Fear of Missing Out or FOMO is the buzzword of the day. Advertisers, News Organizations, and Social Media Providers are driven to use this method of connection to keep people tuned in and buying whatever they’re selling. According to an article in the World Journal of Clinical Cases written by Mayanke Gupta and Aditya Sharma, this can be a dangerous phenomenon which “is considered as a type of problematic attachment to social media, and is associated with a range of negative life experiences and feelings, such as a lack of sleep, reduced life competency, emotional tension, negative effects on physical well-being, anxiety and a lack of emotional control; with intimate connections possibly being seen as a way to counter social rejection.” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8283615/) All of this sounds pretty scary, and it can be really a problem when we look at it from the perspective that if we are not tuning in, trying out, or acting in a proscribed way, we will miss the fun and adventure that life holds for us. I have found myself caught in the web of FOMO from time to time. Lately all the models in the clothing advertisements that I like have a certain look. They are thin, with long, flowing, blond hair, curled ever-so enticingly as they sport their sweaters, striped shirts, or torn jeans. They wear the best hats. (This is what has caught me; I’ve been on the search for the best hat, but I haven’t found what I’m looking for. Oh No! I might miss this look before it’s gone). As I have lost the weight and am now of a size to wear basically most anything I like, it’s hard not to want all the clothes, shoes, and accessories to play up my success in my new body image. But is this really the joy I’m looking for, or is it simply a momentary pleasure?

Elior Moskowitz, a writer who posts often on the site, MeQuilibruim, said something once that really resonated with me. She said, “Self-Compassion doesn’t always mean cutting yourself slack. It means making decisions in the short term that will serve you in the long term.” The problem with the way FOMO is used by the world is that it is only a short term fix and not a solution to the long term problems of feeling competent, being able to sleep without interruption, emotional tension, anxiety, or lack of emotional control. No, if we follow the world, we will always be one click, one purchase, one minute of information away from true happiness or what I would call JOY. So how do we discover how to find true joy in a world that wants instant gratification? Last week. President Russell M. Nelson, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints flipped this term in my brain and made me think of it in a better light. He said that we shouldn’t let worldly identifiers rob us or take priority over the most important designations of being “a child of God, a child of the covenant, and a disciple of Jesus Christ.” Even if you don’t subscribe to LDS philosophy, knowing who you truly are, and what you are truly worth can help you focus on what you want most, so that your FOMO can be used in developing into the best version of yourself rather than just settling for the world’s false image of what we should want to be. He focused on the potential of who we could BE, or what our individual potential could really look like. For me, in the past year, I have been doing just that. I have been chasing things like health, a peaceful mind, and good habits that serve me in the long term. I’ve been rediscovering a relationship with good food that is more satisfying that a snickers bar. I’ve been seeing the peace that comes from walking without headphones in nature to hear the birds sing and the wind blow. I’ve been taking the time to check in with myself more, rather than check my Facebook feeds. And I feel more joy in this kind of a life; a joy that I definitely do not want to miss out on.

We should fear missing out on some things; just generally not what the advertising, political, or social media campaigns tell us. There are some experiences in life that are vital to our well-being, and when we can shift our gaze away from the world and towards something better, our lives will be better, not worse. We can move towards goals that really mean something more than just owning the newest hat, or watching the latest drama unfold online. And that will lead to real satisfaction and more JOY. I’m all for that!

Making Health Your Habit

For the last year I have been acquiring healthy habits. According to psychology, a habit is a behavior that is triggered by an event that has become so ingrained it becomes second nature to you. Some of the habits I’ve gained have been drinking water first thing in the morning, eating every 3 hours, going on my daily walk, breathing deeply when I’m stressed out, and looking for the positive in negative situations. These behaviors didn’t start out naturally; I developed them and did them over and over until they have become part of my nature.

