The Secrets I Have Learned

I remember a morning when I was five years old. My mom wanted me to wear a dress to kindergarten. But I didn’t want to. So, there arose a conflict between us. I was vehemently screaming, “I don’t want to wear a dress!” when I saw my stepdad coming up the basement stairs. I thought he had gone to work already. He usually wasn’t there at this time of the morning. But there he was, an angry look on his face that I recognized all too well. I stopped screaming immediately and I turned around and ran back up the stairs. He came after me…

Above Image: Guiding Light by Annie Henrie Nader

This is part 5 of "I Have a Tale to Tell"

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

What followed was extreme NW parenting. I won’t describe the details. They don’t matter now. What matters is what I learned AND did not learn from this and many subsequent interactions with him between the ages of 4 and 10.

In evaluating this story and my stepdad, I want to address the semantic concept of Evaluation, which is on the Southern side of the Compass. It has been important for me to know and be careful about the way I evaluate relationships, people, events, feelings, and results. This is because the way I evaluate others is the way I evaluate myself.

"With what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged." -Matthew 7:1-5

The Southern Balance

The South is the ideal way of evaluating the past and present things that happen. We divide these results into two categories: successes and failures. Of course, on the Compass, there are degrees between total success and total failures. In semantics, every concept has incremental degrees between the two extreme points like the degrees between light and darkness that make up the Zone.

So, the South represents the ideal way to evaluate success. Ideally, when we achieve success, we acknowledge that we have been a contributor. Our choices, our actions, our words, our thoughts, our sacrifices. We also acknowledge that there were others who played a significant role in achieving it. Others include God, our parents, teachers, friends, children, extended family, spouses, or other community members. 

We need to remember that there are so many people who have come before us and who have contributed to our present privileges and resources. Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, the Founding Fathers, whoever invented plumping, automobiles, and computers. There are so many more. Seriously, we cannot forget that we stand on their shoulders. It is important to acknowledge that it is always a team effort to accomplish our goals.

It is also important to evaluate accurately because when we go into the next goal achievement process, we won’t try to do it in an extreme NW/NE way, in which we think that some things ride on our effort and sacrifice alone (when they don't) AND at the same time leave other more crucial things undone. When we evaluate in Extreme Imbalance and the going gets tough or when the going gets super boring, we are likely to abuse and neglect ourselves and others. It is not a sustainable evaluation process.

If we evaluate in the South, we are very aware that in our next goal achievement process, we need to find the balance in the team effort. When we engage in this type of process, we will achieve a greater degree of success together.

Evaluating Failure through the Southern Balance

The South also represents the ideal way to evaluate failure. We acknowledge that we have contributed to the problem. Our choices, actions, words, thoughts, and NW/NE ways of doing things were most likely partly responsible for a failed outcome. We also acknowledge that there were others who played a significant role in causing the problem. Others include God, our parents, teachers, friends, family, spouses, and other community members. 

We all are falling together because of this bumper-car-state we are in. And we need to experience this Fallen state in order to develop REAL sustainable compatible relationships. The bottom line is that sacrificing for each other enables us to develop bonds of love that cannot be developed in any other way. If there were not REAL opportunities to sacrifice, these bonds could not form.

Southeast Evaluation - Pride & Shame

The Southeast (SE) way of evaluating is when we take too much credit for successes or too much responsibility for failures. 

Taking too much credit is pride. It is thinking that we have obtained our privileges and resources by the strength of our own arm without any help from anyone else. We think we deserve all the credit. That’s the extreme. But it is still an incompatible way of evaluating when we don’t attribute enough of the credit to others. 

Taking too much of the responsibility for a failure is Toxic Shame. Shame and guilt are within the Zone between the South and extreme SE. Sometimes that kind of evaluation is helpful and contributes to our motivation to change. Changing is about developing better relationship skills that bring us Sustainable Joy. But Toxic Shame will result in the opposite. It will lock a person up and ruin people and relationships. 

Southwest Evaluation - Inhibition & Blame

The Southwest (SW) way of evaluating is when we take too little credit for successes or too little responsibility for failures. 

The semantics behind taking too little credit for successes is somewhat hidden in our society. It is vague and squashed out because so many of us are attempting to avoid the extreme imbalanced evaluation of pride. But when we take too little credit for the actual contributions we have made to a success we end up with low self-esteem or low confidence. We are inhibited, hesitant, doubtful, nervous, insecure, unsure, and wavering. We might think it is the saintly thing to do to attribute the success completely to God or to others. But where does that end us up when we go into the next goal achievement process? In the NE. In a NE goal achievement process, we think God or others will do everything for us to accomplish the goal. And if it doesn’t happen, then what? Should we blame them for the failure? 

Toxic Blame is the other side of the SW coin. The Lord has trained me to think of this constructively. If we blame too much of a failure on someone else, we miss opportunities to turn failures into successes. We get so hung up on something that has happened to us and we think the solution is to talk about what others have done to us over and over again. There is a time and space to talk about it. And we need to do that. But when that is our eternal resolution process, we are not understanding the power that the Atonement of Jesus Christ gives us to make lemonade out of lemons!

