Put Your Brave Pants On

I've been thinking about bravery and heroism lately. As I've struggled to crawl out of the hole I fell into, I've had to learn a few things about what bravery really means to me.

I've struggled a lot with the fear of abandonment. I've never had an explanation that makes sense in my mind because this is something I feared long before divorce.

Because of this, I'm often paranoid that the people in my life will leave me.

So for me, making friends is really brave. Even just meeting new people is really brave.

Being authentic and vulnerable is extremely brave.

But every day, I try. I go out into the world, most of the time with a big smile, and I try to make sure I'm making the world brighter. And when I can't make the world brighter, I at least try not to make it any darker.

Bravery is about trying. It is about getting up each day and deciding to do things that aren't always comfortable. It is breaking out of the square box we would normally live in.

Bravery is showing the world it can't break you. It is waking up with a smile when everyone expects you to fall apart. It is trusting your heart and believing in yourself.

Because as much as we want to believe others will pick us up, sometimes the best thing for them is walking away. And I'm not here to determine whether that choice is right or wrong because it's different for everyone.

So you have to learn to save yourself.

Be your own hero. 

Believe in who you are.

This is one of my greatest parenting goals. Teaching bravery to children is an every day, every minute task. Most of the things my kids experience are new to them and often times, they look to me for reassurance. Each day, I try to emphasize the importance of putting our "brave pants" on and trying our best.

This ranges from trying new foods to attending school to giving a talk in primary and sometimes it even means dancing in front of hundreds of people.

My kids do brave things every day. 

Princess struggles with this the most. She isn't as outgoing as Ninja and she often clings to my leg in new situations.

I remember the day she started kindergarten. I remember walking away as she cried and tried to run after me. I remember feeling like the worst mom in the world, even though I knew that brave moment would help shape her into the girl she is today.

That moment taught me a lot about my own life. Because more than once in my life I've watched people walk away and I've cried and wanted to run after them---but in my heart, I knew the best decision would be to stay put and put my faith in myself.

And the first few times, I was lost for a long time and couldn't find my way back. But the more I choose bravery, the stronger I become. The more I fight for myself, the happier I am. The more I trust myself, the healthier my self-confidence becomes.

I think God knew this. I think He needed to push me over the edge so I would find myself. I told Him over and over and OVER that He was giving me too much to handle but the thing is, He didn't. I found my way. In fact, I pushed further ahead than I've ever gone.

I've started reading my scriptures and praying and spending more quality time with my kids. I've started reciting positive affirmations in front of my mirror to remind myself every day that I DO HARD THINGS. 

Whether I wanted to or not, God gave me this particular life because I am supposed to be this particular person. And as the Suzanne that I currently am, I can sit here and tell you that I am just as worthy as anyone else. I am worthy of life and love and happiness.

And happiness doesn't need to include a husband or more children or a million friends or a ton of money---happiness is an inside job. It is something I get to create within myself. It is something I get to share with the people around me.

I am extremely lucky to be Suzanne. Often times, I've wished to be someone else but this person that I am is pretty cool. The empathy and patience and optimism that God blessed me with is something I wouldn't trade for a million dollars.

I am not breakable because I am a daughter of God and I know He will always pull me through---whether that means dragging me by my toes or walking with a hand on my shoulder, He won't ever leave me.

I am brave. You are brave.

Life is brave. 

Loss of Trust vs. Betrayal

Loss of Trust vs. Betrayal

This has been a hot topic on my mind for---oh---the past 7 years of my life. It started out as something I didn't understand and wanted to learn about. But somewhere down the road, I started to figure out how these particular labels are applied to my own life. How does loss of trust affect me versus being betrayed by someone?

When someone is dishonest, our first reaction is to lose trust in them. This seems like the obvious reaction, no matter how long it may last. I think of this as a chain breaking. One of the links snaps and the chain separates.
Although it takes some work, a broken link of a chain is fixable. Depending on how many links have broken, it may take a while but it isn't hopeless.
You can reattach links and even work hard to make them stronger than the last time.

But betrayal is different. Betrayal is taking that same chain and placing it on top of a bomb. When the bomb goes off, the chain is broken into a thousand tiny pieces and some of them hit you. How do you put that chain back together? How do you fix the wounds you now have?

Betrayal throws reason out the window.

Betrayal always involves a loss of trust. But a loss of trust does not always involve betrayal. 
Betrayal is an action, a verb. The dictionary defines it as "to disappoint the hopes or expectations of; be disloyal to". According to the dictionary, betrayal goes far and wide beyond lying. It is deceit. It is telling someone you're going to be loyal and directly contradicting your words by your actions.

A few months ago, a friend was asking me a series of hard questions, most of which I refused to fully answer. Questions like, "Should I stay? Should I go? Do you think there's a betrayal 'point of no return'?" Each of these questions has individual answers---not individual to the question but individual to the person asking.

