I Wish . . .

Sometimes I look at my goals as wishes.  

I know what I want but I have no plan to actually engage in a committed process to obtain it.  In fact, my plan is to just wait for it. Either I’m not interested in working for it, I don’t know what to do, or I believe it’s impossible for me to do anything to obtain it.

I may wish for something to be given to me—a new car, win the lottery, or prince charming.  I may wish to be called on an adventure by Gandalf or by a letter from Hogwarts.  I could be waiting for the phone to ring, an email to come through, or some amazing text message that will change my life or at least make my day (D&C58:26).

It’s interesting that if you look up synonyms for the verb to wish the words given do not distinguish between the North (Hope),  Northeast (Wish), or even the Northwest (Demand) meanings of Desire.  The thesaurus gives the following words for Wish (v):

Desire

Longing

Yearning

Inclination

Urge

Whim

Craving

Hunger

Hope

Aspiration

Dream

The strength of Desire, the length of time we maintain it, and the conflicting Desires we’re willing to sacrifice are not accounted for in this mix of words.  For instance, wanting something on a whim just for tonight is a lot different than longing or yearning for something for years and sacrificing other things we could have obtained a lot sooner and a lot easier.  Consistently hungering for something is different than dreaming we could have it (#SermonOnTheMount).

When we’re serious enough about our Desire, we hunger for it.  We long and yearn for it.  And that motivates us to work to obtain it.  Our choices, our sacrifices, our work is the manifestation of our Desire.  Here’s an example:

Jacob and Rachel

Jacob journeyed to where his extended family had lived for a few generations to find a wife instead of marrying a Canaanite (Genesis 29, Deut 7:3-4).  There he met Rachel.  This is how he felt about her when he first met her:  “And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept.”

After living and working with Rachel’s family for a month, her father asked him if he (Jacob) should be working for nothing.  What will your wages be?  Or in other words, What is your Desire?  “And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee for seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter.”  Rachel's dad agreed to this deal.  So Jacob worked for Rachel for 7 years.  He waited for her and she for him.  Neither went out to other sources for this Desire in order to survive the wait.  This is what Jacob felt about those 7 years: “...and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her” (Genesis 29:20).

Northern Desire is not about relying on luck.  Yet it does have an element of relying on powers greater than our own.  For example, in the story of Cinderella, she wants to go to the ball.  Her mean stepmother and sisters give her so much work that she has very little time to prepare herself to go.  As the final limiting straw, they rip her dress, the only one she could have worn to it.  She’s out of time and means in spite of her effort.  Enter Fairy Godmother.  We may think that Fairy Godmothers are on the same fiction level as luck.  But they’re not.  At least in this story, they aren’t.  When we do all we can to identify and then engage in the inherent pathway to obtain our desired destination, our Cause helps us.  He or she may not appear magically like Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother.  More often than not we have known our Fairy Godmother for quite some time.  She may not have a wand that makes a beautiful dress out of thin air.  She most likely has been preparing to help us for a long time and the “dress” is a product of lots of work and care.  In fact, most of us have individuals in our lives that act as Fairy Godmothers to us.  What they do for us doesn’t seem so magical because we see the time and effort behind their gifts but it’s equally if not more valuable because of that.

Grandpa and Grandma Palla

My own Grandmother played such a role for me.  As a sophomore in high school, I began to desire to go to BYU.  We didn’t have much money.  There would be no way to pay for it unless I did student loans and such (but I didn't know about those things then).  Enter Fairy Grandmother.  She told me that if I could work to get the grades necessary to get accepted to a university she would pay for it.  My grades went from Bs-Cs to Bs-As over the next 2 years.  She gave me direction and motivation to work harder.  My grades definitely weren’t perfect but with her support and a total miracle I was accepted into BYU.  In a sense my Grandma played a Gandalf role.  She was the one who came to call me on a journey.  She was like Dumbledore sending me a "letter from Hogwarts." : )

