on that time I cried in the bathroom at work.

Not sure why I'm sharing this, as it's super embarrassing.

I am learning that I am pretty dang good at ignoring my problems and my negative feelings. On the plus side, it makes me a really positive person. On the negative side, I tend to not deal with a lot of my issues right away.

Though, while I was crying, I made myself think about WHY I was upset instead of feeling sorry for myself. Mainly because it wasn't a big deal and I did not want to be crying in the bathroom. At work. 

Basically, here's what happened:

1. I was assigned a task for an upcoming event.

2. I felt like nothing I could do for this task was good enough.
3. Therefore, I wasn't putting my best foot forward.
4. My boss mentioned to me that the person I'm working with was concerned that the task wasn't a priority.
5. I felt myself start to choke up and it was awkward.
6. I admitted that I could be working more intentionally on this task.
7. The meeting ended.

8. I went to the bathroom & made sure no one was in there.
9. I cried.

So there I am, locked in a stall, crying like an idiot for getting reprimanded. I HATE being reprimanded. I take everything really, really personally. It's a flaw, and an issue I really need to work on. But, nevertheless, I made myself try to figure out why I'm upset about this. The answer: I feel like a gopher and I feel like every thing I do is not good enough for this project. 

10. Stop crying. 

11. Splash cold water on eyes.

12. Go back to desk.

13. Look at your desktop and remind yourself why you are helping with said event.

14. Send 20 emails to get ahead in said task.

15. Take ownership and resolve to do a much better job and have a positive outlook on the task.

Here's the (annoying,) positive, growth side of this: 

1. I get to do something I don't really want to do and offer it up for the overall good of the event and advancement of God's kingdom.
2. I get to learn how to handle criticism instead of writing it off and quitting (because I am not quitting this job.)

3. It was an opportunity to practice self awareness and death to self. I now have a better idea of how I respond to certain situations, why I feel this way about this task, and I am able to do it anyways.

So, in the long run this will all be good. 

My first reaction was that I wish it wouldn't have taken crying at work for me to take ownership this project. But in hindsight, I'm really okay with crying at work. Sure, it's awkward. But without those tears, I wouldn't have take ownership of the project, and I wouldn't have realized what was bothering me. Ever since I figured it out, I have been able to be proactive in my choices about this assignment and choose positivity.

So cry on, my friends. Just make sure you stop and dig deep to figure out why you're upset. From that place of self-knowledge, you will become empowered to move forward with ownership.

Emotions, Schemotions

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a lot of feelings. I remember laying on the couch watching The Santa Clause for the first time last year and experiencing approximately 7 different emotions at the same time. I think I freaked my male teammates out a little bit. My current teammates can tell you multiple stories of tears shed in the office due to different touching/beautiful/sad moments. Yeah, yeah, it's because I'm a woman - whatever. I like to look to my girl Zooey on this one:

I love this quote from Zooey because I think I have been told that my emotions are bad. 

Recently, my friend Matt made a comment that emotions are bullshit. When I went home that night, I realized I was really mad at him for that comment. So I vented to Jesus and I realized it was because I took what he said personally. And then I was annoyed at myself for feeling that.

I think what is hard about emotions is that when we feel something, especially if we feel it intensely, we think we have to act. However, simply following everything that our heart desires is an extreme and will not lead to you making the best choice you could make for yourself. The opposite of this extreme is to view emotions as 100% bad (or BS as Matt would say) and simply live in our heads. We need to understand that our emotions are not bad. Jesus had emotions! He cried, He got angry, and most of all He loved. Yet He did not let these feelings rule His choices. 

I think we each naturally gravitate towards one of these two extremes. We can shut off and completely ignore our feelings and over analyze everything - this is being driven by our intellect. Or we can lean towards being emotion driven. This is what we do when we follow the different ebbs and flows of our heart in each passing moment. 

The trouble with following one extreme over the other is this: if we shut out our emotions we lose the ability to know and understand the deep desires that God has placed on our heart, and if we only follow the emotional highs we can easily chose a lesser good. Our intellect does not have the ability to see what your heart feels, but our heart does not have the ability to order goods, it simply seeks to love and be loved. 

We need to work to find a balance. We need to learn to pay attention to what our hearts are telling us, but we need to learn how to reconcile that with our intellect, what we know to be good and True.

But what does listening to your heart and reconciling that with your intellect and your will look like!? It does not mean justifying what you feel. It means listening to Jesus, taking what you know to be intellectually True and fitting what you're feeling into that. Sometimes this will mean we have to walk away from things that our hearts are still attached to. But other times it means we can follow our hearts. The goal is to make a choice and live in a place where our hearts and intellect are aligned. 

Unfortunately, this is going to look different for everyone. My balance between my heart and my head is going to look different from yours. But the first step to figuring out that balance is silence.

The other beautiful thing about this situation is this: if you truly love God and are in communication with Him, you can do what you want. Seriously. This is a thing!

Last year my disciple Amy told me that "Love God and do whatever you please" was a quote from St. Augustine. I laughed at her and told her that was relativism. She then explained to me that it's not (my students were so much holier than me). Here's the whole quote:

"Love God and do whatever you please: for the soul trained in love of God will do nothing to offend the One who is Beloved."

