November’s Challenge: Seeing blessings in a whole new way

This month, my challenge to myself has been to say a prayer of just gratitude every day. That’s right. Sometimes I do this while I’m driving some place. For example, my drive to school is about 25 minutes long. Sometimes I challenge myself to do the entire drive to school just saying my prayer of gratitude. So far, just in this past week of doing this challenge, I’ve noticed how these prayers of gratitude strengthen me. They truly put things into a whole new perspective. What I mean by that is that I start to dig deeper to find the things I’m grateful for because after 20 minutes of thinking about this, it really starts to sink in. It has started to help me see my blessings in a different light. (I’ll explain more about this in a follow up post)

I’m also challenging myself (and I’ll be honest…this one has been harder already) to write and send a thank you card every day. I love sending cards, so I’m looking forward to continuing this as well.

Feel free to join along!

October’s challenge…better late than never, right?

So I’ve actually been thinking of a challenge for this month and I’ve started the challenge but haven’t had a chance to post it on here yet. So please forgive the tardiness of this as October is already flying by! Ahh!! Crazy.

This month, my daily deed is kind of a two fold thing. I am doing a conscious act of self care every day along with telling myself three positive affirmations in the mirror every day.

This month for me is going to be about learning to have self compassion, self love and about remembering that in order to really connect and love others, I must first learn to love myself. I’m not sure if that is scientifically proven, but I’ve heard it before and it sounds and feels true to me. Christ even said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Mark 12:31). Which to me seems to be saying that we must also love ourselves if we want to really love others. When we work towards really believing that we are worthy of that love…perhaps we can start to see others that way as well. I like to see it as loving from the inside out.

My positive affirmations may change from day to day, but these are a few that I am most likely going to use:

  • I am worthy of love and belonging
  • I am a daughter of God with infinite worth and value
  • God knows me perfectly and loves me infinitely
  • I love and nurture myself every day
  •  As I love myself, I am more able to give and receive love
  • Everything is working together for my good

I’m looking forward to experimenting with this. I’m going to pay attention to how it affects me and how I feel. I wonder if this daily deed will change anything within me or around me. I’ll write about my experiences in the days to come. Please feel free to join along!

Xo,

Bianca

A few other new things to finish up September. Where did that month go?!

My oh my. I’m not sure where September went. One minute it was here, and the next it was gone. Well for the sake of living up to my challenges, here are some new things I tried to finish up the month.

– I went to a new yoga class.

– Tried a burger and fries place here in Boise that was so delish, I went two days in a row!

– Gave my first in-home music therapy session to a girl who has autism.

– Went to what will be my new church location if my husband and I actually are able to close on this home that we’re in the process of buying. It was so fun to imagine what our lives will be like while sitting in the pew of this church building that I haven’t been in yet, and surrounded by unfamiliar faces. It’s exciting to imagine the possibilities and also a little surreal.

– I went to my first ever Play Therapy conference. I really hope to become a Play Therapist one day. I got to go with my sister to this conference, and we had so much fun.

– I bought my first working record player at this little shop that my sister and I have wanted to check out for a while. I’m so excited to use in the that home I mentioned above.

– I went to my first home inspection. That was interesting.

– I got to sit down with a guy at a mortgage company to discuss the possibility of buying a house- never done that before.

– I found a little quiet spot outside to sit, read and write on. There’s something really healing about grass to me.

– I made a play-date with my nephew.

– I started writing a new song.

– I also learned a lot of things for the first time. While this wasn’t necessarily a physical action, it was just as real and important for me. Below are just a few things I’ve learned in graduate school this month. It’s amazing to me that I’ve learned as much as I have in only a matter of a few weeks. To name just a few of these things, I’ve learned that…

  1. Feeling is actually a victory. Not the other way around. (That goes with all feelings. Yes, all feelings.)
  2. Feeling feelings in the moment as much as possible is healing and allows for release of that emotion after it has been felt and acknowledged.
  3. When expressing thoughts and feelings, don’t forget to use, “I think,” “I feel” and “I experience” instead of making general statements such as “You sometimes feel…” I honestly never realized how often I do this until it was pointed out to me in one of my classes at school. It’s amazing how empowering it is to express feelings/thoughts and experiences that way. It puts ownership on them.
  4. Self-care is key. Intentional, conscious acts to take care of oneself is vitally important.

So there you have it. September for me was full, and I mean so FULL of new things for me. It was enlivening…It was enriching…And it was quite overwhelming at times. Goodbye September of 2014. You were wonderful.

Xo,

Bianca

New Things I’ve done so far…

I found this paper at a craft store and I had to buy it. It’s truly something I am trying to remember. For example, I was looking at houses that were for sale and feeling stressed out about it. Joseph gently reminded me, “hey B, just remember…this is supposed to be fun.” He was so right!

Life

So here are things I’ve been doing for my monthly “daily deed” challenge:

– I started this blog

– Drove home a new way

– Went to the Boise Temple

– Started my first day of school

– Looked at houses

– Went to a Zumba class

– Set up a new bank account

– Went to an institute class for parenting

– Finished 2 tracks at June audio

– Started going gluten free (for reals)

– I tried a new recipe…it was awesome