Vocal Heart.

Speak your heart out.


I don't believe in regretting.
I believe there are appropriate & inappropriate times for things to be said.
I don't believe we should hold back because of fear.
I choose to not believe in fear: of rejection, of failure, & of pain.
I believe in love.
I do not believe love is boxed into that giddy, butterfly, space of oneself.
I believe in fighting for what you love.
& I do not believe in ruined friendships over speaking your heart: Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind. (Thanks Dr. Suess, wise man.)


What I want most in this life of mine, is to be loved with an honest love.
I don't mean that what I want most is to find the perfect guy & for him to love & obsess over me.
No, I want honesty, I want loyalty, I want laughter, I want imperfection. I just want someone to like me, to know that, and to choose to try, or to fight for me.

I am difficult. Independent beyond reason. I don't settle. I believe in a good, healthy confrontation. I am bold, fierce, and in all of this, I can be intimidating.
This I know about myself.

But in all of that, I also love with my whole self.

And it is from that love that I speak, encourage, and also confront those around me.
Not in judgment or in critique, but instead in love, and in a desire to my core to have honest and authentic relationships all around me. I want those around me to know that I love them, but not just in times of fun and frill, because love is more than butterflies, or inside jokes, or a photo reel. Love is a fight, a vulnerability, and a goal. Defensiveness should be an obstacle to climb, not a reason to bail out and run. Fight for those you love friends. & know that you are loved today, even if it is by a fiercely honest love.


Danielle Nicole.

A Name.

Dear Danielle Nicole,

Some days I think you chose me, not my mother. My mother thought you looked elegant written on the tag of a blouse in 1987. But how much can the tag of a shirt say for a girl? Apparently more than I thought as a child.

I didn’t like you very much back then. I dreamed of being called by something else with deep meaning or attributes of a person that had influenced great women of the past. I wanted you to come from a strong woman who sought to be honest, and aspired to love those around her fiercely: maybe a Marilyn, or an Eleanor. As I grew, I tried to change you to fit another role I found appealing. I introduced you to others as Dani. As Dani you seemed fun, curious, and unique. I thought I could improve you by changing you, but you knew we were fit from the start regardless of my shallow opinions of you. You knew I would one day grow into your strength and poise.

Over the last 6-7 years you have changed me. You have shined light on a part of you I couldn’t see before. You have led me to believe in dreams, in fears, and in accomplishments. You remind me to believe in laughter. I have grown into your desire for exploring and for all things that float and sparkle. If you were an object you would be a balloon because you love to rise to the occasion and to lead when there is opportunity for growth. If you were a song you might play loudly Beyonce’s “Single Ladies,” because your heart leans towards encouraging women to know their worth. Your love language is writing and that language echoes your love for those around you. Words of affirmation and of excitement for life and adventure seep through you. If you were a color you would be gold because you value life to it’s fullest potential and your worth isn’t found in temporary light. You mean: “God is my Judge, Victory of the people,” and this meaning has shown its face in you more and more each year. You seek many adventures and goals to accomplish, but ultimately judged not by any peer, or scholar, but instead, judged by God alone. Even as I shy away from roles of leadership from time to time, you push me towards them. In each step you lead me towards an even fuller potential of myself and now as I see your true meaning and worth. I will walk with you to every next chapter, thank you for the ways you have shaped and continue to shape me.

Love,

Danielle Nicole.

Bildungsroman.

Isn't it funny how things that we could never imagine happening to us, tend to end up happening?
I never imagined myself experiencing many of the things I have in the past 5 years,
especially never did I think I would pursue a career in teaching.
I even remember, ironically, telling someone who suggested the field to me years ago that I was not cut out for that, & that I was on the road to get out of the classroom, hence graduation, not go back to it for a living.
Ha!
Ha is all I have to say to myself right now as I slave behind huge books of literature! Ancient, modern, english, latin, american, prose, poetry, biography, even bildungsroman novels! What?! What does that even mean & how did I get to this position where I must know & be tested on a word and piece of literature described like that???

