What to keep

This has been an insane week, a beautiful week, though still insane. As many of you are probably aware I have been creating a mentoring business the last few weeks and can I just say how it has rocked me to my core. For a long time I've worked an 8-5 job, working hard all day, coming home each night feeling as if I've been beaten up and reading books just as fast as I could get through them. Now even though I am busier than I have every been (working 8-5, having mentor appointments during my lunches, team calls every morning at 6, and trying to grow a website and online presence) I love my life and I'm not hiding in books anymore.

I've been on a journey trying to figure out what it is that I really want to help people to do. It is easy to say you want to help people, but hard to know how that really translates in the doing. How do I reach out to people, how do I explain what I want to do, caring so much about Heavenly Father, but not wanting to turn people away before they want to learn more, how to do it all?

And then to add to all those questions was this negative voice saying that no one liked me, that everyone else was awful and just spreading this nasty poison inside my mind. I knew I didn't want it there and I knew it wasn't serving me, but it seemed the harder I prayed the nastier the voice became. Finally I opened a word document and I just wrote out all the negativity in my mind and I got it all out. Only once I had acknowledged everything that was there and admitted to what I was feeling was I finally able to quiet that voice in my mind. So often when those things enter our mind we think we need to push them down, to bury them deep down and far away so that no one will ever know how awful we are. I assure you, you are not awful, you are just a mortal having a mortal experience, subject to all the nasty voices that come will mortality. We are not judged for the thoughts that pop into our heads, our destiny is determined by what we choose to do with them once they get there. Instead of burying them down deep inside of us where they can come up again and again every time that trigger comes up, instead what if we chose to really get rid of them, to put them on paper, on paper where no one else will see them?



I think sometimes we think if we get it out of us that will make it more real, it doesn't, by putting it on paper we actually recognize that those thoughts aren't ours and we don't want them, we recognize them for the lies we are and it is easier to not believe a lie, once you know it is a lie. So the next time those negative thoughts (about yourself or others) pop into your head, I encourage you to grab a piece of paper or a word document and write them all up, recognize what is really going on, then my personal favorite is to rip it up and chuck it in the garbage. Then find something good to tell yourself. Create the good, so there is less space for the bad to take root. Soon you'll find when bad things come in, you have more of the good to combat them with.  Happy writing, and happy being the one who chooses what stays in your brain. We have been told the lie that if we feel it, then we should say it. Instead if we feel it, we should write it, then we can determine what we want to say and what we want to throw away.

How much better off you are

Wow the last two weeks have been a bit of a whirl wind. If you had asked me six weeks ago what the next year of my life would look like, I wouldn't have had any idea that I would be creating a website, starting a YouTube channel, hosting a Facebook group, having one on one mentoring appointments with clients, and spending an hour of writing every night, but that is exactly what I'm doing and it is amazing!!!

It is a wonderful thing to feel like every hour is being put to good use, I feel more alive and more connected to my life. Where just months before I felt like every day was speeding by and I wasn't sure how I was actually filling it, now I know, I have things I have accomplished, I have things I have learned, and I have joy each day because I know I am helping others find and live in their true selves. What a gift it is to help others and I ask you, what is a way that you can help others that no one else can do?
  What is it that makes you fully you? I think there is something we all have to offer, maybe it is playing a musical instrument that brings joy to others, maybe it is writing stories that bring smiles to many faces, maybe it is cleaning your home and making it a safe and restful place to be for all who enter, maybe it is driving a bus and helping others get where they need to go, maybe it is designing new inventions that bless lives, maybe it is being just the parent your child needs.



There are no little gifts, there are no insignificant offerings. In this world we live in Heavenly Father needs just what we have to offer, His children need just what we have to offer. Satan will tell us that our offering is insignificant, or that we aren't doing any good, that we are over looked and not needed. You tell him to go away, in fact any lie that he tells you turn around and believe the opposite. If he tells you that your offerings are too small, you tell yourself that you are helping many, if he tells you they are insignificant you believe they are significant. If he tells you what you do doesn't matter, than you know without a shadow of a doubt that they do matter. The adversary deals in lies and discouragement, if he can get you down and discouraged in your purpose then you aren't there to bless the lives of someone else. If you are feeling discouraged tonight I hope you'll write down the good that you do. I hope you'll take the time to write down on a piece of paper "I have done something good today:" and list the good you have done, it doesn't matter what it was, having done it means you have brought light into the world, light it needed and you gave so selflessly.

What can you do to bring the light for yourself? What can you do to be your bestest self? When you find yourself and who you want to be then others dig deep and find their best selves. It seems at times that we are in a competition of who can be the most disappointed, who has lost the most or struggling the most. It is important to mourn with those who mourn, it is also so powerful to seek the good in your life and help others see the good in others. By speaking positively and looking for the best we raise the vibration of our lives so that those who enter also want to seek the best.

I hope as you go into the world this week we bear a dream of what your best self is, maybe that dream feels very far away, maybe it feels unattainable. A thing is never attainable if you don't try, but when you do try and you get even one step closer, think of how much better off you are, than you were.

Those seeking Christ are invited to bring the Light

Tonight I'd like to share some of my thoughts about thoughts. I feel like I have covered this topic a lot lately, with multiple Facebook posts, a blog post about it months ago, and a video about it. Yet as I was pondering about my week, the many ups and downs I faced I realized a lot of those downs came because I chose to not take control of where my thoughts were going.



To lay the ground work I would encourage you to look at the post The Voice that Lies (found: https://ofchoicesandconsequences.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-voice-that-lies.html) which explains that there are three different voices in our minds, we need to learn how to recognize each one, where they are coming from and what they hope for us to feel. Once we understand that there are adversarial voices encouraging us to feel guilty, feel we are of little worth, feel that we can't do anything, then there is our voice, trying to figure out who we are, who we want to be and what to do in order to be that person, and then there is the voice of the Spirit which invites us to remember who we were and helps to direct in how to reach who we are to become.

Each of us were sent to this earth for a purpose, with this purpose we were given tools and gifts to fulfill our mission in this life. As we work to discover and fulfill this purpose the adversary works to discourage us and his voice in our mind fills us with doubt and discouragement. I was definitely feeling a lot of doubt and discouragement this week. I was beginning to feel that I had misunderstood portions of the mission I thought I had received and feeling very low because other's agency was involved and I had hoped for a different response. For most of this week I let those thoughts wreak havoc in my mind, I tried to keep up my morning and evening thoughts, writing down the negative and trashing it and trying to count my blessings, but because I wasn't calling out the thoughts for what they were, lies from the adversary, I was still subject to their influence in my heart. On Friday as I was feeling very overwhelmed and second guessing every decision I had made of the last six weeks I realized that I hadn't invited the Savior into this battle. Last month I made it a goal to recite the Living Christ each day as I memorized it, since I have tried to say a paragraph or two so I could keep it fresh in my mind. As I have worked on this goal I have noticed the difference in my day when I recite it versus when I forget. Now I'm not saying you have to go out and memorize the Living Christ in 30 days, though I can bear witness that the Spirit that comes into your life is life changing, it invites the Savior into every aspect of our day and we begin to realize just how not alone we are. I testify that the Savior delights to be part of our lives and wants to be invited it. When we invite Him in, He immediately enters.

  As we get closer to living our purpose the adversary will get louder in his attempt to distract and dishearten us. I would encourage you to combat his voice by writing down the lies, make conscious effort to be aware of what is going on in your mind. What lies are showing up? What discouragement seems to be getting louder? Are there clouds hanging over your head that you don't know how they got there? Once you start seeing what is going on, you then claim control of what is on the stage of your mind. Then once you see what is going on, and you claim control, find a way, whichever way is most effective to you, whether hymns, declarations, reading your patriarchal blessing or asking Heavenly Father how he feels about you, that you invite Christ into your life and invite the good. In a world where darkness seems to be multiplying it is up to those who seek to follow Christ to bring the light. We must be in a place to feel the light if we are to share that light with others.

This morning I took my own advice and I wrote down the lies that had been floating through my head. What was interesting, once I had written and numbered them, I recognized them as the lies they were and it gave Heavenly Father space to disprove each and every one. As I went through my day, people that came into my life said things directly in opposition to what the adversary said. With the negative named and numbered, I was also able to feel love, and hope.

If you are struggling trying to find what to do next, if you are feeling discouraged that you will never make it, take a moment to write down the lies, then as you brush your teeth remind yourself that you are a child of God and no matter the choices or mistakes you've made, He still wants you because you are His child. His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, came to earth because He loves you and He is coming again. I hope we can each take control of our thoughts so that when the Spirit directs us to serve, when the Spirit directs us to prepare, we can be ready. Because our Savior is at the door and He is coming quickly.

Who we want to be next

Tonight I was all set to talk about self-discipline, setting routines for ourselves and my efforts at setting a 30 day goal to establish a bedtime of 11. Now it has been an interesting experience in my efforts to figure out why I am not going to sleep at night. I realized this week that sleep hasn't been my friend, now I don't mean this in a I wake up a lot in the night sort of a way, but more as in I just put off going to sleep. So this week I ended up writing a letter to sleep and asking why it is that we seem to be on the outs so often. It was rather interesting seeing what I got back.


