Christmas Crazed

The past few nights Zara has been throwing a fit and refusing to get out of her car seat until we drive around and look at Christmas lights with her. As we have driven around a few neighborhoods we have noticed something really sad-very few people decorate their houses or put lights out like they used to. We noticed something similar during Halloween in that there were very few children out trick or treating like when we were kids. Jeff and I have talked a lot about this and think it's probably mostly due to how busy all of our lives have become, for better or for worse.

Anyone who knows me really well knows I LOVE traditions and celebrating because I think it brings people together. I also really like good food. 

I also love Christmas Cadbury eggs (not those gross filled ones just the solid chocolate obviously) and have eaten almost half the bag I bought yesterday but that's just not important right now....

So naturally food+celebration+fun stuff= Aurielle's dream life.  I love the little things that make holidays special. I still treasure going out with my family on a Monday night in December to pick our new family ornament each year. I remember the Christmas eve dinner and program with my dads side of the family with all the cousins, aunts and uncles. The cinnamon rolls my granny would bring us on Christmas morning and the perfect gravy and rolls that I just can't seem to replicate. Listening for Santa on the roof for a long time before finally zonking out. Sprinkling reindeer food on our front lawn, and the letter Santa left us next to the cookie plate we would read on Christmas morning (obviously I ALWAYS had to be the one to read it out loud to the sibs because naturally I was the most talented reader. Surprisingly they still love me... hahaha!)

I've been a crazed fresh garland/wreath/anything with fresh pine maker the last week. But really Jeff is the best husband because he comes home every day and there is like half a Christmas tree diseccted on our kitchen floor (ok and porch, our neighbors prob hate us) every day when he gets home and he aint even mad. I asked him if my crafts/sewing projects (or the fact that there were pine branches in the shower bc I was trying to soak them overnight) drives him insane and he just said "It doesn't bother me. You always come up with such fun ideas for our house and I love that." Awww that Jeffers is too good to me. Okay I've gotten way too off track...not surprising.

BUT today I went to the temple and I just was thinking about Christ, and how Christmas should really be about him. And I had to ask myself if I have focused more on making garland or more on Jesus this month so far and I'm not really happy with what my answer was. So today I am committing to remembering him a little more each day, and showing gratitude for His perfect life. Truly this is why the spirit of Christmas is so enticing and contagious. Maybe why people are a little kinder, and more charitable (unless you are black friday shopping, HELLO I hate black friday). 

As I sat in the temple staring at a picture of Christ with his hands outstretched these words came to my mind and my heart burst with joy, so I want to share them with you too. They are the scriptures found in  Matthew 11:28-30 and John 16:33:

 28 ¶Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

I love that he is always offering us peace. I guess it shouldn't surprise us that Peace was the Angels message to the shepherds the night Jesus was born as well. There is something so special about the gift of peace. Truly it is a gift nobody else can truly give to us when we are in the trenches of this life. 

These words have permeated every aspect of my life and I hope it will always be that way. He has made me into something so different, and so much better than I could have made myself.  Everything about Him deserves to be celebrated AT LEAST one month out of the year if not year round. 

He has given us light and life. Because of him darkness will never prevail, sadness will never endure, hard things will come to a close, the bands of death and sin have been broken, and we can live in eternal joy if we so choose. 

Christmas is the celebration of Christ. We are celebrating that two thousand years ago a perfect little baby was born, in the lowliest of places- even a manger in a stall. We celebrate that baby who would one day grow to heal lepers and blind men, raise the dead, feed the hungry, bring peace and hope to the broken, and greatest of all to save us because we wouldn't be able to save ourselves. He gave His life not just on the cross, but every day of his life so we could have ours. He went through every kind of suffering so He could know how to help us individually. I want to shout from the rooftops my love for Him when I think of a world without Him. 

So this Christmas while we celebrate with our family and friends, lets remember that Christ is what is bringing us all together this season, and forevermore. 

