Creating My Life

Today (10/22/14), I am so grateful for my life. I am grateful to feel joy in my life. I am grateful for my children. I am grateful I can enjoy them without fear of "bad parenting" but only a need for them to feel loved by their mother. 

I have a desire to write a book. I see it being a story. A true story about sex, trauma, betrayal, pain, lies, deceit, and lust. This sounds like a fictional story but it is mine. The miracle of the story is the path that I want other's to envision in their own life to greater happiness, health, peace, and love. Sounds like a best seller with movie rites to me. No limits in my abundance thinking. 

I see my business growing and hiring someone to help me with the business side of things (actually I have someone in mind). 

I see abundance of family time. Time to connect with my husband. I actually quit my nursing job. I gave 2 weeks notice last Friday. I see my nursing and mindfulness being taken to a new level in the community, in business and corporate environment. 

I am having great ability to teach my kids to live mindful and authentic lives.  In the past it was so easy for me to use my personal fear based self-talk to teach them to "keep the commandments" or your eternal life is at risk. Now I see commandments as fear based in many ways and "lower law" living. 

My husband one day said he is having a hard time with the word of Wisdom as scritpure and commandment. I listened. He explained why...yes I agree. It is not about shame and fear. It is about respect for our bodies. I find I live "stricter" than the Word of Wisdom in many ways. In my desire to "bio-hack" my brain and body for greater health, I find I am actually eating lots of fruits and veggies. The thing about my eating and health, I love the way I feel. I want to eat this way. 

For approx 20 years I spent life binging to numb myself and then exercising to lose weight. I was good if I didn't eat something that I really wanted to eat but I was "bad" if I ate something I was not suppose to eat. I was either good or bad. Food is now neutral for me. No good/bad thinking. It is so filled with shame. This same process happens with most addictions and this cycle is what keeps the cycle going around and around. If we can see food as neutral and then listen to our bodies to what feels "healthy". It is about a CHANGE OF HEART. We lose the desire for the so-called "bad foods". It becomes about healthy choices that are not shame filled. I love my oatmeal with chia, flax, nuts, and berries for breatkfast and my green smoothy, nuts, and dark chocolate for lunch. It is what I WANT. This is the difference in how we need to look at health. It is so awesome. 

I see my husband as he has struggled over the years with the Word of Wisdom in regards to coffee, alcohol, and even tobacco. (and I used to stress about caffeinated soda) I feel peace to let him work through this and find his path to health (he is 130 or more pounds overweight). He knows how I feel about being healthy and I know he wants health in his life. It is his journey and it is so free for me to now feel any need to control his path. Then he feels safe to talk about his path.

He could give you a great speech about modesty, lust, pornography and objectification of women. This is from a man who spent 30 years of his life addicted to lust and objectification. How did he overcome...NOT WITH MORE SHAME!!! ....for another day.

I AM
good, kind, compassionate, loving, and filled with peace and joy. 

Watching a River

I do feel very grateful for so many things. I am grateful I am going to my Mindfulness training class. I am 1/2 way through and the the first half I had a real grasp of in my life. It felt like I am reinforcing being present in each moment. We did a meditation last night that really had me thinking. We practiced moving from the breath and instead just observing our thoughts and just observing them like you are sitting on the side of a river.

I have done this type of meditation before but she brought in feelings. Something I am wanting to bring more of into my life. After a life (20 years) of pushing/hiding or denying my feelings. I WANT TO FEEL!!! I brought this up that how do you feel. I like feeling. It feels good to FEEL. I even will take the anger and the aching heart because with this there is still movement inside. Having progressed to a state of deadness, stonewalling, or past-feeling over those years.

 I perfected the denying of feelings. I even struggle with being able to visualize in my mind. It is black. As I have been teaching other people through yoga, I see that most people are able to visualize. I see myself being able to visualize. I see my brain wiring opening that path.

