You Can Lead a Horse to Water But You Can’t Make Her Drink

Causes can’t make us “drink the water” they provide for us.  We have to actually engage in a process to receive it.  And it takes muscle.  It takes work to internalize it just as it does for an infant to be nourished by her mother.  This is faith.

In the last blog post we talked about the Dynamic Balance of our Causes and how that affects us.  In this blog post, we’ll look at our own balance.  Even if we have a dynamically balanced Cause, our own response process in our Goal Achievement Journey can be balanced or imbalanced.

Reminder

I use the word Child to represent someone who has a goal and is on a journey to obtain it.  A Child is a beneficiary, student, candidate, admirer, trainee, disciple, follower, apprentice, intern.  She is someone with a desire, a purpose, a mission.  Even though a Child can be male or female, I use the female pronoun for simplicity's sake.  Also, when I use the pronouns we and us in this blog post, I'm referring to our role as Child in our Goal Achievement Journey (Matt 18:4, Mosiah 3:19).

So if a Cause is a Provider, a Child would then be his Beneficiary.  If he is a Teacher, then she is his Student. 

Beneficiary 
A Beneficiary is the role of a recipient, an heir, an inheritor.  It’s not about receiving from everyone and their dog.  It’s about receiving from our chosen Cause.  As a Child, we recognize we are in need of being provided for and so engage in a receiving Process (#Faith).

This Beneficiary role comes pretty naturally for most of us.  The most difficult part of it is to NOT receive from everyone and their dog (Mosiah 1:13).  It is to remain allegiant to our chosen Cause (D&C 6:13).  In fact, if we’re full with some other Cause’s provisions, we won’t be able to receive our chosen Cause’s provisions.  My mom always said I would spoil my dinner if I ate other things before what she had prepared for us was ready to be served.  I have found that to be true.  I have also discovered that it’s a principle that can be applied to Goal Achievement.  When our “dinner is spoiled” we lose the motivation to make the sacrifices necessary to obtain our goals.  When the going gets tough in our Goal Achievement Journey and there are conflicting Causes offering us “comfort”, it’s pretty tempting to accept.  But if we do accept it, it messes up the whole challenge our Cause is offering us.

Student
The Student role a Child plays is on the opposite side of the balance from Beneficiary.  This is the role of apprentice, trainer, disciple, learner.  A Student receives opportunities to learn.  She is given challenges.  They are difficult because she is just figuring out for the first time how to juggle all the variables.  We’re not just talking about learning from books.  We’re talking about learning from the trials and adversities in our Goal Achievement Journeys.  That’s when conflicting Causes with their pseudo-provisions have the greatest temptation.  If we receive them, we miss out on the opportunity to grow; we slow down our Goal Achievement Journey, or prevent ourselves from progressing any further.

Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller
This dynamic relationship between Cause and Child is played out in the story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan.  Anne is trying to teach Helen language.  She uses sign language in her hand as Helen is both deaf and blind.  She also tries to discipline her because she can’t teach her anything until Helen chooses to be taught (#HorseToWater).  Helen throws tantrums, destroys property, and hurts other people when she doesn’t get her way.  Because Helen’s parents have not been able to communicate with her very well, they haven’t been able to teach her balanced conflict resolution and desire obtainment skills.  Whenever Helen acts out, someone in the house—a parent, the cook, or a servant—gives her a piece of candy to quiet her down.  The candy reinforces Helen’s tantrums.  Anne won't do this.  She expects more of Helen and believes she is very bright.  She believes Helen has the capacity to learn to control herself.  So the result of all this is that Helen runs from Anne every time she attempts to teach her the sign language yet her tantrums continue to push the entire family into repeated events of imbalance—chaos and contention.

