November 14, 2016 · in Activities For Kids· happiness· homeschooling· Inspiration· Life of a Wannabe

Gratitude Tree

This is part two of the Thankful Heart Link up over on For the Joy of Life by Aleigh Joy Moore.

Today I want to share a quick and simple way to help kids practice gratitude this month. The whole process of this activity is so much fun.

STEP 1 ~ Collect Leaves!!!

Take an adventure walk with the kiddos and collect all things fall. It’s so much fun to get out in this beautiful crisp weather and enjoy all the beautiful colors and treasures there are to find. While you’re looking for leaves, also keep an eye out for a nice tree branch you can use as the base of the gratitute tree.

Step 2 ~ Laminate the leaves & Paint the Trunk

Spend a little time examining the leaves, learning about fall, then laminate the leaves. Also, paint your tree branch if you’d like. I used gold spray paint for ours.

After we laminated the leaves, we used a hole punch and make holes for the twine so we could create hanging ornaments for our tree. Find a nice pot, stick the painted tree branch in the pot and surround it with rocks. Then I just used some burlap to cover the rocks so that my kids wouldn’t play with the rocks, haha.

Step 3 ~ Gratitude Activity

Now you can set aside a night to have a lesson about gratitude, then have everyone write all the things they are grateful for on the leaves and hang them. I tried to get them to listen to a lesson on gratitude, lasted about a minute, but hey, at least I tried right?

October 30, 2016 · in happiness· Health· Inspiration· Life of a Wannabe

3 Ways to Overcome Resentment

I’ve been dealing with feelings of resentment lately, and it literally makes me ache inside, I just wanted to better learn to overcome resentment. I do NOT like this feeling. Over the weekend it came on really strong. It’s usually triggered by something someone says to me, the way they act towards me, or even something I see on social media. When this happens I usually begin searching for ways to overcome resentment. I start with a little googling, then sincere prayer, and lots of study of the scriptures. I tend to get impatient though. When I’m dealing with negative emotions I just want it to go away as soon as possible, don’t we all? I pray that God will guide me to the right quote, or article that relates to exactly how I’m feeling with step by step instructions on HOW to overcome it, like it’s that simple. The answers don’t always come right away, we have to put in the time and effort before we can find relief.

Sometimes I’m so overwhelmed with the emotion that I just want distraction. Something to take my mind off of it. So this weekend as I’m wallowing in my resentment towards certain people, all I wanted to do was binge watch “Friends” on Netflix. I wanted to forget my complicated social situations and live vicariously through this made up group of friends that seem to have so much fun together. Everyone loves each other, they all care deeply for one another, nobody is getting left out and life is just GOOD.

So instead of using distraction, I knew I needed to keep my mind open and aware of receiving the answers I was praying for. So after an entire day of searching Youtube, Podcasts, and blog posts, I was able to find some resources that actually helped me.

Why do we feel resentment?

*You didn’t get invited to the party.

*You don’t feel supported by friends or family members.

*You feel you’ve been taken advantage of.

*Frustrated that a friend chooses to be your competition instead of working together in business.

*Someone is spreading rumors about you.

*You are being left out, you’re not included in a group of friends, you see a picture on social media of your friends hanging out, and you’re not in it.

Get it all out…

This feeling is like an infection in the body. You need to get it out. So SAY what you’re feeling or thinking. Say it or write it. Just don’t say it TO anyone and be sure to rip up the paper and throw it away once you’re done. You can be as mean and vicious as you want cause nobody can hear it. The purpose is to remove the negativity, not hurt anyone. Our “knee jerk” reaction is to hurt someone back when they have hurt us, but this won’t solve anything.

Humility

Next step, write out your own weaknesses. It’s good to establish some humility in this kind of situation and not be the victim. Take responsibility for your own mistakes. Recognize that you’re not perfect either. You may have done this very thing to someone else. Just simply recognize that we all have things we need to work on.

