Me... who does that even mean?!?

Sometimes it hits you that you've spent such a large portion of your life being someone else that you wake up one morning and realize you have no idea who you are. And that sounds crazy because obviously you must know yourself since you hangout with yourself all day everyday. But alas, it is not true. Which shocks me. I've run into the Wall of Realization(I totally just made that up but it sounds good) very recently that there are so many things I do not know about myself. I spent years living out a form of multiple personalities at once trying hard to be the independent person that I am while trying to adjust myself to fit into the unfortuante life choices I had made. That may sound concerning and confusing, mostly because it was; heck I was stuck in the middle of it and I was completely frustrated and confused. I changed who I was, what I stood for, what I believed, how I allowed myself to be treated by other people, what I liked and disliked and changed my very self to try and ensure that I would not be rejected, abandoned or deemed unworthy by one guy. Funny part of the story was that I was anyways. (I laugh here now because I said it was a "funny part" when really my life crumbled for over a year... and it was so the opposite, but I have regained my joy, so I laugh). Awkward... I talked about emotions...such serious posts lately... it happens.

So anyways, now my great fear I had this week that gave me a moment(or 23) of panic was that I might fall into the trap of my past again by giving people a false impression of myself and simultaneously pushing them away out of fear of hurting them and myself again. And I really, really do not want to do this. Not only is that unhealthy but hello that's crazy!! (It's ok that you were thinking it...or thinking of how crazy I just sound overall... but don't worry, it sounds weird to me too... soo ok, good, we're all on the same page here..) But clearly if I do not know who I am, how am I going to portray the real me to other people? And as brought up to me, if I can learn to be accepted and find my true value from God, only the creator of everything!, how much better and confident will my sense of self be? These are my thoughts today that were stirred up and made clearer to me by a friend this morning, whom I greatly appreciate. And so now I begin again on a journey to figure out just who I am now that I can just be 'me', free of guilt or expectation. Scary and exciting as it is.

Scars Carry Stories

Two posts in one day... making up for lost time!

So my life is still an almost overwhelming whirlwind of amazing, frustrating, saddening and inspiring events. All in one, indeed. Still in major repair work as I continue on the healing path. Which I know I haven't mentioned too much about my past and why I would require healing but perhaps the following paragraph will help explain that a bit and why I speak out now. Many times in my day to day life I get a thought in my head and then create a short kind of speech about it. This just happens, just how my mind works.

Example: 

You’ve been burned. But let people touch the scar, let them come close enough to realize that where there once was overwhelming pain, now resides altered pain-free flesh. When you get burned it becomes a huge ordeal and life can sometimes be put on hold depending on the severity of that burn, as you must cope and overcome the after affects of this burn. There is a painful wound that must be dealt with. Leave the burn unattended and try and ignore it and see what happens, it will get infected and grow worse until it becomes even harder to heal from as the pain multiplies. People notice that you get a bit disfigured, and maybe your personality changes as a result of your burn as you learn to deal with these new changes you see in yourself. Over time though, that scar becomes a story. What will your story be? A story of a scar turning you into a bitter, misshapen person? Or an inspiring story of overcoming tragic events and allowing people near that scar again? Near the scar To learn from it, learn from you, feel the scar and know that there is no pain there anymore. Sure the scar may forever be tender, but the sting of that burn is gone. You are left with only a mark to remind you to share that story, that testimony.

A delayed post of Healing (Serious level: High)

Oct. 22, 2011 

This post is quite different then most of my other posts. It gets a bit serious, which happens sometimes so let’s just roll with it. For many that do not know, I was in a very bad relationship off and on for a very long time, years actually, without anyone really knowing because I was too stuck, scared and (dare I say) stupid to say anything. I feel like there really was no ‘off’ time though as I continually was emotionally or mentally controlled by this guy, which to explain any further details on how this came about would take a very long time to post so I will just leave it at that to give you some background. So point of this is that today I went to this day long event at my church and my life gets rocked. There are many stories to share but I will give you only one for now. So, it gets put on my heart that I need to go and delete all text messages or messages that I’ve been holding on to (don’t ask why..) that are related to my past and anything that I might read and get angry and upset about over and over(and over and over and over…) again. And I’m hesitant to do it but I start with my phone. I delete off the few text messages that I’ve been carrying around on my phone on a daily basis. I’ve been carrying these text messages more so for the fact to make a case one day in case I need to prove how horrible this guy was, or save the date for remembering when everything happened (which, really… why would anyone want to do that? There’s no need to anniversary anything, it is in the past and not in the future, and there’s no need to be on guard for when I need to make a show of this guy and reveal and prove the damaging things he had said, absolutely not necessary). After those are deleted I think, well that wasn’t so bad, and then God goes ok… now move onto your emails. And I think ohhhh man, I have a ton that’s going to take forever and more so I think, this is going to hurt my heart and I don’t want to. So I open my first email account, there are apparently only 5 messages in there, I skimmed two of them and felt a bit of past resentment rise up before saying don’t do this to yourself Sherylynn and deleted them all off. Then, the second email which I knew was going to take the longest and cause the most pain going through and seeing how far back my past got messed up. I open up the email account… and there is nothing. Everything has been reset, there are no emails, it’s a completely empty email account: a fresh start. And it’s like God is saying "why are you looking here? I’ve already cleaned and made you pure, don’t you know? Thanks for your obedience for the first two; I did the big painful stuff already. That was easier than expected huh?"