  I learned that there were many things in store for me to learn and become, but I needed to learn the self-mastery with sleep before I could learn those things. It was pointed out to me that Heavenly Father could have made bodies for us that didn't need sleep, but He needed us to learn what we could learn only through proper stewardship of our bodies.

  So I left that letter bound and determined to master self-discipline and self-mastery. I was going to get my body into submission and value that more than anything else. Enter yesterday and today... Last night I wanted to do some work in a couple different areas of my life, so that meant lots of journaling, then I knew I wanted/needed to do some work on a quilt, and start a new blog addressing some different ideas than just the ones I share each week. I also knew I needed quality time with my spouse and a friend working through some stress. Because of all those things my bedtime goals were a dream in the rear view mirror. At the same time I felt like I had still been doing what I needed to be doing.

Now I don't share these things to say look how much I have accomplished or look how amazing I am. I share these so I myself can see how differently my day turned out from what I thought it would be. And I'm sure we can all relate, we have our best laid plans, we try to set out our routines and establish our righteous desires and it can be discouraging at times to see them not play out as we hoped. We can sometimes feel we are failures when because of the situations of others our situations change. I hope it is in moments like those that instead of feeling a failure or thinking our efforts are for not, that instead we take heart that we like the Savior have succored those in need and have been about our Father's business.

  Our Heavenly Father is seeking for those who want to be about His business, who want to reach out to those whose hands hang down, to share a kind word and to be one with Him in His purpose. This sometimes means our best laid plans go to the way side. This sometimes means our human efforts may feel very puny and not near enough. Yet as a dear friend and I talked about tonight, we need to trust that when He calls He qualifies and magnifies efforts. When we are seeking to help those around us, to reach out to them, He will offer us direction, not only for those we can help, but also so we can magnify our efforts to make the most of the time we have. The Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ can fill the gap from our efforts to His best outcomes.

   I testify that as we work to reach out to those with feeble knees and as we work to establish routines of righteousness in our lives that He can help us do both. As we put in our best efforts to progress and improve and to heed the voice of the Spirit we really can become all we hope to be. We can be a successful whoever it is we want to be and be His servant. Often the adversary preaches that it is one or the other. We either put all our effort into being successful and doing our thing or we submit wholly and completely to God and give ourselves up. I think that as we ask God first what He needs of us, we will then be surprised at how much He does for us to help us reach who we want to be next.

 

Christ will always be kind to us.

I've been struggling the last few months feeling that because of somethings missing in my life that life was unfair and that I deserved to be able to hold onto some things that weren't making me happy. I was informed two or three times that I needed to let it go, that life becomes what I look for. So I started looking for the good and tracking the successes that were coming. But it still wasn't enough, I felt like if I just let everything go and choose only to see the good, that there would be an injustice perpetuated in my life. Because if I just let things go, then there would still be underlying issues and I would just be burying what was really going on and it would come up again and again. I couldn't see how things would change if behavior stayed the same.

Then I realized behavior could change, mine. This week as I was sitting in the temple contemplating on a mistake I had made a year earlier and that still haunted me, wondering how in the world I could fix it, the Lord asked me, why are you still holding onto this? Why are you beating yourself up for something outside of your control? I created the world, I gave you direction, don't you think I can fix it in my way and my time? And I finally realized, though my behavior hasn't changed, I am still inclined to look before I leap and go head long into things, the Lord had forgiven me because I asked. He took care of it, even knowing I will make more mistakes in the future.

I have been wondering for the last few months why the Spirit felt so far away, why I felt so cut off from heaven. This week I finally realized it is because I had been holding onto my anger at perceived injustice and heaven cannot coincide with anger. When I felt how simply my Savior could forgive and make right my mistake, even knowing I would make another mistake and another. Feeling His love reach out to me, realizing that His sacrifice bridged the injustice I perpetrate everyday with my humanness I realized I didn't want to hold on to that anymore. And so I decided that perhaps looking at the good wasn't allowing injustice to go on in perpetuity, in seeking, counting and numbering the good I was allowing myself to become more like my Savior. I chose love, I chose the good, I chose to see with rose colored glasses and in doing so, guess what happened, reality became more rose colored. So much of what we get in this life is what we put into it in the first place. When I finally chose to let my anger go, I let the Spirit back into my life and the grudge I held onto melted away. Once that grudge was gone things began to change. Because I brought the positive, I got the positive. And I feel I should say things feel better now than they have in months. There is nothing to gain in anger.


Our Father in Heaven will never force us, He isn't one for ultimatums or shaming, but He will entice us, invite us, gently lead us to where we are our best selves. This has been a long journey in coming and I have a feeling there are many steps yet to take. But no matter how long the journey, knowing our Savior walks with us hopefully makes the journey a joy, not a terror. His mercy is endless and His hope for us is as bright today as it was in pre-earth life when He offered His life a sacrifice. I do know that His mercy is infinite and He longs to help us through the injustices of mortality. With Him we have an eternal advocate. I know He was the Great Jehovah of the Old Testament, the Messiah of the New and I know His Atonement for all of us is infinite, eternal, and always extended our way. Please be kind to yourself and to others, because I know Christ will always be kind to us.

Love past the difference

      I'm sitting here tonight feeling just a wee bit sad I had a moment this week when I thought to myself "ooh I should write about that this week..." and now I'm trying to remember. Oh wait, I remember. This week I had the realize that we can be at war with people or we can love people. We may hear around us that being angry is our due, that when we are angry it is being "real" to share that emotion with everyone. Satan will tell us that if we don't share our anger that people won't know to do that again (yes I have actually heard this whispered in my ear this week). We live in a world that teaches us to give vent to our spleen (otherwise known as rage) and not to leave it bottled up inside us. While it is true that keeping that inside isn't healthy and isn't a good idea, I can tell you that venting it at people really doesn't get us anywhere either. Really being angry at other human beings hurts us because not only do we deal with our anger, we also deal with our remorse and sheepishness when we realize how much we have hurt the other person. As a final nail in the coffin of this lie, we've all gotten angry at someone only to be attacked back as the other person becomes defensive. There is a better answer...



    This better answer is love. Now this may seem like a very cliche answer and maybe even a bit empty for some of us. We bandy about the word love quite often and I think sometimes we miss or misunderstand what love is. I would invite you to think about a time in which you felt no judgement, no aggression, no attack. Think about a time when you felt like someone saw you for who you really are and appreciated you for who you are, looking past the imperfections, the impatience, the shortcomings and mistakes and you felt their unconditional love. I want you to reside in that memory for a moment and think about how you felt. I know in that moment I felt like I could change the world, that who I was was enough, I didn't have to try to be anyone else, I didn't have to try to be something I wasn't, I didn't have to fake it because who I was in that moment had made it. Now just think for a minute what could happen if you chose to see others like that all the time, if you could see them as the Savior sees them. The Savior that saw everyone of our lives, who knows how we tick, who has seen all the aspects of our lives that made us who we are. What if we loved that person who we feel like just doesn't get us and never will, the person who it sure feels like won't ever change and doesn't want us to understand them.
   Satan will whisper little lies about that person, little lies that slowly build until another person's character has totally warped and we can't see them for the child of God that they are. I would encourage you to call Satan's bluff, to look really look at the person, when we have those negative thoughts we generally try to push them to the side because we don't want to be rude, what if we really looked at them, wrote them down, saw them for what they were (lies from an outside source) then tore them up and threw them away. Then we could see the person beneath all the lies and get rid of the ultimatum mentality that if they don't change it's not worth it. Because it is worth it, once we get ride of the lies, then we can invite the Spirit to teach us to see with Christ's eyes, I promise that as you ask, He will help you.
    I also promise that as you begin to see others as Christ sees them, He can show you how He feels about you. Once the hate, anger, frustration, sadness, loneliness leave then there is room for greater perspective, there is room for kindness, there is room for love and there is the eyes' of Christ.
   I'm not saying I'm perfect at this, in fact I gained some additional insights as I wrote this, yet I do know that loving brings me and the other person closer to my Savior. Imagine for just a moment a wedge (like one used for cutting wood) at the top of every person's head and for every negative thought we send their way that wedge goes a bit deeper into them. I realize that current thought that it's only bad if it is coming out of our mouth (and that is bad), but think about how you feel when you dwell on those thoughts, eventually it eats away at you and I would posit it eats away at your relationship with that person and hurts that person. If you have ever heard of the rice experiment, then think of what happens when you label a person and have negative thoughts about them. So ask the Savior for His help to change those labels, to recognize the thoughts for where they came from and to ask to love. Imagine what could happen when we choose to love, when we choose to hope for the best for others, even those who seem so different then ourselves.
    As I was reminded of this week we aren't waiting for Zion to magically appear, we must create it in our lives, we must build it in preparation for the Second Coming of our Savior. I wonder if learning to love is the first step in having a people of one heart and one mind. One heart and one mind doesn't mean we'll always agree or there will always be unanimity, but I think it means that we choose to love past the difference, that we see others for who they are and we learn to just let things go. I hope to do better at this this week and I am excited to see how the Lord works in my mind and heart this week.

