The Beginning of Wisdom

    This morning, while lying in shavasana at the end of an incredible practice, I had a memory come back to me that I believe is worth sharing.  When I was a freshman at Utah State twenty years ago, I had a philosophy professor named Harrison Kleiner.  He was a Catholic man who wore sweater vests, bow ties, and glasses, and his mind worked like nobody I had ever met.  I loved that class.  One day in particular is burnt into my memory.  He was talking about Plato or Socrates or one of those famous ancient Greek philosophers, and he said, "The beginning of wisdom is to know that we know nothing"......my eyebrows raised.  He went on to explain that the reason that this is true is that when we think we know things, we aren't in a position to learn.  This concept blew my mind, and it has changed the way I look at learning ever since.
     So we know nothing, huh?  And we have to know that we know nothing in order to start knowing things?  Weird.  Actually, if you think about it, it makes a ton of sense...but I think we need to qualify it a bit.
      I sat in class thinking about what my professor had just said, and after a minute, I raised my hand, "I agree with you...I love this concept that we have to understand that we know nothing in order to start learning wisdom.  In addition, though, this adds power to what I believe as a member of the LDS church about the need for the presence of the Holy Ghost.  We, as human beings, know nothing, that's true...but the Spirit of God knows everything, and so that is why I believe we so desperately need to be connected to that in order to learn wisdom".  I can't remember what my catholic professor said back.  He at least found my thought amusing, I'm sure.  But this moment was a huge moment for me in coming to understand the importance of humility.  In the Book of Mormon, Ether 12:27, we read:

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

     I have found this to be true time and time again.  I would add one more scripture to this before I close my thoughts....in the New Testament, James 1:5-6:

 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

     The natural man knows nothing, because the natural man is an enemy to God, and if the natural man is an enemy to God, the natural man doesn't know truth.  If we ask in faith, God will give us wisdom, and he will light our path before us.  If we live this way, we can confidently respond to those who claim we "know nothing", like Nacho Libre would...."You don't think I know like a butt load about the gospel, but I do".  In all seriousness, though, if we want to learn wisdom and walk in truth, we will need to continually humble ourselves and try to tune into what God is teaching us through his Spirit.  This quote from Sister Linda K. Burton sums it up nicely....

"The Holy Ghost can do for us physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and intellectually what no man-made remedy can begin to duplicate."

Thanks for reading! Comment, share, or like.... :) 

I Want to Move to the Mountains.

     I want to move to the mountains.  Why not?  Move to the mountains, get out of cell phone service, away from traffic, away from the craziness that has become our modern western life, be alone with the trees.  Sounds good to me.

     The start of a college semester is always a stressful period of time for me, but for some reason, this time around, I have felt so impressed that so much of the stress I feel is unnecessary stress.  Man-made stress.  I have been looking around me in my classes to see a sea of worried, stressed out faces, watching people walk across campus with their eyes glued to their phones (only when mine aren't glued to mine), talking to people who seem to take pride in the business and craziness that is their life, and I have been wishing to scream, "PLEASE JUST STOP!  SLOW DOWN!" to the entire country.  The chorus of Jack Johnson's "Inaudible Melodies" has been running through my mind on repeat....

Slow down everyone you're moving too fast,
Frames can't catch you when you're moving like that.  

     Today in one of my classes, a girl told me that she is taking 19 credits and working 40 hours a week.   She looked at me with an expecting expression...I could tell she was used to people being impressed by that.  Of course, in a way, I was totally impressed...mostly because I know that I couldn't do that without having a mental break down...but it also made me kind of sad.  How does she have time for anything that really matters?  Work and school are vital, I know, but what about people?  What about spending time meditating on things that matter?  Having a conversation with God that isn't rushed?  Sitting down for dinner with people you love? Going for darn a walk?  I would bet she doesn't even have time to evaluate her life and how she's doing things, she only has time to go, go, go.  Is this the only kind of living we admire?  The only sense of accomplishment we value?  Running ourselves ragged doing a million meaningless things?  I just don't want to live like that.

     Generally, we are all expected to grow up and work a minimum of forty hour work weeks (a culturally established expectation), raise kids, participate in extra curricular activities, and be active members of our community.  To some level, if we want to have a positive impact on the world, we do need to be part of it.  But I just don't think we all need to be taking 19 credit hours and working 40 hours a week.  I just don't think it has to be like that.  In Europe, I've heard, they only work like six months out of the year, or something like that.  I'm not sure if that's true, but I at least know that in many places in Europe, they take a break for nap time in the afternoon.  The way we generally do life here is not the only possible way to do life.  A lot of what we do and what we expect out of ourselves come from culturally established expectations...not necessarily what is right and wrong.

