A piece of my heart is planted in Washington. I was born and raised in the Upper Left, and despite living as far away from it as the continental U.S. allows, I still feel the pull of the Columbia River, the Cascade Mountains, and the smell of a cherry blossom spring. The land up there is special. You can feel it. You can breathe it. And sitting in Relief Society yesterday, I felt myself pulled back.
We were discussing a conference talk, The Eternal Gift of Testimony, and I took the time to ask myself, What is my testimony these days? What do I know? What can I proclaim with surety and confidence and boldness? Then I saw myself as a young teenager, sitting in a camp chair with a journal on my lap. I could hear the hum in the air and feel the sun on my skin. This was me in my ultimate happy place, the sacred ground where my testimony first became a living thing. Without words, the girl I was communicated the answer to my questions: I have a testimony of the wilderness.
She and I are still connected by the wild. She was the one who discovered it for me, who first drank in the mountain air and felt that it was good. She let herself be nurtured by the trees and the dirt so that when everything else was falling apart, I could always return to the earth and find grounding. When my spiritual life took a step into the wilderness, she told me that everything would be ok. The wilderness was where we felt cradled by our Mother, afterall, and how can anything born of Her not bring wholeness?
I have largely let go of the lines around my testimony. It does not feel bound by walls, because God has never been bound by them either. God is everywhere, in everything, and can therefore be found everywhere. The scriptures are full of story after story of intensely personal moments where God meets people in the wilderness, and so I am determined not to fear it. Eve once partook of the fruit with understanding that God’s plan was the wilderness. It is not something to be avoided, but discovered when we are ready for it.
Questions for when you're in the wilderness
- How might this be setting up something beautiful?
- How might the wilderness serve as a connecting point with someone else?
- What would I admire about this if I wasn't scared of it?
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MENTAL AWARENESS • emotional intelligence • value affirmation • spiritual nourishment
Stacey Boehman's Three Stages of Belief
Impossibility
Possibility
Inevitability
What about church do you want to be different? Do you believe it can be? We all have impossible hopes that we're afraid to act on because we're scared of proving ourselves right. But what if you proved yourself wrong? What if you proved that the impossible was possible?
Beliefs are not born in an instant. We feed them evidence from our life until they grow and solidify. Do you know what beliefs you are nurturing? Are they the beliefs that will help you reach the goals you want to achieve? If there's a goal you want to reach but aren't ready to embrace it, what thoughts can at least help you consider the possibility?
Coaching Corner: Reclaiming Power from Victim Mentality
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Stacey Boehman, Make Money as a Life Coach, episodes 27-29
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