What we are really doing

As we so excitedly accept the challenges given to us by the Prophet, let us also please remember the purposes of the challenges. Pres Nelson didn't ask us just to give up Facebook, he has also asked us as part of that to "fast from social media and any other media which may produce negative and impure thoughts. Notice and record changes, experiences and impressions during this time. The effect of your 10-day fast may surprise you. We need to act with thoughtfulness." Pres Nelson invited us to pray about and use our intuition and inspiration to know what things to remove during this 10 day fast. Not only are we to leave Facebook behind, but to also increase our ability to discern direction from the Spirit and be agents unto ourselves of what we should have in our lives and what we do not want in our lives. 

Next he asked us to read the Book of Mormon between today and the end of the year. He acknowledged that this might feel impossible, but as we tried with full purpose of heart we would have the help of heaven to accomplish this task and receive increased inspiration, revelation and miracles bringing us closer to the Savior. He asked us to mark each verse which refers to the Savior. This tells me that this isn't about a mad dash through the Book of Mormon, this isn't about a sticker chart showing your rapid progress through the Book. In my mind this is an invitation to deep dive into this "Another Testament of Jesus Christ" this is an invitation to invite him deeply into our lives and help us mold our lives to be more like Him, so that when He comes again we will recognize Him because we will be like Him. Did you notice in this conference the emphasis on preparing for the coming of the Savior, it seems that every challenge offered by Pres Nelson was rapidly followed up with the explanation we must prepare the world for the Savior's coming. I feel an urgency for preparation, it comes in a call to be more aware of our fellow man, it comes from the emphasis on helping others in their tribulation, the last days are a time of tribulation...it would be an interesting exercise to go through conference and count how many times speakers used the term tribulation or trial.

The Savior Jesus Christ through His called prophet is asking us to prepare to meet Him, as we take these challenges from the mouth of a prophet, will we do them just because we were asked (which obedience is fantastic) or are we doing them because this is an invitation to come closer to our Savior? All the changes announced this year are a call to align with the Savior and a call to do more, we can no longer do the bare minimum, what is asked of us is to fulfill the full measure, to be all in, to obey and become with all our heart, might and mind. I'm not saying this is easy, I'm not saying I am all in, I spent a lot of conference struggling just to adjust my attitude so that I could receive what the Lord needed me to learn. It wasn't until I went inward and asked what was wrong, that I realized I was approaching conference from the wrong direction. I felt so overwhelmed by the emphasis on serving and ministering and loving that I felt like I was already stretched thin, I already felt like I was on empty, how could a loving Lord ask me to do more when I already felt like I was on the verge of giving up. It was going inward that the Lord told me I was already doing what was being asked of us, I just need to continue in my efforts, rejoice in the good that I am doing and continue inviting the Spirit into my life to continue my efforts. I have a feeling this is true for most of us. Conference wasn't meant as a list of brand new things to do, but instead to just continue improving and trying and rejoicing in the good we can do.

Dale G Renlund said that Heavenly Father doesn't just want us to do what is right, He wants us to choose what is right. He wants us to choose the family business, to become like He is. I would guess that Heavenly Father isn't just interested in who says good-bye to Facebook for a time or who reads the Book of Mormon, who increases temple attendance, and fully participates in Relief Society. He asked us to do these things because He knows they will bring great blessings into our lives. I also think that He knows we will come even closer to Him as we prayerfully ask who we might serve, when we ask "Lord what might I do to help thee in thy work?" Participating in these challenges will increase the Spirit in our lives, then it is up to us to choose to obey when the challenges are complete and to do all that Heavenly Father has for us. Wee are each unique and have an important role to fulfill, we can only do that when the Spirit is a constant companion in our lives.

As I already mentioned, I'm not saying that this will be easy, I'm not saying that I already know how to do what was asked of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but I know that when the doubts filled my mind about how in the world I was going to add 6.72 pages of the Book of Mormon into each day, or where more temple fit into my life or how a primary teacher was supposed to participate fully in Relief Society or how someone so filled with anger could love as I should, I realized none of those things really mattered. What mattered is that the Prophet of the Lord, His mouth piece in these latter days, asked me to do these things. I chose to believe that because the Lord asked me to do these things I would be all in to do them. Like Nephi, I know that "the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."

He will provide a way and I can only imagine who I will become and who we will all become as we choose to follow our Prophet, Seer and Revelator in these the latter days.

We each need a little sunshine

As I mentioned the last few weeks I am in a program that is meant to help me gain greater focus in my life and to move forward with goals and desires. Even with a new sleep schedule that involves me getting up an hour earlier than I was I have found myself much more energized in my day and much more joyful. Finding focus and purpose is a very powerful thing.



  So this week as I was feeling rather energized and excited to meet the day I decided to write sticky note notes for my co-workers sort of as a thank you and sort of as an affirmation. I then did my best to deliver them when their cubicles were empty (now don't think that I just gave away to the world my anonymous good deed, they can totally tell my handwriting. It wasn't about being anonymous, it was about being grateful and positive). So I had delivered the notes and was doing my best to focus on some tasks I needed to finish when a co-worker came over to me and told me I was being too happy and denied a bit of what I had written in the note. Now I realized that he was mostly joking when he said that I was being too happy and that him denying what I wrote said way more about his mental space than mine.

   It was then I realized a bit more about the world we live in, I wouldn't have thought there was such a thing as being too happy, but apparently we as a world are focusing in too much about needing to be focused on goals to the exclusion of all else. We need to be grim faced and only see the negative. I can't say that I blame people for feeling that way, it seems where ever we turn we see sad news online, on the news and people only seeing the bad. It can be hard to believe that there is good in the world, but what if we made it a goal to choose everyday to say something good, to share a blessing or tender mercy we received and to say the words " I am so glad" or "I am so grateful". I feel like we count our importance these days by sharing how many things are going wrong or how many deadlines are falling through. Now I'm not saying that we can't share our burdens with others, in fact I think if more people were sharing what was actually going on in their lives we would live in a world where we had more compassion for others because we all realized that we all have things. At the same time in a world of negative expectations think of how much more vulnerable it is to say what we are grateful for or to share something new we have learned.

   This week I had a friend say to me that it sounded like I have been reading self-help books and it made me sad that it was almost said in a negative tone of voice, as if it is bad to want to improve yourself, bad to want to learn how to process heavy emotions in a more effective way or to want to be in a better head space to help others.

   We live in a world that seems to think that being negative is the order of the day, that struggling is just part of the deal and that the more we speak negatively about situations the cooler we are. So what if we started a revolution. What if we got genuinely excited about things, what if we spoke with happiness in our voices and we even smiled a time or two. I know that life can feel heavy, that it isn't all puppies and roses. We can and should share the ouches, but do we share them seeking for support, hope and solutions or do we share them in anger and disgust? I just realized that Satan lies to us, he says that if something is going wrong or isn't going quite the way we had hoped then we need to be in the depths of despair or at least we can't feel two emotions at once. We can be sad or disappointed that things aren't going quite the way we had hoped and we can feel gratitude for good things, be excited for others' successes and generally be cheerful. We are complex human beings we can feel more than one thing at once.

   This life is full of enough struggles and enough clouds, I hope that this week we can each bring a little sunshine, even in the middle of our own storms, we all need a little sunlight and just think what could happen if we all brought a little sunshine to the table, we could light up the whole room. I hope this week even in the midst of all that is happening we can each choose to see a little good, to celebrate a success no matter how small and that the nurture our hope in Christ to grow so that we can each bring sunshine to another who could feel surrounded by clouds.

Really is Progress

It has been what I feel I can only describe as an insane week, a good week, at the same time an insane week. I started a twelve week program called Go Vertical that helps in focusing the mind, goal setting and emotional release techniques to help let go of baggage from the past. After only a week I find myself with an excitement for life and a joy to see what is just around the corner. At the same time I find myself exhausted from short nights and lots of adrenaline dumps and maybe, just maybe feeling a bit jaded.

  Now I invite all of you to chuckle just a bit as I let you in on a little secret, there was a point in the week when I wondered for just a moment what life would be like without struggle. With so many things looking up, with me feeling so hopeful, I just felt sure my struggle was over, or would at least take a bit of a hiatus. Yes in that moment I forgot an eternal mortal truth, mortality was created with struggle as it's goal. I don't mean to say that Heavenly Father wants us to be miserable, He just knows we get a lot higher when we take the stairs instead of always walking on a flat surface. Anyhow in that foolish moment I wondered what life would be like now that I had "the tools I needed" to move past struggle. All I had to do was use tools and repeat and then I would be fine...yeah...no. Yes slaying dragons does wonders and saying my declarations help me face the day in a better frame of mind, but that doesn't mean my struggle is over, that just means that we are leveling up. It's sort of like the game of Super Mario. When I was little the first level was really hard for me, in fact it took a whole lot of lives for me to even get half way through the first level. But as I practiced and put in a whole lot of effort I finally made it to level two. Then it took a whole lot of practice to get to level three...and so on. Sometimes I went back to level one just to remind myself that that which had been so hard once did get easier and that when I put in the effort those harder levels would get easier too. Not because the game took pity on me, but because my skill and tenacity helped me level up to a new level of play.