Anne realizes she needs to be alone with Helen.  Helen needs to rely on her implicitly.  One day Anne discovers a little cottage on the Keller property.  She formulates a plan to ask the Kellers if they could fix up the cottage enough for Anne and Helen to live there for a while on their own.  It would be far enough away from the home that Helen would not know how close she was yet her parents could come anytime to watch from a distance.  They agree and the plan is put into action.  Once Helen can’t rely on anyone else but Anne for what she needs and desires, she begins to trust her and desire to learn the sign language.  Anne uses her provisions to motivate Helen to stop her tantrums, to listen, practice, learn, and behave herself.  Let’s keep in mind that Anne is not doing this for her selfish desires.  She KNOWS Helen will be a lot happier if she can actually communicate. "Language is more important to the mind than light is to the eye" (Anne Sullivan says this in the Disney movie Miracle Worker).  It takes time but finally the goal is achieved!  It happens all at once!  The scattered puzzle pieces in Helen’s mind finally come together.  Connections are made.  Helen understands that the signs Anne has been making in her hand are a representation of something else like water, bird, grass, tree, dog, mom, dad.  The joy that is experienced by both Anne and Helen, not to mention Helen's parents is incredible.

Helen Keller/Anne Sullivan Cottage

Boundaries and Pathways

When we can not or WILL NOT receive comfort from any conflicting source, we have no other option than to trust our Cause.  This motivates us to do hard things that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to do.  Boundaries sustain our motivation. 

I think this is why it is so hard for us to accomplish our goals these days.  Most of us can get ANYTHING we want ANY TIME we want it.  We have to create the boundaries of our own cottage with our Cause if we want to achieve higher heights.  The challenge is to make a solid commitment that we WILL NOT receive any provisions without first receiving our Cause’s permission.  And that starts with our thoughts.  We need to choose which thoughts we will entertain and which thoughts we will not.

"Your thoughts, more than anything else, will be the determining factor in what you accomplish during your life."

"Until you learn to discipline your mind and have complete control over it, you will be expressly limited in your capacity to exercise faith.  The full power of the mind is only realized when it is specifically focused and directed to a specific end."

~Grant Von Harrison, "Drawing on the Powers of Heaven" 

If you feel yourself rebelling against this Beneficiary-Student Child role, you’re not alone.  When I try to teach my daughter about this, all hell breaks loose.  But here’s the conflict for me.  As a Child, I don’t want what conflicting Causes have to offer me anymore.  It’s just not enough.  Yes, they tempt me but what I really want I can’t have unless I sacrifice what is within my power to just grab and gobble down or meanderingly come across.  What I want—my goal—is powerful enough to motivate me to withhold from partaking of what keeps me comfortable in my present location on my journey.  Yet when I lose sight of my goal, it loses it’s power to motivate me (Listen:  "In You" by MercyMe).

Finding the Balance Between Comfort and Challenge
That said, it’s important for me to remember that even with my own Cause (Conflicting Causes out of the picture) it is a dynamic balance between comfortable and challenge.  I can feel him asking me, “How intense of a journey are you able to bear?”  For example, if my goal was weight loss, I would need to determine how strictly I’m able to adhere to the rules of a diet plan AND how long I am able to endure before I start seeing results.  If I'm too strict, I'll hit the wall eventually and ricochet into needing too much comfort.  But the more strict the diet plan the faster I lose weight.  Yet I need to recognize that the faster I want to achieve my goal, the more intense my sacrifice of comfort has to be.  If I need to see results fast in order to motivate me, I will have to be more extreme in my efforts.  If I’m patient and very observant of less visible results, my climb can be more gradual (Mosiah 4:27). 

And vice versa.

So think about this: 

Are you actually “drinking the water” your chosen Cause is giving you?

Is your goal powerful enough to restrain you from partaking of the level of comfortable that is going to slow you down too much or prevent you from maintaining the motivation to obtain it?

Are you trusting your Cause implicitly?   Or are you running from him, like Helen Keller was running from Anne Sullivan?

If you’re in the position where you can get whatever you want whenever you want it, have you made a solid commitment NOT TO RECEIVE from Conflicting Causes?  Are you setting up boundaries for your own Anne Sullivan cottage?

Do you understand that the reason your Cause does not want you to live in total comfort right now is because it slows you down and may even be preventing you from obtaining the Goal you’re asking him to help you obtain?

