Shake It Off!

After getting married in December 1990, I experienced one of my first long-term episodes of depression. I had thought that once my dream of marriage came true, happily ever after would then occur. But that didn’t happen. I could not figure out what was wrong with me. I chastised myself in my journal. I wrote that I should feel happy and felt ashamed for not being able to be more grateful and positive. But I couldn’t Shake It Off. 

Toxic Shame

In essence, I was blaming myself. Blaming myself is an evaluation process. Blaming myself too much is taking too much responsibility for a failure* and not recognizing that there are also other causes involved. Blaming myself too much results in Toxic Shame. 

*Failure - I use this term to represent when anything is going wrong or is not where I want it to be regardless of who or what is to blame. I’m not saying I am a failure because I experienced depression. I use the term objectively.

My motivation behind attributing the cause of failure to myself is that I like to be in control of things, especially over how I feel. If I can find the cause of failure in my choices, that’s easy for me to change. I just have to figure out what it is and then work to change it. Success, then, replaces the failure. And I have to admit that I am a success junky. Toxic Shame isn’t about taking upon myself the responsibility to change. That’s actually a good thing. Toxic Shame is when:

• I take on more of the burden than I can handle 
• I try to change things about myself that shouldn’t be changed
• I try to change things about myself that I don’t yet (and in some cases will never) have the ability to change.

Toxic Blame

Blaming others or attributing the cause of the failure to sources outside of my control is also an evaluation process. And objectively it is true that most failures have multiple causes. Blaming other sources too much as the cause of failure and not recognizing that there are things that I have control over is Toxic Blame. I am motivated to engage in Toxic Blame evaluation about specific failed events or relationships that:

• Are in the past and I can do nothing about now
• I don’t know how to resolve the conflict
• I have worked hard and long to resolve a conflict and it’s still not resolving. 

Attributing too much of the cause to sources outside of my control leads to missed opportunities for growth, change, and personal development.

I now believe that when I blamed myself for my state of depression as a newlywed, I was diverging into Toxic Shame. Because I didn’t know then what I do now, this is understandable. But how I was evaluating the cause of my depression reminds me of an incident in high school.  

My coach told me to Shake It Off!

It was my sophomore year and I was on the softball team. At one of my home games at Santa Teresa High School, I was a runner on third base. My coach gave me the sign to steal home base if the pitcher tried to catch the runner at first from stealing second. She did and I took off for home. The other team recovered the ball and threw it home. From the sidelines, my coach shouted, “Down!” This meant to slide. We had practiced sliding for several weeks so I knew what to do, and I loved doing it. I slid into home base just as the catcher caught the ball. “Safe!” the umpire called. I got up and walked off the field, my coach patting me on the back. 

Standing on the sidelines at the end of the batting order, I felt a pain in my right knee. I walked around, stretching and flexing. My coach noticed and asked if I was okay. I said, “yeah.” He told me to Shake It Off. So, I tried. After the inning, I grabbed my glove and went back out to my position in left field. The pain was increasing, rather than decreasing. “What was wrong?” I wondered. “Why couldn’t I just Shake It Off?” There was no apparent injury – no cut, no blood, no bones sticking out. And I could walk. Usually, when I had collisions in softball, soccer, or hide-and-go-seek, my body hurt at first but then the pain would go away after a few minutes. But this wasn’t going away. Finally, my coach saw I was struggling and took me out of the game. 

A little while later, my mom picked me up from the school parking lot and brought me to the emergency room. The x-rays showed that I had not broken anything but had strained the ligaments in my right knee pretty badly. I had to wear a brace and use crutches for the next six weeks.

Trying to Shake Off spiritual strains

So back to the newlywed story I started with: After I was married in 1990 and was in my senior year at BYU, I felt like something had been spiritually strained, but I didn’t know what. Nothing bad had apparently happened. Only good. I just got married, for heaven’s sake! It’s only in retrospect as I have analyzed my past experiences with wiser eyes that I have been able to more accurately evaluate what was going on. 

And as I said, in my journal I tried to write happy thoughts, express my gratitude for my husband and my life, and think of some things about me that I could change to make things better. This was my attempt to Shake It Off. In the past, I might have felt sad about something specific that happened. Usually, I would understand why I was sad because the reasons were apparent. And the subsequent sad feelings were normally fleeting. I would rebalance after a short period of time. This time, however, there didn’t seem to be any cause for the sad feelings. I didn’t know what to change and I couldn’t Shake It Off.