  I would guess that life is much the same way. The logistics of the video game did not change, no matter what level you were on it was a matter of running, jumping, and sliding at just the right time to get where you needed to be. But just because I learned to jump in level one, didn't mean it wasn't still hard to jump when the scenery and circumstance were different in level three. I think sometimes in life we think (and I am definitely feeling this way today) that if we figure out something once that we have mastered it and we can move on. That once we figure something out we move to the next skill and the next skill after that, but I'm starting to realize that isn't exactly the case. Perhaps it is called enduring to the end because we are meant to do some of the same things over and over again, just in new circumstances so we can use that same basic skill set in a myriad of different ways. I would guess the root of the skills we are to learn in this life is charity, the pure love of Christ. In fact the first great commandment is to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, might and mind. Second only to that is to love your neighbor as yourself. We are here to learn to love those around us, even when we see them in all their human mortalness, instead of the Gods and Goddesses they will one day be. We are here to learn to love other's as our Savior loves us and I think we are also here to learn to have charity towards ourselves to forgive ourselves and to keep forgiving and keep trying.

  Last week I shared how I chose to give my anger to Christ because I valued my relationship with Him more than my own perspective and emotion. This week that was put to the test. I had made plans and those plans were sort of changed without my input and I have been struggling letting that go. It is times like these that I feel a bit like a two year, I want what I want and I want it now. I am sorry to say I haven't handled things as gracefully today as I did last week, but perhaps this is me adjusting to level two. At least right now I know where I want to end up, even if at this moment I'm not completely sure how to get there. Yes I have the tools and some skills, perhaps now it is learning how to apply them in new ways to fit new circumstances.

  Perhaps enduring to the end simply means to keep trying, that when it feels as if we have failed, because our solution just didn't work as well as it did last time that we just keep trying, that we never give up. Because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can always try again and we can always learn again. Mortality is a whole lot about a heart willing to try again and a lot less about immediate progression. Perhaps what feels like a step back is really two steps forward, because realizing what is going on inside us and around us and what we are hoping for really is progress.

No Anger ever Could

  I think I'm finally beginning to understand and accept that there are no magical solutions, that most things don't just go away. We cannot learn by having things go away, we learn by working through, learning and overcoming them. There came a point a few months ago when I was in a really low place and Christopher was in a really low place as well and I started praying that it could be over, that we could come to some sort of a conclusion and move on to the next thing. I just wanted it to be over, I was tired, I was done, and I was emotionally empty. At that time I felt my Father in heaven ask me a question, he asked "do you really want it to go away or do you want to learn what it being here can teach you? If I take this away you won't learn what it is you knew you needed when you agreed to come here." At that point I decided that I did want to learn what I needed and not put it off, looking back from today I also realize that I haven't done it as gracefully as I would like. I got a bit of a chip on my shoulder, feeling that too much was expected of me. I felt the burden was too heavy and having heard that I had things to learn, I felt I had to do it on my own, forgetting that I could still learn while involving the Savior.


  Now fast forward through three weekends of trainings, six weeks of therapy appointments, lots of writing and lots of hopes that things would magically get better for both of us...except they didn't.. Really all that I learned was that I am in control of my emotions and that I need to let myself feel my emotions. Those two things really didn't go together in my mind. If I was in control of my emotions, wasn't I just supposed to stop them before they went anywhere, but if I stopped them, then how in the world was I supposed to feel them.

   Then yesterday I realized something, there is a difference between feeling lonely, feeling sad, feeling confused, and allowing that loneliness, sadness and confusion lead to anger, resentment and bitterness. It depends upon the story that I tell myself or if I choose to not tell myself a story at all. I can't control my circumstances, I can't magically cure depression and anxiety, I can't force someone to talk to me or force them to be comfortable in unfamiliar circumstances. But I can respond with grace. I can accept that we all have limitations and we are all trying our best.

   The realization that I finally accepted is that I can feel loneliness, I can feel sad or even frustration and then let the emotion go, I don't have to hold onto it and fan the flames with past hurts and memories from months ago. Instead I accept that I am sad and I ask my Savior to help hold that hurt as I work through it and then it is gone. When I woke up this morning for the first time in months I wondered where the anger and discontent were, I wondered what to feel. Then I realized I didn't have to decide to feel anything, I could accept today for the possibilities it held for good and move on. And you know as I did that I found peace and the Spirit I hadn't felt in months. In choosing to feel and then let go I allowed space for the Spirit to speak to me again. I had missed that, I have missed having the Spirit as my constant companion. Friday night at Time Out for Women Tom Christofferson said something that softened my heart to learn what came yesterday. He said that there comes a time when coming to know Him (Christ) is more important than knowing why.  I saw that happen this weekend. It was more important for me to want to be near Christ than it was to hold onto the anger. We cannot hold onto anger and frustration and expect to be near our Savior, the ultimate example of love and meekness. He always desires to be near us, but the emotions we choose to hold onto can keep us from feeling the love He wants to give us.

  I realize this isn't easy, this has been a process of months of learning, pondering, and praying to finally realize that I can choose to let things go, it is my choice and a choice that brings a love into our lives that brings a comfort and hope that no anger ever could. I also realize that this will be something I learn and relearn and apply and reapply, but for today this is a beginning and one I am excited for.

Learn to Respond

There have been two main things on my mind this week. The first is choosing to respond instead of react. The second is that when we have been piling up emotions inside of us for a long time there comes a point when we can't respond rationally because we don't have clear space in our mind to see what is really going on. All we can see is the hurt from yesterday, last week, last month, last year, five years ago, a decade even. All of these emotions, if never gotten rid of in a healthy way just stays deep down inside us waiting to explode and as it waits to explode it begins coloring our vision, we no longer see reality we see hurt, that turns to anger, that turns to resentment.

  As I started writing I was going to say that first comes responding instead of reacting, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that until we learn how to work through emotions in a healthy way we will continue struggling choosing to respond instead of reacting. Now you might be wondering what the difference is, the prefix of 're' on both words would seem to indicate they are the same, but upon closer inspection we see (or at least this is how my brain quantifies it) that react means an action came our way and we are acting back in return to the initial reaction. Or something acted on us and so we act back to that action. It implies a lack of thought, we are simply acting back to what happened to us. Respond comes from the Latin word respondere which means answer to, to promise in return, to pledge. To my mind these words seem more thought out, more deliberate and seem to say that I am thoughtfully making an answer, instead of quickly acting in defense of myself.


  Our lives are full of experiences that were painful and built up emotions that can cause us to react disproportionately to future experiences. I have seen the good it has done in my life to choose to respond instead of to react. To take a moment and see what is causing my rather strong reaction and determine if the emotions I'm feeling fit with the circumstance or if I need to take a step back and dissect my emotions from reality. As I do I realize that I am defending myself from a life time of what I feel is being misunderstood, when the person saying something or doing something is coming from a life time of their experience. Only by stepping back and taking the time to respond calmly and desiring to know why they are doing what they are doing do we actually come to a helpful solution. I'm not saying this is easy, but responding instead of reacting saves a lot of heartache and wasted breath.

  Some of you might be wondering at this point well what do I do with my emotions so I can have the brain space to respond instead of react. The first thing is to be conscious of what emotions you are really dealing with. Generally what we think is anger is really just an outgrowth of fear and hurt. When we choose to consciously check in with our emotions we begin to see that what we think is a reaction to a single circumstance is actually a reaction to a life time of protecting ourselves. I struggle a lot with being called out when I have done something wrong. I want to be perfect and tend to forget that to achieve perfection correction is required. Well I received an email this week calling some things out that I had done incorrectly. It was an email so I couldn't hear the tone it was written in, but automatically my brain reached for hurt, because I had had some interactions with this person in the past, I reached for the bad. Yet I also knew that I wanted the process we were working on together to improve in the long run. So I re-read the emails and took some time thinking about what I really wanted, once I knew that I realized I needed to apologize for not doing it correctly, then set up a system to do better in the future. I am hopefully waiting to see how this new system works.

   Realize that what you experience in the moment, is not from the moment, but from a past full of experiences. Then find what works for you, maybe taking a walk and talking to yourself (make sure that no one is around) and talk things through, then as you walk back focus on what you are grateful for. Or maybe do a write and burn, choose an emotion and write it out for a page, then tear it into little pieces and burn it. You can write everything out because no one else will see it, get out all the mean, the nasty, the hurt and the painful, let it go on paper so that it doesn't burn away your insides instead. As you say good by to those emotions and work through the experiences that caused them, you don't have to be haunted by them anymore, you can be grateful for what you have learned and find peace in moving forward

   I'm not saying this from a place of having perfected it, but I know I have a lot more peace even in just the last few days, choosing to be an agent unto myself, choosing to respond instead of being reactive and taking ownership of my emotions instead of letting them own me.

We see what we ask to see

If last week was learning to allow myself to receive those things that the Lord has for me (especially when they are greater than I had planned for myself) then this week has been to learn that I can control my emotions and there is value in meeting people where they are.

  This last week seemed to come down as a crushing weight, work responsibilities feeling as if they are getting heavier and heavier, feeling as if I'm failing at being a ministering sister and feeling more and more voices in my head demanding me to be frustrated with current circumstances, that I was in over my head financially, demanding that I am emotionally overwrought and telling me that I am all alone, that no one cares and that it is my right to wallow in self pity and anger. The thing I couldn't figure out in the midst of all that is what all those emotions were based on. When I would pause and really think about what was going on in my life I could logically trace myself away from all of those emotions, when I really thought about it none of the emotions I was feeling made sense nor did I really want to be feeling them. Yet I was so caught up in what I was feeling that I could almost convince myself to stay in the moment of the emotion.

