by Janica 0

the hamster wheel

Move forward daily, or be stuck in the same cycle you have always been in.

Man, If I had a dollar for every time this has happened to me, (the stuck part) within the last year, I’d be rich. I’m a recovering people pleaser 😉 With that comes WORRY.

“Well if I do this, they will think this but if I try this, this might do this, but maybe if I switched just this then they wouldn’t think that…” And on and on and on. Painful to read, right? Painful to LIVE in. I’ve allowed myself to live in that. The constant worry of what OTHERS are thinking. The constant trying to switch around what I’m doing to please EVERYONE ELSE.

Let me tell ya, that is NOT a fun way to live. Constant headaches when I’m in that state  of mind. I fall into this super super easy. Sometimes without even realizing I’m doing it. Until my headache is too much to bear or it just starts getting really annoying.

So how have I tried to get out of my constant battle? Move forward with ME. It’s a continual battle for me almost DAILY. It gets exhausting. I get so worried about what I’m doing and how it will effect others because I don’t want anyone to hurt that I forget about ME. What do I need to do to move forward and follow what my path is?

Number one problem with my tendency above to make sure that no one is effected by what I’m doing….I’m robbing them of their experience in life. I truly believe that everything we go through is perfect for US. We each have our individual life lessons we need to learn and sometimes the same as others, a lot of times not. So by me trying to people please and throw a pillow under people every time I do something that may cause a ripple in their life, I’m doing a disservice to them and me. I’m doing a disservice to their experience and I’m devaluing and not even believing in MY OWN experience. I’m not allowing myself to be ME.

Now, this doesn’t mean that I don’t care about people or what they’re going through. I’ve actually learned that unconditional love is NOT being a buffer for someone else’s experience of maybe a reflection of what you are doing. I can be there in support for them, I can send them love and good vibes all day. But I’m doing them more harm by trying to soften what they’re going through. We each NEED the experiences we go through to learn and to grow. So by me allowing them that experience I am loving them enough to be there for them if they need me, but I can’t try and take the experience or pain away.

Enter hamster wheel. I’ve been stuck in that dang thing way too many times. Good learning experiences for sure but how many times do I have to bang my head against the same wall until I get it!? For REEAALLLZZZ.

How do my headaches go away? Focus on what I’m being told to do. Focus on asking what I can do daily to love myself. Focus on what my next step to move forward is. Focus on expanding what I can do to feel light and free daily.

I’m up at 4:51 am writing this because I’m going through the same thing again and can’t sleep because of the headache, so I might as well write about it so I can work through it 😉

 

by Janica 1

when being vulnerable is scary

When I started Fuel Love, I wanted to make sure that I was real, authentic, and not scared to share the real me and what went on in my life. I felt like I did a pretty good job of that, for a while anyway.

Then life got crazy. And I stopped. Because the kind of crazy that my life started to turn toward got judged and misunderstood. By a few close people. Things were said and done that were hurtful and a lot of pain surrounded that. A LOT of loneliness. I felt like I couldn’t be vulnerable and share what I was feeling and learning in the moment because the pain was too much to handle at times. So I hid. I hid what I was really feeling. I stopped sharing the vulnerable, authentic part of me.

I didn’t want MORE of that pain. If those closest to me brought that, what would EVERYONE else think??

I’ve had a constant ‘tapping’ on my shoulder lately that it’s okay to be vulnerable and share my story. And that I need to. It’s okay to have that part of me be seen again. It was always okay.  I feel heavy when I tell myself that I just want to hide that part of my life and never say a word about what I have been learning or going through the past 7 months.

It’s been the HARDEST 7 months of my entire life. I have never learned more during that time. I have never felt closer to Heaven the last 7 months. I have never felt so hopeless and alone, yet so loved and looked out for by Christ and my guardian angels both seen and unseen. I have never been so close to wanting to end my life yet never felt so brave, courageous, proud of myself and full of hope in my entire life.

Even though it has been crazy hard, I can now see and understand that everything happened how it was meant to. I would not have learned what I have, without it all. I would not have learned my strength, I would not have learned to not doubt myself if it were not for people and experiences along the way that at the time hurt, but now I am SOO thankful for them. It was a blessing in disguise.

I truly believe we made certain commitments to different people before we came to this earth. Some to help others, some to help others learn, some to teach, etc. etc. I cannot hold onto any grudge because I know I wanted this learning and growth experience and those people and experiences were doing JUST that; holding to their end of the commitment that we agreed to help each other on.

Through it all, I have been learning what true forgiveness really is. I have been learning what unconditional love really is. I have been learning what it feels like to only be able to rely on Christ and be centered in Him and to feel like I have an actual relationship with Him.

I’ve been learning that I’m stronger than I give myself credit for. That I can do hard things that I know without a doubt are right for me even if 90% of everyone else doesn’t believe me or even IN me.

I have overcome some fears and have had lots of other ones brought to the surface. I have been learning more about myself and how life works than ever before.

It has changed me. And some may say for the worse.

I know for myself, that without a doubt, it has changed me for the better.

I am still understanding and grasping who I really am. Learning to continually love ME despite what some may think of me. Learning that THAT shouldn’t even matter at all.

I am finally TRULY learning what love really is and what it means to LOVE. Myself and others. How to REALLY Fuel Love.

