In fact this is how God made us. Now, he might of made some of us with a stronger Judgement than others but we all do it.
Where is gets tricky is when Judgement turns to Judgemental. 
* Judgemental:having or displaying an excessively critical point of view. 
Being judgemental is making that quick judgement and instead of processing through it we stay there. We don't look at the other point of view. We don't look at possibilities that affect that outcome. Man when I am angry or heated about something how easy it is for me to get stuck in this place. I have had to, continue to train my brain to try to see the other perspective. I have had to train my mouth not to speak my initial thought because it usually takes me much processing to see something differently. I am thankful that my job has taught me A TON about this and putting it into practice <3  
Now, I am still a HUGE work in progress but my goal is to look at my high Judgement as an asset in my ability to make decisions and stand firm in what I believe instead of a negative aspect <3 <3  

Clarity

Sometimes Clarity can be beautiful. Sometime clarity can be gut wrenching. I feel like I am going through a season of heartbreaking clarity. I’ve said before that I thought that 2017 was going to be a year of going all in. I did not think that God would be asking me to go all in, in the way that he has been and not going to lie. There are aspects of this messy journey that are painful, very painful and exposed.

I have decided that I am going to start to write about my parent’s journey with Cancer and death. I have not given this enough credit. I have not acknowledged it enough. I have spent 5 years stuffing the trauma and grief from my dad’s death and 2 years for my mom’s. I lost both of my parents to cancer at the age of 52; 4 years apart. Event typing that sentence makes the wave of emotion in me surge. Sometimes that wave completely drowns me if I let it. Often I try to pretend it’s not there and I find myself completely numb.

See, my parents didn’t just get Cancer and die. They slowly died from cancer. For my dad it took a little over a year and for my mom about two. I hope that that is the most traumatic thing that I ever have to go through because watching your parent deteriorate to nothing is something I would wish on NO ONE.

It is easy for me to say “It happened” and life goes on. I mean in a way life has to go on. I have a full time job, a full time Oils business and two beautiful children. It has to go on. I have let myself get caught up in “getting on with it” to the point that I never have dealt with it. I have to now. I don’t know why NOW is the time, but it is. I refuse to live like this any longer. Half a spectator to my own life that I won’t engage in because it’s not safe. And half too overwhelmed to engage because it hurts too much. Cancer didn’t just ROB me of both my parents. It didn’t just rob my brothers and sisters of a mom and dad or my kids of their grandparents. It took so much more from me. It took my safety net. I took what felt like protection away from me. It robbed me of the births of my children I imagined, the college graduation I had hoped for and many other events I have experienced and will continue too… without them.

I don’t give it enough credit. It’s not that CANCER needs credit. But the experience of how CANCER has affected me needs credit. I have to acknowledge that it was/is a BIG thing. That what we went through was a big thing because if I don’t, well I am not sure what will happen but I do know it’s not good for me not too.

Putin Free and Lovin it!

Ok! Now if you opened this link thinking I was going to go on a rant about Vladimir Putin. Wrong! We're here to talk a little bit about Gluten! My almost 4 year old Calls it Putin (evil just like the Dictator) she came up with that all on her own. There is no coincidence ;)

About two weeks ago we pulled her off of Gluten. This was a last resort for us. We had tried everything. I had read all the books, tried different strategies and I had even talked to Early Intervention specialist and a therapist about the possibility of a a brain disorder. See, Ruby had been having meltdowns; I am talking meltdowns not tantrums, at home for about a year and a half. I remember the first time she had one. In the middle of the tram line at Disneyland. It was 100 degrees outside, only one tram was running, about 1000 people (at least it felt like it) were waiting for it and she lost it. It was HORRIBLE. The meltdowns continued. Sometimes multiple times a day. It was exhausting and I started getting anxiety on my way home from work, knowing that our evening could be very rough. I didn't want to come home. To be honest I didn't even want to be around my daughter.
As a mom. I felt like a failure. Feeling that feeling about your own child is awful. It comes with a heavy weight. I felt like as a family, we were failing and that there was something seriously wrong and I didn't have any clue how to fix it. Her ability to process information and express her emotions was stunted.