Are you “spoiling your dinner”?

Do you always return to your Cause when you mess up?

It's A Dynamic Balance

"Give a man a fish and feed him for a day,  Teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime."

This quote seems to say that it is not as beneficial to Provide as it is to Teach.  I actually believe it’s a Dynamic Balance.  Providing for others what they cannot presently provide for themselves is an act of love (#Fast Offerings, #DisasterRelief, #Handicapped, #Children).  Teaching them incrementally how to provide for themselves and others is also an act of love.  Because we are all changing and growing beings (#Dynamic), there are times in our lives when we need to be provided for more than we need teaching and vice versa.

When we provide for our own children, our hope is that they will, upon tasting the goodness of the “fish,” be motivated to help themselves as much as they are able instead of taking advantage of us or disregarding the gift all together.  When I have provided “fish” to my children, my hope is that they will both be motivated to learn how to fish themselves and to have compassion on others. 

As most of those who read my blog know, I use the word Cause to describe parents, teachers, mentors, coaches, trainers, providers, exemplars, evaluators, etc.  Even though a Cause can be male or female, I use the male pronoun for simplicity's sake.

In the last blog post, I wrote about the voices outside of our head as contrasted with the voice inside our head.  The voices that influence us whether inside or outside our head are our Cause.  If two Causes conflict in regards to our goal achievement journey, we have to make a decision who we are going to listen to.  Causes play the roles of Examples and Evaluators.  But they also play the roles of Provider and Teacher.  A single person can play all of these roles but it is also common for a team of people to work together as a Cause united in purpose for a Child or group of Children (#ItTakesAVillage).

I use the word Child to represent someone who has a goal and is on a journey to obtain it.  A Child is a beneficiary, student, candidate, admirer, trainee, disciple, follower, apprentice, intern.  She is someone with a desire, a purpose, a mission.  Even though a Child can be male or female, I use the female pronoun for simplicity's sake.  So when I use the pronouns we and us in this blog post, I'm referring to our role as Child in our goal achievement journey (Matt 18:4, Mosiah 3:19).

Providers support us in the things we can’t presently provide for ourselves, both physically and spiritually.   They balance this Provider role with their role as Teacher. 

Teachers have the responsibility to train us by giving us challenges and questions we need to answer ourselves.  Instead of catching all the fish for us, they provide us with a fishing pole, teach us how to handle it, and show us the best spots to catch fish.  They give us opportunities and challenges to participate as Providers. 

An example of this is a story about a young man named Nephi found in the Book of Mormon.  God gave him the task (question, opportunity, challenge) to build a ship (1 Nephi 17).  He and his family needed to travel across the ocean to another land that was safer for them than Jerusalem was at that time.  The benefits of this promised land were described as plentiful, sustainable, and choice.  Being a very Balanced Cause, God did not make a ship magically appear.  He commanded Nephi to build it and said he would show him how.  Nephi had a question:  Where can I find the ore to make the tools I will need to build the ship?  God provided the instructions on how to build the ship and where to get the ore.  Nephi provided the labor and workmanship (his brothers ended up helping too).  With this team effort the ship was built and Nephi’s family was successfully transported across the ocean to the promised land.  Goal achieved.

Contrast that with the parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14).  If there were time and materials available, Moses and the Children of Israel could have built some boats to get across the water.  But the Egyptians (#Pharaoh) were hard upon their heels and I’m not sure they had the resources available in that traditionally dryer region of the earth.  So God provided:  he parted the sea.  He’s so dynamically balanced!  He knows when to step in (Provider) and when not to (Teacher).  Can’t help loving and totally respecting him!

Some Causes provide too much for us and don’t give us enough challenges. Other Causes provide too little and give us too many challenges too soon.  Finding the balance between these two extremes characterizes a Northern Provider-Teacher Cause (Mosiah 4:27).  Causes are imbalanced if they lean more extremely to one side or the other.