I think it has become my way of coping with betrayal trauma. If I can't visualize what my husband is doing, I feel no pain. This has only hurt me in the long run. I read this blog post yesterday and to me it seems that there is a training we in the church we go through since our youth to push away our feelings. We are taught to shame ourselves and then have to self-medicate. I wonder how many people self-medicate through  very unhealthy methods in the long run: food, sex and pornography addictions, prescription drugs, shopping, gambling, etc. I think we can even use healthy things that can have long-term relationship ramifications if used for medication. For me I have used exercise just to function and if I didn't I could hardly get out of bed.

Now it is so different. I find I am happy most days. It feels so good inside. Now I want to open the blocked areas to feel, to cry, to see, to hear, to just be the ME that is underneath the layers of bricks. So many have come down. It is a process I am OK with. It took a long time to get so closed and the rate of deconstruction is much faster (thank goodness). She said to just be present with what is. If you are feeling allow it and be present with it. If no feelings are present, to  just be present with that as well. It made sense to let go of the striving to feel. This is called RAIN. An important part is always the compassion and kindness one need to have with the self.

I am needing to give notice today. My husband said, I support you 100% in quiting your nursing job to grow my business. I can't work any more Saturdays. I said OK I will on Monday, then Tuesday, and now I say I will today. It feels so good when I think about having that time with my family (I only work Saturday's). I am so grateful I am finding JOY in my family time.

Starting Day with Centering and Personal Growth

I am so excited for my day today. I was up at 4 am doing my yoga and finding my centering for my day. It is powerful to come to the breath and put the thinking aside for a while. It is said that thinking only takes us into the past (depression) or the future (anxiety).

I have to put my faith crisis on hold at times because I find myself grieving my past (depression), trying to understand my previous thinking and beliefs (more depression), trying to understand the teaching that has been taught at the pulpit (more depression),  where my testimony is going (anxiety), my salvation based on my current shifting (process) paradigm (more anxiety), and the time it takes to process all this "THINKING". It can be so exhausting (due to the future (anxiety) and past (depression) thinking).

This is why the breath has come to mean so much in my life. This is my present moment and it brings me to this place at this moment. Then when I go to "thinking",I notice and come back to my present moment breath. Then I can actually find peace to do something I enjoy in life in the mode of "Effortless Effort". My life unfolds before me in the most perfect way. I trust God is opening doors for me that allow great things to come into my life, my relationships, and my health.

I love to talk in these new ways to my children. I love to feel peace in my heart. I am grateful from my family and my kids. I grateful for my teenage son who is willing to do yoga now. (OK it may help that it is him with 3 other girls- odds are in his favor) I am grateful that the girls that came this week to my teen yoga class were surprised at a new way of thinking besides "stress and anxiety".

One of the girls is #2 in the school academically (I didn't know this at the time). She rated her stress as a 12 on a 1-10 scale. Not good for teens to feel so much pressure to do. I asked what one of current stressors...PSAT is coming up...I said, "are you in the PSAT right now?"...."No"....Breathe, come to the breath, and see how life at this moment is good, with friends, in yoga class. Next week you can be in your PSAT. The stress comes from being in the PSAT right now and not being able to take it.....She just had a look of Awe of her face. A concept she had never before thought. Someone who is #2 in the school has little Mind/Body/Emotional Strength and Intelligence.

I am grateful for peace, growth, friends, and life with all its confusion. I am grateful for my husband that we can talk about how we are feeling. I am grateful we talk about issues that are difficult. I am grateful I am able to provide a safe environment that he can talk about things and it is not about the "church box" I used to be in and the fear that was associated with that. It feels so good and less shaming.

I am attracting appointment with the hospital, Directors, CNO, and CEO (why not go to the top!) to discuss beside nursing and my vision. I see them willing to integrate it into the system and paying me $200/hour to implement.
I am atttracting books, articles, and people reading them for improvement in bedside nursing and integrating mindfulness into hospital for nurses, families, doctors, staff, patients, and community.
I am attracting people to my yoga classes.

