I'm an advent believer in the importance of progress. A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about failure. I spoke about how failure can discourage us and weigh us down a lot. This past week, I have felt a lot of frustration with myself for not being able to do a particular thing and it has really been pressing on my mind. Lately I've been left wondering if anyone else had trouble with measuring their progress. I certainly have.
Ever since this past Christmas, I have been suffering from anxiety and feelings of self-doubt. Due to this, I have been having panic attacks. At first, I didn’t know what to do about it, so I didn’t do anything. I would have a panic attack and then it would go away in a matter of minutes and I would be fine for the rest of the day. I had told my parents about it, but they always just told me that I had nothing to be afraid of and would proceed to brush it under the rug. So, for the next few days when I felt this way, I would do the same thing. I would act as though nothing was wrong. When I felt my anxiety, I did my best to ignore it. This, however proved to be an insufficient way to confront my issues. You see, I have found this whole suppression approach to be a huge mistake. I have been doing a bit of experimenting with my newfound struggle. A couple times when I have felt as though I am going to have a panic attack, I tried my best to suppress it. Other times, I have let the attack run it’s course and wait it out. To me, the results were a little shocking; when I do my best to suppress my anxiety, it only gets worse. Everything builds up. But when I allow the panic to run it’s course, it goes away sooner. A couple days ago I had been suppressing my anxiety all day. I thought I had finally figured out how to control my anxiety. I had been really excited that I had been able to not give in to the panic. I was sitting in my last class and thought about how whatever we were learning about was a little boring, when I felt dizzy and shaky all of the sudden. I knew it was my anxiety. So I did what I had been doing all day; I ignored it the best that I could. I felt so on top of it. I was proud of myself. I dared to even think that this was it. In my mind, I had declared myself anxiety free. But as I sat there in my english class, I felt my anxiety go from under control to out of my control. It began with my hands. It always begins with my hands; a shake I can’t control. I then told a friend what was going on and asked him to come outside with me, thinking I just needed a little fresh air. So we went outside and I took some deep breaths and counted in my mind. I did everything I could think of in that moment to calm myself down. But that didn’t seem to be working. Then, all at once my legs turned to jello and the next thing I knew I was on the ground. I fainted. Right there outside my classroom. I was so shocked that I had completely forgotten about my friend who had come outside with me. The poor guy had probably had no idea what was wrong with me. I was so embarrassed. After that, everything was a blur; my poor friend helped me up, the teacher called a supervisor, who took me up to the nurse, who somehow was able to calm me down. The nurse asked me if I wanted to call my parents; I didn't. I knew they would tell me to suck it up, as they always do. When I was calmed down again, I was escorted back to class. My face burned as I walked in. I took a seat as far away from my friend as I could. I waited until the next day to apologize. He told me that I didn’t need to apologize, but I knew I did. You see, progress isn’t something we can measure. That day, I thought I was completely fine until I wasn’t… But the truth was I did progress, it was just that I was not moving in the right direction. Direction is key, but I think the most important part is that we understand that everyone progresses in their own time. I can’t force myself to be rid of my anxiety in one day, but what I can do is learn ways to control parts of my anxiety. Why don’t we do this together? This week, I challenge you to focus on one thing that you want to progress towards and make it your goal for the week. It doesn’t have to be anything big. But nonetheless, make a goal to progress toward. Because I know when I have a goal, I’m more productive. Empowered.
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Beginning High School can be a daunting thing. In movies and books, high school is often portrayed as scary place. I’m here to tell you that once you learn to balance your social life with schoolwork, it’s not so bad. There’s more people to be friends with, you have more freedom to do things with your friends: more freedom equals less parent time (YES!). That being said, you also have to learn that the social life isn’t everything, a ginormous part of high school is well...the actual SCHOOL part. Now before you roll your eyes and close this page, let’s get real for a sec. I like to look at high school as preparing for a marathon (not that I’ve ever ran a marathon). With marathons, runners need to train for months ahead of time to get their bodies in shape to run all 26 miles without a hitch. If you think you can show up to a marathon without prior training, then you, my friend are mistaken. Like a marathon, life without the high school experience as an adult would be excruciatingly hard. What do you want to be when you grow up? If your answer isn’t a full time employee at McDonalds or Dell Taco, odds are you’re going to need at least a high school diploma. When I’m older, I want to be an interior designer. Now, in order to achieve this goal I’m going to need to take action now in order to get into a school with a good interior design program. People don’t just hire interior designers off the streets. When hiring, people often look at our resume in order to see if one has the right qualifications. If someone never graduated from a high school, let alone college, nobody is going to want to hire that person. High school is an annoying, yet essential part of life. As a junior I can already attest to this. But as I have been thinking more and more about my future, I can also say that the benefits of high school outweigh the struggles. High school is like taking cough syrup; when it hits your tongue, you can taste the bitterness, but once you swallow, life is much easier. I’d like to share with you two pieces of advice: 1. Be prepared. Bring all the supplies you could possibly need and 2. Scroll down to read the list of things I wish I knew as a freshie. Things I Wish I'd Known as a Freshman
What's In My School BagI'm a firm believer in being prepared for everything. From paper cuts to runny noses to panic attacks, I'm ready for everything. Medium-sized backpack
In Case of Emergency...At my school, we have had at least one emergency situation each year since I've been attending. Never any huge threats, but enough to have us on lockdown for a few hours. In these situations, nothing has ever really happens. But sometimes when you're locked down wish you had brought a few things that you would normally not even think about. Because of this, I now carry what I call an "Emergency Kit".
