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Browsing Tag: change

Children,Lessons Learned

I Hate Getting Up Early

posted on : February 16, 2019 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 2 Comments

I am not a morning person and I don’t like getting up early. My brain always feels foggy early in the morning, my bones feel stiff and my muscles rebel at having to work. Yet for over 30 years I have had to get up early to get kids ready for the day. I think I have complained the entire 30 years about it too. Recently I have noticed my 17 year old daughter (the one with Down Syndrome) saying the exact same thing I say, “I hate getting up early.” She says it frequently and bemoans the fact that she has to get up when the sky is still dark. Her words and her attitude echo mine but the funny thing is she really gets up easily early in the morning. She has learned to say those words and exhibit grumpy behavior because I do. Children are a great reflection of their parents words, actions and attitudes. They learn how to think and act about things from our behavior and sometimes that’s a good thing. Sometimes it’s not so good. Since hearing my daughter repeat not only my words but my tone of voice too, I have decided to not complain anymore (at least about getting up early). Now I have started focusing on the positive with her about getting out of a warm bed while its still dark outside. In my tired, fuzzy mornings I now say things like “aren’t we lucky that you get to go to a good school” or “you’re so lucky you get to ride the bus” because she absolutely loves to ride the bus. I still don’t like getting up early but focusing on the positive has been a good thing. There always is something positive to focus on because I live in a nice home that’s warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I have good food to eat and clean water to drink. Life is good and my words and attitude should reflect that. Hearing my daughter sound like me has also been a good thing. It helps me reshape my thinking and become aware of the things I say or do that maybe I need to change. Some things are easy to change while other things can be very difficult, but we do have help available. Keith Wilcox in the April 1985 General Conference said, “By seeking the Lord through prayer and through his holy scriptures, we learn to look for the beautiful and to develop positive attitudes.” God is in the details of our lives and will help us when we ask for His help, whether it’s something easy or something hard.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1985/04/look-for-the-beautiful?lang=eng

Faith,Life

The Reasons We Change

posted on : February 8, 2019 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 2 Comments

When I was 16 I started watching a soap opera called All My Children. It was really popular at my school and it was fun to be able to talk about it with my friends. It wasn’t long before I was really involved in the story line and the “lives” of the characters in the show. When I went away to college I scheduled my classes when it was possible so I could watch the show. There were TVs set up in the student center and several of us would gather and watch it almost daily. After I graduated and had a job I would usually go home for lunch and watch the show and I was glad the timing of the show fit in with my lunch schedule. I was heavily involved with the show even though in the back of my mind I knew some of the show’s content was inappropriate. I rationalized that some of the bedroom scenes were okay to watch because I really knew what was right and I would never do those things so it really didn’t matter. Sometimes I just didn’t think about it at all because I didn’t want to. Unfortunately it was really easy to fool myself into watching a show I knew was wrong.

After my first baby was born I was a stay at home mom so it was really easy to schedule my day around the show. When my daughter was about 8 months old I was watching the show one day when I had the thought come to me, “Do you really want that show in the background while she’s growing up.” I thought, “No, I don’t!” and I turned it off and never watched it again. What’s really interesting to me is that a show I had been heavily involved in and had watched for 14 years was suddenly unimportant to me when compared with my daughter and her welfare. I’m sure I had been prompted before to quit watching the show but had ignored the warnings. I have found in my life that often it takes the right motivation for me to make changes. In this case it was love for my daughter which was greater than a TV show.

I once read there are 3 main reasons for doing just about anything. The first is the fear of not doing it, of getting punished if we don’t do it. For example, getting bad grades because we didn’t do our homework, or disappointing people we care about. Gospel analogy would be loss of the Spirit, having people think badly of us or eventually going to Hell. The second would be for the reward we get for doing it. Keeping with the same example would be getting good grades, or getting a pay raise or promotion at work. It could also be receiving awards or public recognition. Gospel analogy would be for receiving blessings, having the Spirit with us, or feeling good about ourselves. Sometimes it is receiving the praise of others or being known as a good person. The last reason we do things is just for love of it. For me that was the case of loving my daughter more than the show. Sometimes people exercise just because they love it or go to work because they love what they do and the pay is secondary. People often quit smoking or start healthy habits because they love someone. In gospel terms it would be because we love God. We don’t keep the commandments out of fear or hope of reward but because we love God. This is obviously the higher law or reason but too often not why I do something. In the scriptures we are told to love God with “all of our hearts, might, mind and strength.” Usually the word heart is listed first because when we love God with all of our hearts everything else falls into place, our motivations are pure. As I try to love God with my whole heart and try to do things for the right reason my focus becomes clearer and I fear less. I am less worried about what others think. It seems like it should be something so easy to do. Yet it is so hard for me to do things for the right reason. Doing something because I love God and not because of the reward I get is something I am working on. This involves changing my heart and focus, and for me it will be the quest of a life time.

