Accepting, Forgiving and Emotion

Today started out really rough. I was getting really annoyed and frustrated in my basketball class and anger started to build up. It's been building up in me quite a bit lately. People would annoy me over stupid things and I've just felt this anxiety and anger build up in me and I don't understand. But I think I now know why. I judge myself. Whenever I feel annoyed at someone or something that I know shouldn't bother me, I try to fight those feelings all that I can and then when I don't win the fight I get even angrier and I direct all that anger and frustration at myself. I feel like I should be better than that and I think my main problem is I expect myself to be perfect. I realized today though that if I just accept those feelings and realize it's ok that I'm not perfect, I don't actually get angry with people or as annoyed by them. This whole semester I've been struggling with the fact that I'm not perfect and I didn't even realize it. Because it was never the people that actually annoyed me so much, and fueled my anger and anxiety, it was my frustration with myself for allowing myself to get annoyed.
 
    Today I read in the Doctrine and Covenants and it said "I the Lord will forgive whom I will forgive but of you it is required to forgive all men." And today I realized that, that applied to forgiving myself. At the temple this morning I prayed and begged for forgiveness for my shortcomings and for allowing myself to be.... human.     And I felt like God's response was hey I still love you and always will, I forgive the humble and sincere and you are forgiven of your faults, you're the one that needs to forgive yourself.

   This also lead me to another realization, which don't get me wrong I've had this before, but today I needed it more. That my opinion is the only one that matters and that me accepting myself is what's important and that when I do that others will accept me more too.  It's just that lately I have felt very judged by roommates and friends at different times. They joke about me being an angry and mean person. And regardless of whether they mean it or not, that hurts because I try so hard and I'm my own worst enemy enough without them riding my back too. It shouldn't matter what they think and how they see me, because I know who I really am and I know I'm actually quite a nice and loving person and that people who really know me can attest to that. But then again I'm human and sometimes peoples opinions of me bother me.

  In my actors and emotions class, we've been studying and going over the different emotions. We are being taught to accept them and let them happen. I thought that was weird at first, and by going over these emotions I have learned that I try to box them away and hide them from others and myself. However this class and life this semester has proved to me that it is better to accept them for the movement and then you can move on. They won't pop up again later as anger or anxiety within yourself. Emotions are a part of our human nature. I'm accepting that. I am after all... human. And I'm not perfect. I've realized problems I've had for a long time have come through not accepting myself, or not accepting a situation. Acceptance really is key. Acceptance doesn't mean I'm terrible and can never be better so why bother? it means this is who I am now, and that's ok, I can slowly get better over time. Acceptance means this is my situation and thats ok.  Acceptance means this is the emotion I'm feeling right now and that's OK. And Ironically the more you accept, the more you can control.
 

Everyone's doing it.

So I decided to start a blog. All of my friends have them and I enjoy reading them from time to time and thought maybe someone out there might enjoy reading mine. However I also thought that maybe I could share some of my experiences and struggles in life on here and that maybe, just maybe someone out there could be helped. Honestly though I think I'm doing this mostly for myself. I wish I kept a better journal and I think that this sort of counts and it's a lot faster than writing in pen. And I think this could really be therapeutic for me and I just felt like I should do it.