That's right....
I HAVE abundance of money, family time,
IAM healthy, wealthy, and wise
I AM learning, reading, studying, and growing in my Faith in God.
I AM peaceful, joyful, abundant, and happy.
I Have great love for my children and my husband. They feel the love I have for them.
I AM a great Yoga Teacher for Adults and Children.

Faith Transition and Compassion with Self During the Process.

I am feeling tired this morning. I don't like being gone in the evenings. My heart want to find  the energy and peace it needs to function each day. Yesterday's busyness was exhausting. I wanted to get up early but just didn't have the energy. That is OK...No judgement needed. Look for peace in this moment. I think I am feeling the heaviness of my faith transition.

I am looking for greater strength by nourishing my faith. To trust all is working for good in my life at this moment. My new faith paradigm is OK and that it is OK even though my perfect theology crumbled when I found space in my head and healing in my heart, to actually question and search.

I am still full of faith in a loving God. My world of Jesus, the atonement, the restoration, the scriptures, the culture are not the same. That is OK. It is difficult that other's don't SEE. I am grateful my husband has joined me in this faith transition. I am grateful I can talk to him and feel same (at first he didn't). I was scared to look before. Scared to find something that might make me doubt. Scared of what was "out there". Scared I might fall and lose my salvation if I did look. What if after I died and woke up on the other side (or however it works), I was not saved because I turned from my church or was not "good enough". Faith is not like that.

If I beat myself up enough in this life for NOT being able to be good enough, then at least I tried. So the depression of my past failing, my anxiety over my (and my husband and kids) exaltation and ability to live up to my knowledge were my heavy crosses to bear.

Then with anxiety and depression as my frame in the present moment, I could not function and the cycle continued. I became a sick person who functioned because I had 5 kids and a husband to take care of. Check off list: cook, clean, scriptures, pray, church, sex, fhe, exercise, temple attendance, meetings, callings, family scripture study, family prayer, repeat, etc...never could quite fit in family history- I did add it to my "not good enough list" along with my failed "plant a garden". After-all now we are suppose to do our family history and names to take to temple.

How my faith journey started:

• teaching primary Old Testament. I was not satisfied with manual and started researching on internet for scholarship and new ways of looking at the historicity of Old Testament. 
• This lead to many subjects that the book of Genesis brings up: Creation accounts, Book of Abraham, Book of Moses, Moses, Adam and Eve, Evolution, Fall, Blacks and the Priesthood, Curse of Cain, and the list goes on. 
• So with a million questions and finding the answers were not so simple as "pray, read your scriptures, go to church, and go to the temple for your education". 
• I started going to temple every other weeks and found great peace in the celestial room pondering. I would love to just go to the temple for the sake of meditation. No "work" needed. Just for me and my personal meditation. Why do we have to "DO" stuff and why not just "BE" there with God's presence. 
• With therapy, I saw my thinking was not very healthy...WHAT? You mean that was not Satan sitting on my shoulder putting those thoughts into my head. It was ME all along? NO WAY!!! This was hard for me because it was easier to blame Satan. It also gave me hope because now I could rewire my neural pathways in the brain.. Yes, it is a science. So I started studying brain science.
• I taught yoga for 3 years and decided to get certified as a teacher. My eyes were opened up to yoga philosophy and mindfulness. I love the teachings of living in the present moment, non-judgment, non-doing, beginner's mind, etc. I started studying mindfulness and adding it to my yoga teaching. These have helped me tremendously with seeing other's at church with compassion as I have had more self-compassion.
• Loving self is BEFORE loving others. We mess up the scriptures. I started teaching my primary class differently. No need for shame or even most 'Mormon" guilt. I do agree there is a place for guilt among some sins but not the ones that most Mormon women put upon themselves. 
• Starting a business and seeing God's hand in my growth.
• Studying Cosmology and it's history through the ages. 
• Meditation: a huge part of brain change and keeping healthy neural pathways developing.
• Eliminating the negative in my life: less media, less should and shouldn't talk, less FHE, less commandments, less work, less doing, less shame, less pain, less anxiety, less depression, and wow I have room in my cup for ....
• More good: family time, building relationships, feeling the Spirit in my life, writing, reading, personal growth, teaching yoga, teaching kids and teens of all faiths mindfulness/yoga (Our culture is filled with the same teachings). More joy, peace, and love. 