Ahh God’s grace. Like a bear hug.

It's called Perspective

I will have to make it one of my many experiments to see if I can write on here more frequently.
But until then, I will now tell you some of the worst and best parts of my week:

Worst
All bad things that happened to me (in a "Why meeee!!" dramatic type way):
1) I got a paper cut on my pinky.
2) I accidentally dropped my ipod and it went flying across a parking lot.
3) I was crazy busy at work this week and getting kind of stressed out about getting everything done.
4) The Canucks lost
5) I tried to learn how to knit via YouTube "How To" video for an hour and a half with zero results.
6) I burnt the top of my mouth on hot pizza sauce and it is now semi-blistered.

Best
All awesome things that made me smile:
1) I'm so tough that I can still play piano with a big gash on my pinky. As if a paper cut will stop me.
2) After forgetting that my ipod was in my lap attached to the car cord I got out of my car and it came off the cord and went flying across the Staples parking lot, at which point all I could see was Justin Bieber's face on my ipod laying on the concrete. HAHAHAH My first thought was: "poor Justin, getting thrown around like that." Good laugh.
3) My VP at work came in to announce that we were getting another person in, therefore decreasing my work load! Me=Happy girl!
4) My joy does not depend on whether a hockey team wins or loses. And this is amazing.
5) My mom sat down with me and gave me a one on one lesson on how to knit, and now I have about 4 inches worth of a sweater. My mom is incredible!
6) I ate the most delicious pizza this week. Hamburger bacon pizza, need I say more.

Bragging Moment: I got 100% on my Excel midterm this week. Now, it's not really as impressive as it sounds, but nonetheless 100%. Dream dreams friends, believe that you can excel at whatever you put your mind to.

Bragging Moment Extended (this is bad of me to continue on bragging like this... but I guess I'm going to do it anyway): I made it my experiment this week to get to work on time every single day this week. (Course I picked a 4 day work week to increase my chances). Now I know this sounds ridiculous but... stop judging me. Some people need 6 alarms to wake up in the morning... it happens. Anyways, I did it!! Someone believed in this great dream and it helped encourage me to achieve this experiment. Heck, punctuality worked so well for me last week I think I might do it again next week!

And after all is said and done, I just want to say that it was soo hard as a self declared optimistic person to come up with a list of bad things that happened in a week. Things are only "bad" if we don't take the time to see the good in them.

But now, it is sunny outside, and I have a soccer game to go to and cheer on some friends. Ohhh it is well with my soul. Have a wonderful day friends!

No Hidden Talents

I am not a woman of few words. This comes as no shock to many that know me. Some may say that I am more a chatterbox of double the amount of words packed into half the time that a normal person would say them. My grandmother loves (and I mean loves) telling everyone about the fact that I picked up her capability for mass amounts of talking. I once got on this topic with her and some how ended up coining the phrase ``I talk just as much as you do but I do it in half the amount of time`` which she tells pretty much everyone we run into. This is not sarcasm. Unfortunatley, many times the way I speak appears in my writing in the form of very long sentences that normal people have to take about two breaths in the middle of. If only I could have just read out all my History Term papers to my teachers over the years. I'm pretty sure I could  have talked fast enough that they would assume my paper was full of relevant and life changing scholarly info and just given me A+'s. This is sarcasm.

Moving on, a point to my extreme ability for talking. Tonight I was at an event where the speaker was talking about our talents. Now, I can be a smidge over dramatic sometimes, but I kid you not when for the last few months I have been trying to decide what my God given talent was. It`s not that I think I have zero talents, I just was wondering if there was anything I excelled out. So in contemplating this I thought it was perfect that I got the chance to think further on what talents I have and how I might use them to impact those around me. My conclusion on my biggest talent: talking. Now at first I thought, that`s lame. I`ll just get better at something else. But think about it... how powerful can words be? How has the history of the world changed simply by words? How has your world changed by words that someone has spoken to you?

