Openness

I am finding it hard to give myself any check marks beside Openness on my resolutions chart. I want to learn how to be aware and listen to the council of others. This will help with learning Obedience. 

I was thinking this morning, and its not like I have spiritual, intriguing talks with people everyday that let me exercise this. So, I have resolved to start a "One-liner a day" journal where I will record something I find significant, everyday. It can be from the scriptures, after my 20 minute read, or I think I will follow a Quotes Page on Instagram or twitter.

Hopefully this works! I also have this perfect, pocket-sized moleskin book from chapters that I will keep with me in my purse to be able to record! I honestly just love hand writing, so carrying this with me will be motivational too! Plus, who doesn't love a good collection of good quotes? The more I think about this, the more excited I get.

So here it is to my revised resolution! Listen and record! Once a day!

M

Rules of Engagement

Last night, I got reaallllyyyy excited about this project and decided to look through some old Spiritual Thoughts that me and my brothers had shared back in September of last year. While I was reading, it dawned on me just how IMPORTANT it is to record everything! I have always been really good at recording. I love taking notes on things. People say, "You wont ever look at that again," but they are just so wrong! I reread my notes all of the time. It helps to have them when you need to write a talk for church or prepare a spiritual thought. I like having them to remember how spiritual I once was and to reclaim that Fire that is so evident underneath the writing. To be able to re-feel those precious moments of insight or sheer emotion is such a gift. And if I hadn't been recording, I wouldn't have found this gem I just came across from September 30, 2014! (Found Below).

I have resolved to make myself a very thought-out list of Rules and Truths that I will hold to and remember during this project. Things that are very singular to me, but that others may also find true for themselves. It will be a list to remind me of when my bad habits are creeping in and stopping me from my quest of fulfilling my Big Plan of Happiness!

Rules of Engagement:
1: Be grateful
2: Record, record, record
3: Do it now
4: Be present
5: Own it
6: Let go of offence and anger
7: Stop second-guessing yourself
8: Moderation in all things
9: Be honest with yourself
10: Enjoy the process

Big Truths:
Charity never faileth
What you put in is what you get out
You affect every one you come into contact with
There is an individual plan for all of us
Waking up early makes your day so much better
Laziness never was happiness
Distraction is the easiest adversity
Do good, feel good
By doing a little bit each day, you can get a lot accomplished
What you do everyday, matters more than what you do every once in a while
Messing up does not mean you need to start all over again
Ask and ye shall receive
All impressions of the Holy Ghost are small promptings of revelation
Your actions will shape your future
There is joy in tribulation
Obedience is the highest form of self-confidence
Enthusiasm is a social form of courage
People are often your angels
Forced obedience yields no enduring fruit

And to reiterate what my March Resolutions are for Mindfulness, I will list them below:
Pray in the a.m. and in the p.m.
Think prayerfully
20 minutes of scripture study
Say a small prayer before reading
Openness

And you know what else I have realized? This whole project is so much more fun, the more you put into it. Right now, I have hardly nicked the surface and yet, making these "Rules & Truths" lists has been so motivational! I am so much more excited about organizing and scheduling the different areas of spirituality that I will be focusing on. For a sneak peek I will tell you that in the coming months I will be looking to focus on Charity, Obedience, Relationships, Fellowship, and Keeping the spirit with me! Thats all for now. Look below to see the quote I wrote myself when I was more in-tune with my spirituality! This is just proof that I can get there again. :)

M

September 26, 2014

Hellooooo!! D&C 6:8 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, even as you desire of me so it shall be unto you; and if you desire, you shall be the means of doing much good in this generation.” Desire. This is something I have been thinking about lots. I have a firm testimony that if you lack desire, whether for the gospel, to follow teachings, to serve, to bring about much good, it is simply because you lack understanding. Once you are at a point of understanding the happiness and joy the gospel brings, but further, the truthfulness and importance of each teaching, once you understand the connectedness between the gospel, between this life and the next and have an understanding of what the true meaning of life is, your desire to wield good to all you come upon will explode. Your desire to achieve the state of happiness that can only come through Christ will explode. You will no longer need to try so hard to follow principles and won't think of the standards as “rules” or “hard to follow.” The desire continues to burn but the blessings continue to be tangible. It's the fruit of life. And if any of you lack understanding or lack wisdom, let him work his butt off and ask of God. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Living the Standards at All TImes

Hello everyone!