I’m excited to start sharing ‘me’ again. Piece by piece of my own journey. Nothing shared will be meant to bash or shame or anything of that nature towards anyone. This is MY story. This is MY real. This is MY path.

This is me. It has been hurting me by not sharing what is real. There is a time and place for everything and I needed some time and space to heal but when you start getting the subtle nudges that, okay… it’s okay to share. And I’ve fought those nudges for a month now. It’s scary to share your reality. It’s scary to put yourself out there.

But this is me.

I share to be me. I share to be real. I share in hopes that I can just help or inspire one person that may be struggling or just needs to know someone else ‘gets it’ or has ‘been there, too’. This life is about connection. This life is about service. This life is about sharing. Share our stories to connect and help.

‘You don’t need love. You are the love’.
-yogi tea bag 😉

 

 

by Janica 0

don’t be afraid of YOU

Be authentic. Be real. Be true to you.

We read those a lot while scrolling through instragram or facebook.

What does that even MEAN?!

It really is kind of self explanatory if you think about it. It’s the ‘how’ to do it that I think most of us get stumped on.

Heck, it’s just plain HARD sometimes to be real, authentic, open, raw, etc. You get criticized and judged for being real sometimes. People make you out to be a bad person, bad parent if you share the REAL you. Then guilt sets in. Then shame starts to creep it’s way in.

Why would you WANT to share the real you if those feelings are going to nuzzle themselves right in again. They’re not pleasant. But yet we let them.

So here’s what I think, and here is what I have learned…’so far’. Cuz we all still learning, yo.

What if, you focused on being real, true, authentic to YOURSELF??? Then you don’t even need to worry about everyone else. Because let’s face it…. that’s the hardest thing to do.

‘So you’re telling me to be REAL with myself?? I am freaking real with myself… I LIVE with myself 24-7. I can’t ever get away from myself.’

Here’s what I mean.

How often do you allow yourself to see all the deep dark secrets that you’ve hidden for so long? Those coming from experiences growing up where you felt embarrassment, shame, guilt, stupid, ugly?

Are those tucked away somewhere? Things piled on top of so high that you’ve pretty much forgot about them?

What about our habits or our cycles that tend to lean more toward the negative aspect? Are those looked at, or do we tend to ignore them BECAUSE it will bring up all those negative feelings that we experienced AGAIN. And who really wants to deal with that pain again, because ‘you should to be better than that. You should be over that by now. You shouldn’t let THAT bug you. You should be perfect in that by now. You shouldn’t have to need to learn that again.’ and on and on.

Society paints a pretty little picture about how each of us should be. So good in fact, that a lot of us have forgotten who we are. Like really really who we are. What makes us individual, what makes us tick, our quirks, our likes, our dislikes. We’ve even forgotten the best parts about ourselves. How we’re sooo much more capable than we can even see. That we can have the capacity to love beyond what we can even imagine right now. That we can CREATE the type of life that we want to live. We can choose how we feel daily. We can choose how we will act and react. That we can actually LAUGH on a daily basis. More than once. And that it’s actually okay AND good for you.

Some of us will never allow ourselves or choose in to get there.

Why?

Because we’re afraid of ourselves.

We’re afraid to uncover what was once covered up with the intent to ‘just forget about it’. We’re afraid to show that maybe some pretty crappy things have happened to us throughout our life. We’re afraid that we’ll make even more mistakes and then we’ll get laughed at and made fun of. We’re afraid that we’ll be embarrassed because we should have learned that already. We don’t want to hate ourselves anymore than we do already. And our reaction to all those? They hurt. Sometimes they hurt real bad.

You know what we’re even more afraid of though? We’re afraid of ourselves if we WEREN’T afraid of ourselves. We’re afraid of what we might learn. We’re afraid of the NEW person we might become. We’re afraid of the possibilities. We’re afraid what it might be like to actually be happy all the time. We’re afraid what it might feel like to wake up excited about our day and life.

Why?

It’s so foreign to us now. We’re afraid of the unknown. We’ve been trying to be this person sitting on top of all the ‘way down dark corner secrets’ that we don’t know what will happen if we stand up, uncover it, and see who we TRULY are without all of that piled up.

Here’s the thing…..We can’t afford NOT to.

You’re really going to go your whole life being afraid of YOURSELF? Being afraid to LIVE and BE who you are??? Well, maybe you are but maybe you’re not. Here’s what I’ve learned about all those things that we’ve all quietly swept under the rug…

They’re actually there to HELP US BECOME who we are.

No one just wakes up amazingly confident. No one just wakes up strong and unstoppable in WHO they are. No one just wakes up with amazing courage and no fear at all. No ones just wakes up having amazing success.

All those traits…those traits were learned, practiced, and fought for.  And how?

By lifting up that rug, being honest with yourself and the trials and things you personally struggle with. Then sorting through them, sharing some of them, experiencing the emotions from them so that they can learn the lessons from each and every one. Because through the pain, through the doubt, through the sharing, through the despair, loneliness, and heartache is WHERE we learn the confidence, strength and courage.

You don’t know the complete joy without the complete sorrow. You don’t know how to truly feel loved without feeling unloved. You don’t know how to have amazing courage without feeling the deepest fear. You don’t understand confidence without feeling completely shattered.

Don’t believe that? Well you’ll never know until you try.

So why are we so afraid to be real, authentic and true to ourselves, when being open real and raw with ourselves is how we will FIND ourselves?