  It was in the midst of this whirl of emotions that I remembered my brain will look for what I ask it to look for. Because I was frustrated my brain was looking for things to keep me frustrated, because I was mad my brain kept looking for reasons to keep me angry. Last night after months and weeks of emotions building, I finally decided I was tired of being angry, I was tired of being frustrated and I was tired of only seeing the bad. So yesterday I asked Heavenly Father to help me see the good.

   Though this coming Wednesday is the date of our anniversary, yesterday was the weekend in which we were married, so it was still an anniversary of sorts. I assisted a bride and groom at the temple yesterday and it was very special to stand in the room where I was sealed three years ago. Yet much more important was my time in the bride's room early that morning when all was quiet and I could look in the mirror and remember the excitement of that day three years before as I prepared to go up to the third floor and be sealed for time and all eternity. Oh the hopes and dreams I had that day and oh how naive that girl was for all that was in store for the years to come. The girl looking back at me in the mirror yesterday, was not the same one from three years ago, she had seen, and felt and experienced so much more than I ever imagined with the experiences of a few weeks ago just one of many. Yet as I looked in the mirror and thought of all of life's experiences I prayed to my Father in heaven to see the good. It is so easy for our brains to just hold on to the bad bits, to let the negative things overwhelm us, it takes work to look for the good, but I can promise you that decision to see the good changes our hearts and allows the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ to enter our hearts, to ease the pain, to ease the sadness, to wipe away the memory of past tears and to allow compassion and charity back into our hearts.

   Though this experience is heart changing it can take time. Yesterday morning may have been my declaration for change but it wasn't until last night, doing dishes in the silence in my kitchen that I finally put the voices to rest, I starved them by realizing that I am not without fault in all this. I am an imperfect being with my own struggles, frustrations and bad habits I fall back onto. It is not until I could see myself clearly for who I was and my own shortcomings that I realized I didn't have a leg to stand on for my anger and pain. And that I had spent so much time blaming and being angry I couldn't see the good that was actually happening. I was the servant who was forgiven the debt, trying to repay the forgiven debt by going after someone else.

  None of us are perfect, we all have shortcomings, we all fall short of the glory of God, yet the more we reach to beat ourselves up and those around us, the more we only see the negative. Somewhere in the last year I had forgotten how to be kind to myself. Feeling that if I couldn't control those things outside myself, I figured I could at least hold myself to the mark...forgetting that I am human and that my Savior has mercy. In learning to forgive others as we see our own shortcomings, we must not forget to give our ownselves room to fall short, to admit we have limits, to admit we have short comings and to just let ourselves keep trying with the help of our Savior.

   Our Heavenly Father sees and recognizes our needs, even when our needs might simply be a story in our heads. Sometimes He sends dear old gentlemen to pay for our lunch, just so we know we are known.

  Just as our Heavenly Father and Savior extend mercy and kindness to us, they have asked us to extend that same mercy to others. I saw a very interesting post by Hank Smith this week he said "God doesn't tell us to cheer up those who mourn, He asks us to mourn with those that mourn." As we go through this mortal journey we will meet many who are struggling, who are worried, who are fearful, who are tired, who are weary and who mourn. It is our divine nature to want to help, to lift and to carry, but please remember, Heavenly Father doesn't ask us to carry them or cheer them up, He simply asks us to mourn with them. As someone who has had cause to mourn can I just say the person who said "oh that must be really tough, how are you?" did so much more for me and my flagging spirits than the person who said "oh you're tough, you can do it, there's a light at the end of the tunnel." When we are in dark places often we aren't ready to step into the light, but it sure is wonderful to have someone in the dark with us who has a flashlight of love and a listening ear.

   I testify that we are known, that we are loved, that we see what we ask to see and that when we ask our Savior to help us see the good He will help us see it.

Don't be afraid to receive

Here it is another Sunday night, where does the time go? Sometimes I feel like I am in a headlong sprint, but I'm not sure where it is I am running to. Sometimes we can be so caught up in the busyness of each day that we can forget where it is we hope to go.



Tonight I received a priesthood blessing, I can't say that I was aware of a distinct need for one, I just sort of felt like I should ask for one. In doing so I received a blessing that caught me completely unawares, the Lord mentioned things that I hadn't even realized were on my mind and brought up things that sort of felt were from left field. What I did feel most deeply is that Heavenly Father has the long view, even if I feel so stuck in what is happening today.

I think the thing I had reinforced the most to me this week is that the adversary can use anything to stir up opposition and that consistency is really our best defense. Bare in mind this consistency will then most likely stir up more opposition, but it is really the thing that gives you sanity.

This week Christopher and I embraced the new and unexpected and we bought a car, an amazing car that will get us beautifully from point A to point B and has more bells and whistles than I ever expected in a vehicle. It is amazingly fantastic. And it has stirred up more doubt, fear, worry and freak outs than I ever thought possible. It's not as if we did this completely on the spur of the moment. I have been planning and preparing for a new car for months, I had been figuring out budgets and needs, the things I wanted/needed in a car and fighting my own self doubts about allowing myself to have nice things and not just hand me downs. The moment this week when we got this car was one of six months and more of planning. Yet somehow every morning since has been filled with doubts, worries, fears, regrets, and freak outs. I could still feel in my heart that the initial choice was a good one, yet there was so much noise in my head I often wondered if it was really worth it and wondering if I really could have nice things.  It took full concentrate to forcefully encourage those voices and doubts to leave and to focus on what I felt when I first started the process.


Now some might say I am reading way more into this situation than is warranted, but I think there can be much to learn from any situation in this life, especially the new things we have never done before. For me this happened to be a new car. This week I have learned that Satan doesn't want us to find joy, he wants to discourage us and he wants us to doubt. The more we learn and grow and expand ourselves the more he shouts and rages. But we do have a choice, we can choose to tell him to leave, we can choose to hold onto the direction we received and we can choose to consistently do the good things even when Satan tells us it isn't worth it.

Why do you think Satan tries to discourage us so much from being consistent? I came to the understanding this week that he fights against our consistency so much because he knows consistency leads to perfection. We become what we repeatedly do. If he can stop us from doing the good things consistently then he can stop us from becoming and growing. If he can stop us from positive thinking, if he weighs us down so fully in doubts and fears, then we give up, never realizing that we are so close to all that Heavenly Father has for us. That gift our Father has for us will look different to each of us, but believing He does have great things for us allows Him to do wonders in our lives. He wants to surprise us with the extra special. I didn't set out to buy a car with extras, I just needed a car to go from point A to B, but sometimes we can have the good and the great and we shouldn't feel bad about it, we should be thankful for the gift and be willing to share the good and the great. Heavenly Father has a way of blessing those He knows will extend that blessing to others. Don't be afraid to receive and always find joy in the giving.



Joy D Jones also talked about growing through enticement, her remarks when a long way in helping understand what was happening this week and to be grateful for the opportunity to grow, though unexpected. You can find her remarks here.

Tomorrow is something new entirely

I think weekends are my time for learning, probably because all through the week I am simply rushing around to keep up and on weekends I have some time to breathe. And can I just say how important it is to take that time to breathe.

Can I just say that temple withdrawals are real. A lot of the craziness and struggles of the last weeks have all occurred while the temple was closed and I was feeling it. I hadn't realized how much until my temple shift yesterday. I had sort of been hoping that just walking into the temple would help me find the peace I had been seeking for weeks and it wasn't as forthcoming as I had hoped.

After prayer meeting (for the ordinance workers) I found myself in a training meeting for assisting with own endowments. In a moment of self awareness I noticed that I was leaning back in my chair, with my arms and legs crossed, with a bit of a feeling of "okay impress me, or teach me something" as I realized what I was doing I heard the Spirit whisper something to the effect of "I'm not here to impress you, are you here to learn?' I realized that my attitude of sitting back waiting to receive wasn't going to get me what I wanted, I needed to wake up, sit forward and open my heart to what was already being offered and what could be offered.

With that improved attitude my experience in the temple also improved. As I went to officiate in initiatory I was struck by the promise given to Aaron and to all of us (found in Exodus). That when we go to the temple we are washed, anointed, and we are sanctified. As I extended those promises to those who I assisted I realized that clean-ness isn't just a gift we receive on Sundays as we partake of the sacrament or at our baptism. It is a gift we can access everyday. Because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ each new day we wake up is a fresh start. Each day we can choose to grow, learn, try new things and become something different than the day before.

This doesn't mean that we won't make mistakes, we most likely will, as L.M. Montgomery said in Anne of Avalon "each new day is clean with no mistakes in it...yet". Each new day can be a fresh start. We don't have to stay stuck in old programs and dialogues, we don't have to be forever stuck in who we were yesterday, last week, last month or last year. Our Savior knows that we will make mistakes, it is the reason He walked into the Garden of Gethsemane and suffered for us, it is why He hung on a cross, He wanted us to be able to move forward. The inability to move forward, to let go of what was and embrace what was very literally dams our progress. Our Savior didn't want us to be dammed, so He bled and died for us, He gave us the blessings and covenants of the temple so that we could freely move forward.

