Self-Worth and Social Perceptions

Tonight in the college class I teach, we were discussing assessing early childhood students and why it is important that we assess children's emotional and social ability.  I shared with them a discussion with another educator about a child that struggled to interact with other children in a manner that is socially acceptable to the other children.  We discussed that it was important to help this child develop appropriate interaction skills so that they can build relationships with others that help to foster feelings of self.  When children are not able to socialize appropriately it often leads to negative self feeling so that children actually struggle even more socially, which leads to problems in school and at home. Children's rules about social acceptance are rigid.  We also discussed how it was essential for us to teach children to be accepting of differences and more flexible in their rules and how to interact with children unique personalities.

This led us into the discussion that as a people we are bound to social acceptance as part of our identity and feelings of self.  I once saw a magazine cover that showed anorexic women on the front and asked the question about what we are doing in society that is leading to girls starving themselves to be accepted.  However, in the corner of the magazine there was a blurb about a story on the inside about Mariah Carey being fat.  At that time in my life I was struggling with feelings of self.  I had recently lost a great deal of weight, which I had carried since childhood, and had dated several guys who said they loved my qualities enough to marry me but wouldn't since I didn't meet their standards of attractiveness enough.  This was really a major blow to my self esteem. Seeing this magazine showed me the hypocrisy of society and social rules and how I needed to re-evaluate where to focus my esteem.  Luckily, I have esteem in other areas of my life and decided to put my focus there.  

As we discussed some of these ideas, we thought about the areas that our self worth suffers the most tend to be places where we feel we are not meeting the ideals of what is socially acceptable.  However, as adults we need to sort through those feelings and start throwing out what isn't real, or shouldn't matter.  For example, although my size and shape is not the socially acceptable norm for attractive, I needed to define my own parameters around what I think is acceptable. I have spent time obsessing over my weight and calories and have had trouble dating because I doubt that I can be attractive to men, worried and felt bad about myself.  However, I haven't thought like that for some time, and have been focusing on my parameters of socially acceptable and have been much more satisfied with my life and where I am right now in my life. I exercise every day.  I eat healthier than I ever have.  I monitor caloric intake.  I am happier than I have ever been, I am emotionally and mentally stable.  I am strong and able, I am able to make and build healthy relationships.  I am passionate about the work that I do and the children I am able help.  I have meaningful talents and can  have important conversations.  I am optimistic and find that living a fulfilling and meaningful life important.  These new parameters has brought me satisfaction and joy about who I am and what I can offer society.

This is my challenge to you.  Define your own parameters for socially acceptable in your life, and then live it, love it and share it.  We are not children playing on a playground of rigid social rules.  We are adults, we know what creates true happiness in life.  Take some chances, be daring.  Dare to be you, Dare to believe in who are and what you have to offer.  Stop wasting time on "socially acceptable"  and focus on how you can create a socially happy, stable life.  Do you take my dare?  Rock it!

Faith, Hope and Charity Presentation

by Sara Anderson on Friday, October 28, 2011 at 9:59pm

As you can see there are many representations of flowers around this room.  Draw your favorite flower.

Now write the words that describe why this flower is your favorite…it may be something about the flowers attribute or a way it makes you feel or both!

Please share with me some of these words or descriptions, as I write them on the board. 

In one of Wallace Stegners books he wrote, “botanists tell us that the blossom is an evolution of the leaf-but they cannot say just why that particular bud should take from the same air and sunshine a fairer substance, a deeper color, a more permanent existence and become something at which each passerby pauses, and goes on his way happier for the sight.”               

I love flowers; they do make me so happy.  Look at the list of attributes on this board.

How many attributes do you share with flowers?  I think it is probably many of them.

Think of women at your table, in this room, in your life who share many of these qualities.  These are some of the best qualities to have.  May I share with you how I believe we develop and then share these qualities with others?

I would like to now share with you the parable of the orange bells.

My orange bells are one of my favorite flowering bushes in my yard.  They are outside of my kitchen window where I seem to spend a lot of time looking out while cooking, washing dishes…cooking, washing dishes, and washing dishes….

I have even been seen sitting on the counter with my feet in the sink with my binoculars or camera watching the diversity of birds and insects that visit and also find joy in my orange bells.  I have watched, fed, and cared for this bush lovingly, knowing the joy it brings to me and others.  (and because it blocks my neighbors view into my kitchen window.

