From Survival Mode to Thrival Mode

General Conference (the semi-annual Church-wide meeting for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) was, as it always, wonderful for me. I am usually pretty good about taking fairly extensive notes during the various talks (sermons), but I decided to just sit back a bit more this time and only write down the things that really penetrated me through the Holy Ghost, knowing full-well the talks would be online (http://lds.org/conference/sessions/display/0,5239,23-1-1298,00.html) and I could go back and review them later.

During Elder Neil L. Andersen's talk of the Saturday Afternoon session, I had a particularly poignant thought come into my head that took me on quite the journey throughout the rest of his talk (so much so that I, till today, have no idea what he said). The thought was that for too long (namely this spring and summer) I have had the mentality of just “hanging on” spiritually and emotionally. I accept much of the blame for this mentality, but I also think our culture propagates it through the way its members view life. We focus so much in our culture on trials and dealing with them with a positive attitude, etc., etc. that we, as a people, get into this mindset that “if I can just get through this with a lot of prayer and scripture study, I know I'll be okay.” We think of "dealing with" trials, rather than embracing them and thriving, not only in spite of, but also because of them. I think this is actually a pretty dangerous mentality, to be honest. It puts us in survival mode, instead of … thrive-al mode – a mindset wherein we think of ourselves as able to not only survive, but thrive, both spiritually and emotionally.

That evening in Priesthood Session (a session especially directed toward the men of the Church. Don't worry – the women also have a session especially for them a week earlier.), President Monson mentioned a man in his talk (http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-1298-21,00.html) who faced a ridiculously hard decision. In his decision-making process, he once thought to himself, “in my particular extenuating circumstance, it’s okay, just this once, if I [do] it. However, he says his entire life has turned out to be an unending stream of extenuating circumstances,” President Monson said.

I think this man's life, with all its extremes and ups and downs, is no exception to the majority of people's lives. We all have trials and hard times, many of them coming one after the other without much relief in the degree of intensity. It would be unfair to say we should put those aside or belittle them – they are, in fact, the building blocks of our personality and character, as so much of who we become is based on how we react to those things.

But if we get into the mentality of “just let me get through this,” then (1) we only view ourselves as victims of life and (2) we never get to the point where we can really thrive and succeed spiritually and emotionally. Frankly, there will always be more trials and hardships—isn't this life supposed to be a test? When did we get it into our heads that we would just float through this whole thing? We might as well as get used to the lemons life throws at us because there will always be more – some sweeter, some exponentially more bitter.

But how? How do I thrive amongst all this CRAP in my life?

Elaine L. Jack, the General Relief Society President during the early 1990s, gave a devotional at BYU on this topic in which she offered some of the most exquisite counsel I've ever heard on the subject. Her devotional, entitled “Get a Life,” focused on a few points she recommended to people on how they can love their life. The most poignant part of the talk (http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=7097 ) was when she spoke of embracing our life, which Our Heavenly Father has given us:

"Sometimes I fear we have expectations that the good life is the life being led by someone else. The truth is that the good life is the life you have, for it's the only one you can lead. I believe Nephi understood that--with a full heart he could thank the Lord in the midst of trials that often were life threatening. To thank the Lord for his blessings to us is to understand how good life is, even when it seems unpleasant, unsuccessful, or just plain hard."

One thought I have after reading this is that we must embrace our trials—love them and all they bring with them. And then take everything we can from them to make ourselves better people.

Sister Beck, in her Regional Conference talk at the beginning of September, said “we are doing better than we think we are, but we can do better.” So very many of us are doing all the right things, yet we are still in survival mode, emotionally and spiritually. After her talk and after my experience at General Conference, I have felt like shouting both to myself and those around me “YOU'RE DOING IT!!! YOU'VE GOT IT! Stop worrying so much and being driven by guilt.”

I think one of the key steps we need to make to get from survival to thrival mode is to actually believe her! Believe that we really are doing so much better than we think we are. Yes, we can do better, but we need to look at what we've accomplished in our spiritual and emotional progress and realize that we are, indeed, becoming the people God wants us to become. And then we need to embrace life and all that comes with it and use it; if its going to be there, we might as well use it to our advantage instead of dreading and—heaven forbid—complaining about it (See post entitled “Happiness is...”). And we wonder how we can do better? If we do this, what incredible progress we will make in our lives.

And when we do this, I think we can really experience the true joy this life has to offer. In my deluge of thought from the Holy Ghost that I received in G.C., one of the reasons, He explained to me, that I was receiving that was so I could feel more appropriately confident in building the Kingdom of God on this earth. The Lord needs us, but if we are only grappling and floundering to stay afloat, He can't really use us. We must believe we are who and what He needs to build His Kingdom, because, frankly, we ARE. He sent us here and foreordained (not predestined) us to carry out specific tasks. He has given us the necessary tools--some of which are, in fact, our trials--to fulfill our missions and find in them the great happiness the scriptures so often reference.

Anyway, so those are my thoughts.

I don't know if any of this applies to anyone out there, but I suspect it does. Take from it what you will. It's at least super helpful to me. I personally need these braindumping sessions every once in a while. And I post these things in hopes that my thoughts will help someone out there who may happen to read this.