I Think, Therefore I am

(If you haven't read my first post, please scroll down and read that first.)

It was about four years ago that I began to understand that my internal dialog was keeping me mentally sick. Keeping me locked in a world of fear, anxiety and darkness.

Now, that was tough, let me tell you, to realize that I was the cause of this torture that I had been enduring for so long.

I almost dismissed this and found myself thinking it was too simple. How could just changing my thought process heal me, and release me from this tumultuous prison I had been stuck in?

With the help of a handful of people in my life and most recently an amazing woman, named Carol Tuttle, I have come to realize that what we tell ourselves, is who we are.

Take for instance;

"I am fat." Yup, if you are telling your self this, you are going to eat more, find more excuses NOT to exercise and it will be easier to reach for those brownies cause you are fat, and why even try.

"I can't control my money." or "I am poor." Well, if you can't control your money, and as soon as that money comes into the bank you already have it spent, or you splurge on things you don't need or can't afford because you don't have control of your money, and why even try.

These are just a couple of examples, but they are so commonly used in our internal dialog.

What we tell ourselves, is who we are.

How does this fit in with tapping into that endless pool of joy that our loving Father in Heaven has created for us??

Well, here is an example of what I have been switching in my internal dialog and I will show you how I have created a SPACE for joy.

Instead of saying to myself over and over "I am fat" I have replaced it with this dialog, "I am working on being healthier. I have stored up some extra weight in the process of bringing 5 beautiful human beings into this world and I am now giving myself permission to be healthy and lean."

I am finding joy in the processes or remembering how healthy feels. I am letting joy in and creating an actual space for it in my life. When we bog ourselves down with degrading dialog we plug up space for joy to flow.

Remember, JOY IS EVERYWHERE, just like those dust particles illuminated by the sun ray.

A Challenge for this week- Write down one of your internal dialogs that is taking up space that can other wise be used for joy. After you have written it down on paper, tear it up, flush it down the toilet or burn it. Get rid of it, destroy it. THEN, write down a replacement dialog and put that somewhere you can see it daily. Practice it, say it out loud. Then, be aware of the space you create for joy.

Joy is All Around Us

Finding Joy.

Is joy something that we have to search for? Are we on a life-long journey to find the joy that only a select few seem to have discovered?

Have you ever asked your self, "Why can't I be happy?"

When we are having a bad day does that mean we lost our joy somehow? Did it jump ship and bury itself under a rug until we decide to let it back on board?

What if joy is not something we find, but something that we tap into.

Joy is all around us. It is a light, a high moving energy that is constantly at out heels. It is the air we breath.

We can not loose joy, for it does not come and go. It does not turn off and on like the switch of a light. It is constant and immovable.

One day, I noticed my sweet Malia was grabbing at something in the air. I watched closer and saw that she was standing at a spot in the living room where a beam of light was coming in through the sliding glass door. The light had illuminated all of the dust particles that were floating around, normally unseen, in the air. These dust particles where invisible without the brilliant morning light reflecting off of them. Malia looked at me in frustration and said, "Mommy, I can't catch the dust!"

Imagine that that is our joy, floating in the air all around us. We can't see it, unless we know the right spot to stand at the right time of day.

Now, look at this perfect, sleeping child.

It is hard not to tap into joy when gazing upon the most perfect creation God has made.

What if I told you that for years, although I looked at motherhood as the single-most greatest privilege of my life, when I looked upon my children I was filled to the brim with fear; fear of loss, of getting it wrong, or of tragedy. I ignored the joy that was all around me, and choose instead to tap into fear. For fear is just as potent.

"...and men are, that they might have joy" 2 Nephi 2:25

I believe with all of my heart that we were put on this earth to experience JOY. For the first time in a long time, in fact, maybe ever, I am understanding my capacity to experience joy. The word experience is defined as; a particular instance of personally encountering something that is perceived, understood and remembered.

Please join me on a journey to remember that joy is all around us. When we are tapped into joy we can breathe easier, we accomplish more, we see things differently. We laugh more, smile and cuddle more. We yell less, do less whining and complaining. Joy heals broken hearts, fills voids and nourishes souls.