The courageous you. The smart you. The loving you. The happy you. The joyful you. The strong you. The amazing you. The funny you. The inspiring you. The confident you.

The. REAL. YOU.

Not a lot of people will lift up that rug to find that.

But will you?

 

by Janica 0

What is love, really?

WoodGirls-74

‘You just need to love unconditionally.’

‘Love yourself.’

‘Does he/she love me?’

‘Can they tell that I love them?’

LOVE. What is it even? What does it even mean? What does it even entail?

We go throughout our whole lives chasing, craving, striving for love. Is it the same for everyone? Why are there so many that feel unloved? Why are there so many that feel like they can’t give enough love?

Where does it come from? Why can others feel it and others not?

Now, I’m not claiming my take on love as what it REALLY is. These are just my thoughts. These are just my understandings and feelings. And they’re ever growing.

Love is a constant. Love is always there. It’s not an action, nor a feeling. It’s even deeper than only being energy.

It’s just there.

It was never created nor will it ever be destroyed.

It’s a deep connection. A deep knowing and understanding.

Love is a flow. Love is a dance. Love is a song.

Ever changing yet constant.

Our connections with people and things are all different flows. Different dances and songs. The ‘music’ is already there, how we dance and move to it is up to us. But we will be led if we open up to where the music is taking us. And flow with it.

Feeling and sending love is just allowing that flow and dance to intertwine between people and things. When we feel unloved, we’re not allowing the song and dance to be heard or seen. It’s not because someone is not sending it because it is already all around us. No one else can control where the flow comes or goes to you.

YOU are love. Love is already a constant within and all around you. You are ALWAYS worthy of it because of that. What are you allowing in your thoughts and life to keep you from seeing, hearing, and flowing with the music? What is making you believe that you have to block that flow from flowing around, to, and from within you?

The more I’m learning to be completely ME, the more I learn about love. I believe we ALL learn more about love when we allow ourselves to be unapologetically ourselves. (red squiggly line says it’s not a word, it is today;) haha)

We all ARE love. The more you are true to you, love flows easier around and through you.

If you’re not feeling the love, what about you are you not being true to?…

 

 

 

by Janica 0

My Real Struggle with Eating

Screen Shot 2016-02-10 at 11.49.14 AM

This is a harder one to write but I have such a strong desire to help others know they’re not alone and that it is OKAY and will be okay.

This next week I’m teaching a class about eating healthy. Recently, conversations that I’m a part of always go in the direction of eating and the struggles. I’m a firm believer and advocate of learning to listen to our own bodies so that we’re getting the nutrients that we need. Nature never repeats itself. No two people are alike. That means what works for us may not work EXACTLY the same for someone else.

If you’re just starting to learn how to live a healthier lifestyle and changing up your eating, it’s great to get a base of what that even is but don’t get so caught up in doing exactly what they tell you with no thought of what YOU and YOUR body need. Your body WILL tell you what it needs and does not need. It’s simple. Not always easy, but simple. You just ask. It takes some practice, but I KNOW it works and anyone can do it.

That is my take on how everyone should learn to eat healthy. Get the basics down and then learn to listen to what your body needs to fuel it properly.

This is where it’s gotten interesting for me the last month or so. Lately I’ve been SUPER exhausted. I’ve been super dizzy and blacking out a lot when I stand up. I didn’t know what was going on.

Back up almost 3 1/2 years ago, this same thing happened when my daughter was 6 months old. That time I was subconsciously starving myself. I was so wrapped up in needing to lose my 60+ lbs I gained that I just didn’t eat until 5PM everyday.

So my husband kept asking me if I’ve been eating enough. I “of course” was. To my knowledge I hadn’t been doing anything different. I scheduled an appointment with my mentor and good friend who I’ve been going to the last 6-7 months to figure out what was going on.

I sat down, she asked me if I was taking any supplements. I had been off and on. Then she asked me the same question my husband had been asking me off and on. “Have you been eating enough.” I immediately said, “Ya, I know I have been.” Then she asked me what I’ve been eating regularly and how much. I went on to explain what I have been eating and portion sizes. She looked at me and said, “Really? You’ve been eating that much?”

Right then it hit me, I was doing it again. I was subconsciously starving myself. I was so confused and so lost as to WHY. Why was I doing this again to myself and how was I SOO unaware. My thyroid was struggling, my body was struggling, I was so weak and tired all the time and I was doing it to myself, without even realizing it.

I was hiding it from myself. I was hiding the pain.

I was self-sabotaging myself from being healthy and being able to have all the things I desired. I was punishing myself.

I had been feeling like I wasn’t worthy of love. I wasn’t worthy of a healthy body, so every time I have consciously caught myself denying love and I stopped it, my subconscious then flipped into what I really believed about myself.

Some terrifying experiences growing up surrounding being terrorized and bullied led me to have that deep belief, so I learned to punish myself whenever I tried to go for something bigger and better. I self sabotaged.

Why am I writing about this? Why am I putting this out in the open?

I’ve been feeling like I’ve been living this double person lately. People asking me for advice about eating healthy and working through the guilt, self sabotage, shame, pain, and hurt. I know all the “answers” but have I been living it? Yes and no. Part of me has on the surface level, but the other part… the other deep down, Janica hasn’t. I’ve felt like a fraud to myself.

