easily influenced

This post may be hard to understand. It might have mistakes. It might not make any sense at all. Just know that this is intensely personal and intensely emotional.

I've always been a good at writing... but I've never been very good at putting my most personal thoughts and struggles into words. Sometimes, my reluctance to talk about my most deep struggles is not necessarily a fear of being judged. It's a fear of being influenced.

I'm a person who is easily pushed to believe and feel a certain way - and I mean this from both sides of the spectrum. I am as likely to be swayed by a Christian perspective that I don't necessarily agree with as a cultural one. And I think humans in general are easily influenced, but I feel like I'm easily influenced on steroids.

Over the last several months I have been going through the largest internal struggle of my life so far. Though many have heard fractions of the issue, I have yet to tell anyone the full extent of the struggle. As many of you know, this is really hard for me - I'm very much an extroverted external processor. It's extremely hard for me to work through things on my own. Yet, I have shut out all opinions for months because for once in my life I want to know and understand how I feel about something, not how someone else thinks I should feel about something.

So I've been trying to nail down what I think about this struggle on my own, but it's proving to be exceptionally difficult. I feel like no matter what decision I make, I will be disappointing someone. So, even in my own head, I am still swayed by others.

It feels contradictory: feeling alone, yet overwhelmingly surrounded. I keep telling myself that I'm in control... so why do I never feel like I have control over anything?

The question still comes down to this: who will decide how I live?

A Precious Reminder

Today I woke up with a thought in my heart. 

Lately, I've been struggling so much with feeling unconfident. I know that this stems from my inability to believe that I'm worth loving, but lately it's been holding me back a lot more than usual. I'm too afraid to take chances or to live freely. But this morning, my heart was filled with hope, and I'd just like to share that here this morning! 

Sometimes we all need a reminder that we are loved.

Turn up the Workout

I've been back from Hawaii for just about a month, and I'd been struggling a lot with getting back to the gym/nutrition routine. I decided to make a new workout playlist to get inspired! Happy running!

taken from Pinterest

June 2013 Workout Playlist

1. Wop - J. Dash ft. Flo Rida

2. Come & Get It - Selena Gomez

3. Ooh La La - Britney Spears

4. Live It Up - Jennifer Lopez ft. Pitbull

5. Tonight I'm Getting Over You - Carly Rae Jepsen

6. The Other Side - Jason Derulo

7. I Love It - Icona Pop

What songs inspire you to get your sweat on?

Purposed

Just thought I'd share a favourite quote with y'all as the weekend comes to an end.

{taken from Pinterest}

PS - Follow me on Pinterest :)

Bow Down

Today at work I had a grotesque realization about myself.

We always have worship music on at work. I think I was born with a song in my soul, so I constantly sing along without even realizing it! Every so often, the words I'm singing seem to bubble to the surface of my consciousness, and that happened today. I can't even remember what song it was from, but the lyrics were "we bow to You alone, Jesus."

As I sang them, a little voice in my head said the only thing you bow to is fear. And isn't that true!? I'm such a fearful person! I struggle with fear of failure, fear of being unloved, fear of being worthless, fear of being wrong. The list goes on.

When I tell people that I'm fearful, they rarely take me seriously because of my personality. I'm willing to try anything and everything. People seem to equate being fearful with being shy, but that is not always the case.

I remember one time, I was going skydiving (see picture!) with a good friend. As we drove out to the skydive centre, he said that the thing that struck him most about me was how fearless I was. I remember bursting out laughing - "you think I'm fearless!?" I started describing my anxiety disorder to him, and soon he came to realize that I'm not so fearless at all.

So I got to thinking - how can a person overcome to urge to bow to their fears? I think that identifying your fears is probably a good place to start, but I sometimes think that fear is a bigger entity than a worry regarding a specific object or concept. Bigger than a feeling gone wrong.

So how do you overcome fear itself?  I guess that's the direction my journey is headed in next.

Best Friends

I saw this and it made me think of some of the best friends I have. They always put up with me when I'm at my worst - not because of what I can offer at my best, but because they love me no matter what. I hope with all my heart that I can be that kind of friend to my friends too.

June Goals

I'm really super good at setting goals. I have been since I was quite young - even in elementary school, I was constantly aspiring to improve myself through goal setting.

Following through on my goals? That's another story. I'm a person who loves the start of things... and when things get normal, I get bored. I think the best way to ensure that I meet my goals is to create accountability: by posting my goals on here, I feel some responsibility to ensure that they happen!

So, here are my goals for the next month:

[1] blog more frequently

[2] get my desk/office space sorted out and organized

[3] drink more water (~8 cups a day!)

[4] stick to my budget!

[5] practice storytelling on the blog! This could be a huge disaster... we will see!

[6] start (and finish) one creative project this month!

[7] have an honest and open conversation about what's going on in my heart with at least one person

Great Legs

I just got back from the beautiful Hawaiian Island of Maui. It was so much fun - we went snorkeling, paddle boarding, swimming and tanning! I loved the palm trees, beach walks, pineapples, sunsets, giant sea turtles, amazing food, coral reefs, humidity... I just loved it all! Except the sunburns! I tried to include pictures that sort of summarize how great Hawaii felt. I took a lot of pictures of palm trees - something truly fascinating to a Canadian, I guess!

