no one has to know.

I am a huge fan of the book Fascinating Womanhood. Controversial, I know. But for me, it changed my life in inexpressibly amazing ways, even though I have yet to master every single technique it outlines. Controversial though it is, the book is, in my opinion, ingenious. In my own life, it has been extremely effective.

One of the many things it recommends is to stop complaining, stop being petulant when things don't go your way, stop pouting. No one, not even your husband, likes a whiner. Right? Well, duh.

I remember reading that and thinking--but if I don't complain and be verbally sad about things, how will my husband know what a hard time I'm having?

And then I thought--....why does he have to know? Why does anyone have to know?

That's when I realized: no one has to know.

No one has to know our sorrows

In our day and age, I feel we are primed to over-share. Sharing is caring and all that. The fine line between sharing emotions and dwelling on them is so fine I have a hard time seeing it at all sometimes. The idea that no one has to know what a hard time I have was completely novel to me. We live in a time where we are encouraged to share our feelings, to vent, to anyone and everyone who will listen (I'm looking at you, Facebook). I never consciously thought of myself as a pity-monger, but now looking back at my life, I wonder if I was. Even if I wasn't in public, in my private life I would allow myself to sigh a lot, and act despondent about the hard things in my life.

And you know? Some of the things I have sighed about have been really hard. You really have no idea until you've spent your literal entire life caring for a dying guy. After my older brother died, who I'd been caring for for years, even harder stuff happened in my life. I hadn't even realized that was possible. Yes, I was seriously naive enough to think that I'd already seen about as much of human suffering as I would probably have to. Just goes to show that even the excruciatingly difficult stuff is really just a preparation for even more! But for some reason that never occurred to me until it actually happened.

But still: no one has to know.

Isn't that the point of Matthew 6:16-18?

 16 ¶Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

 17 But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face;

 18 That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

Yes, yes it is.

The only person who has to know all our sorrows is God. It is appropriate to approach Him in secret. This isn't to say we can't appropriately share our sorrows and our burdens with others; it is to say that we should not necessarily feel compelled to. In the past, I feel I personally was compelled to, at least to some degree.

No one has to know our joys

My life has gotten so bizarre lately, I can barely believe it sometimes. Nearly every day, something happens that just makes me sit back and think--well, now I've just about seen it all. Nothing can possibly top this. 

And then, the next day or the next week, something even crazier happens and I remember my awe at the last thing and just laugh at myself.

Up until a few weeks ago, I did feel a compelling need to share my experiences with someone. All I wanted was to have someone to talk to about it. I would tell my husband or occasionally other friends about the strange beautiful miracles I am privileged to witness now, and I didn't think much of it. Uh, sidenote: not ALL strange beautiful miracles. Just some of them. Not infringing on people's privacy, just to be clear.

Anyway, last week, something truly, truly astonishing happened to me. In the past, I would have been all over sharing it with at least my husband.

But as I pondered the experience in my heart later, I realized: no one has to know.

No one has to know.

It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen or experienced, probably, but that experience was just for me. My husband doesn't need to know about it. You don't need to know about it. In an age of encouraged over-sharing, this can be a strange beautiful secret I share with God. I don't need to tell a single living soul. My journal knows and God knows and that's enough.

how to muscle test

I use muscle testing a lot! This post is intended to explain the basics of it. Obviously a muscle test does not take the place of a medical diagnosis, and if you need medical attention you should seek it. You are responsible for your own health.

That being said--muscle testing!

The theory

The theory is that your body is actually physically stronger when something is true or good for you, than when it is false or bad for you. I don't know why this is, but it seems to work in practice, so I use it.


Getting started

Hydration is crucial for accurate results when it comes to muscle testing. So drink up! In my understanding, this is so important because water is a conductor, and muscle testing uses the body's ekectromagnetic field. I could be wrong about this, but what I am not wrong about is that dehydration, even slight dehydration, can tamper with accuracy here. Drink up!

Testing: The Body Sway

From here.

In this form of muscle testing, you stand and let your body sway. I like this one best for accuracy because when you test with your fingers (as will be explained below), you can accidentally tighten your fingers such that it tampers with the accuracy of the test. With the body sway, though, you can be certain that if you're not consciously interfering with your body's motions, you're getting a good answer.

Stand up. Close your eyes and say, out loud or in your head, "I am [your name]." You should feel your body almost independently move forward after a moment. Forward is "yes." Then try thinking, "I am [a name that is obviously not your actual name]." Your body should lean backwards as "no."

 If for some reason your body sways backwards for yes and forwards for no, or even from side to side during the control questions, it means that you are not properly polarized.

Testing: Linked Fingers

From here.

I like this test because it can be done while sitting. It takes some practice to determine how strongly to hold your fingers; you want your fingers just loose enough that when something is a no, they easily pull apart. I recommend practicing on control questions (like your name) until you know exactly how tightly to hold your fingers when you test.

Here's how to do it: make the AOK symbol with both hands and link the loops of your index fingers and thumbs, so you're kind of making a Figure 8 with your fingers. Say "I am [your name]" (or think it) and pull your fingers away from each other. They should be strong; the loops should not break. Strong = yes.

