Sunday, May 3, 2020

Part 4 and Chapter 11 - No Cow Gal


Part 4 - Adjusting Our Grip on the Iron Rod

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”                                       
William Shakespeare

Remember that I am a long-term waiter. I’m not going to insult your intelligence by telling you that solving for loneliness, bitterness and coveting is as simple as going out and getting a new hobby or staying at the “Linger Longer.” I have so many hobbies that there are three rooms in my house dedicated to all the hobbies. It’s ridiculous. The last thing we all need is pressure to add more time-sucking business to our lives. Most of my hobbies I do alone - and remember - Satan works best when we are alone.

Neither do you need the guilt of missing a singles dance or walking out of church when the lesson is on temple marriage, for example. I’m not going to be the person to say “stay in your seat and just endure it.” Nope. Not me. Sometimes I can and there are times when I need to leave to protect myself because the human beings who are called to teach, bless their hearts, can’t be held responsible for scratching away at the protective emotional walls we have each built up around us. We waiters need to thicken our skin, get a sense of humor and react to all things in love. But we are human too, first and foremost. We must be human for a while. 

It was in 2012 that I looked back and said. What truly is the end goal? If I died tomorrow, the people who spoke at my funeral would say - “all she ever talked about was wanting to be a wife and mother. Though she eventually received those things, sort of, in God’s time anyway, all she ever dreamed of was sitting down with a large family of her own in this life. Too bad. So sad. Wahhhhhhh! But her carrot cake will change your life!” Is that what I wanted people to say?

I was working as an administrator at a charter school in Southern Utah, full time and then some and I needed to find slivers of time in which I could raise my head out of  the whirlpool of my pain and look around. But I didn't. I worked and worked and worked. I thought I could hide from pain at work. 

Poor pity me. I didn’t get the traditional life I wanted. Could I open my eyes to see others in my pity pool? Could I give a little and not just take whatever sympathy anyone would give me? I was expecting people to know my pain, read my mind, and side-step any topic that might offend me. What was I thinking? I wasn't thinking about anything but me and my pain. I was toxic. To myself. 

If you are looking for new ideas to pull you out of the pity pool, I don’t have any. But let’s look at those things that we already DO or are supposed to be doing as a child of God and see if we can put them in a waiters perspective. Let’s not add, let’s just re-adjust! This will serve me a lot better than a new hobby anyway.

Chapter 11- Love Yourself First

“Self-esteem goes to the very heart of our personal growth and accomplishment. Self-esteem is the glue that holds together our self-reliance, our self-control, our self-approval or disapproval, and keeps all self-defense mechanisms secure. It is a protection against excessive self-deception, self-distrust, self-reproach, and plain old-fashion selfishness.”[1]
                                                                        James E. Faust

When I was in Thailand in 1988, we missionaries shared a film strip projector. There were very few televisions and VCR's in the homes of the people we taught. Occasionally we would get to teach a family past the initial Joseph Smith filmstrip so we could talk about our relationship to God. I loved to show the filmstrip of Johnny Lingo. Most of you know what I'm talking about. But for those that don't - here's the 50 cent version in a nutshell:

In the story, Johnny Lingo is a well-respected Polynesian trader. He comes to an island to bargain for a wife. Mahana is the girl he loves but everyone on the island considers her withdrawn and ugly. Her own father calls her "Mahana, you ugly!" (Which is what we used to call each other when we were kids.) As the bargaining begins the women of the island brag about how many cows they "sold for" and they are sure that Mahana's father probably ought to give Johnny Lingo cows just to get rid of her. But when Johnny comes the next day he brings eight cows! Unheard of! The crowd go nuts! He pays the dowry for his wife and they go off on their honeymoon. When they return, Mahana appears different. She is beautiful, confident and happy. Johnny only had to prove to her that she had incredible worth and it had nothing to do with what other people thought and everything to do about what she thought of herself. In the end, it was Johnny Lingo that got the bargain.

So cheesy. Makes me cry every time.

Isn't there a little Mahana in everyone? For so many years of my life I wondered, when I was asked out on a date, “WHY is this guy asking me out?” I knew for sure that there was something wrong with him - and that was my marker. I gave them no credibility in their choice, because not even I would choose to go out with me. No matter how hard I worked, or how much education I got, I wasn't taken seriously because I didn't take myself seriously. I never let my eight-cow self out. I considered myself a no-cow gal.

There was a time in my life when I thought I didn’t matter to anyone. I was in my thirties and watching my siblings, all younger than me, get married one by one. I was married to my job. Most days I didn’t have time to find a bathroom let alone find a companion. I was so lonely. Thank goodness I didn’t know is that I would be headed into another 20 years of loneliness, bitterness and aching for the blessings that were blossoming around me.

Well, here is the big idea: YOU MUST LOVE YOURSELF NO MATTER WHAT OR YOU WON’T UNDERSTAND THE LOVE OF OTHERS OR THE LOVE THAT GOD HAS FOR YOU.