I have also struggled with teaching my kids to get out of Northeast Desire.  One time I took them to the beach.  We stayed in a really cool beach cabin, went to the beach during the day, and rented movies and got ice cream at night.  All kinds of fun and tasty treats.  But they were miserably fighting the whole time and they refused to help me clean anything.  This is when moms start feeling like Cinderella.  So I sat them all down and had a talk.  I asked them to tell me all the things they were receiving on this vacation.  They listed them off.  Then I said, “It sounds like a dream come true.  So why are you guys fighting with each other all the time, refusing to help clean, and acting like you’re the most miserable kids in the world?”  And that actually sunk in.  They all stared at me, evidently trying to figure out the answer (this kind of response didn't happen very often).  I told them, “I can work my butt off to give you everything your heart desires.  I can do all the cleaning while you guys play.  I would buy you more things or do something more for you if that was indeed the thing that would bring more happiness to our family.  But it's not.  It’s out of my hands now.  It’s you that needs to do something.  You need to give, to help, to serve and to love.   That’s what’s going to make you happy."  Cool thing is that sunk in too and they actually started helping more, treating each other more kindly, and buying less candy from the corner store.  The vacation only got better from there.  This lesson has had to be taught and learned over and over again through the years for both my kids and myself.

I Need Something That I Want

When I have a goal, I’m saying I have a Desire.  I need something that I want.  It might be something for myself or something for someone else.  I have realized the WAY I Desire that goal can be Balanced or Imbalanced.

It has helped me understand myself and my kids so much better by visualizing this Balance on a compass.

So if my Desire is Balanced, it’s in the North.  It’s full of hope, motivation, and trust.  However, it’s usually the case that my Desire gets skewed to the Northwest or to the Northeast.  In this blog post, I’ll focus in on North vs. Northwest Desire.

 

If my Desire is skewed to the Northwest, I feel demanding.  I mean, I am demanding.  My whole Process demonstrates DEMAND!!  I work to my maximum level--work until I break (and it usually doesn't take long for me to in actuality break).  In the NW I might be attracted to blog posts like "11 Things Ultra-Productive People Do Differently" (and this was in fact an article at forbes.com avertised to me this week via LinkedIn).  It's all about my work ethic and I don't give much thought to grace--my Cause, my other team members.  Just get 'er done.  Hmm...yeah, this sounds a lot like where I hang out much of the time.

I read this story lots of times when I was young
so you see how my mind works... 
"Not too hard, not too soft, but just right!"

In studying this compass model, I can see the NW as being too much and the NE as being too little.  Balanced is just right.  Some of the words that I found that represented "too much Desire" were obsession and fanaticism.  At that point, I had to take a step back to study the difference between a North and a NW Desire.  Was my intense-never-gonna-give-it-up Desire in actuality NW Desire?  To answer this question, I studied the words:

• Obsession
• Fanaticism
• Addiction
• Preoccupation
• Fixation
• Passion

#Excavation

These normally carried a negative connotation, at least for me.  But I saw something inside of them.  I saw that I could excavate out of them the core meaning that I valued as GOOD (#Balance).  Brush away all the dirt and grime and there was a pure word underneath!

• Hope
• Perseverance
• Tenacity
• Determination
• Staying Power
• Steadfastness
• Resolve
• Single-minded
• Passion

I have noticed the words desire and passion have both a positive and negative connotation.  We see them as good when we’re asking, “What is your desire? What is your passion in life?” Or when we say, “I’m passionate about what I do.” But we see passion as bad or selfish when we talk about it like this:  “Bridle all your passions” (Alma 38:12).  And we sometimes use passion synonymously with anger.  Both the words desire and passion are often paired with the concept of the Natural Man:  "A person who chooses to be influenced by the passions, desires, appetites, and senses of the flesh rather than by the promptings of the Holy Spirit" (Guide to the Scriptures: Natural Man).

But when I use these words, I'm referring to the true, honest, pure desires and passions of our hearts.  Jesus also used the word desire in a positive way when he was talking to his disciples during the last supper:  “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15).

