Light and Truth Forsake that Evil One

Again, before this last General Conference, I wrote down some issues/challenges about which I wanted direction.  One of these was how to have the Spirit more readily in my life—mostly because I don’t have the Spirit as much as I’d like to.

There were some really good talks about this topic—especially in the Sunday morning session.  And I felt like I got some good direction. But one statement that Pres. Nelson made triggered me:  “In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.”

As a perfectionist, I’ve spent much of my life listening to the whisperings of the shame gremlins, as Brené Brown calls them.  Ideas such as: “You’re not good enough.”  “You’ll never get it right.” “Who do you think you are?”  “You can’t handle it.” “You don’t belong here.” “You’re not worthy.”  “You are unlovable.” “You’ll never amount to anything.” “You don’t matter.”

Psychotherapists call these thoughts “scripts” or “tapes” that replay over and over in our heads, because they are ingrained in our core belief systems.

But these beliefs are not true.  So they result in a “faulty core belief system.”  And if they are not true, then they are lies. And where do lies originate?  From the “father of lies”—Lucifer.

In the Doctrine and Covenants, Section 93, we read:

36 The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.

37 Light and truth forsake that evil one.

38 Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God.

39 And that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers.

No wonder I don’t feel the Spirit as much:  if I’m filling my mind with lies, playing those tapes over and over, then the Spirit will withdraw from me.

The more I fill my mind with hopeful, grateful, uplifting thoughts—light and truth, the more the Spirit can be with me.  We are promised that if we “always remember Him” we may “always have His Spirit” to be with us.

To be continued . . . with Part 39

Unlimited Chances

General Conference earlier this month was amazing:  a solemn assembly, new apostles, the demise of home/visiting teaching, ministering, and new temples in exotic places.

In addition, I had written some questions/challenges around which I wanted direction.  And I got that direction, from several different addresses.

But the one talk that most closely addressed my perfectionistic side was by Elder Lynn G. Robbins, “Until Seventy Times Seven.”  Here are some of my favorite parts:

Mistakes are a fact of life. Learning to skillfully play the piano is essentially impossible without making thousands of mistakes—maybe even a million. To learn a foreign language, one must face the embarrassment of making thousands of mistakes—maybe even a million. Even the world’s greatest athletes never stop making mistakes.

“Success,” it has been said, “isn’t the absence of failure, but going from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm.”

While we are grateful for second chances following mistakes, or failures of the mind, we stand all amazed at the Savior’s grace in giving us second chances in overcoming sin, or failures of the heart.

No one is more on our side than the Savior. He allows us to take and keep retaking His exams. To become like Him will require countless second chances in our day-to-day struggles with the natural man, such as controlling appetites, learning patience and forgiveness, overcoming slothfulness, and avoiding sins of omission, just to name a few. If to err is human nature, how many failures will it take us until our nature is no longer human but divine? Thousands? More likely a million.

Knowing that the strait and narrow path would be strewn with trials and that failures would be a daily occurrence for us, the Savior paid an infinite price to give us as many chances as it would take to successfully pass our mortal probation.

But just how many times will He forgive us? How long is His long-suffering? On one occasion Peter asked the Savior, “Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?”

Presumably, Peter thought seven was a sufficiently high number to emphasize the folly of forgiving too many times and that benevolence should have its limits. In response, the Savior essentially told Peter to not even count—to not establish limits on forgiveness.

“Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.”

Obviously, the Savior was not establishing an upper limit of 490. That would be analogous to saying that partaking of the sacrament has a limit of 490, and then on the 491st time, a heavenly auditor intercedes and says, “I’m so sorry, but your repentance card just expired—from this point forward, you’re on your own.”

The Lord used the math of seventy times seven as a metaphor of His infinite Atonement, His boundless love, and His limitless grace. “Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me.”

I find this extremely hopeful.  As someone who tends to think “I’ll never get it right,” this helps me understand that as many times as I miss the mark, I’ll still get another chance, and another, and another . . .  The Lord’s love truly is unlimited!

To be continued . . . with Part 38

Meeting the Expectations of Others

For some of us who are perfectionists, we learned at a young age to try and meet the expectations of others.  Often these expectations were unspoken, but they were still there. Our self-worth was based on how well we could measure up to what we thought others wanted us to do and be.

In “The Four Agreements” by don Miguel Ruiz, he refers to this growing up process as “domestication.”  Day by day, at home, at school, at church, and from television, we are told how to live, what kind of behavior is acceptable.

During the process of domestication, we form an image of what perfection is in order to try to be good enough.  We create an image of how we should be in order to be accepted by everybody.  We especially try to please the ones who love us, like Mom and Dad, big brothers and sisters, the priests and the teacher.  Trying to be good enough for them, we create an image of perfection, but we don’t fit this image.  We create this image, but this image is not real.  We are never going to be perfect from this point of view.  Never!

Not being perfect, we reject ourselves.  And the level of self-rejection depends upon how effective the adults were in breaking our integrity.  After domestication it is no longer about being good enough for anybody else.  We are not good enough for ourselves because we don’t fit with our own image of perfection.  We cannot forgive ourselves for not being what we wish to be, or rather what we believe we should be.  We cannot forgive ourselves for not being perfect.

We know we are not what we believe we are supposed to be and so we feel false, frustrated, and dishonest.  We try to hide ourselves, and we pretend to be what we are not.  The result is that we feel inauthentic and wear social masks to keep others from noticing this.  We are so afraid that somebody else will notice that we are not what we pretend to be.  We judge others according to our image of perfection as well, and naturally they fall short of our expectations.

When I read this, it was very familiar to me.  I have often felt like I was wearing a mask, pretending to be someone I was not.  Because I think others expect me to be someone I’m not.  I was trying to appear perfect, like I had it all together, and yet, being very flawed and mistake-prone.  I think this adequately describes the problem.

Later in the book, Ruiz explains how the Four Agreements can help us overcome this issue of feeling not good enough.

President Uchtdorf shares this wonderful teaching:  If we look at ourselves only through our mortal eyes, we may not see ourselves as good enough.  But our Heavenly Father sees us as who we truly are and who we can become.  He sees us as His sons and daughters, as beings of eternal light with everlasting potential and with a divine destiny.

To be continued . . . with Part 37