Sunday, December 27, 2009

Ways to Cope

(that sometimes work for me)

Dear Friend: Sometimes these things below have helped me navigate the minefields (mind-fields) of fear, doubt, and negative experience; or as you call them “micro bombs” that devastate so many attempts at finding/maintaining peace.
1. Remembering Moses and the Exodus. They made their big move and suddenly they had a Red Sea in front and 10,000-or-so armed and angry Egyptians closing in behind. And that was only their first experience of massive doubt about their big move. There seemed no solution to their dilemma—BUT there was. (Something they never could have envisioned.) It seems to me that “micro-bombs” in the lives of most who make major changes in their lives are a given—one of the opposition factors (2 Ne. 2:11, 15-16). You can find them everywhere in life and scripture. Remembering helps me realize I am not alone in facing doubts, fears, or inexplicable negatives because the god of this world (the adversary: 2 Cor. 4:4) seems to take great pleasure in mining every path to purpose and enlightenment.

2. BALANCING a doubt, fear, or negative thought with another thought, like:
a. Gratitude (and expressing it emphatically in my mind) for even the simplest things: a glimpse of beauty, finding my keys, an idea that saved me time or frustration, every swallow that mother takes without choking, a space of time to research or write, etc.
b. Referencing scripture as the Savior did when He was assailed with IF’s in the wilderness (Matt. 4:3-5). These have especially helped me: D&C 58:1-5; 98:1-3.
c. Holding to the iron rod of prior inspiration and witness: “Did I not speak peace to your mind [perhaps more than once] concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God?” (D&C 6:23)
Life seems a perpetual (re)learning curve.