Our Preparations

In our premortal life, we had such brilliance and we loved ourselves and one another. 

Then our innocent, sensitive spirits descended to earth and became mortals.  As a result, the thing that probably suffers the most as a result of this transition is our appreciation of our own self.  Most of us seem to suffer from some form of feeling of "not being good enough".

 Some people shape their whole life out of that perception.  This self-doubt becomes the lens by which we see and hear.  As a result, we distort many truths and this causes us to do many artificial things like:

·        Trying to manage our image in others' eyes

·        To do things that aren't right for us

·        To not live true to ourselves

·        To doubt love when it is genuinely offered

·        To keep others at a distance

·        To devalue our own unique contributions

·        To shrink back when stepping forward would make such a difference

·        Believing things that Satan wants us to believe

·        Thinking that I have to merit God's help to change

 

 

 

This darkened (gee- I wonder who authored a darkened view!) view of ourselves limits our being able to experience joy and freedom here in this life.  We rob ourselves of power!

WE are the ones who deny ourselves the ability or permission to find ourselves:

• Of worth
• Lovable
• Capable of amazing things as we are partnered with God
• Creators of a powerful life

 

We don't have to believe those lies.  And if we have believed those lies it is because we have not believed the quiet voice that whispers, "You have not believed ME."

 

Divine voices are speaking all around us, but our darkened hearing doesn't hear and our dim vision doesn't see.  We are being called to abandon the dark thinking, the judging of self (and the judging we have done of others which drags us down), and failing to forgive self.  We have carried around these false ways our whole lives and spill over into everything we experience.

 

Two changes that need to be made:

1)      Become aware of all the subtle and overt ways we judge ourselves and others.  Faulty thinking always lies at the root!

2)      Replace, with God's help, that faulty thinking with God's truth.  We need to atune our ears to listen to it and listen to it as we let all of the old falsehoods fall away into our Savior's hands.  We listen to the Spirit teach us the truth.  As we do so, our true self will be unveiled and we will discover the life that we will be led to live!

In so doing, a shift will occur.  A grand sense of purpose will emerge and the focus will no longer be on the doer , but on the thing to be done, and an awareness of the divine energy driving it.

 

Now let's take a look at who we really are.  In D&C 93:23 it says,

"Ye were also in the beginning with the Father; that which is ^aSpirit, even the Spirit of truth;"

We were the Spirit of Truth- the spiritual offspring of truth. God wants to show us how to be filled with light and truth.  The adversary wants us to be filled with darkness and lies.

We can choose to be filled with light!

 

We need to break free of being accustomed to our inner disturbance and believe that that is the ways things are supposed to be for us, but that is another lie.

We need to feel what we are meant to be and the reality of God's love and closeness to us.  We need to cling to Him rather than to our old stories.

 

We have been very diligent and now we have to become as diligent in believing the truth that God wants to impart to us.  This is an active process.  Our lives will absolutely change as we do this!

We can generate new energy inside us with:

I AM THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH, I AM CHRIST'S, I AM CONNECTED TO DIVINE POWERS AND IGET TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY TO STOP CAUSING MYSELF DAMAGE AND, INSTEAD, COURAGEOUSLY LIVE A POWERFUL LIFE FULL OF GOODNESS AND CONTRIBUTION.

 

Give to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ ALL of the garbage of incorrect thinking and feeling about self and ask for truth and light about self.  Especially the moment-to-moment stuff. Ask Him to help you  recognize as the lies pop up in your mind

 

The keys, again, are heightening awareness of our moment-to-moment thinking and then forgiveness and then reversal when we catch ourselves listening to the same old programs.  Being the Spirit of Truth, we cannot tolerate anything that is not truth because it sets up immediate conflict and robs us of power in our soul.  Most of us are still carrying around the conflict we've generated with all our little lies for love and approval, for copping out, for not showing up. 

Truth provokes us to look at all the artificial things we do and prompts us – at any cost -- to get real. Let us then feed on truth and light: "He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things" (D&C 93:28) – these are the stuff of our being. 

And when this awareness collapses or becomes dim, we can always trace back in our minds to find the disempowering thought – then give it to God and reverse it the pattern.

 

There is something important in our heart to do.  Let us clean up our thinking and expand into the divine.

