Blog

October 6, 2015

Meet Natalie Mukhtar

I’m blessed to know Natalie Mukhtar. She might not remember this, but the first time I met her was on a grassy spot on campus. I had joined the upperclassmen Bible study with the Christian club I was involved with at SJSU and I was in dire need of friends since I was new to the area. The conversation came up that I was a Recreation major and a bunch of people said, “You have to meet Natalie! She loves Hume Lake (a popular Christian camp in California)!” I was instantly drawn to her spirit and laughter, and knew that I wanted to be her friend.

Things you need to know about Natalie: she gives the BEST hugs. I was never lacking in the hug department. She is extremely talented. Her mind thinks creatively and in an abstract way. I have also had some of the best conversations about the Lord with her. I’m able to be vulnerable with her due to listening ear and grace filled heart.

I’m thrilled to be sharing Natalie with you. She’s a person you need in your life.

S: Where do you live and how old are you?
N: I live in the middle of the Silicon Valley, and I’m 24 years old.

S: What did you get your degree in?
N: I graduated with a BS in Industrial Design, which is more like product design and less like architecture.

S: What were you like as a kid?
N: I built everything that came into my mind out of Legos – that’s what occupied most of my brain space. I was also super shy and timid, never felt “big” enough to approach an adult for anything, so I always just kept to myself. That’s probably why I used Lego as my expressive outlet. My cousins would probably tell you I was very empathetic. Kind of like how a dog senses sadness or happiness or fear. I could always pick a low spirit out of a room, and apparently I’d walk over and try to comfort the person with a hug or some slobbery kid kiss. And then go back to building robots out of Legos. I remember this on a few instances but never thought anything of it. That’s me in my kid years.

S: What three words describe you?
N: Creative, loving, and determined.

S:What do you do for a living?
N: I’m an industrial designer at a couple design firms in the Bay Area. That basically means I think of an idea for a new or existing product, and then I design and make it. Someone smarter comes in to find a way to sell it in stores. Can I add that I’ve been mesmerized with the process of creating things lately? I can’t hardly believe humans have the ability to think of something and then make it exist. This is precisely why I love my profession, it reminds me of Genesis – God’s ability to think of something and speak it into existence. It reminds me that we’re made in His image, because we have that same awesome ability to think and create, but realistically, on a much smaller scale.

S: You were always so busy in your classes. Was there ever a moment when you wanted to give up?
N: That’s funny. I often reached many “ends,” but never thought of fully giving up. I switched majors two years in to avoid wasting time on my original degree, and changed little bits and pieces of my college experience until I found a sweet spot that kept me going. I remember church shopping mid-college career so that I could plug in and be fed spiritually. Friend shopping was a blessing when I needed emotional support. For the rest of it, God kept opening doors so that I would realize that He had me right where I needed to be. Every time He opened a door I was rejuvenated and encouraged enough to go on until the next door opened. Don’t get me wrong, I had so many drained, wiped clean, rock bottom days, but somewhere in the low days I would remember His faithfulness, and it wasn’t fair to recognize His devotion to me and not reciprocate it. So I stayed on the path He laid out, even when I felt blind.

S:What kind of advice would you give to someone going into a design career?
N: I would say only do it if you love it. It is so not worth the late nights and baggy eyes and friendship-pauses, if you don’t feel at all fulfilled by it, or if you don’t feel like you’re helping others with it.

S: Quick resume?
N: Interned at a small design firm in 2012 in San Jose
Interned at a tech company from 2013-15 in the greater Bay Area
Now working at two design firms in San Jose

S: What do you like about what you do?
N: I wish I could infect every person on this earth with immense joy. But I can’t…or can I…
My absolute favorite part of my job is that everything I make is available to billions of people all around the world. And if I design my products with good intention (which I try to do), then the experience people will have with my products will hopefully be at minimum, pleasant, and at most, life changing. BOOM, billions reached.

S: Share a cool moment in your young career.
N: When one of the first products I’ve worked on launched, I was so excited to see it in stores that I went to a local Costco, picked my baby off the shelf and took an ecstatically unashamed photo with it…but didn’t buy it because it was still too expensive. I bet people walking by thought I was nuts. I later realized that people don’t normally take photos with items they find in stores… so that’s just me.

*Of course we had to share the picture 😉

S: Favorite verse?
N: Philippians 2:3 – Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

S: What makes a Captivating Woman?
N: Confidence! But not the ego-filled, self-facing kind, because that’s monotonous and circular. I think all of my friends are captivating women, and they are the least self-indulgent people I know. I am drawn to them firstly because of their joy for life. They always seem to have something to be thankful for, and in turn they treat others with generosity and kindness. I’m not the deepest person intellectually, I don’t think I think more than the average person, but I see confidence when I see people helping others. When people aren’t afraid to sacrifice a bit of themselves to grow someone else, that’s attractive, and that’s captivating.

