A Relationship With Yourself

Last week I encountered the question, “Amanda, what do you want from me?” 
In order to answer that, I first had to ask myself, “Amanda, what do you want?”

This should be a simple question, yes?

It wasn't. I gave my best answer but I've spent a lot of time, especially last weekend with all the travel time, pondering that question.

During the 2.5 hours I was sitting on a fully loaded plane at a gate in Chicago I had two experiences that helped develop a new perspective on my life. The first was a short story out of a book I'm reading called Sunshine for the Latter-day Saint Teenager's Soul. Quite a mouthful, no? I wouldn't recommend reading it unless you're young and still vulnerable to cliché stories but I did find one that I really liked by Brad Wilcox. The story is about two boys at a dance. One keeps asking girls to dance and being denied every time. The other boys asks him why even keep asking if they're just going to say no? He replies with, “Why not? Why should you let her decide how you're going to act?”

How beautiful is that thought? Why should I let others decide how I am going to act?

Act rather than react.

I'm familiar with the scriptures teaching that we should act rather than be acted upon but I never connected being acted upon with the term reaction.

If we're never acting for ourselves, for what we really want, we will rarely surmount to a person we're proud to be.

I realized that I've rarely acted for myself. As a child I did what my mother encouraged me to do which is fine-- that's what parents are for-- but as I matured into a teenager I turned from having it be my mom, telling what to do and who I was, to boys for that role. Many of the choices I have made are in an attempt to gain attention and interest from boys around me in order that I may have value and be someone through them. It's not bad that I'm a people pleaser- its bad that I do it because I don't believe in myself and use those actions in an attempt to make up for a lack of self-worth.

I think that is one of the greatest problems in many teenage and young adult lives. They turn to someone of the opposite sex to provide that personal worth and tell them who they are. That time in our life should be for figuring out who we are as an individual and getting to know other people but not becoming dependent on them. We often feel the need absolute necessity for someone to like us or give us a compliment in order to qualify as being valuable.

I used to have this obsession with creating song playlists to describe people in my life. My best friend and I would make these playlists and then sit in her truck and listen to them, explaining what each song meant in relation to that person. I have a few for guys that I've dated but at one point I made one for myself to describe who I am. Reading over them now, they're very blatantly depressing and display perfectly my own absolute necessity to feel validated by others in order to have any self worth. I purposefully led people to act on me because I felt like I needed that power from them instead of acting for myself and having self-power. I was constantly displaying myself in hopes that someone would want to buy-- accepting any price value they gave me. I walked into rooms intending for the reaction of “Here I am” rather than “There you are.” Some of the songs on the playlist include Dark Blue, Scars, Suddenly I See, I Think I'm Paranoid, When You Say You Love Me, Beautiful Disaster, and Over the Rainbow. I found my struggles and insecurities in so many of these lyrics. You've probably heard that you can learn more about a girl by her favorite song than you can in what she says and for me.. it is very very true. Here are some of the lines I connected with:

Dark Blue:

Have you ever felt alone in a crowded room?

I Think I'm Paranoid:

I think I'm paranoid and complicated. I'm think I'm paranoid, manipulated. Bend me, break me, any way you need me. All I want is you. …I fall down just to give you a thrill...

When You Say You Love Me:

When you say you love me do you mean it? Baby when you hold me do you feel it?

Beautiful Disaster:

She prays some day she'll find someone to need her. She swears that there's no difference between the lies and compliments. It's all the same if everybody leaves her.

She would change everything, everything just ask her. Caught in the in-between of beautiful disaster. She just needs someone to take her home.

She's giving boys what they want. Tries to act so nonchalant. Afraid they'll see that she's lost her direction. She never stays the same for long. Assuming that she'll get it wrong. Perfect only in her imperfection.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow:

Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue. And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.

I was the girl standing alone in the middle of a room watching it revolve around me, waiting for someone to say that I was beautiful enough or funny enough or simply good enough to be more. And the thing is-- they said those things but I never believed them.

Point is-- I never thought I was good enough.

But good enough for what?

Good enough for everyone else. What I should have been asking myself is if I was good enough for myself.