Over the years I have developed bad habits too. I used to grab for food whenever I was tired, angry, sad, frustrated, or in the near vicinity of said chocolate. I used to be very reactionary, letting my emotions take over when I felt threatened. I used to assume that people were judging me whether they were or not. It takes time to break bad habits, time and awareness. It also takes making new habits to replace the old ones.

So, it takes about 2 months for a habit to become automatic. That means that if you are truly trying to form a new habit, and intentional habit that will help you live a better life, you must stick with it for at least 2 months. That means if you mess it up one day, you try again the next day until it becomes a consistent thing. Any good habit will take some time and effort to acquire but it is possible!!! Here is the scary part: breaking a bad habit takes anywhere from 25 to 254 days. For most people it takes at least 66 days, and the trouble is, you can’t just do it by will power. In an article on Insider (https://www.insider.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-break-a-habit) there are some good tips to help you break habits, such as altering your environment, finding an accountability partner, trading undesired habits for something better, and giving yourself rewards.

Over the last year, I have traded bad habits for good ones. One of the first things I did was learn to drink water. So much water. But drinking water is a key factor in weight loss. I’m sorry if this offends you but you literally pee away your fat. Imagine that! So instead of reaching for chocolate, I would drink another bottle of water. Now it is my go-to thing. Am I tired? Water. Am I anxious? Water. Bored? Maybe I’m thirsty. Changing my environment was also a key in changing my behavior. I used to buy those bottles of Dove Chocolate at Sam’s Club … y’know, the ones with milk, dark, and some combo of white and dark chocolate in it? So I would take out all the milk and dark and white chocolates and let my family eat them. The dark chocolate was for ME. I kept the bottle in my closet. When I started my plan, I kept that bottle, figuring that at some point, I would be off the plan and I would reward myself with chocolate. It took a lot of thought work for me to realize that keeping the chocolate was not going to work for me. There is a phrase in the scriptures that goes something like “they returned to their sin like a dog to it’s vomit.” It’s a pretty graphic phrase, but I realize that I would do exactly that if I kept the idea that it was okay for me to go to chocolate for anything other than starvation. Chocolate had become my golden calf.

Dr. Wayne Scott Anderson has said, “When we talk about what we want, it is usually tied to a pleasure principle rather than lasting satisfaction. We confuse the things that bring us immediate pleasure with the things that lead to lasting fulfillment. Most of the things that create pleasure are only present when we are doing them. … Satisfaction-- rather than pleasure—occurs when you create, do, or bring things into your life that have a lasting effect or value.” This really hit home to me. Eating a piece of dark chocolate, while enjoyable in the moment only lasts a moment. I wanted to develop habits that would lead to satisfaction rather than pleasure. So I threw out the chocolate. It was hard, and I had my son come and get the bag immediately so I couldn’t dig it back out, but since then I haven’t looked back.

So what do you want? I chose habits that bring me satisfaction, and let me tell you, my improved health, my lower AIC (I’m almost normal now) my knees and hips and feet that no longer give me lots of pain and satisfying to me. My ability to run up and down my stairs, that’s satisfaction as well. And looking in the mirror without grimacing… That’s just pure joy.

The Joy of Repentance

In the LDS Bible Dictionary the definition for Repentance states: “The Greek word of which this is the translation denotes a change of mind, a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world. Since we are born into conditions of mortality, repentance comes to mean a turning of the heart and will to God, and a renunciation of sin to which we are naturally inclined.”

Sometimes we are inclined to view repentance as a bad word. Nobody likes to admit that they are ‘wrong’ about things. But I like the idea that if we change our thoughts about what repentance is, we can actually see that it is one of the most empowering things we can do in our lives. We are literally choosing to believe that we can change our very nature, with the help of the Lord. Last year, I found myself in a very dark place, a place I didn’t want to stay in. I was heavy (248 pounds) and I was in pain with plantar fasciitis in both feet and bursitis in my hips. I also developed Type 2 diabetes a few years previously, which I had been controlling pretty well with exercise and medication until Covid hit. Sometimes things happen in just such a way that you are in a place where you are more open to change.

