Healing.

"I've found almost everything ever written about love to be true. Shakespeare said "Journeys end in lovers meeting." What an extraordinary thought. I suppose I think about love more than anyone really should. I am constantly amazed by its sheer power to alter and define our lives. It was Shakespeare who also said "love is blind". Now that is something I know to be true. For some quite inexplicably, love fades; for others love is simply lost. But then of course love can also be found, even if just for the night. I understand feeling as small and as insignificant as humanly possible. And how it can actually ache in places you didn't know you had inside you. And it doesn't matter how many new haircuts you get, or gyms you join, or how many glasses of chardonnay you drink with your girlfriends... you still go to bed every night going over every detail and wonder what you did wrong or how you could have misunderstood. And how in the hell for that brief moment you could think that you were that happy. And sometimes you can even convince yourself that he'll see the light and show up at your door. And after all that, however long all that may be, you'll go somewhere new. And you'll meet people who make you feel worthwhile again. And little pieces of your soul will finally come back. And all that fuzzy stuff, those years of your life that you wasted, that will eventually begin to fade." -The Holiday

Eat Pray Love  

"Dear David,
We haven't had any communication in a while, and it's given me time I needed to think. Remember when you said we should live with each other and be unhappy so we could be happy?

Consider it a testimony to how much I love you that I spent so long pouring myself into that offer, trying to make it work. But a friend took me to the most amazing place the other day its called, The Augustium. Octavian Augustus built it to house his remains. When the Barbarians came they trashed it along with everything else. The Great Augustus Rome's first true great emperor. How could he have imagined that Rome, the whole world as far as he was concerned, one day would be in ruins. It's one of the quietest and loneliest places in Rome. The city has grown up around it over centuries. Feels like a precious wound, Like a heartbreak you won't let go of cause it hurts too good.

We all want things to stay the same David. Settle for living in misery because were afraid of change. Of things crumbling to ruins. then i looked around in this place at the chaos its endured. The way its been adapted, burned, pillaged, and found a way to build itself back up again...and i was reassured. Maybe my life hasn't been so chaotic, It's just the world that is. And the only real trap is getting attached to any of it. ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation. Even in this eternal city. The Augustium showed me that we must always be prepared for endless waves of transformation.

Both of us deserve better than staying together because we're afraid we'll be destroyed if we don't."

LIKE CRAZY

"I thought I understood it, that I could grasp it. But I didn't, not really. Only the smudgeness of it; the pink-slippered, all-containered, semi-precious eagerness of it. I didn't realize it would sometimes be more than whole, that the wholeness was a rather luxurious idea. Because it's the halves that halve you in half. I didn't know, don't know, about the in-between bits; the gory bits of you, and the gory bits of me."

Honestly, these are a few of my favorite, most depressing, love movies and I think most people can agree that we can all relate to these quotes in some way.  Whether we are dealing with heart break, heart ache, loss, brokenness, emptiness, loneliness, confusion, etc. we seek a higher power that is able to lift us up and heal us.  It is easy to tell ourselves that we could be crazy, that we have been ruined or broken and feel a sense of hopelessness.  We often feel like we are the only one stuck in these dark and emotional states of sadness and worthlessness.  I know that "girls are emotional and crazy", "love sucks",  and according to Facebook "this doesn't happen to other people", but I promise that every human being comes to a painful and broken experience in their life where they are in need of support and healing.  We all seek love and approval and we all need the help and support of each other.  We read this poem in one of my classes and it really made me realize the truth of the emotions and experiences that every child of God experiences in mortality.  Life is hard and we all come to face our own personal moments of grief and agony and if we look to each other and to our Savior, Jesus Christ, we begin the process of healing.  This peaceful and promising healing does take time and a lot of patience but step by step, ones soul is able to slowly be filled with light and hope and we can feel the pure love of Christ illuminate our hearts.

Please Hear What I Am Not Saying

 I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me

               but you've got to help me.

               You've got to hold out your hand

               even when that's the last thing I seem to want.

               Only you can wipe away from my eyes

               the blank stare of the breathing dead.

               Only you can call me into aliveness.

               Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,

               each time you try to understand because you really care,

               my heart begins to grow wings--

               very small wings,

               very feeble wings,

               but wings!

               With your power to touch me into feeling

               you can breathe life into me.

               I want you to know that.

               I want you to know how important you are to me,

               how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator--

               of the person that is me

               if you choose to.

               You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,

               you alone can remove my mask,

               you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,

               from my lonely prison,

               if you choose to.

               Please choose to.

               Do not pass me by.

               It will not be easy for you.

               A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.

               The nearer you approach to me

               the blinder I may strike back.

               It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man

               often I am irrational.

               I fight against the very thing I cry out for.

               But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls

               and in this lies my hope.

