Believing on Purpose

In the gospel library app, I came across "Thoughts" in the "Guide to the Scriptures". It reads, "Ideas, concepts, and images in a person's mind. The power to think is a gift from God, and we are free to choose how we use our power to think. The way we think greatly affects attitudes and behavior, as well as our standing after this life. Righteous thoughts lead to salvation; wicked thoughts lead to damnation." I believe the damnation spoken of here is our state of mind. Those wicked thoughts don't bring joyful feelings. They bring pain. And that pain doesn't feel peaceful or free. But we do have the freedom and power to redirect our thoughts--or choose to change them--and those changes will change how we feel and how we behave, and can lead to our salvation. Sometimes we have thoughts that aren't necessarily good or bad, but still determine how we feel. And because we're each unique and different, we get to decide if we are ok feeling th...

I had a great visiting teacher several years ago that taught me something amazing! She read part of the scripture, "Seek and ye shall find," and shared with me that whatever we are seeking for in others, we will surely find it. If we are looking for the bad, we'll find it. But if we look for the good--seek it in them--we will find the good! I thought this was truly fascinating, and so true! Our minds will seek out that which we are searching for and find evidence for it. Positive or negative.  Even if the good is made up from our beliefs, that's ok! Why not believe in the good in others? When we believe it, they might believe it too, and then it can become true. What if we began to do that within ourselves? Seek for the good within ourselves? Part of this could include asking the Lord what He sees in us. What quality does He admire in us? What qualities do we have in common with Him? As we seek for the good in ourselves, with His help, we will find it. And then we c...

So how does life coaching work with the gospel of Jesus Christ? In so many ways!! God has a plan for us. Men are that they might have joy. Part of His plan is that we might experience positive and negative emotions in order to learn and grow, develop empathy and compassion, and experience what life has to offer. When we turn to the Lord and "look unto [Him] in every thought; doubt not, fear not," we learn not only to trust Him, but to desire the thoughts He intends for us to think--thoughts about our great worth and the worth of all His children, and thoughts that will inspire the feelings to fill the measure of our creation and help accomplish His great work on this earth. When we choose to see things from the Lord's perspective, looking to Him for our thoughts, we see  things from an eternal perspective. We see the good and maybe even the purpose in all things. We see evidence of this in 1 Nephi 17:2 and 20. I find it so fascinating that Nephi and Laman have such di...

I'm finally getting around to writing this post, and I have to insert back in place where it belongs because it took me such a long time to really get it and understand just how important it is. So what exactly does it mean to process emotions?  It's kinda like digesting them. Even like regurgitating, as if you're a cow. Ok, I'm not comparing anyone to a cow, just hear me out. A cow chews and chews and swallows it's cud down into it's stomach and then it comes back up again to get chewed some more. It goes through 5 different stomachs to digest it. Processing emotions is like a cow digesting its food. It's a process. We chew on it, it goes down, it comes back up again, we chew some more, it goes back down, repeat, it goes through all those stomachs, and hopefully it comes out as some really good fertilizer in the end, ha! I may have taken that a bit far, but when take all the time we need to process our emotions, the process gives us awareness and so muc...

So I kinda had a rough morning, just feeling a little down. Knowing it had partly to do with my hormones this time of the month, I spent my morning observing my thoughts and consequent feelings. Lots of thoughts, mostly negative. One innocent random thought about putting recipes on my blog, lead to a positive one, and then down the path of negativity. It went something like this: I can put on my blog that I'm an amazing cook, but really not so much a baker. And why is that, I wonder? It's not that I'm bad at baking. I just don't like to. Usually that's the opposite. People love to bake and hate to cook. Maybe I don't like to bake because it's really not necessary. I'm a simple person. I like to get in, get out, and get the job done. I don't need the extra frivolous stuff. It's an extra bonus I usually don't take time for, in my mind. Why? Then I began relating that whole perspective to myself. (And here's where the negativity started cree...

In my journey, I came across an amazing podcast by Brooke Castillo. She explained how our emotions are 50/50, that is 50% positive and 50% negative. And that's how it's supposed to be. It's part of life to experience both positive and negative emotions. I found this so fascinating because it goes right along with doctrine found in the scriptures. In 2 Nephi 2:23 it says, "wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin." So when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, innocent and naked, they did not experience joy or sorrow, excitement or stress, anger or peace, etc because without partaking of the fruit, they lived in a state of innocence: without wisdom, without knowing good or evil, and what appears to even have been void of emotion. And Eve wanted more. She wanted understanding, she wanted children--she wanted and felt compelled and impressed to desire more. It was not un...