Cows and Cuds

Rumination is a fun word to say. Say it out loud and see how it rumbles around in your mouth as it tickles your tongue with soft vibrations and finally exists your mouth in a slow swishhhh.

The word ruminate comes from the Latin ruminari which means “to chew the cud.” In other words, a cow ruminates. Or to put it more graphically, the cow regurgitates a cud, which is food it has already swallowed that has been semi-digested into a cud, and then it chews on it—again. Sounds pretty disgusting, but before that disgusting scrunched look on your face goes away think about how much ruminating you do. Yes, YOU! People ruminate, but instead of a wad of regurgitated grass in our mouths, we ruminate with regurgitated words in our heads. This is what storytelling is all about.

Besides meaning “to chew again what has been chewed slightly and swallowed” the word ruminate also means “to go over in the mind repeatedly.” The problem with rumination is that it is usually regurgitated negative stories that we tell ourselves over and over again. “I can’t do anything right.” Or ,“My parents shouldn't have mistreated me.” Or, “I’m not a very good parent.” or "My neighbors shouldn't be so messy," or "My spouse should appreciate me more." I don’t need to list more, you get the idea.

Rumination is terrible when we tell ourselves stories based on lies like these. But the Good News! is that unlike cows, we don’t have to ruminate. When the old stories, the word cud, begins to regurgitate we can spit it out and refuse to chew on it. The best way to do that is to replace the old cud with something new. For example when the old cud, “I can’t do anything right,” comes up, you spit it out and instead chew on the idea, “I made a mistake, but I’ve learned from that and it won’t happen again.” That thought tastes a lot better, and it will lead you on to brighter and more delicious things.

Negative Storytelling only generates Unnecessary Pain and accomplishes nothing good. So spit out the story and Live in Truth.

Climbing the Family Tree

Family Tree here

I've been reading some family histories my mother gave me for Christmas and marveling at the ancestors that made me. I've heard most of the stories before; I grew up on them. But reading them now when I've experienced so much more of life, I appreciate what the stories mean more than I ever did before. For example, my great-grandmother Christina Marie Sorensen Anderson (Steena for short) was widowed when she was just forty-seven years old. She'd given birth to eleven children and also raised two other neighbor boys whose extended family refused to take them in when their parents died. She only had a few weeks of education and so when she was left to care for the family, she did the only thing she could, she farmed to keep them all alive and in her spare time was midwife to most of the women in the area. She lived a widow for forty-nine years, and I remember her making the most delicious cinnamon rolls I've ever tasted in her big, black, coal burning stove.

Her seven daughters have been my idols all my life. They were strong women--all of them either nurses or school teachers who each faced incredible adversity and tribulation with courage and strength. It makes me proud and has inspired me knowing that I am an "Anderson Woman." One of these Anderson Women was my grandmother, the oldest of the sisters and a school teacher who served a mission in Hawaii, who died when my mother was sixteen so I never knew her, but her influence has been with me every day of my life.

Reading these histories has warmed me, and it can warm you. It seems that sometimes we feel so alone in life. Discouragement sets in, dull winter days erode the joy, and life feels empty. At those times one of the best things you can do is remember the stories of those who have gone before you. Everyone has someone a generation or two back who inspires courage and motivates to be better. If you haven't found that person or persons on your family tree, start searching. I guarantee you they are there, and when you find their story and savor it, you will feel of their spirit walking beside you every day bouying you up and urging you on through the cold Januaries of life.

Truth Tools at the Dentist's Office

Yesterday I had a tooth pulled. It is the second tooth since Grizelda that has shattered so that it needs to come out. It was causing a lot of pain so I’m glad it’s gone. But the good thing is how much the Truth Tools helped me yesterday. The oral surgeon offered to put me out, but I opted for a local and then used the Truth Tools to stay calm and actually found the whole process very interesting. After extracting the tooth, he put cadaver bone in the hole. After the bone heals and the bone transplant takes, there will be enough bone foundation to put in an implanted tooth. It is a strange feeling to think I have someone else’s bone in my mouth, but at the same time I’m very thankful for the scientific advances that allow for such a procedure.