The opportunity to change things is made possible by his Atonement. He comes in as an opposing power to the Fall. The Fall causes the bumper-car experience. When something bad is done to us, we inadvertently are forced to do something bad to someone else. Bumper cars. Or you could think of it like dominoes. When one falls, it hits the next one in line, and before you know it, everyone is down.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ is the Space between Stimulus and Response

Jesus Christ creates that space between the bumper cars or between the dominoes. He can help us create that space in ourselves. Even though something bad has been done to us, we can be trained to use our choice, our will, our strength to refrain from passing it along. Instead, we turn to Christ with the pain and sorrow. We turn to him to receive his comfort, peace, and strength. And we turn to him for retraining. I have found that process completely healing and satisfying. More on that later.

But let’s get back to evaluating my stepdad. The Lord has taught me how to evaluate in the Southern Zone. He has given me time to talk about what was done to me and what it subsequently caused me to do. There were many times that I needed to vent. He was there to allow me to do that. I needed that space and time. To force me or guilt me into forgiving others before I was actually ready to do it from my heart is not a sustainable process. To objectively evaluate the pain and sorrow that I experienced throughout my childhood and into adulthood because of the way I was raised has also been important. I used to perpetually evaluate my past from both the SE and SW extremes. Learning how to evaluate in the South has freed me from many of the chains of bondage that have kept me down for so many years. 

My stepdad parented me from the extreme NW/NE. Too much discipline, too soon, and not enough patient training. But he did this because his parents disciplined him in the same way. Before he married my mom, he turned to the Lord to change some of the dysfunctional behaviors he had learned from his upbringing. For example, he didn’t pass on alcoholism to me or my siblings. I am thankful to him for that. 

But it is difficult to absorb the full force of the impact from previous generations and completely stop it from passing on to the next. Some of it usually squeezes through. I know this because I experienced it myself. 

When I became a parent, I had no idea there were dormant dominos inside of me. I mean, I knew what had happened growing up, but I thought that just knowing that it was not a good way to parent was enough. It wasn’t enough. The dormant dominos woke up when I was faced with the challenges of parenthood. I also parented in the extreme NW/NE at times. In one of my previous posts on Paradoxical Parenting, I referred to this as Survival Parenting.

Read more details about my parenting experiences in these posts: 

It's My Party

Before & After

Children Need to be Disciplined

The fact is that children need to be disciplined. They don’t have compatible relationship skills yet. They are focused on getting their own needs met. They scream and yell. They throw tantrums. They kick, hit, punch, push, and bite in their attempts to resolve conflict and obtain their desires. They aren’t always the little angels that many people like to portray them as. But they do have that angel side. They are a dichotomy of angel and devil (think Jack Jack). And parents have to figure out how to deal with them. 

The Lord showed me that the key to remember is that we all have desires and conflicts. It is not wrong to desire something. It was not wrong that my stepdad wanted me to learn how to resolve my conflicts in a more reasonable way than screaming. We all would prefer that our children did not scream their heads off when things didn’t go their way. But I did not learn a more functional way of resolving my conflicts when my stepdad responded to me with extreme NW/NE discipline.

I didn’t learn the following principles from these interactions: 

1. When things don’t go your way, stay calm and try to patiently discuss the pros and cons of each viewpoint. 
2. Use gentleness and intelligent conversations to persuade other people if you seriously believe (or know) that your viewpoint is the better choice. 
3. Evaluate who has the final say on what should be done. Children have the right to choose many things, and it is good to give them as many chances to choose for themselves within the NW/NE boundaries as you can. 
4. Parents should let children experience consequences instead of resorting to Extreme NW/NE parenting to prevent them from happening.
5. Parents should give children appropriate consequences within the Northern Zone to train children before they go out into the world and suffer harsher consequences because they didn't know better.
6. Developing compatible relationships between parent and child and obtaining these Balanced Northern Relationship Skills are more valuable results than getting your way using brute force in the moment.

The Secrets I Have Learned

I have spent years being ashamed of disciplining in extreme NW/NE  during my early parenting years. Even though I too absorbed much of the force of the impact and did not pass along much of what I experienced to my children, there was still some that squeezed out of me during the toughest moments. I have cried many tears of regret and shame. I knew better but I did not know HOW to discipline in the Northern Zone until the Lord came for me and rescued me. Literally rescued me. He gave me the power to absorb much more than I was able to do alone.

What helps me to evaluate my past-self appropriately is the following variables:

1. I was consistently praying for help throughout those years
2. When he came for me (or I finally had enough, and came to him with a heart sufficiently broken) and showed me the HOW, I changed

The semantic secrets that he shared with me stopped the domino effect in me. That doesn’t mean I was a perfect parent, but I became very functional. With the Lord, I parented my kids within the Northern Zone. We teamed up together. I asked to know his secrets. I devoted my time to studying them. When he showed me what he was and taught me his relationship skills I didn’t just write them down and try to publish them. I applied them. I had questions. I asked him. He answered them. My knowledge increased. My accountability increased. That accountability led me to change my dysfunctional ways of resolving conflicts and obtaining desires to more functional ways. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. A better way of saying that is that I couldn’t live with myself living with the Lord if I didn’t. I’m not talking about Toxic Shame. I’m talking about admiration and love. He is what I respect. He is what I see. I am not happy unless I can see him. And I am not happy unless I am continually striving to balance myself in the North as he balances himself.

