Sunday our ward had Elder Hales come by for a visit. The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve are seriously considering what to do with singles and the single's wards. I don't know why they choose our ward, but they've been through a few times, mostly members of the 70, though, not usually members of the 12. I guess it helps that our first counselor in the Bishopric is Pres. Monson's home teacher, but whatev's.
Anyway, I got to pass Elder Hales the sacrament and some people were thinking it was a big deal. Take it from me, it wasn't. I've served the sacrament to Pres. Monson and it wasn't any different. I'm not saying it's not cool, but really, they aren't any different in that respect. Wouldn't it be weird to have a goal to pass the sacrament to ALL the members of the 12? If I were to do something like that, then right now I'd be saying, 1 down 11 to go!!
The real point of all of this is that Elder Hales gave a really simple message, but one that I needed to hear. It was primarily about self-acceptance. I won't go over everything, I'd have to be able to read my notes to do that and I was writing to so fast most of it's not legible anyway..., but I will mention one or two things that stood out to me.
He said that we were to go home, look in the mirror, call ourselves by name and say, "It's good enough, just being you." That might sound all Stuart Smalley to some people, but I tried it, and it was surprisingly hard. I've been doing so much work trying to be okay with "me" that it surprised me how hard it was to say the words. It was like, saying it loud made it real and I wasn't sure if I was ready for that. I think the other reason it was hard is because I don't yet know how to reconcile the "be okay with yourself" and "constantly improve" dictums that I feel I've been given. Those two things feel at odds with each other - how can I be okay with myself if I need to improve? If I need to improve something, doesn't that imply that I'm NOT okay with myself? I don't know, I haven't really figured that out yet. But at least I'm trying and I feel like I'm at least going to be blessed for following his counsel.
The truth is, it actually worked a little. I think a part of me couldn't help but believe what I was saying was true. As much as I've tried to avoid that kind of honesty with myself, I really had to admit that I really do like who I am, even if there are things about me I don't like. Then when I think about the things I don't like I tend to forget about the things I do like and my self-esteem suffers. Liking myself is a choice and for whatever reason, that choice does not come naturally to me, but like any quality, it can be practiced. Which is what I plan to do.
I know everyone knows the phrase, "whether you think you can or you think you can't you're right," but I've developed my own little version of that that goes like this: The only reason you think you can't, is because you think you can't. Conversely, the positive iteration of this would be: The reason you think you can, is because you think you can. (ha ha, I suddenly thought of the little engine that could... I guess this positive message had been around for while...)
Anyway, at the very least, it feels good to know that what I'm working on is important and to have an Apostle tell me that, from the pulpit, makes me feel like I'm on the right track and that helps even more to "think I can" handle this and get through it.
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