As I offered the promises and blessings of the initiatory to those there I felt those same promises given to me. I felt my Savior saying to me that I could let go of the last month, I didn't need to hold onto the bitterness of the past month, I could heal the black hole inside me, I could choose the light and let the darkness become a long ago memory. I felt Him say to me that I can be clean, I can be clean of my sins of omission, I could be clean of the sadness, frustration and pain. I could become something new.

Having felt that for myself, I can promise you, He offers that to you too. It doesn't matter what you felt you have done wrong, it doesn't matter how many times you mess up, Christ's atonement doesn't just kick in as you stand at the bar of judgement, it is available to you each day as you wake up each day with a fresh start to try to do and become something new.

Forgive yourself for what was and embrace what can be, Christ is already there encouraging you to be more than you think you can be in this moment. He sees the big picture and He has great dreams for you. No matter where you are today, tomorrow is something new entirely.

He is in it for the long haul

Hello Everybody!!! It is wonderful to be with you tonight. I find myself rather excited to write tonight. Part of that is because I am very excited for what I am hoping to share and also because I think I have found me again. For a long time I have felt cut off, isolated and voiceless, this weekend I think I found my voice again.

I'd like to start with a quote by William Blake, he said "I sought myself and myself I could not see, I sought my God and He alluded me. I sought my brother and I found all three." I went to a training* this weekend and as I learned how to reopen my heart and embrace others I found myself again and I finally felt God's love in a way that I really needed. At this training we were challenged to give 10 hugs to people during the break. If you had asked me to do this even last week I would have turned you down flat, asking why I had to go out of my way to do it, when no one else was (as far as I can tell I was one of the few going up to complete strangers and giving them hugs, and I mean real hugs, not the touch arms then jump apart kind). I would have asked inside my mind why I should put myself out. But instead I took this as an opportunity to try to lift another, so I asked the Spirit for help and looked for those in need of a hug. As I tapped people on the shoulder and asked if I could give them a hug I had a wonderful opportunity to share love with them, to hold on longer than is the norm and take a moment to feel their spirit, to understand their need to feel loved and to feel the love of my Savior for them. How precious it was to hold these complete strangers in my arms and feel a love for them and for myself that I didn't even realize existed.

At this training we were encouraged to assume the best of others, that as we encountered someone and saw a look on their faces that past experience would tell us is negative, to instead see the positive. "To choose to love them no matter what, we don't have to move in with them, unless we want to, but to simply choose to see the best in them and love them." (Kim Duncan). We will run into so many people in this life, some will treat us kindly, some will treat us poorly. Instead of assuming they are out to get us or assume that they are failing at life, we need to have in our minds that they are doing the best that they can. We don't know what is going on in their lives, we don't know what life experiences have colored their view, we don't know how the muscles in their face rest. If we set in our minds that they are giving their 100% and we give our 100% then we come away feeling we have done our best in a good thing.

I think another thing that I was forcefully reminded of is that I can ask other people for help. One of the things that I have struggled with the most is the fear of other people's pity, of telling other too much and leaving me alone because what is going on in my life is too scary to bare and share. Satan has been working overtime on this fear, he had me so convinced that people wouldn't understand me, that if they did care they would show it in all the wrong ways and that they probably wouldn't care. The more I talk with other people the more I realize we all have trials, we all have things that cause our lives to feel hard, overwhelming and painful...who am I to share my pain around? Is my life really so hard that I have a right to share it?  The thing is our experiences aren't on some gradient scale, "oh you only got a B on a test you studied really hard for, boohoo for you" vs "your child just died of cancer, that actually is sad". Yes one may look much more serious than the other, but to each person in the middle of that moment they deserve compassion, they deserve kindness because they are a mortal struggling with the frailties of mortality and disappointment. Perhaps a key of this life is to not grade trial or to make comparisons at all. Satan would tell us that our struggle is such that no one would understand, so he cuts us off from those who we need the most.

Case in point, having slowly cut myself off from quite a few people the last few months (not hermit style, just selective discussion style) I realized last night that I need to start rebuilding. I began with my dear sweet mother in law. As I asked a simply question I came to understand that Satan had messed with my thinking so much he had cut me off from one of my greatest allies, kept me from someone who has a unique understanding of where I am coming from and my joys and disappointments. She also has a benefit of the long view that I don't have. In finally opening up to her I was able to find perspective that I had lost, hope that had been missing, and joy of not feeling so alone. These new perspectives don't change circumstances, but they make all the difference in the world because our heart can change and with a changed heart everything changes.

If Satan has told you lies, has told you you are alone or misunderstood, or that someone is out to get you or is just being so rude. I would encourage you to evaluate your perspective on your relationships and see what assumptions you've made. For just one day, assume that everyone is doing their best, that they love you, and we're all trying, you will see amazing results. I can already feel some of my desire wearing down to be as open as I can, I struggle with self doubt. But we can all start from somewhere and try to do just a little better the next day.

One last thing, a dear friend that I met at the training said something to me that has helped me so much in my thinking. I had begun asking myself what is the point to do what I do each day, I just have to redo it again the next. She shared with me what the Spirit shared with her "work is endless because progression is endless". If we want to gain all that progression has to offer, which is endless, then we must be willing to pay the price endlessly. We will be blessed in this effort. As she said, if progression means doing dishes every day, then I am going to be the best darn dish washer I can be. If sometimes we face disappointment or frustration, that is simply another step in endless progression.

The Lord has an amazing destiny for us and that destiny is reached through making and strengthening relationships and to find the joy in the little things that bring us closer to Him. He is in it for the long haul, are we?

Christ has already fought our battles, and He won.


*Queen of the Kingdom through 3keyelements.com

Who was there all along

 A year or two ago I wrote a post called The Voice that Lies* in that post I talked about the three voices in our minds, The Spirit, our own personal voice (the essence of who we are) and the adversary's voice, that which lies and manipulates our emotions. If you'd like to read that post you can find the URL at the bottom of the page. The summary was that we need to be conscious of the voices and to invite the Spirit to help us to discern truth so that in those split second moments when we have the choice whether to believe the lies and choose to feel negatively about something or to recognize the lie we choose to reject the lie and trust the good. I've been thinking a lot about this moment of decision and reminding myself that I have the choice to control my emotions, they don't have to control me.

But what happens when we are under attack and we don't see the moment of choice for what it is, what do we do when the voices in our mind get so loud, so persistent, so persuasive, so overwhelming and so powerful that we don't see the moment when we make a choice to feel lonely, to feel exhausted, to feel attacked, to feel alone, to feel picked on, to feel that life is unfair? What do we do when we feel like we just can't take it anymore, when we begin to believe that life isn't fair (as a reminder mortal life was not created to be fair, it was created for us to learn through injustice, to fight against pain and disappointment to see the good when it seems darkness and unfairness is prevailing), that no one cares about us, that we are doomed to an endless cycle of drudgery, chores, and upheaval in our minds, that we will always feel cut off from others and separate because our life experience seems so different from their's?

I wish that these were rhetorical questions, that they were generalizations with no grounding in fact or real life. Yet when one seeks for Christ in a world growing in darkness Satan plays a game of no holds barred. He is seeking our souls brothers and sisters, he knows he can't win, he knows and has known that he couldn't win, from the very moment that he chose contrary to our Father's plan he knew he would lose. His only consolation is to try to take as many of our Father's children with him when he loses. This means he doesn't attack us in our strength (though he'll always send a temptation or two just to see if we've grown complacent) this means he'll kick us while we are down and see how many spiritual ribs he can break. This means that he will attack us in our sorrow and confusion and see how long he can keep us wallowing in sadness and fear. This means that he won't give us a breather, he sees this as a fight to the death and we need to realize this is serious. Our very souls are at stake and we need to be willing to put all we have into the fight.
   
   I am quite certain that I am not the first to feel overwhelmed and under armed nor will I be the last. We all have felt our moments of despair, we have all felt at the end of our rope, unsupported, facing the darkness alone and unaided. The key is to realize that this is the voice that lies who is telling you those things. He knows he has more power when you feel you have no power to call upon.

   So in moments of darkness and drowning when you feel you have no hope to reach out to, I hope that you will call upon our Savior, He has all power against that darkness, He can pierce it and cast it out, which is why Satan speaks so loudly that Christ won't, because he knows it isn't a matter of can't. When you feel the distance between you and your Savior widening remember that He walked into a garden and knelt by a rock and prayed for you, He was raised on a cross for you, He walked from a tomb for you. He is the Savior of the World and He is the Captain of your salvation. Your Savior and mine will give you the space you need to take a breath, He will clear the mists from your eyes so that you can see the lies you've been told. Now this doesn't mean the darkness will automatically leave, as much as Christ fights for us, Satan fights against us, he is seeking our souls and he doesn't give up easily, but he must leave when we tell him to. So we seek our Savior to give us the strength to tell our adversary to leave. We seek our loving Savior to reach out to us and pull us from our chasm and we keep seeking the light until we find it.



