Moving Past The Mountain...

Struggling to stay afloat, slowly making progress, and then falling right back down. When it rains, it pours. We've all heard it, we've all experienced it. It isn't what has happened, but what is happening now. It's how hard we push against the pull of gravity. It's the fight we make to stand again, and put that first foot forward. That is what matters in these darkest of days.

"Hey Jess, you always seem so strong, and driven. How is it you can always be so optimistic? How do you always see the silver lining?"

"You know, I'm not. I have my days when I don't want to be Jess anymore. I have moments when all I see is the flat black of depression. There are mornings when I can't breathe, and I would give anything just to stay there underneath my covers and cry until my heart freezes over. I've had my heart broken a time or two. I've watched someone take their life and throw it away. I've had someone I loved very much pass away. I'm watching as Satan take a firm grip on the world and run with it, and it's out of my control. I am feeling the economy dip, and the toll it's taking on the people around me."

"Yes, but you are always so happy. You are the strongest person I know. How do you do it? How do you  handle all of it?"

"I don't know what to tell you really. I have those days when I just want to scream, and yell, and throw things. When I am so sick and tired of always having to be the strongest person in my family, and having to take care of everyone else first. I have those thoughts of 'why can't someone else do this? Why can't this be someone else's life?' but It's not always about me. I have people who depend on me, and I won't let them down. It goes against who I am. I am someone who can't sit in a bed all day. I am someone who puts others before me. I am someone who has enough faith in my Heavenly Father to know he has a plan for me. That everything I have been through, and everything I have yet to go through is all for a purpose. There is a reason I have been given the optimistic disposition that I have. There is a reason I see the world through very different eyes. There is a purpose behind all the pain, devastation, and heartache we experience in this world, and that is where my strength comes from. It isn't my own, it is the love of a Savior, and Heavenly Parents, who constantly watch over me. Who are there to hold me close in those moments when my  heart breaks. When I've had a hard day, all I have to do is kneel and pour my heart out to my Savior, and he's right there with me. It's faith, and trust, and hope that there is a reason for everything."

"You really are amazing Jess. You always know what to say, and I can feel your testimony when you talk. What do you say to those of us who aren't as secure as you are in your independence, and your "single" status?"

"[laughs] Well, to be honest with you... I have a hard time with it. I have been an active part of 23 weddings, and I am about to be in my 24th this next week. It's hard for me too. I live in Utah, I feel the same pressure to be married... but I also know myself and I know that I am not ready, so again I lean on my Heavenly Father. It's faith that I have someone out there who I will meet someday, and we'll just click. I'll find someone who makes me laugh, and see the brighter side of every situation. It's having that hope that someone out there is praying for me too. I know it's totally cliche' but it's the truth! I am truly a romantic a heart. [laughs] I've learned to see the brighter side. I can't look outside and not be grateful for the small things. In those days when I can't see the end to whatever situation I am in, I look for those small things that I enjoy. Those things that won't and can't be ruined by whatever is going on around me. A good song. The sunlight hitting the trees at just the right angle. The smell of freshly laundered clothing, or bread baking, or cookies being made in the kitchen. The sound of rain on the windows, or the way I feel after I've just taken a walk with a good friend. The twinkle of the stars, and knowing that those stars have been there for ages, and will be there for years to come. It's the tender mercies that keep me going. We are never left alone. There is always someone out there who loves you, and there will always be someone out there who needs you. What greater blessing is there, than to help someone who is in need? To teach someone something new... Watch them learn, and grow, and be benefitted because you were in their life..."

For those of you who are struggling. For those who are fighting to stand. For you, who feel so alone, and lost. I am here for you. Here is my hand, it is outstretched towards you. Take it, and know that you are not alone. I am here, use my shoulder. My heart is crying for you, my back is strong and I'll carry you until you find your strength. I won't let go until you are sure you can pedal on your own. Take my hand, and together we'll make it through this dark until the sun is bright on our faces. I am here for you!

Only As True As Our Reflections...