This winter the cold snap came, I knew I couldn’t cover the plant with a sheet.  It had become too large and independent.  I would have to let it fend for itself.  I had nourished it and tried to make sure it had what it needed to develop strong roots.  Night after night during that freeze I covered other plants that weren’t strong yet, and looked concernedly at my orange bells knowing that it would be it hard.

Slowly and surely the orange bell flowers fell off, the branches and leaves turned black.  My heart hurt every time I looked at it.  It looked dead and lost, but I am ever hopeful.  I continued to water it and tried to find ways to nourish it.  I took off the dead branches; my plant was cut low to the ground.  Weeks went by, and months.  I continued to water, with hope in my heart.  The ground began to warm, and from the bottom of the plant, branches and leaves began shooting up.  They shot up fast and strong.  More and more branches shot up and bright green leaves burst from the branches.  It was more weeks full of anticipation, but soon orange blooms opened and covered the bush. 

Joy filled my heart.  My plant fought against the adversity and pain of being frozen and cut down, but it responded by becoming stronger, taller and fuller.   I am now less concerned about it come winter because it has proved its resiliency and strengthen its ability to survive.    And now, once again it offers it blooms to bring nourishment to the birds and insects and happiness to be as I labor washing dishes. 

Listen to Stegners quote again, but with my changes and insertions.

“The scriptures teach us that the celestial woman is an evolution of the ‘natural woman’ they can say why that particular woman should take from the same air and sunshine a fairer substance, a deeper color, a more eternal existence and become something at which each passerby pauses and goes on his way happier for the sight, the help, the smile the existence of such a woman.”

I believe I know why some women are able to offer this richness of existence, this beauty of a celestial spirit….and by “some women”  I mean you.  Despite or because of trials and tribulations in your lives there exists 3 qualities that are the key to the richness of the bloom.

Moroni also explains to us what they are…in chapter 10 verse 20.

“Wherefore, there must be faith; and if there must be faith there must also be hope; and if there must be hope there must also be charity.”

Easy huh?  Let’s break down each of these three parts, and as it happens, there are also 3 parts necessary to the flower that can create a more substantial, richer bloom.

The first is the stem.  What is important about the stem?   Why is it essential to the flower?  The stem as we know moves the nutrients from the roots up and down the plant.  If you have no stem, you have no leaves, you have no bloom, and you have nothing.  

At your tables discuss which of the three components, hope, faith and charity do you see as the stem and why.  Now share with me what you think.

To me the stem represents faith.  Faith is the driving force behind all we do, our actions, our decisions, our responses our resiliency. 

On your paper, write down faith, and under it quickly write some of the words that come to your mind that represents faith…such, as to me, steadfastness comes to mind.  Take one minute.

What are some of the words?

Alma 5:15 asks:

“Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you?  Do you look forward with an eye of faith,,,,”

What is this eye of faith?  Elder Peterson said in the April 2009 conference that an eye of faith is “the ability to focus and be steadfast, continually holding fast to true principles, nothing wavering…this quality of faith is exceedingly powerful.”

Focus and steadfast….nothing wavering.   I know how difficult that is.  However, I know that that is a goal.

Those places of faith where you know you waver, just means you need to tighten up, work towards strengthening those areas through prayer, scriptures, studying and really pondering.  My journal is actually a place where I record my searching, thoughts and answers of what I need to tighten up on…If you never work for faith, you will never develop it.  I know it can be tough, but what other time do you have but now?

When I travel and am seeing new places, I am relatively unfocused and unsteadfast…I let my eyes and mind wander as I take in everything around me.  When I was 18, I traveled alone for the first time.  I had to take the train from Livorno, Italy to Milan.  I didn’t have the ticket for my next destination to Germany, a friend I was meeting in Milan had it.  She was traveling from a different part of Italy.  I didn’t know from where, I didn’t know when or what train of the 25 train pull ins of this massive train depot I was to meet her.  When I arrived, I will admit I was a little panicky.  I had already had a traumatic (but now entertaining) experience with the ticket taker guy on the other train, and then looking at the lines and lines of trains,  and hundreds of people coming off and on, and knowing I had no way of reaching my brother or friend, and rain coming down on me, I felt quite overwhelmed.  So I prayed in faith, knowing that I would be protected and all would be well.  I then found a place and put my heavy bag down and sat on it…for 3 hours.  For two hours I waited, watching people, and trains come and go.  But I felt calm.  Then my friend appeared, she got off the train that I was sitting directly in front of.  The only train out of 25 that I could clearly see the passengers.  My focused attention, steadfastness, and faith that the Lord would guide led me to the place I needed to be.  If I had moved, I wouldn’t have seen her, and would have missed my connection to Germany.

