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  • Lying, Sneaking, and Obstruction of Justice: Children and Politicians

    Lying, Sneaking, and Obstruction of Justice: Children and Politicians

    I have some really great children that I love a lot. But they make mistakes. They are old enough to know when they haven’t done the right thing. But they are still learning, so their instinct is to hide.

    They don’t like to tell me when something goes wrong. (I can tell by the screaming sometimes.) They sometimes give me the right answer instead of the one that is actually true. (“Did you brush your teeth?” “Yes.” “Your toothbrush is dry. Go brush your teeth.”)

    Kids like to hide things like gum and candy wrappers. They will lie about what happened and say they didn’t do it when they really did. They don’t ask permission and they sneak and they hide. I think this is pretty normal for every kid out there. I know I did it.

    But this behavior, while it seems childish, can continue on and on. We all are guilty of lying, sometimes more often than we think. We hide and sneak. We try to save face and appear better than we are.

    I was thinking about how when politicians and powerful people get into trouble, I often hear the words “obstruction of justice.”  They are doing the same things as my children: hiding candy wrappers, telling falsehoods, and trying to appear like they are doing the right thing when they are not.

    It’s hard to tell the truth. It’s really hard to admit when you make a mistake. It’s hard to always ask for permission. It’s hard to live with integrity, where you don’t have anything to hide.

    I once broke a computer at work years ago. It was a huge mistake. And I had to tell them about it. So I did, even though I was a bit scared. But it turned out just fine. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s when you don’t admit the mistake that it really becomes a problem.

    I know my husband, as a manager, would much rather his employees talk to him about the mistakes they make instead of just hoping it goes away. He’s had multiple employees damage vehicles without admitting any fault. They all get found out, and it would have been so much easier for them if they would have admitted what they did when they did it.

    When we tell the truth and admit our mistakes, frankly and honestly, we feel better and we are able to move forward. We usually can’t hide things very well. They resurface and they come up. But if we just admit what we did was wrong, we apologize, and we work to make it right, we find ourselves happier, in control of our life, and more able to develop good relationships and help others.

    People actually think higher of those who admit they are wrong. We try to hide our shame sometimes so people will like us, but in reality, the effects are the opposite. Vulnerability is a positive thing, not negative, and we would all do well to be more forthcoming about fixing our mistakes instead of hiding them.

    Sometimes the most powerful people haven’t learned this lesson. I’m trying to teach my kids: telling the truth is so important. I am often much more supportive and gentle when my kids admit a mistake than when I find out on my own. When we want an increase of love, we do that by seeking help in confessing and fixing, not in hiding.

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  • Questions to ask for conversation

    Is there anything new happening?

    What are some challenges you have right now?

    What sort of music do you like?

    What hobbies do you enjoy?

    Have you read any good books lately?

    Where did you grow up?

    Watched any good TV shows lately?

    What projects are you involved in?

    What do you like to learn about?

    Is there anything you would like to learn?

    How do your religion and beliefs affect your life?

    Do you have any good recipes?

    What are the things that you struggle with and what are the things you feel you are doing good at?

    What do you wish you could do but you never get around to it?

    What is a regret that you have and how did you learn from that?

    What have you learned from the people you love?

    Where have you lived over the years?

    What is your family like?

  • Prayer in the midst of despair

    Prayer in the midst of despair

    Last post, I talked about struggles with mental health. When I have struggled, I have often prayed, sometimes in desperation, asking over and over for help. And there have been often times when I didn’t feel anything.

    I wanted the peace of the Spirit so many times, and I couldn’t feel it. Recently, I read the book Silent Souls Weeping, by Jane Clayson Johnson, and in the beginning of the book it talks about how people who are struggling and afflicted with depression and other issues sometimes can’t feel the Spirit. The book mentioned an analogy where there was electricity coming in, but the switch was off. The Spirit is like the electricity. And it is still there, but sometimes I have been unable to feel it because the switch was off.

    I think sometimes it’s like noise: my brain gets so incredibly noisy sometimes with racing thoughts and overwhelming emotions that I literally can’t hear anything else. I can’t hear or feel the Spirit, even though it is still there.