Now with that thought in mind... flip it... think about how damaging words can be, how pain inflicting, life altering, and tormenting words can be. I don't say this to depress everyone and dredge up bad memories but to show the effects of a talent not used for a postive influence. For example, if a great musician only used their talents to sing songs of depression and suffering or if an influential teacher taught lies to their students or a gifted speaker only used their voice to gossip, tear down, and belittle their audience. This would not be good. Agreed?

So, in my brain of deep thoughts, I present Sher's Deep Thought Time. If a talent is just being good at something, but perhaps a bit better than the average human being (I would look up the dictionary definition, but let's not kid ourselves, I would just end up on Wikipedia and I'm sure it says something along those lines... and if it doesn't heck I could just change it!). BUT a talent can be both a negative and positive thing, depending on how it is utilized, so obviously I want to take the 'positive' route and encourage others to do so as well. And I believe that once people start to realize what their talents are, become comfortable in their talents, and positively use their talents, these talents become a double whammy because they now give you the capability to affect and bless others. Yes, your talent becomes an influential blessing. And, unsurprisingly, people like being blessed! And so, I continue on with life with this established knowledge knowing that I want to be better with my talent. I will not take the negative path and use my talent for purposes that would hurt others but will energetically and excitedly take my new 'found' established talent on the Positivity Path, allowing the light that is within me to guide me.

Oh life is good. Smile friends, we are free.

Queen of Distractions and Tangents

Good Times:
I was in a very distracting type mood today. Distracting others and distracting myself. Pretty much a teacher's nightmare.

I feel like my mind was spinning around so fast today that I just didn't know what to do with myself and needed to apply those thoughts towards some sort of project. Starting with my morning class today, we were just having a review class and I was so bored that I started to just ask a million questions that would make my class go off on a tangent purely for my entertainment to see how far I could push them. It was awesome, at one point I had two people googling definitions of words... at the teacher's request. 

I also witnessed this today and I love when this happens:

Teacher: "Ok, next question on the review, what is the correct answer?"

Majority of class all at different times within 6 seconds: "Matching Principle...matchi...principle...prin..match...(meaning a bunch of mushed together voices)"

Lone but very confident voice: "Matching Principle"

bahahahah. The ever confident voice announcing the established answer. I love it.

Philosophy 100 Thoughts: Social norms are a very interesting thing to me. I mean I understand social norms and what is expected to be normal and acceptable in society but sometimes when I get bored in class I just think it would be so interesting to randomly yell loudly or just stand up all of a sudden in class and then just stand there... I mean how awkward would that be! "No... no question, just decided to stand", "Don't mind me I just decided to face my chair away from the whiteboard today", "Is it cool with you if I just teach the class today". Just do something that would make people think that I was insane. (When in fact I am completely sane, I just am playing out an experiment on what other people think when I break out of the "box" that people hold as socially acceptable behaviour.) Think about this people. I think I'm onto something here. Deeper thoughts to follow at a later date.

Side Story: Just thought of a kind of recent memory... maybe linked to social norms.

So the other day I was in Whiterock with two of my friends and we ended up

having to go through a roadblock. And see the funny thing about these roadblocks

is that I love them, they don't scare me because I don't drink and so have nothing to hide.

Unfortunately, I was so confident in my lack of drinking and that he would just let me go

that I had already prepared my answer to what I knew he was going to ask me:

"Have you had anything to drink tonight?"

So when the cop asked me a question I responded way to confidently with: "Not at all."

Too bad his question was "How much have you all had to drink tonight?"

The dangers of overconfidence.

Fact: My mind and schedule like to be busy. When not used to their full potential my mind starts making things up and my schedule allows for me to play these things out. Lately, my mind comes up with all sorts of ways where I can learn things... completley useless things sometimes. And now, excuse time as to why I have not written anything for a bit (as I know you've all been wondering..) which is because I was testing out an "Annoyance" Experiment, where I put my laptop in an annoying place so that I don't want to go on it for long periods of time. For the past week I have had my laptop placed on my treadmill, so if I wanted to go on my laptop I would have to sit on my treadmill (because walking on the treadmill with a laptop must be dangerous). Newsflash, treadmills aren't comfy and the experiment was a huge success! I'm really happy with the way things turned out as I spent much more time reading and hanging out with great people. My laptop on the other hand must be quite ticked off as half the screen keeps blacking out. The importance of Computer Maintenance.

Annoyance Experiment Conclusion: You will spend less time on your laptop if it is in an annoying, out of the way, uncomfortable place. Friends are cooler than technology.

Now I know.

Today's Lessons Learned: Busy the mind with useful tasks (unlike today), overconfidence makes you look like a fool, and I like hanging out with my friends more than my laptop.