               Please try to beat down those walls

               with firm hands but with gentle hands

               for a child is very sensitive.

               Who am I, you may wonder?

               I am someone you know very well.

               For I am every man you meet

               and I am every woman you meet.

I am YOU.

                                                                     Charles C. Finn

"HE CAN HEAL US"

Those who struggle with sin sometimes lie and rationalize in an attempt to minimize the consequences of their behavior. But somewhere inside themselves, they are aware of what they have done and know they are accountable for it. They know they are in spiritual bondage. Almost everyone I have met struggling with addiction suffers from a terrible sense of shame and a belief that he or she is broken, defective, and beyond the love and grace of God.

But this belief, in my experience, is far from the truth. Usually I find that those who struggle with addictions are warriors with tenacity, courage, and a strong desire to be clean. They win far more battles than they lose as they march toward recovery.

This may be hard for some to comprehend—if people are so strong, why is overcoming addiction so difficult? Addiction is often misunderstood, and some believe that if a person would simply choose to recover or work harder at stopping, he or she would be able to. But the nature of addiction—and all sin, for that matter—is such that we cannot heal ourselves from it. The children of Israel could not heal themselves from the bites of the fiery serpents, and we cannot simply wish or even work addiction away. We must find our hope of healing in Christ.

It takes faith, hope, and time to heal from the patterns of self-deception, isolation, and secrecy that nearly always accompany addiction. We can take counsel from Nephi to “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope” (2 Nephi 31:20) that He can heal—and is healing—us. We need to not give up or decide that because temptations and cravings return, there is no hope in Christ. To those who will not look because they feel no hope, I say that there is hope in Christ. He is the hope of recovery.

The Savior offers you the same healing and hope He offers your loved one. You too can be supported in this trial through the Atonement of Jesus Christ (see Alma 36:3). The Atonement of Jesus Christ is for all of us.

I know that as we “cast about [our] eyes” and “begin to believe in the Son of God,” He will heal us (Alma 33:22). He is the Son of God, and His is the only name and way by which we can return to our Father (see Mosiah 3:17).

Alma ends his sermon on the brass serpent with his testimony that Christ “will come to redeem his people, and that he shall suffer and die to atone for their sins” (Alma 33:22). I add my own witness that Christ has come and that “[our] burdens may be light, through the joy” and healing of His eternal Atonement (Alma 33:23).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coef8G5ax6E

Moments of I M P A C T

"Following the leader"

I love this video we watched at my work and I think it has a powerful message.  

I think we all need to have our lollipop moments this Christmas.  We can give sincere appreciation and acknowledgment to the people that have changed our lives for the better.  Make a list of all the people in your life that have done this for you and during this Christmas break, go around telling them and giving them credit.  We all need to be aware of how much one word, one smile, and one experience can change a life for good.  We have so much power and influence on one other and we need to recognize and use it more!  Be aware of any moment you have when you are stuck somewhere with a loved one, a friend, or even a stranger and instead of getting on your phone to stalk instagram or snapchat some lame picture, make the choice to listen, open up, laugh, smile, vent, or support the people around you.  You might not need it but the souls around you that live and fear, worry, stress, and negativity need it a lot more than you think.

"The moment of impact. The moment of impact proves potential for change. Has ripples effects far beyond what we can predict. Sending some particles crashing together. Making them closer than before. While sending others spinning off into great ventures. Landing them where you've never thought you've found them. That's the thing about moments like these. You can't, no matter how hard you try, controlling how it's gonna affect you. You just gotta let the colliding part goes where they may. And wait. For the next collision. "
                                                                      
-The Vow

Psychology Project

Chapter 3:  "Flourish"

The Dirty Little Secrets of Drugs and Therapy

"Almost always, the effects are what is technically called "small".  Depression is typical.  Consider two treatments that are certified by vast literatures to "work":  cognitive therapy for depression and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Taking an average over the entire huge literature, for each you get a 65 percent relief rate, accompanied by a placebo effect that ranges from 45 percents to 55 percent....

Every form of psychotherapy I know, every exercise, is a "fighting the mountain" intervention.  In other words, these therapies are not self-reinforcing and so the benefits fade over time.  In general, talk therapy techniques all share the property of being difficult to do, no fun at all, and difficult to incorporate into your life.  In fact, the way we measure how efficacious talk therapies are is by how long they last before they "melt" once treatments ends.  Every single drug has exactly the same property:  once you stop taking it, you are back to square one, and reoccurrence and relapse are on the rule."

Something is simply not working!  What can we do...?

POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

"How you celebrate is more predictive of strong relations that how you fight.  People we care about often tell us about a victory, a triumph, and less momentous good things that happen to them.  How we respond can either build the relationship or undermine it."

