a tender hearted girl.

i don't like talking about myself in this way... but i think what i'm feeling right now needs to be documented.

my psychology professor brought his wife to class today. 

she is a cancer survivor and just an all around sweetheart. 

she gave us a little speech about how everyone is a survivor of something,

how pain is good for us,

how rocks aren't polished unless they get bits of them knocked off. 

it really got to me.

after class,

everyone rushed up to tell her how amazing she was

and to thank her for inspiring them.

as usual, i slipped into wallflower mode: 

i avoided the rush 

and decided to look at the pictures on the wall of the past student body officers from 1960 to now.

i approached her after the crowd had dulled 

still with tears in my eyes,

feeling pretty embarrassed about them streaming down my cheek.

i apologized for letting my emotions get the best of me

and told her how touched i was by her words.

she looked at me with intense sincerity and said,

"i noticed you earlier in the class, sitting silently and observing everyone and everything.

you are going to do good things with your life.

i don't know how i know this, but i just do. 

i feel it.

because you are a tender hearted girl

and the world needs more of those."

she then hugged me
and told me that i should always be proud of that because it is who i am.

i cannot fully comprehend the impact this has had on me,
because i am still in the processing stage,
but those words have changed me.

i'm tender hearted...

i'm not overly sensitive.
i'm not creepy or a "stalker" for appreciating things with a great magnitude.
i'm not a psycho, crazy, emotional woman.


i understand i only spoke with this woman for three minutes,
but it has shed a new light on who i am.


i am a tender-hearted girl
who is capable of so much love
and who is also capable of feeling so much hurt.
my tender heart
makes me love deeply
and hurt deeply.

the world wants me to believe that being tender hearted is a bad thing
and i for so long have believed it.

i am sensitive
and i am emotional
and i do express myself a lot
and i do put my heart outside of my own body so that others might experience it
but that also makes me easier to wound.

i will need to be protected and shielded in my lifetime
and the pain i've experienced in the last month will not be the worst i will face

and i don't care anymore
because i now know that the world needs me as a tender hearted girl.

Tender Hearts Club now recruiting members.

xo.

how my people completely saved me: the bragging post.

so, there i am
about to have a major breakdown
(literally)

when adam emails me with links to help me with a research paper i'm writing.
ok
like
what
a
sweetheart.

THEN,
my sister goes,
"you need a change"
so she takes me to home depot
and buys me some bright paint
and starts painting my room for me.
byebye brown walls!
yes. can you believe it?!

THEN,
my parents give me all kinds of advice
and words of encouragement
that i wrote down
in a little notebook
to keep
forever.

THEN,
i find out my brother has been walking my bruno for me,
seeing as how i don't have no time. poor bruno.
this is extra great
because he pretends to not like my pup. (impossible)
thanks, brother.

the very best people are attached to me. 

never underestimate the power of helping other people. 

it saves. 

xo.

apathy & how i learned to breathe again

this week has completely changed my entire life 

forever. 

it's a story to be shared.

here we go.

this?
this picture was taken on saturday.
this is a picture of the kindest stranger i have ever met.
a man who made a simple choice
and caused the complete conversion into the person i am right now.

on friday,
i mentioned to my sisters
that the week had changed my life,
but not for the better.

this week brought a lot of sadness, anguish, heartache.
this week brought me a lot of trials.

in this world,
you will encounter lots of flakiness, lots of broken promises, lots of laziness and sarcasm.
you will encounter people who insist that they are just "blunt" and "speak their mind"
which is said to disguise their bad manners.
in this world,
we will all encounter people who refuse to put down their cell phones or the tv remote,
who would much rather attend a movie than attend a charity event,
who will choose to lose patience with a waiter or server,
who won't hesitate to type coarse comments on the internet,
who will slowly lose themselves to apathy.

apathy.
that is what it comes down to.

apathy causes us to refuse to listen, to refuse to get up and move, to refuse action.
apathy caused all of those people to pass that jewish man laying on the side of the road.

apathy has destroyed relationships, friendships, jobs, health, families.

apathy is a dangerous infection that seeps in one inaction at a time and weighs you down, eventually pulling you down into the couch, pulling you into yourself, into your own world.

of all of the signs of the second coming,
of the apocalypse,
what have you...

apathy will be the demise of humankind.

i was ready to quit my job,
start looking for other places to live,
to pick up and drift from place to place.

saturday morning,
i woke up like every other...
went to go and teach dance,
get ready for a party that evening,
all the while feeling a little less whole.

the disappointment of how others' apathy had affected me so heavily that i, myself, had started to succumb.

i was really looking forward to a party that we had been planning for weeks,
and that was getting me through.

i had prepared some killer cookies,
made some lovely decorations,
hand-knit a scarf to give,
planned my outfit.
the whole shebang.

all day long, my phone had not been working.
if it had,
i would have got the memo that it had been cancelled.
if my phone had been working,
i wouldn't have been in the car halfway to farmington when i found this out.

if i hadn't been driving up to farmington,
my car wouldn't have run out of gas on the highway.

there i was,
driving to toward this light at the end of the tunnel,
when my car slowed to a stop.

i made a few calls, just trying to get someone to come up and help me out.

i waited
with no response.

