Why do we live at 40% our capacity?

What thoughts run wild in our minds that keep us from making changes necessary for us to thrive?! Mine go something like this, “I’m so tired. I’m not good enough. I don’t want to wake up. I’m so tired. I’m hungry. It’s cold. My hair is too greasy. My face is too hairy. Are the girls going to wake up right now? I’m so tired...” Endless ridiculous excuses - LIES - that year after year confine me to some invisible hamster wheel.

BUT!

I believe God wants to give us gifts - and only the best gifts.

To that end - choosing greater gifts - I am diving off my hamster wheel!

I have been listening to mind-over-matter podcasts. I read books about people born into horrific situations, yet overcome their adversity with optimism and hope. I read accounts of women and children rescued from sex slavery and their daily practice of choosing hope, choosing to live.

“Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory-known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")-holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.”

What is meaningful to me?! What is my vision?! What do I do with the extra time dishwashers and washing machines and the internet afford me? And why do I let my brain feed me lies that keep me from realizing these dreams, and helping others realize theirs?

Every day that passes, I more strongly believe that this life is a feat of the body - a time to discipline this housing that holds my spirit. My spirit has vision! It craves travel, freedom, happiness, unity, and sharing wealth! It dreams of a simple life, free of clutter, that’s easy to pack up and move around. I have visions of unity: unity between body and spirit, oneness with my partner and babies, and unity with those I meet. Did you know separate hearts literally will beat as one?! I want to feel that unity, that oneness, with everyone (and might I add this was my biggest takeaway from the recent changes in the temple: everything, I felt, had to do with UNITY. At-One-Ment. Oneness. Perfect union of body and spirit, oneness with my partner, and oneness with everyone around me. And I don’t know if there has been a time I have felt more spiritually unified with any group of women than during that hour in the temple. It was deeply powerful, to me.)

On recent nights I have gone to sleep early, woken early and rested, but kept lounging in bed until I eventually fell back to sleep. My spirit wants to get up and get to work, but my body stays glued to my mattress killing my dreams!!! Feat of the body.

I overcome my sugar addiction, begin eating only small amounts of treats, and eventually I am craving treats for breakfast, lunch, and dinner even though I know it makes me cranky and sick!!! Feat of the body!

I’ll have thoughts and feelings to text, call, or set up dinner with someone, and then I put it off for who-know-what reasons!!! Feat of the body.

The list of addictions that feel impossible to overcome is endless. Add mental illness, disease and...! Bodies are powerhouses for good, but can be so difficult to work with!

“We will have to suffer the pain of discipline, or the pain of regret. Self discipline is self love - if you want to be happy you have to love yourself which means you have to discipline your behavior. The road to sustained happiness is through disciplining your behavior.”

James Altichur says, “All decisions are either growth decisions or fear decisions. Only growth decisions point in the same direction as your inner compass for success.”

I do not have to let my body, and it’s lethargy, rule. I get to choose who wins: body or spirit.

The Holy Ghost, and our own intuition, generally speak in quiet voices - ones we have to practice tuning into to hear, feel, and understand. My body and it’s cravings and addictions drown out the holy ghost and my own stillness and intuition (FEELINGS post coming next. I say that every time, but it’s really coming!).

BUT NOT ANYMORE.

If ever I had a New Year’s Resolution this is it forever:

Let my spirit dictate what happens next, and make my body do that: oneness between body and spirit!

Don’t let my body drown out the quiet voice that will always keeps me on my direct course - the one leading me to the brightest light, the most happiness, to every perfect gift the Savior has for me.

Now where do I muster the strength to do it?

I love this clip on YouTube (Min. 3:20-4:45 especially)
The biblical story of a woman who suffered 12 years with a debilitating illness. Her vision, “If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.”

Russell M. Nelson said about this experience, “This faithful, focused woman needed to stretch as far as she could to access His power. Her physical stretching was symbolic of her spiritual stretching...When you reach up for the Lord’s power in your life with the same intensity that a drowning person has when grasping and gasping for air, power from Jesus Christ will be yours. When the Savior knows you truly want to reach up to Him - when He can feel that the greatest desire of your heart is to draw His power into your life - you will be led by the Holy Ghost to know exactly what you should do. When you spiritually stretch beyond anything you have ever done before, then His power will flow into you.”

I have visions. And even though I cannot see what is ahead, I know my “stretching” will open every gate for Godly power to flow into my life, and everyone else who wants it!

Happy New Year! Here is to dreaming up VISIONS, and getting after them without feeding ourselves hamster-wheel-loops of excuses!

xoxo, Christina

Pictures (mostly) from our camping trip with friends at Leo Carrillo State Park/Beach in Malibu.