You are not half of a whole. You must become whole yourself so that you can offer yourself and your abilities to God and his children. You must accept yourself for who you are instead of wishing you were someone else.

One of the concerning answers I had in my survey about expectations was from a woman that I have been friends with my whole life. She said “...without the ability to have children, I felt worthless to God.” I understood that completely. Another one of my brothers said “I want to feel like I am worthy of love even though I am gay.” My own mother said “I feel that I wasn’t given the talents that my children have.”

I was given this piece of advice from Sarah Bauer Hernandez. She is a licensed therapist and life coach. She said:

“Pursuing loving kindness towards yourself and others can help you release bitterness, because there simply isn’t room for both. When you fill your heart with love instead of resentment, you retrain yourself to see the best in yourself, your life, and the world around you.[2]

I also sustain James E Faust in the following advice he gave at a BYU devotional back in 1983! What a find! He gave this talk the week I was entering college myself. I sure could have used it then. So timely for me today. The talk was entitled Self Esteem: The Great Human Need. He gives six ways we can learn to love ourselves.

  1. Keep your free agency
He warns that addiction, habits and behaviors that destroy your agency will destroy yourself respect first.

  1. Cultivate humility
He isn’t talking about “sackcloth and ashes” but merely remain teachable and open to learning.

  1. Be honest
“To thine own self be true." 

  1. Love work
He gave an incredible example of the flood of 1983 and how more than a million sandbags had to be filled. “The former head of one of the biggest companies in Utah wanted to be helpful in his neighborhood. Some of the work was being directed by the bishop, and the bishop asked him to find the tie strings and tie sandbags. He found tie strings in many places, some of them on the ground, and he went around picking up the strings from the ground. It was an emergency. Someone had to do it.”[3]

  1. Love self and others
Are we secure enough to laugh at ourselves, admit our mistakes, and learn from them? IN order to love another human (including yourself,) you must have a sense of humor about being human. 

  1. Love God
“So it is that nobody is nobody. The seeds of divinity are in all of us. There will come a day when we will have to account to God for what we have done with that portion of divinity which is within each of us.
I testify that God loves each of us, warts and all. I testify that he knows each of our names. I testify that each of us has a potential in this life and beyond the grave that exceeds our fondest dreams.”[4]

Nobody is nobody!” Don’t you just love that?! The worth of souls is great in the sight of God. Not just the worth of married souls or those that are bringing children into the world. Our worth is inherent in our nature as a child of God. We are sealed to Him individually. That will never change.
And for all those ladies in waiting out there (and I speak to myself as well)…Stop chasing after someone or something. It occurs to me that all that time I spent chasing somebodies and somethings, I should have spent chasing the beautiful me instead. This above all to thine own self be true! I want to shout back to the 25 year old me and say : “JAN!!! You be you! Do your own thing and work hard! If you stay positive the right people will be drawn to you and will stick around. If you are patient, exquisite blessings will be yours forever! I wouldn’t have believed it then. But I do now. Well, I’m working on it.
  
Chapter 11 The Love Yourself Recipe
The Ultimate Carrot/Pineapple/Applesauce Cake
It seems like a waste to spend money on uncommon ingredients if we are only cooking for two people. Isn’t that a shame? This is my favorite cake recipe but I never make it because it takes time and a trip to the store. Well, dang it! Let’s make it just for us!
Mix dry ingredients together
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Add wet ingredients and just mix in about 2 minutes - don’t over mix
4 large eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sour cream
1 cup applesauce
1 tsp vanilla

FOLD in the good stuff last until just incorporated
2 cups shredded carrots
1 15 oz can of crushed pineapple drained
1 cup chopped walnuts

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
Divide the batter equally between 3 8-inch round cake pans
Bake for about 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick, inserted in the center comes out clean

Cream Cheese Frosting

1/2 cup unsalted butter - room temp
1 8 oz block cream cheese  - room temp
4 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Whip together for about 7-8 minutes until you add a lot of air into it. It will hold its shape better if you whip it longer than regular buttercream. Refrigerating it will also help it keep it's shape. 


Chapter 11  - The Love Yourself Homework

1. Identify the main character in the current story of your life. Think carefully. Is it you?

2. If you answered no to question number 1, why is the answer someone other than you yourself?

  
3.  If you answered yes to question number 1 - name FIVE positive character traits that you like about yourself.

a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Just kidding, one more…
f.

  
4. Think about someone you easily and wholeheartedly love. How can you love yourself in that same way?

  
5.         Think about someone that you wish all the happiness the world has to offer.

Concentrate on the feeling that you have for that person.

Now offer the same kindness to yourself.

What do you wish for yourself? PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY. WRITE IT ALL      DOWN.


[1] Self-Esteem, The Great Human Need, James E. Faust, BYU Devotional, August 23, 1983
[2] www.sarahbauerhernandez.com​
[3] Self-Esteem, The Great Human Need, James E. Faust, BYU Devotional, August 23, 1983
[4] Ibid.

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