after a few minutes
a white car pulled up in front of me.

i thought,
"oh, no.
i'm going to get a ticket from this undercover police officer.
great."

out steps a completely ordinary man.
he walks over to me and says,
"is everything okay?"

i explain the situation and mention that i had made a few calls and was just waiting to hear back.
his name is rick.
he asks if i have a gas can.
i don't.

he says,
"what can i do for you?"

i insist that everything is okay and that i'm sure someone will call back.

he says,
"do you need a ride somewhere? i've got my wife and daughter in the car. if you're not comfortable with that, i can go find some help for you."

at this point, i don't know what to say.
he promptly says, "i will ride up to the next gas station and see what we can do."
we exchange phone numbers,
and he was off.

about five minutes later,
rick calls me.

he says,
"they have a gas can here. let me get some gas for you and we will head back."
i say i don't have cash.
he says,
"don't worry about it. hang in there, we will be right there."

next thing i know, he's pulling up behind me and quietly and humbly emptying his new gas can into my car.
he wants to make sure i'm okay,
so he follows me to the gas station.

at this moment,
i'm in awe.

i give rick a call and tell him how utterly grateful i am, how i will remember this for the rest of my life.
at this moment,
i am in tears.
i cannot control it.

he says,
"thank you for the kind words, but it really was nothing. i hope your trip gets better.
something just told me to stop for you.
God bless."

i hang up
and take a moment to just release all of my emotions.

there i was,
sitting on the side of the road in need.
car after car passes me by.
one beautiful soul, my good samaritan, stops to help,
to pick me up and get me back in motion,
asking nothing in return.

i begin driving,
plugging in my ipod to listen to some music.

like something out of a fairytale,
this hymn comes on.

if ever there was a sign as clear as a summer's day,
this is it.

ani said it best,
God's work isn't done by God, it's done by people.

at this moment,
i realized who i need to be.

forever goodbye to apathy.
forever goodbye to disregard, to inaction.

i'm now enlisted in the army of alms.

this moment 

was a call to action. 

now,
more than ever,
it's so important to be a force for good,

to combat listlessness and unconcern,
to fight the good fight against all things harsh and discourteous,
to vow to never pass up a needy soul again.

now,
in this world,
generosity and goodness are more influential
and actions under these virtues are louder than ever.

if you see a beggar
and have nothing to give,
spare a few kind words to lift their spirits.

if you see a car pulled over,
and have nowhere to be,
stop and simply ask if they need assistance.

slow your sarcasm.
watch your words,
that they may uplift all around you when you speak.

serve,
and ask for nothing in return.

contribute to the beauty of the world,
do not detract from it.

be gracious.
accept compliments,
express gratitude,
be humbled by those around you,
no matter what their contribution.

be a wonderful, unparalleled version
of yourself.
be a force for good.
use your words, your actions, your minutes/hours/days/nights
to do something to spread your love,
the Savior's love,
to all of the corner's of the earth.

be inspired to be a soldier in this apathetic world.

submit yourself to this just cause

and, like rick,

 you just might inspire another soul to enlist as well. 

on service...

so....
i did this little service project.
remember that?

i say little this time because it was small.
seven people showed up.
four of those were family members.

standing outside in the freezing cold,
for three hours,
i watched car after car pass by.
i watched people i know pass by.

i was so disappointed
to say the least!

i made over 100 flyers {that were placed on doors individually}, dozens of posters posted around the neighborhood, made gallons of hot cocoa, texted/facebooked everyone i know.

it was such a bummer.
i may have cried disappointment tears.

but...
here's what i learned.

 i will neverevereverever say no to helping people.

who cares how many people showed up?
who cares just how much food or clothing we collected?
who cares how many hours of mine seemingly went to waste?

not me.
it's not about me.
it was never about me.

because what little we did that day is going to make a huge difference to someone.
my efforts will not go to waste.
those three hours standing outside
to the point of painful finger freezing
are going to warm someone's heart.
the loving help from my family members,
the many hours i spent beforehand
will not go to waste.

the little food and single cardboard box full of clothes donated by the sweet people who came through are going to make a large difference for someone who really needs it.

never say no to service.
never pass up someone on the side of the road holding a service project.
never keep a spare dollar to yourself.
never hold the door open for only yourself.
never think "oh, somebody else will do it."
never. never. never.

i promise myself
from this day forward,
i will never pass up an opportunity to give.

someone out there has no idea just how much they are loved
by someone who doesn't even know them.

miss representation

have you seen this?
it's been all over everywhere lately
and for good reason.

i also love that adam said he wanted to see that before i did.
i took a gender studies class in college,
and
surprisesurprise
the class consisted of mostly women,
even though gender is universal and both were studied.

adam and i went on a ten minute date to barnes and noble.
we made our way to my favorite section.
on the way, we saw two stacks of books.
one was "for men, understanding women"
the next was "for women, understanding men".
which do you think had a lower stack?
you guessed it.
the difference in the book stacks was actually quite drastic.

while it's vital that women hear this message,
it's so important for men and boys to stand up to sexism.
the world needs this.

check it out tomorrow on OWN @ 7 pm mst.





get behind this project by reading, liking, and spreading the empowering message that women are more than their labels.

because everyone needs to see this.
not just us girls.