Today being “We Be Healthy Wednesday” and posting about healthy eating this morning… It struck something in me. I no longer want to hide my pain. I no longer want to hide my deep down struggles. I know we ALL have struggles. Some similar,  some not, but we all have the pain from those and we can all help each other and support each other through them.

I go through struggles with eating. Deep down struggles with eating. I have struggled with the need to fight for my life. I have struggled with feeling strong enough. I have struggled with feeling like I even had a purpose to stay on this earth, that no one would care if I was even gone. And those are just a few.

I don’t write this for sympathy. I need Fuel Love just as much as I hoped other people would benefit from it. I’m honestly learning right along with what I’m sharing and hoping to spread to others. I want to be honest. I want to be open. I want you to know that YOU can do it, too. You ARE loved even though you may not believe it or feel it. You really are. YOU are more than worthy of all the greatness in the world. YOU are beautiful and strong. YOU are capable of ANYTHING you desire. YOU don’t have to suffer alone. You don’t have to constantly feel the pain. And it’s okay to feel, it’s okay to have struggles. You don’t have to be strong through everything. You don’t have to push it aside or stuff it down in fear of being made fun of or looking weak. You are gorgeous inside and out JUST the way you are. Your journey is your own. Your journey is fit perfect for helping you rediscover YOU and loving every part of you every step of the way. You wouldn’t go through all the trials, pain, and hurt if you weren’t meant for something great.

And you are.

So don’t hide yourself. Don’t hide FROM yourself.

My struggles with eating do not define me. It’s part of my journey, to peel back and learn from. To learn my strength and keep pressing forward.

That’s where your strength lies, in how many times you get knocked down or even knock yourself down and keep getting up and moving forward.

You ARE that strong and you can.

I know you can.

‘We Be Healthy Wednesday’

 

by Janica 0

Share my struggles?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Being vulnerable and open to sharing your struggles with others.

A lot of times in group settings, or classes, or especially in church, we hear, “without saying too much or being too personal…”

Lately I’ve been thinking, WHY NOT?!

I know it’s really hard to even think of yourself telling others outside of your home what you’re struggling with or sometimes even those in your home. You don’t want to burden others with your “problems”. “No one would understand”.”It’s my business and I don’t want other people in my business”.

“My problems are really not that big of deal, and I’m told all the time that I need to be grateful for my issues because a lot of times most others are way worse than mine, so there’s no need to share”.

I can see two sides to this. Yes maybe there are some things that really are just personal or sacred and don’t need to be shared.

I want to address the other side. The side where we don’t share or tell anything, to anyone.

I was on that side. I didn’t want to say anything about ANYTHING I was struggling with because that would mean people would judge me by what I was doing or wasn’t doing. Or that they would think I was weak because I was having this, this, or this issue. Or they would think I was weird. Or I would make things harder for someone else. So I just wanted to keep to myself. I didn’t like to share things I have problems with. It was uncomfortable and I just didn’t want to even go there.

I had a huge struggle with feeling like EVERYONE was judging me at every moment that I was outside my own home. It dictated the way I did certain things!

I used to read blogs and stories about people sharing their struggles and what really went on inside their homes and heads and I would read in disbelief thinking, “how in the world and why in the world?! Doesn’t she know that she probably has thousands of people judging her left and right for divulging all that private info about her life?!”

And then I started to see that I could actually relate to those people. I knew exactly how they felt about some of the things they would talk about because I did or felt the SAME WAY! It helped me through lots of tough times, knowing I wasn’t ALONE in my thinking. That I actually wasn’t that horrible of a mom or human being for even thinking I wanted to chuck my kid on his bed and then lock him in his room all day. I wasn’t horrible for not throwing amazing birthday parties for my kids. I wasn’t horrible for feeding my kids what I fed them. I wasn’t a mom that didn’t care about her kids because she found her 18mth old walking in the street pulling his horsie.

I WAS NOT ALONE.

And the best part was that I realized that some people ARE good at lots of things I’m not and THAT’S OKAY. It doesn’t make me less of a person. I have my strengths and I have my weaknesses and I know I’m not the ONLY one to EVER experience ANY of what I go through. And how did I come to know that? (Besides my belief in My Savior Jesus Christ who suffered EVERY thing possible) I knew that because other people shared their struggles! Other people talked about what was hard for them. And they weren’t scared. They weren’t scared of judgment. They just wanted to share in hopes that it would GIVE someone else HOPE that it’s going to be okay. That you have a knowledge that someone knows how you feel and that you can confide in them and work through it together. That you have support and someone to talk you through it or about it.

I honestly thought a lot of what I was going through was specific to just me and that NO ONE else surely didn’t have those same struggles, fears, or thoughts that I had.

Until I started opening up. Until I started mentioning here and there my daily battles. Then I would hear, “Oh my gosh, I know EXACTLY what you mean. I’m so glad you shared that because now I know I’m not alone.” And then we would be able to talk about it, through it and come up with ways to help each other.

I don’t want anyone to suffer in silence. I’ve been there. I’ve hid all my stuff, even from my husband until it just came bursting out like a volcano and I thought no one loved me because they couldn’t see I was struggling or even ask to help, so what was my purpose anymore? No one would care if I was gone.

I used to feel like I had to put on this facade of some kind of perfection so that people would like me. If I showed any weakness then the less and less people would like me or talk to me.