All I could do was pray for help. And help did come in time. It wasn’t much longer before we moved from our first apartment to a little blue house next door to a family in our ward – Dennis and Susie Shaver and their four children. They were the ones who told us about the house and encouraged us to move in. We developed a close friendship with them. I interacted with Susie a lot and loved babysitting or just hanging out with her kids who were always coming over to our house.

Our relationship with this family made a big difference for me. The depression significantly decreased. I never imagined additional good relationships were what I needed. Note: I didn’t need toxic relationships with people who treated me like crap. I needed relationships with people who were examples and who were compassionate, patient, and kind. Susie and Dennis were.

The influence of attainable goals on depression

After I had Aaron, my first baby in October 1992, I started walking with Susie early mornings. This got me up, out of the house, and back to exercising. When the weather turned cold that Fall, we walked along the indoor track in the Smith Field House at BYU. That’s when I first saw and heard the intramural aerobics classes. The music was loud and dance-inducing. I wanted to join in, but I felt intimidated. I didn’t think I could do it because of memories of awkward, uncoordinated, failed dance lessons when I was a teen. But after listening to the music for a few weeks, I decided that it had to be done. And I thought that if I started at the beginning of the semester, it might be easier to learn.

After the new year - January 1993, I started on the back row with 2-month-old Aaron in his mint-green car seat right behind me. I was nervous about being able to keep up with what I thought would be a complicated routine. But I soon found out that while it was hard, it was doable. I realized that I actually craved the challenge to get the steps down flawlessly while keeping up with the instructor and the beat. She taught us in a way that enabled our success. The music was so fun and motivating. I absolutely loved it! I went 3-4 nights a week. Over time I was able to leave Aaron home with my husband and go on my own. Over a six-month period, I graduated from the back row to the front. I told some of my friends at church about it and soon I had a car full of women coming with me. With this activity and a healthier diet, I lost all of my pregnancy weight.

Healed from my first episode of depression 

I didn’t realize at the time but looking back I can see that the depression decreased and then entirely went away because of the Shavers, the aerobics instructor, my fellow aerobic-eers, and the successful achievement of my goals. Reflecting upon these people enables me to see the atonement of Jesus Christ in action for me. They were answers to my prayers. They brought light, excitement, motivation, and joy back into my life.

Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge

Knowing this about myself, I am able to troubleshoot other persistent incidents of depression that come up in my present life. I believe applying things that are known, seen, and apparent to other situations where things are presently unknown, unseen, and not apparent is what the following scripture on faith means:

“Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.” ~Book of Mormon, Alma 32:21

I have learned that these things are true:

• I need loving and compatible relationships that give me enough of an opportunity to serve and be served. If I am too much alone or that opportunity is not great enough, I experience depression.
• I need to have goals that challenge me enough to develop the skills and talents I value. Even if I’m very busy, if I’m not working on developing a talent I value or one that I sense the Lord wants me to work on, I get bored and depressed.

My specific life circumstances have changed since then. My relationships have changed. But the principles I learned about myself are still applicable. If I’m experiencing depression and can’t Shake It Off, I know what I need to do and what I need to ask for.

Reality Hit: Smoking Is not a Good Idea

My early life was like finding my way through a dark maze. I had to learn a lot of things by taking a pathway and finding out it was a dead end. This story is about one of those experiences. 

Somewhere around the end of 7th grade, beginning of 8th, I met some new friends. They smoked. One of them gave me a pack of cigarettes. I tried them. I smoked off and on throughout my 8th grade year. This was the year I stopped going to church. I’m not sure which came first – the smoking or the decision to quit going to church. I sometimes smoked with other friends who didn’t smoke. It always made me feel guilty. Even though I generally didn’t feel very bad about doing it, I sometimes was aware that I should be the one setting the example here and I wasn’t.

Nicotine is Extremely Toxic

One side effect from smoking was that it hurt my stomach and gave me diarrhea. About 30 years later in my BYU-I Anatomy and Physiology class, I would learn that nicotine stimulates both the sympathetic (fight of flight) nervous system and the parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system. The body doesn’t know what to do because it is receiving conflicting signals. Heart rate becomes irregular because there are simultaneous stimuli to increase and decrease it. My textbook ends this description with, “Nicotine is extremely toxic, and even small amounts can be lethal” (BIO 264-265, McGraw Hill, 2014, p. 561). At 13 years old, I don’t remember being too worried about the long-term effects of smoking. After all, my grandpa smoked, and he didn’t seem any worse for it. And I totally looked up to him. But at the same time, I didn’t like the stomach aches and the diarrhea.

