#2 Stand in Holy Places

Hello my friends! :)
I told you I would make a post for each of the seven steps mentioned in the article for healing after divorce. But don't forget this doesn't just pertain to divorced women. If you are just needing to build yourself up after some type of trial, apply each step in your own way.

So to Step 2: Stand in Holy Places

What does Holy Places mean to you? The terminology is often used in various churches as places of worship. But being in a church all the time isn't always practical, nor possible. But I don't think that is what it means. To me, when I am somewhere considered 'holy' like a church or somewhere sacred, I feel uplifted and happy. So for me, standing in holy places means I am keeping myself only in places that are uplifting and happy. Are there certain places where you feel degraded as a woman? Are there places where you just feel miserable? If there are, stay away! There are some situations, however that require us to be present where we don't feel the best. Soon after my ex left, the place I once lived just gave me bad memories of abuse, heartache, and tears. I wasn't uplifted in my own home, but I had to live there until I could sell my contract and move somewhere else. So in those times where you have to deal with where you are, make it a happy place yourself. I started taking care of myself, taking hot bubble baths, turning up fun music and dancing around my empty halls without having to care about anyone's opinion, inviting friends over to play games or for dinner, putting up happy pictures on the wall, reading from scriptures and other uplifting books, and just doing anything that I could think of that would make me happy. It was still rough but by making my home a 'holy place', I was able to sleep better and start my healing process.

So what is your plan? What makes you feel beautiful? Place yourself in situations that make you happy and uplifted so what makes you happy? Lets make a list:

Things that make me happy:

-walks with friends in the evening
-sunsets
-massages
-facials
-hugs
-family
-hanging out with friends
-exercise
-smoothies
-sappy chick flics
-yoga
-Sleeping


Whats your list??

Sweet dreams ladies!

Hope and Healing After... (Insert experience here)

Hello! So a few days ago my brother sent me a link to an article about Hope and Healing after divorce. In it there were 7 things that it recommended you doing, so I am going to do a post for each thing this week. If you haven't been through a divorce, this is still a great article, it can definitely be related to any hard time. If you want to read the whole article here is a link:

 https://www.lds.org/ensign/2014/03/young-adults/hope-and-healing-after-divorce?cid=HPWE031914597&im=true&lang=eng

Like I said before, in the article it gives 7 tips for healing after a divorce. They are as follows:

1. Strengthen YOUR relationship with God
2. Stand in holy places
3. Consider professional counseling
4. Establish a support group
5. Rediscover yourself
6. Have courage to date again
7. Believe that you can heal

So for the next seven days, I'm going to take each one and give my two cents on what I think they mean or how they can help us women.

Here we go!

DAY 1:  STRENGTHEN YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

I remember the day...
  I realized something was wrong with my baby; my body started contracting and the bleeding wouldn't stop
I remember the moment...
    the doctor told me I had an inevitable miscarriage and that the next few days would be rough as my body tried to take care everything.
I remember the pain...
   on that terrible morning when I woke up in the worst pain I have ever experienced. I was going into labor and I couldn't think clearly enough to tell my ex husband to take me to a hospital so I went through full labor naturally on my own bed. I have never experienced that extreme of emotional pain knowing I was losing my daughter and I couldn't do anything to save her nor physical pain where the only thing I could cry out was "Heavenly Father PLEASE save me"
I remember it vividly, but the the thing I remember the most was the strength I was given from my Heavenly Father. I spent a lot of the following week on the couch curled up in a ball in so much emotional and physical pain I just couldn't move which led to my husband telling me I was lazy and couldn't take school seriously. It was then followed by him coming home the next week in a rage saying he was done with religion, and that was followed by him telling me he didn't want to be married to me anymore.

On multiple occasions I found myself wondering if my husband would come back that night, wondering if I could ever heal, and wondering why I had to got through this, I felt myself reach my limit. I had never had a moment where I was completely at the end of my capability to cope with anything before and in the same moment I felt like I couldn't handle it anymore, I also felt a sudden peace and a warm feeling all over letting me know that I wasn't alone. That was my confirmation that God is always there for us and He wants us to experience life and learn from it, but He will NEVER abandon us. From that moment on, I have been more conscious of the relationship I have with my Heavenly Father. I know that my faith in Him is a huge part of what has helped me heal. I know that putting our trust in God, and allowing Him to help us get through the hard times. I believe He loves us and cares about us so much that He rejoices when we confide in Him and ask for His help. No problem is too small to ask for His help, and I think building your own personal relationship with God is the best way to start on any healing journey.