I do love my church and in it's purest form it all comes down to one word: LOVE!!!

Joseph Smith in his heart was only seeking God's love for all mankind in the context of his culture, time, place, and circumstances. Yes, as you study it is a mess of a history but so is my history. I will be honest in my history to pass to my children so they know the truth according to their mother. Just as we are part of a church that contains the truth according to Joseph Smith. Now in this modern era along the span of evolution, we need to proceed to the a new shift and transition to a truth (cosmoslogy) according to our time, circumstances, culture, and place. So cool to see religion in that light. We can do this within all the beauty of "Mormonism". 

Miracle

Talk about miracles. I went to teach my yoga class tonight and I was feeling heavy all day. Lots on my plate. For some reason only one student showed up. This student happens to teach medical publishing at a local university (big name). I start telling her my ideas and she says, "Have you thought about publishing?" Yea...but I know so little. She said I had some great ideas and she would love to help me publish. WOW!!! What are the odds of that...probably less than the lottery. The moment I am feeling a need to be an advocate for change in the medical field. I get a publisher and an editor, and she just got back from a conference about doing just what I need!!!
See Law of Attraction WORKS...FAITH WORKS!!!
My belief was there but I felt unsettled about path. Amazing door opened. I also decided to cancel my evening classes to have every evening with my family. Peace has returned. Path is clearer!!!
SEE MONEY IS HERE!!! I AM ABUNDANT!!!

QUESTIONS???

dear....

My heart is so troubled. My mind is weighed heavy by this heaviness. What is truth? I have faith...it is believing in something you can see...this is creation in it's purest form. I have seen this in action in my life in untold ways.

I am also angry at my husband. I discussed with him my questions regarding the divinity of Jesus Christ, the atonement, the priesthood (ongoing), and the messages of doing/shame as the emphasis in the church. It is very difficult for me after voicing that after speaking to him how I feel we could go camping and still find devotion to God by not "officially" going to church. He brought this up yesterday in defense of his position of taking his daughter to a volleyball game 2 hours away with her team. My point actually was a NEED for increased devotion, meditation, searching, and guiding our children to God in nuruting ways. So now he is leaving this morning and come home late and do a science project. Sounds very soul nurturing to me. He says that I have no idea of his plans. I just can't help but feel that his plans have similar to his "didn't what I say at Chuckee-cheese mean anything"...What? The 30 seconds you say you want to connect with me and then say if we can have a productive conversation that you would be willing to take the heat at work for not going in on a Saturday. NO THANKS!!!(sarcasm intended) I was not feeling productive. I feel PMSing (is there such a word) and also frustrated by our lack of connection. My fear that he will use my questioning as a justification for doing what I call "bad things" or probably more likely things I am afraid of...not that my fear has stopped him before (i.e pornography, a concubine on the side, alcohol, maybe a smoke here and there, etc). His argument that if the Word of Wisdom is just stated as a commandment because prohibition was in vogue and voted as such...it is probably not wrong. Possibly...but his history says "red flag"...excuse to sin...not as a reason to live something even higher.

So yes I guess I can say I am afraid...FEAR...False evidence appearing real? Do I know at this moment he feels this way. Is he now? Not that I know or even care. So dig deaper in my soul. FEAR...my testimony is being put through the ringer. I am afraid that my belief in "my church" and somehow there are "mormons" in heaven. It just does not make the same sense it did before.