Mathew 7

1Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Ignorance is Bliss

Now tell your brain what you want to hear. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. Create the perfect situation in your mind. Come up with an explanation for the person’s actions. What might have caused this person to do this? Have compassion towards them. Maybe the person that hurt you has legitimate issues that caused them to do what they did. There’s got to be a reason, and you can create what ever reason you want. The goal is to feel better and its okay to tell your mind what it wants to hear. Ignorance is bliss, and LaLa Land is beautiful. Tell yourself you’re amazing, and that it’s their loss for not wanting to work with you, or for not inviting you to the party. Tell yourself YOU ARE ENOUGH!

Now FORGIVE!

Ephesians 4:31-32

31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

I can honestly say that I feel MUCH better now. I put in the time and effort. God answered my prayers and led me to the right resources that helped me overcome these negative feelings.

Resources:

The Biggest Disease Affecting Humanity: “I’m Not Enough” by Marisa Peer

First steps to overcoming resentment

September 27, 2016 · in homeschooling· Inspiration· Life of a Wannabe· List's and Schedules· Uncategorized

The Importance of Being Vulnerable

About 6 years ago I branded myself as The Wannabe Balanced Mom. This blog has been a way for me to share my messy imbalanced life and my attempts to clean it up. Like most women, I crave productivity. I like getting things done and checking things off my to-do list. But often times that triggers major imbalance in my life. Balance seems like one of those things you can’t quite grasp. It’s like trying to be perfect. We all know it’s impossible to achieve, but we continue to strive for it each day.

Blogging has filled a need for me and has been a great asset to our business. My husband and I are proffessional network marketers, and I say proffessional because it is our bread and butter income. It’s all we’ve done our entire marriage and it is our legitimate profession. It’s not just something we do on the side. We put in full time hours in the beginning and have now reached a level where we could actually retire. We choose not to because we simply love what we do. We have created the FREEDOM though. The financial freedom and time freedom to do what we want when we want. Like spend 3 weeks in Hawaii without it affecting our income at all. One of the beauties of residual income.

In our line of work it’s all about relationships. We call it relationship marketing. We’re creating friendships and building trust. We don’t sell a product necessarily, we are selling ourselves. And the only way to do that is by being genuine and real.

So today I want to talk to you about the importance of being vulnerable and open. Vulnerability breeds true connections.

What holds us back from putting ourselves out there in a real, raw, uncut way?

FEAR!

We are afraid of what people will think of us. How we will be percieved.

When I first started homeschooling I was so excited and passionate about it. So of course I blogged about it and loved talking about all the reasons why I thought homeschooling was so great. Then after a few years and 2 more kids later, I realized I was at my breaking point. I no longer felt I had what it took to homeschool my children. I was completely overwhelmed. So instead of coming out and blogging about my decision to put my kids in public school, I kinda just quit blogging. I was afraid to admit that I had quit. But finally when I DID get real and blog about it, I had an incredible response. People were messaging me like crazy saying, “thank you for being real”. So this experience taught me the importance of sharing my real life and how it can help others and create a stronger connection with my friends/audience.

(Girls outfits from www.joanieandburt.com)

But it’s importanct to understand that social media shouldn’t be a place of complaining. It’s funny how people are always saying that everyone posts their best selves on social media, like it’s a bad thing. Let’s be honest, do we really want to get online and read about everyones sad stories and problems. Not really right? There’s a difference between complaining and being real. The difference is that you take your MESS and turn it into your MESSAGE!

A few weeks ago I was dealing with feelings of jealousy. What I didn’t do, was get on social media and vomit all my negative emotions.

I WAITED…

I PRAYED…

I STUDIED…

THEN I SHARED…

I needed to give myself time to find answers and feel at peace with what I was experiencing. I wanted to turn my negative feelings into a positive message, for myself and for my friends on social media. I realized that by sharing these real life experiences in a positive way is how we create real life connections with people. Social media is a great platform for business builders, but even more importantly it can be in incredible place to build long lasting friendships and to leave our positive footprint in the world.

July 26, 2016 · in Inspiration· lds· plan of happiness

Trusting In God

A few years ago I had the opportunity to speak in church and I wanted to revisit that talk today. Here it is below.