I Have a Tale to Tell

The tale I have been trying to tell is not about the Imbalanced things that have been done to me. Yet they do play a part in the story. How could I possibly value the freedom and the Sustainable Joy I experience now if I had never experienced the sorrow? 

My focus and my complete joy is the tale of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I'm telling the story of how he came for me and in doing so I hope to propagate the news that he has the power to come for everyone. This is the secret: If you have sorrow, thank your lucky stars! You now have the capacity to experience joy to that same level of intensity that you have experienced sorrow. But you need to ask and choose to listen and commit. 

If you have a tale to tell like mine - of how He has already come for you, I encourage you to share it to strengthen others' faith in Christ. 

If you're still in the middle of your story and are experiencing extreme pain and sorrow, I hope this story I am sharing will strengthen your faith in Christ and give you hope!

Listen: Live to Tell by Madonna (clean)

It Shines Inside You

Over the next few years (2006-2008), I couldn’t help but apply what I was learning through personal revelation to my life. When I saw the truth, I realized I needed to correct myself as a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, and a friend. The Lord was Justifying me by showing me himself. And he is Truth. He then let me choose to make the adjustments. He wasn't motivating me to change through criticism. I was motivated by just looking at him and seeing the most beautiful person I had ever laid eyes on.  Everything inside me desired to be like him. I mean, talk about beautiful! There is nothing like it. And then in hindsight, seeing what he was doing, how he was handling me, there is nothing I admire more. To be loved by such a person. To even realize that such a person actually exists, is the best thing that ever happened to me.

This is part 4 of "I Have a Tale to Tell"

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

It Shines Inside You

As my relationship with the Savior developed, I continuously crossed through thresholds of experiences. The intensity of his light changed in relation to my proximity to him. My proximity was measured by the sensitivity of what I call Effect Sensors. 

Effects are the feelings we experience when we evaluate or interact with another person. It is their energy or light. It is like every person has a specific flavor or taste. This is their Spirit and their presence. Some people might call this an aura. I'm sure there are a thousand ways to describe it. We experience the Lord's light when we think, talk, or behave like he does. When we align our way of doing things with his, we can sense who he is. When we conflict with his way of doing things, we experience varying degrees of conflicting Effects.  

Our Effect Sensors are our ability to sense Effects. Traditionally, we refer to these sensors as our hearts and our spiritual eyes and ears. Jesus often made reference to them with phrases like this: "He who has ears to hear..." 

Effect Sensors can be numbed by repeatedly overstimulating them. They can also be scattered by repeatedly going to conflicting sources for nourishment.

We experience physical and spiritual Effects. If we overstimulate with physical Effects, our Effect Sensors won't be able to sense spiritual Effects as well. If we scatter our Effect Sensors, we might be able to sense spiritual Effects, but they will seem of little value to us.

Throughout this period of my life (2006-2009) I discontinued consuming physical and spiritual Effects that overstimulated or scattered my Effects Sensors (as he instructed). This left a large vacancy in my life and an intense desire to fill it. My sensitivity or ability to sense the Lord's Effects increased correspondingly. I filled the emptiness with learning more about who he was.  

After studying with him, I would return to interacting with my husband, my kids, and my community. And if I behaved in a dysfunctional way, I was acutely aware of the light decreasing in my Effect Sensors, whereas before, I wasn't. This was also true of my thoughts. If I was evaluating things in a dysfunctional or imbalanced way, I could feel his light decreasing. In short, the intensity of the light fluctuated depending on what I was thinking, saying, or doing. 

I knew how I felt when I was with the Lord. His Effects were intense. Having experienced them, I sensed the change in their intensity when I engaged in imbalanced processes, such as losing my temper or sharing experiences that were too personal.

My Vision of The Compass: North

So now we come to what happened to me when I was a child. I have to tell the story in an empathetic and objective way so that I will not deviate from His Effects. My goal is to Justify like he Justifies. I will use the Compass that he showed me to objectively recount the way I was raised.

On a compass, the spindle can point to the North, Northwest, or Northeast. It can also point to the South, Southeast, and Southwest. Its arms point to the East and West. I will add diagrams later. I've done them a million times, so I will look for the best ones to include here. But first, let me just get this story out.

So, these points (N, NW, NE, S, SW, SE, E, W) on the compass represent the pattern of the semantic concepts behind words. We’ll just talk about the Northern variables for now. 

The way a parent treats and raises a child can be North, Northwest, or Northeast. Let’s say that the North is the ideal way to raise a child. It is the way God would raise us if he were our father (wink). And I’m speaking of God in the singular form, but semantically I’m referencing God the Father, his Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. It takes a village. 