Then try "I am [a name that is not your name]." Then pull your fingers apart again.
They should be noticeably weaker. Practice with this until you know how strong to keep your fingers so that when something is weak, the one hand that breaks lets the other hand go completely (so it's easy to know the answer right away!). Play with it!

From here.

Testing: Prying fingers

This one has the same rule as the last one: practice on control questions until you easily know the difference between a yes and a no answer.

Make an AOK symbol with one hand, using the ring finger instead of the index finger. Place your thumb and index finger from the other hand inside the loop of the AOK. When asking your control questions, spread your thumb and index finger to test the AOK loop. A yes should leave the loop intact, while a no should break the loop apart.


Questions beyond controls

After you've established that all is as it should be with your control questions, you can get started. I always start my testing by stating my name and getting an answer, and then asking "Am I sufficiently hydrated to get accurate results?" and "Am I grounded?"

If the answers to either of those is no, then I either drink up, or ground, depending. An easy way to ground is to imagine yourself growing roots down to the center of the Earth, and pushing all negative energy out of your body and into the Earth for cleansing via these roots. Another easy way to ground is to go on a walk outside. Keep grounding and testing until your body says it is grounded. Once it is, you can ask the real questions.

Also note that for some reason, leather interferes with accuracy and in some cases prevents muscle testing altogether. Always remove leather paraphernalia before testing.

Limitations of muscle testing

Muscle testing only works to uncover the truth as it is believed by your subconscious mind. In other words, your body does NOT know all truth. It will give you its opinions on whatever you ask it about, but that does not make it automatically correct.

The subconscious mind is not always right! Image here.

For example, one thing I work with a lot is subconscious programming. You can test your body for any sort of belief, such as "I need to be fat" or "It is bad to have enough money to provide for my family." It is doubtful that anyone NEEDS to be fat, and I suspect many of us will agree that it is not wrong to have enough money to provide for one's family. But the subconscious can still believe this is the case (in which case, the program can be changed, if you work with someone trained to do that. I am trained to do that).

So if you're thinking you can muscle test to discover Absolute Truths, such as the veracity of a book of scripture or if there's a storm going on in Mexico or something, you will get an answer when you muscle test, but there are ZERO guarantees as to actual accuracy of the answer you get.

Your body is most accurate--you could say, only accurate--at providing answers to clearly stated yes-no questions that directly relate to your own body and your own subconscious mind (because the subconscious mind runs and regulates the body). Testing to know the outcome of future events will not work because of how many factors there are involved with the future, and the fact that the future is not yet set in stone. Even testing on how your own body will react to something in the future will lead to most likely inaccurate results, because your body will calculate based on how things currently are, which will change the next time you take a drink, go to sleep, or use a restroom.

You cannot accurately test for information that relates to other people (at least, not while you are plugged into your own energy). As a brief example, I was once muscle testing to discover if an issue was affecting one of my loved ones, and I kept getting conflicting answers. As soon as the person I was testing about gave me permission to muscle test on her behalf, when I plugged into her energy and muscle tested on myself as a proxy for her, I got an entirely different (and more accurate) answer to the question.

Basically, your subconscious will give you the answer it believes to be true, without any regard to actual truth. So you need to be careful of that.

Uses for muscle testing

One popular way to use muscle testing is to touch or think of particular foods you like to eat and muscle test on them. Strong or forward means they are good for you; weak or backwards means they are bad for you.

I often use muscle testing to uncover bad subconscious programming, like "I need to be poor" or "I don't deserve to be happy." Your subconscious does its best to make sure your programs come true, so if you have things like that running, your life will be sub-optimal! I like to identify these things with muscle testing and then test again after I've made changes to be sure they came through.

You can use muscle testing to identify trapped emotions, and any number of body-related issues.

You can test your character with muscle testing (for example, I recently started creating scales of attributes and testing myself to see where I stand with them--one scale is a faith scale, with 0 being no faith and 1000 being the Brother of Jared seeing the hand of God). You make your scale and then test, "I have more that 500 units of measure on this scale," "I have more than X units on this scale," until you find out how many units you have. One very faithy day, I realized that by the end of the day my faith measure had jumped by 5 units! I was so happy.

Conclusion

Muscle testing is a great way to identify subconscious beliefs about your body and mind. It is not accurate outside that field, but inside that field, it's great. It requires hydration, grounding, and practice, but it can be a skill worth developing.

EDIT: Check out my page on troubleshooting the muscle testing process if you have any troubles.

I had a heart transplant.

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

- Ezekiel 36:26

The past year was a year of major transformation for me. My brother died, but that was only part of it. In the months leading up to his death, my personal research led me to some uncomfortable scientific information that really challenged how I thought about myself and where I fit in--where I fit in with my family, my church, my community, my country. I struggled.

Every time I went to the temple about it, I was taught, but I didn't like the answers I got. I'd open the scriptures and every single time, I'd open up to a verse about this particular topic. One particularly memorable time, I kept asking God questions about each scripture, and He would tell me which scripture to turn to next to get my answer. He and I had a 20-minute lesson this way and I left feeling broken but that obviously everything I was learning was true.