So many times I wonder why I can’t do this when I begin to wonder about some of the blessings promised me, that have not yet been fulfilled and which I crave.  However, if I let myself waver, and don’t immediately strengthen my faith I will not be in the place I need to be when the promised blessings arrive.  

Faith is the lifeblood of who we are and what we can achieve.  It helps us be in the right place at the right time.  It helps us do the things necessary for true happiness and fulfillment.

Although I am not in the place I thought I would be as a young woman, I am certain that I am in the right place at the right time, and if I stay steadfast, all promised blessings will be mine, and I will make all celestial connections.

Next, is hope.  I see hope as the leaves of the flower.  What do leaves do for the plant?

 It reaches out and pulls out the important nutrients that sun sends our way.  In other words, it reaches out to the brightness of the world and pulls in warmth.  That is how I envision hope. 

My favorite definition of hope is found in Ether 12:4

“Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.”

On your paper, write down something you hope for.  Write down three things you need to do to make that happen.

So if we hope for a “better world”  what do we need to do?

A couple years ago I was going to the gym with a couple of girlfriends after work.  One day, as we were on the treadmill, they started talking about food and what they were going to eat, and what the had eaten.  I just laughed.  As a person who has lost a significant amount of weight, and continue to battle I know that to lose weight…hopping on a tread mill for a couple minutes is never going to reverse the effects of food. 

These wonderful women hoped to lose weight, but didn’t act upon all the principles needed to achieve that goal.

As I was once taught by an amazing friend, that if we hope for something, it means we are recognizing the absence of something, and then our active participation to activate hope and fill in what is missing.  If we hope for weightloss, we have to recognize the absence of  eating and exercising in a mindful manner and then have to make a plan to be more thoughtful of what we are doing that is creating extra weight, and how to train skills to lose weight.

If we are hopeful because of the Atonement, we recognize the absence of our faithfulness to the commandments and principles of the gospel and we then need to recognize our need to participate in the plan of salvation by recognizing our dependence upon our Savior and his sacrifice and ACT to fulfill this hope through faith and repentance leading to obedience to the principles of the gospel.

 We have to be proactive to activate hope.  You have to reach those leaves out, stretch out to feel the sun and the rain and receive the nutrients that you need to keep faith flowing and active.  Leaves also release oxygen which helps all others to grow. 

I love hope.  Recently a friend shared some research on relationships….Secure people provide support that is reassuring and uplifts the friend, whereas insecure people are self-serving, less considerate, less helpful, and consider the help and support they receive to be insufficient.

To me, that says that people who are secure have faith and hope for a better world, know that they need to lift and serve others, while those who are less secure, tend to look inward, and are so concerned about what is inside, that they don’t see how important their leaves or bloom are.

This leads me to the third part of our flower and our development of us into celestial woman.  It is the bloom.  To me, the bloom shows off the strength of the stem and leaf, and how well they are working together.  It is the purpose of their work.  It is charity.

Elder Maxwell states.  “Genuine, ultimate hope helps us to be more loving even while the love of many waxes cold.  We are to be more holy, even as the world ripens with iniquity, more courteous and patient in a coarsening and curt world, and to be of strong hearts even when the hearts of others fail them.

Hope can be contagious, especially if we are to be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh a reason of the hope that is in us…President Brigham Young said, “if we do not impart knowledge to others and do good, we will become contracted in our views and feelings.” 

My rose bush is an example of this.  During the summer, its overexposure to the elements and heat, makes for a paltry bloom.

If you want to bloom with celestial glory, if you truly want to live life with fullness, satisfactions and overcome trials and obstacles, then you must look at yourself honestly and without fear.  When I am counting calories, the only way to reach my goal is to write down everything even chocolate honestly.  When I try to pretend I didn’t eat those things and/or justify their impact on my diet, the one who suffers is me, and anyone who has to listen to my tearful breakdowns at any weight gain. 

I have to analyze my emotional and spiritural self as precisely.  How do we do that?  Sit down and honestly analyze the amount of time you spend thinking of yourself, your fears, your frustrations, your desires.  How much time does that occupy in a day, week, month, lifetime.  Then analyze the amount of time spent serving, praying and thinking of others.  Here are some graphs….which one might represent you more closely?  Which one do you want to pop up on the powerpoint during your celestial kingdom interview?