Motion and Smoke Sickness Mixed Together

Towards the end of 8th grade I was invited to a slumber party. We all went to Marriott’s Great American on a Friday night. A group of us went on the birdcage ride. A few of us pulled out cigarettes and started smoking. A number of things happened. Most of the girls did not smoke with us. I sensed they felt uncomfortable. I became conscious of my responsibility to set a good example again. The guilt was intense. At the same time, I was feeling motion sick from the ride. That combined with the dizziness or “buzz” from the nicotine left me feeling super sick. 

The reality seemed to hit me all at once: Smoking is not a good idea.

The next day, I made a decision: I would never smoke again. I never did. 

Guilt is Helpful Sometimes

In hindsight, I recognize the guilty feeling as the Lord’s censure. Because I had been baptized and had made a commitment to stand as a witness of his name, I was accountable. I have been censured or chastised similarly over the years for other things, so I am now more familiar with his voice. And so, looking back at these events, I see that it was him trying to steer me in the right direction. But I also notice that he valued my agency. He didn’t want the reason I decided to quit to be about force or ascetic manipulation. He wanted it to be my choice. Was I interested in taking care of my body and being a good example or not? What was most important to me? I made the choice and we moved on.

The repentance decision triggered a domino-effect of subsequent events. These were good and spiritually progressive events. 

I've written about them here: Change Like A Sunrise.

If you didn't read the last post, you should. It's a good one. It's not only about where Jesus grew up, but also about a quiet, tender mercy that happened while I was touring Israel a few years ago. Read it here: Where Had Jesus Grown Up?

Where Had Jesus Grown Up?

In May of 2014, I went to Egypt, Jordan, and Israel with a Christian tour group. 

While touring through Israel, our guide Ruthie had us on the lookout for small fuzzy creatures that were native to Africa and the Middle East. She had a name for them, but I can’t remember it. She told us that it was rare to catch a glimpse of them, but we all hoped we would.

We visited a vast grove of date trees south of Jerusalem. The bus driver made a couple of loops around the area in hopes of seeing some of the animals, but we didn’t even see one.

A few days later we were in the more northern parts of Israel around Nazareth and Mount Hermon. Traffic was heavy in the city of Nazareth. It was crowded and full of modern-day buildings, cars, and ornate churches. A couple thousand years of history was built on top of what once was a remote village nestled into the hills above the large fertile Jezreel Valley. I wanted to visualize what life would have been like in this place where Christ grew up. Some archaeologists believe Nazareth was very small back in the first century with something like 400 people.

I really wanted to get a feel for the home where Jesus had grown up, but it wasn’t happening. Yet I kept praying for it and holding out hope. 

We continued moving north in the following days and visited Caesarea Philippi, the place in the New Testament where Jesus asked his disciples, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” (Matthew 16:13-20)

After we visited the grotto area and talked about this event in Jesus’ life, the tour guide allowed us to explore the area on our own. Normally when we explored, we stayed together, but this was a place with short hikes and trails. So, this time I felt safe enough to go on my own.

I turned my mind to the Lord’s like usual and he immediately pointed me to a pathway that led up into a little forested area. I just followed him. After crossing over the creek on a wooden bridge (see the image at the top of the blog), I hiked up the side of the bluff. I was the only one who had gone this way. The pathway didn’t seem to be “well-travelled”. 

When I got to the top, I saw them – more than a half dozen of the elusive fuzzy creatures we had been searching for! They were nested in the trees and the crevices of a rocky outcropping. There were a couple of mamas with babies. It was delightful! 

I later found them online. They are called Hyraxes. They live in parts of Africa and the Middle East in forested areas, vegetation zones, and areas with large rock outcrops. They eat mostly leaves, twigs, fruit, bark, and grass. Their feet are equipped with rubbery pads, which allow them to climb trees very quickly and jump great distances (Treehouses).

I walked quietly and cautiously through the trees so I wouldn’t scare them. A couple of mamas hissed at me. I took some pictures so I could show the rest of the group when I got back, but I was thankful that I could experience this peaceful sacred place alone with Him. I wondered if this less trodden place, away from the ornate churches, was more like the place where he grew up. I wondered if these animals were around when he lived in the area. Whatever the case, I knew he was answering my prayer. He had brought me to a quiet place in nature to catch a glimpse of him.

