Tool One and Tool Two

Don't you love that title?  I got a kick out of it because I was thinking of Dr. Seuss' Thing One and Thing Two.  I am reading Cat in the Hat with my daughter right now so it came to mind.  Haha!  I know.  I'm silly! ;)

So here's another long one.  Take a quiet moment for yourself and read it through.

I mentioned at the beginning of my blog that I had found healing largely through the use of some wonderful, simple tools.  I think therapy is wonderful and does a lot of good.  It absolutely serves a purpose with getting our "stuff" out.  I've done it and it has helped me.  The only problem I had with therapy was that I would go home with all of my stuff still and I had no idea what to do with it.  I would be saying, "Well that therapy session was wonderful, but what do I do now?"  I didn't know how to deal with all of my stuff at home.  These tools have been the answer for me.  Now, when negative thoughts and feelings come up or I am getting signs that my mind is not in a good place, I can reach into my tool belt and pull out the tool that I need at that moment.  So without a therapist, drugs, chocolate, Diet Coke, or bingeing, I am able to shift myself back into a happy, peaceful place within minutes.  I have talked about my pits of despair and how they would last for months.  Months where I was depressed and apathetic.  Now I can shift myself in literally 7 minutes.  These tools are powerful and they work.  But like anything else, if you want them to work for you, then you've got to use them.

I have already talked about Tool One which is recording your negative thoughts in your little black book.  I wrote about it at the end of my post Becoming Aware so go read that if you haven't already.  This tool is largely for those one-liner negative thoughts that you have about yourself.  "I am fat."  "I am ugly."  "I am a terrible person."  "I am the worst mother."  "I am not worthy of love or acceptance."  That little black book acts as a prison for your negative thoughts, so when you write a negative thought down in the book, you trap it.  Believe me, it works.  As I started to become aware of all the negative thoughts I was having about myself, I would write them down in my little black book and they would disappear.  It was amazing!  I would take my little black book with me everywhere so that at anytime I could write those thoughts down.  Now be patient with yourself as you are trying to become more aware of those negative thoughts.  You may not be able to identify them right away, but as you continue to pay attention to what is going on in your mind, you will start catching those negative thoughts as they arise.  So don't give up on it just because you are not totally successful at it right at first.  Persistence pays off.

There's one last thing I want to say about thoughts.  Please know that our thoughts do not define us.  Just because a thought comes into our mind doesn't make it true about us.

Favorite Quote #8 (from one of my all-time favorite movies):

People are not their thoughts.  They think they are and it brings them all kinds of sadness.  The mind is just a reflex organ.  Reacts to everything.  Fills your head with millions of random thoughts a day.  None of those thoughts reveal anymore about you than a freckle does at the end of your nose.

Peaceful Warrior

Our thoughts can come from so many different sources-Satan, the media, friends, family, God, etc.  Its when we attach ourselves to a thought, when we believe that it is true about us, that it becomes us.  My beliefs that "I'm not good enough" and "I have to be perfect in order to be loved and accepted" began as thoughts.  Because I believed those thoughts were true about me, they became me.

Favorite Quote #9:

You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.

Chinese Proverb

We have to become aware of the thoughts flying through our mind so that they don't take up permanent residence in it.  Don't automatically believe everything you think.  Pay attention to what is going on in your mind.  Become aware of your thoughts.  Analyze them.  Are they based in truth or error?  If they are untrue, trap them.  Now I know some of you may be thinking, "But I am fat.  That is the truth."  It isn't truth because you are not your body.  You are your spirit.  When we start to define ourselves based on what our body looks like then we are falling into Satan's trap of misery and despair.  Of course Satan wants us to believe that we are just our body.  He doesn't want us to believe that we are anything more than that.  He wants us to believe that having a good looking body is all that matters.  He doesn't want us to remember or believe that we were something before this life and that we will be something after.  He doesn't want us to be focused on the fact that we are first and foremost spiritual beings because as soon as we start focusing on our spirit, then we unite ourselves more closely with God, the father of our spirits.  And that is exactly what Satan doesn't want.

Favorite Quote #10:

Things were first created spiritually; the Father actually begat the spirits, and they were brought forth and lived with him. . . .

I want to tell you, each and every one of you, that you are well acquainted with God our Heavenly Father. . . . You are all well acquainted with him, for there is not a soul of you but what has lived in his house and dwelt with him year after year; and yet you are seeking to become acquainted with him, when the fact is, you have merely forgotten what you did know.

There is not a person here to-day but what is a son or a daughter of that Being. In the spirit world their spirits were first begotten and brought forth, and they lived there with their parents for ages before they came here. . . .

We are the sons and daughters of celestial beings, and the germ of Diety dwells within us. . . .

We are all his children. We are his sons and daughters naturally, and by the principles of eternal life. We are brethren and sisters. 

Discourses of Brigham Young, com. John A. Widtsoe (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1973), pp.