I’m also grateful for the Truth Tools. Instead of coming out of the procedure groggy and in a mental fog, that takes me a good two days to shake off, I walked out feeling just fine. As he drilled and pulled and cut and scraped, I Anchored. The drills make a fascinating music and he kept explaining what he was doing so that, like I said, it was actually very interesting. The way he deftly put the stitches in was also amazing. It was obvious he'd done it thousands of times. That’s where the Storytelling Tool came in. Instead of filling myself with stories about how things could go wrong or it might hurt or any other negative story, I told myself a story about learning new things and how fascinating it was to watch someone who is so skilled at what he is doing.

Truth Tools work! Now I just need to use them to keep myself from being too self-conscious about the hole in the back of my mouth when I smile. They can’t do the tooth implant until the bone heals which will take about three months. Until then I have a missing tooth. My insurance won’t cover a temporary tooth, so I’ll be toothless. I can let it make me very uncomfortable or I can live with it. I’m opting to live with it. I’ve got Tools to help me do it!

Thank You!

I’ve been at my computer all day for the last two days working on the finishing touches of my book Living in Truth and Avoiding the Pit of Illusion. I hope to send it off to the editor next week. Wish me luck.

As I’ve been rewriting and polishing the manuscript, I’ve been reminded of how much all of you have helped me. Many of the stories come from readers of Good News! and the stories are what make the book.

Stories are so much more powerful than lecture! I think that’s why the Savior taught in parables. The parables capture our attention, teach deep in the heart not just in the mind, and they are easy to remember. So many thanks to all of you who have emailed me your experiences with Living in Truth. Now just pray that the book gets published!

Making Connections

Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone is their story. When we really know their story, we share in their life in a way that connects us together like blocks on a quilt.


The other day while walking through campus, I had this overwhelming notion overtake me that I would love to approach the strangers that were around me and ask, “What’s your story?”

I refrained for fear someone would bring a straight jacket and lock me away, but I find myself still hungry to know people’s stories. Hearing their stories is like unraveling a knot. It unties the façades of a person’s life and leaves bare the essence. Once the knot is untied you see the beauty and simplicity of the yarn that lies beneath the tight, stressed, wadded knot.

I can’t go up to strangers and ask for their story, but right now I am committing to listen better when friends open up and tell their stories. I want to hear them. I want to share and connect. I want to understand. I want to be "knit together in love" (Col. 2:2).

Tell a Good Story

This past weekend I attended the Orem Storytelling Festival. It is one of the biggest and best storytelling festivals in the nation and it did not disappoint. It was fantastic! I laughed so hard at some stories that I cried. At other stories I’d recognize my own foibles and would learn something new. Over all, I was reminded of how powerful stories are. As a matter of fact, al of us are storytellers and the stories we tell ourselves are what shape our lives. Therefore, it is interesting to stop and ask yourself what stories you tell.

When we feel self-pity or envy or any negative emotion that is directed at other people, we find ourselves telling stories to substantiate our negative feelings.We have to be constantly inventing stories to keep the negative feelings burning within us. Things like, “Ever since her husband got that new job she thinks she is too good for the rest of us” or “Every time my father opens his mouth it’s to praise himself.” It may seem like an innocent thing, and you may ask, “What does it hurt?” It hurts you. It fuels your vexation and causes more Unnecessary Pain.

How your friend acts or what your father says or what anyone else does or why they do it doesn’t mean you have to be miserable. Let them live their life and you live yours. And despite what they choose, live yours happily. When you find yourself telling negative stories, change the story. Tell yourself a good one that will make you laugh or at least make you smile. Life is too short to be wasted enduring Unneessary Pain created by negative stories!

The Power of Stories

I heard the forum speaker at BYU today, Micheal Flaherty, speak. He is the president of Walden Media, the film company that according to their mission statement has the goal of “rekindling curiosity and recapturing imagination through the development and production of family films and literature.” They are the producers of such films as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; Charlotte’s Web; Bridge to Terabithia; and Holes.

