The other day someone asked me what I do. With a big smile and a LOT of gratitude I responded, “I get to teach women how to be happy!” Really, in a nutshell that’s what I do. Happiness is a choice. Plain and simple. Are you choosing it? Do you know how to be happy? I define happiness as being truly, deeply contented and joyful. Having peace no matter what is going on around you. Knowing with all your heart that you are truly in God’s care and feeling and receiving His love and guidance. Experiencing depth and closeness in your relationships. Joy! True joy!
One of my clients who upon completing my coaching program wrote this:
“Happiness comes from living the gospel of Jesus Christ and developing a relationship with him. My happiness level depends upon the amount of effort I am putting into that relationship. 2 Nephi 5:27 says, “And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness.” To me that implies that happiness is a way of living and not a destination to be sought after or happened upon. I have found that when I am striving to use my imperfections as stepping stones toward becoming more like Christ and not as road-blocks to my eternal destiny, happiness finds me, I don’t have to seek it anymore.”
Other clients have learned things like:
The difference between knowing (intellectually) they are a daughter of God and knowing (feeling, believing and receiving) they are a daughter of God.
How disciplining their minds is key to happiness.
How to love themselves and others unconditionally.
That they are indeed good enough.
That they can control their thoughts and choose their reality.
How to receive love and other blessings.
How to forgive.
The keys to a strong marriage.
How to receive financial stability.
Time and stress management.
That they are stronger than they thought they were.
That they don’t have to earn God’s love.
To feel alive and passionate again, to have fun and enjoy life!
So do you know these things? I know you can say the right words and give the correct gospel answers but do you believe it with all your heart? Does it show up in your results? Do you feel it and live it? I remember the moment when I truly began to believe all I had heard and said all my life. Like many of you I was taught from a young age I am a child of God and that I have Divine worth. Yet I still felt inadequate, insecure and not good enough. I struggled to be a good enough wife, mother, daughter, etc. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t seem to meet the expectations and demands in my life. Although I had a strong testimony and loved Heavenly Father, I felt I fell so short of who I should be. In fact, one day I felt so overwhelmed I ran away from home crying. (By the way I was 29 or 30 years old, not 4) But I did, I left my sweet children with my husband and went for a drive. I cried and prayed and poured out my heart to Heavenly Father like never before and I learned the most profound lesson of my life that day:
Was I going to keep trying to do and be what everyone else said I should do or be
OR
was I going to discover who God made me to be?
For the first time I understood that so much of my stress, pain and feeling inadequate came from all the voices I was listening to tell me who I was. Media, society, culture, family, childhood experiences and more! All of them were trying to tell me who I was and what I should do! And frankly many of those voices conflicted with each other! Which one should I please? It is an unwinnable game many of us are battling every day!
Yet for the first time I saw an alternative: Discover who God made me to be. Honestly at the time I didn’t really know who that was or even what that meant I just knew that option felt light, freeing and possible while the first option, the one I’d been living, hurt and I knew I couldn’t do it anymore.
So I choose to discover who God made me to be and that conscious choice lead me on a journey of healing and discovering joy in all areas of my life. Eventually it lead to my sharing with others what I had discovered.
So which reality are you living? Do you know who God created you to be? I know you know Him, pray to Him, have a testimony, but are you one with Him? Do you receive His love? Does He live in you? Elder Bednar said: “we need to appreciate that the Lord desires, through His Atonement and by the power of the Holy Ghost, to live in us—not only to direct us but also to empower us.” (Bednar, Ensign, April 2009)
Women “are that they might have joy” not someday, not in the next life, in this life (Moses 5:10)? So are you? Are you experiencing deep, abiding joy? It’s who you are, it’s who God is and it is possible for you!
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