Northwest Provider-Teacher

If we have been reliant on a Northwest Provider-Teacher, we will most likely be motivated to progress in our Northeast to obtain our goals.   This is because a Northwest Provider-Teacher does it all himself.  He pays for everything, buys everything.  He doesn’t realize the value of allowing us to contribute to obtaining the goal.  He answers all the questions himself.  He doesn’t ask questions of those he is responsible for.  He doesn’t provide enough challenges or opportunities for progress.  He believes asking them to sacrifice anything is doing them a wrong.  Trusting others to contribute to achieving the goal is very difficult for him.  He’d rather do it all himself instead of taking the risk of relying on someone else.  He can’t train incrementally because of his impatience with imperfection or the unbelief that people have the ability, desire, and need to change and grow.  If we are reliant on a Northwest Provider-Teacher, our motivation to achieve our goals is stifled.

Northeast Provider-Teacher

If we have been reliant on a Northeast Provider-Teacher, we have most likely been forced to progress in our Northwest to obtain our goals.  A Northeast Provider-Teacher leaves those he is responsible for to fend for themselves too soon. 

They are overwhelmed with having to provide so much for themselves and others that they usually end up relying on imbalanced processes like cheating or stealing to get what they want (#OliverTwist).  A Northeast Provider-Teacher pays for as little as possible.  He doesn’t realize the value of his own contribution to their goals.  He leaves them to answer all the questions themselves.  He doesn’t share with them some of the answers he has found through his own experiences, preparing them to be able to answer their own.  He is insecure, unsure, and doubts what he has already found to be true.  He leaves those for whom he is responsible to face too many challenges than they can handle at a time.  He forces them to progress too quickly.  He trusts the judgment of others more than he trusts his own.  He’d rather they do it themselves because he fears he can’t do it right or doesn’t want to be blamed for messing things up.  He doesn’t know how to balance providing for and challenging his children.  If we are reliant on a Northeast Provider-Teacher, our motivation to achieve our goals is driven by fear. 

These are extreme descriptions (see the figure below).  Most Causes are on a continuum between the extreme imbalance and the extreme balance.  They are usually a mix between the NW and the NE.  For example, A Cause may provide plenty of money for his children (physical needs) but not enough time and affection (spiritual needs).  And to complicate matters, a Cause’s balance changes in different situations as well as over time.

Northern Provider-Teacher
When our Cause acts as a Teacher and challenges us in dynamic balance, we have the opportunity to learn and grow.  We become increasingly stronger Providers over time.  When our Cause acts as a Provider for us in dynamic balance we are taken care of and we learn about what love and compassion are.  Since we need both it makes sense that we choose dynamic Northern Causes who are able to play both these roles for us. 

Think about your specific goal (I’m thinking about mine).  Through your accomplishment of it do you hope to become a stronger Provider in some specific way or do you need to heal from some major (or minor) catastrophe?  Does your goal focus on becoming someone who can love people deeper or does it focus on needing to understand how deeply you are loved?  It's not that we should always focus on one more than the other.  It is about your present need.  It is about the missing ingredient  preventing you from progressing on your journey in balance.  Depending on what you’re wanting and needing, your journey to obtain your New Year’s Goal will most likely be different from someone else’s.

Who are your Causes in regards to your goal?  Evaluate how these Causes have contributed to your present level of success in regards to this goal.  Or ascertain if you are in need of a more Northern Cause.  If so and there doesn’t seem to be many options for you, I challenge you to get to know our General Cause—God—a little better who is exactly dynamically balanced in regards to you (Luke 11:9, Matt 11:28).

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

I have found that my goals come from both the Voice Inside My Head and other voices outside of my head that I choose to listen to.  I believe that making sure these voices agree is crucial to maintaining our mental health throughout our goal achievement journey.  If these voices conflict, we need to make a choice:  which one are we going to listen to?  Sometimes we may agree with outside voices over the Voice inside our head.  This is when we go through a change in our mindset and thus we change our goal altogether or maybe just slightly.  Sometimes we agree with the Voice inside our head over outside voices.  This is when we hold steadfast in our present mindset.  Our goal remains the same.  We stay on the same pathway we have been on, enduring to the end of it--until we achieve it. Now that we're somewhere in the middle of attaining our New Years Resolutions, the question often comes down to:  Should I stay or should I go?

