True Love

 9 January - 15 January 2023

Oh, what a week! Just so you'll know the contrast that happened in my life, let me say that I've been very anxious and insecure about friendships and relationships for as I can remember. I had the most enlightening experience Thursday evening during our Relief Society devotional by a life coach. She talked about how this message and belief that happiness comes from "the one" we end up with is so engrained in every aspect of our culture and beliefs, and how it is false and actually detrimental because it creates too much pressure on external people to make us happy. She said that truly, the only person responsible for our happiness is us, and we are the only people with us 24/7 from the moment we are born until the moment we die. We need to be kinder to ourselves, becoming a safe place for us to return home to after a crazy day out in the world. We need to check in with our inner child and make sure we are meeting her needs so that she does not search for fulfillment outside of ourselves. I've realized that I put too much pressure on my friends to prioritize me and treat me sooo good and want to hang out with me all the time because that is how I feel important and valued and worth something. However, that puts unrealistic pressure and expectations on them, and I should be the one telling myself how worth it and valuable I am. I don't need other people to celebrate or recognize my accomplishments for me to feel good. I am the one who can treat myself and take myself out on fun dates and spend time with myself because I'm worth it. I have to be the one to show others how to treat myself. I was so worried about missing out on some form of happiness that can only come from things I don't currently have, but I realized that is an illusion. True love isn't someone else who loves you completely, but rather is loving yourself completely. Someone else can't make you happy or complete you. You have all the tools inside of you to make yourself as happy as you can ever be (as you are One with Christ). You can see how pumped I am about this subject! Anywho, let's backtrack a little into the earlier parts of my week.

Monday was my first day of internship class with my Capella faculty advisor. It's two hours every Monday morning. I am excited about many of the people I have in my class! I then went out to Mesa to meet Eva, who runs the group home called Touch Angels. They teach life skills to homeless individuals with substance abuse problems. I will be helping out there, counseling and assessing clients. The majority of the clients are Native American and have been hooked on drugs since infancy or early childhood, and 90% have experienced sexual or physical abuse and trauma. I went back Tuesday afternoon to get put into their system and trained on how things go. Anyway, Val and I spent Monday afternoon with Mikylah and Cara, playing pickleball and going out to dinner with them. It was Mikylah's birthday, and she was having some friend drama and needed some loving friends in her life. Then we went to FHE, which was Bob Ross night! We have some real talent in our ward!

On Tuesday, I went ice skating with Jasen. He was definitely NOT as bad as he painted himself out to be (in both ice skating and painting, actually). I felt bad because he fell a handful of times and hurt his knee. He said he didn't have a blast, but he did feel like he improved. So... idk. I hope he had some sort of fun! I was on fire that day and felt more smooth on the ice and could do some tricks and stuff (but my spins were not feeling it that day). I was so grateful to my dad for coming down to get us a military discount so that it only cost ten dollars for the both of us instead of over twenty dollars. Some piece of exciting news is that with the scholarship I got, my tuition for this quarter was low enough that I was able to pay it without borrowing any more money from my parents! On Wednesday, I went down to the internship office and got settled into my new office and got some schoolwork done. My room does get a little chilly, but it'll be nice for when summer comes because it (hopefully) won't get too hot. I also officially booked my first client! I called a lady who had reached out a week ago to see if she was still interested (because she had never responded to Kendra, the office manager), so I gave her a call and she said that she found me from Psychology Today by typing in the zip code and reading through profiles. She said my profile really stood out to her and spoke to her, plus the intern rate was a bonus. She said she has great respect for interns because they are more thoughtful and attentive in her experience. I'm grateful I will get the opportunity to work with her! Wednesday night, I went to ministering night and had a fun time with Jasen and Raven as we tracked down someone in the ward to try and invite them to activities. They didn't end up being home, but we did listen to old songs from our childhood TV shows, which was super funny. Then walking back inside, Raven asked me on a date to get tacos that weekend, so we worked out those details. On Thursday morning, I went to the temple. Jasen also attended the 9am session. It was really good, and the funniest part was that after, when I went to the celestial room, I walked over to get a Book of Mormon from a side table, but noticed it said on the front that it was in Spanish. So I went to another side table and picked up the Book of Mormon and noted that it did not specify that it was Spanish. I went to sit down by Jasen and then opened the scriptures to read and kind of chuckled... because they were in Spanish!!! Jasen looked over at the scriptures and gave me a questioning look, and I said, "I can't read this." He looked again and realized it was all in Spanish, and he kind of chuckled and then jumped up to get me a BoM that was in English. The rest of the day, I worked on homework, and then I went to the life-changing RS devo. Seriously though, it brought together a lot of things I've been pondering lately and brought to mind what I need to work on to have less anxiety about dating and relationships.

Friday, I spent the morning doing some chores. We've had the honor of watching baby Gracelyn throughout the week, and mom and I took her shopping with us while Brie and Aaron worked. She screamed and cried on the entire way to the store, but once we were there, so was so content to be carried around and she loved just looking at everything. Then she fell asleep in mom's arms and slept all the way home. I went to my internship site and attended my weekly supervision meeting with Michele. Then I went to dinner with Raven. I think it was a positive experience because it sounded like he hasn't had a lot of positive experiences with dating, so I was grateful that I was able to put him at ease and hold a comfortable and fun and open conversation with him. Saturday morning, I interviewed a classmate about her sexual history for my Gender and Sexuality course, and I'm glad I got some positive feedback from her about putting her at ease and helping to connect dots and themes. I also went to the temple to do some initiatories, then after I went to play pickleball. Lucy tagged along. I lost all the games!!! We played against a father and son, then switched up the teams after that, and for some reason, no matter who was on my team, we lost! All five games! And I don't even think I was playing all that bad!!! But alas, I have a lot of room for improvement!

Sunday was really good! I actually found some job opportunities on Facebook when I went to post something in our ward page, so I was able to talk with a lady and pretty much have the job for sure, which is such a blessing. It'll work with my schedule and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to stay busy, make connections, and earn money to finish paying my way through grad school! Church was good! We had YSA called to the 2nd counselor of the bishopric, ward secretary, and executive clerk positions. Sam Semandeni is the new 2nd counselor, and it was awesome to see how humbled he was by the calling. They also got a new EQ presidency. We had linger longer after church, and Delanie asked if I could talk with her, so I stayed after chatting with her. Then that night, we had a delish dinner and CFM. I missed our little group and was so happy to have it again!

Much love,

Emily Burnham