Tools of the Trade

I hope you've been paying attention to the stories you are telling yourself. I also hope you are determining whether what you are saying is the Truth and nothing but the Truth, or an Illusion, what you think should be instead of what is? If your story is not the Truth then you need to drop it and how to do that brings us to the subject of Truth Tools.

Truth Tools are strategies that help us get rid of the vexing thoughts that plague us when we are in the Pit of Illusion

Truth Tools are meant to help us move out of Illusion and into a neutral position where the Spirit can then help us Live in Truth. But one of the first things we learn as we begin to use the Tools is that one tool can't do it all.

Just as a carpenter building a house needs more than just a hammer, you and I need more than one Tool to help us Live in Truth.  If one tool doesn't work in a situation,  you try another until you find one that works.

Some of the Truth Tools I’ve identified and use are:

Anchoring

Humor

Music

Rewriting

Questioning

Distraction

Good Courage

Affirmation

Whenever you feel negative emotions such as fear, worry, stress, anger, self-pity, sorrow, or envy pushing you into the Pit of Illusion, pick one of the Truth Tools and use it to get rid of the negative emotion. Once the negative feelings are gone you can move into the positive.  It is a lot easier than trying to go from negative directly to positive. Once in the Realm of Truth you can experience  happiness, joy, love, and peace which are always available when Living in Truth.

"Wise in Our Ways"

In 1 Samuel 18:14 we are told that “David behaved himself wisely in all his ways; and the Lord was with him.” The word translated as wisely is sakal and it means “to be prudent, to act circumspectly, to have insight, or to give attention to.” When we look at all the definitions of sakal it gives us a better feel for what David did to “act wisely in all his ways.”

Too often we move through our days like water flowing down a stream bed--without really thinking about what we are doing or where we are going. We just go where the stream bed takes us. But if we want to be like David when he was favored of the Lord, we need to “behave ourselves wisely” which means we need to pay attention to what we are doing. We need to consciously choose to Live in Truth and to avoid falling prey to Illusion.

This means we have to learn what Truth is all about and then when faced with decisions or circumstances that habit or tradition or the natural man have previously determined for us, we instead act prudently and with insight and give attention to consciously choosing to Live in Truth. In other words, we decide how fast to go, when to turn, when to stop, and which stream bed to follow instead of simply going with the current of the stream.

It takes effort, but it is worth it because when we Live in Truth “the Lord is with us.”

Living In Truth

For those of you who are new to Good News! or to those of you who read it from a listing, you might not have noticed that on the left side of the blog I have added a list of the terms that I use when talking about Living in Truth. If you want to understand what it means to Live in Truth or what the Truth Tools are or what the Pit of Illusion is, click on any of those items and it will take you to a post that describes them. In addition, if you click on the indexed words after any post it will bring up all the posts about that subject.

As you experiment with Living in Truth I hope you will share your stories here. Living in Truth is freeing and hearing how other people do it is encouraging. Don't be shy! Let's help each other to break out of the bondage of negative emotions and LIVE IN TRUTH.

Living in Truth

One of the problems we encounter when we first attempt to Live in Truth is that we have been so conditioned in the ways of Illusion. All our lives we’ve seen the same reaction to the same situations so we don’t even stop to realize there could be a different way to handle the situation.

For example, a friend of mine lived with her older married sister during her last years of high school. One day Sharon asked her sister if she could take the car to visit some friends. The sister said she could but she needed the car back by four o’clock because she was taping an educational TV show for a local channel. Sharon said she’d be back by four and left, but once with her friends she forgot all about the time—until it was six o’clock.

She hurried home, but her sister was gone. On the table was a freshly baked cake, Sharon’s favorite chocolate cake, with a note that said, “Don’t worry. I know you were having a good time. I managed to get a ride. I love you.”

In a situation like this most of us have only seen someone react in anger. So when someone lets us down or doesn’t keep a promise, we do what we’ve always seen done—we get angry. But all that does is raise our blood pressure, make us tense and fill us with vexation. Instead Sharon’s sister used that energy to bake a cake. You don’t have to have an IQ of 160 to know which reaction causes the offending person to be sorry and learn a lesson. Being late with the car never happened again and many, many years later the lesson Sharon learned that day is still in her heart guiding and directing her.