It Was a Year of Shadow

In 1983 when I was 13 years old and in 8th grade, I stopped going to church. My mom said I could make my own decision about going, and so I chose not to go. It was a year of shadow. At least that’s what the memories look like now. At the time, I didn’t notice the shifting shades of gray as I walked along this pathway. And I wasn’t yet able to associate many of the consequences that occurred that year as a result of my choice. It’s only in hindsight that I see the link. 

It wasn’t so much that I should have been at church and wasn’t. It was that in not going I stepped away from the steady source of light and truth that is especially valuable to children who are just developing their sense of who they are. I became unconscious of my value, my worth, my accountability to God.

During this year of overcast skies, I had some friends that smoked. I was curious when they handed me a cigarette. I wondered how it would make me feel. So, I tried it. I didn’t feel bad about it. One night, they got a hold of some marijuana and invited me to try it. Again, I was curious about how it would make me feel. I tried it. The effect was that it took away some of my ability to choose. I remember I didn’t have a lot of control over what I said. It was like my boundaries were down. Thankfully, I didn’t do anything more than hang out with my friends that night. When I got home, I lay down on my bed and saw myself almost from a third-person perspective. A voice in my head spoke:

“Do you like how you feel?”

“No,” I responded.

“Then we don’t have to do this again.”

“Okay.”

I never did.

I Was Tired of Thinking What Other People Were Thinking of Me

A month or so after I had been mourning with my friend over the loss of her husband (See Was It Enough to Mourn with Her?), and after her closer family and friends had arrived to help, I stepped away for a few days to be comforted and to get refocused on my writing. It was my husband that suggested I take a short trip to Tuscan, AZ – somewhere warm and sunny. We had gotten into the pattern of when I was in need of comfort and soul nourishment, he would send me away on writer’s retreats. 

Creating a Space for God

My writing had become my predominant source of peace. Between 2003 and 2005, I had attended writer’s conferences at BYU every year. But in 2006, I stopped going to those and started going to private writer’s retreats. For Mother's Day or my birthday, my husband arranged for me to stay in a hotel in Vail, Colorado for a few days. I would write, get stuck or have a question, go to a different part in the room, kneel down and pray, ask for direction, go back to writing, receive the answers, and repeat. Being alone like that and making a space for the Lord to come into my life – to Hear Him – in these early years was instrumental in developing my relationship with him. 

During these retreats and the months in between them I developed this habit of turning to God, rather than to anyone else. In 2007, I was still relatively new to communicating with him at this higher level. It wasn’t a matter of whether or not he was communicating with me; I realize that he always has been. It was a matter of me tuning in to hear his voice more distinctly, increasing the volume and frequency, and differentiating it from my own.

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” ~John 10:27

Alone at a Hotel Resort

So, at this retreat in Tuscan, I was alone at this hotel resort. Most people were with other people. I ate dinner in the dining room alone. I walked around the resort alone. I was in the elevator alone awkwardly wondering if I should strike up a conversation or not. All this made me feel uncomfortable. I didn’t feel uncomfortable being alone in my hotel room or in general. It was when I went down to eat or sit in an outdoor communal space around the resort. I felt vulnerable like people were looking at me and wondering why I was alone. It started to bother me more because I didn’t want to waste my time thinking about what they were thinking of me. Yet, I couldn’t stop myself. It was like a bad habit. So, I started praying about it. 

Converting Thoughts into Written Words

My prayers during these days were written in my journal. This helped me make my conversations with God more tangible. Before, when I used to pray in my mind, it kept the communication abstract and in that vague realm of swirling thoughts and ideas. Writing them down converted my thoughts to the more concrete. And I believed it demonstrated to God that I was serious about wanting to know him better and his will for me. The bottom line was that it was the most important thing to me to Hear Him, not because it was the righteous thing to do, but because this was so intensely amazing, nothing could keep me away from it. At home, every free moment I had while I was taking care of my kids, washing the dishes, vacuuming, making meals, and pulling weeds, I was turning to him. 