Yogi Probs

So this month I finally got the hang of pincha mayurasana (or forearm stand). I've been working on it for no joke almost an entire year dozens of times a day, and it's just been the most challenging asana for me by far, but especially mentally. Slowly (so slowly) it has improved and I can now get up and hold the pose fairly consistently. But even as I've come this far, I still repeatedly find myself dissatisfied with my efforts. You see, I kind of start to have this dialogue in my head. 

Try 1: "I've totally got this!" 

*crashes onto floor* 

"Maybe I don't 'got' this" 

Try 2: *barely taps the wall*

"Ugh that was bad I'm trying again. So annoyed" 

Try 3: *holds freestanding forearm stand for a few seconds but legs aren't together* 

"Why can't I do this better?"

Try 4: *holds with legs together but only for a couple seconds before falling out of it*

" I'll never be good (aka perfect) at this/ I'm not as good as (blank)" 

There are about a zillion things wrong with these poisonous thoughts I put myself through every day. But the ones I'll address are the last two. 

"Why can't I do this better?"

We have this horrible way about us as humans to take what we are able to do and turn it into not enough. Instead of seeing all the progress we have made and all the good we have spread, we look at what is still to be critiqued. Not that it's bad to routinely assess ourselves, but when we begin to think that all the progress we have made is too little, assessment becomes a hindering process instead of a help. Instead of saying "why can't I do this better?" We would say things like- hey look at how much better that was from the first time I ever tried. I have made a lot of improvement through my diligent efforts! 

" I'll never be good (aka perfect) at this/ I'm not as good as (blank)"

As much as I hate to admit it this one gets me All. The. Time. It's the thing that holds us back from sharing our talents with others. The thing that keeps us from ever being happy with who we are. It happens when the comparison side of our brain takes over. When our happiness lies in someone else failure. Sounds harsh huh? For example, we often don't consider something a talent or achievement until we feel it has met some kind of superior standard, superior meaning above what the average person can do. Therefore we reach achievement when someone else fails to meet the so called standard. Aka being the best at whatever you do. 

 I'll share a personal example to illustrate. And ill use Jeff because he is obviously the more complete (perf) of the two of us and because yall are bored of hearing about my insecurities so we'll just use his😏 (with his permission geez don't judge) :

Any time someone comes over to our house and asks about the paintings on the wall Jeff has painted I am quick to pipe in and gush about how talented of an artist he is. Jeff is then quick to tell people that he wouldn't call himself an artist, he just took a couple classes and that's it. But secretly Jeff LOVES to paint. But he rarely does it for two reasons- it takes time that he doesn't have much of right now, but more importantly he doesn't paint because he is scared of painting something that someone else doesn't think is adequate. I call this the "Not as" syndrome. 

We are NOT AS artsy, NOT AS smart, NOT AS patient, NOT AS fun or interesting etc etc blah blah blah. But really we don't mean we are "not as" smart, what we really mean in our head is that we are NOT AT ALL smart, talented... Jeff doesn't care if they think he is not as good as Leonardo, but the problem is that he thinks they won't think he is good at all. When someone else is good at the same things you are good at, it doesn't mean that you are less good. It's just means you are BOTH good. It doesn't make you any less valuable. 

If someone was dropping $100 bills out of the sky I would def not be  like, "oh there are thousands of them, i think I'll pass."  I would be snatchin those babies up and putting them to gooood use 😉. There isn't some theoretical limit on how much talent exists in the universe. We don't need to worry that someone else is hogging it all. We can all be those $100 bills and litter the world with value in our own way.  

 YALL I have wanted to share how excited I was that I could finally do a forearm stand but I kept telling myself that because it's not as perfect as someone else, that means I actually can't REALLY do one. Stupid. I mean just because zara falls more than I do when she walks doesn't mean she can't walk. And just because I fall more than someone else doesn't mean I can't do it. I can and have done it more times than I can count.