This whole ordeal turned me into an utter mess. From about October 2013 to January 2014, I wept about this issue just about every day. My husband would walk in and ask me what was wrong this time, and I'd just have to say, eh, it's the same thing. And I would cry and cry.

Finally, in late December, I had an epiphany. I realized: hey. God is perfect. He knows everything. He loves me more than anything. He doesn't make mistakes and if this is His doctrine, it must be the wisest, truest, kindest thing and it must be the thing that has the most power to make humanity happy.

This doctrine, since it is God's doctrine, must have the power to make me happy.

I had this realization while I was crying on my floor again. (Did I mention I was a huge mess?) But right there I just prayed, prayed for God to please remove my old yucky heart that was full of pride and enmity, and replace it with one that just loved the truth instead.

And He did.

From here.

And now I can tell you, I have a testimony of that doctrine and those scientific findings, and I find a lot of peace in that.

God gave me a heart transplant.

And I can tell you that my new heart has come with a lot of good things. Is it perfect? Hardly. But it is more perfect than my last one was. I believe my current heart is as perfect as I am ready for it to be. At least now I don't find myself in the awkward position of fighting against God when I know that anyone who fights against Him will lose.

I was praying and pondering about this other day and felt that I could really trade this heart in for a better one at any time. I guess this is how the sacrament works, when you get down to it. Every week we have the chance to trade in our old yucky hearts for new ones. Truly, every day we get the chance to make the trade, but I believe it's through the sacrament that the change sticks, or is ratified somehow.

I'm sure we all get new hearts from time to time, it's just that for me, I noticed it immediately when it happened because I had just asked for it to happen moments before, and then felt the change.

But our hearts are always changing.

Hopefully for the better.

book list

Several people have asked for my book list lately, so I thought I'd make a post about it so everyone can have access to it. I theoretically plan to update this list as I read more helpful books! These are affiliate links so if you want to get these books and you like me, feel free to buy them through the links provided. ;o)

1. The Emotion Code by Dr. Bradley Nelson. This book is a fast read and immediately applicable. I got it in the morning, and in the afternoon I was already able to put it to use. Since I started using this technique I've discovered a lot of ways to use it that are not covered in the book, but it's very good. This book teaches how to release the emotions from past events that have yet to be fully processed.


2. Theta Healing: Introducing an Extraordinary Energy Healing Modality by Vianna Stibal. This book can get pretty weird in places and please let me state that I do not endorse it 100%. However, the techniques have been pretty effective for me. This book shows you how to put the brain in a conscious, waking theta state and make desired changes to the subconscious mind.


3. Energy Medicine: Balancing Your Body's Energies for Optimal Health, Joy, and Vitality by Donna Eden. This book is fairly dense with information and kind of hard to read--the exercises are randomly scattered throughout the book and it's hard to find what you need when you need it, if that makes sense. But this was my first textbook on energy medicine and it has some good stuff in it.



4. The 7 Secrets of Synchronicity: "Your guide to Finding Meaning in Coincidences Big and Small" by Trish MacGregor and Rob MacGregor. I can't endorse this whole book but the first half, at least, was a good introduction for me to the concept of synchronicity. Synchronicity is important to me to understand because it is how God answers a lot of my prayers (and probably how He answers some of yours too, if you think about it!).



5. The Touch of Healing: Energizing the Body, Mind, and Spirit With Jin Shin Jyutsu by Alice Burmeister. This book was one of my first introductions to hands-on healing and it was pretty enlightening. I read it once and should probably read it again. It has a lot of information and diagrams and useful stuff. The biggest thing I took away from it was finger postures.


6. The Face Reader: Discover Anyone's Personality, Compatibility, Talents, and Challenges Through Chinese Face Reading by Patrician McCarthy. This book is so fascinating. It teaches you how to read a person's face. Funny story: I had noticed for years that one of my best friends exhibited a particular facial symbol that made no sense. I figured the book was wrong or that I wasn't able to read faces. In the end, it turned out that this friend had been hiding a major secret--that exactly corresponded with the facial marking I thought I had misread. Win for Chinese face reading! I'm not an expert at this but I turn to this book again and again. So useful--now that I know I can trust it!


7.The Lightworkers Way by Doreen Virtue. The author shares her spiritual awakening and then explains how she reads people, how to help people forgive, and other good stuff. Actually, I should re-read this one. The second half of the book is an instruction manual of sorts that was very useful to me the first time I read it.


8. Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potentialby Caroline Myss. This one explains the concept of archetypes, and how to use them to gain a greater perspective on our life purpose and interactions with others.




I'll add more to this list as it comes to me. Enjoy!

seeing the light in their eyes: observing the "Mormon" effect

So it turns out that ♥♥SCIENCE♥♥ currently shows that people actually can discern Mormons from non-Mormons on sight. Enjoy the article here. This is fascinating stuff because anecdotally, I personally have always felt I could recognize Mormons on sight (and have weird stories to back this up), and many other people I've talked to have felt the same way. Turns out, this may not be entirely unfounded.

Observe this excerpt:

Only headshots were shown and the faces had no adornments. What they found was both Mormon and non-Mormon subjects were able to identify who was a Mormon more often than would occur by chance.