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

When I started writing my prayers out in 2006, my growth process accelerated. It became more intentional. I incrementally became aware of things I hadn’t noticed before. I was increasingly aware of my negative thought processes because I felt this new censure in my heart. For example, when I had a prideful thought, my heart would suddenly take a fall - this small kind of bitter-fear-like feeling. The more time I spent learning about Jesus Christ and who he was, the more I saw him and his characteristics. The more I saw him, the more I became conscious of where I could improve. It was a combination of my increased awareness of his presence in my mind and these effects I experienced in my heart. It was like I had a heightened awareness of when I stepped away from him and his way of thinking and loving. This was extremely fascinating to me and I absolutely loved it. Even though I was being censured and it was hard to learn how to speak his language, I was so thankful for it.

Random Reciprocity Thought Processes

Consequently, I was experiencing a new level of awareness in Tuscan, when I was alone at this busy hotel resort. I was aware of my thoughts about what other people were thinking about me. I’ll refer to this type of thinking as Random Reciprocity Thought Processes. It was annoying me that I was doing this. I recognized how insecure it made me feel. I wanted to be free of it. It was getting in the way of my relationship with the Lord because when I thought about what all these strangers were thinking about me, I couldn’t keep my mind with his. I would be distracted. I felt myself stepping away from his presence. And I wanted to stay with him all the time, not only because I loved hanging out with him and hearing what he said, but also because I didn’t like the vulnerability of listening for what everyone else was thinking about me. In essence, when I would engage in Random Reciprocity thinking, I really was alone.

He told me that the way to resolve this problem was to value his evaluation of me more than other people’s. He said I was using Random Reciprocity Thought Processes to asses my value. He reminded me of a time when I had gained the most control of these thought processes. It was when I was engaged to my soon-to-be husband. No one else’s opinion of me was more important than his. When other people voiced their opinions, they surprised me because I hadn’t been thinking about what they were thinking of me at all. I was more oblivious.

“Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.” ~D&C 6:36

The Effect of Relationships on Thought Processes

I developed Reciprocity Thought Processes when I was a child, partly out of self-preservation. People oftentimes take offense to what you do or say or are. And sometimes their response process hurts. They don’t notice or accept you unless you do certain things or act a certain way or are a certain way. And sometimes that makes you feel alone. As a child, I picked up on this unspoken communication process. I unintentionally changed certain things about myself based on the positive and negative feedback I received. 

I also think this type of thinking intertwines with Empathy. Empathy is using Reciprocity Thought Processes, not to assess what other people are thinking of me, but to assess how they are thinking and feeling in a given situation. I use that information to determine how to best help them. This means the process of thinking what others are thinking or feeling isn’t the problem. It’s when I use the gift to assess how valuable I am to random citizens that the trouble occurs. Those people who have the ability to deeply empathize with people may have a more difficult time than others with controlling their Reciprocity Thought Processes.

If children don’t develop good, nurturing relationships with their parents and close family members, they will naturally and unconsciously seek approval and acceptance from others. They will adjust their behaviors accordingly. I studied this psychological concept in college. Some psychologists refer to it as Behavioral Conditioning. Over time if children live with a lack of love and acceptance in the home, instead of becoming their parents’ child, they become the child of someone else or of random people. I’m pretty sure this is how I developed this habit.

But when I met my future husband, I only wanted his approval and acceptance. It shut down any need to receive it from random sources. After we were married, we had issues from the get-go as most married couples do, but my Reciprocity Thought Processes continued to be bound to him. However, after around seven years of marriage, something changed in my relationship with him. Something started happening that began to block this bonding process. I was not aware of what it was, but I was aware of the change in the effects in my heart. Only with hindsight and training have I been able to put all the puzzle pieces together to understand what was going on.

The Value of a Growth Mindset

By the Spring of 2007, when I was in this Tuscan hotel, I was once again caught up in Random Reciprocity Thought Processes. And when I prayed to get in control of them so I could turn them off, the answer was to seek approval and acceptance only from the Lord. The more I valued him, the more valuable his opinion of me would be. This would close the door to my unconscious search for the acceptance, approval, and admiration from random people.

But that triggered certain questions and so I asked Him. Why would he admire who and what I was if he was the very one who was training me to become this? He responded to me with his own question: Are you only valuable to someone if you came into the relationship already equipped with talents, strengths, abilities, and beauty? Hmm…. I had never analyzed my thought processes so clearly. I wondered why I had been thinking about it like that.

“And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.” ~Ether 12:27

He said there was another type of strength that was more valuable than other strengths: Coming into my relationship with Him ready and willing to learn and grow. Someone who has this kind of growth mindset is of more value than anything else because this person can become whatever He wants her to be. And I knew what he wanted me to be was the best that I could be. That’s what I wanted to be. The only limits were the ones that I created.