After having experiences with others sharing some of their deepest struggles with me and to others, it inspired me. It inspired me to not be so closed off. Who was it helping? No one. It wasn’t even helping me. OTHERS opening up to me, helped me!

I decided from then on that I wasn’t going to hide and stuff away secretly. I want to be authentic to who I really am, I want to share in hopes that I could help just one person and if it was just meant for that person only, then that would mean the world to me.

I want to pay it forward how others helped me. Being real, raw, authentic. Sharing my struggles and triumphs.

How are we supposed to help and support others when we all hide from each other?

I’m not saying you HAVE to open up;)…just food for thought of something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.

What are you thoughts?

 

by Janica 0

My Biggest Fear As A Mom

I didn’t know exactly how I wanted to raise my kids after I got married and we talked about starting a family, I just knew how I didn’t want to raise them. But boy did I not know what I was getting myself into until our first started talking back and saying “no”!

Seth and I agreed that we wanted to be super conscious about our parenting. We understood how we, being their parents, had a huge influence about how they ‘turned’ out and how they shaped their self esteem, how they would take defeat, etc.

Not until our oldest was about 2 1/2 almost 3, my biggest fear started showing up. It showed up and I would take it out on myself. I went to bed a lot beating myself up mentally because of this, this, and that that I did do or didn’t do during the day with my kids. I would feel guilty. I would feel like the worst mom and that my kids weren’t going to grow up feeling loved, valued, appreciated.

My biggest fear was that I was going to ruin my kids!

I was too involved in looking at pinterest and all the ‘1,000 Ways To Be A Fun Mom’. I would compare what I did with my son daily and it didn’t match up to everyone else around me that would take daily walks or weekly trips to museums. I didn’t go through the ABC’s a thousand times in the morning. I felt like a failure of a mom.

As he got older and a little sister came along, I felt like I was becoming worse. My son was getting older and wiser about talking to momma and mommy was not becoming wiser and talking less nicely. There were more “don’t do that’s” and “no’s”, then hugs, kisses, and “yes’s”. It ate at me and I’m sure, well I know, I was being harder on myself than was probably true. But it took a toll on me personally. I hated who I was as a mom. I was exactly who I DIDN’T want to be as a mom, I was doing all the things WAY TO OFTEN, that I knew I wanted to try hard to not do.

I quit looking at pinterest so much for “fun ideas” and tried to just get on their level more and be more interactive. I wasn’t always the most “hands on” mom.

Fast forward a few years and my oldest is now 5 1/2, my girl is 3 1/2 and we added another little guy who just turned one. At the beginning of this year is when I dove head first in wanting to change the way life was going. (It wasn’t horrible by any means) I just knew I was missing something. I knew I could feel more free and not trapped by thinking I was the worst mom to walk the face of the earth. I didn’t like how I felt about myself because of it. I wanted my kids to FEEL and KNOW that I loved them and not just because I randomly tell them throughout the day.

I learned something that made massive sense, but I had never even considered it or thought it.

How I treated my children was a reflection on how I felt about myself. Say Whaaa?! My own insecurities came out on how I reacted to things and showed love and discipline to them.

Then I started REALLY feeling bad, because I had also come to the realization that I did not think of myself very highly or treat myself how I would even want others to treat me. That added a whole new aspect of my biggest fear but at the same time made me want to get rid of all the lies I would tell myself. I didn’t want to be prisoner or victim to my own negative thoughts and I definitely did not want my kids to feel that or LEARN that from me.

I was hanging out with a friend/mentor and I was expressing how it stressed me out to the MAX thinking about all the emotional things I was doing wrong with my kids and how I was ruining them and the thoughts they had about themselves and on and on. She said to me, “You’re kids were already ruined by coming to this earth. And plus, there is always Simply Healed.” (The sessions I started doing beginning of this year to release and re-write the lies and negative thoughts I had told myself all growing up. I laughed, but it’s so true. Our children were perfect before they came to this earth and received a body. JUST by them doing that, they were “ruined”. It does me NO GOOD, by stressing over that daily. It does my self esteem and how I view myself no good at all. Plus, there are ways to release the emotional trauma that we go through 😉

Just her saying that one sentence totally changed my perspective and it was one that really needed to be changed. Instead of just loving on my kids and teaching them by following inspiration, I was sooo worried that I was ruining them, that I wasn’t loving, I wasn’t opening up myself to listen and parent according to what my children’s needs were at that time. And in turn, I was just punching myself further into the negative mental and emotional cycles without even being aware of it.

The more and more I release and do those things I need to to learn and increase my self love, the more I notice I’m able to be more “free”. I’m able to go with the flow of life and being a mom. “Mom” is my number one right now while my kiddies are young and at home. The more that I have focused on them FIRST and then got to what I needed to do, the better each day goes for me and them. The more I get down on their level and play what THEY want to play and do what they want to do, the more I learn to love myself I am able to love them in return more fully.

But let’s be real. Not every day is perfect. Some days are still pretty bad on my part. I’m still learning to choose my emotions and not let them get the best. There are still disagreements and sobbing over what mom is making for dinner. There are still alligator tears when they don’t get what they want. But I’m learning and growing. Learning and growing right along side of them. There are more awesome days then there used to be. More laughs and giggles. More forgiveness and love.