Rule and his colleagues then tried to isolate which specific facial feature was betraying Mormons the most. In the end, it proved difficult to determine.

“Even when the researchers removed important features, such as the [hair, shape of the face, nose,] eyes or mouth, the subjects were [still] able to identify Mormons more often than would occur by chance.

 The article goes on to submit that the real determining factor that helps people discern Mormons from non-Mormons is skin texture. The authors quote multiple prophets who explain that Mormonism makes people beautiful, and wonder if that is the case.

They also note the phenomenon of "light in their eyes," the Mormony term for the "glow" that seems to emanate from practicing Mormons.

I do not believe skin texture is the answer here. To be honest, I would not be surprised if when they removed even skin texture from the faces--if all they left on the pictures they showed were blank spaces that were merely associated with the different people involved--they found that people could still identify which space was Mormon and which space wasn't. Sorry, that was a confusing sentence. In other words: I suspect skin texture probably does not have as much to do with it as they think it does. I suspect that the innate human ability to recognize light from darkness is the more likely thing that enables a person to distinguish between a Mormon and non-Mormon on sight.

But light and darkness aren't contained by facial features OR by skin texture. A person's light or darkness exists separate from the body, though they are associated with the body. The light or darkness of a person can leave when the person's body dies, which would not be possible if this "subtle body" were inseparably connected to the body. Incidentally, this is why remote energy work is possible: when do you a remote quantum touch session, for example, you can work on a person's subtle body even if the person's physical body is far away.

All people are instinctively able to recognize other people's subtle light or darkness, whether they consciously realize they can or not.

To me, that's what this study actually shows.

After all--plenty of Mormons have acne, but you can still tell if they're Mormon on sight. And plenty of Mormons are not that cute--but you can still recognize them right away. Looks are not really what people are recognizing here, as far as I can tell. Not even skin texture.

Light and darkness of the subtle body are real, observable effects. This light is often the most noticeable in Mormons, in my opinion and observation, because we actually have more light in our subtle bodies than the average person. Keeping God's commandments, as I've blogged before, actually literally fills us with light. This is true for all people, not just Mormons--the big difference is that Mormons A) understand more of God's commandments, thanks to more scriptures and more prophets to counsel them and guide them and B) tend to actually keep those commandments. I can't tell you how many Christians I know that say they love Jesus but don't keep the Sabbath day holy, for example.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we are both aware of more commandments than the average Christian--think of the Word of Wisdom as just one example--and we are more expected to keep all the commandments. As we actually do keep the commandments and adhere to our end of the covenants we make through baptism and in the temple, we increase in personal light--and this light is apparently actually visible to people, both in and out of the Church.

This all reminds me so much of the parable of the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13). Jesus, as well as the prophets since the Restoration, taught: we cannot live on borrowed light.

Interestingly, in my scripture study on the names of God, I came across James 1:17, which calls God "the Father of lights" (He is also called this in D&C 67:9). Consider the famous Biblical admonition to "let your light so shine" (Matthew 5:16). Consider the scriptural explanation that wickedness "taketh away light" (D&C 93:39). I invite you to consider the possibility that the ideas taught by these scriptures are plainer and more precious than we ordinarily think them to be.

I feel the scriptures imply over and over again--by "imply," I mean state very clearly and plainly that this is the case, even though we most often interpret the words metaphorically instead of literally--that when it comes down to it, we are truly and literally beings primarily made of light.

The closer a person is to God, the more light they have.

I feel this explanation intuitively makes more sense than the idea that skin texture is the factor that makes Mormons so clearly discernible on sight.

I will add quickly that my weirdest story of this--of recognizing a Mormon guy by his light alone--happened when he wasn't even facing me and was, in fact, wearing a suit. So I could literally see none of his skin at all. This was when I was fifteen or sixteen. I didn't know this guy was Mormon; I only knew that he seemed to glow to me, even from behind. We were at a political conference and I just thought--what is this? Why is that random guy glowing? In the end he recognized me first as a Mormon because of my YW medallion. When we met, he said, "Oh! I see you're LDS--me too!" and all of a sudden his glow made sense. It was a very strange experience, one that I will never forget, and one that to me is evidence that skin texture is likely not the defining feature that sets Mormons apart from non-Mormons.

studying the scriptures like you meditate

I have to go to bed RIGHT NOW, but I wanted to blog quickly!

I've been taking the 40-Day Meditation Challenge from Tree of Life Kundalini Yoga, which is run by Progressive Prophetess. One of the rules is that you have to do your meditation for 40 consecutive days, as in, you miss a day, you start the count over.

For the record, I believe I am on Day 14. And yes, I did my meditation for today!

One of the reasons meditating for so many days in a row is recommended is that you're building new neural circuitry in your brain and each day builds on the habits built in the last. It's more complicated than this, I think (or is it?), but that's my summary.

This site explains the kirtan kriya.

To perform the kirtan kriya, which is the kriya I am doing for 40 days,  one of the things you do is envision light from God entering you through your crown, and making kind of an L-shape in your head to beam out through your forehead (your third eye).

