YOU are beautiful

Man alive is beauty being attacked or what? The world focuses so much on outer beauty and how we are 'suppose' to look. Magazines show us perfect flawless images of women and somehow we are suppose to look like them even though we have no hair and make-up team and lack photoshop to make imperfections disappear. I wanted to discuss this subject because I think as women whose husbands are pornography addicts we have an even harder time feeling beautiful. Some of us have had and nursed children (holy body wreckage! but worth it), some of us have acne even though we aren't in high school anymore, and not all of us can afford clothes from Nordstroms. I qualify in all of these categories and to top it off I simply don't have the time to look flawless even if I wanted to for 30 seconds until my kids attack. We as women shouldn't feel the pressure that the world is putting on us. Realize how beautiful you are inside and out. You do not have be flawless to be beautiful. This article is amazing and I want you all to read it! How true it is. Whether you have teenage daughters or not think of the way you would want them to feel about themselves. How do you see them? How would you want them to see themselves as? Now let that be how you see yourself. I'm not kidding. My mom always told me to do my best to look presentable and then leave your looks behind and focus on others. I thank her for that simple yet profound lesson. We can all be happy. We can all help others. We can all smile and laugh. We can have pleasing personalities. These are all FREE accessories to our beauty and boy do I love free! Study the gospel to learn about your true beauty. Don't fall into Satan's trap of the world's 'perfect flawless' beauty idea. It's expensive and hardly acheivable. Work on those free accessories that will inhance the amazing and beautiful woman that you are!

Group... Again

I finally got my rear in gear and made it back to my 12 step group. Man I forgot how much I seriously love those women! They are amazing! Go to a group if you don't already. There were a few different 'take home messages' if you will that I wanted to talk about. I will probably only go into one right now so here it is. I was impressed by how many women are doing so well. So many of them are healing. They are happy again. They have hope! They have turned to their Father in Heaven for help. They have learned that even though this is their husbands addiction they are deeply affected by it. They have realized that they have to recover from this problem that they had absolutely no part in. They are focusing on their own healing. So if you haven't found your healing and recovery you are probably wondering 'how are these women doing it?' How do I become happy again? Well, here is what has worked for me and what I heard from other women last night that has worked for them. First of all the LDS 12 step addiction recovery program has played a tremendous role in many of our recoveries as loved ones. Letting go of co-depency is another absolute must to happiness! You cannot base your emotions on how your husband is doing. You have to heal your heart regardless of your husbands sobriety or relapse. I know, sounds impossible!! When I was finally able to do this I was happy. It was so much easier to not worry about his every waking move. If he relapsed, it was sad and hard but I was ok. I had learned that his relapse wasn't a result of me. I have learned that we are both on a journey but our journey's are a separate adventure. He must heal himself and I must heal myself. The women that I saw and listened to last night are truly happy again. We are all still learning and growing (that's the point of life afterall) but we are ok again. We have learned not to base our emotions on our husbands progress. Rely on your Heavenly Father. He will provide you with strength and endurance. He will give you answers and inspiration when you are doing what is right. I am living proof that you can go from horror and shock, to misery and pain beyond imagine, and end with healing and happiness. Crazy but true! Do everything you can to heal yourself. You need to heal. Put yourself first and make this a priority. Don't shove it under the rug, it ain't goin' anywhere. I witnessed multiple women last night who are healing and happy. I promise you can do this and I want so badly for you to do it. Trust Heavenly Father and use Jesus Christ's Atonement in your healing process. You can do this and you need to do this. Become happy again, it's awesome!

New Film, I'm Excited!

I am actually really excited to be a part of this. Shamed is a documentary film about indiviuals involved with pornography recovering aka all of us!!

I am so grateful that someone is putting this out there. It is so desperately needed, unfortunately :(. All the blogging we do behind the scenes annonymously will now be told to a much bigger audience. I hope that this will lessen the stigma and help many more addicts seek the help they need.
Shamed cannot begin production until they recieve 40,000 dollars by Feburary 15 (ah soon!) and so I have been contacted. I want to inform all of you about this great new film but also ask if possible for you to donate. Any amount helps and will add up.