(This is going to be a long post, but well worth the read... just FYI)

I picked up my pride and I headed off to Taylor Andrews Academy of Hair Design yesterday morning (10/7/09) with one of my very best friends Sunnie Rushton. We were going to a class taught by Allison Price (http://www.allisonprice.typepad.com/) she was an instructor at T.A. while I was attending there. I absolutely loved her, and the classes she taught so I was excited she was going to be a 'guest artist' at the West Jordan T.A. and that she had invited anyone and everyone to come. (That meant I could too!) It was an odd feeling driving back into that parking lot with the intention of going inside of that building and staying in there for an extended period of time. Sunnie and I stopped at the starbucks across the lot, (I have finally paid for something in all quarters! It was an adventure I can cross off of my list!) I got my usual, Peppermint Mocha. Sunnie got herself, Allison, and Allison's assistant a starbucks beverage. We both were a bit nervous to go in so we waited in my car listening to the new Mika album, and waiting for Allison to arrive. At about 9:30am, as a group of 4, we walked into the building. Heads turned. (I may want to add here that my departure from Taylor Andrews was less than pleasant. I went for about 9 months, and it was absolute Hell for me. I have learned many wonderful things from that institution, and it is an excellent school/education for those who have a strong desire to learn hair and aesthetics... but I did not.) Shock and curiosity filled the air. The owner of the school, Larry Curtis, was as I had expected. He was seemingly apathetic, and trying to avoid interaction with me. Which to be perfectly honest, I preferred. I didn't want to have to make eye contact, fake a smile, or move a greeting out of my lips for that man. He is a man with many excellent qualities, and has made quite a name for himself, but... my opinion of him was less than, um, well... friendly. We made our way to the media room, where Sunnie and I found seats in the back. I got all settled while Sunnie scampered off to gossip and assist Allison who is a close personal friend of hers. Now is should be understood that Allison is a very genuine type of person. She believes what she believes, and has more confidence than anyone I know. Everything she has she has rightfully earned, and deserves full credit. But! She doesn't want the credit! She loves doing what she does simply because she is doing it. She taught this same class or something like it while I was in school, but at that time I wasn't feeling my best (I was unknowingly battling the infection) and I simply did not want to be attending that school. It was nothing against Allison as her classes were the only ones I would truly actively listen to, but as a result I didn't retain much of this lecture. It was a class on the book 'The Four Agreements' by Don Miguel Ruiz. Here are my notes on the Lecture:

Allison's intro: Learning, and Retaining

*The best way to learn/remember is to relate to the material to something in your personal life.

*We all have the ability to learn or to not learn in all that we do. Attention is the ability we have to focus on what we want to perceive.

*The only way to (we) store information is by agreement.

*As soon as we agree with something we remember it, and we believe in it.

*Everyone has their own book of law; based upon how they were raised & taught. However, we judge everyone bases upon our own book of law. Not everyone is going to follow your book of law. Not everyone is you.

*Judge/Victim/Conscience: Judge uses your book of law to judge & pass down his opinions about everything/everyone. Victim believes everything judge says. Conscience is your inner you, and will most often be the voice of real truth.

*True Justice: True Justice decrees that we only pay for a mistake once. As humans how many mistakes do we pay and re-pay for. How many times do we make those around us pay for their mistakes?

*Out Biggest Fear: Is not death. It is to be alive. Our biggest fear is taking the risks to be and express to others who you really are. F.alse E.vidence A.ppearing R.eal.

*We have created an image of perfection based on the ramblings of the Judge & Victim, as well as our book of law, and our fear of living authentically. We will never live up to that view. Not being perfect we abuse and reject ourselves. Nobody abuses ourselves like we do. The Great News is the more self-love we have and foster, the less we self-abuse.

The First Agreement: Be Impeccable With Your Word.

Speak with Integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

*The first agreement is the most important and can be the most difficult to keep. Be Impeccable With Your Word. It sounds simple, but it is very very powerful!

*Why your word? Words can wield a world of change, for the better or worse. (Example: Hitler)

*People who are impeccable with their words are annoying to those who are not impeccable with their words.

*Misuse of words is also how we pull each other down and keep each other in a state of fear and doubt. We have all heard the saying "Misery loves company."

*Gossip is easily fixed in two ways: Refuse to pass it on, or say something nice to counter-act it. There is so much freedom in being immune to everyone else's opinions of you and your situation.

The Second Agreement: Don't Take Anything Personally.

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

*Whatever happens around you, do not take it personally. Nothing people do is because of, for, or about you. It is about them.