I pay attention to my heart to help me make this decision.  It's not always an easy one.  If I make the right decision, I will obtain my goal but if I don't...

Hold Steadfast vs. Unset Broken Bone

If I hold steadfast when I shouldn't, I'm being stubborn, headstrong, obstinate, and I'm actually creating a mindset that will prevent me from progressing towards attainment.  This is like when we break a bone and it is not reset right.  The body begins its healing process around the break which continues to be in an unstable, unsustainable position (#Weakness).  It leaves us prone to injury in the future as well as hyper-sensitive in that particular place. In that condition, our journey is impeded.  Should I stay or should I go?

If I decide to change my mindset when I shouldn't, I am being a push-over (#EveryWindOfDocrtine) or doubting the things I have come to know.  I'm disbelieving the things I have found to be true.  There is a place for doubting things.  Before we actually come to know they are true, we question them; we study them; we use the scientific method.  But if once we have found they are true, we continue to doubt, question, hesitate, or deny them, we'll never get anywhere.  It's like pouring the foundation for a house we eventually desire to live in but we keep taking a pickax to it every time it starts solidifying into concrete.  It's true we may have to re-do some of our foundation if we didn't get it structurally sound the first time but if it was done well enough and we're still doing the pickax thing over and over, there's a problem.  Should I stay or should I go?

The Voices Outside My Head
Other people and what they have to say influences our choice of goals and whether we stay with the ones we have or change them up.  The origins of my desires usually come not only from evaluating other people's words, but also their actions and characteristics.  Through this process I identify what and who I admire (#JesusChrist, #MyExamples).  I think that what they did to accomplish their goal was PRETTY AWESOME! Then I desire to learn to do it like that myself. This is when I desire to change.

For example, I once attended church in Tucson, AZ.  I went to Relief Society (a women's meeting during church).  As I watched the Relief Society president during the announcements, I was utterly impressed.  She wasn’t the one giving the announcements.  Some of the other sisters were.  She wasn’t the one giving the lesson.  Another sister was.  But I saw her paying attention to them, smiling at them, nodding, and appreciating them through non-verbal communication.  She had a leadership role.  She used it to lift others up, to empower them.  She used it to give those whom she served the chance to speak, share, serve, lead.  She exuded what I and some others call Servant Leadership.  And all that from her chair in the audience.  So incredibly beautiful!  I only saw her example for an hour out of my entire life and it was several years ago.  I didn't know her name.  I don't even remember what she looked like but her example lives on inside of me.  I've never forgotten it.  It was a visual example of what I want to be.  Because of that it has been woven into the Voice Inside My Head and thus into my goals.

Motivation to stay steadfast in my desire obtainment journey usually comes from evaluating and admiring other people whose words and actions are like mine.  I like how I feel when I am around them so I determine I'm going to stay on this pathway  In fact the type of people we spend our time evaluating and admiring is the type of person we will become.  Birds of a feather flock together.

Comparisons:  Envy or Humility

Those to whom we look as Examples are those by whom we evaluate ourselves.  If we have a communication relationship with them, we value what they have to say about us and our work above what others have to say.  If we don't communicate with them, we often think about what someone like that would think of our thoughts, words, and actions.  We also compare ourselves to them to see how we measure up.  If our words and actions are like theirs, this confirms that we are on the right track.  We can stay steadfast.  If it isn't, then we can see if we need to change a little to the right or to the left. 

Comparisons are bad if we think, “I'm a loser compared to him.  I’ll never be like her.  I’ve never been given the same breaks as he has.  I could never do that; it’s way beyond my capacity.  It’s just impossible.” If we entertain thoughts like these, the Voice inside our head will be Envious.  But if we look at what they actually did to get where they are and who their Cause was, appreciating the sacrifices they have personally made, the Voice inside our head will be Humble.  Humility is different from Envy.  It has been important for me to study out the difference.  If we evaluate those we admire in Humility we are able to identify whether we should stay or go.  Why envy those we admire when they could be our greatest asset?

