Stressed

Not entirely sure how I'm going to get everything done...

I still have this to do:

1.) Epicentre Logo

2.) Dr. Chin Website

3.) Portfolio website

4.) Learn after effects

5.) create two motion videos

6.) write personal statement

7.) get rec letters

8.) get transcripts

9.) fill out applications

10.) assemble portfolio discs

11.) paints canvases for RISD

TOO MUCH TO DO.

Give Thanks

I'M THANKFUL FOR...

1. Healing & Restoration only possible through Christ.

It started out with counseling and Cleaning Stream and it was really unexpected the transformation that happened. I developed a genuine, real deep relationship with Jesus Christ. One that isn't just take, but give and take. One that isn't just me throwing prayers at him, but actually praying for people and giving them up to God. It started out with sorting through self-hatred and ended with dealing with fear, insecurity, anger, loneliness and criticism.

2. Surrendering everything to Jesus. 
After being completely broken by Christ, I still tried and insisted on living life independently from God. Then he really wrecked my life, forcing me to spend another year at home while my closest friends moved on and moved out (of CA and the US). Jesus wrecked my life. It's a phrase coined by Shane Claiborne, but I believe it to be true for my life. I needed to get to a place where I surrendered EVERY part of myself, my heart and even my relationships to Jesus. Surrender my past, my present and my future. Surrender. Submit. Let God take the wheel. Stop trying to dictate or control or influence the plan that I believed I needed to be on.

3. Giving God complete control--And trusting him with all my heart. 
At one point I came to the realization that by not receiving the love and trusting my friends, then I'm not receiving God's love and trusting him completely. I'm still, by default, trying to do things all on my own. I had to repent for my pride and my need to control and my stubbornness and my lack of trust in him and just trust him. And trust him with everything--life plans, family safety and well being, friends and most importantly my heart (that he will protect it, grow it, heal it, and so on). In order to receive God's love and fully believe in the goodness of God, I need to be able to receive the people he's put into my life and receive the love that they give me.

4. Saying goodbye to perfectionism & needing to meet people's expectations.
By now, if you're reading this, I would assume you're a pretty loyal follower (hopefully). So I will painfully admit that in the last three months I've had six breakdowns. That's six more than I had in the first 23 years of my life. But it feels wonderful after I've realized the emotion. And I've finally realized that I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to be the perfect friend. I don't have to be the perfect worker. I don't have to be the perfect daughters. My relationships won't be perfect. My friendships won't be perfect. I won't be perfect. The only perfect person is Jesus. I've given up trying to be perfect and trying to meet everyone's expectations and listening to them. I've just got to be me, be who I believe Jesus has created me to be and follow my God-given destiny.

5. A life of freedom--free of fear, insecurity, depression, darkness, low self-worth and low self-confidence
I want to say that it wasn't a cure-all, but I actually, in retrospect, think it was. In Cleansing Stream, we dove through our issues, prayed healing prayers over them, repented for the ways we let them get out of control. Later, I went through all the issues and circumstances and struggles I had in my life and sorted through my emotions and my hurts and my fears throughout them. A few of you know I've struggled with depression for quite a while. I've struggled with fear. With insecurity. With darkness. With low self-confidence. Low self-worth. And those things aren't something I struggle with anymore. I'm confident in my work. I'm confident of walking up to a stranger and starting a conversation with them. I'm confident and fearless and a dreamer finally. I know what I must do to live my life. And it's being confident, not prideful. Confident. Secure. Fearless. In Jesus. First and foremost in Jesus and then everything else falls into place. Confident. Secure. Fearless. In the love Jesus has for me and in the goodness that God is. I can confidently live a life without fear because I'm secure in Jesus. 

6. Heart & head alignment. 
Even though these last few months have been incredibly hard, I know they served a purpose. I finally got a chance to align my head and my heart. I've been non-stop overachieving since summer 2007 when I interned at ESPN. Since then, I've known that the industry wasn't my dream or my job, but I still was semi-pursuing it because I thought that's what I wanted and what my parents wanted for me. For the last couple of months, I've gotten to do what I have yet to really do while living in LA: enjoy life. I've painted. I've worked out. I've enjoyed myself. And I've been able to figure myself out and figure out what I love doing and how that plays into what I want to do with my life. I love to design things. I love to create things for social impact, but at the same time I love to travel and I detest DETEST desk jobs. And I never want to work in the industry and have to deal with the drama and the crap and everything, I just want to make a difference. I want to create something that changes the world. I don't have the completely solution yet, but I'm one step closer.

7. I have wonderful, amazing friends. 
Self-explanatory. But I'm incredibly blessed. God is good.

8. Freelance. God is good. 

There was a time where I had no work, no drive, no purpose, no motivation this year. Karen looked at me and told me I needed to pursue something and stop slumming around. But I had absolutely no goal in mind and on top of that no God to direct me. I was angry at him. I was burnt out and angry and frustrated and absolutely mad at him--but didn't realize it cause it was all pent up and hidden inside of me. But then I figured it out. Then I realized I needed to live life with God, not independently from him, but actually truly just trust him with ALL of my life. And the jobs poured in. The photography and the design and the websites. And then grad school applications. God is good. He always protects, always provides, always pursues.

9. Lucky to be living at home. 

It gets tough, no doubt. But I'm blessed to just be able to live at home. Plus, I have no job and have no money to pay rent--that definitely helps.