The topic given to us to speak on today is, PUTTING YOUR TRUST IN THE LORD. The first thing that comes to mind is of course FAITH. The opposite of faith is fear, and fear is one thing that I’ve really struggled with over the past couple years. So I was kind of excited to get to speak on this because it’s something I’ve been meaning to study up on. I think a lot of you can relate to the kind of fear I’m talking about. It’s the fear and worry that comes with being parents. We hear of all sorts of tragedies going on around us and we pray daily that God will protect our own little families from these sad awful things.

We know we are here on this earth to learn and grow through our trials and tribulations, but we still often fear and wonder why God will ALLOW bad things to happen.

Although I know and believe that God has a purpose for everything, I still sometimes lack the TRUST that no matter what happens, it will be OKAY.

We cannot comprehend completely why God allows certain things to happen, but there are many stories in the scriptures that can bring us a little more peace in the matter. Even though we can’t understand everything about it, we can understand SOME things.

First of all, God gave us Free Agency, which is a huge blessing, but also when not used wisely, can bring tragedy and suffering. He also said that there must be opposition in all things. We cannot know and appreciate the good if there wasn’t the bad.

I read a great article on this topic by a Christian Author, Lee Strobel. He brought up a good point. He said,“Look at it this way: many of you are parents. Even before you had children, couldn’t you foresee that there was the very real possibility they may suffer disappointment or pain or heartache in life, or that they might even hurt you and walk away from you? Of course—but you still had kids. Why? Because you knew there was also the potential for tremendous joy and deep love and great meaning.”

Although pain and suffering is not good, one thing we know is that God can use it to accomplish good. Just like the scripture in D&C 122 says, all these things shall give thee experience and shall be for thy good.

He promises to cause good to emerge if we’re committed to trust and follow him.

Another quote I want to share with you is from the same article by Lee Strobel.

“God took the very worst thing that has ever happened in the history of the universe- the death of God on the cross- and turned it into the very best thing that has happened in history of the universe: the opening up of heaven to all who follow Him. So if God can take the very worst circumstance imaginable and turn it into the very best situation possible, can he not take the negative circumstances of your life and create something good from them?”

He can and He will. God can use our suffering to draw us to Himself, to mold and sharpen our character, to influence others for Him- He can draw something good from our pain in a myriad of ways… if we trust and follow him.”

Recently I heard a great example on how our struggles will be turned into something great. It’s like making chocolate chip cookies. What if you ate each ingredient by itself? They weren’t meant to taste good by themselves, but when you mix them all together, THEN do they become something amazing! That’s how our lives are. All things work TOGETHER for our own good.

I remember back when I was in 6^th grade. I lived in a small town called Tooelle. I absolutely loved it. I loved my neighborhood, my school, I had so many friends and was just completely happy and content. Then my parents told me we were moving back to Salt Lake. I was devastated. At the time, it seemed like my whole world was caving in. I only had a month left of 6^th grade and then I would be starting junior high. Can you imagine? Going into junior high as the “new student”? How could my parents do this to me? I thought.

Well, we moved and I changed schools. I had to try to make friends fast before I entered those dreaded junior high years. It was not easy. In a matter of days I went from having lots of friends and feeling pretty “popular” to hiding out in the bathroom at lunch time because I was embarrassed I didn’t have anyone to sit with. It took me a few years to rebound from that. Junior high was hard, but high school turned out to be a lot of fun. Now when I look back at that experience, I’m grateful for it because I saw how it pushed me to step out of my comfort zone and make new friends. Not only that, but ten years later I realized even more why it was part of Gods plan for me. If I hadn’t of moved then, I would have never met my best friend who would one day introduce me to my husband. And of course I couldn’t imagine my life any other way.

The other day I woke up from having a dream that inspired me to share my friends Caeli’s story. She is actually a former mission companion of mine. We became good friends on the mission and have kept in touch ever since.

A couple of years ago she became pregnant with her first child. At the 5 month routine ultrasound appointment they discovered that their baby girl wasn’t developing properly and had no chance of surviving after delivery.

They continued out the pregnancy and delivered a beautiful baby girl whom they named Hope because of the deep hope they had that the doctors would be wrong and she would be their little miracle baby.