North = Nurturing and Disciplining in Love

North nurturing and disciplining is the ideal way to raise a child. It's giving her the best love and the best chance to succeed.

Northwest - Too Much

Northwest (NW) is raising a child with abuse. Ab – Use. This word means that the way you are choosing to nurture and discipline a child is not going to lead to a sustainable compatible relationship with her. And it is not going to train her to be successful in her relationships with others now or when she gets older. So, if the North is ideal, there is still some wiggle room between the exact North and the extreme NW. There is a Northern Zone. This zone represents the normal yin and yang way that we all live. Sometimes parents need to discipline with more NW consequences and sometimes they need to discipline with more NE consequences. But they are still within the Northern Zone. They correct with love, with the goal of achieving sustainable compatible relationships. 

And let me take a moment to define what I mean by compatible relationships: In a compatible relationship, everyone receives physical and spiritual nourishment and opportunities for growth according to their needs. Each is able to deal with the others' yin and yang deviations within the Northern Zone. And not just deal with them, but voluntarily carry this weight out of love.

Northeast - Too Little

Northeast (NE) is raising a child with neglect. Neglect is when a parent does not discipline the child enough. There is not enough training and education for her to learn relationship skills. Again, there is a Zone between the North and NE. There are times when refraining from active discipline is the best solution. Putting a child in timeout is often an appropriate Northern solution. If a child gets out of control, timeouts are a good way to separate her from the situation and give her time to think about what just happened and calm down. 

However, too much of anything can lead to undesired results. Developing sustainable compatible relationships is the number one priority. In the moment, there may be a degree of conflict, frustration, sorrow, etc. But if the overall paradoxical result is sustainable compatible relationships, we know we’re on the right track.

People have come up with different words to represent the semantic North, NW, and NE meanings that exist independently. For example, in this post, we have put the word Discipline on the Compass. We might need to add an adjective in front of it to confirm that the Discipline is Northern, such a Fair, Balanced, Moderate, Productive, Constructive, Life-changing, Loving, etc. 

Extreme NW Discipline is usually referred to as Abuse. We can evaluate some synonyms to get a better view of this concept:

• Mistreat
• Persecute
• Misuse
• Injure
• Hurt
• Harm
• Damage
• Oppress
• Offend
• Scorn
• Revile

Extreme NE Discipline is usually referred to as Neglect. Some synonyms for this word are:

• Fail to look after
• Leave alone
• Leave undone
• Ignore
• Disregard
• Pay no attention to
• Shirk
• Not Remember

Additionally, we can identify some synonyms for discipline within the NW and NE Zones. 

We can put any concept on the Compass and see that it can be separated into these three points of semantic meaning. It's basic Goldilocks metrics:

1. North = Just Right

2. NW = Too much

3. NE = Too little

But the thing that has been the most difficult for me to comprehend is that if parents discipline in the NW, they will also discipline in the NE. The one actually causes the other. So even while they are too harsh with their correction, they are also too lax in productive training. Productive discipline lies within the Northern Threshold. Because we are all learning how to be Northern parents, we may start out with a wider NW/NE swing. But the goal is to decrease the arc of that swing over time as much as we possibly can.

To be continued...HERE

I Know Where Beauty Lives

In the Spring of 2006, I went to Vail, Colorado for my own personal writer’s conference with the Lord, instead of going to the BYU writer’s conference again. I stayed in a nice hotel and was able to study full-time without interruptions for a few days. I have much gratitude to Sherm for making these retreats possible. 

This post is part 3 of "I Have a Tale to Tell"

Part 1

Part 2

While I was there I continued studying, writing, and conversing with the Lord. When I got stuck and didn’t know what to do, I went to a different place in the room and prayed. As I studied, I could sense Him in my mind, like he was remotely logged in. He was guiding me, answering my questions, and asking me questions. 

Three Major Things Happened

I remember three major things happening on this visit to Vail. The first was our study of the word Justification. 

I was looking at this semantic concept because Dramatica had a giant definition of it that really caused me to think deeply. 

The scriptures also spoke of Justification through the Atonement of Jesus Christ so I wanted to compare and contrast the way Dramatica was defining it with the way the scriptures defined it.

I realized that I also had a preconceived definition associated with the word justify. I predominantly saw its negative meaning: When someone tries to justify herself for her failures and makes up excuses for her poor choices instead of admitting them and seeking to improve. I did not want to be that way so I often swung to the other side of the pendulum to evaluate and confess my responsibility in every failure.

But then I asked the Lord what he did with his Justification. He showed me that he justified people by first looking at the reasons for their failures objectively and empathetically. Rarely was a single person completely responsible for their failures. It was important to investigate the other causes that were involved. When those causes are identified the resolution process becomes apparent. And it was his job to be involved in that resolution process, which then brought a person closer to him.

He showed me the justification of margins in my mind. In this first image, you can see the margins on the left are Imbalanced. They are not even. That was like some of the ways I used to deal with my relationship problems.