But what about the sister? By baking a cake instead of getting angry she escaped a great deal of unnecessary pain. She stayed in the realm of Truth where the spirit dwells. She went to the TV taping with positive energy instead of depleted from the vexation.

Sometimes when we feel anger swelling in us all we need to do to stay in Truth is ask ourselves the simple question, “How else could I handle this?” and then do something good with the energy building within us.

When? Is the Question

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how important it is to understand the law of justice in order to help us use our agency correctly. As Abinadi explained to King Noah’s court, “The time shall come when all shall see the salvation of the Lord; when every nation, kindred, tongue, and people shall see eye to eye and shall confess before God that his judgments are just” (Mosiah 1:1). The sooner we realize and accept the fact that our Savior is just, that He will make all things right, the easier it is to use our agency to chose to live in Truth and escape the pain and suffering that occur when we choose to live in Illusion.

But there is something else in this verse that is motivating. In Rom 14:11 we are taught, “As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” This means that at some point all people will realize that Jesus is the Christ and that life was fair. It means that at some point in time all people will accept His teachings. Thus, having agency doesn’t mean you can choose never to learn such things as repentance, forgiveness, honesty, generosity, faith, hope and charity. Everyone will someday accept those things and live them. Having agency doesn’t mean you get to choose if you’ll obey. Having agency means you get to choose when you will obey Jesus—now or later.

Mother Nature is Ready for Christmas

It is cold outside. My walk this morning was brisk and nippy. I loved it. But there was more this morning than just the cold to make it wonderful. I always stop on the bridge that crosses the Provo River and do a little meditation to start my day right. I begin by looking downstream and imagining the river running right through me to wash away all the Illusion, negative feelings, and problems within me. Then I turn upstream and imagine the Fountain of Living Waters filling me with all that is good. I learn something new and different every morning and love those few moments and how they start my day.

This morning, as we were about to leave the bridge, one of the friends I walk with pointed out how the tree boughs that bend to almost touch the water had balls of ice on them. It as if Mother Nature had decorated for Christmas. Real ice spheres hanging from the tree branches! It was beautiful—magical—and I am still delighting in the memory of it.

It's a Choice--Truth or Illusion?

I’m tending my five-year-old grandson, Eli, for a week. Bright and early this morning he had a soccer game. On the way there he was telling me all about the other players. “Mike’s job is to run fast,” he said. “Luke’s job is to kick the ball. Tyler’s job is to score goals. And my job is to make the team laugh.” And he does that. I laughed the entire game. I also witnessed a great example of living in truth.

One of the blue players, Jared, refused to play soccer and instead sat in the middle of the field while the game went on around him. His mother yelled encouragement from the sidelines, but Jared didn’t move. At the end of the first quarter, the mother, agitated at her son’s behavior, retrieved him from the field and sat him down hard on the sidelines. “Are you going to play or not?” the mother asked. Jared didn’t answer, nor did he respond in any way. It was as if he were deaf. Growing angry now, the mother demanded, “Get out there and play. If you’re not going to play I’m going to take you home.”

The simple truth of the matter was Jared didn’t want to play soccer. Why I don’t know. He could have been too tired, or not feeling well, or uninterested in soccer, or shy about participating. But instead of accepting the truth of the matter—that Jared didn’t want to play, the mother entered the pit of Illusion with the thought, “Jared should play soccer.” Remember Truth is what is—not what should be. She, too, had her reasons for wanting Jared to play. Maybe she was thinking about the cost to let him play, or maybe the embarrassment. Every other kid was out there having a good time and hers was sitting in the middle of the field sulking. Everyone would think she was a terrible mother. Or maybe she was thinking about how early in the morning it was and she could have been sleeping in on a Saturday morning. Whatever her thoughts, they were all about what should or could be happening and not the verity of the situation—not the truth. As the minutes rolled on, her anger and stress increased. You could see she was unhappy and distressed. She was causing herself pain—unnecessary pain.