This is a talk that I wrote and gave in church a little while ago that I felt really good about. I thought I would post it here so that more people could reap the benefits of it.

Living the standards at all times

My definition of Living the standards at all times can be defined by a phrase I coined from my father. The words that he used were meant to define his relationship with my mother but with considerable thought I came to the conclusion that this phrase should match how each member of the church should feel towards there relationship with the gospel. The phrase is this: Fiercely Loyal. I would define being fiercely loyal as an act of determination, an unstoppable force, a knowing, not just thinking and doing everything in your power to hold to it. The way I want to feel about living the church standards at all times is that there is no other option than to just do it. So over the course of the week I have been going through my old notes and I have gathered up a few things that I had written down over the years revolving around bettering yourself as a person. I don't want the focus of my talk to be on ways that you can live the standards at all times, we already know what those are. But I want to put an extreme emphasis on the way we should feel about ourselves that allows us to follow these commandments.

The first thing I want to talk about is responsibility. And that is a subject that is tied closely to the gift of free agency, or in other words, choice. 2 Nephi 2:27 states: "Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man." President Monson in the October General Conference of 2010 talks about the various aspects of agency and comes up with the 3 R's of choice. These are, the right of choice, second, the responsibility of choice and third, the result of choice. 

In my younger years of being a selfish teen I used to think that my actions only affected me. Yes, I was given the right of choice, but between here and the second of the 3 R's, I got lost before responsibility. I remember coming home from College to see my family and my brothers commenting that I never looked happy anymore, that I never smiled in pictures anymore and even though I was mostly just lost in my own world I couldn't believe that they could notice! I remember once that my dad told me I had this aura that I carried around me that would "reek through the walls", as he would say. And what I didn't realize is that you carry your experiences with you in your countenance. In my patriarchal blessing there is a line that says something like, "your beauty will grow as you grow in the gospel". I used to think that was so weird. What are you saying i'll be prettier if I follow the commandments? But then I realized. Yes! You will be! There is a reason they say you can tell a mormon apart from a crowd. Its because they hold it in there entire being that they are happy and they shine because of it. It took me a long time to realize that everything I do affects the other people around me. I have younger brothers that look up to me to be there example, I also have a multitude of younger cousins that I affect and even though you may not think that its my responsibility to be a good example to them, it is. 

I would like to now quote Spiderman, when Peter Parkers uncle says, "With great power, comes great responsibility." We are given power as members of the church because we know the truth. In the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet, it says: "You have a heritage: Honour it. You will meet sin: Shun it. You have a truth: Live it. You have a testimony: Share it." Abraham 3:25 says, "And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them."

The next thing I want to talk about is the word praiseworthy. At the end of the 13th Article of Faith it says, "If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." This is an article of what we as members believe. To understand this idea fully, I want to link it with self fulfilment; things that are praiseworthy, not to be confused with acts of pride. 

A few years ago i was sitting in church and a member of the stake presidency was speaking. He was talking about our actions and the consequences thereof. A word that stuck out to me at this time was self-confidence. And the point he was making was that your actions can cause you to have a lack of self-confidence. Well for me it was just like hitting a button. Boom! That was how I felt. I didn't like myself, I didn't like my actions, I didn't think I was pretty, I was overly concerned with what people thought about me and overall I thought that everyone else was also thinking these negative things about me too. Well what I learned is summed up by Richard G. Scott who made a last minute appearance in Lethrbidge a few years ago that I was lucky to see. He said, "Be a worthy young lady that radiates the lightness of being righteous."