Sadly it wasn’t the case. She lived for 5 weeks until one night, passed away in her mothers arms.

My friend Caeli wrote all about her experience on her blog, Caeli Ocea and I wanted to share a portion of it. She is just such an great example of someone who has taken a tragic experience and turned it into something good by inspiring others. She allowed it to help her grow closer to Christ. She saw the beauty within the trial.

“The 37 days with Hope changed me…I try to have more patience with tele-marketers now. I say nicer things to the crazy drivers on the road. When I think of time, I don’t think 5 or 10 or 30 years down the road. I’m thinking about 60 or 70 when I join Hope and what I want to have become by then and what I can do now to be that way.

My time with Hope was THE sweetest, THE most consecrated time of my life. I know I walked with Christ. She made me feel like no one has ever made me feel. To this day I have never felt the exquisite happiness I felt watching Tyler hold and blow raspberries and talk to his little daddy’s girl. Hope’s smiles changed my world.

I can say that was the sweetest time of my life, not because every minute was peachy, but because of Hope and family and of what I was able to overcome. To me, the sense of accomplishment that I endured well, without ending up a bitter, fearful, doubtful person means everything. And in that sense, I have come to believe that hard knocks, or trials or whatever you call them are one of the most EMPOWERING things in our life. Sooo…Come what may, and love it.”

So I’m learning that instead of fearing what the future may hold, I can find peace and comfort in knowing that what ever happens, it’s all part of our Heavenly Father’s brilliant plan for us. To me, trusting the Lord is letting go of the fear of tomorrow and enjoying this day that I have right now, leaving the details of my future up to Him. I know that God wants us to learn important lessons in this life so that we might experience eternal happiness.

June 8, 2016 · in Inspiration

You Were Made To Make A Difference

I’ve been reading this new book called Outlive Your Life: You Were Made to Make A Difference. It has really opened up my eyes and gave me a new outlook on how I’m living my life. I love the spoken truth right there in the title, “you were made to make a difference”. Each and every one of us are here for a special purpose, and we CAN make a difference. So many people succumb to the idea that things are the way they are and there’s nothing we can do about it.
Life is about becoming the best WE can be, and hopefully lifting others in the process. There was a part in this book that really stood out to me.

“If you are in Christ, God’s Spirit will speak through you.
Let God unshell you. And when he does, “make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that”(Gal. 6:4). Don’t miss the opportunity to discover your language.
With whom do you feel most fluent? Teenagers? Drug addicts? The elderly? You may be tongue-tied around children but eloquent with executives. This is how God designed you. “God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well” (Rom. 12:6).
For whom do you feel most compassion?”

This part spoke to me in such a way, I immediately felt inspired to DO something about it. An idea just came out of nowhere, but it was loud and clear. I thought to myself, I need to share my story more with teenage girls, including my own daughters as they enter into those emotionally challenging years.

I’ve never thought to do this before, but I feel like this is something I should do more of. So many thoughts and idea’s I could expand on, and boy do I have some stories to share. It would be all about self worth of course, because those were the years I felt I had none. I always think, if only I could go back as the person I am now. It would have been a much better experience. I would have studied more, worried less about boys, and focused on reaching out to those who were in need of a friend.

I’ll never forget this boy in one of my classes. He kept to himself most of the time. Nobody ever even noticed him, including myself. He actually sat right in front of me and I never said a single word to him.

Later that year he committed suicide.

I can’t help but think, WHAT IF…

What if I had reached out to him. What if I took interest in him, talked to him, cared about him.

Could I have made a difference?

I love how the author in this book talks about figuring out what our language is. That’s what it’s all about. We need to be actively using those gifts God has given us. They are meant to be used to MAKE A DIFFERENCE, in our lives and the lives of others.

Here’s one of my favorite stories, and one I frequently read while I was on my mission.