4 basic ways of responding and only one that is effective-

ACTIVE AND CONSTRUCTIVE RESPONDING:

DEALING WITH NEGATIVE EMOTIONS:

"Negative emotions and the negative personality traits have very strong biological limits, and the best a clinician can ever do with the cosmetic approach is to get patients to live in the best part of their set range of depression or anxiety or anger. ..one thing that clinical psychology needs to develop in light of the heritable stubbornness of human pathologies is a psychology of "DEALING WITH IT."  We need to tell our patients, "Look, the truth is that many days-no matter how successful we are in therapy-you will wake up feeling blue and thinking life is hopeless.  Your job is not only to fight these feelings but also to heroically:  functioning well even when you are very sad."

The vision of therapy in the future:  THE C U R E !!!

1) Patients need to be told that the drugs and therapies are TEMPORARY symptom relievers only, and that they should expect reoccurrence when treatment stops

2) Treatment should not end when suffering is relieved.  Patients need to learn the specific skills of positive psychology:  how to have more positive emotion, more engagement, more meaning, more accomplishment, and better human relations.  Unlike the skills of minimizing misery, these skills are self-sustaining.  They likely treat depression and anxiety and they likely help prevent them as well.  More important than relieving pathology, these skills are what flourishing is, and they are crucial to everyone's search for well-being

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As-g_dwgJig

LET IT SNOWWWWW!!!!!!

Oh the weather outside is frightfulBut the fire is so delightfulAnd since we've no place to goLet It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

It doesn't show signs of stoppingAnd I've bought some corn for poppingThe lights are turned way down lowLet It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

When we finally kiss goodnightHow I'll hate going out in the storm!But if you'll really hold me tightAll the way home I'll be warm

The fire is slowly dyingAnd, my dear, we're still goodbyingBut as long as you love me soLet It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

CHOICES

"I honestly do not know what to do...."

One of the most popular phrases in my book of dysfunctional and complicated things to repeat when faced with having to make any type of small or large decision in the life of ME. Whether I am rolling out of bed and I do not know what song to listen to as I get ready, what outfit to wear, what class to skip, what lunch place or fast food to eat at, what major I decide to study, what state to live in, what country to visit next with the coming holiday, what words to spill to the boy I like, what party to go to on the weekends, or what picture to make my profile pic.......it is always a struggle, this life, that is composed of different "right and wrong" choices. There is the "what if I do this instead of..." factor or "if only I had said this..." or "they both feel right....", we are constantly having to CHOOSE what to say, what to think, where to go, what to buy, who to talk to, how to feel, and when is the best time.

Remember the good old days when we would wake up with breakfast made, our rooms cleaned for us, the house all put together, our clothes picked out, and our days, weeks, and even years planned for us by some divine leaders and "perfect know it all/do it right" human beings called our parents...?! Where did the time go and where was I/what was I doing during that class or course where our parents or some kind of adult figure sat us down and taught us how to use our brains correctly and make the right decisions always for the rest of our lives....? Guess I missed out?!!

Well hello and nice to meet you REALITY CHECK to becoming an adult. I am not married and I am not even close to having any children but I am on my own and let me tell you, living and breathing and succeeding and winning and school/work/relationships/life in general is pretty hard to figure out when you are on your own. It is not so "glam" and "independent" and the "dream" as we think. It is hard work and it takes time to learn how to use your head and heart to choose your life. It takes practice...

So how do we make the "right" choice with every decision we are going to face...? How do we know if something is "right"/ "fate" and that "oh don't worry, everything will work out...." Will it? How do I know that...

well first we are going to look at our set backs of why we are not making decisions in our lives...what is holding you back?

possibly being torn between two good things...?

We see it in the movies too.... from the beautifully touching and emotion filled chick flick "The Notebook", Ally is torn between two great guys and does not know who to choose. This is Ally being young and happily in love with two great people but each one could definitely give her completely different lives. Noah, the dream boat and Ally's first love, gets frustrated with her and tells her to stop thinking of everyone else and trying to please other people and for once think of herself. He finally tells her to go within herself and make the choice not because he wants her to do it or her mom wants her to choose someone else but she should do it because she knows it is exactly what she wants. What would you do? Who would you choose and what path of life would you follow? I feel like this movie shows us how often we are "torn" between so many choices in our life and we want to go certain ways or pick specific things because of outside influences of people we care about and love. We do not want to hurt anyone and we want everyone to be happy! Even though in our lives we will faces roads with so many options and ways to go, we need to accept the fact that we are TORN between all the choices but we need to go within our hearts and heads and let that be the judge and not let the ones around us influence us so much. It is our life and our happiness and we need to be looking out for ourselves. Maybe both decisions are good and both could be great and that is okay but we need to learn how to just CHOOSE. Do it and see what happens! maybe we will get hurt or lost or set back or we might even succeed and receive everything we want in life but regardless it is time to start going and deciding and things will work out.

whether you have fear, have been told you cannot change or accomplish something, are torn, stuck, worried, impulsive, confused, or just trying to people please, know that you are the one that holds the POWER to create and live your own life. You, in the end, even if you make a good or bad decision or choice, are the one that deciding and you can determine whether or not you are happy or unhappy.