  I testify that the light will come. All our problems won't be solved, we wouldn't learn the lessons of mortality if they did, but we will gain clearer vision, we will find hope, we will see that there is reason to continue, to keep trying. Whatever holds we can face it because as we learn in the Old Testament, there are more that be with us than they that be with them (Satan and his followers). We are watched over. If there comes a moment of chaos, darkness, doubt, fear and pain call upon our Savior and in His name cast out Satan and those who follow him, Satan will leave and with his leaving we will feel our Savior who was there all along, we just needed the space to feel Him again. This is a fight, but we aren't in it alone.
 






*http://ofchoicesandconsequences.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-voice-that-lies.html

We are farther along than we think

I think one of the big struggles of our day is to find purpose in each new day. Time feels like it is rushing by, I heard someone say that the days are long and the years are short and I think I believe them. Each day of the week feels like a year in and of itself, filled with emotion, some good some bad, filled with tedium and too much excitement; then at the end of the week I find myself wondering how in the world it is already Saturday or in this case Sunday.



What I'm coming to find out is that if I don't make a conscious effort to be engaged and live with intention that I can go a whole week simply surviving instead of progressing. Sure that progression may only come in fits and starts and may not be as all encompassing or earth shattering as I would like to be, but progress even if by a 1/4 of an inch is still progress.

I think the biggest battle in this life is to just keep trying, to keep trying even without revelation, to keep trying without noticeable results, to keep trying when you are frustrated, to keep trying when you are confused, to keep trying when things get messy, to keep going even when every part of you just wants to give up because you don't even know why you are doing this anymore. As mentioned before most people will give up on something after two weeks if they don't see results...what I'm coming to see is that very few things in this life actually change in two weeks. I was looking at some of my blogs from December and realized I've been trying to improve my sleep schedule since before December. You know what...I stayed up until midnight last night. From a distance that would look like I am still failing because I'm still staying up later than I wanted to when I first started. However with a closer look I realized some things. First, I'm not crashing on the couch anymore and waking up at 1 a.m to head to bed. Second, the tv isn't on as late at our house as it used to be. This means that I'm spending less time in front of the tv and more time with my husband. Third, I have a much more solid and useful night time routine than I used to. Sure my actual time headed to bed might not have improved as much as I had hoped, but I am different than I was, and I have made improvements I hadn't even imagined when I started this journey 8 months ago.

Sometimes when the change we are seeking doesn't come the way we want or expected we can be tempted to give up and through in the towel. Sometimes when we start feeling frustrated we can be tempted to fall back into negative thought patterns and reside in the darkness in self-pity. I would guess that those moments are actually the moments when we are closest to success, perhaps not the "I have magically and suddenly reached the end all be all goal I have been seeking" but instead the "oh Heavenly Father, I see what you did there, that is a nice silver lining/added bonus to this endeavor."  Each time that we seek to become a better person, each time that we renew our effort to wear off a rough edge, each time that we look at ourselves and ask Heavenly Father what we might do to become a better vessel for His work, He knows we are embracing our divine DNA instead of our mortal DNA. He realizes this will be a life long effort and He knows that once we make the effort to change He can step in and with grace change us in ways we never expected. Satan realizes this as well, which is why he works so hard to keep us overwhelmed, over worked and exhausted. He doesn't want to give us the time to look at ourselves and see how we might change and he works doubly hard to discourage us in our change efforts because he doesn't want grace applied to our lives.

So if you are feeling discouragement tonight, if you feel like you have tried to change time and time again and you aren't any closer to your objective, I would encourage you to sit down and think about how you have changed in the last year, what things do you do differently now then you did then. Thank Heavenly Father for them, then ask Him how He and the Atonement of Jesus Christ can help you change more. You might be surprised what He has to say to you. I know the road is long and dark at times (I am still walking mine with some patches of sunlight as I go along), I know that it is frustrating to try and try and never seem to get closer to what you want. But remember, Heavenly Father gave you and nurtured in you that desire to change because He also saw all the peripheral changes that could come along the way. Be kind to yourself and to others, we can't always see where we ourselves or those around us started, but I promise you, we are farther along that we think and we do have Heaven's help to keep on going. This is just another step in an eternal journey, and I'm grateful for the time I have in this life to start that journey.

Choosing the Positive

   I realized something earlier this week, Satan wants me isolated and he wants me not to feel. There is a phrase in scripture called "past feeling" I used to think that that just meant past feeling guilty but as I faced two weekends ago and the repercussions of that night and the fear I felt from not feeling in the moment and as I've thought back on it I realized if we aren't feeling then we aren't afraid or concerned or well anything. When we feel scared or concerned or worried we generally reach out to other people and especially to Heavenly Father. When we don't feel anything we hide away because we wonder what's wrong with us and when we don't feel we don't want to be around people with emotion. Generally numbness comes from a piling on of too much negative emotion, so we want to hide from the possibility of more negative emotion so we isolate ourselves, hoping that if we stay away long enough we won't pile anything else on and maybe somehow feel again.

   After coming to this conclusion, I finally shared more of what was on my mind with my family and you know what, it was very freeing. True it was scary to let others see what was really going on, but it was freeing knowing those thoughts weren't just stuck inside me anymore. It is a strange paradox that we can be doing our best to hide what is really going on inside of us so no one sees our struggle, then wonder why no one is asking us what's wrong. The fact is if we don't share, then others can't know. This life is too short to hold everything inside of us all the time. Yes I understand that there is a correct time and place for sharing, but we also need to be willing to share when the opportunity presents itself.

   Of course once you begin to share it can be like a tidal wave of emotion and thought start building up and bursting forth. Two weeks ago was the first time that I shared that experience so close to the moment of it actually happening and let's just say this recovery time period has been much different than any other. I don't know if it's because me doing something different has triggered a new sequence of events or if I finally did something to help me heal instead of just tamp down and so now opposition has risen to keep me in chaos, regardless of which it is my thoughts have been very stirred up these last two weeks. I am still struggling to find the God I knew. I know He hasn't changed, but I am struggling to see Him as He truly is. Right now I just feel so overwhelmed, so pulled in so many different directions that I'm not sure how to find peace, because it is peace I feel I am lacking. Yes I do know of coping techniques or things I could do to improve what's going on, but I feel so exhausted that I'm struggling to do them. In the mix of all of this I am still trying to improve my sleeping routine and actually go to bed at night. This is the first time I have really had to battle to do a righteous thing. No I am not perfect, in fact I am far from it. I realize I have a tendency to be selfish and want attention (I mean I am writing a blog). But most things come generally easily to me. Word of Wisdom hasn't been an issue, wearing garments was never a struggle, R-rated movies haven't been a trouble, yet somehow going to bed at a decent time has brought me to my knees begging for the help of heaven (when I'm not feeling rebellious or non committal). I guess this just shows me we really do have our pet sins, Satan won't try to tempt us with immorality if he can get us to gossip or tempt us with the Word of Wisdom if he can just get us to stay up late so we are so tired we can't feel the Spirit and so frazzled we feel we can't do more. The irony of this life, it is the small things that make the biggest difference.

  In the midst of the swirl of all these things I was reminded that I can choose to be in control of my emotions, they don't rule me. Because I chose to entertain negativity, the negative is all I saw. Satan can make the negative so much more relatable to us in our mortal state than seeing the positive. But that doesn't make the negative completely true. Sure the trash wasn't taken out yesterday, that doesn't make anyone a failure, it just means sometimes we forget. Don't let Satan dictate how you feel about those in your life. You will be tempted to see the negative, but you can choose to look past the negative and see the good too. It is amazing what one negative thought does. It crushes your spirit and places a dark filter over your vision so all you see is the bad. Negativity is contagious. Conversely when you have one positive thought sometimes you have to fight for the next one, but as you fight for the positive you feel a smile lifting the edges of your mouth and a friend and companion where just moments before you saw an enemy. The adversary wants us enemies, our Savior hopes for us to be friends, we can choose the good and we can find light. Sure I still have a rats nest in my head, but I know I will do better choosing the positive than the dark.

To not let the darkness take root

     Would you like to know a funny thing? This week's post is even harder to write than last week's. Why you might ask? Because it's hard to know what to say. It's hard for anyone to know what to say once they have heard something intensely personal and a little bit heavy. We don't want to say something belittling or to cause more hurt or harm so we tend to not say much, so then there's an awkward pause or we change the subject to something else. I get it and that's why I tend not to say anything because there is almost nothing worse then telling something of a close-to-the-heart nature and have it just hang there, that's why generally when people ask how I'm doing I say I'm fine, because I have no desire to face that awkwardness or even worse to see pity in their eyes. It is a fragile thing to tell people that your life and marriage isn't what it looks like on the surface, of course I think that is true for everyone. We all have hard things, they look different from each other, but they are still hard. Whether it is the fact you haven't slept for a week because your toddler and newborn are taking turns being up, through the whole night. Or whether your toddler can't make up their mind whether they love you or hate you and it's different everyday, or if your spouse is really stressed and you are feeling very stressed trying to help them make it through. Or if your child has said they are leaving the church and you don't know what to do or whether you are sitting across from your spouse and wondering how things are really going beneath the surface. Or maybe it is something that people wouldn't really label as hard, you are just really busy with a church calling, supporting a spouse, running a non-profit, trying to keep up with grand kids, who knows what it is that is going on in your life, you are still worth having someone check in on you, you are still worth receiving support. In a world where Zion truly has come it doesn't matter what defcon level we face, we just care about people. I realize I can do a lot better at this, generally I feel so caught up in my own things that the idea of checking in on one other person overwhelms me to the point of jitteryness. Then Heavenly Father says "don't worry about all those things, I just need you to bring cookies to that family over there who is struggling" and somehow being able to focus on just that one thing clears your mind and gives you purpose, because you know you did the Lord's errand and that's ultimately what you were hoping for with all your long lists of things to do.