*"If your life sucks, You suck"

*Taking things personally makes you easy prey for those negative opinions and tearing comments.

*You can to choose to follow your heart ALWAYS without fear of retaliation or rejection.

*When we take things personally and we get offended, we react by defending ourselves, our own beliefs, and we create conflict.

*Remember: IT IS NEVER ABOUT YOU. IT IS ALWAYS ABOUT THEM!

The Third Agreement: Don't Make Assumptions.

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement you can transform your life.

*We have the tendency to make assumptions. The problem with making assumptions is we believe them.

*All the sadness and drama in your life has been rooted in taking things personally, then making assumptions.

*90% of the time when you are offended the other person has no idea.

*It's always better to ask for clarification than make an assumption; because the assumptions set us up for suffering for nothing.

*ASS/U/ME: Assuming is great at this. It does make an ass out of you and me; but mostly you!

*Assuming in relationships is really asking for problems. Often we go into a relationships with people we don't like very much, saying to ourselves "Our love will change them." Real love is accepting people as they are; without trying to change them. Find someone you don't have to change and who won't try to change you. Someone with whom this can be your motto: 'If you love me the way I am, take me. If not, okay, bye bye, find someone else.'

*Allison's recommendation: Before jumping into a relationship make the pro/con list. If you can live with the con list, without trying to change them... you will probably be very successful in your relationship! If you can't live with the con list and choose to be in the relationship anyway... it's your fault.

The Fourth Agreement: Always Do Your Best.
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
*Your best will change over time. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Your best is not always the same. Everything is alive; so there will be fluctuation.

*Doing your best you are going to live intensely. 70% of people hate/dislike their job. 30% Like or love their job.

*It is the action that makes you happy, not the success or the reward. If it isn't this way, it should be.

*When you do your best, there is no regret. Action is about enjoying life.

*You can be you when you do your best! You don't need the acceptance of others.

*You choose your legacy. What you leave as your legacy on this earth is how you treat and love others.

It was an amazing class, and I am so happy I was able to attend! Better yet! I spoke, and actively participated... which shocked more than one person, and made it all the more enjoyable for me!

From Pain, and devastation, comes truth and a lesson learned.

I had a friend send this quote to me, and tell me to youtube the speech Kennedy gave concerning the death of Martin Luther King Jr. So, I did. And now I am sharing it with you. It truly is worth listening to.

...And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despair, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us through the awful grace of God...

Aeschylus

Announcing the Death of Martin Luther King, Jr. Robert F. Kennedy, 4 April, 1968, Indianapolis, Indiana

Ladies and Gentlemen - I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening. Because...

I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

For those of you who are black - considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible - you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

(Interrupted by applause)

So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, yeah that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love - a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

(Interrupted by applause)

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people. Thank you very much. (Applause)

Creating an Infinite Power of Hope

I believe these two videos speak for themselves, but I pray that we are all able to listen to the words of this man, Dieter F. Uchtdorf. His words of wisdom, and power, are words to live by.

Just In Case You Were Wondering...

Today: 1:50pm... Appointment with Dr. Zimmerman = Scheduled MRI, and prescription of Tramadol.
Here's to hoping this heavy-duty drug cures the migraine pain, as nothing else has been able to touch it. When I say nothing, I mean Nothing... I have tried just about everything, from standing on my head ;) to every over the counter drug I could think of.


Thursday: 1:30pm... Scheduled MRI @ Alta View Hospital.
On the hope that the never-ending migraine I have had for the past week and a half is the culprit behind the pain, insomnia, and random numbness...

In Love With The Weather!~

Simplicity is Happiness...

This has been an exceptionally hard month, week, day... I didn't realize just how pessimistic I had gotten until this conversation happened. More particularly when these sentences fell out of my mouth. "Jess, how is it you always seem to have so much faith?" "I have so much faith because often times there is nothing else for me but to have faith. I have to have faith." So, in an effort to pull myself out of the bog I am falling back on these 5 simple rules to life. I have decided to share them with you because, well, quite frankly September seems to have started out rough for a fair few of us.

Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

1. Free your heart from hatred.

2. Free your mind from worries.

3. Live simply.

4. Give more.

5. Expect less.

Happiness is something you decide upon. If you rise from your bed each morning and say to yourself, "It's going to be a good day" your mind will be predisposed to look for the good in every thing. Miracles happen every day, it's simply a matter of opening your eyes to see them. Even the most simple of things can turn a day around when you let them. So... open your eyes, hearts, and minds and let us choose to be happy.