Finally she jerked the boy to his feet, pulled him to the car, and left. Her negative emotions did nothing but make her miserable. They never helped the situation they only caused her pain. But if she had dealt with the truth, Jared didn’t want to play soccer this morning, accepted the truth and acted on that truth, she would have escaped the pain and misery. She even might have noticed Eli's antics on the field and gone home laughing.

Writing Truth

I learned a lot last week while teaching my two classes, especially the Truth Shall Make You Free class. I’ve been studying these things for several years now and working hard to incorporate them into my life. But when I learn things, it is seldom in words. Feelings come to me that teach me and then I struggle to put the feelings into the right words. Teaching forces me to articulate what I have learned, but it always brings me face to face with the things I’m not articulating well or have failed to articulate at all.

With Education Week behind me, I will be going back through the book and adding what I learned by teaching, and stripping out the extraneous things that don’t need to be there, and then I’ll submit it. If you’ve had experiences with the Truth Tools, Truth Test, storytelling, necessary and/or unnecessary pain, or with moving from the Pit of Illusion to the Realm of Truth or any of the other principles we’ve talked about in the past on this blog or in my classes, now is the time to share them. I’d love more real-life experiences to use in the book. I can change names and circumstances so that no one will recognize you—if you want. But the stories of how the Truth Tools and Living in Truth work are so much more powerful than me just describing it. So if you care to share, and don’t want to go public by leaving your stories here as a comment, then email me your story: smillsjo at gmail dot com.

I hope to hear from you all soon!

Leaving Illusion

Illusion: Old Woman or Young? Which Do You See?

As you remember, the opposite of Living in Truth is Living in Illusion. For those new to these pages, let me remind you of the definition of Truth. Truth is “Knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come” (D&C 93:24). Things as they as means verity or reality. So once something has occurred, it is truth. The truth is that yesterday there was a car crash, but if instead of dealing with that truth we begin to think, “It shouldn’t have happened. Why did God let this happen? The driver should have been more careful.” You suddenly shift from dealing with what is, the verity of the situation, to the realm of Illusion.

Once in the realm of Illusion we always experience anger and fear. In addition, the realm of Illusion constantly needs to be defended because it is not real. Truth stands on its own, but Illusion needs to be reaffirmed and reexamined and rejuvenated. It takes a lot of work to maintain Illusion. There is no work in maintaining truth. Truth maintains itself.

There is great peace in letting go of Illusion and living in peace. I’ve talked about a lot of Truth Tools in these pages. These Tools are strategies to help us let go of Illusion and Live in Truth. I don’t I don’t have a monopoly on Truth Tools. What are some of the ways you move from the realm of Illusion back into Truth? I love to hear how you do it. Tell me how the Truth Tools have worked for you or tell me other Tools you have found useful.

Saving the Lost

When we live in Truth, we realize that sometimes there is nothing we can do to help others who have strayed except pray and wait. In Luke 15 the Savior gave three parables in a row. Each one teaches us a lot, but when seen together they teach us even more.

The first of these parables is the story of the lost sheep. In this story a man who has 100 sheep loses one of them and goes to find it. The sheep has wandered away from the flock and doesn’t know how to get back. Thus the shepherd needs to go after it.

The second parable tells us of a woman who loses a coin. When she realizes the coin is lost she sweeps and does all she can to find the coin. Since the lost object is a coin and has no volition, we can assume that it is the woman’s fault the coin was lost and thus she needs to do all she can to find it.

The third parable is the story of the prodigal son. In this story the son is not lost, he intentionally chooses to leave. The interesting thing is that in this parable no one goes after the son.

The message here is that when someone happens to wander from the Church perhaps because they haven’t been taught or they slip into inactivity because they have no friends to keep them in the Chruch we need to do all we can to search them out and bring them back. Or when we have inadvertently hurt someone’s feelings or pushed them away we need to do everything in our power to apologize and bring them back. But when someone has willfully choosen to disobey and leave, often all we can do is pray and wait for the person to come to the realization that there is only one way to happiness and peace and that is through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Notice that the father in this story didn’t sink himself in despair or beat himself up because he was a bad parent. That would have moved him into Illusion and made it difficult to stay close to the Spirit. Instead he lived in Truth, clung to hope and faith, and eventually his son returned.