I had developed the habit of emotional eating young. I am a good cook, and I like food, so I would eat when I was tired, I would eat when I was in pain, I would eat when I felt frustration, and I would eat when people would bring me food. I was the girl who couldn’t say no. My father passed away when I was a girl, and through a series of events, I had been physically, emotionally, and sexually abused when I was young. I am not going to go into details, but, needless to say, this left me with depression, and anxiety disorder, and PTSD. Not very many people knew any of this about me to look at me. I have always had a sunny disposition and I was the queen of positive talk. For most of my married life I have been heavy, but I was a highly functioning person who led church functions, was PTA president, could teach and speak in church and other crowds and seemed to be doing just fine, thank you very much. I was really good at hiding it.

My body wasn’t that good at hiding it though. You could tell when I was going through bouts of depression by how big I got. Even though I don’t have proof of it, I’m pretty sure at one point I weighed over 300 pounds. I had even been to therapy, and just before my therapist died… (yes, she died), I was in a good place, having just been diagnosed with the diabetes, losing weight and doing much better.

But life doesn’t wait for you to finish therapy sometimes, and there is always the possibility to be thrown for another loop. There were difficult church assignments, problems in my family, and then deciding to remodel and move during a major pandemic, where I did much of the painting, sorting, packing and organizing for our move on my own, I was in a mess. Fast forward to Last Year, right about this time. I have a friend who had lost weight on this program, and she was now telling everyone that she was a health coach, and she could help. Something powerful nudged me to contact her, and as she detailed the program, it was acceptable to me. You have to understand, I have done WW, I have done my own diabetes diet, I have gone to the gym and had a personal trainer, I had walked 600 miles in one year and I had taken nutrition so I wouldn’t do one of those fad diets that are so dangerous. It had some drawbacks: the cost was a little more than I really wanted to pay, but I figured that it would motivate me to stay on plan. I wasn’t sure this was going to work for me. I would do a plan and plateau and then drop out. I could never seem to break the 200-pound mark. But I figured, since it was a month-to-month commitment and not something that hard to get out of I would give it a try.

That same weekend, my church, (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) had their bi-annual General Conference, a weekend of inspiring talks by our leaders. Our Prophet at this time, Russell M. Nelson, is not only a religious leader, but he was a world-renowned heart surgeon. They said, when he got put in as an apostle for our church, that before he fixed hearts physically, but now he fixes hearts spiritually. Well, he really does this more me, and that weekend, he gave me the biggest motivation and encouragement he could. He taught me how to use my faith to do what I should and change my heart, change my mind, and, as a side-benefit, change my body. Here is something he said about using faith to “move the mountains of misery in your life.” “Everything good in life—every potential blessing of eternal significance—begins with faith. Allowing God to prevail in our lives begins with faith that He is willing to guide us. True repentance begins with faith that Jesus Christ has the power to cleanse, heal, and strengthen us …It is our faith that unlocks the power of God in our lives.” He also said: “The Lord does not require perfect faith for us to have access to His perfect power. But He does ask us to believe.”

I remember listening to him breathlessly. He seemed to be speaking just to me, in my unique circumstances. I could repent of behavior that it had taken an lifetime to build in myself. I could become new. This was the final, hopeful, wonderful idea that spurred me on to take the challenge: “Your growing faith in Him will move mountains—not the mountains of rock that beautify the earth but the mountains of misery in your lives. Your flourishing faith will help you turn challenges into unparalleled growth and opportunity.” So here I sit, one year later, and 110 pounds lighter. But not only that, I have learned to turn to the Savior when I am sad, tired, lonely or frustrated rather than to food. I take comfort in Him and have set aside that which does not serve me. The trick is to keep on this path for the rest of my days.

What about you? Is there something you need to change in your life? I challenge you not to be afraid of it, but to face it with faith. The Lord will be there to help you if you have the will to choose and to ACT on your choice. What have you got to lose?