If you really love Jesus, that means you're in a real, personal, relationship with Him. To be in a relationship with Jesus means that you are communicating with Him, listening to Him, and learning what He wants. If there is a good desire on your heart that is not evil, and you are talking to Jesus and a good spiritual guide about it, you can (probably) move forward with it. 

A recent example of this is my life was last year when I started feeling a desire to join the FOCUS Events Team. I was so torn up over this decision, I really wanted it, but did God!!?? I had no idea. Back and forth I went, until one day, my super holy spiritual director told me to forget about what God wanted for my life for a minute and asked me to consider what I wanted. I told her that I wanted to join the events team. Her response: "okay, then join the events team."

Here's the thing: God is now blessing that decision. I know I could still be in Nebraska living out life as an on campus missionary and God would be blessing that decision just as abundantly. This isn't to say that God doesn't have a plan for our lives - He does! And it will be an incredible plan beyond our wildest imagination! This just means that we are using the gifts God gave us by properly using faculties and our free will! (Check out my friend Caitlin's sweet post about free will in our dating lives.)

So, in conclusion...

Emotions are not bad. Our hearts are the maps that show us God's will for our lives; our heads are the tools for navigation. 

Don't beat yourself up for having negative emotions (Remember Jesus got angry too). Feeling angry, sad, or whatever is not a sin. How we choose to act on our feelings is how we will be judged. And don't get catch up in the back and forth of trying to figure everything out: take what you feel under advisement and then act. If your choice is wildly out of line with God's plan for your life, we must trust that He will correct it.

7 Quick Takes: Delight, Fall, & Christmas Music in October [4]

--- 1 ---

Last Saturday my friend Holly and I went to the Colorado Ballet to see their performance of Giselle. The dancers were beautiful and so impressive, even though the story was a little weird. My favorite part of the whole experience was the old man sitting a seat away from us. He stinkin' loved the ballet. When the dancers would do something particularly impressive he would cry out, "bravo!" We would hear him say things like, "beautiful!" "oh wow!" and "wonderful, just wonderful!" My personal favorite was when he exclaimed, "Ah! I'll be damned!!" after a particularly impressive lift (seriously - Giselle was 100% above the man's head and completely flat. They did this like 3 times). 

Although this man's exclamations were cute, I really appreciated how much he delighted in the whole experience. He was not afraid to show his appreciation for the art and he was real in how he expressed it. It made me think deeper about the concept of delighting in something beautiful and how God delights in us.

--- 2 ---

On Wednesday, I mentioned that I really like The Walking Dead and other things about Zombies. And that's weird for me. But...I find it fascinating to think about. Maybe my brain is weird, but when I watch/read things about post-apocalyptic societies (like The Hunger Games or The Walking Dead or even Harry Potter), I always think about where would God or the Catholic Church be if this was reality. Like, what if you really had to live on the run in fear that Zombies would attack you!? And that was your everyday reality? How would that effect your view of Jesus? Hard for me to fathom...but I always think about it. Last year when I first encountered the Walking Dead we would have some sweet conversations about the morality of killing Zombies and what the Church would teach. I think those conversations were what got me hooked on the show.

--- 3 ---

October has been all about birthdays and celebrations in our office. Carol and Christina both had birthday, and Oct. 16 was boss' day. Our team does celebrations right...Thai Food, drinks, pink sparkly crowns, baked goods, and decorations. Maybe because we're all event planners.

--- 4 ---

Last weekend, Carol and I hosted the first of our (hopefully monthly) parties: FALL DAY. This day was just so much fun! We started at the pumpkin patch, came home for dinner (Carol & I made butternut squash mac & cheese), played a riveting round of Things, and ended the night with a great discussion about the first time we all said "I love you" back to Jesus.

--- 5 ---

UNL had fall break this week and a few of the missionaries and students came out to Colorado. While the group went up into the mountains on Monday, I snagged my good friend Emily for the day. Emily is my mentee on staff and oh my gosh I just love her. She has an incredible story about how she ended up as an affiliate missionary at UNL for the year. It was so great to be with her in person and just be friends. We talked for hours about the things that are going on in our lives, and had our formal mentorship in person for the first time. I am so honored that she has asked me to guide her in her journey as a missionary.

Emily came into the office with me so she could see FOCUS Headquarters and talk to her Regional Director for a bit. We were asked by almost everyone that we met, "Are you two sisters!?" A few even did double takes because they thought she was me.

Last year my teammate Logan insisted that I was identical twins with Caitlin (a student at UNL last year and now a FOCUS intern at UNL).

We didn't see it. However, at the beginning of this year I received this text:

Logan had finally figured it out. My roommate, Melissa, confirmed this assumption when she told me Emily & I had the exact same mannerisms. We'll just have to get a picture of the three of us and see what happens.

--- 6 ---

Next week Carol & I are going to a Christian Conference Planners Conference to meet with vendors, learn more professional skills, and hang out in Florida. I'm excited to get a deeper look into what it means to be a professional event planner and to bring back everything I learn to further the mission of FOCUS through events.

I will say, these vendors are insane. Look at this invitation to dinner that I got yesterday:

SO FUN, right!? But I want to know how many people they sent these to and was it really worth the $8.75 shipping cost!?

--- 7 ---

So I may or may not have listened to Christmas music in the office on Wednesday. I had Let It Snow! stuck in my head, so I decided that was fine because it's not technically a Christmas song. Then the Glee Christmas Album showed up on Spotify and it was all over from there...People had some fierce opinions on the matter:

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!