The pathway to get to this place and eliminate my limitations was to value him and his opinion of me more than I valued anyone else’s. This was a challenge because he was not right there in front of my physical eyes or anyone else’s physical eyes. And other people were right there. He was unseen. They were seen. He was walking with me unseen through the corridors of the hotel. He was invisibly there in the elevator and at dinner. I knew I wasn’t alone. But no one else knew it. His very presence communicated how much he valued me. He appreciated me, accepted me, and edited me. But everyone else could not see my value to him. I began to wonder why I would care what they were thinking of me. Did I value their opinions, edits, acceptance, and admiration more than his?

I decided I did not want to care about what random people thought of me. And that was a good start, but it wasn’t enough to break the habit. I had to make a conscious and continuous effort to delete the thoughts. Again, that still wasn’t enough. I had to replace them with Reciprocity Thoughts with the Lord. He taught me that you can’t just shut down the need to be valued altogether. You have to learn how to control it. For that to happen, I had to spend more time studying and writing about who Jesus Christ was. I had to essentially write him into my life as if he were physically there. It wasn’t about painting his portrait (although I have also attempted this with sad results). It was about coming to know how he makes choices, how he differentiates between two ideas, where they are balanced and where they become imbalanced. It was about understanding the way he governs, evaluates, and judges. What exactly is Mercy and how does it work with Justice? How does he love? What is love? And how could I apply all this to parenting and to my relationships with other people? Once I found the answers to these questions, I was judged by them.

What I have discovered was that it all boiled down to faith. How well could I see and hear and understand him with my spiritual senses? Could I trust the things I saw and heard that were only validated by my heart? Could I believe them above what I sensed other people were thinking, saying, and doing?  Making the choice to actually look at him was a sacrifice because his feedback was different than other people’s. That meant that he was asking me to make a choice between his opinion and theirs. He was asking me to become his daughter – a daughter only interested in pleasing her father. It was like this incremental process of slowly being born again.

“…faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.” ~Alma 32:21

“Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” ~John 3:3

Deep Comfort

By the time I flew back to Denver, I had been deeply comforted. The cloud of mourning darkness had lifted, and I was ready to get back to work empathizing and mourning with my friends while deleting the Random Reciprocity Thought Processes. Since then, it has been a work in progress similar to the process of eating right. I go through periods of time when I'm better at it than others. But amazing times have followed! To incrementally learn about Jesus Christ like this has created the most intense feelings of Sustainable Joy that I have ever experienced. 

Was it Enough to Mourn with Her?

One of my good friends had just lost her husband. It was Spring Break 2007. He had died of accidental drug overdose. Having been really sick for a while and on medication, he didn’t know what he was doing when he took too many of his pills. 

Their seven-year-old daughter and mine were good friends and she had spent the night at our house. So, I was the one my friend called when she discovered her husband. I left the girls with another friend and went to the hospital. I was there in the emergency room when they were trying to resuscitate him and defibrillate his heart. I was there in the waiting room with her when she was shaking, crying, struggling with the pain.

During the following weeks, it was a time of great sorrow and fear. Her father came into town and stayed at my house. Her two daughters also stayed with us a few nights. I was often at her house. Anything I could do to relieve some of her suffering, I was willing to do. During those first few weeks, not many people knew what had happened. There were very few of us mourning with her. I had never mourned so closely with someone before. I felt the very real, dark, and heavy weight of the burden. 

When Spring break ended, other moms from the Coyote Hills Elementary School community became aware of what had happened. They joined us in mourning and volunteered to make meals and help with the kids. My role shifted to coordinating these services. I felt the burden lifting from me as it was shared by these other women. It wasn’t just the physical tasks that they shared with us. It was that they spiritually joined with us in carrying the burden. 

Many of them called me. We talked and cried together. I was living through the experience of what Jesus meant when he said “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).

The intentions, concern, emotions, and attention of these women had an actual impact upon the way I was feeling. I had been feeling the darkness of death, but they brought in the sunlight of life. I hope that my friend's burden was lightened when we mourned with her. Because I actually felt mine lighten, I have greater faith that hers did too.

“…as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort…” ~Mosiah 18:8-9

My Epiphany

In the Spring of 2009, I was working on a writing project. I had been working on it for 3 years and it was crazy that I hadn’t yet been able to finish it. It was like being in a single college course and working on a single paper that I could not seem to complete even after 3 years. Yet, I would not give up on it.