 

We begin to see that our spirits may be better understood as a form of energy.   And being a form of energy, the self is not a static organism but is, rather, fluid, flowing, and expandable, capacitated to develop through stage after stage as it accepts more and more light, again citing the scriptures D&C 93:28 "He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things" (D&C 93:28); and, "That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day" (D&C 50:24).                                                                   Knowing our true nature and the basis upon which we're constructed can help us understand how to flourish, designed as we are to feed upon the energies of Light and Truth.­

Even though our mind may look at our self and see ourselves as solid and limited, we want to open our vision to the reality that our selves as a work in progress and deeply imbued with unexplored goodness.  One of the things we can observe as we look deeply into our self is that we have an intimate relationship to this inner, dynamic quality of goodness, because when this energy stops flowing, we feel stuck.  And we don't know what's wrong because we don't understand the true origin of happiness.

But the reason that our top stops spinning is that we have lost confidence in our goodness and have lost sight of God's power to help us and have neglected to express that power. confidence in our goodness and have neglected to express its power. 

Because instead of confidence in goodness, we have shifted to a different confidence- a false one, and thus a different energy; for example, we have taken up trusting in:

·         Jealousy

·          blame

·         greed

·         lust

·         irritation or anger

·         impatience

·         criticism of self or others

·         retaliation

·         despair

·         laziness 

·         carelessness

 

Our minds feel dimmed and unstable. Our hearts don't feel soft, open or full of love, and then we search for something outside our self to blame.  We have unwittingly chosen to live against the spirit of Truth and Light.  We have forgotten the Law of our own being which is Goodness and Love.  And, as our spirit is the guardian of these energies, we deal with uncomfortable consequences and not feeling "good" when we act in ways our spirit does not approve of (the natural man set up these supposed safeguards in an attempt to protect us).

A return to our true being brings a flood of truth and light and joy.

It may be that we must change our mental habits and that we must take responsibility to choose more effective kinds of energy to accomplish the true purposes of our life.  For example, instead of condemnation, we can allow the energy of compassion to shape our thoughts and actions; and, instead of continually trying to make our self  happy, we can ponder on the things that would help those around us -- even though this may seem, in our current state, counterintuitive. 

We need to ask God for a larger mind and a new perspective.  A mental reset.  We can do this by creating a space in our mind and heart where the new thoughts and actions can bloom.  Pondering and prayer can do that.  Ask God for that.  He will give it.  Allow our minds to be at peace so the essence of who we were can reemerge.  We can ponder on what we could be offering to our world, small or great. To what we can be offering to God.  We have so many precious gifts -- gifts of understanding, acceptance, maybe even one or two bright ideas.  Our awareness begins to expand beyond the small mind we've been living in, and a new, pleasing energy begins to arise.  The Tibetans call this energy "Windhorse," which is the energy of innate goodness.  The rider who mounts Windhorse rides the power of compassion, discernment, discipline, wise decisions, and intelligence. No longer out of control, he begins to rule his world wisely and benevolently. This Windhorse energy is a like a magnetic force field that in its arising carries with it the energies of enthusiasm, new ideas, new openness, new possibilities, new inspiration.  It seems to generate visceral (intuition or instinct) heat. 

Windhorse can be raised at will.  And each of us can ride Windhorse.  With it we envision plans for experiencing a new kind of success.  We realize that every aspect of our life, our loved ones, our work, and our busy doings can be used to nurture new wisdom and compassion and renewed confidence in our innate goodness.  Our vision becomes more heavenly as we consider acting, not for our self, but for all beings: "Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God. . . .  The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever" (D&C 121:45-46).  This is the power of kings and queens.

We realize that our other way of living was sapping our strength, but with this new energy of clarity and strength and blessing, life takes on new meaning. 

"Windhorse" is easy to translate into our thought-world.  It is the very Light and Power of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself – it is the energy He uses to shed grace in its many forms into a darkened world.  We too can follow Him, traveling His path from grace to grace, grasping His extended hand. 

We realize that our other way of living was sapping our strength, but with this new energy of clarity and strength and blessing, life takes on new meaning.  We thank the voice of the Spirit (Windhorse) for whispering to us as the energy of anger or vengeance tries to arise: "You don't have to do this."  Thus we reclaim our power to make virtuous choices.  We feel how "wickedness never was happiness" (Alma 41:10).  There is only one hope for complete happiness and for feeling "good enough" and that rests in our taking steps along the path of comprehensive virtue, cultivating our inner goodness.

.  Then a new energy is released into our life that removes many obstacles and attracts the things we need. We resonate with the energy of Captain Moroni who could shake the powers of hell.

We are the ones ultimately responsible for our own happiness and for generating the energy that fuels it. 

When we see how life works and how specific energies can be chosen to determine our experience, we learn that we can "weave the tapestry of happiness every day with the needle and thread of our own mind."