50, 53

We can determine if our thoughts are right or wrong if we remember this truth.  Don't forget who you really are.  If you can always keep in your mind who you really are, spirit sons and daughters of a Heavenly Father, then Satan will have a harder time distracting you.  I don't mean to say this to make you feel guilty.  Remember I allowed several incorrect thoughts to take up permanent residence in my head.  I still had a testimony and a belief of who I was in relation to God.  I prayed and read my scriptures and went to church.  So I know that even if we have a testimony that we are children of God, it may not always prevent those negative thoughts from becoming beliefs.  But if we understand that our thoughts can come from anywhere and that Satan is trying to make us forget who we are by putting negative thoughts into our head, then we can start weeding out the thoughts that are not true and replace them with truth!  The truth is that we are divine!!  We are gods and goddesses in the making!!  This life is about learning and becoming, not about being perfect.  God loves us for who we are right now no matter how much WE think we need to change and improve.  We are never below God's love.  So start imprisoning your negative thoughts in your little black book so you can be free of them!

Tool Two is the tool I promised you in my last post.  It is the tool I still use to "let go" of the negative feelings that come up.  Something we have to remember about feelings is that feelings are just feelings.  We are not bad because we have a negative feeling.  Judging ourselves harshly for things we feel is a tool of Satan to get us to spiral down into depression and addiction.  We are mortals, put on this earth to feel and experience all the feelings available to man.  We are going to feel hatred, envy, anger, shame, etc. because even the negative feelings are part of the package of being mortal.  The problem comes in when we don't let go of those negative feelings.  We are told in scripture that we are all carnal and mortal because of the Fall of Adam.  The only way to overcome the natural, mortal, carnal condition is by letting go of the negative, or in other words, using Christ's Atonement to repent and allowing ourselves to be influenced and taught by the Spirit of God.  And what is the Spirit?  TRUTH!

Favorite Scripture #2:

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord. . . .

The Book of Mormon, Mosiah 3:19

What this scripture tells me is that our natural man condition is part of the consequence of the Fall.  However, we are not to continue on in this life allowing our natural man to control our actions.  If we want to return to our Heavenly Father and become like Him, part of our job during this life is learning to become aware of our natural man tendencies and then rid ourselves of them to the best of our ability.  By yielding to the Spirit, or truth, we can put off the natural man.  Another way to phrase "putting off" is "letting go".  This tool enables us to do just this.

Much like the little black book tool, this tool, which I call the write and burn, requires us to become aware of our negative feelings when they arise.  How can we rid ourselves of our negative feelings if we don't recognize they are there?  So start paying attention.  When you start feeling anger, shame, guilt, envy, frustration, hate, etc., then go take a time out and use this tool.  You'll want to grab a blank sheet of paper.  On the paper, you'll write, "I feel _____ because. . . ."  Then you'll just write whatever comes to your mind.  And I mean whatever!!  We are not judging ourselves for what we are feeling.  Feelings are what they are.  We are letting it go so just write whatever you feel and whatever comes to your mind.  Ask questions.  Why do you feel this way?  Did someone do or say something to you that hurt you?  Are you remembering a past painful experience?  Keep asking why as you write and try to get back to the root of where that feeling came from.  I know this is hard.  Its ok to cry.  Its ok.  Just get it all out on that paper.  Now we're not done yet.  You're going to need a #10 can.  When you're done writing, say a little prayer.  Say a prayer asking God for forgiveness for having this negative feeling towards anyone, any experience, or towards yourself.  That is the repenting part.  You're recognizing that you don't want that mortal man feeling to affect you anymore.  Then you ask for His help in letting the feeling go.  That is the part where you acknowledge your mortality and your need for His divinity.  Lastly, you are going to take all of your frustration and anger out on that paper by crumpling and tearing it up, then put it all in your #10 can . . . and burn it.  And as you burn that paper, say a prayer of gratitude, thanking your Heavenly Father for allowing you to be at this point of letting go and helping you to do it.  I cannot tell you how therapeutic this is.  Its such a beautiful process!

I'm sure you can see the symbolism in burning this piece of paper.  I love to think about it in this way.  We had a ton of fires in Utah this past year.  They're pretty scary, especially if they break out close to your home.  We had a fire break out on the mountains right behind us this past summer and it really freaked us out.  We weren't even home and had to have our neighbors collect our valuables for us because our neighborhood was being evacuated.  In the end, our neighborhood was safe and I don't believe it destroyed any houses because the fire department did such a good job containing it.  After we got back home, my husband and son went mountain biking through the fire area.  There are tons of trails up where the fire blazed.  This is what they saw.