My cup emptied when trauma lessened. My fear of searching and questioning left me. I started therapy, became yoga certified, learned about mindfulness in the buddist tradition, started mediating, and depression/anxiety were no longer my guiding light. My head had space and so my desire to search and learn increased. My cup was empty....Please teach me I pleaded to God.....

Empty Your Cup
There once was a Japanese Zen master who received a university professor who came to inquire and learn about Zen.
It was obvious to the master from the start of the conversation that the professor was not so much interested in learning about Zen as he was in impressing the master with his own opinions and knowledge. The master listened patiently and finally suggested they have tea. The master poured his visitor’s cup full and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the cup overflowing until he could no longer restrain himself. “The cup is overfull, no more will go in,” he said.
“Like this cup,” the master said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?” 
Like the university professor, our cups are overflowing with cares, concerns and worries about ourselves, our families, our jobs, our health, the world, as well as the past, present and future.
Life is noisy – metaphorically, if not literally. It can be hard to stop, because we’ve got a lot of things going on.  Our “Restless Spirit Syndrome” causes us to think about, worry about and dream about a lot.  Like Elijah, we keep running, often motivated by fear and anxiety. 

I am in the thick of issues arising in my heart. So I went to General Women's Broadcast and I found so much troubling to my heart. SO MUCH DOING!!! I have to have space and not more task lists. My feelings of "public optismism" and laying on more doing is depressing for women.

1st Talk: Burton- Be prepared to go to temple. How? Do more!...athletes and going to school as examples of how to prepare...to be on TOP!. Exaltation=Obedience? Home a temple? 5 wise and 5 foolish virgins; Captain Moroni and his great doing to prepare. Drop by Drop of adding oil by doing: the long list...if we do enough we can be exalted.

I want my home to be a place of safety for my kids. A place to be just where they are and in whatever struggles they have. To know they are loved uncondiitonally. I want my home to be a place of peace but not perfection. I do not want arguing and fighting but open and honest communication. I want optimism and positive outlooks on life taught but a heavy emphasis on being in present moment. To live life of love. These are not what I hear...When I think of the temple now...I think of a place to meditate and creating a present moment connection with God. It is about relationships. It is about Creating. It is about love. It is to BEcoME (We were analyzing the sign in the meeting in the Alaska meeting. It had the co underlined in BECOME ONE...we decided it meant BE__ME. We couldn't find any evidence for that but I love it as a motto. I struggle with become one=sameness)

I can see their good hearts. I love the fruits of the church. We are very good at doing but I see more women struggling like I have for 20 years. Guilt, shame, depression, anxiety, and control issues due to our lack of control in all the doing that can't be done. Do your family history is the current plea.

When I sat in therapy for the first time, I started on a healing journey and path. This only cleared room in my head and I wanted to learn more. I then was blessed with an overwhelming desire to be a certified Yoga Teacher and a miracle opened up in being able to the means to get certified. In my class, it was where I sat and felt the spirit so strong that I questioned where I was at times (I thought we had a corner on the truth an spiritual). I was in yoga training- not church. I would go home lifted and overwhelmed with self-compassion. I remember when I learned about meditation and he said it is simple. When meditate and you notice that you have wandered (which will happen), all you have to do is notice and REMEMBER to come back to the present moment of the breath, without judgement. Wow, this was the meaning of the sacrament...remembering. I was changed from then on.

My next struggle is Covenants, ordinances, and Priesthood. Yes, I know it is very deep but this is where I am at this moment. More questions than answers. My faith strong in a loving God. My faith strong in our creative abilities in our lives. My faith that I AM enough and I AM abundant. My faith that this life is more about creation and less about "a test" to pass. That we create what we want eternally in the present moment. We are expanding in creating peace and love or expanding in creating suffering and misery. It is more gray area and less black/white thinking or good/bad. So hard for me to articulate in writing my heart.