Should you leave him?
I don't know. 
That all depends on how much you can handle. If you've lost yourself and are miserable, maybe you should. But maybe you have hope that you can trust him again if he is willing to make changes.

Betrayal seems like the definition of GREY. It isn't black and white ever. Ever ever.

Everyone who has felt a form of betrayal has their own unique experience.

For me, betrayal caused anxiety. I had never dealt with anxiety of this magnitude ever before in my life. Betrayal caused me to need medication to function for a while---which I am completely ok with. In fact, I'm grateful for it.

I can remember a time at the beginning of this past school year when I was waiting in the pick-up line for my daughter. It was the first time of the day where I had a quiet 20 minutes to myself and each day, as I would dwell on things I needed to get done and people I needed to see and places I needed to go, a surge of anxiety would take over my chest and I would have to close my eyes and take deep breaths.
Most of the time, I would tell myself, "Suzanne, calm down. You know nothing is wrong right now. Nothing bad is happening. You shouldn't be getting anxious." but every once in a while, I'd get impatient and angry with myself.

As I was telling my counselor this last week, kind of proud of myself for usually being patient but also recognizing that I wasn't always dealing with it very well, she asked me if my words were self-honoring to my anxiety.

Self-honoring.

She said those words and for a while, I wasn't focused on anything else she said (Sorry, therapist...) because those words were the perfect label for what I was trying to make sense of in my head.

I wasn't honoring the fact that I am dealing with a lot of betrayal trauma. I wasn't allowing myself to feel anxious without trying to shut the feelings down as quickly as I could.

I have a strong belief that betrayal trauma is real. I am trying to be more accepting of the thoughts in my head and the feelings in my heart---the good and the bad---because each thing I think and feel has a purpose. Each reaction I have, even if it doesn't make sense to anyone else in the world, is a part of my reality.

And it's ok.

It's ok to work through trauma and act super crazy sometimes. It's ok to have fears and anxiety. Because I have been betrayed and I understand why those feelings come and go. I understand why I get anxiety. If I looked at my story as someone else's, I'd tell that girl, "Give yourself a break. Don't get upset when you get anxious. You have been through a lot. It is scary. And you're doing the best you can right now."

Because I am doing the best I can. I am hanging on by a thread sometimes and thriving other times. I stay up until 2am and I go to bed at 8pm sometimes. I cook my kids a healthy dinner sometimes and other times, I hand them a piece of bologna and a banana and call it a night.

Each and every day, all we can do is try to do the best we can---not the best our sister or neighbor or best friend can---just the best we can be.

Anchor to the Good

 Sky high and fearless---that is a real picture of me when I was a little girl. I used to climb to the top of our incredibly tall swing set and feel the wind on my face and just breathe. I'd sit on the top metal bar and watch the cars go down the streets and the people walking on the sidewalks.

That was my place.

Very few times did the fear of falling come to my mind but it never stopped me from climbing up to the top and feeling like I was on top of the world.

As a young girl, it was a fun place to climb. As a teenager, it was a place I would go to escape my pain.

My kids play on that swing set now. I watch them from my parents' kitchen window and imagine I am the young version of myself again, the little girl who needed someone to understand her a little bit better.
Sometimes I mourn the parts of my childhood that were sad. Other times, I smile because I love that little girl so much. I love 'young me'. Maybe that seems weird but whenever I see things in my children that remind me of myself as a child, it makes me happy.

Because I am her and I know what she needs. I know how she felt. I know all of the genuinely compassionate things she felt as a little girl. She is incredible to me.



Last week, I had a super rough night---or couple of nights. I wish the hard nights would stop but I guess that's never going to happen. But as I laid in my bed and wrote in my journal, I was thinking about everything that has happened and I was starting to blame myself all over again.

This is what anxiety does to me. 

I was worried that my divorce was too fast and that I had jumped into this new life without waiting for a fourth or fifth answered prayer that this was right---as if the first three answers were no longer valid. 

I started to second guess my friendships to some of the most amazing people I have ever met. I couldn't believe that they really love me. I started to think that I was probably just a girl with a sad story who everyone feels sorry for so they invite her to hang out.

I was crying while messaging a friend about my pity party and she stopped me right in my tracks and said, "Ok, I'm stepping in now! No No NO! Now you're making that up in YOUR head because you anchor to all of the self critic talk, instead of anchoring to what you know is true. You're amazing. You have awesome friends who are trying to protect you. You have been through hell and back and you don't give yourself enough credit for the amazing amount of crap you've been through and have to deal with. Let yourself feel those feelings of hurt but don't anchor to them. Anchor to the good."

Anchor to the good.

That phrase really spoke to me. Anchor to the good. I like simple messages that carry deep meanings. They are easier for me to remember and apply.

The next day, I went straight to my white board and wrote that beautiful message on it.

I pass by it multiple times a day.

When my friend first said those words to me, I thought they would be easy. I am a generally optimistic person and I've always felt like I can pick the good out of the situation and focus on it most of the time.