More love that stemmed from learning to love myself first.

by Janica 0

My Journey to Health – Janica

I haven’t always purposefully done things to “stay healthy”. I don’t think it ever really occurred to me that I wasn’t as healthy as I could be. Somewhere along the line, I think I just took hold with a strong grip that what I was dealt, I was dealt and I just had to endure through life what that may be. It may stem from my thoughts of myself as not being very smart growing up and so I didn’t care to really delve into learning or really try to retain what I was being taught either.

Sure I took all the required health classes growing up and was always active but to me that is just what I enjoyed. I loved playing sports and being active so I didn’t ever really have ‘non-activity’ feelings to compare it to. After high school, I continued to play any intramural sport at college that I could and I always ate whatever I wanted to and LIVED off of sweets. Swedish fish and milk duds were top of the list. I chose to major in Physical Education and Coaching but still through most of that I never consciously tried to understand what it REALLY meant to be healthy. Half way through college, my older sister was in school to become a trainer and tried to help me understand the importance of eating healthy, but to me, it was too much thought and work to put into eating. All I knew is that it was good to be active and it will keep you healthier than if you didn’t.

After marrying my husband, I learned that he was a pretty conscious ‘health nut’. I remember the first time he suggested that we try and eat healthier. I was so offended! Haha. What, my cooking wasn’t healthy?! I decided to humor him and go along with his craziness. I started to slowly get what he was talking about but still thought it was too much effort to consistently try so hard at it.

THEN there was talk of oils. Essential oils. One night I started feeling the most severe stomach pain and was puking my guts out. I begged for him to take me to the doctor. It was one in the morning. He called his mom and then pulled out this shoe box, inside were a bunch of random sized amber colored glass bottles. He opened one up and told me he was going to rub some oil on my belly. I was ticked! Haha. Here I was in extreme pain (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit) and couldn’t keep anything down and he wanted to rub OIL on my stomach.

“Are you freaking kidding me?!”

Needless to say, I think I was so mad that he didn’t take me to the doctor that I couldn’t tell you if the oil did anything or not. I can’t even remember what it was he put on me. At this point all I could tell you was that I married a crazy man who ate ‘healthier’ and used oils for who knows what and started to talk about how I needed to control my own thoughts because what I thought is what I attracted.

“Alright, now my husband has officially lost his marbles.”

Like I started off with, I didn’t ever think that you needed to add anything extra into your body. What you were born with is what you got. Taking prenatal vitamins for my first pregnancy was a struggle. It was ‘too much effort’ to remember to take anything extra than the meals I was eating daily. I know, I know.

The next few years went on and I slowly, bit by bit started incorporating more healthy choices into my diet. Once again, it was when I joined Iron Rhino, an online fitness program, that I REALLY understood eating healthy and WHY it was so important. I joined about six months after having our second baby and was desperate for change. I was dealing with postpartum depression and just knew something was missing. Along with having 60 extra pounds to lose after that pregnancy, I was ready for change. When I joined, I dove in head first. I stuck to exactly what the trainer told me to do and it. was. awesome. I started to understand and feel the effect that unhealthy food choices had on me. How tired and sluggish I felt. I started to love this extra energy and enthusiasm I had for life by working out every day and eating 80-90% ‘clean’.

During the later part of that first year joining is where I really started to learn the power of our minds. I started to learn mental strength and talking about myself positively. Within that same time frame I met a girl that lived near me that I will forever be grateful for. She helped me understand our spirits and how powerful we as human beings are and instilled in me the love of wanting to help others learn the same. I started releasing blocks, for instance like thinking I wasn’t smart. I started understanding that I had value, I had worth and a purpose and that our bodies are something that we take care of and PUT IN healthy things to continue to be healthy. Our bodies are to be nourished. The bad taken out, the good put in.

I was also ‘re-introduced’ to oils by my older sister. I started to ‘get it’ and used them often. I was fully overwhelmed though by ALL the different options. Things kind of faded out with really trying to understand. I only used them if I remembered to or had something that needed some help physically.

Fast forward another few years and our family relocated four hours south of where we were living, and I was helping put together a health and fitness eBook. During this process, is where my sister and I really started learning about the power of our thoughts and minds. Also my husband, would ‘coach’ me along the way. He is an entrepreneur that totally gets all of this and has helped me to understand it but also help others understand it in simple terms.

During the beginning of launching said eBook, I started doing session calls to release negative emotion that I was holding on to and this is where I started to REALLY understand the power and NEED to love ourselves FIRST. We can’t give what we don’t have ourselves. I believe love is the most powerful thing and if we can learn to love ourselves, imagine the possibilities. Imagine the freeing feeling. No shame. No guilt.

Then it all started to kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. God has given us all these amazing tools to help us. To help us be healthy and learn to love ourselves. I started eating healthy and working out BECAUSE I loved myself. Not only because I wanted energy to keep up with my kids, etc. I started learning and understanding the power of essential oils not only as helping when I had a ‘problem’ but using them daily to support my health and emotions and being able to know exactly what was going on and in my body. I was on an awesome kick for a while and then went out of town and my routine fell to the wayside. I came back home and felt like I had been run over. I craved my routine, I craved my oils.

I realized that one of my blocks was that I didn’t feel worthy of any extra health benefits and that’s why I didn’t take the time to do it or understand it. I didn’t feel loved. I didn’t love myself. I wasn’t even AWARE that I didn’t feel worthy of care or that I truly did not love myself or my body.