Your attitude, your conversations, are all apart of charity.  How you bless and lift the lives of others through your interactions is an essential part of  your bloom.

Are you blooming to your fullest extent, or like my rose bush allowing too much of the world create a half hearted bloom?  Look at your facebook posts, your topics of conversations, your emails…do they drip of “needy” “sad”  “sick” or “joyful”  “hopeful”  “bright light”

Do you create a self-fulfilling prophecy by sending those messages out, and then reacting negatively about yourself because people don’t want to be around you? 

What types of people do you enjoy being with?  Be that type of person.  Many times I am sick, lonely, grouchy, but present on facebook or conversations a more optimistic side…for one, that is what people expect from me, and two, that is what I expect from myself, and eventually I will realize that I am being grumpy and ill for no reason, and find the joy that is in there and I am boring myself.

What you present is critical to your happiness.  Project faith, hope and charity, and act upon those and you will find, joy and happiness, optimism and fulfillment.

One day recently, I woke up sad and lonely.  I couldn’t figure out what was wrong.  I cried on the phone to friend,….didn’t feel better….yelled at people on the freeway…didn’t feel better…walked around frowning…didn’t feel better…I was exhausted, I knew…I worked so much at my three jobs that week, that I hardly knew where I was.  Then it came to me.  Although I love my jobs and responsibilities, I hadn’t spent anytime with my family and especially my nieces and nephews.  I hadn’t been able to feel love because I hadn’t put myself in a position to give love to them.  Once I realized that I made it a priority to find those children, and spend time with them, and haven’t felt those feelings of loneliness and despair since.  What we give and present is what we receive back..  It is through faith and hope that we are able to give charity in the most selfless, loving, nurturing way we can and we will receive back more faith, more hope and charity.

Our blooms will be sweet, and bright, rich and full and give joy and hope to others, build up faith and nourish and protect.  Is there anything greater in life than that achievement?  Nothing, nothing, nothing. 

Just like my orange bells, we are nourished and lovingly watched over, but can’t always be protected.  However, if we have the courage and determination like this little plant, to live a life full of fulfillment, then we will let the nutrients of the soil and water coarse through our stems as faith, being steadfast and unwavering, standing strong in holy places…we will reach out our leaves of hope, pulling in the sun and rain, and oxygen,  giving and receiving hope….filling ourselves with the best things, and radiating the best of life with every breath.  Acting upon faith to stretch out those leaves.  And then we will bloom, Bloom with sweetness, color, cheer…filling others with joy through our actions, filling ourselves with joy through our action.  All of these things will work together to become the flower, and even when laid low…we will rise again…faster and stronger.

I would like to read one last scripture.

2 Nephi 31:20  Where fore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of god and of all men.

We must press forward…which is a concerted effort to progress

With steadfastness in Christ.  Which is demonstrated by our eyes fixated on Christ, his example and his gospel.

We must have perfect brightness of hope:  brightness, which is light, guidance and desire

And love of God and all men:  build up the kingdom of God and serve others.

Then it finishes: Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.

So, if with that concerted effort to progress taking in the scriptures and words of our prophets and endure to the end, which is proactively practicing, obedience, faith and works we will have eternal life.

Enduring and submitting are not passive responses at all, but instead are actually more like being braced sufficiently to report for advanced duties, while carrying-meekly and victoriously-bruises from the previous frays.

What are a few fingers of scorn now anyway when the faithful can eventually know what it is like to be “clasped in the arms of Jesus”? 

What are mocking words now, if later we hear those glorious words, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”?

Meanwhile, Paul urges us to “plow in hope”

Therefore, desperately needed is longitudinal perspective, the hope of the gospel.  Today’s put-down is then placed in the perspective of our being lifted up tomorrow in God’s plan of happiness.

We know when we are doing all of these things well is when we fill the most joy, and things seem to run the smoothest in our life.  It always frustrates me that I am not doing all of that all the time.  But rejoice when I am doing it, and bask in the glow of the warmth that is there at that time.  It is in those moments that I know that eternal life is worth working for…It is in those moments that I know that I can get through anything life throws at me.  I know that if I can be unwavering, resilient, steadfast, and bloom, that the best of the feelings that come will be mine forever.  Now that is a precious gift, and I must seek it out now.