Category: Weekly Posts

I am so proud of myself. Proud of who I am and what I stand for. I have a newfound confidence that gives me the courage to truly be myself.

I have been doing a lot of inner work, over the past 6 months, and I can feel a shift in myself. I no longer feel like a failure if I see someone else succeeding in life. I genuinely feel happy for them. These things seem so simply but they are life changing.

The best way I can describe it is having a sense of peace. I am up leveling to the next version of myself, and I am so excited to see what that entails.

Growing up, I always envisioned myself being a go getter and killing it at life. I am finally becoming that person and it feels so liberating. The major changes that I have implemented are:

1) Daily Affirmations – Every single day I give myself a pep talk….. “I am confident. I am loved. I have everything I need to succeed. God has got my back and He is making a way for me.”

2) Journaling – I learned about this thing where you write out how you are feeling or about a problem you are having. Without even realizing you write out the answer to your issue. It was the craziest thing, but I was feeling super overwhelmed and insignificant, one night. I decided to write about it and I was literally able to identify the root of my negative feelings because it just came out as I was writing. I started crying as the words were flowing through me. I had no idea that I was bottling up so much. Journaling is a great way to get out of your own head space and see things more clearly.

3) Reflecting before Reacting (I have done a previous post about this with more details) – Before reacting to something, in a negative way, I like to think – I mean really think – about where the person is coming from. There is some reason why they said that thing or did something annoying. Most times it comes from a much better place than what you initially think. And most things are rooted from childhood. It becomes much easier to interact with someone when you understand where they are coming from. Example) Kara gets mad when Sally and Erica talk. Initial response is, Kara is not very nice. Actually no… Kara is afraid that Sally and Erika will become better friends, therefore Kara gets left out. Connections are very important to Kara because she has lost members of her family and is alone a lot. Knowing how people work is very powerful. You can have better interactions with them and have a more fruitful relationship.

4) Me Time/Meditating – As a mom, wife, and a fulltime employee, things get hectic. It is so nice to start the day off with some me time. Sitting on the deck after my husband leaves for work and before our son wakes up is the golden time for me. It is only about 15 minutes but I thoroughly enjoy those precious moments. It gives me a chance to read the Bible, take some deep breaths, and enjoy the fresh air.

The recent routines I have implemented are simple but have, honestly, been game changers for my mental health, relationships, and becoming the best version of myself.

❤️Always,

Tori

Calming, grounding, exciting, changing…. These words describe my recent life. I have been focusing a lot on recognizing my emotions, and finding a calmness from within myself. I change see a change beginning to happen in me.

I am able to observe my emotions and feelings and let them go, rather than getting wrapped up in it, and I think I owe meditation for this. 

I also see myself raising my energetic minimum, something I learned from The Rise and Conquer Podcast.

I have recently started sorting through my house, getting rid of clutter, and have acquired a new preference in home décor. I thought this was because I was getting older and more mature in my taste.

I realized this is because I want my house to serve me and I will not accept anything less. My home needs to be a place that is welcoming and relaxing. I found all the extra clutter was just giving me anxiety and doing the opposite of what I desire.  

I am more drawn towards lighter colors, green plants, and natural light – all things that lead me to be higher vibe.  

I am excited for these changes in my life because I feel so much happier. When I am not happy I can, more easily, identify the reason why and do a meditation to help me get out of my funk.

I have heard that the year 2020 signifies perfect vision. While I wouldn’t say my “vision” is perfect, it is definitely improving. My relationship with God is much stronger than ever before. I feel like my soul has been awaken to the things that matter. It is very easy for me to get caught up in the world’s way of thinking. 

It is God’s way of thinking that will set you free and help you to feel peace in every situation – AKA having perfect vision. I am more receptive to the work God is doing in me and around me. I have noticed that I am not as easily offended by others.  

All of these things makes me feels like there are layers being shed off of me and my spirit is able to flourish. It seems like I have made leaps and bounds on my spiritual journey on earth.  