I’ll be frank with you; life is hard. Not always, but every once in awhile, it feels as though everything is going awry and there's nothing you can do. Sometimes I have bad moments. Sometimes those moments turn to hours and hours to days and days to weeks. Today was one of those days; when it is almost too hard to get out of bed, when your heart feels like it is stewing in a soup of sorrow, when you are afraid to smile from fearing that as soon as you do, the reason that you are happy will see you smiling and run.
On days like this, I usually try to stop myself from thinking about negative things and try to focus on the positives. Today, however, I let myself be sad. Just for today, I let myself have fear. I gave in to my anxieties. I permitted myself to be sorry. I allowed myself to cry at every sorrow and to laugh at every single thing that amused me. I granted myself permission to feel all the emotions I have been storing for what seems like an eternity. Today, I allotted my pains to seep its way in through my skin. Through the walls of my calloused heart, they slipped. Every. Single. Emotion. All at once, the pieces of my heart shattered. After years of pieces falling off and me racing to glue them together before everything fell apart. I thought this meant the end. I would be forced to live my life, forced to carry all the pieces of my heart in a bubble, unable to feel. Unable to love. Unable to be. What I didn’t realize, however, was that once a heart shatters into a million fragments, you get to piece it back together. Of course it is hard. It takes patience beyond belief. It takes hope beyond imagine. It takes faith beyond understanding. But it’s not impossible. Ever. You have to focus fixing one thing at a time. Each fragment has a place, you just have to find it. Interlock it around all the others. It takes what seems like an eternity. but it is never impossible. Today was indeed a bad day. No sugarcoating. No rose colored glasses. No filters. Only transparency. Today was a bad day and that’s all it was. Just a bad day, not a bad life. There isn’t anything much better than walking along the beach on a nice, warm, sunny day. Today my family and I did just that. We strapped our puppy, Charlie to his leash and piled in the car. We drove for about twenty minutes and ended up in a little beach town. This town is known for it’s eclectic street art and styles. Everything from the little boutiques to the restaurants to the art museum screams creativity. I had heard about an area in this city called Heisler Park, where artists place their work for public viewing. The park is made up of a couple large grass areas and concrete walkways with different types of sculptures and statues along the path. It was fascinating to see how placing these exhibits adjacent to the beach helped draw more people to them than they would in a museum!
We walked along and saw a lot of diverse exhibits. Each had their own little area which were landscaped to complement the works of art. At each exhibit, my eyes were drawn to different elements within the pieces. Scroll down to see a few of my favorites! There are times in life when you may feel like you are defeated. When you feel that the people who are corrupted have prevailed. That your efforts have been all for nothing. I am here to tell you that it is okay, healthy even to fail every once and awhile. In our day it feels as though failure is always the end, when in reality, it is a new beginning. Of course society looks down upon failures, but we would not have the things that we do without failures. Take good old Thomas Edison for example. Remember him? If you don’t, that's okay, we all nod off in history once and awhile. He was the guy that invented the lightbulb along with many other things. Whilst on his process of inventing the lightbulb, he failed only about a thousand times. A reporter once asked Edison, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” To which he replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times, the light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” Now you may be asking yourself, “How on earth does this apply to me? I am nothing like Thomas Edison, he was a genius for heaven’s sake!" This may be true, but have you ever fallen down as a child? Gotten a bad grade on an assignment that you thought you did a proficient job on? Perhaps you have forgotten something that someone depended on you for? I could go on and on, but the point is that undoubtedly you have made a variety of mistakes in your life. We all have, but our society is based on success and for some people failure is not an option. (Which I think is stupid because everyone at some point has messed up) I like to look at failure as a way to learn from the mistakes I’ve made. Last year, I took a dance class at school (which in no way means that I am a good dancer). It isn't a very hard dance class, however I cannot count the numerous times that I have fallen down in that very dance room. There are just so many things to keep track of, like when to flex and pointe your feet, whether you should be on relevé or elevé and where your arms should be at all times. Even though this can be discouraging at times, I can count on one hand the times that I have made the same mistake twice. Why? Because each time we make a mistake we are told by the teacher to work on it. Then the next times we run through the dance, we are extra conscious of our faults, and we can then easily identify what we need to change. We then learn to see failures as opportunities to improve. You see, failure is not something to be afraid of or embarrassed about. Failing is a part of life. It is how we learn. So next time you are down on yourself for failing, remember: everyone fails every once in awhile. It’s a part of life. |
My name is Ellie. I am a sophomore at BYU Idaho. I am excited to live life and to share a small piece of it with you!
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