     At some point, if we want to live deliberately and not just passively (by passively I mean that we are allowing the structure of our culture to make our decisions for us), we are going to have to sit down and decide what really matters to us, in spite of what the people around us are doing.  We need to go back to basics and decide which things are non-compromise-able.  To start, we might ask ourselves, what does my soul need in order to thrive?  What do my relationships need in order to thrive?  Some things that come to mind for me are family time, time with friends, family dinner, scripture study, prayer, temple attendance, time to relax, time to be in nature, etc.  In my opinion, if we are succeeding in our non-compromise-ables, we have already gained success....all of the other fluff that our modern busy lives demand of us aren't essential, it's just fluff.

     None of us are perfect.  All of us are learning. In yoga, I like to emphasize the fact that this is a practice...and practices leave room for falling over.  In my mind, so does life.  Life is a practice which we must perform with an eye of faith, believing that tomorrow we will be better than we are today.  We don't need to place the pressure of perfection on our shoulders....only a constant desire for gradual improvement is necessary.  I'm not suggesting that all of us quit our jobs, drop out of school, and move to the mountains.  I believe that we can find a balance between slowing down and living productive, successful lives.  I just hope we can be a little more patient with ourselves, refocus, and find ways to slow down, even if only for a moment.  Maybe a trip to the mountains wouldn't be so bad, either.

Thanks for reading! :)

Namaste,

Kristy
   

I love Gay People: My Thoughts on Same Gender Attraction

Same gender attraction has become such a divisive issue in the last few years. It has become a topic that people love to argue about. I have watched this go on mostly silently because it seemed like there were only two sides to pick from, and both sides seem to be running to opposite ends of the room and throwing rocks at each other. This has made me so sad...it has stirred so many strong emotions inside of me, but I don't want to throw any rocks.

I'm active LDS, and I believe that marriage between a man and a woman is the best and happiest way (in the long run) that anyone could live. But I want to say something else....and I've wanted to say this for a while. I also love gay people.

Ever since I was a young girl I have had a tender place in my heart for people who are gay. Probably because I know what it's like to have experiences that feel dark and that make you feel alone, like you're the only one who could ever understand you.

It seemed so ironic to me that the hashtag #lovewins was all over the Internet the day the Supreme Court made gay marriage legal. Instead of love, it seemed like all I saw on my Fbook feed was so much anger and hate being thrown around from both parties.

As a human family, there are such a vast variety of opinions, philosophies, and religions among us. If we are going to coexist peacefully, we need more tolerance and love among ourselves.  Tolerance doesn't mean that we believe that everybody is right, but tolerance does mean we allow people to live how they will (for or against our own opinions) and allow our hearts to be at peace with them.

My heart aches for people who suffer silently with things because they're so afraid of what others would think of them if they told. I love this website that the church created to try to create a stronger bridge between the gay community and the LDS church. As members of the human family, we need each other. Jesus taught us to love one another.

To anyone struggling silently with anything that they're afraid to share, I just want to say that I'm sending my love your way, and I hope you can find someone safe to share it with. The healing process always starts with honest conversations. #loveoneanother

Sincerely, 

Kristy 

Spiritual Parallels to the Physical World

I originally posted this as a Facebook status...but I realized a blog post version is more appropriate, since it is so long! Just some thoughts...

Physical laws of nature reflect spiritual laws...constant and unchanging.  In the Book of Mormon it says that we are "less than the dust of the earth", because the rocks obey God's will, but we don't. As I studied biology again last summer, I was struck by the order and laws that all the particles of matter seem to follow...it seemed apparent to me that these particles obey the laws of nature...or the laws of God. 

God is God because he follows these laws. We cannot live with Him and become like Him unless, step by step, we begin to conform our lives to His will, to His laws. He cannot change the fact that disobeying Him literally causes our souls to diminish....because His laws cannot change. He wants us to have everlasting life and light, and the only way to do this is to conform to spiritual laws, just as the particles conform to physical laws. 

Jesus Christ is the "life and light of the world". Just like the physical sun allows for photosynthesis, and photosynthesis is at the base of the earths ecosystem, Christ's spiritual light is at the base of our spiritual life, whether or not we acknowledge it. Keep in mind that photosynthesis was going on long before people understood it.