Have you ever been in a place where you knew you needed to move, but you weren’t sure how to get to that place where you wanted to be? Have you ever felt stuck in limbo as you just wander though trying stuff that didn’t work and giving up and trying again and again? If so, you and I are very much alike. For the last 34 years, since I have been married, and even probably before, I have struggled with my weight. You could say that I have a fat gene, that it is genetics that have failed me. You could say that I lacked will power, or that I didn’t follow through enough. All of that may or may not be true, but those thoughts did not help me change what needed changing the most. My mindset.

And let me tell you, I’ve tried it all. I have done Weight Watchers (now known just as WW) sometimes successfully since I was 18 off and on. I have lost a ton of weight only to gain it back again. At one point I was about 13 pounds away from goal, and then I got pregnant with twins, miscarried one, got depressed… well you know what happened from there. I was FAT. I am an emotional eater… or I was. Sure, I could blame my anxiety disorder, the rough childhood, the different types of abuse that I have suffered (not from my mother, let’s get that out there right now). You could even blame my love of cooking and baking (and sampling). But in the end, what I needed was to change the way I thought of myself, of food, and of how to get help and comfort.

Listen, I’ve spent years and money on counseling. I spent one year where I went to the gym RELIGIOUSLY, worked with a trainer (btw you don’t’ really lose weight just by exercising), I walked 600 mines one year (even more than that, but that was the goal). In 2013 I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, and I even lost 60 pounds from the fear that they would have me shoot myself up with insulin if I didn’t get it under control. I took gym classes, nutrition classes, read books, tried new things but none of them worked for me. So what finally worked?

It's a simple formula, really. You get the weight off by a controlled eating plan, during which time you work on your mindset. This was the powerful part for me. I can tell you more about it if you want to know, but I’m not here to talk about the diet portion of this process, but of the change of mindset. I had to find a different way to comfort myself, rather than eat food. I had to find a different way to stay awake when I’m sleepy, other than food. I had to find another thing to bring me joy, other than chocolate. Since being on plan, I’ve obviously lost weight and inches, but I’ve also lost the compulsion to put things in my mouth whenever I was bored, lonely, or walking through the kitchen. I have focused on who and what I really want to be and kept that laser focus during this process. And now that I have reached one leg of the promised land, I’m off to the other. Did you know that 90% of people who lose a significant amount of weight just gain it back? Usually, 2-3 years later? I don’t want to add to that statistic. One of the main reasons I picked this program is that it has a program to keep the weight off.

So, are you curious about the program yet? Send me a message and I will answer your questions.