I gave a family home evening lesson one night to all my cousins and I brought up what it means to have a lack of confidence. The definition I have written down is this: To lack confidence is to have feelings of low self worth. We are preoccupied with our weaknesses, and we lack faith in the Lord's ability to use those weaknesses for our good. We do not understand our inestimable power and worth in the eyes of God, nor do we appreciate our divine potential. Ironically, both pride and a lack of self confidence cause us to focus excessively on ourselves and to deny the power of God in our lives. President Monson says, "Joy and happiness come from living the way the Lord wants you to live and from service to God and others." 

When going through a repentance process there is a time when the bishop calls you to serve. Now everyone knows that by serving you are helping your fellow man and doing good unto the world. I would like to note that these would be acts which are praiseworthy. Well I want to focus on what service does to us. Personally in my life about a year ago, I was given this opportunity. I use the word opportunity because the experience that I had with this has changed, forever possibly, my opinion of service. In George Albert Smith's version of Teachings of Presidents of the Church he says, "The spirit of the Lord is the spirit of kindness, not harshness and criticism." Well, I started to to put a lot of effort into helping people. Like I said, I was told this truth about the self-image thing with regards to our actions and I thought, If my actions can be changed, maybe my opinion can be as well. I started to help people, mostly girls my age that seem to be struggling with confidence as well, and I started to focus on just lifting people up. Well the outcome of this experience, even after one time, was like fire in my bones. It was exciting! I was pushing people to be better, and without realizing it, I started to believe that I could be too. I started inviting people to church, which maybe because of shyness, I had never actually done before. My whole mind was changed. "I promise, this church brings you happiness." Is what I used to say to people. Mosiah 27:29 says, "My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvellous light of God."

I now want to talk about freedom. I want to tell you a story that my dad actually told me about an experience he had when he was in his early twenties. At this time my dad had been struggling with an addiction problem that had been escalating over years. In his early teens he decided in his mind that rules, or at least the church rules, were not for him and that he was happy to do whatever he wanted. Well after years of this he finally came to the decision to change his bad habits. He went down to Utah for a 28 day program that is supposed to make you clean from your addiction and then it is up to you to hold to it. The boundaries of the institution are set by a simple median that separates each buildings' space from one another. The rules are, if you leave the boundary you are not allowed to come back. This is for the integrity of all the rest of the intakes in the program, seeing that you can't leave the boundary to potentially come back with something that they are fighting against. Well, my dad obviously made friends during his short stay and one day an idea came into the minds of his group that they wanted to leave the boundary. In this institution there was a pop machine filled with your regular sodas with the exception that their was no Coke. Instead of Coke, they had diet coke and for most, this wasn't going to cut it. Across the street in the building adjacent to them they could clearly see through the window that there was a Coke machine through the front door. 

So, the group decided that they would gather up a few quarters and make the sprint during break time one day to get themselves some Coke. The time came and the crew went outside. Everyone started barreling toward this boundary and running over it, and my dad said that as he was running with them, something came over him and he stopped, standing right on the median; his friends hollered to him that it was ok and he should jump over. But what my dad said is that immediately, he had this flush of freedom come over him. He had been fighting for 10 years for the idea of freedom and that rules could not keep him but what he learned at this time is freedom from the bonds of your body and your mind. President Hinckley once said, "The gospel is a plan of freedom that gives discipline to appetite and direction to behaviour." President Monson has said, "When we choose to live according to God's plan for us, our agency is strengthened." This is the sum of learning control over your body. To give into your temptations is to lack the control to overpower your physical self. This means that without knowing it, you are losing the freedom of choice. Ether 12:27 states, "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give 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 I will make weak things become strong unto them." 