I know I've just written a bunch, I promise I'm signing off here soon, but there is a song that I remember listening to soon after my miscarriage.

I NEED YOU NOW by Plumb

Sometimes we really need the strength to just keep breathing, and we need to have the faith that God knows what is best and that He will do anything that is for our good to help us when we ask.

So say a prayer right now and thank God for getting you to today, giving you a chance to make a change in your life, to heal, to strengthen, and to fulfill the potential that He has given to each of us.

Love you girls! 

Today is the First Day of the Rest of your Life!

Hello ladies! How is your day going? I was thinking about healing and becoming who I want to be and I think the best first step towards that is making goals. When going through a rough time I find the best way to move forward is to first look forward. After all if you aren't looking where you are going who is to say you will go where you want to right? So today make it a goal to look ahead. Make a list of things you have dreamed of doing and figure out how you can do them. If it will take a few years to save or prepare, start saving and preparing  now! I caught myself the other day of getting into a rut, only thinking about last year and why it was so bad. Did that benefit me in any way at all? Absolutely not! I just felt like crap the rest of the day and didn't sleep well that night. Now I can say that all I want but reality is, not reflecting on the past over and over is way hard. So lets make a game plan. Plan now what you will do when you start getting in a rut and thinking of your hardships. What I started doing is kind of silly, but it works and I always end up smiling. Whenever I catch myself reminiscing of my pain I stop and think of the song "Let it go" from Frozen. If I need to, I will stand up and just sing it loudly

 "Let it go! Let it go!

Can't hold it back anymore,

 Let it go , Let it go!

Turn away and SLAM THE DOOR,

 I don't care what they are going to say

Let the storm rage on 

The cold never bothered me anyway"

Just being goofy and literally telling myself to let it go works without fail to pull myself up at least for that moment. If you want to just listen to it and dance here is the link or you can click on the video above :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEKLFS-aKcw

So ladies take two things from this post:

1. Make a game plan for when you are reminiscing in bad memories for how to turn your focus around    ( A.K.A Let it go! ) 
2. Stop looking behind and look ahead, make goals, get excited! Today is the first day of the rest of your life, what are you going to do with it? :)

Love you beautiful ladies! Have a fabulous day!!

Let's Get This Party Started

Time to kick-start this blog :) I've decided to write this blog for all my fellow women who are going through hardships in their lives. Last year was one of the worst years of my life. I was married to a man who treated me like I was dirt half of the time and the other half was spent busy with video games, work, or disappearing to who knows where. I've been cheated on, abused, and told I wasn't good enough, and to top that, I lost my baby girl before I ever had a chance to hold her. I have spent so many hours hiding in the bathroom, looking in the mirror and convincing myself that both him and his parents were right. I was convinced I was ugly, stupid, and just an inconvenience to everything and everyone around me. I'm not going to go into all the details, but in short, I ended up feeling like I had no purpose. I hated myself, and got mad that I couldn't be the person I felt I needed to be. I did finally got the courage to get out of the marriage in December of last year and as any divorced woman knows, that can be a really traumatic time period. Since then, I have been learning how to heal and how to be single again. I think what inspired me the most to start this blog was the choice I was given. I have been given the choice to be completely depressed, lose it, and do nothing with my life because I have lost my hope OR I can turn things around. I can fight my hardest to push through this rough patch, make goals, and turn my dreams into a reality. I've met with a counselor several times and what I have started to realize is that no matter what happened last year, I have the choice now to make the experience something to make me stronger, or something that will break me. I choose strength, I choose a fresh start, I choose happiness. For all you ladies who have been treated badly, who have lost, who have been shot down, who have had parts of life that didn't go according to plan, who look in the mirror and wonder why you aren't who you feel you should be, who had a rough day, or simply need some support let me tell you this. TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE! You are beautiful, incredible,unique, and wonderful and whoever tells you differently has some of their own problems that they need to deal with. I know I let harsh words get to me and used those to reflect my self image, and now I see that was wrong. I am still struggling, but I hope I'm not alone as I make it through my healing phase of life. I'd love to hear input, stories, etc. I think together we as women can support each other as we travel along this bumpy road we call life.