Something else that has changed within me, is that I do feel like I am on a journey. Earth is not home and I really do feel like I am just passing through. It makes me be more aware of how I spend my time and who I spend my time with. Family has become a top priority. I am also making sure I am not spending my time scrolling through meaningless posts or working my life away to obtain materialistic items.  

Reflecting back on the year, I see that God has made something beautiful from a time where Satan has been trying his best to break us. Churches can be shut down, visiting loved ones can be unadvised, and cities can be put on hold but this does not dim God’s love. He is everywhere and in everything. His love is true and the only constant that we can rely on in this world. 

I have been truly blessed in 2020 and will continue to worship God for all he does.

You do not have to answer to anyone but yourself.

This thought hit me hard today because I was thinking through a social interaction that I had earlier in the day and I had the urge to go back to the person and explain myself as to why I was going to act a certain way. Then I stopped and realized, I do not have to explain myself to this person. The situation literally has no effect on her and I do not need her permission on how I was going to handle it. It made me realize that I actually do this a lot – feeling like I need to have someone else’s approval before I do something that effects my life. 

I do not owe anyone my happiness and you don’t either. Make the decision that feels right for you and be confident in it. You will feel more at peace doing what you think is best, rather than trying to appease someone else.

The past few months I have slowed down, or completely halted, on my blog posts. The reason being is that I accepted a Lead Coaching position for a high school cheer team. Man has it been a wild ride and we are only 1 game into the season…  

I have never felt so defeated in my life. On the other hand, I do really enjoy being back into the cheer scene and expressing my creativity through cheer.  

I guess I never realized how involved some parents can be with their child’s extracurricular because my parents never were. They were there to take me to and from every practice, game, competition, and tumbling class. They supported me all 10 years I cheered and sat through all the harsh weather, uncomfortable bleachers, and long haul away games that we attended. Where my parents differ from other cheer parents is that they never questioned my coaches’ decisions. 

When coaching first began, myself and my co-coach were approached to meet with the principal and the parents of an upset cheerleader. She was not happy with the team we placed her on and had to explain ourselves about our decision making process. We were questioned by the parents and felt like we were under a microscope. Although, I will say the principal was very supportive throughout this process and was there to help us coaches.

When cheer things are good, they are really good, though. I leave practice feeling reenergized, confident, and accomplished. It has been a creative outlet for me to come up with new stunts, cheers, and ways to do things. I have also found a new friendship with the other coach.  

This has been a humbling experience, to say the least. I definitely have even more respect for coaches, teachers, principals, and anyone else in that sort of position.  

The entire situation made me rely on God to get me through it and to defend me. Just like in Psalm 31:2 Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me. I trust that God will defend me and I will come out a stronger person.  

I write this while still being in the midst of the cheer journey. If I were to say, right now, what I though the lesson out of this was, I would say I am being taught to be confident in my decisions and willing to defend what I think is right.

Late teenage years and early 20s were hard for me because I didn’t know who I was or what I stood for. I was aware if it, during that time, which caused me to feel even more alone and unsure of myself.

I always think back to a comment I heard in high school about another girl. They would call her a Chamaeleon because she would change who she was and how she acted based off of who she was spending the time with. This made me very sad for her but I realized that I wasn’t too far off from that.

As I grow older, became a wife, mom, and have more work and life experience, I am much more sure of who I am, and in that I am much more confident. And let me tell you, it feels great.

It has come with a lot of praying and self reflecting. I feel like I am actually doing what God has called me to do, by just trusting in who He created me to be.

Having that self-confidence is also what helped me to begin my blog. I feel worthy of sharing my thoughts, experiences, and lessons learned. I know my value and can step away from situations or people who are affected me in a negative way.

It feels like a weight has been lifting off my shoulders and I am free; Free to be who God created me to me.

I’ve been feeling anxious with the election coming up, more cases of the virus arising, and possibly shutting schools down again. It seems like we are nearing the end of the Bible times.

I have a strong relationship with God but I can’t help but wonder…. am I doing all that I can to do His work while I’m on earth?

