Who am I?

I have noticed lately how much writing helps with my processing and development. As I write ideas that I am trying to solidify or write about ideas I desperately want to be able to follow, I find I can process them. I don’t know why. Maybe there is some scientific reason about brains and memory or something. All I know is that having a place like this to write about my life has helped me tremendously. So thank you all for taking this journey with me.

When my ex-husband left I immediately put my daughter in therapy. This was something he and I had talked about doing anyway because she has a hard time regulating her emotions…well, at least the negative ones. But I could tell she was struggling with the changes in our lives and I felt a more urgent need to get her going. And though it has been slow going, she has made really great progress. She gets angry less and is excited to go spend time with her dad. Every week she and her therapist talk for most of the session and then they bring me in to review what she is learning so I can help at home. And honestly I have learned some things for my own life, which has been an added perk.

Two weeks ago they talked about focus. At first the therapist had my daughter explain to me that she learned she needed to only think about herself. I’m not going to lie, I was a little worried about where this was going. But then the therapist helped her explain more about what she meant. She needed to just focus on what she was doing, not what other people were doing. She could only do something about her actions and so that is where her focus and concern should be instead of worrying or getting mad at what her brothers or dad were doing. Or even worrying about my feelings. Now, the therapist didn’t mean she shouldn’t care about people. What she meant was that she could only control herself so she needed to not get so focused on other people’s actions that she was getting angry and lashing out. Or even getting so worried that she wasn’t functioning well. And I realized that I needed to take this advice too.

I have spent a lot of time worrying about the decisions other people make. I think this is okay to do to a point. Just like most things, when it starts interfering with your day-to-day life then it isn’t okay anymore. I worried so much about the decisions my ex-husband was making not just because of how they affected me and my kids but because I genuinely care about him and want him to be happy. I worried about the thoughts people had about me and the things I did so I wanted to make sure I was behaving like I “should” and did things that would be approved of. And then I would obsess about everything I did and said, and this especially escalated in the last 6 months or so.

So after that therapy session I started to analyze my thought patterns in relation to others. I realized that I spent a lot of time thinking about what my ex-husband was doing. I think this was for two reasons. First, I was used to thinking about what he was doing so that I could help him or know when I got to talk to him, etc. The other was that I just couldn’t process his new life and I wanted to know what he was doing and I was curious. But guess what? It hurt! A lot. It took months to stop getting a little excitement and then pain every day at noon when I was used to getting to talk to him. I spent time wondering what he was doing instead on his lunch break. What he was doing with all his time alone. Who he was spending time with. And many other things. That sounds a bit stalkerish, but it wasn’t like that. But I was miserable. I was spending time focusing on the wrong thing!

So now I don’t do that. I have accepted that his life is his life. My life is my life and the life I have control over. And I should use that control to grow and develop continually into who I want to be. And I feel so much freer, happier and more at peace. But more than that, I am working on myself and focused on activities, studies, interests, behaviors and such that I want to define who I am and that shape how I live my life. I am enjoying finding myself again and then moving forward.

There are so many parts to focusing on myself. The first part is finding out who I am and who I want to be. The next is be happy about who I find and want to be. We all have a choice about who we are going to be and we have to like what we find. That doesn’t mean be perfect by any means, we all have things to improve. But it means being happy about the trajectory of our lives.

Here are some examples that I have found and chosen for myself in this process. I am an optimist. I like being cheerful and seeing the good in the world. I assume the best of people in general. Even my daydreaming is extremely optimistic. I love being this way. But it often leads to great disappointment. Given the options, though, I choose to be optimistic and deal with the disappointments that come.

I love to be silly and laugh and play. I spent a lot of time lately stifling this so that I could be seen as more “mature.” But I have realized that maturity is measured in much different ways than if you like to be silly and laugh. It is measured by being responsible, sticking to your convictions, taking care of those you love, working hard, and the like. So I am embracing my love of laughing and joking and tickling my kids and having fun.

To me, honesty is so incredibly important. Trust is so necessary in successful relationships that I choose to be honest in all my dealings. I’m not saying that as a pat on the back, just an example of a conscious choice we can make in our lives about who we will be. Sometimes I might be a little too honest or share too much. I am an open book. You want to know something, just ask and I will probably tell you. Maybe I should be more reserved, I don’t know. But I will always be honest. Just don’t ask me how much I weigh because I won’t be able to fib!

I love candy and ice cream. I love to play games and have dance parties with my kids. I love to watch documentaries about ancient history. I love to read and get lost in a good story. I love things that are pretty. I don’t like clutter but also have a hard time getting rid of things. My kids are my world and the gospel is my life. I love soccer and now find football extremely boring because it isn’t as good as soccer. I love being involved which means sometimes I get too busy. But I still do it.

So finding out who we really are and want to be and then living accordingly is a good thing. But anything taken to the extreme can become a problem.  I heard an interesting quote in our Church’s general conference back in October that I keep thinking about in relation to this idea.

You are – first, foremost, and always – a spiritual being. And so when we choose to put our carnal nature ahead of our spiritual nature, we are choosing something that is contrary to our real, authentic spiritual selves.

M. Russell Ballard

I love this idea of us being foremost spiritual beings. So in our journey we need a guide as to which path to take or which version of ourselves to be. and we need to remember that we are spiritual beings before we are mortal beings. And that means that we need to let our spiritual selves guide our mortal selves. So, as I said, I love ice cream. Seems pretty unimportant in the scheme of spiritual nature. But if I eat and eat and eat it to the point that my body can no longer function effectively, then I am not being true to my spiritual self that would choose to be healthy and treat my body better. If I love soccer as a choice of hobbies, does that matter spiritually? It does if I spend so much time invested in it that it interferes with church attendance or family life. Then I would be putting my mortal self above my spiritual self.

So, as I continue in this process of finding out who I am and want to be, I need to do so with my spiritual self as a guide. I am a daughter of my Heavenly Father. I was His spirit daughter before I was born to my mortal parents and received a body. I hope to live with Him again some day and so I need to live according to my spiritual goals. Heavenly Father wants us to be happy. He wants us to enjoy life and this amazing world we have. But we need to do so in a way that is true to our spirit because that is who we authentically are. And doing so will help us be successful in our purpose on Earth.