 

In this second image, the margins have been justified. I knew in an instant what it is now taking me a few paragraphs to explain. So, part of his Justification process is to retrain us. He was doing this with me. He was showing me the facts and then letting me decide what I would do with them. I chose to apply them to my life, which incrementally balanced me out. It gave me better relationship skills. It taught me how to evaluate my failures in a more productive way. It taught me how I wasn't defined by my failures. They were separate from me, or at least they could be separated from me so that I could increase my balance.

I Know Where Beauty Lives

I know where beauty lives. Understanding the semantics behind Justification helped me know who he is and where he stands. As I understood this about him, I physically felt a tight knot inside me release. This was the way that he saw me and everyone else. He resided and presided here. He taught me to evaluate myself and others from this perspective. He showed me that he gives me, my kids, my husband, my family members, and my community members time to make mistakes, experience consequences, learn from them, and grow. He understands we all need time to get it right. In his mercy, he allows for this space and time. 

He consistently repeated this training process over the next several years of my life using other semantic concepts. Through this process, he was slowly but surely freeing me from a bondage I had not fully understood that I was in. And oh my God! (literally) He was so beautiful! Seeing him like this was the delight of my entire existence!

The Second Crucial Thing

The second crucial thing I remember working out with him during this time in Vail was about my kids. And let me tell you the backstory first. I sometimes thought about the possibility of one of my kids dying in an accident or by disease. I would walk through that possibility, envision it, and cry my eyes out. I did not want them to die. I had heard of many stories of other children dying – getting stuck in the trunk of a car, getting trapped under a garage door, drowning, cancer, etc. These stories always broke my heart. I wanted to protect my kids. I didn’t want them to get hurt. I didn’t want them to suffer. It was intensely painful. 

So, in Vail, the Lord asked me to give up the fate of my children to him. He wasn’t saying he was going to take them. It was that he knew that was the one thing I was holding back from him. I held on to it with all my might in total fear. He wanted me to let go of the fear and trust him with the lives of my children, whether they lived long or short lives, whether they had to deal with sorrow or joy. He was trying to tell me that they would be okay – he would make sure of that, regardless of physical life or death.

This conversation came up because I was asking to come closer to Him. I had told him that I didn’t want to hold anything back. I wanted to give him all of me. So, I went through one of my first leaps of faith. I mustered my courage to let go and trust him. I made this commitment. It took me time to actually stop the fearful thought processes and to develop my faith. It still is a little scary for me, but each time it comes to my mind, I just turn to him and give it to him.

The Third Crucial Thing

The third major change that I made during this stay in Vail was the direction of my writing. I had started studying and training with him to achieve the goal of writing a fiction story that would eventually be published.

I came to a point where I said, “I’m making very little progress towards finishing my story. I’m spending so much time on writing about the structure of story that there is no time left to actually write my story.” 

The last morning in Vail, I was in the shower and he had logged in remotely again. I was thinking about the above conundrum when he answered me. His words were very clear, “Which would you rather do – write your story or keep learning about the structure of story? Writing your story will be a shorter and easier journey. So, you can put down your studies and do that. Or you can take the much longer and harder journey (I pictured a mountain path) and continue focusing on writing about the structure of story. There was no force or guilting me into doing one or the other. He merely was presenting the choice to me and was asking me to decide.

There was no question in my mind. I wanted the longer, harder journey. This place that he was taking me was so amazingly beautiful. I had to keep going. Once I made the choice, I sensed that’s what he wanted too. 

So, I made the commitment to put my fiction story aside and focus on writing about what he was showing me.

To be continued...HERE

I Learned My Lesson Well

When I swore I would never write again, I experienced intense depression. It felt like something had died in me. For the next week, my heart mourned as I went about my regular mom routine - taking care of the kids, cleaning the house, and shopping. 

This post is part 2 of: "I Have a Tale to Tell"

I remember going to JoAnn Fabrics and seeing in the store window the successfully completed projects of talented seamstresses and artists. I had this surreal moment of thought. In hindsight, I recognize that this was another of those interactions with His Spirit. All of these artists had developed their talents so that they could create these works of art. Why couldn't I develop mine? Why couldn't I have something to offer too? 

I felt a deep sadness. But I also saw a sliver of light and truth. My desire to write a moving story was similar to an artist's desire to paint a masterpiece or a seamstress's desire to sew a beautiful garment. Why was I receiving a message that I didn't belong here or that I was trying to do something that was reserved for an elite few? If I was willing to put in the work, could I not also develop the ability to succeed?

After a week or two of walking around in a dark haze, I finally asked my husband for a priesthood blessing. In it, I was instructed not to give up and that this dream of mine was of God. I shouldn’t pay attention to the criticisms of man. Scriptures about Nephi building a ship while his brothers doubted and mocked him were referenced (1 Nephi 17).

"And when my brethren saw that I was about to build a ship, they began to murmur against me, saying: Our brother is a fool, for he thinketh that he can build a ship; yea, and he also thinketh that he can cross these great waters." -1 Nephi 17:17

I was also directed to go to God for training and instruction in my writing process like Nephi did when he was building something he had never before built.

This priesthood blessing rekindled my hope. Knowing that God believed in me and wanted me to write was powerful and sustaining. 