It’s scary to think about but then I remind myself that I am thinking with my worldly brain, not my Heavenly mind. The resurrection will be the best thing to ever happen to the human race. This gives me piece of mind.

I have also been doing a lot more praying for the world, the leaders, and all the people on earth. I pray for peace, love, and guidance. God is in control and we have nothing to fear.

A personal goal of mine, recently, has been to not jump to assumptions or react too quickly.

I take a few minutes to digest the situation for myself, before I verbalize something that I might later regret.

An example of this is when I was folding like 4 loads of laundry at once – I’m not exaggerating (I am really bad about putting the laundry away, but you’ll find baskets full of clean clothes at my house).

So, I am in the process of putting so many clothes away that it is covering our entire bed. Chris, my husband, is laying on the bed and having to scoot clothes over because there is so much. I am aggressively folding the clothes wondering, why the heck is he not helping me?! There are literally so many clothes that he has to physically move them to make room for himself, and yet he does not look up from his phone to offer any help at all.

Instead of yelling at him, like I really wanted to do, I kept quiet for a few minutes. I then asked him who did the laundry when he was young. He responded with “me…… that’s why I hate doing it now.” That was so enlightening for me for a number of reasons.

One, it gave me insight as to why he is behaving that way. I can relate to being forced to do something growing up and, now that he has the choice, he does not do it.

Two, if I would have yelled and him and been frustrated, he, like many other men, would not have thought to explain the reasoning behind it, to me. He would have reacted to my anger with more anger.

And three, it saves me from looking like the demanding wife who is always nagging her husband to do something. By me taking a few minutes to calm down and think about how to approach the situation, it saved us an argument and also many more future arguments about the stupid laundry.

Not reacting too soon has also helped me to realize that most people are not bad. They do not set out with the intentions of hurting someone just for the sake of it. If someone reacts negatively about a situation, it’s because it hits home with them. It may remind them of a feeling or situation that they have not fully healed from, in the past. It brings up bad feelings for them and they may project this onto someone else without even realizing it.

I know that I have done this, and now that I am aware of it, I can be better about not doing it as much.

I find the take 5 approach to be especially helpful when it comes to situations with Chris. I have heard that men are not very good at identifying why they feel a certain way. I feel like there is a lot of depth to Chris, and he does not even realize it.

Being quiet, at first, allows me to think about how I should phrase something to be able to get the information I am looking for out of him. If he feels that I am at all angry/irritated/any sort of negative feeling he automatically shifts to a defensive mode. That is why my tone and attitude towards the situation is extremely important. It is kind of like a game for me because I have to guess at what questions will be the winner – AKA provides me insight to why he is the way he is. Whenever I am able to know his thinking behind something, it feels like such a breakthrough for me, and he honestly has no idea. I smile while I write that because he seems so innocent and child-like.

This approach really does have such great benefits to our marriage: some fights are avoided, I can understand him more, and it aids us (especially me) with future disagreements. Just like James 1:19 says in the Bible “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”

Growing up in a world where you are to pick your career at 18, go straight into college, finish a degree, and get a career in that field, there is a lot of pressure to have a straight and narrow path to follow for your life. For me, the pressure never really came from family. It was more of myself and comparing myself to others. I would look at girls who had competed the bachelors degree in 4 years and found an amazing job right out of college, and that drove me to want to follow in their footsteps.

Being driven is great, but where this mindset really seemed to trip me up is when I’m 24 years old, I have the degree, the job, the husband, the baby, the dog, and a house but that constant want for more. A vary hard lesson for me to learn (and continue to still work through) is that I am only 24 years old with all these blessings in my life. Yes, I currently live paycheck to paycheck but that’s ok. I’m working on getting rid of debt, I tithe, and when I can I save.

I have to remind myself to step back and look at the big picture. Only 2 years ago I graduated from college. I am very early on in my career. I cannot expect myself to have a huge savings account and buy my dream house. I am beyond blessed with what I have and I have “extra” things. I am doing just fine for myself at the point of life I’m at. I, honestly, have to talk myself through this to remind me that I will not feel financially stable until probably 30’s. It takes time and I cannot rush into things.