But it has been harder than I thought! Because I've been dealing with so much anxiety and shame that finding the good isn't always easy.

Often times it bothers me that I haven't yet figured out who I am now. I am a different person than I used to be and sometimes it's hard for me to understand myself. It's hard to understand the anxiety or the anger or the shame because even though I have felt all of those things in my life, I didn't recognize them as much as I do now. They weren't as debilitating as they are now.

And a huge part of me resents that. A huge part of me gets angry with this new person because I just want her to calm down and stop being so scared of life.

I want her to trust. 

But if I take a step back and look at her as if she isn't me, I can see why she is scared and why she doesn't like to trust. I can see why daily activities can give her anxiety. Because the day she was hurt the most was just a normal day with normal activities and it changed her life forever.


I hope that someday I will be able to overcome my fears. I hope that I will be able to live more freely and trust and love and commit.

But today all I feel like doing is climbing back into bed and never coming out of my room.
Because at least my bed is safe. 

Bravery: 2014

At the beginning of 2014, I wrote this post where I chose my word for the year.

It's a funny thing, the words I choose. Every year, I pick them and every year, they end up applying to my life even more than I anticipate.

I can count numerous times this year when the word bravery was directly applied to a decision or action in my life.
There was this post where I shared my views on divorce and how it hasn't changed my belief in marriage. Getting used to openly talking about divorce wasn't an easy thing. I was fearful of the judgement. But I did it anyway because I needed my voice to be heard.
This year, I made hundreds of new friends---some I've met and some I hope to meet in person someday. I might have forced myself into some of their lives and trusted my brave heart to lead me in the path I needed to go and my goodness, it turned out so incredibly sweet in the end.
I have learned to fight this year---I went from slowly killing myself daily to putting myself in recovery from my eating disorder, I have learned to openly talk about pornography and share my views on the effects of it's entrapment, and I have slept in my bed alone for over a year with only minor middle-of-the-night freak outs.

I have dated. Oh what a fun and seriously stupid world the dating world is... I really don't have much to say about it but for me, dating has been extremely brave.

School. I have completed two semesters of full time school this year and gotten through one of the most triggering classes I've ever had to endure---and I raised my hand and spoke my mind about why I don't agree with mainstreaming pornography.

I was chosen to be a recipient of the Bright Effects day and I completed a photoshoot of just me...no kids...just my beautiful insecurities, all wrapped up into one mold of a warrior.

I started working again---and it was all sorts of messy for a while. Juggling work, school, and motherhood was not very fun for a while. Ninja would say the same thing if you asked him. It was hard. I was constantly getting anxious and running from one place to the next, trying to devote my attention to whomever needed it the most in that minute. Luckily, we have fallen into a groove and things have gotten so much better!

My bravery took us on two trips, one to California and one to Utah. I also took a trip to Las Vegas with friends, where I bravely wore my "Porn Kills Love" shirt on the LV Strip.

There have been so many moments this year where I've questioned myself. I doubt my abilities a lot. I worry about whether this blog is the right thing, whether my parenting is good enough, and whether I'm acting with authenticity. I want to be real and allow you to see the messy mixed in with the beautiful.

I struggle to find who I really am. I have changed so much this year and although so many aspects of that are beautiful, some of them aren't as great. Sometimes I surprise myself with how much anxiety can take over within seconds or how my fears cause me to believe really ugly things about myself.
Other days I surprise myself with how confident I am.
But mostly, it's just been hard trying to figure out who this new Suzanne is. I battle that one out in my mind often---way too often.

There have been so many reasons to celebrate my bravery this year. I've done a lot of things I didn't believe I'd be capable of doing.

Which brings me to 2015:
I have thought about what word I should pick to represent this next year of my life.
Most of the words I wanted to pick were synonyms with bravery: courage, strength, etc. They all seemed like decent words but I knew none of them were the word I was looking for.

I was looking at this new family picture yesterday and the word seemed to be staring me in the face...

Healing.

With all of my pain and struggle between divorce and my eating disorder, I have tried to focus on my own healing but it has never received enough attention.

This year, I am putting more focus on my own personal recovery. I'm going to figure out who I am and who I truly want to be.
I am going to fight for myself so that I am able to fight for those two beautiful children of mine.

The past 3 years, I've tried to make it a goal to go to the temple 12 times (which would equal out to once a month) and each year, I get somewhere between 6-9. Not this year. This year I surpassed my goal and although I am not going to put a specific number on my temple attendance this next year, I have seen what going to the temple does for my life and I am going to continue making it a priority.

Healing.

I have so much faith that healing my heart is possible. I have faith in my ability to figure this new life out.

To end my year of bravery, and to start another year of bravery, I recorded a song that I heard for the first time tonight---because I'm really good at winging things around here. This is my last post of 2014 and I really wanted to share something special with all of you, my warrior friends.
I want to leave you with a thousand disclaimers but I think the bravest part of posting this is just leaving this video for you to listen to and judge for yourself. No disclaimers. Just me.