Look at all that new growth!  And this was a week or two after the fire ceased!  As scary as fires are, they are incredibly renewing and cleansing for the environment.  Healthy, beautiful, new growth is able to sprout as a result.  This is exactly what happens to our soul when we burn that piece of paper.  It most definitely can be very hard and scary.  After all, we may have written about things that have been buried for a very long time.  Things that we have suppressed because it was easier and safer to do that than to face them.  We may break down in tears.  You may fear letting it go not knowing what is going to take the place of that negative feeling.  That is a legitimate concern.  I really can't tell you what will fill the hole that is created from letting that feeling go, but I can tell you this.  As you let go of the negative, you make room for the positive.  We make room for healthy, clean, beautiful truth to grow and sprout in our hearts and minds.

Let me just share with you probably one of the hardest experiences I had with this tool.  I realized that I needed to write about my relationship with food.  My topic sentence was, "I feel so much despair because of my hate/love relationship with food."  Isn't that how we feel?  At times, I seriously wished that I didn't have to eat.  I hated the huge battle that raged in my mind over such a stupid thing as whether or not I should have that piece of chocolate.  So yes I hated food.  I also loved food because it was my comfort, my coping mechanism, my crutch to deal with life.  But I knew that that kind of relationship with food wasn't healthy because of my last 22 year experience with it and I knew that I had to let it go.  So I wrote.  I wrote and wrote.  I think I ended up with 4 or 5 pages.  And yes I cried as I wrote.  It was difficult and painful.  Then I got to the point of burning the paper.  I couldn't burn it.  I cried so hard and prayed so hard.  I was so scared to let go of this behavior that had helped me deal with life for 22 years.  It had been my friend, my confidant, when no one else was there.  What was I going to do without it?  What was going to help me cope?  And that was the point where I realized I had grown up.  I was no longer 15.  I no longer needed that coping mechanism.  So I thanked my eating disorder.  I thanked it for being there for me, for helping me survive and get through the pain I had experienced in my life when I felt I had no other way to cope.  I hugged and cradled myself realizing I did the best I could with the knowledge that I had at the time.  And then I said goodbye.  I recognized that I now knew better.  I already had a new way to cope.  These new tools that I was using were going to enable me to cope in a better, healthier way that wouldn't make me feel depressed and more miserable afterwards like the eating disorder did.  Instead I would feel lighter, happier, more at peace and more fulfilled.  I realized that by using these tools, I was giving my mind, body, and spirit what they really needed.  They needed me to let go.  So I did.

Favorite Quote #11:

I've learned that no matter what happens or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.  You gain strength, courage & confidence from every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.

I faced my fear and burned that paper . . . and then I cried some more.  My relationship with food has not been the same since.  I no longer have an attachment to food.  Food is just food to me now.  It is just the fuel my body needs for energy to function.  Now of course, I still love chocolate.  However, I can stop at one piece now.  Because food is no longer good or bad to me, I can enjoy one piece of chocolate and not feel totally guilty about it which in the past would cause me to eat more.  Food is just food.  This change in my relationship with food began when I used the write and burn to let go.  It can be the same way for you!

Do you remember my lovely stick figure diagrams with the negative levels getting higher and higher?  Here it is again.  Pay attention to the lovely stick figure's arms.

Can you just see the burden of the world bearing down on this person?  Being filled with so much negative is a huge weight to carry.  These next diagrams will show what happens when you use Tool 1 & 2 and any other tool you already have or will have in your tool belt to deal with the negative.  The green arrows represent tools or outlets you use to let go of the negative.  Once again, pay attention to the arms.

The more you use your tools to release the negative, the more you allow that negative level to decrease and the positive level to increase.  How do you think you will feel if you are filled with positive instead of negative?  The last picture shows it.  You will feel on top of the world, arms raised high because you feel so much joy, peace and freedom.  That heavy burden of negativity has been removed.  And the bonus of being filled with positive is that when the negative comes at you, it will bounce right off.  Notice the white arrows in the last diagram.  Just as it is hard to accept the positive when you are overflowing with negative, the opposite happens in the same way.  It is harder for negative to come in when you are overflowing with positive.  You are more able to see the negative come at you and then dismiss it or quickly let it go if it does get in.  Such an incredibly freeing process!

I know it is scary to face all our stuff.  I've been doing it for over a year now so I know how hard it can be.  Please have faith that what you are doing for yourself is going to bring you the peace, joy, and contentment in life that you have been wishing and praying for.

Favorite Quote #12, #13, #14:

Sorrow looks back.  Worry looks around.  Faith looks ahead.

Let your faith be bigger than your fear.

When you come to the edge of all the light you have known and are about to step out into the darkness, faith is knowing one of two things will happen . . . there will be something to stand on or you will be taught how to fly.

So are you ready to fly?  If you will have faith in these tools, if you will trust in me and the experience I have had with these tools, I can promise you the healing, cleansing, renewing, freeing and beautifying of your soul that you have been yearning for.  I know you can do this!  Please send me any comments or questions that you may have.  I just want to help you in your journey.  Have faith and remember . . . with God, all things are possible!

Favorite Quote #15:

Faith is not knowing what the future holds but knowing who holds the future.

be.YOU.tiful!!!