I guess it goes back to my last semester of undergrad at Azusa Pacific University when I really needed an internship & a friend of mine, also a youth pastor at a church, really needed a helping hand. When I volunteered as a youth leader/mentor I had no intention of getting completely and wholly swallowed up and spit out onto a path in which my heart is completely passionate. The love I have for the students I have now & have had over the years is a crazy love. A love I can only do justice in comparing it to a parental love. I want to protect them with everything I have, guide them in anyway I can, and support them with my whole self. I'm telling you, this love for my students makes me feel like I have 20 kids at times & want what's best for each one of them. Talk about a crazy passion!
I love the part of the life-learning process a high schooler is in. Learning strategies for academic learning and studying, but also learning about becoming who they want to grow to be. Choosing moral standing, style, hobbies to lead to career ideas, what makes their passions peak, & what disappoints them in relationships. These things all start to become real, and serious areas of thought and experiment in high school and I love seeing this process begin. I love walking in areas of confusion, or moments of passion, and even in phases of complete suck, and yes that is the best term for it. Just to acknowledge these students as valid and important and encourage them in dreaming big & living in action really pours out of a part of my heart I didn't even know existed years ago. But as this part of me flows more freely and overflows in other areas of my life as I begin to go to school to pursue a further career involved in student life I realize I am not just mentoring the growth of the student. But they are also walking with me in my own story, my own learning, and my own suck at times. Teaching me what moral standings I prioritize in myself, and in what ways I am gifted in teaching & where I need practice. Grooming me towards a place where I can see myself teaching a class, learning with the students I will teach, and loving that process.

& That my friends, is a small, acorn size piece, of my own bildungsroman story. A formation story, or coming of age story, the focus on the psychological and moral growth of the main character. Cheers to each of your own bildungsroman stories!


Danielle Nicole.

Insp[eye]red.

As I reflect this morning on the people I have met in the last few weeks overseas I am reminded of a post I began over a year ago, more of a continuous thought really, titled "Insp-eye-red." These thoughts began from the connection of simple, yet sacred moments of eye contact with those around me and as I sit here reflecting my time in Africa I am most fondly remembering most intimate moments of eye contact.

I remember these moments best because eyes are powerful.
They are honest, & profound.
They speak words that the tongue cannot express & the body does not give justice to.
"Eyes are the window to the soul" said an old English Proverb,
& I firmly agree with this picture and the idea that eyes lead beyond a body.

People's eyes move me.
Move me to a place of intimate emotion and of curiosity to know more,
to feel more.
Eyes speak big stories.
Stories of loss & struggle,
Of pain, and abandon, and hunger.
But those same eyes, they also speak of a love.
A deep joyful love that seeps out and infects those eyes who meet theirs.

Children,
with no shoes,
a torn dress 3 sizes too big,
but with eyes full of joy and a longing for you to smile when looking at them,
to accept them and embrace them with eyes which look back with a joy and love for who they are.
Because life doesn't need new shoes, and ice, and running showers daily.
Life is improved by luxuries, even the smallest ones yes.
but what life needs,
is love.
is joy.
is hope.
And that is where my prayers begin,
with the hope, and the joy, and the love of those eyes whom met my own.



Danielle Nicole.

The Bind.

"'Cause even the stars they burn
Some even fall to the earth

We've got a lot to learn

God knows we're worth it

No, I won't give up

I don't wanna be someone who walks away so easily

I'm here to stay and make the difference that I can make

Our differences they do a lot to teach us how to use

The tools and gifts we got yeah,"

Oh Jason, what a lady killer. 
But seriously. This song is absolutely beautiful. Such a sweet, love song full of truth and flooding with an image of the fight in love. & as much as the next girl, I have fallen head over heels for this song and the way it sings to every girls desire to have a man fight for her and not abandon her in the darkness of this life. & As that part of my heart is deeply felt when I hear this song come on, today I heard it and it wasn't singing to me from my someday boy (whoever you are out there).  It was as if my heart was screaming inside me through this song, desiring with its entirety to hear this from those near me, those who consider me a friend, a sister, a mentor, a romance, a daughter, those I need dearly. 
A longing inside for this song to be my roommates letting me know they won't give up on us. For it to be my mother reminding me that God knows we're worth it. For it to be my Dad telling me he doesn't want to be someone who walks away so easily.  For a boy to be telling me no, he won't give up. & For friends to decide they're here to stay and make the differences we can make. 


This song put my biggest fear into current perspective. I am terrified of abandonment. I have endured abandonment of all shapes & sizes. Abandonment by circumstances, by death, by differences in opinion, and by choice, & I have come to decide that none are easy, at least for me. Right now I am in a season of my own darkness of being bound my this fear. It rules my heart and dictates my thoughts, allowing me to believe a ton of lies about who I am & who I am growing to be. Lies that tell me I am never going to be good enough. Lies that tell me I am always going to do something that pushes away those in my life. Lies that demand loneliness. Lies that tell me I am the only reason for the abandonment I have experienced. 
This song sings so deeply into myself because it sings the things I long for the most; a loyalty & fight for my worth. 
& Yet daily I am trying to conquer these lies when they have already been conquered for me. 
All I have to do is believe that. 
Believe in truth. 
Truths that worth, and beauty, 
and strength are at my core. 
Truths that speak of how much beauty and worth 
is in pain and struggle. 
Truths that speak against lies of ugliness and of failure. 
I need these truths right now. 


