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Thursday, January 8, 2015

The No Resolution- Resulutions

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I know many bloggers have long ago posted their New Year Resolutions. I have said before how much I enjoy making and keeping resolutions, but life in this last year has gone by way too fast with too much change. I have been really struggling trying to decide what I want to change, improve, or resolve to do better at.

I thought it was so weird to be struggling to discover things, and my relief society lesson in church yesterday led me to realize that the Lord is hearing me and talking to me. So thank you to that wonderful sister who taught yesterday (you know who you are ;) ). One of the sources for her lesson was a BYU speech I read that started me on my path to a lot of change this last June. There is a quote from this speech that I love:
"Is there any future for me? What does a new year...hold for me? Will I be safe? Will life be sound? Can I trust in the Lord and in the future? Or would it be better to look back, to go back, to go home?
To all such of every generation, I call out, “Remember Lot’s wife.” Faith is for the future. Faith builds on the past but never longs to stay there. Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us and that Christ truly is the “high priest of good things to come."
-Jeffrey R. Holland
So, after a lot of thought and pondering, I have decided on no resolutions of the normal type this year....
If you have read my Emotional and Mental Burnout Post, Room With a View or my New About Me Post you will see that over the last 12 months my brain is fried. Lol! Just dealing with anxiety, a pretty serious knee surgery, divorce and remarriage all in one year has been a lot. There are many times I wonder what God is thinking placing this much change on a life all at once, but I have to remember He knows what I can handle... The adjustments for myself alone have sometimes left me feeling like my life is unmanageable, but to throw on top of this helping with the fragile emotions of children adjusting as well, and blending 2 different people's lives and kids??? Yeah, crazy is the right word.

I haven't thrown the concept of resolutions out all together. I am just saying the ones that seem so tangible are not on my list this year. In the last 4 months I have found that  everytime I make a resolution for anything I am choosing, I am finding myself feeling alone and frustrated, and mostly just overwhelmed. I was perplexed knowing that change is what God wants from us. But I was forgetting the part that what He also wants, is my will with any changes that are being made. To sacrifice what I want, for what He wants for me.
I have decided I am not going to choose for me. I am going to humbly ask what is wanted of me... and go from there. So far, I have this:
  1. Eat- and when you think you have eaten, eat again. I deeply struggle with feeding myself. It seemed so trivial for so long. Now, I see how lack of food contributes to what I cannot get done in a day, what promptings I cannot hear, and how I cannot be the disposition I want, and my family needs, if my body is starving.
  2. Work everyday to see myself the way God sees me- I have lost almost 40 pounds since July. I know this is a good thing, but I don't see it. I still see the woman at her heaviest weight after her 3rd baby. I discovered that body image isn't about how your body looks, it is how I feel about how my body looks. I need to change this feeling.
  3. Stop trying to "get back" to who I used to be- and create who I want to be now. About 5 years ago, I had my crap together. All together. The balancing act of housework, organization, self care, child care, exercise, etc. About 2 and a half years ago something broke inside. I couldn't hold it all together. Yes I was dealing with a marriage falling apart, a father who was dying, and a car accident that changed my life. But "having it all together" should have helped with these crises. It didn't. I was doing too much by myself, not saying "no" when I needed, and not trusting others to help me. This is not the Lord's way. I need to create who I want to be.

Yep, 3 whole things on my list. That is seriously all. The inner lover-of-resolutions-and-personal-change says I need to keep adding things. I know about a gazillion things I could add... but I won't.  Sometimes holding back is the real change we need need?
Have a Happy New Year!

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