[Side note: Progressive Prophetess has pointed out the Christ connection to the kirtan kriya. If I may add to the LDS kundalini scholarship, I would like to mention that in my own practice, rather than interpreting the "maa" as "rebirth," I interpret that rebirth more along the lines of "resurrection," which to me more solidly reinforces the idea of the kirtan kriya being about Jesus Christ and our own divine paths. Resurrection is a type of rebirth, after all--our rebirth into our new perfected bodies.]

Anyway, I've been focusing on getting in my daily meditation, and it's become a priority for me. I will stay up late to get it in, even if--like right now--my eyes are closing on me and I'm totally drowsy. I realized, I want to get in my meditation because:

A. I want to complete the challenge! 40 consecutive days, baby!
B. Did I mention I paid $60 for the class on the challenge? Gotta get my money's worth! :o)
C. I want those brain changes!

But here's the important thing: the prophets and scriptures have certainly commanded us to meditate (although they are not always clear on the definition of meditation). But an even clearer commandment is to study the scriptures.

As I was explaining the L-shape of light that's supposed to go on in the kirtan kriya to a friend, I had a sudden understanding that this is how scripture reading is supposed to work, too. Maybe not in exactly the same way as it does in meditation, but in a similar way. A chiastic way, perhaps. Maybe the opposite way. Maybe as we study the scriptures, light and understanding enter us through our third eye--basically our eyes and minds--and help us connect up with God. Or maybe light and understanding from God is supposed to enter us through our crowns and enlighten our minds and eyes as we read the scriptures. Either way makes sense to me.

From lds.org.

It suddenly became clear to me that just as meditation is the most effective at creating a change of heart and mind when it is done for consecutive days, so is scripture study. To me, in the past it has been easy to compartmentalize scripture study into something that's just kind of nebulously good for the spirit, rather than something that actually has real, true potential to change the literal heart and mind. I mean, I know that's true, but I don't know that there are studies showing how scripture study changes the body as there are studies about kundalini meditation.

I mean, look. Wikipedia even has an article about the research on meditation's effects on the body. Meditation has been shown to make a measurable difference in the workings of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. Meditation has been shown to alleviate chronic pain, reduce stress, and do all sorts of great stuff for the human mindbody.

But it appears to me now that meditation works on the same pathways that scripture study can work, if we are diligent about it and do it every day, and go into it with the right frame of mind.

Imagine reading your scriptures for 11 or 31 minutes a day, with the background focus of your mind being that light of God entering your body through the top of your head and then enlightening your vision and your mind as you study His words. Or imagine envisioning the light from His holy scriptures enlightening your body through your third eye and linking you back up to Heaven, opening your connection with God in a more visual way. Would that not enlighten your understanding, even just the one time you tried it?

From lds.org.

Now imagine doing your scripture study that way every day--building those neural circuits that are also built during meditation as you study God's word. Imagine the ability to reduce stress, get your body in better condition, receive greater light and understanding, as you implemented this practice.

I write all this as someone who doesn't actually do that stuff--yet! But just understanding that this type of scripture study is a possibility is kind of blowing my mind. I had to share. Maybe tonight will not be the night I start reading the scriptures with the background intention of that light and knowledge making the L-shape in my head as I read, but it's now officially on the to-do list. We'll see how it goes!

God can heal instantly.

This is kind of an echo of another post on faith. But this experience has been floating around in my mind and I wanted to share it.

From here.

A few months back I experienced some trauma. This was after I developed the ability to discern traumas more clearly. I noticed at the time that one of my chakras had developed a dent and some discoloration as a result of my trauma. It looked kind of like this picture.

When the chakras are clean and healthy and everything, to me they appear as perfectly spherical and evenly bright all the way through. So dents, cracks, discolorations, and so on are not good.

Anyway, my hurt chakra distressed me. So I went into theta and got cleaning.

And got cleaning.

And got cleaning.

And I scrubbed that thing! And I tried so hard to clean it and make it perfectly round again! And it just wouldn't come clean!

And finally I did what I should have done in the first place: I prayed about it.

It came to me that, theoretically, at least, Heavenly Father should be able to just fix it. Just fix it instantly. Right? Why not?

So tentatively, I asked if He would just clean it and fix it and make it beautiful and clean and bright, please.

And He did. So fast. In the blink of an eye, this dented, yucky ball I'd been mentally scrubbing for weeks just perfected. Clean, whole, bright. Perfect. It was amazing. I was so grateful.

It taught me a lot. God can always heal instantly, if we are ready for it, if we ask for it, and if we have faith for His healing to come through for us. Healing on our own doesn't always work and it's rarely the optimal solution. If I had kept thinking I was going to clean my traumatized subtle body on my own, I am pretty sure I'd still be spiritually dented. But as soon as I turned it over to Heavenly Father, BAM. Things were good. Instantly.

To me, it all comes down to faith. Do we have faith to be healed?

James A. Cullimore.

From James A. Cullimore:

I bear my solemn witness that these gifts are with the Church today. The sick are healed, the eyes of the blind are opened, the ears of the deaf are unstopped, the lame are made to walk. The gift of tongues blesses our missionaries and others the world over. The gifts of wisdom and knowledge are evidenced by the leadership of our people everywhere. Devils are cast out, spirits are discerned, the gift of faith is demonstrated on every side. Many mighty miracles give evidence that this is indeed his church, the church of Jesus Christ. All the gifts and powers and blessings that have always identified Christ’s church are with the Church today.

