Chasing Butterflies

One of my nearest and dearest friends recently posted a Facebook status about this last year and towards the end she said, “I have loved and lost, I fought and won… My war cry [for 2017] is love, love love.” It made me start reflecting on 2016 in a bit of a different way. Like everyone else in the world, 2016 was REALLY hard. Something in the air I guess. Love, happiness, peace, and purpose were incredibly hard for me to find and believe in. I’ve been letting cynicism paint my perspective on everything that had to do with those. I assumed they would never be mine anymore, especially love. I went home for a little less than 3 weeks for Christmas and New Years so while I was home and on "break" from life, I began to really do some soul searching and finally admitted some things to myself that I had been trying to avoid. #1: I need to reestablish my purpose. I need to find something that gets me out of bed every day and that helps me take the next step in my life. Time ...

I can't give you a timeframe, but especially the past few weeks, I have developed so much more empathy, compassion, love, and understanding for my dear friends that suffer from depression and anxiety/panic attacks. I don't have depression, but I have definitely had some crazy emotional weeks that I think (from my incredibly limited knowledge and experience) have helped me to develop this empathy. I never understood how someone would just stop doing the things they love. I didn't understand not being able to get yourself out of bed. I didn't understand how a panic or anxiety attack worked and how you could get to the point of your body inducing that. Etc., etc. I had compassion, I had sympathy, and I respected that their/your experience was hard and different from mine. I mean, I had hard days, but a hard day is very different than hard weeks, months, and years. For those that deal with it all the time- I'm sorry. I love you. I understand a fraction of what you a...

Today has been full of good stuff! I've been catching up on Institute reading for a class I'm technically not even taking... but I wanted to! And then one of my wonderful friends gave a FANTASTIC lesson in Relief Society that has left me thinking all day. Now, I've been a wee bit emotional lately so maybe that's why it touched my heart so much, but I'm pretty sure I would have been just as touched either way! So her lesson was based on two talks about Choice and the Atonement. It reminded me of my favorite lyric in one of my favorite musicals: "The choice may have been mistaken, the choosing was not. You have to move on." Think about that statement for just a moment. As we all know, choices are really hard for me to make. Especially big, life-changing ones. So let's go back to the lyrics: "You have to move on." We have to make choices, we have to keep moving forward. Another friend (that teacher-friend quoted!) said, "God can...

So.. the world is kind of a scary place right now. Look at the 2016 Presidential Race we're dealing with for just one example. Our two current frontrunners are not good people. Hilary Clinton who is in the middle of a crime investigation, has sold uranium to Russia under the guise of a charity (that was totally fake), and so much more. And then we have Donald Trump and all of his supporters. Those videos make me literally sick to my stomach/heart. You see people being abused emotionally, mentally and even physically and then there is Trump yelling out that he could shoot someone right then and there and he wouldn't lose any of his supporters. I'm scared to think of how accurate that statement could be. This world is becoming more violent, more corrupt, and more terrifying every day. However, it's also made me think more about my spiritual welfare. If the world is becoming this dark and evil place, then I need to stay on the path of truth and become a light, a b...

This is not the easiest of posts to write, but I think it may need to be said. Probably more for my sake than for anyone else's, but if I can help someone with this post then it's worth it! First of all, thanks to those of you who have complimented me lately on my weight loss. I really do appreciate them more than I can say! I know I shouldn't be so focused on how I physically appear, but my body has always bothered me. I've never been happy with it, but lately I haven't had quite as many complaints for myself. A few people have asked how I did it. I usually give some sort of vague answer about eating less/healthier and working out. the majority of that statement is true. But here's how I really lost 25-35 pounds in under 3 months: I stopped eating. I kept working out. If I had to eat it was incredibly small amounts and I tried to find something healthy. It started out small. I only ate one-two normal meals a day. Then it kept going down and down as I sa...

Sooo I thought I would share some videos here because... well... why not? I initially made this blog to talk about my hopes, dreams and goals- particularly in the theatre and music world! I came up with this idea after I didn't make the callback to be a Young Performing Missionary in Nauvoo. I worked my butt off on making that video, which you can find here: It's not a bad audition! It isn't perfect, but definitely not bad. I was a wee bit upset when I received the initial email saying I didn't make it. I didn't understand! I had been waiting to audition for years and always held off because it didn't feel right. Well, it finally felt right! And then I didn't even make the callback? Ouch. This was the opportunity that was finally going to carry me away from the little town of Buena Vista! I had my excuse to leave for at LEAST 4 months and then I'd hopefully be going straight to grad school somewhere! And now... I still have no idea where to go...

This isn't going to be one of my usual faith-filled, happy-go-lucky kind of posts so leave now if you are looking for a pick me up! ...But just going to put it out there that life is hard. There is a major challenge in my life right now that has me all kinds of crazy... I'm going to quote a VERY long text message I sent a friend after she asked me how I was doing. I don't think she quite expected this answer. "You asked me if I was okay. And that has a very complicated answer. Yes, I'm technically okay. And honestly I love seeing *insert a lot things I really have loved about myself lately*. At the same time I hate myself for those exact same things... *insert some more reasons* I want to ask for help but I'm scared to and secretly don't want it at all. If I pray about it I can tell I don't mean it because *insert more reasons*. I'm scared that when I REALLY start to work on it I'm just going to fall right back into my self loathing I try to...