Then I learned a step further. Our bodies will tell us what our bodies need. We can be so aware and in tune with our bodies that we know what we personally need to do exercise and health wise. I was stuck on the idea that you had to stick to one regimen to achieve a desired outcome. What I came to know is that, exercise should be fun. Period. That’s my number one and by doing this number two, I believe it will always be fun and something you enjoy. Number two is to listen to your body. If you want to run, go run. If you feel the need to lift. Go lift. Yoga? Go yoga it! Whatever your body needs, do it! You need exercise. It’s all about feeling healthy, strong, having energy, and feeling ALIVE!

The same goes for eating. Once you become aware and in tune with your body. You will feel what eating different foods does to you. Following an eating plan is great. It gives you a foundation, but also know that each of our bodies were created individually. So LISTEN to that individuality and do what is healthy for YOU and your body.

It has been SUCH a blessing and am thankful every day for the things that I am learning and have been introduced to to help me continually learn to love myself and all the different ways that I can fuel that love for myself.

This is our mission, this is our goal and hope that we can help others learn to truly love themselves and learn HOW to fuel that love because you ARE worth it. You DESERVE all the joy, health, love, and happiness that you desire and even more that you don’t even know is possible to have! We were created to have joy. We were created to love. So let’s start by creating YOUR love. Cozy up and learn with us as we share what we have found fuels your own love.

 

by Janica 0

My Self Love Journey- Janica

(Reading this may sound like my life was only horrible, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t. There were lots of awesome in my growing up. This just happens to be my story of my internal struggle with loving who I am. This is the realness of what went on onside my head.)

Growing up I had never really paid attention to my daily inner dialogue or was ever really aware of how I treated myself. I just went about each day trying to do and be the best of what I knew how at that time. I was always shy. I can’t recall on my own, but my mom tells me, I was always that way from the get go. As far back as I can remember, I would avoid conversation like the plague if I could, unless I knew someone really well. It was uncomfortable and I didn’t have much self confidence. This shyness around those I weren’t SUPER familiar with attributed to how I started to perceive myself, based on others perceptions of me because of said ‘personality’.

I did well in sports growing up and that was who I labeled myself as because that’s where my ‘confidence’ came from. It came because everyone knew Janica as ‘that Wood girl’ that was good at sports. I was pretty good. I’ll admit to that. I helped our soccer team take state my senior year as the PK (shoot-out) goalie. We won 3 games in a row going into shoot-outs to make it to the final game. I was named league MVP in basketball and got the Female Athletic Award at our School. I lived for sports. I felt important and could feel proud of myself there. I knew my teams counted on me.

I have always been taught from day one that I’m a daughter of God and I know that more deeply than ever before now, but growing up, I didn’t totally get it. All my confidence came from being known through sports.

I was always comparing myself to my two sisters. I have a sister 6 years older than me that gets along with ANYONE and immediately is their BFF. I have a sister 3 years younger than me that is the most bubbly, yellow personality whom EVERYONE loves. Then there was me. Janica. The shy one. Through the grapevine and sometimes straight to my face, I was called stuck-up, b***h, self-absorbed, etc. They saw me with my close friends being talk-a-tive and crazy, but if I was ever in a class where I didn’t know anyone really well I would stay to myself and get my work done then walk to my group of friends, sometimes without saying a word. In my eyes, I wasn’t as ‘likeable’ as my two sisters. The crowning moment that ‘proved’ that point was Jr. Miss. I participated in the program like my older sister, who won the Fitness Award, and also was named one of the runner ups. My younger sister also won the Academic Award and four or more other awards AND was named the Junior Miss of North Franklin.

Me?

Nothing.

That HAD to have meant I wasn’t as good as them and so I accepted that as a belief for me.

I was often, if not everyday, made fun of because of my ignorance to certain subjects and it became something that was pointed out and laughed at by sometimes my closest friends in group settings (usually consisting of guys I liked. And in high school, that was a big deal, right?! 😉 ).

I grew up thinking I was stupid and didn’t know anything. And I let that be a part of who I ‘was’. I did EVERYTHING I could to get out of math my Junior and Senior year of high school to avoid being put on the spot and looking dumb once again. Math did not come easy and it took a lot for me to understand what most all of my other classmates seemed to understand easily. I can’t even remember how it was possible, but I didn’t take math my Junior or Senior year and took two straight hours of art instead. I was good at art and no one could make fun of me in there.

I put myself in this victim mentality and I truly believed everything that happened to me or was said to me was how I really was and who I really was. I was Janica Wood, good at sports but shy, self-centered, stupid and not as fun or pretty as my other two sisters.

I was always sick growing up, too. The front desk at the insta-care in town knew me by name every time I walked in. I had mono in 7th grade, had intestinal flu, and I was a frequent to get allergy shots at another health center and had 2 sinus surgeries within a year of each other. No one else in my family was as sick as I always seemed to be.

So sports was my way of me feeling like I was important. I felt like a star there and I liked it there. But it was all coming from outside of me. So what happens when sports ended for me? I chose not to play at a few different junior colleges in Washington for basketball that were interested and instead chose the acceptance into Brigham Young University, merely on the fact that I felt like that’s where I was supposed to go and it must have been a miracle because SURELY there was no way that I was smart enough to get into BYU.