As members of the Church, is our faith sufficiently strong? Are we in tune with the Spirit that we might be blessed by these great gifts? Do we believe a miracle can be performed or a blessing given? Do we call upon the priesthood as often as we should to administer to the sick? Do we believe we can be healed? Do we have faith to heal? Is the priesthood always prepared to give a blessing? How strong is your faith?

healing ethics, and healing those without faith to be healed

A good, good question from the amazing guy behind DouglasErnstBlog! :o)

I know this is a weird question, but say you had a friend who did not have faith, but you wanted to help them with "problem x." Say they had back pain and you found they had all sorts of trapped emotions that were causing it. Would it be unethical to "release" those emotions, and would it even do any good (i.e., they would just build up again because the person wasn't confronting the issues that manifested the emotions to begin with).

Sometimes people with zero faith come into my life, and I wonder if my purpose it to try and reach them somehow. However, it just seems like we're on two completely different planes of existence. Nothing I say or do seems to make a dent in their "religion of non-faith" (or whatever you want to call it).

I've actually started blogging about this multiple times and just haven't finished that particular essay. 

Choose the right! Agency, yeah! From lds.org.

Here is my experience with it, greatly abridged.

Agency

It all comes down to agency. The power to choose. As children of God, we all have the power to choose. A healing can only work if a person chooses it to apply to them. If you do a healing that a person isn't aware of, in my experience, it doesn't go through. I did this a few times in the beginning of my healing journey--doing well-meant remote work for people who were having a hard time who I felt could benefit from some extra help.

It didn't help.

I learned that a lot of it is because of agency, and the rest of it is like the question pointed out--it's our choices, so many times, that lead to our current circumstances.

For example, in recent weeks I saw a friend fall under the influence of drugs. When you use drugs, in my personal observation, you open yourself up to unclean spirits. I saw two of them enter this friend's space. I meant well, but ignorantly commanded the bad guys to go, not understanding the reality of the situation.

The reality was this: My friend still had agency, and she wasn't asking them to go. She was actively inviting them in. I could make them leave for a moment, but they were welcome to come right on back and help ruin her life from the inside out.

It's the same thing with other healing work. You can do this or that for a person, and maybe it might stick, or maybe not, but in the end it all comes down to their agency and if they are spiritually prepared to accept such a healing. This preparedness can be conscious or subconscious, but it has to be there.

In my research I came across a scripture, D&C 24:14, which includes the admonition: "And these things ye shall not do, except it be required of you by them who desire it." It is in reference to the use of spiritual gifts of healing (among other gifts). To me, this means that I can offer to help someone, but if they don't want something done, then there we go. I'm not supposed to help them. It is the most important thing to never violate agency. 

Parallels with the Atonement

The whole thing has made me understand the Atonement much more deeply. We've probably all seen the pictures of Jesus knocking on the door with no doorknob. It has no doorknob because He can't let himself in. Only you can let Him in. Jesus already did all the remote healing we will ever need. ALL of it. So why do we still suffer?

Why do we still ache?

Why do we still hurt so much? Spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally?

Jesus did all the suffering for us, but we still need to accept it. His healing energy is in us--I believe it is literally in every atom--fodder for another post--but clearly we are not all 100% whole and healed. This healing energy is in our queues, waiting for us to access it.

It's the same thing with healing work. You can certainly do well-meant healing work for someone who isn't ready for it. I've done it plenty (before I knew what I know now)! But don't be surprised if you see no effects. C. S. Lewis has a great quote out there about how it is the goal of Christianity for us all to become "little Christs." I love the hymn Lord, I Would Follow Thee for its line: "I would learn the healer's art." As Christians we are called upon to wreak miracles of healing in all its forms: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual--we are called upon to share the healing miracle of the Atonement with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

But just because we do the work doesn't mean they will accept it. When we preach, plenty of people don't listen. When we do thoughtful things, sometimes our efforts go unnoticed or even reviled. But we are willing to do the work!

Ethics

The book The Emotion Code has a great section on ethics. Basically, it comes own to: it's an invasion and violation of privacy for a person to assume another person's energy system without their knowledge and permission (as would be the case in remote theta work, or Emotion Code work). So if your work is going to involve you muscle testing on another person's behalf, you should not do that without their permission! That would be an abuse of the ability. This is because when you assume a person's energy as a proxy, you can learn things about them that they may not want you to know.

Of course, when you start using your spiritual eyes, you start seeing all sorts of things about people they may prefer you not to know! But that's not intentional--intentionally assuming a person's energy without permission is a whole other thing. It's the difference between overhearing a person talking about their life story while you happen to be in the area, and sneaking into their room to read their diary.

As long as you're not assuming their energy, I believe remote work is fair game. I send "good vibes" to people without their permission. It's fancy prayer and doesn't violate their agency. But I don't do theta or belief work without permission.