Real Examples

The KIND of people we have admired throughout our life determines the present balance of the Voice inside our head.  What defines their KIND is their actual process to obtain their goals, NOT WHAT THEY HAVE OBTAINED.  This is because we can obtain what appears to be success on the outside but on the inside things are disordered, distorted, just wrong.  As such, they can not be Sustainable.  Not Real.  In a past blog post I wrote about an IKEA dresser I put together wrong on the inside the first time.  No one would have noticed once it was finished but its functionality would have been severely impaired if I didn't go back and fix it.  Thus external results can be deceptive.  Our heart testifies of order, of truth, of sustainability which gives us X-ray vision into the real insides of results.  We can know what they really are and thus choose our Examples wisely (#ByTheirFruitsYeShallKnowThem).

Real Examples (#Balanced Causes) help us figure out if we should stay or go.  As we witness their journey, we get to know how our heart feels when a goal achievement process is on the right track and when it's not.

The Voice Inside My Head

Some people say it’s bad to hear voices in our head.  In fact many psychologists, psychiatrists, and counselors have therapies and drugs to block these voices out.  But what about the good voices?  What about the voices that are guiding, encouraging, comforting, hopeful, and balanced? If the goal is to stop listening to all the Voices Inside Our Head, we block these good ones out too.  I don’t know about you but if the Voice Inside My Head stopped talking, I would be the loneliest person on earth.

Thoughts, ideas, patterns, images, and meaning are continuously moving through our minds.  Thoughts that we accept are true about ourselves and others are the ones we pay attention to.  They are the ones that judge us, judge others, judge our world (John 7:24).  The others just float in one ear and out the other.  Out of all of the thoughts (#VoicesInsideMyHead) that enter our mind, we decide which ones we will entertain and which ones we will NOT.  Just because they enter our mind does not mean they are our thoughts.  The ones we DECIDE are true are our thoughts.  If we’re unsure that a thought is good, we pay attention to our heart.  Our heart verifies what is good, true, beautiful, meaningful, and right.

So if we said all voices that came into our head were bad, what of Paul who heard a voice (which nobody else heard by the way) that told him to stop persecuting Jesus Christ (Acts 22.7-9)?  What about concepts that most of us believe are good such as inspiration, our conscience, and personal revelation?

D&C 8:2-5

 How to Obtain Revelation and Inspiration for Your Personal Life

I love the fact that I can communicate with God (#GeneralCause) and he actually answers me.  It has taken me some time to develop my listening skills.  I have had to slow down my prayers by writing them down in my journal.  When I started doing that, scriptures, songs, and stories I knew came into my mind as I wrote my questions down.  They answered my questions, gave me direction, and filled me with a Peace I had never known before  (My Peace I give unto you... John 14:27).  Over time my listening skills improved as my faith increased.  Answers would come into my mind before I even finished writing my questions.  This was evidence that the Voice Inside My Head was not just mine.  I had no idea how to answer my question before.  But I knew after I inquired (He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Mark 4:9).

When I was 16 the young women in our ward were invited to go on a bike trip with the varsity scouts.  We biked from San Jose, CA to Disneyland in Los Angeles.  This was a 500 mile trip broken up into 10 days.  Very fun!  But one day I lost my money.  I was stressed out because that was all I had to buy anything.  So I prayed for help:  "Please help me find it."  The next morning during that time between sleep and wakefulness, I had a dream.  I saw a pair of my shorts and me putting the money in the pocket. Later, when I got up, I checked that place and it was there!

Elder Richard G. Scott

So if we block all the Voices Inside Our Head, we will really be lonely and lacking the ability to receive guidance from God.  Should not the goal be to establish the ability to create deliberately chosen pathways and boundaries in our mind?  What voices will we listen to and what voices will we NOT (#MySheepHearMyVoice)?

How does this tie into our New Year’s Resolutions theme that we’ve (we meaning me and the Voice Inside My Head) been talking about?   I'll explain in the next blog post.