At a later time in my dad's life, nearing the end of his full recovery with the church he was visiting with his bishop. Now thinking of others and having a new outlook on life, my father exclaimed, "Bishop I do not know how you do it! Having to deal with guys like me all the time that are screw-ups." The bishops response to this comment was simply this. "Darren, you are my biggest success story." The point that he was making with this comment is that all of his work as a bishop is worth it, to have helped someone like he had with my dad. Upon hearing this story a few years ago, I have never been able to shake the idea of how great it would be to be considered a success story. With the examples I have just shared, being that you are responsible to your standards, it is admirable and even character building when you are and that living the standards can help to set you free, I firmly believe that you need to be fiercely loyal to it, as it is so important to be. An excerpt from a talk Joseph Fielding McConkie gave states, "It is not the design of heaven that we be rescues from all difficult situations. Rather, it is the Lord's will that we learn to handle them." Russell M. Nelson in a talk from 1989 gives something he calls a "Spiritual Prescription", it says, "Choose to be alive. Choose to believe. Choose to change. Choose to be different. Choose to exercise. and Choose to be free."

I'd like to say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

New Year's Resolution

I have decided to write this post early just incase I don't get around to it on the first of the year. This post is in regards to my new years resolutions. Last January on the first Sunday of the month I went to my singles ward and got up to bear my testimony to the congregation. The two weeks prior to this date was actually when this year (2011) started for me. I say that because if I was to sum up the story of the year, the story I have referred back to many times in this blog, I would say that this was the time when it all really started to happen. Continuing on though. I stood up and after already two weeks of hell I had come to the conclusion on this day that no matter what, the church is what makes me happy. I said that I am happy when I follow it and when I live by the standards that it provides. I then went on to say that I have never really made a New Year's Resolution before. Well. Imagine this. I told the congregation that this year I planned on doing something great. And I had no idea what it was. Just something great (Left it open for interpretation as you can see..).
 I have always wanted to do something great in my life and I am sure I still will but when looking back on the year I can't imagine that I actually accomplished a lot. Nothing tangible or even anything that can be talked about in casual conversation. I am only telling you this because obviously I have figured out something great about the year that I plan on sharing. That great thing is this: My story of the year. The entire point of this blog! It is the love, the loss, the agony, the remorse, the sin, the corruption, the happiness, the confusion, the realization and finally, the recovery. Here I am dear followers! Living proof that life, in and of itself, is great. So what if I dropped out of college? So what if I have no idea what I plan on doing for the rest of my life or the fact that for the last 3 months I have, in fact, been working for my father? So what if I have not made any progress in the actual world of living and working and school? I think because so many people rank personal greatness as a form of wealth or popularity that we have forgotten how great life truly is.
In writing this post I have already found another New Year's Resolution that I might perhaps share again on the first sunday of the month with my new congregation. That resolution is this: This year I will be happy. Just plain and simple happy. I will find happiness in the small things and perhaps even find happiness in a large thing as well. Since I focused on doing something great last year, I have come to the realization that I hate the idea of having to prove myself to anyone or even myself. Life is great is it not? So why not make the best of it? I guess happiness it is. I hope you enjoyed my post and I will probably talked to you again in 2012!!

It's called being a girl

I feel like I hardly write on here enough. Why is that? Is it because I am having a lack of spiritual, uplifting experiences to write about? Potentially.. But regardless, I mean come on Maegan get your act together! Your poor readers are waiting for you! So I am going to write you today on whatever comes to mind!

