was a merry christmas

this christmas was my first away from home, luckily i have my sister and baby brother here with me in hawaii. this christmas was a merry one, i thought it would be sad but it wasn't just way different. I was able to also spend it with tanner :)
im not big on getting presents, i mean of course its nice to get em but i just hate opening them up in front of the giver. I fear i won't react how they'd like me to. but tanner gave me the absolute perfect gift! He gave me a beautiful purple chronicles of narnia book! its absolutely breath taking.... it won my heart immediately.

Liberation

"Find a way to liberate yourself even though the path is going to be painful and full of suffering"
Today my psych-stress and tension management class was waaaay AMAZING!!
This entire semester we have focused on ourselves, learning to breathe, learning to get a sort of control of our emotions and thoughts... Realize we don't have much control of what is outside of us and learning to deal with STRESS! It has done wonders for me. It truly has. I have learn to recognize certain things about myself, know when something is coming and get ready for it before it arrives or when something pops into my life learn to DEAL. We talked about Buddha too. The guest speaker in class had just gotten back from a Zen retreat and was just so inspirational....

Hawaii has helped me in many ways, though I tend to complain about everything in life, I have learned to SLOW DOWN, BREATHE, Im trying to ACCEPT, thats just the way it is! Not the way i want it to be. When you adjust it feels better for 30 secs then gets worse... TOLERATE! We learned methods to meditate this semester as well. Meditation is not a complete runaway from life, its focusing on certain things, searching for control... its managing our thinking process.
I HAVE WHATEVER I HAVE, DEAL WITH IT AND FOCUS!!!


*photos from adventures to valley of the temples! :)