    Sometimes I have felt like I was all alone. But I was never really alone. And the Lord has helped me in the ways that I really needed it, through very small and simple things.

    Now, I don’t have all the answers. Sometimes I wanted help that wasn’t there. I simply wanted healing and peace that didn’t come. It was really hard without a reason.

    But other times, people have called or texted at the exact right time. My children have been protected from harm. I’ve been able to do things beyond my capabilities.

    I’ve received priesthood blessings that have not only provided comfort, but have literally calmed my mind. I know that others have prayed for me as well when I have been struggling. My mom and my husband especially has been a huge support. One time, my mom came and helped clean up the cereal that was spread across my entire house. My husband has fixed meals and put the kids to bed and even taken time off work to help me.

    And throughout this all, I am so grateful for the commandments that have helped me live my life without further complications. I had a happy home growing up. I have never tried alcohol and drugs. I always knew my values and the direction I wanted my life to go.

    And I have relied on my Savior, Jesus Christ, knowing that he can heal me, and he can heal those that I have hurt along the way, especially my children and my husband. I know there is always hope in him.

    I used to get in downward spirals of despair, thinking that there was no way out, that there was nothing I could do and I was worthless and beyond saving. Things just hurt sometimes. But when I remember the atonement of Jesus Christ, it shuts down those downward spirals and helps me come up again. Because I am never beyond saving. I am never beyond hope.

    I know that know, more deeply than I did before. I can return to my Lord over and over again, and he offers healing and peace.

  • My experience with bipolar 2

    My experience with bipolar 2

    A few months after the birth of my third child, I was diagnosed with Grave’s Disease or hyperthyroidism, where my thyroid was working too hard. Medication worked really well, putting me back to normal with no side effects. I went into remission and then relapsed two and a half years later, but medication worked again. Overall, it’s mostly a minor and uninteresting part of my life.

    But that’s not my only chronic health condition, and the second one is a lot harder to talk about. It’s been around a lot longer and it’s been a longer journey to diagnose and treat. And I hesitate to talk about it to people. I have mental health problems; specifically I deal with bipolar 2.

    Quite a few years ago, I went to the doctor and mentioned depression and I was put on antidepressants that didn’t really work. One other doctor was simply dismissive, and none of them really asked that much about my symptoms. I set out on my own to try to fix myself, reading books about cognitive behavior therapy and other sorts of therapy. I exercised and tried to make friends and live the best life I could. But I really just wanted the issue to go away. And I thought it would go away, if I was strong enough and worked hard enough at it and my life was in the best place it could be.

    The depression never really lasted that long anyway. The older I got, the more I wondered if I was really dealing with depression. I would read about bipolar or borderline personality disorder and sometimes I wanted there to be another name out there to describe how I was feeling.

    When I looked back at my journals, I could see an instability in the way I felt and dealt with life. Some days and weeks were normal and good and happy and I felt like myself, with the normal ups and downs of living. But then sometimes those ups and downs would be exaggerated and all over the place. There were days when I could do so much, focused and motivated. But then I would try to repeat those days, and I couldn’t. There were days when I did very little, falling down into sadness and discouragement. And there were other sorts of days too: days when I would get extremely irritable. Days when I couldn’t really function and it literally felt like my brain simply wasn’t working. Days when I screamed or ran away or wanted to hurt myself because of the mental anguish I was feeling.

    It has been really hard lately, and the last few months have been some of the most difficult in my life. I would search things and search things, trying to figure out what to do. I wasn’t depressed. I wasn’t manic. I was just not right some of the time and I didn’t know what to do about it.

    And then I found a picture that sort of showed how I was feeling. It looked like this:


    Source:  https://psycheducation.org

    I read about bipolarity being a spectrum disorder. I read about people who felt like I had.

    Every morning, I was reading mental health books, writing gratitude and doing therapy exercises, and I started meditating as well. One meditation I listened to talked about going and visiting my older self. And so I imagined talking to an older version of myself, and I told myself that I didn’t have to do this alone, and that I could go and get help.

