Beauties & Babies

 

Do you ever have one of those moments where it feels like everything is just “Working”? you woke up early without your alarm, drank your whole cup of tea before it got cold, your hair looks good, it’s sunny and 73*, you went on a five mile walk in your healthy body, cleared your mind of stress and anxiety lurking in the corners, you stopped by a friend’s house unannounced because you were walking by and couldn’t wait to share what a great day you were having, and just word vomit all your hopes and dreams in their lap, and then on your walk home you just had enough energy and excitement to run the last bit (and LIKE IT?!?) In that moments you feel like you can dream for your future, see clearly what it is that you are passionate about, and your thoughts are not clouded by doubt or fear or whatever other lies you let rule your mind? That afternoon for me was Thursday, August 20, 2015. I felt so energized. But that energy I had cannot carry me through forever, so I had to act.

Recently I posted on social media about my last day at work. It was bittersweet to leave that job that shaped me as a nurse, and the co-workers turned dear friends, but I am even more excited about what is to come. I’m moving toward what moves me. Women move me. I care about women, I care about health, and I care about being a woman who moves other women. It’s hard to be a woman, but it’s also one of the things I’m most thankful for. A woman I follow on Instagram posted the

the picture above, and I think it is so true, when women encourage and empower other women it empowers and encourages them too, and allows them to continue encouraging and empowering more women.

So here’s the long and short of it. I am transitioning out of being a cardiac nurse to being a Women’s Health Advocate/Cheerleader/Educator/Encourager. (That’s the title I just came up with for myself.) 

•  For my “day” job (which will actually be my night job) I will be working at John Peter Smith Hospital here in Fort Worth in their Labor & Delivery department. 
• The rest of my “nurse” time will be spent continuing to volunteer at the Fort Worth Pregnancy Center, empowering women to make informed and healthy choices about their unplanned pregnancy, and giving them all the loving support they need to do so. 
• Also, I have started working with Beauty Counter. It is an amazing company that I’m learning so much through being a part of, and guess what?! It’s mostly women empowering women to make healthy choices! Are we seeing a pattern yet?  (More on Beauty Counter later). 
• Additionally, I’m planning to move forward with my yoga practice and become certified to teach. My girls and guys at The Yoga Project have changed my life in ways I didn’t see coming, and I want to be a part of that life-change too. 
• And I would really love to start writing/blogging again because, for me, that brings about a lot of positive mental health in my life.

I’m making dreams for the future, dreams of how I’ll spend my time, how I’ll impact, encourage, and empower women, and mostly dreams of who I’ll meet and how what they will teach me. It’s too easy to become insecure and full of comparison. I do that every day. We have enough people telling us we are doing it wrong. Someone needs to encourage and tell us that we are doing it right. So I’m both excited and scared. Of course, I’m terrified about working nights, I hate staying up past 10PM. I’m definitely concerned that I’m going to miss my husband all the time between me working nights and him being in medical school. But I’m thankful he’s supportive. Sure I’m worried about learning new things, changing from the private to the county hospital, being responsible for the freshest lives on the whole planet, and making new friends. I definitely feel inadequate when I go in to inform a scared girl or woman of her results pertaining to an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy. Of course I’m worried that through being in a direct sales company people will think I’m being judgy or salesy instead of informative, educational, and caring. Or that people won’t want to be around me because I talk about woman stuff, use woman words that no normal people are comfortable with using. I’m definitely scared to start my blog back up, I mean can I even write (seriously, I used the word woman/women and encourage and empower literally every other word in the second paragraph of this post! Seriously, have I ever used a thesaurus?) who even cares about what I have to say? (Hi mom!) My life isn’t as cool as it used to be 4 years ago when I lived in a developing country, spoke another language 24/7 and had no indoor plumbing. And of course I get insecure when I think about talking to women about their health? Who wants to listen to me? I am far from having the perfect body, balanced hormones, and an all clean GMO free, organic, solar powered, super productive life. But hey, we are all in this together. And I pray that as I walk this journey of life that I do it giving grace and living under the grace that my Heavenly Father has given me.

So that’s my brief update about life. Hopefully, if all goes as planned, I’ll keep up with the blog and you’ll hear more about my job, my life, my marriage, the food I’m eating, the yoga pose I’m working on, and maybe how I decorated my mantle for Fall.

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Progress!!!! This is the first time I've pushed the "Publish" button since January of 2012, and even that was basically a re-blog of an old post. This is kinda the first original post since I blogged regularly in 2011, but I made progress I hit that "publish" button!