https://www.mormonchannel.org/blog/post/3-ways-to-develop-genuine-love-for-god

Church,Family

Change Is Good and So Is Family History

posted on : October 23, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

I have decided to do just one posting a week instead of two.  Sometimes I scramble to find something I think people will be interested in reading. Obviously I don’t know as much as I thought I did!  This will also free me up to work more on my family history which has taken a backseat to the blog since I started writing it a little over a year ago.  When I was younger family history seemed a mystery to me, and expensive.  I didn’t understand the process of finding information and knowing for sure it was the right information.  It was also expensive to send away for records and there was a lot of wait time.  My church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, places a lot of value and emphasis on family, both living and dead.  We believe that all need to hear about the gospel of Jesus Christ and that those who have died without the opportunity to hear about the gospel are taught it in the next world after they die.  Since they weren’t able to receive saving ordinances while they were alive we perform the ordinances for them as proxies. They have the choice to accept the teachings or not, but we do family history to find family members who need to have their work done giving them the opportunity.  While in the past it was difficult to do family history, now it’s very easy.  Almost everything is available online and I have yet to need to send away for a record.  Since my family is second generation members of my church there’s a lot to be found and I have found many people in which I can have their ordinance work done.  I can spend hours and hours doing it, which is interesting to me because I never thought I would like doing it.  Sometimes I find so much information that I have to force myself to pull away and go to bed or eat or do necessary tasks of life. One of the things I like about it is finding personal information about a relative.  The person becomes real to me and I feel connected to them, and it’s interesting to see patterns in families that are carried out in subsequent generations.  I have had many spiritual experiences with family history, sometimes feeling like I have been guided to find certain information which had been so elusive.  Recently I have been blessed to find information about my great-grandfather who came to this country from Bulgaria in 1913.  Bulgarian records are hard to come by and we now have information that dates back to 1730, but it’s all in Bulgarian which is Cyrillic writing!  Studying this information and trying to translate it will take a lot of time. Somehow I feel driven to do it and so now I will have more time by only posting once a week. So, change is good and so is family history.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2018/04/family-history-and-temple-work-sealing-and-healing?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/04/generations-linked-in-love?lang=eng

Lessons Learned,Life

The Snot On My Face

posted on : September 27, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

When one of my daughters was 2 I took her with me to go grocery shopping.  As I was putting her in the grocery cart seat she reached up and touched my face.  I didn’t think anything about that but just went on my way shopping, putting groceries in the cart and of course passing people in the aisles.  After about  30 minutes in the store I went to the checkout where they had mirrors for people to try on sunglasses.  It was at this point while looking in the mirror that I noticed a large piece of snot on my face.  Not just a little piece but a huge piece which my daughter had put on my face when she touched it.  I had gone through the whole store, passing people with a gigantic piece of snot very noticeably on my face.  Of course I was embarrassed and quickly wiped it off.  I wondered how many people had seen me this way while I was oblivious to its presence and I was very mortified. I have thought about this incident during the years and now laugh about it but I have also since wondered about what other obvious problems I have that others can see to which I am oblivious. What do others see that as I walk down the aisles of my life of which I am not aware? Sometimes I can be so unaware of myself, which is often merciful but not productive. Of course every so often I get glimpses in the mirror and see things that I am embarrassed about, things that I know I need to change, to improve upon (having children is a very good mirror!).  And in thinking about it, thank goodness for mirrors that allow me to see myself, the good and the bad.  Without mirrors there would be no growth, no change.  Without periodically really looking at myself I would not notice what I need to be doing differently.  So even though sometimes it can be embarrassing and hard to look in a mirror and see things I don’t like, I am also grateful that they exist for without them I would remain oblivious to the snot on my face.

Family,Lessons Learned

Subtle Learning

posted on : June 7, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

I have learned that there are many things that are taught in a family that both the parents and the children are unaware of that are being taught.  I grew up in Southern California away from extended family.  My mother had a brother, who lived with us, and a mother who we often didn’t know where she was and my mother didn’t know her father.  There was very little contact with extended family, no phone calls, no visits-they generally were not part of our lives.  The interesting thing is that my brothers and sister and I do not maintain contact with each other.  We love each other and when we’re together we have a great time but somehow it never occurs to us to call each other just to chat or to keep in touch or to invite someone over for dinner. My husband just shakes his head at me because he can’t comprehend not maintaining contact with loved ones.  He has weekly phone calls with his brothers and sisters and when his parents were alive he called them almost daily “just to check in.”  Fortunately, our children had their father’s example of staying in touch with his extended family, because they call and visit with each other daily.  It took me a long time to figure out why it never occurs to me to call my family, and it’s not that I don’t think about them and it’s not that I don’t love them.  It just never enters my thinking to call when I have news of something good or bad.  And since I rarely hear from my brothers or sister I am assuming that it doesn’t occur to them either.  It takes an event, like a wedding or a birthday or holiday for us to connect, just like it did when I was growing up, and I remember going to a relative’s house for Thanksgiving once.  And when we’re together it’s great and I love them and we always say we need to get together more and we mean it but then we go home to our subtle learning and don’t call each other.  Recognition is one of the first steps to change and maybe it’s time for me to change.