Basically, if you would say it in a "normal" prayer, I believe it's something that you can do without permission. For example, since I was a kid I have always prayed for people to have good days. It's not unethical to pray for someone to have a nice day. Similarly, it's not unethical to consciously send people you pray for beams of unconditional love, or whatever kind of healing you do. But it would be unethical to go into a theta state and alter their perceptions of the world without their permission. Also, I don't think it would work (although I haven't tried, and won't, so I can't say for sure).

So: would it be unethical to release a person's emotions behind their back and would it even work? Yes,
it would be unethical, and I don't know if it would even work. But let's not find out.

Reaching out to those without faith

Sometimes people with zero faith come into my life, and I wonder if my purpose it to try and reach them somehow. However, it just seems like we're on two completely different planes of existence. Nothing I say or do seems to make a dent in their "religion of non-faith" (or whatever you want to call it).

Just the other day I had this trial where I was dealing with some serious stuff, and no one would take it seriously. We were on "two completely different planes of existence," even though the people I asked to help me technically shared all the same beliefs as me!

I called my aunt for advice and she stated that as those who can see clearly, we have a job to bring matters of the spirit to the attention of those who do not see.

That does not make it easy!

I believe this falls under the category of--follow the Spirit. Follow your intuitions. You won't go wrong if you follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Even if things look bad in the short term. You can always trust God. So if you know how to discern His voice from all the other voices, just do that and follow it 100%.

The other day, when no one would listen, I was at first discouraged and worried. But I decided to just turn to God 100%, and He heard my prayers. And the way He took care of the problem answered not just my prayer, but the prayer of the person who had asked me to help. And that person's prayer had been prayed years before.

From here. Leap of faith!

It turned out that it was a beautiful thing that no one around me was a believer, because in the end, I and the person I helped witnessed an incredible miracle that would not have been possible if we had not had to exercise such faith in God. But because no one else would help, out of necessity we turned to Him completely, and it was beautiful.

The difference between believers and non-believers is vast. There is a gulf between the faithful and the faithless, in every religion and belief system. I believe we just have to trust that at the right time, those who need us will find us! And that we will find the people who are ready for our help! And that as we are good examples of Christlike love and healing, those who doubt will eventually come around. And even if they don't, like I learned the other day--God has miracles in store for those who believe and call on His name. It doesn't matter if your neighbors believe. Your faith is the important thing.

Thanks to Doug for the good question! I need to finish all my other posts on this topic... because I've started a bunch! Haha!

the only limit is our faith!

I moderate my ward's blog, and this morning I had the opportunity to post this blog entry about faith. This post struck me so deeply. Go read it now.

The point of that post was: God still speaks to us. He speaks to us like He spoke to the people in the holy scriptures.

And the only limit of His power is the limit we place on it.

In other words, the only limit of God's power in our lives is the limit of our faith.

***

Buy it here.

I was recently introduced to the book The Emotion Code, which is amazing. The theory is that--okay. So every time you feel an emotion, it's because of a chemical reaction in your brain. Well, if your brain is overloaded on those emotion chemicals, it can stop them from processing. But then they just get lodged in your body instead. And they become your default emotions--for example, if you had a lot of sadness emotions stored up in you that your brain decided against processing, any time something sad came up in your life, it would make you REALLY SAD.

Or if you had a lot of anger molecules that weren't getting processed, whenever something that could possibly make someone angry happened to you, you would get REALLY ANGRY. It's the body's way of trying to metabolize these leftover molecules of emotion, if you will.

That's the theory. The book also explains a lot more about it and how to release these trapped emotions. Go read it and try it. Or come to me and have me test it out on you. It's pretty fun.

The Emotion Code protocol calls for the use of a magnet--to magnify the intention of the practitioner. That seemed kind of silly to me, although I used it at first. But a few days after I started practicing the modality, I was stuck in the car for 6+ hours, and I decided I wanted to try releasing some trapped emotions from myself. And I had no magnet.

I prayed, and learned that the magnet was nothing more than a tool to magnify faith. I didn't need a magnet as long as I had the faith. So at first I used a pen instead, since that's what I had.

And then I just used nothing--just imagined using a magnet in my mind.

And then I just prayed. And it all worked the same.

Using The Emotion Code, you're supposed to identify all the trapped emotions causing your physical problems. Well, one friend I was working on for weight loss issues turned out to have a few trapped emotions causing her excess weight... 750 trapped emotions, to be precise! I knew I'd have a lot of work ahead of me to release them all, one at a time, after identification.

So I started a spreadsheet and started with #1, working my way down the list. After identifying like 40 emotions I was pretty burnt out from that.

It occurred to me to ask--can I just release all the emotions that are ready to be released at this time?

And the answer was yes.

So I did.

And I didn't need a magnet, or even a pen. All I needed was faith that if I commanded them to release now, they would. And just like that, those trapped emotions were processing.

But it gets better than that.

I realized that I--and she--were both processing all sorts of other trapped emotions. I asked if I could just release them all en masse. And I got the answer of yes.

So I just did.

Because in the end, all it is is FAITH.