    So with finally understanding that I wasn’t alone in how I felt, I didn’t need to isolate and hide my problems, and that I really did need help and couldn’t fix it by myself, I finally called someone.

    I went to a psychiatric nurse practitioner and I got a prescription for a mood stabilizer. I read about lifestyle changes that I could make that would help me more. I went to my mom’s house for two weeks to be around more people and get my feet underneath me again, since I had not been very functional.

    And things are helping. I’ve finally accepted that this isn’t going to just go away, but I can deal with it too the best I can and seek help from others.

    My conclusion in all of this is that if you are dealing with depression or anxiety or something that you don’t understand at all, you’re not alone. It’s okay. It doesn’t make you a bad person and there is help and hope ahead.

    And here is my follow-up post about the Lord’s help through all of this.

     

  • Gratitude for the things you don’t like

    Gratitude for the things you don’t like

    The other day, I was saying my morning prayers and I decided to say I was grateful for everything I didn’t really like in my life.

    I am grateful for bad days.

    I am grateful for sticky floors.

    I am grateful for toys all over the floor.

    I am grateful for when my kids scream.

    I am grateful for days when I have nothing to do.

    I am grateful for having too much to do sometimes.

    I am grateful that I live in the middle of nowhere.

    I am grateful for mosquito bites.

    I am grateful for for getting hurt.

    I am grateful for being tired.

    I am grateful for all of it.

    And saying that helped me feel grateful. Because a lot of bad things aren’t really that bad, or they are a consequence of good things, or they are at least opportunities for learning and growth. And I am grateful for all of that.

  • A meditation

    Breathe.

    Breathe.

    Time moves forward, linearly progressing. After one breath, there comes another.

    Your heart beats. After one beat comes another. And another, always moving.

    And your thoughts move as well, one after the other.

    Notice your thoughts.

    While they may seem to jump around in distraction, they are always linear, one after the other after the other. Multiple thoughts don’t exist at the same time. And when the same thought comes back, it is really a different thought, in a new time and a new place.

    But in the linear progression of life, we find a constant: YOU.

    You are not a collection of thoughts and experiences. You are a single consciousness, aware of yourself and aware of an identity.

    And in that identity is awareness of a higher power and of transcendental love.

    Throughout all the many moments of life, you are loved.

    And when you understand that YOU are loved, the linear nature of life becomes upward, progressing not towards pleasure or satisfaction, but towards that love, and towards the expansion of that love.

    When you know you are loved, you will love and share that love.

    Your thoughts will turn outward and upward, knowing there is a higher reason.

    With love, your heart will continue to beat.

    With love, you breathe.

     

  • Technology

    Technology

    (written a few months ago)

    My five-year-old son had a meltdown today because I suggested he had to play outside before getting on the tablet. So I made a decision that we were going to take the week off of technology.

    The tablet is set up for educational purposes. The kid wanted to do math. But I feel like there is something wrong when not doing math right away somehow causes meltdowns. He gets a thrill from working on the tablet. The kid loves screens. But I want him to see there is more to life.

    Our schools can applaud the fact they use so much technology. It improves test scores. It can increase how much they learn. In some ways, it is good. I’m not against it, really.

    But then I wonder: are we forgetting how to create? How to play? How to connect with others? Technology makes everything so easy so maybe we forget how to do hard things.

    I’m reading a book about a little boy who goes and herds cattle when he is eight or nine years old. He knows how to work hard. My kids barely help me clean the house.

    Sure, the kids might be smart from all the technology, but have we overvalued being smart and sacrificed other values, like hard work, compassion, creativity, self-control, and basic morality?

    So we will have a break. I want my kids to be smart too, but technology should not be their priority.

    ***

    I teach 16/17-year-olds in a class at church. One kid does not have a smartphone. I told him that means his parents love him. I mentioned how much I regulate my own phone: no browser, no games, just the things that actually help my life. Depriving yourself of some things can open up the world.

    ***

    Update: We have done less technology lately and I like it. My kids watch television, but there is almost always a time limit every day for them and they don’t complain when it shuts off automatically. We listen to podcasts and audiobooks of car rides. My kids read actual physical books quite a lot. They sometimes ask to play on my computer, but I rarely let them. We do play Pokemon Go sometimes, but not too frequently. We have an Amazon Alexa Dot and my kids enjoy that, but there is no screen involved.