So the best way I can wrap up this message to you and to myself is that we shouldn't be ashamed to share our talents. Sometimes we judge other people for saying to the world, "I can do this or that and I think I'm good enough at it!" Maybe they aren't being prideful or arrogant or seeking for validation. Let's stop judging and just give people some giant high fives for feeling good about themselves. We need more of that. 

What a shame it is to have all of these talents and then to hide them?? Sound familiar my Bible loving friends? (Parable of the talents in Matthew 25). I think it makes God sad. I think he loves the way he made each of us and I think it glorifies him when we can acknowledge those things and that they come from Him, and then to go do good with them.  And I guess that's kind of my point is that it all comes from God. And so hopefully when we pat ourselves on the back it is out of gratitude for the opportunities and abilities the Lord has given us to achieve those things. And boy I am so grateful for this wonderfully unique body he has given me that allows me to do so many wonderful things. 

 But this isn't about yoga, it's about life. I'm done waiting to become perfect at things to be happy. I'm done basing my skills and talents off of others. WE can do things and ARE doing things. So many fantastic things! So let's go out  and give today a red card worthy karate kick in the shins because we have amazing things inside of us.

Namaste my friends, Namaste👊

Heartbreak and Healing

I

Heartbreak. It's an interesting concept. We hear people talk about dying of a broken heart, or making poor decisions because our hearts are broken. Always a negative connotation. But for some reason Christ asks us to come unto him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. I have thought about this a lot, as having a broken heart was mentioned in this phenomenally inspiring talk this past weekend about yielding our hearts to God: (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/yielding-our-hearts-to-god?lang=eng). 

The past few days my heart has indeed been broken. And at moments I just want to check out of life for a while and not have to act happy, sing silly songs with zara, or let my heart be at peace. I sometimes am resistant to believe in Gods plan because it doesn't seem to make sense to me. I just want things to go back to the way there were. And then the words came to me yesterday in my mind and in my heart saying "Trust in the Lord with ALL thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. Acknowledge Him in all thy ways and He will direct thy paths" Proverbs 3:5-6 

I've been pondering this scripture a lot and posted it on my front door so I could see it every time I had to go face the world again. I have come to realize that I don't really want things to go back to the way they were. I don't want my heart to be unbroken in the same way as before. I used to think that when Christ heals our hearts he is restoring them to what they were. But instead he leaves them better, more beautiful, bigger, and stronger. A heart can't ever grow if we try to push the broken pieces back together hoping they will somehow stay. We need some sort of glue that will add depth, breadth, and strength to that heart. And over time it continues to be broken and re-glued until it sparsely resembles what it once was, in the most perfect way possible. We have two choices in life- we can either take trials that break our hearts and try to mend them back in our own way OR we can allow our hearts to stay broken, and instead allow Christ's redeeming power to fill (or glue in this case) those cracks with love, glory, light, compassion, and enduring unshakable faith. I have only begun to feel this healing power working on my heart as I have turned my sorrow over to Him and still have a very long way to go. 

This morning on the way home from the gym, I was in the car crying until I looked back at Zara and she smiled the cutest little grin I have ever seen. Immediately I felt so much light and hope through her. In that small moment I felt my sadness swallowed up in the joy of the miracle it is to be her mother. As we began singing and dancing to songs once we got home I realized once again just how wonderfully blessed I am. Even as I type this- she is screaming Mama from her crib because she just wants to get out and show me how much fun life can be😉. How grateful I am to have my sweet angel Zara, and my perfect Jeff who has been there for me through every step of my joys and sorrows. How much the Lord really has made such a grand life for me I could have never begun to imagine in the midst of certain trials. It may not always be in the ways we are searching for comfort but I truly believe these words spoken best by the Master himself: 

 "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." (John 14:18)

 "And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up."(D&C 84:88) 

He will bear us up. He will send heavenly help when needed, and He has never forgotten us.