Well. My first thought. They say that you always end up teaching the lessons that you most need to learn. Interestingly true... But yet, why are the lessons I most think about always about happiness? I personally consider myself to be a very happy person but I guess I am blind to my own personal well-being. So here it is Miss. Smarty Pants. My lesson for today. Why can't you just simply choose to be happy?
One day a while back I wrote a post on my other blog atheoryforthought.blogspot.com in October 2011 (the post called Conflicted if you feel like looking). This post is seriously a regular occurrence for me. It talks of how I am unhappy and feel like being happy but then naturally get more frustrated with myself and therefor get more unhappy. It makes a lot more sense in the blog ; ). Anyways My conclusion now is that it is 100% impossible to be happy all of the time. You read so many things, like my blog, prompting you to be more happy and to surround yourself with things that make you that way but honestly is it really too much to ask to just sit and be unhappy sometimes?
I'm relating this post to my all too well-known times of emotion when watching one of my favourite films. Lets bring up Titanic. Now who seriously can watch that movie by their self and not cry at the end? It really is just so sad! And I love being sad when I watch it! Why? Because it is just necessary and any girl would understand. Its the act of letting yourself be human. You soak back up into your own head and just let your emotions course through you.
Some men wonder why women can just sit in a living room looking at the wall and make themselves cry. Um, excuse me idiots, its because we want to cry. We want to be sad. We want to feel that self pity that every girl feels when watching The Notebook and wishing a man loved her like that. So why, I ask, can't I just simply choose to be happy? Because I don't always want to be. Thats why. * And, Dear Readers you should really take advantage of this post while you can because its right back to boot camp tomorrow! * And I will allow you one grace today to let yourself feel what you need to feel so that you don't have to feel it tomorrow. A necessary allowance I think. And off you go little followers of mine!

Letting Go

Letting Go. Easy isn't it? To say? How about do? ... Mm... Not so much. I guess for this blog it would be step number 2 but I know there were a few steps in between that I missed.
I went to a movie tonight with my dad. Not really my typical Friday night but we went straight downtown to a trendy/indie theatre to see a movie called Like Crazy. Now if you've seen the movie, I want to tell you that my post today has nothing to do with it. If you haven't, then yes it does. Because this is where I got the inspiration for my post today.
This is perhaps the last step in the cycle for the recovery process. I'm sorry I jumped so far ahead. But even though I know this, and used to constantly tell myself this, letting go is the most important part. I feel like I am just waiting, and waiting, and even more so, for my body to tell me that it is time. And I was driving home tonight listening to this song, Dead Hearts by Stars, and just feeling like my body was actually pushing away! Not physically but spiritually and figuratively away from the entire idea of a person that has put me in this position. Ah I am such an emotional person! I feel like I am about to cry right now writing this because it is so very real of an emotion that it so hard to describe.
Picture this. You are standing in a room. Don't think of white... Just think of foggy glass as if you could not see out. The room is warm. And you are happy, which is the worst part. Why am I happy? I am in an empty room of foggy glass with faint colours peering through. But its as if I was lying down in the backseat of a moving car. It's mindless really. I could listen to a happy song... let myself sit back a daydream. Yup I can be happy here.. Time goes by.. Sometimes I'm unhappy and sometimes its the other way but regardless what is there to worry about when I am in an empty room like this? Oh but more time goes by.. And I am remembering things that I once knew. Actually now come to think of it I remember being even happier than this. Actually I used to be really happy! Before I moved into this empty room. It's so vacant. My mind is so vacant. I just let myself sit back and think of anything. Really it is like coasting from day to day doing the same ordinary things. Talking to the same ordinary people and thinking the same ordinary thoughts. Why am I happy again? Oh that's right. I'm not. I'm in an empty room that has foggy glass stopping me from looking out. Why can I not look out? This is so annoying! So naturally my frustration gets the best of me and I start searching around the room.
And thats when I find it. The door. How did I not know that this door was just sitting here? So easily? For me to get out of this foggy room, this foggy state. I contemplate it even more for how completely absurd it is that I never encountered this door. But when looking back I guess I was never really looking... Funny how simple it is when you just decide to look.
And that is how I feel now. Funny how completely easy it is when I just decide to walk through the door and take that step. And how silly does it feel that it has always been here! Well. I think I am actually ready to let go. And my mind is so open and shocked at my blindness that I just want to tell the world! Let anyone know that there is a way better view on the other side! And to be honest, as much as my day to day experiences let me, I want to show the world this way to. And so my post today resorts around the song I previously mentioned. Its not really the lyrics, but the mood that it portrays. So here it is.

Mmm at Twilight...

Hello all...