I love that "all things denote there is a God" (Alma 30), and I believe that through Christ, I can walk the path that leads me back to Him, and into life and love that is eternal. I am so grateful for the bible, the Book of Mormon, and words of the living prophets which allow me to come to understand these laws. Prophets are like leading scientists of the spiritual world, and the Spirit of God is our tutor. Walking the path of discipleship may seem daunting at times, but we do not walk alone. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ guide us and enable us with love and mercy as we learn to obey their laws. 

Here is the article that inspired this post:

http://www.everystudent.com/wires/organized.html

Thanks for reading!

Kristy

We Don't Have to Be Stressed

     It's been much too long since I last blogged.  I started writing in my journal just barely and the first line goes like this......"OHMYGOSHLIFEISSOGOODANDSOSTRESSFUL".  Not sure why I decided to not add spaces...maybe it's another symptom of the mind craziness that's being caused by the whirlwind that is my life right now.  But yeah.  Life is so good and so stressful is pretty much how I feel right now.
     I seriously cannot believe all of the ways that Heavenly Father has been blessing me lately.  I'm sitting on the floor of my room right now (which, by the way, is the stinking CUTEST since my roomie and I redecorated!), thinking about all of my blessings.   I got four new roomies a couple of weeks ago....and they are amazing!  Every one of them is an angel from heaven, not to mention I get to spend another year sleeping in the bed next to my sweet friend Alexis Burgin (pronounce BURR-GIN, not BURR-JIN like I've been saying for the last year).  Also, I am finally, finally, enrolled in a major that sets me on fire, after five years of trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.  I want to be a junior high health teacher (if you didn't think I was crazy yet, you most likely think I'm crazy now). But really. I want to educate young teenagers about healthy relationships, nutrition, exercise, social skills, mental health, and all of it.  I can't wait for that.  Another awesome thing is that I have been asked to serve as the first counselor in my Relief Society presidency this year.  This came as an answer to prayers...I had been feeling like I needed more service opportunity in my life, and Heavenly Father came through on that, just like He always does.  I know that when we have desires to serve we are called to the work.  The women that I am serving with in the presidency are walking angels.  I count myself blessed to be among them and to learn from their goodness.
    So those are just a handful of the reasons why life is so good....and I am guessing you guys probably don't want to hear about why life is stressful.  Every time I find myself talking about all the things I have to do and have going in my life right now, I remember that almost every one of my peers is just about as busy if not busier than I am.  I don't know how everyone does it.  This balancing college/work/church/dating/social life thing is no piece of pie.  I will spare you most of what I would say if I were to go on a rant right now.  I'll just tell you that I'm transitioning from my job at doTERRA to a new job with International Language Programs (another amazing blessing!!), and trying to manage 17 credits.  Sounds busy enough if I stop there, so I will.
     I didn't write this blog post to complain.  I actually am feeling really grateful.  And I guess my thoughts today have been caught on trusting Heavenly Father.  Yesterday I let myself get really worked up about a big schedule conflict I had with work and school, and before it even got resolved I had the thought...how many times in my past have I been absolutely freaking out about something, only to see that it all worked out in the end just fine?  So. Many. Times.  The reason things always work out is Heavenly Father.  No matter how much I try to micro-manage and control my life so that it can go just "perfectly", the secret (which really is no secret) that I often forget is that Heavenly Father is the mastermind behind how my life is going and how it will go in the future.  He coordinates how He needs things to go as long as I am doing my best to live the gospel with a sincere heart.  If I am doing that, my life turning out the way it needs to has nothing to do with my micro-managing and writing every single detail down in my planner (my best friends will tell you that I am pretty much obsessed with that thing), and everything to do with the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ in my life.  His healing power, His guiding power, His enabling power.
     So basically, if we are living righteously, all things work together for our good.  Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose".  I'm so grateful that scripture doesn't say "All things work together for the good of them who plan their lives perfectly, who always know who they want to be or what they want to do, who never forget anything or are late to any appointments, who go to bed early and get up early and exercise for an hour every day and eat only vegetables and are never upset or angry and are essentially perfect".  I am so grateful that this is not what it says.  It says that if we love God things work out for us.  And that is precisely what I am trying to believe.
     Until I get really good at believing this, I'm going to have to keep practicing.  Occasionally I choose mantras that I repeat to myself in the mirror or during meditation in yoga class.  Maybe right now my personal mantra should be..."Deep breaths, Kristy, just love God, trust God, and believe that everything is going to work out".  Everything is going to work out. And with that, I'm out! Thanks for reading :).

"Carry on.  Things will work out.  If you keep trying and praying and working, things will work out.  They always do." -President Gordon B. Hinckley (former LDS prophet)


Also, this.