When I have this mindset of needing to have it all right now, I find myself not really taking in the events and people who are currently in my life but constantly looking towards the future. I have to realign my goals to not have my forever home until probably 35. I won’t be making my salary goal until around that time too.

For me, I’m ok with these things as long as I think through it logically and come up with a plan to accomplish these goals. I have to set my mind on a new timeline and I will be just fine.

At some point, we all encounter anxiety in our life. I never really had it when I was younger but it seemed to come in full swing during my college days. I spent a lot of time trying to work through it with breathing exercises and talking it out with other people. While I found this somewhat effective, it was a short term fix. As the anxiety continued into my adult life, I have found some fundamental points that I consistently revisit when the anxious feelings arise.

First, I try to identify the problem. Strangely enough, it seems that I do not even realize all the stressors in my life until I begin to have the anxious feelings…the heavy chest, shallow/fast breathing, and increased blood pressure. As soon as these symptoms hit, I examine what is currently going on in my life that is putting me in this anxious state. One life situation that continues to put me in this state is when I have to cover for one, or possibly more than one, coworker at a time. Really, any time I have a lot going on, I start to go down this path.

After identifying the issue, I try to remove it, if possible. With my work situation, I am not able to remove it so I move on to the next step – controlling what I can of the situation. If I have a heads up that someone is going to be out, then I can plan ahead to have as much of my own work done as possible. Unfortunately, this is not always the case and I am thrown into someone else’s workload. In situations like that, I take a moment for myself and write out a schedule, which can also be seen as a to-do-list. I have to prioritize what needs done first and block out certain times that is dedicated to said tasks. As we all know, interruptions happen so I will basically “pause” the time I have devoted to this certain task and then return to it when I can, “resuming” my time for the project. I typically create multiple time blocks throughout my day to stay on task which helps me to optimize the time I am spending on each task.

What I love even more than writing out a schedule is checking things off, so after I complete each thing, it gets checked off. I progress with this method throughout my heavy workload days until, eventually, I have completed all my tasks, whether it be work related or personal.

On a side note – A few things I do try to do throughout the day is remembering to control my breathing by taking deep, slow breaths.

Another thing is coffee – it has its pros and cons. Coffee can be an anxiety enhancer so I have to look at each individual situation before I pour myself a cup. If I am working around the house or have a crazy busy day at work then bring on the caffeine. On the other hand, if I have to drive somewhere unfamiliar or I am in a new situation (example: interviewing for a job, presenting/public speaking, or being around new people) I try to steer away from the caffeine.

I also noticed my anxiety more when I was on a hormonal birth control. I know everyone is different but it is something to think about. The timing of me starting the pill and anxiety creeping into my life was a short span so I do believe this lead to a lot of my anxiety, at the beginning, and since stopping it, my anxiety happens less frequently.

To recap, When feeling anxious:

1. Identify what is causing the anxiety
2. Eliminate the cause OR control what you can
3. Make a schedule, designate times to certain tasks and do not budge on this
4. Check off tasks completed from the schedule/ to-do-list
5. Maintain deep, slow breathing

Something to think about – could caffeine or hormones (birth control) be making anxiety worse for you?

Before having children, I always told my husband that we needed to not lose who we are, as a couple, when kids come around. We need to make it a priority to have a date night once a week with no children. It is so easy to make those goals before actually having a child. When my son came along, my view on this sifted, at least momentarily.

After going back to work full-time, it took me months to find a balance between work, spending time with my family, maintaining the house work, and making dinner, all while trying to get some sleep and sanity for myself. Once I finally felt like I had a grip on those tasks, my husband would tell me that we need to go out, just him and I. Just the thought of spending time away from my son throw me into a panic. I was already away from him 8.5 to 9 hours a day. Once I picked him up after work, I had about 2.5 hours to spend with him and then he was off to bed. I tried explaining this to my husband but it seemed he wasn’t getting it. I’m all about the facts so I started calculating how many hours I actually had with my son a week. I would get about an hour with him before work and 2.5 hours after work so that’s 3.5 hours each day, times 5 is 17.5 hours then you throw the weekend in there and I have another 10 (awake) hours with him to equal 27.5 hours per week. Compared to the time I’m at work, which is 40 hours a week. When my husband suggested going away for the weekend, I about lost it. I could not wrap my head around how he was ok with not seeing our son any less than what we already did.