10. The Dodgers made the playoffs again.

Things I learned after Thanksgiving

1. I need to move away.
2. I need to move away.
3. I need to move away.
4. I need to move away.
5. I need to move away.
6. I need to move away.
7. I need to move away.
8. I need to move away.
9. I need to move away.
10. I need to move away.

Happy by Leona Lewis

This is precisely how I feel and what I think about my life right now :)

Please see the Blind side

The Blind side is an incredible tale of Michael Olher and what he overcame to make it to the NFL and how the love and support of an adopted family helped him get there. It's probably the best Christmas movie of the year. You must go see it, especially if you love football!

But it's not really a sports movie as much as it an inspirational tale of what happens when you love someone and when you receive love and support from the people around you. It will change your life. It's always changed mine.

I'm a people pleaser

I'm a people pleaser. I hate hurting people's feelings. I always do what's best for the other person. I prefer to make life easier for everyone. I don't like when people get upset, when they're mad at me. I care a little too much about what other people think. I try to be perfect. I try to not upset the balance or the equilibrium. I am the quintessential Asian. I don't like conflict or messes or fights and I prefer that I myself suffer over someone else.

So my brain is being wrecked at this moment. I don't doubt that I made the right decision for myself. But it seems strange, almost abnormal and estranged, that the decision seems to be the best one for myself. It's taken a lot of growth to get to this point. Often times I have killed myself slaving over things for other people--whether it's a little thing or a big thing--people come first. Giving comes before receiving. Others before myself. Selflessness versus selfishness. Humility over pride. Satisfaction over happiness. I could go on...

I don't doubt that I didn't, without prayer and wisdom, make the right decision. I'm just having a hard time with it because I'm such a people pleaser. Which only goes to show more that I made the right decision. I am having a hard time because I couldn't be perfect. I couldn't be the perfect you-fill-in-the-blank. And on top of that, this drastically affects the way that people view me, the way they talk about me, the way they will refer to me in the future.

I am an obnoxious, obsessive compulsive people pleaser. It's terrible and tragic. And not only am I people pleaser, but I like to be liked. I like to be entertained. I like to have something to do on a Friday night. I like to be busy. I like to be surrounded by people as much as possible.

Tragic flaw?

Quite possibly. If the last couple weeks have taught me anything, it might just be that I'm human. I'm prideful and conceited, I'm insecure and afraid, and I'm seriously self-involved. I like winning others over way too much and care too little until I'm in deep shit. I might even go so far as to say I don't love as many people as I should--Or I have an extremely hard time with grace and love and mercy once people start to drive me insanely crazy.

That might also constitute as a tragic flaw. I know I had to do what I did (and wouldn't you like to know what that was). I know that. God's confirmed it. But I still feel so bad about it. I feel like a let down, an imperfect let down and that's not really the greatest feeling in the world.

But I suppose it's time I felt that feeling, once and for all.

sometimes the hardest thing & the right thing are the same

I've come to the conclusion, or at least I hope I have come to the right conclusion, that sometimes the right thing to do isn't always the easiest.

Today I did one of the hardest things I've ever had to do--I said, "No."

If you know me, if you really truly know me, you know how incredibly hard it was for me to do. Even if I knew, even if I believed it was the right thing to do, five seconds before I did it, I was freaking out inside. My heart was pounding outside my chest. My knees were shaking. My blood racing.

I've never said "No" to anyone or anything thing really.

But I've had to learn boundaries recently. Emotional boundaries and actual, literal boundaries. Mental boundaries. In the last few weeks, my entire life has surrounded my inability to see my own boundaries and to use them correctly--whether it be emotionally, mentally and/or physically.

Today, I paid the price for that. So did a few other people. It was hard. Incredibly, excruciatingly hard but I realized, a few weeks ago, in order to fully obey God and continue on the path and plan that he has for me, I had to say no. Sometimes saying no isn't always saying yes to everything we think we're suppose to say yes to. Sometimes you have to put boundaries. Sometimes you have to be able to look at your life and see your own limitations. Sometimes you have to put other people, important people in your life, completely and utterly in the hands of God.

I can't be the perfect friend. I can't be the perfect worker. I can't be the perfect daughter. And I just have to trust God that he will not only be there for those important people when I can't, but that his goodness, his grace and his mercy surround them at all times.

God is so powerful. So good. So amazing. I can't testify that enough. The more that I continue to act like god in my own life, the more that I struggle. And the more that I continue to act like god in other peoples' lives, the more that they will struggle. I can't be everything. I can't really be anything. Only God can.

So today I had to say "No" because I know that the path that "yes" leads to is one I cannot take because it's not the path that God has me on and if I continue to say yes, if I continue to kill myself for my friends like I always have. I will just end up burnt out--or worse. I give and I give and I give and I don't need anything in return, but at the same time, I end up just incredible exhausted and worn out, unable to give because there is nothing to give from.

Saying No not only made sure that I'm keeping healthy emotional and mental boundaries, but it's also truly giving God what's most important to me--my friends. I trust God with so much but at the same time with so little. I trust him with my future, but not with my present. I ask him to provide community and close kindred spirits, but I don't surrender to him the lives of my friends. I trust God with myself and with my heart but not with my friends and their hearts.