    I am happier (and probably smarter) when I watch less YouTube videos, when I read less random articles on the internet, and when I am going outside and reading books more often.

    I liked a quote I heard recently that technology should be a servant, not a master, and I completely agree. Also, there are lots of other things that fall into this category of being a better servant than a master, like money or fire or hobbies or careers or entertainment or homes or just about anything. Because what we really want our values to be are things like serving God, helping others, building families, and becoming better people, and when we prioritize other things, our life gets out of balance.

  • A collection of thoughts

    A collection of thoughts

    I think it’s dangerous to make simple issues complicated or to make complicated issues simple. We like to do a lot of both, but we should try to remember the complexity as it really is.

    ***

    You don’t discover who you are as much as choose who you are. I think it’s dangerous to think you need to discover your true self. It’s a lot more useful to go and try things and choose what works best.

    ***

    Sometimes we need to zoom out on the moments in our life. My kids might all be crying and complaining, but I don’t think I’ll really remember that. I’ll tell myself a completely different story about this time of my life in five or ten or twenty years.

    We believe the stories we tell ourselves.

    ***

    Do you remember what the internet used to be like? It was a whole bunch of information and text at one point, hand-coded html that was entirely simple. There was email and search engines and that was the internet. I sort of miss it. It’s so commercialized and manipulative now in some ways.

    And then there was a time when the internet didn’t exist, and the computer consisted of word processing and games and programs (not apps, programs) that had specific purposes to help your life. In a way, I wish my kids could experience that. It seems simpler. But I suppose the technology we have is fine–today, they listened to music by telling a speaker what to do and they learned math by looking on my phone.

  • Stages of life

    Stages of life

    Baby. Incredibly fast learning and growing.

    Toddler and preschool. Discovery that there is a physical world.

    Elementary. Discovery of self in that world.

    Middle school. Loss of self as the world gets bigger and more metaphysical.

    High school. Rebuilding self in expanding circle.

    Young adult. Connecting with the world as it really is.

    Adult. Parent. It repeats.

    Parenting babies. Fast learning and growing as a parent.

    Parenting toddlers and preschoolers. Physical and fundamental teaching and parenting.

    Elementary. Intensely guiding your children the best you can.

    Middle school. Starting to let the kids make their own choices.

    High school. Take a back seat role of support.

    Young adult. Letting your children go.

    And rediscover yourself again and again, the self that exists after parenting expanding you to something different.

    We move from stage to stage, bored and busy, loud and quiet, tired and energetic, connected and lost.

    Grandparent. Great-grandparent. It repeats.

    In circles, one things remain: we must choose. 

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  • Doing things and getting things done

    Doing things and getting things done

    I like to make lists. But then I have a problem: I am so caught up in getting the list done and checking it off that I don’t spend any time actually enjoying what I’m doing.

    This creates a lot of stress in my life because I am rarely present and mindful. Instead, I just think about getting it done and over with. It drains enjoyment out of anything to think that way. When the biggest thrill in my life is checking something off, that’s a problem.

    I don’t need to accomplish everything on my to-do list. It’s not the point of life. I don’t want to have a lifetime of just accomplishing stuff that doesn’t always matter that much. I want to develop relationships. I want to build up a home that is filled with love, instead of just a home that is neatly organized and clean.

    Instead of just cooking a meal to get it over with, it’s so much better to slow down a bit and take the time to cook a nice meal and even make it fancy or different. Instead of just rushing through schoolwork, it’s better to focus on the problems and the papers and to recognize how you are learning and progressing. Smiling through exercise helps me do more. Laughing with my kids helps them feel loved.

    Today I made a really long to-do list. There is no way at all that I am going to get everything done on it. But that’s sort of the point. I don’t need a perfect, productive day. I just need to live and enjoy all the interruptions. Sometimes I need to learn how to leave things undone, and keep living off of what I value instead of just trying to be a productivity machine.