Click here to check out their site and donate. 

If you are unable to donate there are still things you can do. Please share this info. You can 'like' their facebook page. You can share the video link on your facebook page and share the info with anyone possible verbally or through the internet. Sometimes you don't have the budget available but others do. We all know how desperate this information needs to get out to the public and anything we can all do will be beneficial.

I have been asked to put this information out there but I believe in this cause so much. My husband and I have even offered to be a part of this film. I hope that they will get the funding because pornography is truly plaguing our world. There is hope and there is healing. I hope this film will reach their monetary goal so that they can reach so many people that truly need this information.

Bishop's Words of Wisdom

Today our Bishop spoke in Sacrament Meeting and he gave such a wonderful message that applies to all of us in this life. He talked about how when we get off track (whatever it may be) we all tend to focus on the "why did we get off, how did we get off, and when did we get off?" Instead we need to focus on how do we get back on track. He spoke about when people come into his office with a problem (been there!) they are so consumed with the past. In order to heal and become whole again we need to forget about how we got there and focus on how we can heal and become better. Such a simple message but I think it is something that sometimes we forget. We make decisions every day of our  lives. Decisions cannot be reversed. Accept them. If they are wrong you can't reverse them but you can take action to make them better. Somtimes we do have to re-evaluate the past but the majority of time we need to stop worrying about the past and move onto the future. We can't change what has happened good or bad in this life, it's done. May we all move on to the future. Focus on what we can do better and how we can become better each day. I have many things that I strive to do better each day. I have daily set backs but I re-evaluate, learn from what I did wrong, and strive to do better again. I'm still not perfect, dang it! haha. Our husband's pornography addiction is part of our life. We don't want it to be, but it is. Accept it, start learning how to heal, and happiness and peace will come again.
- PS: There is a film trying to raise money that I will be posting more about soon. Here is their website until I can get you more details. I am REALLY thankful someone is putting this out. It is desperately needed. Hope you will get behind this with me.  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/141091137/shamed-a-documentary-feature-film

Let Change Happen

The other day a random thought popped into my head and I knew I wanted to blog about it. So I have always struggled with this problem of wanting change but not allowing change to actually happen. I think women in general, me for sure, suffer with this problem. We like wallowing in our pity. We want people to feel bad for us, while we pretend it's all ok, even though it's not. Do you know what I'm talking about? Hopefully. Anyways, I have learned through this trial that when I want things to change in my life I have to be willing to let them. This is harder than it sounds people. I have to embrace the change, welcome it. Stop wallowing in your pain. Stop wanting it to change but secretly wanting to suffer as well. Cry when you  need to. Hurt when you need to. It is necessary and ok. But allow change to occur and allow yourself to be happy again. It's ok to be happy again after horrible heartbreak. And it's ok to relapse these emotions as well. I am learning to allow change to occur and I am so much happier. It's fun to be happy!! haha Remember those days? Well let them in again, LET THEM IN! I hope you allow change to legitimately happen in your life. It will be a wonderful blessing in your life. Happiness is... well.... happy! :)

Life Continues...

Just wanted to blog and let everyone know I am still alive. Life is being good to me and my family. We are happy. We continue to struggle but we continue to become better as well. We are improving ourselves and loving each other. I haven't blogged because quite frankly I haven't known what to blog about. My life is ordinary yet I love it. I have a few friends that I am very concerned and worried about right now, my husband is continuing to do his best, and I am trying not to go crazy being a stay at home mom. Yet through all of this I am happy. I enjoy my life. Trial and tribulation are part of this life and I do my best to embrace it and become better because of it. I still have meltdowns (a 2 hour sob fest last night in fact) but life is good. I am happy. I love my husband and I am proud of him, proud of his accomplishments, and proud of how hard he tries each and every day to be a better person. I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday break and have set new goals for a new year. I have never looked forward to a new year but this year I couldn't wait for 2011 to be gone. 2011 has been an unkind word in my life. I have learned a lot, am still learning, and look forward to what 2012 will bring me.