S: Favorite story in the bible?
N: Um a bit odd, sorry for the horror story, but I love the startling prophetic story in Revelation 11:1-14 written by John. Two witnesses are sent to earth (many scholars believe they are Elijah and Moses since they ascended and never actually physically died) to prophecy for 3.5 years while the spiritual state of the earth is dismal. God gives the prophets the amazing ability to breathe fire and destroy their enemies, and also gives them power to stop the rain, turn water to blood, and strike the earth with any plague as often as they want. The authority handed to them by Him, who has authority over them, is astounding and indicates complete trust in their judgment. Well, at the end of the 3.5 years of prophesying they are killed by “the beast,” and their bodies lay dead on the open ground for 3.5 days as people pass by, mock them, and rejoice over their death. On the third day, they are raised from the dead and ascend to heaven. Sound familiar? And the story ends with an earthquake, “At that very hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.”
There are lots of reasons I like this story. In an odd way, it comforts me to be reminded that it’s never too late to turn to God. Even if you mock Him or his people for the majority of your life, in your last moment of life you can genuinely turn to Him and He will accept you. But this story also indicates urgency. You never know when your life will end, you could be one of the ones that dies in a tragedy, or you could be safe until your natural end, but why wait to find out?

S: Who are some Captivating Women in your life that we need to know about?
N: Kristen Rhea, Katie Assadi, &. Esther Han. These women love God and are pursuing careers in the fields that God has gifted them in. They are determined, content, confident women who have active goals and aspirations. I respect their drive. They are pavers and natural leaders, and the way they conduct themselves is captivating.

September 29, 2015

Cold Brew Coffee

Honestly, I don’t like Starbucks cold brew coffee. It has a strange sour flavor to me. Maybe they were having an off day when they made it, but it hasn’t been a drink I’ve been loving. The price for the cold brew doesn’t make sense either. It’s more expensive than their iced coffee.

I’m not that hip, but I make my own cold brew coffee. Of course I’ve wanted all the cool tools like a coffee grinder and a pretty pour over contraption, but I buy whole beans at the store and grind them there. The french press I use comes from T.J. Maxx.

Making cold brew coffee at home is easy and cheap. It takes probably 2 minutes out of your day to prepare it. I’m thankful that the process is easy. I love a tall glass of iced cold brew any day of the week and at any time of the day. That has become a problem because I’m wide awake for hours if I have cold brew after 1 p.m.

You can make your cold brew coffee in a french press, a big mason jar, or a pitcher. You don’t need anything spectacular.

I use a french press because it’s easier to put in my refrigerator. The ratio of ground coffee to water will differ if you’re not using a french press.

The key thing you need to know about making cold brew is: you must start with whole beans and then grind them. When you grind them, the setting should be on course. Honestly, I don’t know the reasoning of this. Every article I’ve read about making cold brew coffee and grinding your coffee beans shares that the coffee grounds need to be course.

I like using Peet’s Coffee. Their coffee is delicious and it’s easy to find their whole beans at the store.

I use 1/3 cup of grounded coffee in my french press. Easy, peasy.

Now this is the hard part – add filtered water. That is it! Actually the hardest part is waiting. So make it the night before and your morning will be heavenly.

I put plastic wrap over my french press when I put it in the fridge. You DON’T want to press the plunger down when you put it in the refrigerator because you want you all the water and ground coffee to mix and do it’s heavenly dance.

One of my favorite things to do with my coffee is add condensed milk. Yes, it’s super sweet but it’s incredibly delicious. Now you’re making Vietnamese coffee!

When it comes to your second day of drinking your coffee (if you’re using a french press), I would pour the coffee over a coffee filter. It catches all the sludge, which is gross and should not be enjoyed. If you’re using a pitcher or jar, I would also recommend pouring the coffee over a coffee filter. Cheers!