I just really enjoyed the laid back Hawaiian culture. They call it the spirit of aloha - aloha doesn't just mean hello and goodbye, but it embodies a belief in living a life of love and peace.

It was an incredible and restful vacation, but it also provided a lot of thinking space. Since I spent most of my time there in a bikini, I thought a great deal about my body, and I also spent a lot of time thinking about myself in general. I began really considering what it means to be "Robin," and a lot of what I was able to come up with was criticism.

I found myself really facing a lot of my self worth issues. I feel a new hyper-awareness of how un-confident I am... which is good: awareness is usually the first step in growth.

Every so often I see a picture of myself and it won't be perfect, but I think to myself "man, I've got great legs." Here's to looking for the other "great legs" that make up me.

 These are my great legs. What are yours?

ALOHA

Climb Like a Fish

I want to share my favourite quote with y'all because it really touches my heart (it's in the picture!).

I've always been someone who wants to do everything well. I would never refer to myself as a perfectionist but more of a "do-well-ist" ... aka - it doesn't have to be absolutely perfect so long as I do a good job on everything.

Those last few words are crucial... "do well on everything." This has always been my mentality. I don't know if it's a personality thing or if it's how I was raised, but it governs so much of my life (is that godly? probably not). 

I've wondered why this is so important to me. I think it's because I fear the judgement of others and because I can't handle criticism. If I do everything well, nobody can criticize me, right? 

Well, that's wrong. We need to stop judging each other, and stop judging ourselves. We all have different gifts and talents, and together we make up the beautiful body of Christ. I'm not stupid because I can't climb a tree (it's true, I can't). I'm not stupid because I suck at being outdoors and am a bad visionary.

Our abilities do not define our worth - and we need to stop believing that they do!

Flaws and All

It's officially summer - I can tell because I have no idea what day of the week it is without consulting my calendar first! Turns out it's Monday. My weekend was kind of awesome. Sunday especially was all kinds of perfection.

My ex-small-group and I were in a race in the very early morning - although I'd registered for the 10K, I ended up running the 5K. The proceeds went to the Zebra Child Protection Agency and we had a crazy fun time. I shaved 5 MINUTES off of my 5K time, and then we enjoyed Dilly bars and weird country music while cheering on the marathoners.

We then took an hour drive to a place we all love very dearly - the Charest ranch. The Charests are the nicest and most generous people I've ever met.

We spent a few hours out there; hanging out with the Charests, sunbathing and enjoying technology-free outdoorsyness (check out my sunburn on the right!) and then we played a question-answer game. One question was "if you were a present to yourself, what would you be and why?"

Immediately, my mind started racing. What do I want most? Glitter? Perfect nails? Black Toms? A Victoria's Secret gift card? As my mind filtered through the list of things on my "want" list, a clear answer popped into my head... The perfect gift for me would be self acceptance.

My self confidence has been at an all-time low recently - it's weird because my weight has also been at an all-time low, but no matter what I cannot feel satisfied with me. I'm constantly evaluating how ugly, stupid or imperfect I am and it is so draining. I need to find a way to love me - flaws and all.

So you tell me...

If you were a present to yourself, what would you be and why?

Feel Things

Hey y'all.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm a very emotional individual. I feel everything hard and in a typical day I experience a full (and intense) range of emotions. Regular day-to-day things can stir deep emotional responses in my heart - both negative and positive. I'm just a feeler. A typical ENFP.

I've just been thinking so much lately about how these displays of emotion have become a negative thing in our society. I have it nailed into my head that sharing my heart and emotions is a bad thing. I'm so tired of hearing emotionality portrayed as rationality's evil twin. I think both play an important role in today's world.

I want a society where both tenderheartedness and good sense  are valued equally. More than anything, I'd like people to respect my emotions and feelings; I want people to stop telling me to stop being myself!

Emotions are a good thing. Period.

Summer Goals

Hey everyone!
I just finished my FOURTH year of university! Isn't that insane? One more year to go!

As you can see, I changed up my blog a lot. I thought the previous format hardly suited me, and I wanted to ensure that my blog was an accurate representation of myself.

I've worked a lot in my life - every summer, in fact, since I was 13. So this summer, I'm just working 22 hours a week! I've been thinking a lot about what I want to do with myself this year. Being a typical Robin, I decided I have a few goals.

[1] Work on my control issues.

[2] Become better at handling constructive criticism.

[3] Work on my creativity.

[4] Become more comfortable with nature + outdoorsy things.

Those of you who know me know that these are all really big areas of struggle for me. But my number one goal this summer is to reconnect with God. I feel like I've been perpetually confused lately about what I believe in and, more importantly, why I believe it.

So, while I'm only working part time this summer, I am still going to be working on my heart + soul a lot. Wish me luck!

I also have a tendency to get very lonely in the summertime; everyone goes home from school or works full time and my need for lots of human interaction takes a huge hit every summer. Soooo.. let's hang out!