Transitions

My husband and I are facing transitions coming up in our relationship. For 28 (almost 29) years we have seen ourselves as parents of a large family, but they are about to be launched and sometime in the next 5 years we might be back down to the two of us. To be fair, it has never been just the two of us; my step-son was 4 when we got married so I got the instant family that I had not planned on when I was a girl. Now, with the youngest of 6 about to turn 17 and looking forward to her graduation in a year and a half, we have to find ourselves in a totally different situation than we’re used to. Change can be scary. Will we like the people our children marry? Will they be able to have children? Will they be able to afford children? What will their expectations be for us? Will their in-laws want to change our traditions because they don’t fit in with ours? These and many more questions plague me. Even more serious are questions like: Have I raised them right? Do they get what we were trying to instill in them? Will they stay faithful to the church? Will they stay faithful to each other? Did we do enough? Did we do too much? Some of the answers will just have to wait for their launchings. Change can be different. I like to kid about the kind of food we will eat when we don’t have picky children to feed. I talk about shopping at the healthier and sometimes more expensive stores when they’re gone. I wonder about how we will decide what we want to eat when it’s just the hubby and I. We mostly agree, but we have a hard time sometimes even just picking a restaurant. And then there’s the thought of chores. We will not be able to blame any messes on the children that don’t live here unless, like the grandchildren we already have, they are here a lot and the messes remain. Still questions persist. Will I be lonely without my children around me? Will I feel free? Change can be good. I now share my craft room with the son that I thought would be gone on a mission at this time. He didn’t go. Now he sleeps here and I wait for him to wake up so I can study and work. The hubby and I have discussed big plans for this extra master that I use as my “craft room” (read “crap room” and about how we will get rid of the big bed we’ve kept here for visitors (one of the reasons why this son like sleeping here) and we will get a pull out couch and make this room better. We are also in the process of remodeling one step at a time. We’ve just finished new sheds and are looking to do the kitchen in the next couple of years. We have big plans of what to do with the master bedroom, which includes the idea of knocking down the wall between our room and our daughter’s room when she no longer lives there. Will we be haunted by her childish laughter? Will we look for the boys around corners? Will I ever feel comfortable coming into this room early in the morning instead of waiting for the sleeping boy to emerge? One thing I know. Even if we change our minds about staying here and fixing everything up, even if we end up going back to Utah because all the kids have left the state of Arizona, even if nothing turns out like we plan, one thing we have. For me home is where my hubby is. And I think home for him is where I am as well. He is the love of my life. One of the readings for the marriage class this week talked about how the person you’re married to when you hit 65 is not the same person you married in your twenties. It’s like a renewal every year you are together, with the pain, and the growth and the changes; if you’re lucky and careful, you will choose that person again and again. Forever.

If Ye Are Not One

When I was young I did a lot of babysitting. A LOT. I was in and out of many different types of homes with many different types of children. I think one of the best lessons I learned from this experience came from my step-uncle and his wife. They ended up having 8 kids, I think, but I babysat for them when they had 6. They were busy, active, and sometimes rebellious. On one occasion, their parents said that the oldest boys could go to a friend’s house up the street from them. They gave me instructions on when they should come home and left for their outing. Those rotten boys decided to stay way past their time. I was kind of in a bind, stuck home with a smaller baby and the younger kids who I could not leave. When the boys did finally come home, they had taken off their shoes and socks and filled their socks with mud. Noisily and rebelliously, they entered the house and I told them to go straight to the bathroom and have a bath (they were filthy, as you can imagine.) They wanted to play and splash each other and they got mud everywhere. I was doing the best I could to get them to clean up themselves and the bathroom when their parents returned. I was terrified that I would be blamed and I felt like a complete failure that night. However, my step-uncle and his wife were kindly understanding of my predicament. They came in and took charge. What struck me was the way they handled their wayward boys. They were calm and direct. They didn’t speak over each other. It was like they had predetermined what they would do and they didn’t have to think about it. The situation was handled perfectly, the boys were told they were no longer able to go play with the neighbors when they were being babysat, and they paid me and took me home. I determined then and there I wanted that kind of relationship. Fast forward to our life today. I have learned many life lessons since I was a young babysitter, but I still strive with my husband to have a unified front to the world. Sometimes this is easier said than done. We had one experience that really taught us, at least in a situation with our children, how such unity is accomplished. We had a wayward teenaged daughter who was very difficult to manage. She was angry all the time. She would tell people outrageous stories and lies. When we would confront her with them, she would just get angrier and more rebellious. The more we argued, the less we could deal with the situation. At the time, she was doing some therapy with a counselor, and the counselor would call me in periodically to talk about her and the situation. On one such occasion, she asked how things were going at home. I explained how rough it was, and she gave me so great advice. She said that when my husband and I got angry with her and argued with her, it wasn’t working, which was obvious. She counseled me to talk to my husband and take a step back from the situation when we discovered another mistake that our daughter was making. She said we should pray about it, and that we were not to confront her until the Spirit told us what to do. This totally turned things around and helped us until the time when we discovered the cause of our daughter’s behavior. I think my uncle and aunt must have worked out ahead of time, that when their rowdy, unruly kids got in trouble, they would not argue with them or cause contention. They were a united front. In marriages, there is often a power struggle. Sometimes you want your spouse to do things your way; sometimes they want you to see their side. I think that in an egalitarian relationship, where spouses are equal partners, you need to have the Spirit always by your side to show you how to be united. When you seek the Lord’s will, you will be more concerned with what’s right rather than who’s right. This is the model for all relationships. Elder M. Russell Ballard has a book that talks in detail about how to achieve this in your ward responsibilities, in your family, and in your marriage. It is called, “Counseling in Your Councils.” I highly recommend it.