 ***

A few weeks ago, I was reading up on things, and I found this article there about the nature of our common Enemy. And I quote:

 These spirits also have other tools they use on us and in us… fiery darts, chains, flaxen cords, spiritual shunts, curses, etc. They aren’t metaphors; they are energetic weapons that get lodged in your energy field. Energy healers see/deal with these all the time. I was shocked the first time I found one. It was an energetic knife in my uterus, and it caused a miscarriage, as well as other pain. It is good to learn how to discern these too and learn how to cast them out so they don’t drain your energy either.

I read that, and I instantly knew in my heart: I had a friend with a weapon of this variety lodged in his side. I could discern it so clearly.

Fiery darts of the wicked. From here.

And I despaired. Because I thought--what does it take to dislodge an energetic weapon? Once it's gone, then what? Do you have to like, sew up the rift in the energetic field? What is this?

I emailed the blogger and she kindly responded: it is so easy. All you need to do is ask God in the name of Jesus Christ, nothing doubting, and it'll be gone.

And you know what? It was that easy. I just decided to believe 100% that when I asked these weapons to be gone, they would be.

And they were.

***
Tonight I had an experience where I faced a serious, serious problem and didn't know how to handle it. I sought advice, but it all came down to I needed extra help, and no mortal person would help me. I reached out to everyone I could think of to help me solve this problem, and no one would.

But then I remembered: FAITH!

I knew God had another answer, one that didn't rely on the people around me. And He did. And He showed me how to access that answer, and I did, and it was beautiful.

Someone's soul was healed tonight.

Thanks to faith.

 10 Behold it was by faith that they of old were ^acalled after the holy order of God.

 11 Wherefore, by faith was the law of Moses given. But in the ^agift of his Son hath God prepared a more ^bexcellent way; and it is by faith that it hath been fulfilled.

 12 For if there be no ^afaith among the children of men God can do no ^bmiracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until after their faith.

 13 Behold, it was the faith of Alma and Amulek that caused the ^aprison to tumble to the earth.

 14 Behold, it was the faith of Nephi and Lehi that wrought the ^achange upon the Lamanites, that they were baptized with fire and with the ^bHoly Ghost.

 15 Behold, it was the faith of ^aAmmon and his brethren which ^bwrought so great a miracle among the Lamanites.

16 Yea, and even all they who wrought ^amiracles wrought them by ^bfaith, even those who were before Christ and also those who were after.

 17 And it was by faith that the three disciples obtained a promise that they should ^anot taste of death; and they obtained not the promise until after their faith.

 18 And neither at any time hath any wrought miracles until after their faith; wherefore they first believed in the Son of God.

 19 And there were many whose faith was so exceedingly strong, even ^abefore Christ came, who could not be kept from within the ^bveil, but truly saw with their eyes the things which they had beheld with an eye of faith, and they were glad.

- Ether 12:10-19 

I am so glad. 

Believe.

Witness miracles.

forgiving out loud (when no one is there!)

I blogged earlier about the importance of living lives of forgiveness. In it, I talked about the importance of forgiving verbally. But I'm afraid I may have made the wrong impression!

I just received the Blue Book from Graf Stress Management in the mail, and it had a very good point: people don't want to be forgiven. Unless they ask you for forgiveness, people don't want to be forgiven! Because the act of forgiveness implies that they did something wrong!

The important thing is that the forgiveness is in your heart, not that they necessarily know about it.

Verbal forgiveness is important because it gives a physical dimension to our forgiveness. It adds sound and strength to the feelings. It makes it real in a way that forgiving mentally doesn't. The person you're forgiving does NOT have to be there. Often it is better if they are not there.

I had a funny experience with this once, where someone came to me and forgave me of something I did that offended them... only I had actually done nothing wrong! It was all a misunderstanding and there was nothing that I had done that required any repentance on my part. But then I was left questioning everything--even though I knew I'd done nothing wrong, I had to reevaluate everything I'd done. It was emotionally exhausting, and then in the end, I really had done nothing wrong.

Sometimes the things we take offense at are not actually wrongs. Sometimes we, in our human imperfections, make assumptions that are simply not true--assumptions about people's motives, about the definitions of the words they use (sometimes people say things that they don't even know the actual definitions of!), about the meaning of a tone of voice,  and so forth.

And sometimes we take offense at things that are actually good. Think of all the people who are offended at public prayers, for example. A person can take offense at anything but that doesn't mean the offender is always actually at fault. Sometimes the things we take offense at tell us more about our own imperfections than those of others.

So, this is why I am a huge proponent of out-loud, conscious forgiving... when no one else is around!

In recent weeks, I have consciously, out-loud forgiven all sorts of people, mostly while I was in the car (there are a LOT of drivers who need your forgiveness while you're on the road!). To me, it doesn't matter if the people I forgave feel like they did something wrong or not--the important thing isn't whether or not they sinned against me; the important thing is that I have forgiveness in my heart. They don't need to know if I forgave them or not; unless a person asks for forgiveness specifically, it's probably safe to assume that they assume they don't need your forgiveness for what they have done. So going to them with offerings of forgiveness will backfire and just make them angry with you for presuming fault on their part.

Living a life of forgiveness is essential to Christianity. If we want Jesus in our hearts, we have to clear out the sludge and grime in our hearts of hatred, grudges, anger, and loathing.

Forgive out loud! Try it today! Release some of the weight from your heart!

Believe!

Witness miracles!