Follow Your Heart

One of the reasons we don’t acknowledge truth and live with it is because we are afraid. But fear is the opposite of faith. When we refuse to Live in Truth because we are afraid, we are refusing to live in faith.

We can see this exemplified in simple things in our relationships. Let’s pretend that Zelda says to her husband Ralph, “You don’t spend enough time with me.” At this point Ralph has a choice to make as to how he will react to his wife. Some of the choices that might occur to him are: to ask for more information to better understand what Zelda wants and needs. To acknowledge that he doesn’t spend enough time and work to solve the problem. To decide that it is Zelda’s problem and ignore what she is saying. To ask if he could have a little time to think about what she has told him, and then they will discuss it some more. Obviously these are just a few of the possibilities. The important thing, however, is not the possibilities, but to realize that when a problem occurs our hearts will tell us which of these possibilities is right for us at that time.

Let’s pretend again, that in our example here, when Zelda accuses Ralph of not spending enough time with her, Ralph immediately knows in his heart that what she is saying is true. But at that realization fear kicks in. He begins to think, “I’m going to have to give up my golf game on Saturday morning!” or “This is going to mean no more watching football.” So his heart is telling him Zelda is right, but his head is telling him he is going to have to suffer if he admits it. At this point he has two more choices. He can move into the realm of Illusion and will then need to counteract the negative feelings of anger that Illusion always brings with it. Most often that is done by sulking, blaming, demeaning, or accusing Zelda—anything to make it seem like it is her fault instead of his. Or Ralph can go with his heart and admit that she is right. At this point he is Living in Truth and acting in faith.He doesn’t want to suffer, but he is willing to accept the Truth and by moving forward in truth he is trusting that the Savior will show him how deal with the problem with the least amount of suffering and pain. That is an act of faith.

Living in Truth also means living in faith

Picture: http://emilymphotography.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/follow-your-heart.jpg

Phantom

I am now in Hanford, California, just south of Fresno. Instead of lemon trees in the yard, Talena has orange trees. It is like being in a foreign land! I love it.

On the way down here we watched the movie Phantom of the Opera and I was struck anew with the symbolism of light and dark. The theme is the same as what we have been discussing--Living in Truth. So much pain in life is unnecessary pain that comes about because we choose it. It is so sad that we suffer so much when all we need to do is let go of the pain and live in truth.

What other plays or artistic works have inspired you that use this theme of light vs.dark or truth vs. illusion? Without thinking too hard, I can come up with several. It is a major theme in literature and art. How have these works touched or inspired you?

Illusion

My head is always full of questions. They tumble around like acrobats in a circus. Luckily every once in awhile one gets answered and leaves the arena or it would be so crowded in there I’d have to leave. Awhile back the question was, “What is the opposite of living in truth?” That question didn’t jump around long like some of my questions do. As I began to search for an answer, I realized that if we are not living in truth, we are living in illusion.

Scene change: forget about acrobats and now imagine the circus magician. I loved magic shows as a child. It was so amazing to watch impossible things happen right before my very eyes. Women who had been cut in half would suddenly jump out of a closet—perfectly whole! People floated in air. Handkerchiefs changed into birds and flew away. But it was all illusion.

Illusion lasts only for that moment. It is a trick. It isn’t what it seems to be. It is deception, and if you base your opinions of life on illusion you are basing life on a foundation with no footings—the proverbial house upon the sand.

Understanding this has made me all the more weary of “should be” and “shouldn’t be” thinking. Whenever I hear myself thinking, “He shouldn’t have. . .” or “They should have. . .” I see the magician in his black cloak hiding the truth and waving his wand to direct me to the deception of the illusion. It helps me drop the illusion and stay in the realm of truth—what is and what was. Back in the realm of truth, I am able to hear the spirit direct me as to how to deal with the verities of life. It may not be as flamboyant or exciting, but there is great peace in the realm of truth.