 

It was said of the people on the American Continent who saw Jesus after his resurrection that “they did pray for that which they most desired; and they desired that the Holy Ghost should be given unto them” (3 Nephi 19:9).

One more: 
The Savior says to those who pray for his help, “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” (D&C 6:8).

I knew my Desire was passionate, resolute, single-minded, and determined but I didn’t think it belonged in the same category as NW Obsession.  In fact I saw that if I did evaluate something that was good as bad, that was bad (Moroni 7:14).  I have concluded that words are descriptors that we put on meanings that independently exist.  And sometimes we use the same words to describe Northern Desires as we do to describe NW Desires.  So confusing!  If we believe all passion, intensity, desire, and feeling are bad, we could be resisting real-true-pure Desires born of the Spirit, born of God.  If we believe they’re bad, evil, and something to be avoided in order to be RIGHT-(eous) I am sure that we are taking the “plain and precious” things out of our lives, which leaves us starving and unprotected (1 Nephi 13:29).

This reminds me of the evil guy in Hunchback of Notre Dame:  Judge Claude Frollo.  I think the reason he was trying to obtain Esmeralda in that vile way was because he was denying himself of the right way to obtain Sustainable Attraction in marriage and calling that VIRTUE.  He was doing this IN THE NAME OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.  Check out the video clip of this.

Who Decides?

So who decides whether my Desire is North or Northwest?  Is it the neighbors?  Is it the people at church?  Is it my parents?  I believe it's me.  Other people who love me (especially my Cause) may indeed be able to diagnose my signs and symptoms but I need to be the one who realizes where I am.  

The General Balance is in Yellow.  We sense it.

This doesn't mean I decide where the General Balance is.  That is always in the same place--straight North.  I define my Desire by that pre-existent General Balance.  The General Balance actually issues me this question:  Where is Balanced Desire?  I answer that question by sensing where my Desire is IN RELATION to it and then responding accordingly.  Can I tell when I'm Northwest of it?  Do I allow more grace into my life if that's the case? Can I tell when I'm in the North with it?  Do I recognize that I need to keep going like this to achieve my goal?  Am I even paying attention?


Might As Well Face It, I’m Addicted To Love

In studying the words for Desire and the meaning inside of me, I saw that I could be addicted to good things.  Usually I think of the word addiction to describe a bad thing.  When I'm  addicted to people or substances that are unable to sustain me but instead suck the life from me and leave me worse off in the end, this is BAD (#ConflictingCauses).  

But I am literally addicted to the Effects of Jesus Christ.  I cannot end this relationship.  I don’t mind if I’m “stuck” with him forever.  In fact, go ahead and chain me to him and throw away the key (#Paul’sChains).  It’s too late for me to turn back anyway (#Lot'sWife).  It’s too late to apologize (2Nephi 31:14).  When we are addicted to people or substances like water and healthy food (#LivingWaters and #BreadOfLife) that are able to sustain us continuously, giving us greater life in the end, this is GOOD.

 I can't fight this feeling anymore

I've forgotten what I started fighting for

It's time to take this ship into the shore

And throw away the oars forever

(Don't watch this.  Just listen.  It's weird.  It's the 80s.  But the song is timeless.)

  

So there are GOOD chains and BAD ones;  There is the good kind of passion, desire, and addiction and there is the bad kind;  there are good habits and bad ones;  good relationships and bad ones; good covenants and bad ones; good Causes and bad ones.  The difference is the bad ones lock us into a prison (#Belly of the Whale) and the good ones attract us to them eternally in an everlasting relationship which gives us safety, certainty, the freedom to love, the freedom to act and continue developing, and the freedom to experience Sustainable Joy at the level we personally desire.

The Belly of the Whale

In identifying our New Year’s Goals and keeping our commitments to obtain them, we become better parents.  Achieving our general and specific goals makes us happy!  I have found that if I am not happy, I can’t be a very good parent. 