Fast Forward to two weeks ago. I think I was finally able to open up my ears enough to actually listen. Yeah, sometimes I can be stubborn ;) And decided lets just give it a try and see what happens. We will give it two weeks and if we don't see a change then we can go back to eating regularly. 
I started to notice a difference in two days. I thought " this has to be a fluke" "this is just wishful thinking" but nevertheless I persisted (see what I did there) Honestly though, we had two days of no meltdowns, the keratosis on her arms was starting to fade and her Eczema was going away. This was a new Years Miracle! Here we are, right now her arms are clear, her eczema is almost completely gone and she is Happy. This is the part that makes me teary. Guys, she is happy! It is like my little girl is finally coming out. Before we got little glimpses of who she was when she was feeling good, but that was so often overshadowed by anger, meltdowns and violence. She is a like a completely different person and I feel like I am finally able to start connecting with her the way I have been wanting. Just last night she started to meltdown a little bit and within minutes she said " My Feelings are hurt because someone called me yucky at school today." In the past getting to the point of her being able to say that would of taken 45 minutes. 
We are completely overjoyed and I will shout it from the ROOFTOPS! We feel peace. Our family is working better. The stress is melting away daily and it feels sooo good! <3 <3 
 * I know that Gluten free isn't the answer for everything but I know for us, for her; for now this is the answer.

Here are some foods we have tried that we really like as a family
- Anything by Wholesome Chow ( Amazon or LifeSource)
- Any Bobs Red Mill mixes ( you can get these anywhere)
- Bobs Red mill Gluten Free Oats ( Lifesource)
- Trader Joes Gluten Free Pizza Crust
- Pamela's Products especially the graham crackers ( LifeSource)
- Betty Crocker gluten free brownies
- Lara Bars
- Franz Gluten free bread - Mountain white (because Kaleb still thinks its regular bread)
- Annies Gluten Free Pasta boxes. Or what I do with the old boxes we have, is swap out GF noodles and still use the sauce packets.

Cheers for BIG victories!

Waking Up

      I chose some words as inspiration for my Business this year, ALL IN. What I didn't know that God would be challenging me in this from the get go in a hard hard way. I thought " Yeah! I am going to go all in, be overwhelmed in a blessed way by this business" Apparently God had other plans because he is definitely putting me to the test in so many other areas of my life and I'm going to be frank here. I don't like it!
     I have noticed that throughout my life a message has been relayed to me. Whether intentional or not I have been shown over and over again that my feelings aren't ok unless they are agreeable. Insert massive people pleaser here. If I agreed enough then all was ok. My first boyfriend even broke up with me saying that I was "too emotional for him". These left scars on my heart and continued to paint this picture that my feelings were too big for this world and they shouldn't be shared. This point in my life is where I subsequently started to gain weight. 
   I have spent the last 15 years playing nice and keeping my emotions to myself because in truth I have felt that there was no place for them to be held, that only I could do that. That is a crushing weight to bear. The weight kept piling up, and my lack of connection to that correlation has been evident. 
    I stumbled upon this artist last month and in Godly fashion as he always does, he started to speak to me through the music. He knows that this is my medium. Its where I gain inspiration, come to revelation and am moved. This artist is blowing me out of the water because I feel like her music is speaking so heavily into my life right now I can't explain it.
   I feel like for the first time, I am waking up. I am waking up to heavy emotions that have been buried through years of hiding. Heavy emotions from loosing two parents in 5 years and loosing my sister and so many other things. I am not going to lie, this is an ugly place. A CRUSHING place. It feels incredibly isolating and lonely, but I also know this. That God does not take you through the dessert to just leave you there. He will be walking right beside me through all of this, even thought it feels so heavy, like this numb veil is starting to lift, I know that incredible blessings will be coming from this place.