I also really struggled with the fact of working full time. Especially when I worked with many nurses who have young children and worked 3 days a week. I couldn’t help but compare myself to them and be jealous of the time they got to spend with the children while I was at work. My husband and I would get into arguments about not having much of a social life outside of our home. He would often remind me of how I was the one who said we needed to have a date night once a week. I had not forgotten this but it was so much harder than what I could image – leaving our child on one of the few nights I actually got to spend time with him. I would get mad at Chris for even suggesting that we have a night to ourselves. Honestly, it would give me anxiety just thinking about it.

Then it hit me: my husband wants to spend time with me.  Just me, and maybe some friends, and just get out for the night and enjoy ourselves. When I thought about it that way, I realized, how could I be mad at him for wanting to spend time with me? The best thing we can go for our family is to make sure it has a solid foundation, and that Chris and I are happy and connected with one another. We are how this whole thing came about. No him and I equals no kids. So now when he asks how I feel about going out to dinner with some friends on a Saturday night, I remind myself that I need one and one time with Chris and that our relationship is just as important as my relationship with Carson. What I should really get upset about is when he doesn’t want to spend an evening alone with me.

So here we are, nearly 8 months later, and we are spending our first Saturday evening out to dinner with some friends downtown. Carson will be with his grandma so I have no concerns there. I’m going to take some time for myself: get dressed up, do my hair and makeup, and even wear heels. I need to remind Chris, and mostly myself, that I am a young, fun, women, who yes, has a baby, but also has a great relationship with her husband. I can prioritize my marriage and also spending time with my son. It doesn’t have to be one or the other and that is something that took me some time to comprehend. While I am not spending time with Carson, I am still going things to make sure he has the best life possible – growing up in a home where his parents love one another and get along.

Isn’t it strange that people get mad that you’re doing well in life. You get promoted at your job, married, have a child, get your dream car, buy the house you have always wanted, go on a vacation and people frown upon it or make up excuses as to why you have accomplished it. People talk to others about how you “don’t deserve that”, “she’s too young to get married”, or “I don’t know why she would want to have a baby now.” People genuinely get upset that you’ve accomplished something. You would never hear someone upset that you’ve gained weight or didn’t compete college (other than the parents who are paying tuition). People don’t feel the need to chime in on you not getting that promotion or totaling your car. It’s sad that our society seems to think that the “norm” is to tear one another apart when someone has achieved a goal of theirs. I try to make a conscious effort to be happy for those who I see are making their dreams come true, building that business they’ve always dreamed of, or are earning that goal salary. But as the world is now, just know you’re doing well for yourself if you have haters. I just channel my inner Taylor Swift and “Shake it Off.”

It really is true when they say you and your spouse compliment one another. Where one is weak, the other is strong. One area where I struggle is expressing emotions, particularly verbal affection and he excels in this department (although not as much anymore – more on that later). My husband really craves this in our relationship and it is an area that I find very difficult. It has probably been one of the hardest hurdles I have had to work through in our marriage. Occasionally I will express it to him but it comes “naturally” every 6 months or so. What I mean by naturally is that I will have the urge to share how much I love him or appreciate everything he does for our family. Other times it is something that I really have to take some time and think about how I feel. I wouldn’t say that the feelings are forced because I truly do feel that way, but me expressing it is something that has to be deliberate. This has been an arguing point for us in our relationship because it is something that I have to make a conscious effort to do, and when I get busy with life, this seems to fall by the wayside.