When we achieve our goals, we achieve results.  Results are habitual states, predominant moods or feelings.  They are habits, abilities, conditions, characteristics, and relationships. They can be desirable or undesirable.  The most general desirable result is Sustainable Joy.  It is lasting joy.  Yeah, things do go wrong for me and I go through tough times but like a rubber band, Sustainable Joy always snatches me back (Mosiah 27:28-29).  This wasn’t always the case.  In fact, in the past it was the opposite.  I had moments of joy but for the most part I was struggling just to keep my head above water or out of what I sometimes call the Belly of the Whale (#Jonah).  The Belly of the Whale is the most general undesirable result.  It’s Virulent Sorrow.  It’s a living hell.

Survival of the Fittest Living

So Jonah had received a commission to go and teach the people of Nineveh.  He was supposed to teach them about the general process to obtain joy and the General Cause that makes that possible.  Thus far the majority of these people had been engaged in survival desire obtainment processes.  Obtaining joy was all about what they could grab for themselves in the moment.  They didn’t much think on Sustainable Joy and Paradoxical Living.  It was all about A-#1, Me first—“What will make me happy right now?” Jonah’s job was to tell them about Paradoxical Living.  That is, he was asked to “cry repentance” to the city of Nineveh.  The concern was they may be happy right now but without Sustainable Joy, they would end in a black hole.  Our General Cause does everything in his power to prevent that from happening while still honoring our agency—our right to choose for ourselves how we will obtain what we desire and how we will resolve our conflicts.

Well, Jonah didn’t like the people of Nineveh.  Survival people are never a joy to work with.  They are selfish, lazy, mean, rude, deceitful, dishonest, prideful, envious, reactive, contentious, etc.  Our own survival reactions to this kind of treatment is to hope for their demise.  We know if they keep acting this way, they will eventually get what’s coming to them.  That’s the law of our General Cause.  No one can escape it.....unless they repent.  But Jonah didn’t want them to have the mercy that repentance offers.  He wanted inevitable Justice to come down upon them.  So he tried to run from this commission.
 
He boarded a ship headed to Tarshish.  But the issue is, we can never hide from our General Cause (#the Lord) and general results.  They will come to pass.  For our good or for our bad, they are what they are.  Repentance is a gift to change those results with practice, experience, and time.  The story continues with Jonah on the ship: “But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so the ship was like to be broken” (Jonah 1:4).

Summarizing this next part, the mariners assessed that the cause of the storm was Jonah.  Jonah confirmed that assessment.  He told them to throw him overboard and the storm would cease.  The mariners did not want to do this and tried everything in their power to row the ship to shore.  They were dealing with a major conflict.  They did not want to take a man’s life yet their entire crew would be lost if they did not.  (Hmm...sounds like a familiar story. #Atonement Matt 12:39-40).  Their final decision was to comply with Jonah’s instructions and throw him overboard.  When they did, the storm ceased.

 

The account in the Bible then says, “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.  And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (Jonah 1:17).

It is this Belly of the fish (or Whale) that I refer to when I think of a state that is opposite that of Sustainable Joy.  In Jonah 2:2 it is also described as “the belly of hell.”  This symbolic description has fit so closely with how I feel when I am trapped in a pit of sorrow and can’t get out.

“For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about:  all thy billows and thy waves passed over me...”

“The water compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds wrapped about my head.”

“I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever...” ~Jonah 2:3-6

Several years ago the Belly of the Whale is where I seemed to be more often than not.   I wrote about this in one of my first blog posts:  Anxiety and Depression.  I kept being pulled back into the Belly even though I had some happy times.  Thanks to my Cause the reverse is true for me now.

 

I know this doesn’t even need to be restated but we are better parents when we obtain the general result of Sustainable Joy.  Again, residing in this state doesn’t mean we’re happy-go-lucky all the time.  We’re not.  We experience trials.  We even have events where we get sucked into the Belly of the Whale because we’re still learning, growing, repenting.  Life happens.  But the difference is, we always return to that state of Joy.  And even during the Sorrow events, we maintain an underlying peace and a hope that this too shall pass.