 So how am I doing? I don't know how to answer that question. At a training I went to this weekend I was taught we all need letting go techniques and as I listened I realized this is one of mine, this is where I learn, this is where Heavenly Father teaches me things. We all need a place where we feel safe being us, we need a sphere where we can express without judgement and see with clearer eyes what is really going on in our lives.

   So here goes with the semi clearer eyes...I'm still struggling. I'm struggling not because things are still in upheaval, but because they are not, because things are calm. I faced an epoch of sorts in my life and then came Monday morning everything was "normal" again. It was as if nothing had happened, my relationship returns to evenness and I'm left wondering what in the world just happened. I try to not dwell on the past and just move forward, yet my spirit knows that something major happened and I don't know how to just let it go. I admit that for a time this week I let myself get a bit too near and dear with self-pity, I developed an attitude of frustration asking myself why depression couldn't have just stayed away, I had been telling myself that the future was bright and creating beautiful dreams and then they all came crashing down. I am ashamed to admit some martyr syndrome came as well, I let myself feel picked on and woeful. And you know what, I felt darkness, I felt darkness because that is the only perspective I let in. We see the world according to the labels we give it and according to how we choose to filter it before it comes into our heart. Because I labelled things negatively all I saw was darkness and reasons to complain because of my picked on state. And because I chose to focus on those emotions that's all I felt. It wasn't until I went to Heavenly Father and asked Him to not only remove those emotions, but to replace them that I finally felt that filter be removed and I could feel His love again. Letting Him bring light back into my life was one of the best decisions of my week. Yet it was still a bit of blow that it didn't miraculously sweep away my chaos or bring perfect answers and circumstances. 

To be honest looking at things from a week away I am split down the middle. One side of me feels as if my whole life was once more turned upside down and the other side of me (unlike Fiddler on the Roof there are only two sides here) feels like last week was no big deal and I'm making something more out of it than I should. Thinking about it or sharing it with some who have talked with me I feel as if I am whining and I should just keep my mouth shut because it isn't a big deal and I shouldn't worry anybody else because they'd be worrying for nothing.

 There are still elements of confusion, loneliness, sadness (a whole myriad of things from last week I haven't faced yet) and they could very well drag me down, even with things on the surface seemingly fine. Yet for today I choose not to entertain those thoughts. Yes I know I need to process them, tamping them down just leaves an explosion for later. But I also don't want them to rule my every thought or determine my filter. I'm in a new place I've never been before and I'm curious to see where we go from here. So today I choose to say

                                      I am an empowered daughter of God

                                      I see the light in others

                                       I say truth with love and kindness

                                      I love all of God's children, no matter background or perspective

                                      I do the work of Heavenly Father

                                      I feel the love of heaven

                                      I am a servant of my Savior

And perhaps that is what it is to be Christlike, to not let the darkness take root even when we feel like its our due. He faced many forces of darkness yet He chose the light.

Feel it as well

Tonight I'd like to tell a story and I tell this story not only by permission, but also encouragement from those in the story.



  "Last night I'm sitting on the couch when my husband gets up and says he needs to go. At first I just thought he needed to head to the bathroom...then he starts changing his clothes and I realize that he is heading outside, then he starts packing a bag and saying he's not sure when he'll be back, he's just so miserable that he can't stay here any longer. He says the noise is just too much and the chaos outside our house (Cache Valley Cruise in festivities) is making the chaos inside him too much, he just can't do it anymore, he is too miserable to want to stay in this life and just doesn't want to live anymore. I realize that he has been alone too long this week and the voices that are sometimes just whispering in his head are at a full roar. I look into the bedroom to see the gun case on the bed and my heart drops. I ask him what is in his backpack. He says he just needs the bag and tries to leave. I grab on in a hug asking him not to go and to leave the gun. He tells me I assume too much and I shouldn't assume like that, I go to the bed and see everything is still in the case so I put it away. He then tells me he needs to get away, he doesn't know how long he'll be gone and he walks out the door. I'm left alone in my sweltering house wondering what I do now. I don't feel the panic I've felt in times past when he's left saying life is just too heavy. Somehow I feel he will come home to me, at the same time I wonder what happens if he doesn't come home. So I message a friend for help, asking her assistance in praying for light, angels and some space for him from the voices. She reminds me that it is up to my husband whether he accepts that help or not and I realize I can ask for all that I want, it is up to him whether he accepts them or not, I am powerless.
    So I pray, I pray for angels to watch over and protect him, and I pray that for tonight he will be okay. Yet I feel empty inside, how did it get this bad, just last week things felt okay, not great, but okay, now it's like we've fallen to the bottom of the deepest darkest crevasse on earth. I feel bad for having left him alone so much this week having not realized just how much was at stake. Then feeling I really need a walk, but not wanting the house to be empty when he gets home I walk in a loop around my house, up the block, back down the block, loop around the house and repeat, always craning my neck for a sight of his car, wondering if I really will see him pull in, wondering just how long he will be gone, what he is doing, hoping he will come back home. Finally as I finish my loops he pulls in and I realize crisis has been averted for another night, but also realizing that doesn't mean everything is okay. A broken young man comes struggling back in the house, so weighted down by life, feeling buried alive, feeling that his spirit is slowly dying and wisping away. Knowing that "'depression doesn't discriminate, it comes after the rich, the poor, those who are happy, those who are sad, it slowly eats away at you, dimming your vision so you can't see the light and it never goes away, maybe sometimes the voices and dread get a little smaller, but they are always there, eating away at you until you just can't stand it anymore you know you have to leave, you sleep all the time because it is the closest you can get to death, and God never answers your prayers to just be able to fall asleep and never wake up." Why won't He just answer that prayer? And I realize I have no answers to these questions. You realize there is nothing to say to misery that deep.
    So eventually sleep comes to both of us and I wake up the next day not knowing what will come. Will he be morose, will he be despairing or will he be just fine? So I sit through church alone, hoping he is okay and hoping he knows I love him and it is enough to keep him here another day. Facing the three hour block alone, facing people who want to push into your life, but don't take time to realize that you are numb, that you realize you should be freaking out because of what happened last night, realizing you should be thanking Heavenly Father that your husband is still here, but really just feeling empty and alone and doomed to face this cycle over and over again. People ask you how you are and you say fine because you have no idea how to tell them that your husband doesn't want to live anymore. And you come home...and everything seems fine, he's on the couch watching tv and you wonder what happened in the last five hours. As the day goes on you think that miraculously everything is okay, you've dodged a bullet (maybe even literally) and things are looking up. Then in a side comment you realize things aren't okay, they just got tamped down beneath the surface again and you realize the voices are still shouting, the chaos is still swirling and you still don't have any better answers than you had the night before. And as you get ready for bed with those questions still ringing in your mind you feel empty and you ache for them and you realize you haven't even cried because you yourself don't even know what to think."

I share this tonight because the young man in the thick of it asked me to, he said if it could help one person it would be worth it. This young man has fought this battle for decades and his eyes are starting to dim, yet still he wants those around him to know that if they are facing this same struggle they are not alone. And he wants those in supporting roles to know they aren't alone. His exact words were "tell them what it is to have someone who suffers from depression and severe anxiety".

So often I still hear, just tell him to buck up and get over it or why won't he come, doesn't he like us?
   I'm not writing this post to get on a soap box, I think I'm writing to try to make it feel real, to come to grips with the fact that sometimes this is just a part of my life. Hearing your spouse doesn't want to stay in this life is a heartwrenching thing to hear, but after hearing it so many times you wonder what that really means, yet you don't dare not take it seriously because what if this time it really is that bad, what if this time he doesn't come home. You can't live in fear and eventually the fear wears off, yet it can never be normal either. Who knows maybe we will both live to see our children and great grandchildren or maybe we won't, but that doesn't make life any less precious. So perhaps tonight is to remind me that life is precious, not that my life is any more difficult than anyone else's, it's just it's own kind of painful.
   As cliche'd as it is, please remember we all have battles that others can't see, so please be kind. I keep wanting to end with my testimony, I mean just yesterday I was talking with a friend and realized how many tender mercies and brief moments of inspiration I've had in my life in even the last week, yet even knowing Heavenly Father is active in my life I'm still feeling a bit alone tonight, not abandoned by any means, just a bit chip on the shoulder and I'm still working on how to get past it. It doesn't matter how many times someone says to you that Jesus Christ wants to take your burden if Satan is whispering to you at the same time that Jesus is the one that allowed the burden in the first place. Yes I know the logic is twisted, but that doesn't stop it from being there. So for now I'm going to keep doing what I can to follow the light, read my scriptures, uplifting music, and keep getting up every morning and hopefully one day, one day soon I will not only seek the light, but feel it as well...