Heart Attack Symptoms For Women.

I realize that I am only 21, but I have had my share of heart attack scares, and personally experienced a stress induced heart attack only a few months ago. I decided to share this news article with you because had I known exactly what to look for I probably wouldn't have ended up driving myself to the hospital, and gotten there faster. I may have even been able to get there before the heart attack actually happened... Heart attacks are different for women than they are for men. This article will explain why, and what to look for.

Conventional wisdom has it that heart attacks come out of the blue. We're also trained to expect a heart attack to happen a certain way; the victim clutches his chest, writhes in pain, and collapses. But for women, it often doesn't happen that way. Study after study shows heart attacks and heart disease are under-diagnosed in women, with the explanation being that they didn't have symptoms.

But research shows that's not the case. Women who've had heart attacks realize, looking back, that they experienced significant symptoms -- they just didn't recognize them as such.

In a study funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, 95 percent of women (that's almost all!) who'd had heart attacks reported experiencing symptoms that were decidedly new or different from their previous experience a month or more before their attacks.

Even when a heart attack is occurring, women are often slow to realize what's happening and call a doctor. The reason? Women's heart attack symptoms are different than men's. This failure to recognize heart attack signs in women has led to a grim statistic: women are more likely to die from sudden cardiac death than men are, and two thirds of women who have a heart attack don't recover completely.

To prevent a heart attack from sneaking up on you, watch for these 7 little-known signs of heart attack:

1. Fatigue. More than 70 percent of women in the NIH study reported extreme fatigue in the month or months prior to their heart attacks. This was not just your run-of-the-mill tiredness -- the kind you can power through -- this was an overwhelming fatigue that sidelined them from their usual schedules for a few days at a time.

2. Sleeplessness or Insomnia. Despite their fatigue, women who've had heart attacks remember experiencing unexplained inability to fall asleep or stay asleep during the month before their heart attacks.

3. Anxiety and Stress. Stress has long been known to up the risk of heart attack. But what women report is the emotional experience; before their heart attacks they felt anxious, stressed, and keyed up, noticeably more than usual. Moments before or during a heart attack, many women report a feeling they describe as "impending doom;" they're aware that something's drastically wrong and they can't cope, but they're not sure what's going on.

4. Indigestion or Nausea. Stomach pain, intestinal cramps, nausea, and digestive disruptions are another sign reported by women heart attack patients. Become familiar with your own digestive habits, and pay attention when anything seems out of whack. Note especially if your system seems upset and you haven't eaten anything out of the ordinary.

5. Shortness of Breath. Of the women in the NIH study, more than 40 percent remembered experiencing this symptom. One of the comments the women made is that they noticed they couldn't catch their breath while walking up the stairs or doing other daily tasks.

6. Flu-Like Symptoms. Clammy, sweaty skin, along with feeling lightheaded and weak, can lead women to wonder if they have the flu when, in fact, they're having a heart attack.

7. Jaw, Ear, Neck, or Shoulder Pain. While pain and numbness in the chest, shoulder, and arm is a common sign of heart attack (at least, among men), women often don't experience the pain this way. Instead, many women say they felt pain and a sensation of tightness running along their jaw and down the neck, and sometimes up to the ear, as well. The pain may extend down to the shoulder and arm -- particularly on the left side -- or it may feel like a backache or pulled muscle in the neck and back.

In addition to the symptoms they do have, women differ from men in another significant way -- they may not experience many of the symptoms we traditionally associate with heart attacks. This, experts say, is a major reason why women's heart attacks go unrecognized and untreated. Almost half of all women in the NIH study felt no chest pain, even during the heart attack itself. Numbness is another symptom women may not experience, experts say.

How to protect yourself or the women you care about?

If your body is doing unusual things and you just don't feel "right," don't wait. Go see your doctor and ask for a thorough work-up. And if you have any risk factors for cardiac disease, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, or family history of heart disease, mention these to the doctor. Time is of the essence, so don't count on medical staff to know your background or read your chart -- tell them your risk factors right away, so your condition can be evaluated fully and completely.