I really like this talk by President Monson that talks about the three R's or choice:

I have been thinking recently about choices and their consequences. Scarcely an hour of the day goes by but what we are called upon to make choices of one sort or another. Some are trivial, some more far-reaching. Some will make no difference in the eternal scheme of things, and others will make all the difference.

I mention first the right of choice. I am so grateful to a loving Heavenly Father for His gift of agency, or the right to choose. President David O. McKay, ninth President of the Church, said, “Next to the bestowal of life itself, the right to direct that life is God’s greatest gift to man.”¹

We know that we had our agency before this world was and that Lucifer attempted to take it from us. He had no confidence in the principle of agency or in us and argued for imposed salvation. He insisted that with his plan none would be lost, but he seemed not to recognize—or perhaps not to care—that in addition, none would be any wiser, any stronger, any more compassionate, or any more grateful if his plan were followed.

we will always have the right to choose.

Next, with the right of choice comes the responsibility to choose. We cannot be neutral; there is no middle ground. The Lord knows this; Lucifer knows this. As long as we live upon this earth, Lucifer and his hosts will never abandon the hope of claiming our souls.

Our Heavenly Father did not launch us on our eternal journey without providing the means whereby we could receive from Him God-given guidance to assist in our safe return at the end of mortal life. I speak of prayer. I speak too of the whisperings from that still, small voice within each of us, and I do not overlook the holy scriptures, written by mariners who successfully sailed the seas we too must cross.

When faced with significant choices, how do we decide? Do we succumb to the promise of momentary pleasure? To our urges and passions? To the pressure of our peers?

Let us not find ourselves as indecisive as is Alice in Lewis Carroll’s classicAlice’s Adventures in Wonderland. You will remember that she comes to a crossroads with two paths before her, each stretching onward but in opposite directions. She is confronted by the Cheshire cat, of whom Alice asks, “Which path shall I follow?”

The cat answers, “That depends where you want to go. If you do not know where you want to go, it doesn’t matter which path you take.”⁷

Unlike Alice, we all know where we want to go, and it does matter which way we go, for by choosing our path, we choose our destination.

Decisions are constantly before us. To make them wisely, courage is needed—the courage to say no, the courage to say yes. Decisions do determine destiny.

All of our choices have consequences, some of which have little or nothing to do with our eternal salvation and others of which have everything to do with it.

No temptation, no pressure, no enticing can overcome us unless we allow such. If we make the wrong choice, we have no one to blame but ourselves. President Brigham Young once expressed this truth by relating it to himself. Said he: “If Brother Brigham shall take a wrong track, and be shut out of the Kingdom of heaven, no person will be to blame but Brother Brigham. I am the only being in heaven, earth, or hell, that can be blamed.” He continued: “This will equally apply to every Latter-day Saint. Salvation is an individual operation.”⁸

We have all made incorrect choices. If we have not already corrected such choices, I assure you that there is a way to do so. The process is called repentance. I plead with you to correct your mistakes. Our Savior died to provide you and me that blessed gift. Although the path is not easy, the promise is real: “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”¹⁰ “And I, the Lord, remember them no more.”¹¹ Don’t put your eternal life at risk. If you have sinned, the sooner you begin to make your way back, the sooner you will find the sweet peace and joy that come with the miracle of forgiveness.

DO NOT FEAR AND HAVE THE COURAGE TO MAKE CHOICES NOT BECAUSE SOMEONE ELSE IS TELLING YOU TO OR YOU FEEL PRESSURE AT A CERTAIN TIME IN YOUR LIFE BUT DO IT FOR YOURSELF, YOUR LIFE, AND ESPECIALLY YOUR HAPPINESS.  LIFE DOES NOT JUST HAPPEN BUT WE MAKE IT HAPPEN AND THAT CAN ONLY COME TO PASS WHEN WE MAKE CHOICES.  STOP AND PAUSE THE NEXT TIME YOU ARE FACED WITH A DECISION AND REALLY PONDER, MEDITATE, THINK, BE STILL, AND LET LIGHT FLOW INTO YOUR MIND AND HEART.  THINGS WILL WORK OUT AND GOOD AND BAD WILL COME TO PASS REGARDLESS BUT NO NOT LET FEAR OF FAILURE OR REGRET STOP YOU FROM YOUR ETERNAL PROGRESSION.  YOU NEED TO LIVE LIFE AND YOU NEED TO LEARN.  STOP DOUBTING AND START DECIDING.  THE TIME IS NOW!