The Structure of Story

Over the next few weeks, I prayed intently and frequently for direction. It came to my mind that I needed to learn the structure of story. I realized that I had been getting too expanded in my writing. I wasn’t paying enough attention to the summarized plot - the framework of my story. It was like trying to decorate a house without first making sure the foundation and framework were in place. 

Another way to explain this is that there are outline writers and there are discovery writers. I was a discovery writer. But the Lord showed me that I would be more successful if I found the balance between those two methods.

After learning this, I remembered a booklet on story theory that Tracy Hickman, our workshop host for science fiction and fantasy writers, gave me at the 2004 BYU writer’s conference. I took it out and reread it carefully. It spoke about the Hero’s Journey.

A hero who is called to an adventure to obtain a goal, leaves home, experiences all kinds of adversity and temptations, fails and suffers intensely, is then atoned for (saved, brought back to life), is transformed through this process, obtains the goal, becomes part of the atonement for others, and returns home victorious.

Dramatica, A Theory of Story

Tracy Hickman's booklet also included some details from a story theory called Dramatica by Melanie Anne Phillips and Chris Huntley. As I read about this theory, I became very interested in it. I purchased the Dramatica book and the software. I spent the next year studying with these mentors and attempting to write my story using their guidance. But as I did this, I found myself trying to get a bird's eye perspective of what they were proposing. They were presenting so many different concepts that I often felt bewildered. Something inside me was driven to organize it all. I asked questions like: How did they come up with this? How do they know that these are the relationships between words? What are the relationships between words? 

So, I chose to slow down and pick apart each idea that they presented. 

The Dramatica theory is based on words and the semantics behind them. So, in slowing down, I wrote down each of the words and definitions from their "Dramatica Vocabulary" list that they provided in their reference section. On one level they divided words by synonyms and antonyms. On another, they divided them by other variables like character traits, character roles, plot dynamics. They visually arranged the words by these semantic relationships into a quadrant diagram - a Chess Set. 

As I wrote the definitions down, a correction, a translation, a connection, or an additional facet would come into my mind. So I wrote those down as well. After doing this for a while, I noticed that the definitions suggested that there was a balance between any two antonyms. But they did not make a space in their model for the words that represented that semantic balance. 

They used four quadrants or four Chess Sets to organize the words. Each Chess Set was divided into four more quadrants nested inside of it. The authors explained that there were symbiotic and conflicting relationships between each of the words within a single quadrant. It was much more complicated than this but I'm trying to simplify it to show how I was attempting to make sense of it.

The study of semantics and the attempt to create a visual model of the patterns of the meaning behind language completely fascinated me. I tested out their theory by translating their general definitions into specific definitions that I used to describe the characters, plot, and setting of my story. I spent months analyzing the relationships of the concepts in each quadrant. And then I evaluated how one quadrant of meaning compared with another. Dramatica did not instruct me to study like this. I was being guided by the Lord to do it. He was using this model as a tool or a medium to train me in his own way.

For example, the problem in the overall story I was working on was that people had a Fixed Attitude. So, I focused on that quadrant. In my Word document, I styled "Fixed Attitude" with Heading-1:

Fixed Attitude

Then, I wrote down the names of each of the nested quadrants and styled them with Heading-2:

• Contemplations

• Impulsive Responses

• Memories

• Innermost Desires

I looked at these one at a time:

Contemplations

After that, I added each of the nested quadrants within the Contemplations quadrant and styled these with Heading-3:

• Appraisals
• Doubt
• Investigate
• Re-appraisal

Under each of the Heading-3 words, I wrote the semantic meaning for all of these words combined. They included all three levels of words:

Fixed Attitude

Contemplations

Appraisals 

I put these three-layered concepts together to visualize the Fixed Attitude of the dystopian society that my main character was raised in. So, the first question that formed in my mind was: How does the society my character grew up in contemplate (evaluate) the value (appraisal) of a person or thing? This was my answer:

They judge each other by initial appraisals. What you look like on the surface determines your worth and my worth compared to yours. Your clothes, cleanliness, hairstyle, and look on your face. If I come up better than you, then I experience good feelings because it proves I am good and worthy of love. This is the first impression.

Remote Login Education

The Lord remotely logged in like this throughout these writing sessions. He coached me in my mind, directing my thoughts, introducing ideas coupled with the definitions I was studying. I wanted to know what he thought of each concept, especially when there was a question about what was right and wrong. That seemed to be my inherent orientation.

As we differentiated between each of the concepts, we analyzed the marriage, family, and community relationships of the characters in my story. A lot of questions about the society and family I grew up in came up. During my childhood, there were many concepts that I had unconsciously absorbed. We investigated and sifted through them so that I could see what was true and false, right and wrong. 

Every morning I got up excited for a new day. I couldn’t wait to study. There was nothing I wanted more than to be with him in this place. There was so much light and love and excitement. 

I studied before the kids got up and then after they went to school. While many moms took the opportunity to get a job or go back to college when their kids were all in school, I used it to study with the Lord. Lots of people have their thing. This was mine. 