There was a young man walking down a deserted beach just before dawn in the distance he saw a frail old man. As he approached the old man, he saw him picking up stranded starfish and throwing them back into the sea. The young man gazed in wonder as the old man again and again threw the small starfish from the sand to the water. He asked “Old man, why do you spend so much energy doing what seems to be a waste of time?” The old man explained that the stranded starfish would die if left in the morning sun. But there must be thousands of beaches and millions of starfish! “How can you make a difference?” The old man looked down at the small starfish in his hand and as he threw it to the safety of the sea, he said “I MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO THIS ONE.” – unknown

What is your language? And what can YOU do to make a difference?

May 26, 2016 · in Inspiration· Life of a Wannabe· My Thoughts and Feelings

Not Everybody Is Going To Like You

Did you ever think back in high school that you’d still be dealing with feelings of being left out or not part of the “popular” crowd? I sure didn’t. I’ve dealt with these experiences off and on through out my life but never forsaw my 35 year old self dealing with the same feelings I felt back in grade school. We all have a deep desire to fit in, to have friends, to be liked, and validated.

Life brings us challenges that we must overcome otherwise they repeat themselves until the lesson is learned.

So who cares that I didn’t get invited to the party, the girls night, the baby shower, the wedding, the fancy event, ect. Does that really mean I’m not a lovable person? That I don’t have friends that appreciate and support me? No!

So why do we FEEL this way when we didn’t get the invite? Why do we allow ONE thing to bring us down and forget all the wonderful things in our lives?

We can’t ALL be included in EVERYTHING. We need to take our turn. Everybody has experienced the feeling of being left out, but most likely we have also experienced the thrill and excitement of being a part of a great group of friends or invited to the awesome party. So lets focus on all the good in our lives and allow others to have THEIR TURN in recieving good things.

So as I’m sitting here being consumed with these thoughts, I’m reminded of my role as a mother. Trying to shift my focus and remember the messages and lessons that I hope to pass on to my own daughter. First one being DON’T TAKE THINGS PERSONALLY.

My favorite quote by Joel Osteen is:

“Many people let negative words or other peoples opinions ruin their lives. They live to please other people and honestly think that they can be happy by trying to keep everyone else happy. They don’t want anybody to say a negative thing about them. That’s simply impossible. You have to accept that not everyone is going to like you, not everybody is going to accept you, and you certainly cannot keep everyone happy. Some people will find fault no matter what you do.”

It’s human nature to want love and acceptance, but we can’t win them all.

Social media can do crazy things to ones self-esteem. We are constantly comparing ourselves with others. We get a peak inside someone else’s life and we can’t help but think that their life is a little better than our own. We think, if only I had this, if only I lived there, if only they were MY friends. We somehow think that if our lives were a little more like someone else’s THEN we would be happier. What we fail to remember is that nobody’s life is perfect. Maybe they have a nice house but their marriage is failing. Maybe they have a huge social media following but feel lonely inside. Perhaps they have amazing friends but struggle with their weight. They may have been blessed with physical beauty but struggle with self doubt. There is opposition in all things.

We all have struggles. Things that we’ve dealt with in the past, things that we are dealing with now and things we will have to endure in the future. We don’t typically share the things we struggle with, not necessarily because we are trying to portray a perfect life. Let’s be honest, nobody wants to get on social media and hear people complaining all day. We like HAPPY, it’s what draws us in.

I hope that I can get a little better at loving myself and having gratitude in my heart. Instead of focusing on the negative, I want to focus on all the good in my life. There is always good to be seen, we just often times forget to recognize it because all our energy is going towards trying to fit in or getting people to notice us, love us and appreciate us. What a narcasistic way of living right? Why not take the focus off ourselves just a little and GIVE what we desire to receive. It will have the same affect as if it were happening to us.

Another one of my favorite quotes by Joel Osteen in his sermon about not wasting your pain and using it to lift others.

“God will allow you to take your mess, and turn it into your message. The reason God allowed it , is because he trusts you. Your pain could be for a different purpose. Don’t take on a victim mentality. You will come out better, and will help others in the area.”

One of the best parts about having a blog is that it’s extremely theraputic and also gives me great purpose while using my pain to help others. It’s always nice to know that we are not alone and that others experience the same kinds of emotions. Maybe not exactly, but we all struggle every now and then.

You might also like to read 12 Steps to a Better Day & The Wrong Road.