"Keep Your Heels, Head, and Standards High"

Do you ever feel like your self worth is in the toilet?  How can we increase our own self worth when we live in a society that seems to tear it down so frequently? These are questions that I have pondered over the last couple of weeks as I prepared to speak to a group of girls and women on the topic, “Keeping Your Heels, Heads, and Standards High.” After much thought I believe the answer lies in this phrase, recited each week in the Young Women’s meetings throughout the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints:

“We are daughters of our Heavenly Father Who Loves Us and We Love Him”

When we really understand this and come to believe it 2 things will happen:

1. Our self worth will increase

2. Our desire to be like Him will increase (which will in turn increase our sense of self worth)

As girls and women we are hard on ourselves! We feel guilty too often, we compare too frequently and we feel like we don’t measure up much of the time. I am surrounded by 8 sisters in law and 2 sisters who are enormously talented. One is an amazing photographer. Some are super talented and creative. Others have patience far beyond mine. One speaks a number of foreign languages and another is an amazing mother to a son with significant physical handicaps. I have a mother in law who keeps a spotless house and my own mother can sew anything, including my wedding dress which was a ginormous creation straight out of the early 90’s, with big sleeves, a giant bow and enough pearls and sequins to blind you.

If I wasn’t careful I could easily feel like I don’t measure up.  The only foreign language I speak is Dave's middle of the night nonsense talk and we all know I'm not going to get the "Good Housekeeping Award" anytime soon.  But guess what?  I know that I have a Father in Heaven who loves me. Little old me! I think about each of my six children with all of their different talents and abilities and we are no different in the site of our Father in Heaven. As women we aren’t all meant to be the same—how boring would life be if we were? (Like really--how many Kristyn's do you want running around this world?  The sock piles would be enormous.)

In the October 2014 General Conference, Pres. Uchtdorf (an apostle of the Lord) said this:

“He sees you clearly--He knows you as you really are. And He loves you--today and always! Do you suppose it matters to our Heavenly Father whether your makeup, clothes, hair, and nails are perfect? Do you think your value to Him changes based on how many followers you have on Instagram or Pinterest? Do you think He wants you to worry or get depressed if some un-friend or un-follow you on Facebook or Twitter? Do you think outward attractiveness, your dress size, or popularity make the slightest difference in your worth to the One who created the universe?”

When we recognize our role as a daughter of God, our self worth can’t help but to increase, and as we begin to understand who we are, our desire to follow His path will increase—even when the world may tell us otherwise.

Now, more than ever we women must be an example of who the Lord knows we are—His daughters. We must, in essence, act as a daughter of God would act.

Former Young Women general president Margaret D. Nadauld taught:

“The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity.”

I fear that as women we are losing site of what it means to be a true daughter of God and by doing so, our own self worth is diminishing rapidly. It’s not easy to stand up for what we believe is right. It’s rarely popular, particularly if social media is to be any sort of measuring stick. Just in this last week I have seen several FB posts that have caused me to pause (ok--really they just riled me up) and consider that my morals and views seem to be going against the grain of society. Modesty, clean language, the divine role of motherhood, treating our spouses with respect and more seem to be viewed as unnecessary, old fashioned or intolerant. And all the while we wonder why we are unhappy?

I believe the answer to happiness can be found in returning to a virtuous life. I recognize that this might not be a popular idea but I absolutely believe that a virtuous life builds our confidence and will lead to powerful women with a increased self worth. Women, let’s have the confidence to act as God would have us act, to understand our worth as His daughter and to join the call for a return to virtue.

Setting Out To Do The Unthinkable

SETTING OUT TO DO THE UNTHINKABLE

How many times have you told yourself “I’m just that way?” I’ve done that to myself a lot over the years.  “I’ll never have an organized house,” “I’m shy”, “I just can’t eat hot dogs.”  (OK—THAT is true!  Hot dogs gross me out.)  By telling ourselves these things we are essentially saying “I’m incapable of changing.”  Huh.  That doesn’t sit well with me because if we don’t change we don’t progress.  And I want to be better than I was yesterday.  So with that in mind, I set out three weeks ago to do the unthinkable:  become a morning person.

Yep—I have long proclaimed myself a night owl.  Frankly in my early mothering days it was the only time of day I could actually put together two coherent thoughts let alone get any sort of project done.  After the bedtime ritual of stories and songs and prayers and teeth brushing (who am I kidding—the kids rarely brushed their teeth at night…) I would drag out what ever project I wanted to complete and stay up to the wee hours of the night working in blissful silence.  Mornings arrived with me bleary eyed, grumpy and planning how soon “Blues Clues” would come on so I could squeeze in a 30 minute nap on the couch.  (To this day the theme song of “Blues Clues incites instant yawning on my part—a sort of “Pavlov’s Dogs” response.)

But life is different now and I was finding myself dissatisfied with the way my days were playing out.  I found that things like exercise were getting pushed aside.  The more that exercise got pushed aside the more frustrated I became.  Even worse I woke up feeling behind and went to bed feeling behind.  So I had a crazy thought—what if I got up every morning at 5:00 am and went to the gym?  

When I proposed this to Dave he was dubious.  Mostly because he’s been married to me for 24 years.  You see, he knows that the number of times I have been upright at 5:00 am can be counted on one hand.  However, as a natural morning person himself he was supportive—albeit skeptical.

So, Monday morning came and my alarm went off at the unholy hour of 5:00 am.  Since it was Day 1 I was determined to follow through.  I stumbled to the bathroom, got dressed and headed out the door.  Here’s something you may not know:  it’s DARK at 5:00 am!  What the heck?  Navigating by the stars, I made my way to the gym.

Are you curious what I discovered?  The gym is practically empty!  You don’t have to wait for the equipment you want to use and when you head to the weight benches you don’t have to wade through a bunch of body builder guys half your age.  The music is quieter and best of all—NOBODY shows up in full make up and hair!   By the time I left 80 minutes later I had my exercise and scripture study done and my thoughts gathered about my day ahead.  And not only that but when I returned home I found time to unload my dishwasher, start the laundry, start dinner in the crockpot and process my inbox.  All before 9:00 am!  

But that was just the first day.  The real test remained as to how the next few days would play out.  Well, I’m happy to report that so far, three weeks in, it seems to have stuck.  I’m actually looking forward to my mornings now!  Sure, I have to go to bed a little earlier, and you better not talk to me for the first 20 minutes I’m awake, but overall I’m loving the results.  I no longer feel guilty all day that I didn’t find time to fit my work out in and even better, I am SO much more productive.  There really seems to be something to this idea of arising early.

Now I want to figure out how to apply this concept of change to other areas of my life.  If I really desire a tidy house, shouldn’t I be able to make that happen?  If I want to reinvent a way to help my kids be organized, couldn’t I do that?  If I want to become a motivational speaker and pod cast host, isn’t it possible?  (An idea I’ve been toying with but currently have no idea how to go about.)  The question becomes “what am I willing to give up, or commit to to make those things happen?”  So I predict some more soul searching ahead—most likely while running on a treadmill at 5:30 am tomorrow morning:)