Flaherty's dedication to promote goodness and virtue were impressive, but he said something that I had never heard before and loved. He said that the Savior in the New Testament is asked 183 questions and only responds to three of these with a direct answer. In response to the other questions he tells a story or poses another question.

Write your story!

I’ve long known the power of stories. I also knew the Savior told lots of stories, but I had never realized that so many of the stories are answers to questions. That made me think about my own life. How many times when I have a question I want the Lord to answer has he given me an experience (when recounted that is a story!) to answer my question? I think that is one of the reasons the prophets have asked us to keep a journal; so that we will recognize the stories (experiences) that are the answers to our prayers.

I have been very lax in my journal keeping lately, but today I am making a commitment to record more of the stories of my life!

Storytelling

This weekend I had a delightful time at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival. I listened to many of the 12 professional storytellers work their magic to transport me to Gettysburg or Half Dollar, West Virginia. Some stories made me laugh and some made me cry. Some were so funny they squeezed tears right out of my eyes and caused my sides to ache for hours afterward. I love it.

My time at the Storytelling Festival has caused me to think about the power of stories in our lives. Jesus taught in stories—we call them parables. We warn and admonish each other by relating our own experiences in the form of stories. And we read the stories of people we admire and learn from them. Stories are powerful. Stories our parents told us about their lives, shape our lives.

But the most powerful stories of all are the stories we tell ourselves. Why? Because we believe them. Whenever something happens to us we begin to shape the meaning of the event by telling ourselves a story. The emotions we experience and the attitudes we carry into the future about that event are determined by our story—a story we write. We trip and fall and we can explain it with a funny story about how clumsy we are or we can make it dire with tales of someone else’s incompetence that caused the accident or even make ourselves out to be the victim of someone’s malicious actions. The positive story allows us to move on. The negative story holds us captive in the Pit of Illusion and makes us miserable for as long as we tell the story to ourselves and others.

We are all storytellers and the stories we tell can empower us or they can exhaust us. Realizing we have a choice in this matter helps us to choose stories that will facilitate goodness in our lives instead of letting negative stories ruin our lives.

Right Stories

Yesterday while running errands I pulled up at a stop light behind a white SUV and in front of it was a black truck.Suddenly the driver of the black truck stuck his hand out the window and made an OK sign with his hand. I strained to see what he was OKing about, but could see nothing. Then he began pointing inside the truck at himself. He had my full attention now. Next he poked both hands out the window, put his thumbs and index fingers together to make a heart. Then he pointed to the driver of the white SUV behind him. The driver of the white SUV responded by sticking her arm out the window and holding up the deaf sign language symbol for “I love you!” The driver of the black truck made another OK sign, but the way he moved his hand slightly back and forth said more than just OK: it said “Really good!” I could feel the positive energy streaming out of the truck! By now the light had turned green and both the truck and the SUV turned. I never say their faces, only their arms from the elbow to the finger tips, but those two people made my day. I was chuckling about it for hours.

Since then I’ve thought about the reactions other people I’ve known might have had to this same scene. Someone might have thought, “Why doesn’t that guy pay attention to the light. He’s going to miss the green and hold us all up! *#@!” Another person might think, “Cut out the sentimental slush. Everywhere I go people are so cheesy. Get a life guy!” Another person might break into tears, “I wish I had someone to send me love signals.” Still someone else might think, “Oh those were the days when my spouse sent loving messages to me. What happened to the good days?” Any of these responses would have created negative feelings and carried that negative energy into the rest of their day. But the truth (the verity of the situation ) is that a young man showed his appreciation to a young woman. We can enjoy that or disparage it. It is our choice.

Too often we think our thoughts and reactions are automatic and can’t be helped, but we choose them and should never forget that. You and I are making up stories to accompany everything that happens to us.

You are in charge, so write a good story and enjoy!