So I just experienced something that i'm sure at least 80% of the women in the world would agree is worth experiencing. At least. I saw Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1. I know I know... amazing. Also If you are reading this and either A. rolling your eyes or B. getting a disgusted look on your face, you are just being stubborn and you and I both know that you can't beat the twilight series. I mean who wouldn't want to marry a vampire right?

Anyways so of course I went ahead and bought the soundtrack and surprisingly enough! It's amazing! They always pick indie music which I think is awesome but they have one song in particular on this soundtrack that is just beautiful. My new favourite for sure. Here is the link:

So I listened to this song today on my way home from the mall and for some reason I got super emotional and started crying! Just the lyrics when she says, "I have loved you for a thousand years and I will love you for a thousand more." Well like any 19 year old girl obsessed with love stories, you just wish you were in love with the perfect person. I feel like I have been waiting my whole life to meet my true love which is childish but so true! And after the love I have already endured and lost (it was a bad one), I just feel like I am ready for the right one now. And like my first post on here.. I am ready to be happy. And how to be happy but to be in love? And how to be happy and be in love with the right person? I already knew this but I am reconfirming to myself that the only way I will meet him is if I am in the right place at the right time. And where am I know? Well.. On the Road To Recovery obviously lol... I don't know what kind of person he will be or what he will like to do or what he will think is funny but I do know, that one day I will be thinking nothing of him and he will appear out of no where and sweep me off my feet! So the conclusion of my post today: Be in the right place so that you can find the right person. And I mean that spiritually. Let yourself be happy by making yourself available to be. Oh ya and I say that in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen!

Lukewarm

I really wasn't sure how I was going to start my next post here. You think, "awe this is going to be great!" when you first start your blog and then once your done its like hmm... what to say next.. still stuck in the marvelling phase of my first post and unable to think of any new ideas. Well! Here I am! Back and ready to share!
I have this amazing thing called Pinterest, which I only recently discovered and while looking through some posts I discovered this video. Never heard of the lad before but he seems to be pretty smart in regards to worldly things and linking them to church scenarios. So take a look because it really is just so smart and I hope you enjoy!

Step One

I guess this marks my first official blog on the The Road To Recovery. Well, Like many of you I am an imperfect soul in an imperfect world. Sure I am young, but that does not stop me from living, and making mistakes, and learning from them like so many others like me. You don't need a sob fest so I won't elaborate on my downfalls in life but I will tell you that I have had them. And yes, some of them have been pretty bad.
I decided to create this blog because of a conversation I had with my bishop the other day. He said that one of the steps on the road to recovery is to submit yourself to service. He asked me if I would like a calling in Primary or something of the same likeness which I said I would be glad to participate in (I'm 19 and should be in singles ward but I'm sticking with the family for the time being).
Well since then I have been pondering different areas of service that I could commit to and still be able to enjoy and prosper in and here I am! I wondered if anyone else has started a blog like mine and had a slightly selfish thought to think mine would be the first and awesome. Obviously it is probably untrue since half of the world functions through the internet these days but regardless I hope my words will inspire and uplift.
Well so far this road has been a tough one (it always is) but I think I am finally ready to let myself get better. I know its a childish thought process to think I needed to wait until I was ready but to be honest I just didn't feel the kick like I should have. But here I am! Woot! One thing I know for certain is that I am happier when I feel better about myself. Classic self esteem lesson but you can take it one or two steps past looks and say that you feel better when you are better. And yes. I have a testimony of this. So I am now committing to writing in this blog whenever I feel that I have something to say! No I do not guarantee that they will always be uplifting but hey? It's the Road To Recovery, not always an upward slope.
So I take this as Step 1. Committing. It doesn't have to be something big. I mean hey its only a blog I can rant in right? But committing to something small is just baby steps to committing to something much more large. I am committing to the idea of service right now and hopefully if and when I get readers, I will be able to see what others think and hopefully any positive feedback will encourage me to help more. So please if you have any thoughts share them! The steps are starting now and I hope you enjoy!