This is where it hit me that I didn’t have much self acceptance or self-esteem to live off of anymore. I cried many tears, okay okay more like I sobbed when my parents left to go back to Washington after dropping me off at BYU. I was rooming with one of my BF’s growing up, but she was a year older and our other four roommates she had already been roommates with for a year, so I was the only newbie and a freshman.  That was hard. I cried a lot at night that first month and I’m pretty sure I went home once a month that first semester and it’s a nine hour drive.

I went from being, Janica Wood, ‘the one to watch’ in sports to 1 in 30,000 students on campus. It was rough. I felt like a nobody who was going to flunk out of college because I’m dumb. My roommates were awesome at making me feel accepted and we had good times, but deep down I tore myself apart. That first year,  I wanted to be back in high school, I wanted to be on my ‘high of sports’. I wasn’t pretty enough, I wasn’t fun enough, I wasn’t smart enough, I didn’t dress cute enough. I always skimmed by doing the very least I could do to pass my classes in college. Classes where things didn’t come natural in learning, I struggled BIG time. I would stare at my computer screen with the thoughts on replay in my mind, “You’re stupid so how will you ever even really learn or remember any of this”, “If you go ask for help or get a tutor it will make you look even more dumb than you already are”.

During the beginning of my fifth year at BYU, I met my husband and we got married later that year. That brought a whole new aspect of things for me to compare me and my life to. BLOGS. I kept pretty busy my very last semester doing my internship and working, so it was after I graduated and had a job where they only needed me for a handful of hours each week that led to me blogging and blog stalking. I was looking for another job and couldn’t find one that fit my other schedule so I was home a lot. Then came more comparing. Comparing their perfect married life to my less than fantastic first year of marriage 🙂 It was a rough go and I’m positive now that my negative attitude toward myself and comparing to everyone else’s ‘perfect online lives’ contributed to that crappy first year. (Don’t worry, my husband would agree 100% with me that it was pretty craptastic).

I was a big fat mess in my head and I wasn’t even 100 percent aware of what I was doing to myself internally. But I put on a pretty good show on the outside. It got pretty bad at times but I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know how to change it, I just felt like that was my lot in life and I just had to deal and there was nothing I could do.

I had our second child, and I suffered with post-partum depression. I wasn’t taking care of my body. I struggled with eating problems and had to stop nursing because my health was declining. I struggled with feelings that there was no use for me anymore.

Soon after that, my older sister introduced me to a fitness program she joined and was a part of. I wanted to do whatever she was doing just because she looked awesome and I wanted that physical appearance. I thought for sure if my body looked better, I would feel better about myself and it would fix everything. I knew there was something more to it that I was needing but didn’t know it at the time. She introduced me to Iron Rhino, an online fitness program. This is where I first started to really understand the power of my mental strength. I pushed passed physical limits that I didn’t even know were possible. This is where my wheels started turning and where I started to understand that I could be stronger than the girl I thought I was that looked back at me in the mirror every day. I was getting stronger mentally, but I didn’t quite get it yet.

The next few years I started learning more and more about the power of our minds and about strength and getting rid of old thoughts and beliefs. It was amazing and I felt amazing, but there was still something missing.

Then one day a mentor and friend of mine asked me this simple question in reply to something I had asked her. She asked, “How do you show love to yourself?”

Say What?!

I honestly did not know how to answer that because I had never even thought about that! I had to google “what is showing love to yourself”? I didn’t even know if I even did anything or what that would even entail! After reading through a few things I found, I  fit A TON of the ‘not loving yourself’ column. I did do a couple of things but not with the intent of showing love to myself or doing these things solely because I loved me! They were usually things that I did so that I could be a better mom or wife, etc. A few weeks later I asked her that same question back to her and one of her answers were, “…basically I’m the nicest person to myself that I know”. That’s when it hit me. I am NOT nice to myself. I pick myself apart like nobody’s business. I don’t purposefully do things with the intent that I’m doing them because I love Janica.

That’s where things really started to change for me. I started reading ‘self-help’ books, I started purposefully making sure that I did things EVERY morning and during the day that fueled my ‘self-love’. I sought after anything that would help me grow and learn. I got a few mentors and had a lot of sessions that helped clear blocks that I had mentally. I was able to really get down deep. Sometimes it hurt, a lot of the times, I cried. My eyes were opened to the fact that I actually had hated myself and I hid it so deeply that I wasn’t even aware. I wasn’t even accepting all these things I was doing for myself to show myself love. I was doing all these things, but internally wasn’t accepting them. I was denying myself my OWN love because I didn’t think I was worthy of it and I didn’t even know.

Then I was able to be aware of how I was treating other people and noticed that when I took care of myself FIRST, WITHOUT feeling shame or guilt, I was able to be present with my kids and show them the love that they needed. It’s still a work in progress and some days definitely go better than others but it’s been an amazing start and turn around for me.

I now understand the value and importance of showing ourselves love first and then we are able to more fully love, serve, and take care of others around us. It opens a lot more doors, it keeps us on a higher energy level and is just a beautiful thing. I started noticing a lot more in depth of how women specifically don’t give themselves the time of day. They work like crazy making sure everyone else has their needs met and then are too tired or forget about taking care of their own.

That’s when Fuel Love was born. I am excited about helping others learn to love themselves and that it’s OKAY and you NEED to. I’m passionate about sharing those things that fuel your own personal love. Love Is Everything and it starts with YOU. We can create, we can expand and we can LOVE. We can Fuel Love.