September 22, 2015

I am Enough

{I feel the need to preface this by saying that I in no way claim to understand all mental health issues. There are so many ways our minds can work against us, and I don’t claim to be the spokesperson for what life with minds that don’t love us the way they should looks like. I just also can’t keep hiding behind that fact when it means that my experience with them doesn’t get shared out of fear or worry of popular opinion}

When I was in college, I was diagnosed with Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Long story short, it’s the tendency to fixate on one flaw in my person and appearance and assume that not only is the flaw evident to everyone I meet, but it’s all that anyone can see when they look at me. As a teenager, it involved a lot of side glances into the mirror to see if my stomach was sticking out too far, if my arms looked too fat, if my nose stuck out too far, if my neck had rolls in photos, if my jawline or shoulders weren’t clearly defined in photos, if I was wearing shorts I worried my knees looked fat, or that my ankles were too big or too weirdly shaped, that my feet were fat in sandals, that my hands/fingers/nails were too short and stumpy, if my eyes were too green or too blue or too squinty, if my hair was too long/short/frizzy/curly/oily, that my voice was too low/high/breathy/squeaky, if I laughed too hard at someone’s joke or not hard enough, and about a thousand other things. All. Day. Long. For 10 years, I did this to myself over and over again, from the time I woke up until I fell asleep. It was exhausting, but it was my life and I convinced myself it was normal.

I was in really wonderful youth groups where I encouraged people to be real and vulnerable with their struggles, and I didn’t even know where to start. I’d actually have to admit that I couldn’t do it all on my own, and that there might be something wrong with me. I heard these really beautiful and polished speakers tell me to fake it until I made it. So I got incredibly good at faking it, but never quite figured out how to make it. I got so good at faking it, that literally no one except my college roommate had any idea that I was even insecure. I put on a heck of a show: I was involved in everything, intelligent, talented and focused. I needed to feel useful because in my mind that was the only way people would want me around, so I did everything I could handle at a time and then some. I was a people pleaser and never the squeaky wheel. I was the image of a girl with it all together, because I was terrified that people would be so uncomfortable or ashamed of me if they knew that I was secretly broken.

In college, I lived with the same girl for four years, and there were a lot of late night conversations where I was more vulnerable than I’d ever been in my life. A lot of the things I’d believed and fixated on in my own head found their way out of my mouth and didn’t sound quite so true when I was hearing myself say it aloud. She, and eventually several other friends, encouraged me to go talk to someone. But to go to a therapist meant that I was admitting that not only was I broken, I was broken to the point that my hyper-capability couldn’t fix it. It meant that I’d have to have some hard conversations with people I couldn’t bear to disappoint, it meant that I was one of those people with mental health issues. If I didn’t go, I could keep telling myself it wasn’t really that bad.

I fought it kicking and screaming for 18 months, determined that enough prayer and spiritual maturity would cure it for me. If I just spent more time in the word, prayed a little harder, opened up to people one on one, and made myself look as close to Proverbs 31 as I could, I could whittle it down to manageable enough levels and cope with it forever. It was fine. It was normal, and I’d make it work because I’m stubborn enough to make most things work on sheer will alone. And for a while, I was successful. I was getting better, I was more confident, I started talking to boys I liked rather than hide myself away because if I killed it before it started nobody could hurt me but me. And then I was in a situation where I had put myself out there and it did not go well, thrusting me fully back into my own head, making up answers for why it didn’t work. My tolerance for handling the harsh voice in my head had diminished and all of a sudden my own self-hatred and judgment was back at full force. I couldn’t handle it and still pretend that everything was fine, so I surrendered and made the appointment.

I met with her, determined to let it out slowly, and of course the dam of self-control burst and all I knew how to give rushed out in 57 minutes. She at some point mentioned something about a vulnerability hangover, where I would probably feel really raw and vulnerable after sharing so much, but that I shouldn’t let those feelings prevent me from returning. It sounded so manageable when she said it, and the reality of it was easily 10 times worse. I hid in my house from the world for 3 days, leaving only to go to class and work and then come back home.

But I went back the next week, and the next and the next for 6 months. And I learned that just because an errant thought about my body or my behavior entered my head, it didn’t mean that it was how the world saw me. I learned that refusing to talk about it only gave it more power and more room to grow, and that when I brought it into the light, it didn’t quite have the same grip on me it had had before. I learned that much of it stemmed from my inability to feel secure in the question, “But at the end of the day, when everything else is stripped away and gone, and it’s just me with all of my flaws and imperfections, am I enough?” I learned that beauty just is. It exists everywhere and when I seek it, I can find it. If I look for it in myself with the same fervor I used to look for flaws, I find it all over the place. I learned that I can’t really be gentle with other people until I know how to be gentle with myself. I learned that being gentle with myself just as I am when I want to be fixed and perfect is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, and keep doing every day. I learned that there are people in my life who love me and who won’t run even though parts of my brain don’t make it easy to let me love me, but they can’t help me if I won’t let them in.

I learned and finally understood that God saw me with my laundry list of things I hated about myself and somehow still called me not only lovely, but perfect and blameless in His sight.