There is much to tell about my role as a mother and a wife. These responsibilities have always been so intensely important to me. That is coming. But I can’t explain that part until I explain this part.

There had been a vague cloud over many values that I had previously and unconsciously formed opinions about. Some were not serving me well in my relationships with God and with others. When we looked directly at them together, the clouds broke up and His values became very clear. My mind gradually sharpened. Doing this every day for several years educated, enlightened, lifted, and completely changed me.

The Compass of Semantics

While I was studying Dramatica from late 2005 to early 2006, I was also prompted to study the scriptures more intently. I wrote each chapter in my own words. We looked for the concepts that we had studied in Dramatica in the histories of the societies that were described in the scriptures.

We summarized and semantically organized words and concepts such as:

Pride, Envy, Doubt, Faith, Hope, Desire, Humility, Gratitude, Confidence, Strength, Weakness, Light, Darkness, Right, Wrong, Sin, Righteousness, Peace, Joy, Energy, etc.

I noticed that people used lots of different words to represent the same semantic concept. I also learned that there were some concepts that the English language didn't have an accurate descriptive word for. Because of this, there were some things that were very difficult for me to initially see and explain. These were usually intertwined so tightly with negative meanings that it was hard to differentiate between the good and the bad. The Lord helped me surgically separate them. This process improved my relationships with my family and community because I learned to understand people better, to look past their words and behaviors, and see what they were really trying to communicate.

I recognized and sorted hundreds of synonyms and antonyms. I saw that there were semantic antonyms that were more than just black and white. There were multifaceted ways to divide a single concept. I cataloged them in my notebook and in my mind. Summarizing them was always a challenge for me. Sometimes I would summarize words that needed to remain separate. Other times I would keep words separate when they really represented the same concept.

I also looked up hundreds of words in the dictionary and wrote down their definitions, always searching for central patterns. I examined words that I had heard all my life as if it were the first time seeing them. I questioned everything. There were so many values and concepts that had been in my peripheral vision before. During this time, I turned to look at them directly and focus on what they semantically meant and what they meant to me personally. This process completely opened my mind to understand things in a way that I had never even fathomed before.

I am a visual learner so the Lord would often teach me by bringing visual metaphors to my mind. He used things I recognized like the relationship between the earth, sun, and moon. He also used physics, magnets, physical fitness and nutrition, cooking, gardening, weeding, and planting trees. I filled my notebooks with diagrams and sketches of the things he showed me. I could not get enough of Him. I kept asking for more. But to receive more, I had to live by what he was teaching me. I was always falling short, but I kept trying and struggling to master it anyway.

Throughout this continuous study of Dramatica, the scriptures, and the dictionary, and listening to the Lord’s guidance, I started to see visions of a model that was different from the Dramatica quadrant model. It was a summarized structure of all the truth. I saw a compass.

This song describes the way I felt throughout this time: Can't Take It In by Imogen Heap (Narnia Soundtrack) 

To be continued...HERE

I Have a Tale to Tell

I have a tale to tell. But it has to start from the end instead of the beginning in order to be merciful to everyone involved. I'll divide it into parts or separate posts. This is part one.

Listen: Live to Tell by Madonna (clean)

I wanted to be a writer

In 2006, God began to train me more intensely than in the previous years of my life. I asked for it. I wanted to know more. My reasons for desiring this changed over time, but at first the reason was to be able to write an amazing story. I wanted to be a historical fiction writer. The first story I chose to tell was the birth of Jesus Christ. So in 2000, I wrote “The Stone of Light, ” a story in which three kids from the present traveled back in time to when Joseph and Mary were just learning about their roles in His life. The kids experienced their own adventure and conversion story as they traveled with Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem. It was like the Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osbourne meets Quantum Leap (late 80s, early 90s television series). It was somewhat of a spin-off of the Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites series by Chris Heimerdinger as well as the Kingdom and the Crown series by Gerald Lund. It took me more than a year to research the setting with all of its geographical, geological, cultural, political, and economic details. 

The rejection of a mentor was painful

When I finished writing it in 2001, I sent it to Deseret Book, and they rejected it. Then I sent it to Covenant Book, and they also rejected it. The reason this hurt me so badly was because I saw Deseret Book as part of my church community. And I had been predominantly raised by that community as mentioned in some of my previous posts. My sense of belonging to a family and community was here. They rejected my offering without much of a reason. I didn't know what to do to improve it. This was difficult because I wanted to "play on the team" and I thought this was the only doorway in.

Additionally, I had a large library of books published by Deseret and Covenant that I had been reading for many years. These books changed my life for the better. I loved them. I read them to my kids. My kids loved them. We were a family that read together. We went on reading adventures together, laughed, cried, and learned. And that brought us closer together. It solved many of the problems we had been having. These stories played a huge role in raising me and my kids at the same time.

I owe so much to the publishers and to the authors of those books. As I said, in many ways they played a mentor role for me. Because of that, I wanted to become like them. I wanted to be a writer. That was my passion, my dream, and my mission. And this is why their rejections hurt so badly.