 “The challenges you face, the growth experiences you encounter, are intended to be temporary scenes played out on the stage of a life of continuing peace and happiness. Sadness, heartache, and disappointment are events in life. It is not intended that they be the substance of life. I do not minimize how hard some of these events can be. When the lesson you are to learn is very important, trials can extend over a long period of time, but they should not be allowed to become the confining focus of everything you do. Your life can and should be wondrously rewarding. It is your understanding and application of the laws of God that will give your life glorious purpose as you ascend and conquer the difficulties of life. That perspective keeps challenges confined to their proper place—stepping-stones to further growth and attainment.”  ~Elder Richard G. Scott, The Atonement Can Secure Your Peace and Happiness

Because I once dwelt predominantly in the Belly of the Whale and have been snatched out of it, “vomited upon dry land” as Jonah was, and thankfully taught how to live Paradoxically, I write these blog posts (Jonah 2:10).  They are my field notes to the journey my Cause took me through to get out.  Much of the reason I was constantly there had to do with my lack of Paradoxical Parenting skills.  Understanding this particular story about Jonah was a huge part of my learning process:  I end up in the Belly of the Whale when I engage in Survival of the Fittest Living, when I don’t forgive others, when I neglect to do what my Cause commissions me to do, or when I listen to conflicting Causes, which ends me up doing one or all of the first three things.  My hope is that what I’m writing will help others stuck in that hellish place to get out of it by passing on how my Cause got me out.

While I was in that place, I struggled with being a good mom to my kids.  I did it out of duty because when in the Belly, being motivated by Joy was NOT happening.  I forced myself to be good.  But once my Cause got me out and Joy became Sustainable for me, that all changed.

So what I’m saying is the pathway I was taken on is what I have been describing in all my blog posts and in the Servant Program.     

Creating Protective Boundaries

To reiterate this, the first step is to:  Identify my goals—what did I want?  Then I identified my Cause, seeing for the first time that if I didn’t put up boundaries against looking for validation from conflicting Causes, I was only going to be trapped in the Belly for the rest of my life (and so were my kids).   

I wrote down the processes I knew my Cause wanted me to do.  For me that included: 

• Eat right (had to learn what this meant)
• Exercise in Moderation
• Control my tongue in all of my relationships
• Prayer (included taking the conflicts that made me want to lose control of my tongue to my Cause FIRST)
• Scripture Study (included the official Word of God as well as healthy stories and other good reads)
• Keep house clean
• Look for the good in others and in myself
• Teach and do these things with my kids

The Listener by James C. Christensen

Paying more attention to my general Effects was a critical step in getting out.  I began to notice just how often I was listening to some voice in my head that put me down.  Would my Cause talk to me like that?  Would I choose to continue hanging out with someone who talked to me like that?  No way!  So I started to delete those voices and listen to the things that I knew a loving Cause would be communicating to me.  Not that these were always the easiest to hear.  But with experience, I could tell the difference between Satanic, “You are worthless and will never amount to anything” thoughts and Christian, “There is a line I can’t cross over, but if you want it deeply enough, I can show you the way and help you get there” thoughts.

Sustainability

Evaluating my results has given me certainty, security, and evidence.  If my good feelings don’t last, if I cannot maintain hope in what I’m trying to accomplish, I know I need to go back to the drawing board.  But if they do last, if they are Sustainable, if my hope goes on and on in excitement while my soul is comforted throughout the journey, then I know I’m on the right track.

Making sure my specific Desires (goals), Causes, Processes, Effects, and Results are in alignment with my general is the key to my ongoing growth and transition (#Repentance).

Hey Listen!

Then I turned around and taught my kids what my Cause was teaching me.  I became a specific Cause to them, trying hard to keep myself aligned with my own Cause.  I asked them the same questions I had been asked.

...this.
 

These questions were the foundation for Kid Report, the weekly meetings we had with our kids.  These meetings keep their minds focused on WHY they are doing what they are doing.  They enable them to stay motivated to keep their commitments so they can obtain Sustainable Joy.  And that brings me Sustainable Joy!

Listen:  Need You Now (How Many Times) by Plumb