I Give to You and You Give to Me

One of the trickiest subjects about marriage to deal with is that one that is only three letters long. S-E-X. One of the articles we were asked to read, (you can read it here: http://www.familylifeeducation.org/gilliland/procgroup/Stewardship.htm ) had a very good opening. Sean F. Brotherson told a very personal story about how, when he was about to get married, he and his bride had prepared themselves by talking about finances, future children, education plans, personality styles, but they hadn’t gone near the subject of sex. In the Latter-day Saint culture, there is some reticence about talking about this oh-so-important subject. I think back about my own sexual education before I got married, and I was probably more informed than some due to my voracious reading habit and my mother giving me the Stephen King book, “Carrie,” because she wanted me to know what it really meant to be picked on. I think I was about 13 at the time. I don’t know if she even realized that there was actually some valid information about sex in that book that I catalogued and remembered later in my life.

One of the things that Dr. Brotherson (who has a PhD in Family Studies) said he did when he realized that he had a bunch of questions about sexuality was to go study it out. Wait! Is that even okay??? This is what he said, “Luckily, I accepted as true the scriptural admonition that we ought to “seek learning” on matters of ignorance “out of the best books” and that we ought to “teach one another words of wisdom” (see Doctrine and Covenants 88:118). Even about sexual intimacy? Let me answer that question affirmatively. Of course. God would not be very kind, in my opinion, if He were to create the means and the affection for married couples to express love to each other sexually, yet deny us the opportunity to gain the learning and wisdom we need to find fulfillment and mutual joy in this critical aspect of married life. So, I started reading books and asking questions.” I wish I had learned out of the best books about this most important subject, but at least I knew something. I was prepared for part of it. The problem is that we are pounded with opinions of sex from the media, from our professors (I had to take the “Human Sexuality” course at my community college and while there was a lot of good information in that class, it did seem to focus and fixate on what was beyond the norm more than the norm.) from our families and from church. In some ways I consider myself very lucky. I had an experienced partner. He had been married before and he knew what he was doing. But did that and does that make the road to sexual fulfillment in marriage easy? I don’t know if it’s meant to be easy. In fact, I think that the struggle is part of the learning how to become one. Men and women often have different sex drives. Men and women think about sex differently. Men and women in marriage are often on different parts of the same page. One of the trickiest times is when you have little children that are literally sucking the life out of the mother while the father is standing by, hoping for a crumb of affection or two in between feedings and changings and sleepiness. The media gives us such mixed messages about sex. It’s everything, everywhere, all the time, yet it means nothing. They portray it as a natural bodily function. They portray it without consequences. They abuse us with images that are not real and relationships that are not real and I wonder how many people have been hurt by believing the big lie. For me, in my marriage, it is about love, concern and respect. I know that my husband has needs. He knows that I have needs. I try to turn to him as often as possible. I think about him. He can comfort me like no one else. He knows me very well and I know him. I think touching is important in marriage. I think looking at your spouse with heaven’s lighting also helps. I remember one of my friends once kind of disparaging my husband because he is bald. I pitied her, because in my eyes he is beautiful. He loves and accepts me every whit and he makes me feel beautiful. That is what a good relationship will do for you. I give to him, he gives to me, we laugh together, we love together, we plan little outings to celebrate being in love, even after 29 years. We got engaged to be married 29 years ago. I thrilled at his touch then, and I still do today. Because I choose to. Because I choose him. Because I choose him.