Today I choose to believe.
Because,  I had to learn what I've got, and what I'm not, And who I am.
& I won't give up.


Be free.
Choose truth.
Love beyond reason.


This is what I want today.




Danielle Nicole.

Discipline Shmiscipline.

Today I did the most incredibly anti-danidavis thing ever I think. I post-poned going to the Happiest Place on Earth to meet my cousins for the Leap Year Day event, to take a nap, but even more.... to run. I know I know, not a Dani Davis qualifying action, but yes, this did just happen. I actually just got done with my run now & well, it feels good, but not because my body loves running (yet), or because this particular run felt good or easy, because it didn't. No, it was hard & I got bored & tired: fact.
But it feels good right now to say to myself that I made a commitment & I am going to remain bound to that. I mean, that's what it means to commit right? To stick with something even in the trials and rough, thick parts of life, or in my case right now through sore hips and tiresome, hard-to-begin runs around my neighborhood. It is more than an accomplishment to commit to anything, especially to those things you don't love all the time but which also evolve you into a better version of yourself. I think if we could all  follow through on more of the things we commit to in our lives we could easily watch ourselves stride towards a higher potential.

 So here I sit, ready to nap, ice on my hips, water within arms reach to cheers to the day when I can say I held out, or held on to this commitment, to the day when I will be glad I chose running over longer naps and longer disneyland days,  and to the day when I walk across a hard finish line & know that discipline is freeing, cheers.


Danielle Nicole.

Cue in Alanis Morrisette.

Irony is a hilarious concept.

It seriously never fails that once you put your foot down & decide on something for your life, the opposites of what you are deciding tend to start creeping in, or working against all odds. & I feel like this is especially true during the season of lent. Just when you decide you are going to give up Facebook for Lent, some insane deal that you can only get by liking a company's Facebook page occurs, or you give up chocolate & you happen to win a months supply of free See's, or you give up men & the one you wonder about decides he wants to let you in. The irony. 

But this irony is one that holds power. The power of testing us and our ability to choose what we want in the immediate, or what we want in the long run. A test of impulse vs. discipline, because the things we wanted at a moment would come to our fingertips when we decide to take a step back & withdraw from them, go figure. These moments of irony bring us to a cross road of choosing what we think is best, choosing what is important to us. Choosing if we just want immediacy, or if we want to wait the good wait if it brings better for us.

What is important to me are the people in my life.  The people who fill my thoughts and my heart, the ones who walk with me, who live lives parallel, but also perpendicular to my own. Ones who live next to me daily, but also those who live across the country, or even the globe. People who have stories and life to them that make my own story so much more valuable and intimate. I want these people to be happy, to be filled, to be cared for and for them to know it. In this desire for those in my life, I want to be someone who is synonymous to this, who adds joy and who brings care to their lives. In order for me to do this I am learning I must also take care of myself. If I'm honest, I wish I could take care of others & I would follow in place with magic care taken of myself. But if I'm real, that's not how it works.

No, in order for me to bring joy and care to those in my life, I must take a step back and look at how to best care for them. And that's what I did this year when this Lent season came. I don't choose to fast or add something every year, but this year a desire to be physically healthy with an calm, open heart weighed in my mind as a way to extend my ability to care for those in my life. My response to this was a motivation to follow through on this desire that has stirred inside me for quite some time now. I have a heart that has experienced a wealth of trauma, loss, and pain, but that same heart has a tremendous amount of resilience, or fight, for why it beats; for those dear to me. So really, I think I owe it to the strength of my heart and the way it continues to surprise me with strength and more fight than I could have ever imagined myself to have 5 years ago, to really motivate myself in physical health, as well as guarding my heart to allow for a peace and openness to replace the fears and the flight. Even if in the middle of this decision, my body begs me to sleep instead of run, and my insecurities beg me to seek momentary attention from men instead of waiting it out and remembering my worth. I owe it to my resilient heart and my desire to ultimately be someone who brings deep care and joy to those in my life, to exercise and run in this season and to wait the good wait, seeking respect and a reminder of worth for myself.

I think I may even owe all the past pain, & future pain while I'm at it, a thank you down the road, for teaching my heart how to fight, how to not lose hope, and how to love so deeply. 

They say the best things are worth fighting for, right? 

Isn't it ironic, don'tcha think?

Danielle Nicole.