And last but not least....



#yogababies #chubbybabyanimalsdoingyoga #yourwelcome

The Best News I Have Ever Received

Have you ever felt really excited about something new....like a self-help book, or a business opportunity, or a new exercise regimen, and felt like, "Man, this is going to change my life in a big way, this feels too good to be true."?  I have had a lot of experiences like that, and half the time the thing I'm learning about doesn't turn out to be quite what I expected it to be. Half the time it is not quite so life-changing as they had promised it would be.

If you take the time to learn about Jesus Christ, it may feel like it's too good to be true. You may feel like you could see that kind of power and forgiveness and mercy being applied to anyone else's life, except your own.  No way was one person ever that good, no way can one person save you from all that is bad and hard about your life. No way.

I testify that the best news I have ever received in my life is that the story of Jesus Christ as Savior of the world IS true.  He can make your peace flow like a river, He can help you change, He can improve your health and your relationships and your finances and He will always love you, no matter how far you think you've strayed.  He's not too good to be true. He is truth.  I love my Savior and I'm so grateful for this season of peace when all of the world seems to take a moment and remember Him.  Merry Christmas everyone!

Chair Yoga and Hope for the Hopeless Soul

Today I started yoga teacher training at Lifted Life Yoga.  I cannot tell you how exciting it is for me to say that.  For the last year I have looked in to many different programs and practiced at a few different studios trying to figure out the best fit for me, and I finally found and committed to a program that feels good.  Not surprisingly, I've already started learning things....and also not surprising is the fact that the things I am learning go far beyond the physical asanas(poses).  For example, today we talked about chair yoga, and during the conversation I also learned about hope.

Let me start off by explaining a little bit about chair yoga.  Ideally, yoga is to be done on your feet (or on your hands, or on your head), but not typically in a chair.  However, some people (often injured or elderly people) are incapable of doing yoga in this way, and so chair yoga is a fantastic alternative to what can be a very physically demanding exercise.  As Debbie (my teacher) was teaching us about chair yoga, I was so inspired.  She talked about people gaining mobility in their shoulders, strength in their arms, and flexibility in their bodies.  She talked about people who had never engaged their muscles before learning to engage their muscles and move their bodies in a powerful way.  She talked about people losing weight and gaining hope, and as she talked about these people, I saw myself in them.  You see, I came to yoga training this morning feeling injured.  Physically, I was doing fine, but today I was in a very anxious and unsteady place when it came to my mentality.  The reason for this is that I have this weakness called Being Overly Guilty.  When I make mistakes, whether big or small, I often have a hard time accepting that I made a mistake without letting it completely alter my self concept and drown me in a sea of self-doubt.  That is the same kind of thought process that I was fighting this morning when I drug myself out of bed, pulled up my hair, and drove to the studio.  My negative feelings towards myself were so overwhelming that at one point I found myself feeling a little light-headed with anxiety.  But then, amid the fogginess of my self-criticisms, Debbie's words seemed to wake me up and remind me of a principle which I have been taught over and over again, and which I am still learning...and that principle is hope.  You see, when she talked about those elderly and injured people doing chair yoga, and how they learned to move from where they were at, I realized that if there is physical hope for their less-than perfect bodies, perhaps their is spiritual hope for me.  Perhaps my injured, weary, and oh so imperfect soul can learn to move from where it's at.  Maybe I can reach and stretch and grow and learn, too.  Maybe there is hope for me, too.

Another thing that really helped me today was an exercise we did in the beginning of class where Debbie had us close our eyes and just breath.  As we started to focus our attention inward, she had us picture someone we love and send them love energetically.  Next she had us think of one thing we love about ourselves and focus on that and nothing else for a minute.  I saw my eyes and the way that I look at people that I love.  I love that about myself.  As I sat there and just loved myself for a minute, my anxiety melted away.  This exercise seems so simple but it completely turned around the way I had been feeling.  I had been so focused on all of the negatives that I was completely forgetting about all of the good and beautiful in me and in my life.  There is so so much that is good, that is beautiful, and that is going right about each of us and in each of our lives.  I hope we can all learn to focus on that a little more and on all of the negatives a little less.  I really believe that when we operate from a place of hatred or frustration...whether for ourselves or someone else, it is very hard to make real progress.  So this switch in my mindset was essential for me to be able to move forward with hope.  Hey, all of those weaknesses that concerned me this morning are still there, but if people can strengthen their old and crippled bodies doing yoga in a chair, perhaps I can grow from where I sit as well.

Namaste,

Kristy