Some days, I’m great. I walk out of the house feeling beautiful and confident from a place that is still really new to me. And some days, my makeup just doesn’t work, or my nose feels too big or I feel so fat that I know that people are staring at me. I won’t pretend to be fixed or all better, much as I wish I could be. Some days, I wake up and feel like I’ve made the whole thing up in my head for attention and that I am just blowing normal insecurity out of proportion. And then, as only He can, the Lord reminds me yet again that I am His. That I am beautiful, intelligent, kind, strong and not meant to brave this alone. That until the day comes that I receive complete healing or I make it to heaven, I will have to make the conscious choice to rest in what God says about me and not believe the harsh voice in my head.

On days I succeed, I can see glimpses of how this will somehow all be worth it, how the journey of healing is difficult but is only another piece of the tapestry God is weaving. On days I fail, I’m reminded and overwhelmed that “my grace is sufficient for you, and my power is perfected in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9) and “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’” (Lamentations 3: 22-24)

I’m reminded that I am never in this alone, and even when I let myself forget, I am beautiful. I am worthy. I am so very enough.

September 17, 2015

What Makes a Captivating Woman?

Go to any grocery or book store and you’ll find magazines with titles that say:

“10 Ways to Meet your Future Husband!”

“5 Mascaras You Need in Your Life!”

“4 Steps to Your Beautiful Self!”

Honestly, I like standing in longer lines at the grocery store. It’s my time to read through magazines because I’m a little bit cheap and I don’t want to spend $8. I’ll scan through the articles to find how I can be my beautiful self, to then realize I’ll need to cut out sugar and purchase a lip plumper that would cost me an arm and a leg.

Instantly I feel dread and disappointment. I’ll think to myself, “I’ll never fully know what being my beautiful self is because I didn’t accomplish the 4 steps.”

We live in a culture that creates lists. We believe that if we follow a formula we can be a new person, or gain a job, or be the best mom on the face of universe. But those lists are almost never met.

So what makes a Captivating Woman?

There’s not a list, a 5 week program, or a book you can read to make yourself captivating. There is nothing you can do to become a captivating woman. Breath in that freedom, sister.

The title is misleading for a reason.

See, I used to live by formulas. I needed a check list because I thought if I accomplished all things, THEN whatever I was aiming for would happen. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time I ended up in failure.

I ended up in tears. I ended up binging on food. I ended up shaming my body and the way I put on my makeup. I lied to myself and said I would never be pursued by a man because I wasn’t in spin class 6 days a week.

There’s a very popular chapter in Proverbs. Before I say it, I’m sure you already know what I’m referring to. Proverbs 31. Please understand: I am not dishonoring God’s word. I am not saying that Proverbs 31 should be erased from the Bible. I’m not saying we should not study Proverbs 31.

But I believe as a community of women we have made the Proverbs 31 woman the ultimate goal in our life. But the thing is, we are not going to hit every quality in that chapter. I’ve heard ladies say that we should learn how to sew because Proverbs 31:19 says, “Her hands are busy spinning thread, her fingers twisting fiber.”

I am terrible at sewing. I sewed a dress for my doll when I was 11 and it was alright. It wasn’t something I would put on my body.

But I know some gals who are incredible seamstresses. I am so drawn to their skill and craft. I would do anything to be talented in that category.

If I made a list of every quality of the Proverbs 31 woman, I would feel overwhelmed. I think a lot of us feel overwhelmed when we are looking at lists of what to do to become something. And even as we try our hardest, someone is always doing it bigger and better. We feel so inadequate.

I can’t imagine being a mom one day. There are those moms who make motherhood look easy. Next to them are the ones with macaroni in their hair staring at the “Mom of the Year”.

If you read all of chapter 31, you see her as this energizing bunny. She keeps going and doing and serving and loving. And all of that is beautiful. But for me, there are days when I’m done. I’m empty. I don’t have as much grace as I should. I lack joy at times. I take a few naps during the week.

But yet God still rules in my heart. His nature is still flowing through my bloodstream. I am able to reflect who He is in the quiet moments when I’m not even trying to.

I’m going to repeat this again: there is nothing you can do to become a Captivating Woman.

We are captivating because of a King. As followers of Christ, daughters of the King, we instantly reflect who He is.

Galatians 2:20 says, “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

I’m not captivating by how I dress, the makeup I use, or by the way I walk. I’m captivating because I’m allowing Christ to live through me. I’m allowing His characteristics to shine through my pores (and they are probably really oily). People are not drawn towards me because I’m Sarah Sandoval, they are drawn to me because I resonate Christ.

I’m thankful that we don’t have to complete a 25 step program to become captivating. By us being the woman God intended us to be, we shine, we draw people in, we captivate others because He lives in us.

If you’re quiet, you’re captivating. If you’re loud and wear purple lipstick, you’re captivating. If your hair is flat and have pimples covering your face, you’re captivating.

You are captivating.