After struggling with this for a while, I decided to read “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman. Most have read the book, but if you haven’t, I strongly encourage you to do so. It made me realize, on a deeper level, why my husband NEEDS this reassurance about himself and our relationship. It is the way he receives love. I can try to spend quality time with him all day long but it won’t mean as much to him as me simply verbalizing how I feel to him. To be completely honest, when Chris first brought it to my attention that he wanted me to begin telling him how much he means to me, I found it annoying. I felt like he was being insecure and needy. I know this is a terrible thing to say, but I feel that I can confess that, because it is not at all the reality of it. The reason is simple…..this is how he receives love. Period. My love language is quality time and physical affection (which is why he doesn’t verbalize his affection as often anyone – it’s not my top love languages). I don’t need him to write me a book about how much he cares about me, just like he doesn’t need to spend 30 minutes of uninterrupted time talking to me about all the details of his day.

Once I was able to comprehend that, I was able to move on to the next step, which is the more difficult part……. I began diving deeper into myself to find out why. Why was it so challenging for me to open up about my feelings? He and the world know I love him. We are married and have a child together. I chose him to spend the rest of my life with. I thought it was obvious what my feelings are towards him even if I didn’t spell it out. But the question still remained, why did this make me feel so uncomfortable? I then realized that the reason is me. I feel extremely vulnerable saying those heartfelt emotions out loud and especially in person. This wasn’t only true in regards to my husband but all people who I care about. It’s like I thought if I don’t say how much I love someone outloud, then when they are gone (break up/divorce, drifting apart, death) that it won’t hurt as much. This literally makes no sense but this was my rationale for the way I acted. To be 100% honest, I haven’t even had that many people in my life leave, which would make me want to put up walls to protect myself. I have had 2 grandparents pass away, 2 uncles, and some friends in high school drift away but nothing traumatic has happened to me with loss. I had no reason to not feel comfortable expressing my true feelings and gratitude for those in my life. Still, those feelings arise of being embarrassed or ashamed when sharing my personal thoughts. It makes me feel extremely vulnerable and weak. Even though I know it’s quite the opposite – it is taking some serious strength for me to open up. I also don’t like to cry in front of anyone for the same reasons.

Once I thought through these emotions and feelings tied with sharing my inner thoughts, it made it slightly easier to be more vulnerable. But I do still go through a checklist in my head when I have doubts. 1) This person means so much to me and I need to share that with them 2) Verbalizing my love does not make me more susceptible to getting hurt and 3) Even if something did happen, I would want them to know how I feel anyway, so I might as well get it out while I can. I know this sounds crazy but I literally have to remind myself of these things before sharing my emotions.

While I would love to say that I am an open book to those around me about my feelings, I still am not. However, I do now have the knowledge about myself to realize that I am my own barrier in this situation. It is still a work in progress but I am making strides in the right direction. I would say that it is easier to share my love for Chris with him. It is still a challenge with other family members and friends but I am working on it. I can say, with confidence, that I am putting in the work to better myself and the relationships around me. At the end of the day I just remind myself: If you love someone, let them know.

I am on family vacation in Clearwater, Florida. I have been here before with friends, but this is the first time I have been here with family. Since I have been in the area, previously, it prompted me to start thinking back to my trip past trips with my friends. I was reminiscing on those 2 prior trips and how much fun I had with my friends. I started searching through Facebook and Instagram to find any old pictures that may have been posted to share with my family. After I found some, then I just started looking at all of the pictures. I found myself being very envious of my younger life and what great memories I have from those times. While in the shower, where I do my best thinking, I was trying to decide what I would want to experience again, if I could do just one thing over again with my friends. It would not be a vacation, rather a summer day with my best friend, Allie. Thinking back, I had no idea how much I would value those memories and long to live them again.

Then it occured to me…… I am on a family vacation! This is the first time my 7 month old son has seen the beach and the ocean. It is the first time I have been on a vacation with my husband, son, and parents. All week I have been thinking back to those other vacations when I needed to be taking in every second that I could of this current vacation that I am on. These are times that I will never get back, as I am well aware. I need to treat every current life event as a moment that I can never experience again and I will one day look back on and treasure. The realization was a friendly reminder that I need to live in the moment all the time. Enjoy what I have, when I have it, and not realize the power of the moment when it has become a memory.