This takes me to my second experience I had while sitting on that dear, dear plane in Chicago. I was sitting next to a fairly eccentric fellow and we were chit chatting about his career working on maps and charts for the government and I mentioned that I had just graduated from ASU with a bachelor of science in geology and had been working with Stephen Reynolds as my honors thesis director. He asked me where I wanted to go with geology now that I had graduated and I told him I was really interested in either working for a cruise line giving geology tours or at a national park and how I had focused my thesis on getting to one of those places. He quickly commented that I shouldn't aim so low in my career. It took me off guard for him to be so blunt but I quickly explained that I wanted to work with the public at which point he then called me an extrovert (me? and extrovert? interesting thought) but that is beside the point. I didn't realize that a complete stranger could talk to me for a few minutes and already know of my potential and expect that I should set a higher standard for myself.

His comment took me back to other events during my week when the counselor I had roomed with the week before ran up to me saying how much she missed me as a roommate because I was so fantastic and fun to be around. I thought about a recent chat conversation on Facebook when I had been told that, "You're close to perfect. In all seriousness though, when you are being YOU, you are an absolute pleasure to be around. Kind, funny, smart."I thought about how I'm constantly bombarded with hugs and love from my EFY babies who tell me every day how completely amazing I am. I thought about the counselors this summer who keep telling me that I need to take a trip up to Utah and spend a few weekends with them. I thought about the words that my session directors said they associate with me: intelligent & wisdom. I thought about my co-counselor telling me about an experience with one of her girls and how she had asked herself, "What would Amanda do?"

For the first time in my life I think I actually believe these things are true.
 Is it because these moments were anything different than I've had before? No, not at all.
I've always been told I'm beautiful. I've always been told I'm smart. I've taught hundreds of youth during multiple weeks of multiple summers that think I'm the bomb-dot-com.
The change came when I let my Heavenly Father tell me that I am all of those things.
That change has allowed me to now believe in my own ability to be loved and accept all of those other little things.
I've been so fortunate this summer to have lessons on spiritual confidence. I've realized it is something that I need to work on. Something that I need to believe.

One great thing about learning that I am indeed a loveable and incredible person is that when I got to Nauvoo I had something to hold on to when convincing myself I was supposed to be there. I was one of only a few counselors who were chosen to work that session. Nauvoo is a major historic landmark for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and in combination with that and it being one of the only sessions this last week of EFY, counselor positions were difficult to get. I was surrounded by my previous leaders from earlier this summer. I worked with lots of my coordinators and building counselors and felt extremely insignificant the first night doing so. During the week I was able to remind myself that I was chosen to be there for a reason and was able to see my own strengths and use them in combination with the strengths of the counselors around me.

So what are the messages I want to get across in this post? First, that we need to learn how to love ourselves on our own with the help of our Heavenly Father rather than being completely dependent on others to provide that for us. Second, that we need to have spiritual confidence that we are indeed enough, and more than enough. You are incredible and don't you doubt that one second.

A lesson one of my session directors gave this summer has really stuck with me. She said, "We are daughters of God and we are lucky enough to know it." She showed the video below. It's one I've seen almost every week this summer and I really like it. President Uchtdorf is my absolute favorite speaker and he's done a lovely job with this as always.

Our True Identity

My session director talked about us all being swans. She showed us her own embarrassing pictures from when she was young and then in the funniest way possible talked about our lives saying, Someday... there's a swan in there. She's gonna come out! She's gonna come out and flap her wings! Oh my gosh its that awkward girl Michelle- she's a swan!!"
The rest of the week she continued to stand in front of the group flapping her arms saying, "She's gonna come out! She's gonna come out and fly!"

There's another story I really like that I heard at EFY. It's called the Eagle Chicken. I just want you to read the story part on the link. There are so many eagles in this world that are living like chickens. I think it is safe to say that we all are eagles but we don't realize or accept the fact that we are so we live our lives walking about on the ground pecking at bugs when we have the potential to soar.

I am a little bit obsessed with buying things to hang on the wall at my house and one of the signs I have says, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." I love that. I love that every day, every moment, is a new start. Every single second we have the option to be whomever we choose to be.
Choose right now who you want that to be.

To close, I have a quote that I want to share. I've read it several times but have never had it have quite as much of an effect on me as it does now.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

~Marianne Williamson

So.. "Amanda, what do you want?"
I want to be me and realize just how incredible that person is.