It had been a very intense project. I had been consistently praying about it and receiving guidance since 2006. I was writing about the atonement of Jesus Christ and how that related to the central structure of story. I had taken a deep dive into the scriptures and had worked to develop my communication relationship with the Lord because it brought up a lot of questions in my mind. I was writing down his answers but was expected to organize and summarize what he was teaching me into something coherent.

It was evidently my weaknesses that were holding me back from being able to do that.  I came to the point where I felt like I needed to directly ask for help to break through whatever was holding me back. I needed to know why it was taking me forever to finish. What was I missing? Where did I need to grow or change in order to finish it?

I had read somewhere that setting a date was a critical part of the goal achievement process. After considering it for a time, I decided that maybe that was the missing piece. I needed to set a date, do my part, and leave the rest up to the Lord. 

My birthday was coming up in a month, so I decided to make that the due date. I prayed for God’s help and felt his confirmation that he would. I put my trust in him and over the next month, after taking care of my home and family, spent the rest of my time on the project. 

My birthday came. Despite hours of work, I still hadn’t come anywhere close to finishing it. But I held out hope that some kind of epiphany would come. The day was filled with the normal motherhood tasks. Additionally, my daughter had to go to a dress rehearsal for her upcoming dance recital and we were there for hours. The environment was distracting. I couldn’t write. My mind was tied up in knots. By the end of the night, I realized there would not be an epiphany and I wasn’t going to finish the project.

I was pretty upset. I cried. This was a failure. I knew I had not been negligent in doing my part both in my duties as a mother and as a writer. I went to bed still tied in knots and feeling a reaction of rebellion in my heart in response to the rejection I felt from the Lord.

Over the past three years I had developed a relationship with Him as I was studying his life and Atonement, which had brought me more joy than anything I had ever experienced. While I studied his life, he started “studying” mine in return. He spent a lot of time on me, answering my questions, retraining me, listening to me, and helping me overcome a lot of imbalanced behaviors. I could not choose to be angry with him, yet He knew that I had to deal with my pain. 

Normally, in a conflict I would allow myself to become angry with the other person whether it was someone in my community, my parents, a sibling, my husband, or a child. But He had trained me to bring this kind of conflict to him in prayer and we would deal with it together instead of my reacting to it and making the conflict worse. We had developed this pattern where I would come to him and get all my emotions off my chest. He would listen and empathize. I could actually feel this happening and hear his comforting counsel. It was always what I needed to hear. Once I felt better, I would ask him how I could have handled the situation better and we would walk through it. The next time the same kind of conflict came up, I was better prepared to handle it in a more balanced way. 

But this time, he was the person who was hurting me. 

The next day, I wrestled with my emotions. I was confused and on the edge of anger. I could sense him following me around as I cleaned the house, asking me what I was going to do about this. I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t let go of the anger, but neither could I hold it against him. Letting go was basically saying, “It’s okay that you’re hurting me.” And it wasn’t okay. But holding it against him was sacrificing the relationship we had developed. I knew he was a perfect God and if anyone was out of balance, it was me. But that twisted me up even more.

It was in the afternoon that day that I decided what was most important to me.

There are a million songs that sing about love conquering all. I felt it was literally impossible to forgive the pain. It was like giving up my life, but because of my love for Him I had no other choice. He had changed me from the person I used to be and saved me from all the bitter consequences I used to live in. He had helped me to love again. He had made me sweet where I used to be bitter. I was able to love my kids and myself only because of Him. I could not and would not give up this relationship. I had to let the pain happen without retaliating. So I did. I free-fell backwards. I just let it hurt. I submitted. I forgave. I repented. And in doing this, I was a strong-willed child again, but this time for the sake of love, I used that will to voluntarily accept the pain.

There is this song called “Waterloo” by Abba. You can listen to my aerobics instructor version here: Waterloo. The lyrics go like this:

At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender

And I have met my destiny in quite a similar way

The history book on the shelf

Is always repeating itself

Waterloo, I was defeated, you won the war

Waterloo, promise to love you forever more

Waterloo, couldn’t escape if I wanted to

Waterloo, knowing my fate is to be with you

Waterloo, finally facing my Waterloo

I tried to hold you back, but you were stronger

And now it seems my only chance is giving up the fight

And how could I ever refuse

I feel like I win when I lose

It turns out I did have an epiphany that year for my birthday.