God is guiding me on my path. I trust he is opening up to me what I am seeking. I have watched part of a series on Netflix called Cosmos, and I have been really touched by the reality of God. An analogy I heard somewhere that I love is that a jet engine has enormous energy potential but an intelligence had to create the jet engine. It didn't just appear and neither can it be made without a creative intelligence behind it. If we saw a jet engine in space, we would never question that it had some intelligence behind it's creation. So this I have only been able to increase my faith in. Our creative potential here in this mortal sphere using our minds. I have heard it called by many things with some nuances but overall the same premise of creation.

For example: Law of Attraction, Faith, Flow, Manifestation, Non-Doing or Effortless Effort, Abundant Mentality and I am sure there are many other terms. The key seems to be creating our present moment experiences at a sub-conscious level by our beliefs. Our beliefs are deep and strong. They create our thinking, our dreams, and our feelings. They key to unlocking this power is meditation. To either change our beliefs or create (ask and ye shall receive). I want to create/attract/manifest an abundance of time to nourish relationships with my husband and kids, the money to accomplish this, to have peace inside and lots of self-compassion.

Why is it that the positive message I feel when studying these principles resonate more with me than the 'scriptures" right now? Why is it that I see culture as a major distraction from God? Why is it that I see truth in so many places and right now I am questioning my current "idea of truth"?

I do know I am seeing the answers coming in the right way and right time. I trust the path and I truth the wonder and magnificence of a QUESTION!

MORE Gratitude, Faith, and Self-Compassion

Gratitude:  

May I feel the feelings that come with a grateful heart:

•  I felt anxiety yesterday when I went to register for a training course...$475. My husband had no problem with it, I even had to ask him to come sit by me for a moment while I sorted my feelings. I am grateful for the opportunity to be taught by someone and grow. I am grateful for my husband who encouraged me when it was hard for me to invest in self-care. I am grateful for his support in the evening when I take this course for the next 7 weeks. 
•  I was able to get canceled from my job on Saturday, It was a miracle. I needed the weekend with my family and my husband. I am so grateful for that time I had with my family. 
• I think of the sweet conversation my husband and I had with our high-school son last night. We spent over two hours talking. At first it was over his cellphone (and his NEED to have it) and this led to him sharing with us his feelings about his testimony, not wanting to go to college, not wanting to serve a mission, girls, sex, girl drama, boys, drugs, friends, school and emotional health. How grateful I am that my husband and I had the skills to know how to show empathy. I watched as my husband listened, tried to understand his pain, and told him he believed in him to find his answers. We "solved" nothing, made no decisions (even about cell phone), but made lasting connection and bonding. WOW...what a miracle. In the past I probably would have felt fear rise that my son would speak such things. The fact that he is sharing will allow him to find the space in his head to grow and seek answers.
• grateful I moved my kids yoga classes back home. I am looking forward to a little more time and less stuff to haul around. 
• I have my new yoga class today for the second day. I am excited for this class and it's structure. It is empowering for me to have a class that meets one day a week and being able to grow and progress in my teaching of mindfulness and yoga. 
• housecleaners that come every week. 

I am attracting into my life (FAITH):

• Teaching my classes with peace and love, meeting the needs of the students, and knowing what those needs are. 
• Showing love to my husband by feeling it in my heart. 
• time to study my scriptures for personal growth and testimony building.
• Peace as a mother. Time to connect with my kids and kindness in my heart towards them.
• Abundance of money, time with family, health
• skin free of Exima that has been with me 15 years. 
• People coming to my yoga classes who would benefit from my knowledge and services. 
• Middle school girls to come to yoga.
• New floors and yoga room, and the money to get what would be best.
• Connection with my daughters today.

Thats RIGHT....I AM...: WISE, STRONG, HAPPY, WEALTHY, HEALTHY, BLESSED!!!