Back to the drawing board

So, after the rejections, I went back to the drawing board. I read more books on writing, attended writer’s conferences, started a writing group, and hired a writing coach. I learned a lot, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t enough to actually accomplish my goal.

At the BYU Writers for Young Readers conferences (2003, 2004, 2005), I experienced a type of rejection as well. Successful writers spoke to us in workshops about how successful they were. Some of these were the authors of the books that changed my life. I deeply admired them, but I also envied their success in my present failure. 

In our group workshops I learned some good things, but in hindsight what I really needed was someone who believed in me, who saw my talent, and who could help me develop it. Instead, there was a lot of focus on criticizing what we were not doing right. Too much criticism and not enough support, hope, specific training, and reinforcement. After the 2005 writer’s conference, I returned home swearing I would never write again.

To be continued...HERE.

I Know This Much Is True

When I was sixteen (1985-86), I started running for the first time. Before this, I had run on soccer and softball teams and for P.E. But this time I was running on my own around the school track at Herman Junior High in South San Jose, California. 

Who inspired me?

I got the idea for running from this couple at church, who had recently started running and subsequently lost weight. They looked great. I was looking for truth – the truth about how to get in shape. I had tried a lot of other ways that didn’t work. My goal was to improve my fitness and shed excess fat. So, I thought I would test this running idea out. If they could do it, so could I.

How I incrementally progressed

I started with running one mile three times a week and did that for a month. Then I increased it to two miles the next month, then three. I was determined not to give up.

For the first two and a half months, things were going great. I usually ran in the late afternoons after school when it was cooler out and listened to music on my Sony Sports Walkman. I enjoyed the time alone.

A sharp pain in my shins

But when I got up to running three miles, I started feeling a sharp pain in my shins every time I went out to run. It just got worse over time. I tried to stretch before running but that didn’t stop the pain. I was stressed out because I really wanted to continue with this goal, but the pain eventually became too intense. 

Troubleshooting the problem

I needed more truth, so I called that couple from church and explained what was happening. The husband essentially said that I was too heavy and therefore could not continue running (I include a picture of me at sixteen here to show the actual). No troubleshooting. No looking into the facts before offering me this conclusion. Just suggesting that if running wasn’t working, then I should quit doing it. Was that the truth?

I worried that it was, and it really upset me. I was hypersensitive about my weight and had been for many years. I think this is typical for teenage girls, but it was especially intense for me because my brother had teased me about my body weight regularly in my younger years. Nevertheless, I would not give up on searching for the truth about fitness. There had to be a way.

“The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.” 

– D&C 93:36

Before talking to that couple in my ward, I had felt so good about my level of commitment to my running goal. I believed I had finally found a true fitness solution for me. The track was close. I could run any time I wanted. It didn’t cost me anything. I didn’t have to depend on anyone to take me there (I didn’t have a car yet). I enjoyed it. These were important variables that contributed to my true success.

A second opinion

Next, I went to the doctor for a second opinion. The doctor told me that I had shin splints. That was the truth. But then his resolution process was for me to look into a lower impact sport like swimming. No troubleshooting the running goal. No looking into the facts. Just suggesting that if running wasn’t working, then I should quit doing it. Was that even true?

Swimming? There were no swimming pools near me. How the heck was I going to get there three times a week? I knew that wasn’t going to work for me. After I left the doctor’s office, I cried. I had to stop running, and that was the end of that.

I later became a fitness instructor

About ten years later, I became a fitness instructor. I had to read a few textbooks about things like anatomy, metabolism, exercise physiology, impact and reaction forces, cardiorespiratory endurance, kinesiology, and sports injuries. I had already been doing aerobics for a few years and had learned how to increase muscular strength, cardiorespiratory endurance, and flexibility. 

After 15 years of teaching fitness classes, reading more about fitness, and learning through personal experience, I now know the truth about what causes shin splints and how to troubleshoot the problem. I do not know why that couple from my church didn’t know it, let alone the doctor, but these are the questions I would have asked this teenage girl with this type of injury:

Number 1 

What kind of shoes are you wearing?

Answer: I was wearing a pair of pink Keds with no cushioning, stability, or impact protection.  

Number 2

What are you doing to warm up before you run?

Answer: A few stretches, but I didn’t start those until after my shins started hurting.

Number 3

What conditioning exercises are you doing to strengthen the muscles in your legs?

Answer: I was not doing any.

I know this much is true

I am not a distance runner now, but I have been running consistently for around 5 years. I have got up to eight miles but usually stay around three to five. Before I run, I warm up with squats, lunges, and hip strengthening exercises. I wear running shoes – Hokas, which have excellent cushioning, stability, and impact protection. When they start wearing down, I can feel it in my feet, knees, shins, or calves so I know it’s time to get another pair. When I injure my legs, back, or hips, I either have to stop running for a time so I can heal or wear compression socks and run slower for shorter distances.

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” 

– John 8:32

So, I know this much is true. I have learned that learning the truth about things empowers me. Troubleshooting before giving up on something entirely is an intelligent choice. And people who are able to give me correct information and guide me to identifying true solutions are my greatest assets. 

“Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come.” 

– D&C 130:18-19