Letting Go - What I Learned from the Avatar

Introduction
I find that, as a writer, you get inspiration from a lot of different places - nature, experiences, and even other people that you meet.  Sometimes, though, you get inspiration from places that other people might consider weird.

With that as a preface, before I proceed forward, I want to take this time to confess something - I am a die hard Last Airbender and Legend of Korra fan.  Like seriously.  I own and wear t-shirts with logos from the series and all of the seasons are ranked high on my "to buy" list.   I've had multiple conversations with different people about what type of bender they think they would be and I'm pretty sure I would be an earth or an air bender.  Not that I need to, but I justify my Avatar fandom by pointing out that we all get our little nerdy things that we like (I just happen to have a lot of them, one of them being this series).

Korra's Experience 
Now that I have that off my chest, this post was inspired by a scene from one of the latest episodes (yes, I follow it closely).  Before we get too far I want to point out that there is a SPOILER ALERT ahead for those of you who haven't seen the episode but still plan on watching it (For those who want to watch it, you can find it HERE).

At this point in the series, Korra is experiencing some problems with her fighting skills and is having periodic, traumatic flashbacks to the events of last season.  She is frustrated because she just can't seem to understand why her fighting is just not up to parr with where it used to be, so she goes on soul-searching journey in various places around the world, until she finally finds herself being led to a swamp by a little puppy (who turns out to be a spirit), where she finds Toph (one of the main characters from The Last Airbender).

After training with Toph for a short amount of time and getting beat down multiple times.  In Korra's frustration, Toph points out that, despite her daughter, Suyin's, efforts to remove the metallic poison that had debilitated Korra (leaving her in a wheelchair at the end of the last season), some of the poison still remained in her body and was weighing her down.  Korra, upon realizing this, is pretty relieved to find out that the problem seems to be something that can be fixed.  She just needs to have Toph bend the metallic poison out of her body.

The Realization
Later in the episode, we see Korra laying down and Toph attempting to remove the remaining poison.  As soon as she starts the process, Korra winces in pain, and Toph tells her to relax (in a Toph sort of way).  Upon trying it again, Korra cringes at Toph's attempt to remove the poison.

For some reason, Korra just can't seem to relax enough, and Toph gets a bit annoyed and tells Korra that she needs to be the one to remove the poison herself.  Korra can't understand why she can't relax enough to get the poison out when Toph points out that maybe it's because she doesn't want the poison out so she doesn't have to go back out and be the avatar.  In the end, what it came down to was, Korra was scared.

I don't know why, but Korra's whole experience struck a chord with me.  I know the Legend of Korra is just a cartoon, but you just can't help but smile at how profound some of these scenes are.  Korra needed to go back to being the avatar, but being the avatar might mean getting hurt again, and maybe even dying.  It could mean more traumatic experiences, more failures, and certainly it meant facing an unknown future.

The Lesson
How many times do we find ourselves running away from things that we need to do?  Holding on to past experiences, good or bad, because we're scared that putting ourselves out there will leave us in a vulnerable position?  We're afraid of failing or getting hurt physically, mentally, or emotionally.

In real life, this fear could translate into any number of circumstances - dating (which I find is a big one for those in the twenty-something age range), learning something new, deciding move to a new place, making friends, or even having an important chat with a loved one (parents, siblings, or friend).  In general, putting yourself out there.

As we learned from Korra, if we live our lives like that, we will be, figuratively, weighed down and unable to accomplish what we are truly capable of doing.  It's true, life does come with some ups and downs.  It comes with hard experiences and failures, but if we let failure, or more importantly the fear of failure hold us back, we will miss out on so many lessons and blessings.

Elder F. Enzio Busche in his talk, Unleashing the Dormant Spirit said,

Avoid any fear like your worst enemy, but magnify your fear about the consequences of sin. 

I love that line.  We need to avoid any fear, except the fear of doing wrong.  Fear really is a terrible thing. It stops us from being able to move forward.  It stops us from realizing our true potential or being able to do the things that God needs us to do.  It's true, from time to time, we will have moments when we are scared because of experiences we've had in the past.  And sometimes, we will let the fear get the best of us, I know I have, but we can't let it hold us back.  We need to let go.

Conclusion
The other day I saw the conclusion of Korra's trouble with the metallic poison.

SPOILER ALERT: Korra is finally able to bend the poison out of her system, but only after she lets go of the painful memories that she was holding on to.  It almost brought me to tears, not because the heroine was finally able to let go and become her old self, but because I know what that feels like.

We all have things that we hold on to, much to our detriment, but what a wonderful feeling it is to be able to let those things go.  Many of those things take time and sustained effort, like sins or bad habits, but when we finally "get the poison out of our system" we are so
much better because of it.

I sincerely hope that we can all have the experience, and frequently, of letting go of the things that are holding us back and have the chance to realize our potential.  I know that through the Atonement and grace we can have the strength to let even the hardest things go.  In any case, the memories might remain, but the weight will not.  How grateful I am for that realization and that the love of God can help us get through those hard times.  We truly are blessed to have a loving Heavenly Father and a Savior who were willing to help make all of the letting go and the change experiences possible for us.  We're even luckier if we have witnessed those miracles in our own lives or the lives of those we love.  I hope that if you haven't let go of mistakes or fears, please consider doing so, you will be so much better off.

- Morgan

Our Own Worst Enemies - Being Enough

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There have been a lot of things on my mind lately.  I've been trying to do something of makeover of my life.  New place, new experiences, so why not new life?  It's a little more than that actually.  Sometimes you just get to that point when you look at who you are and what you've become and realize it's not where you want to be.  You need to make some changes.  A part of those changing was getting out of a place that I love and have become so comfortable in.  Thus, a cross-state move.

Another great thing that I did last night and today was take some time to identify exactly who I want to be, down to the very last attribute and skill.  It's still a work in progress, but it is refreshing to gain a perspective of where you are now and where you want to go.  Who you want to become.  

In the process of all of this, I have been reading books that contain information about becoming who I want to be.  One of those books is called 'Winning with People' by John Maxwell.  Now, I don't love John Maxwell, I think his theories about leadership are a bit conceited (however, that's another post), but he does have some good stuff in his books.  

'Winning with People' details different principles to work on in order to become a better people person.  Now, you'd think I'd be a really good people person having been student body president, but honestly, I still struggle with so many things.  A lot of what I wrote last week was inspired by the first chapter that I read of that book called 'The Lens Principle,' presenting the idea that the way we see the world is influenced by our personal 'lens' of the world, which is shaped by many factors, including attitude, genetics, and our associations.

One idea that really stood out to me in the chapter I read today was something that the book mentioned, "if you do not believe in yourself, you will sabotage relationships."  Now, I know not everyone struggles with this, believing in yourself.  In fact, for many people it is the exact opposite, they believe too much in themselves.  However, it is a problem that we probably don't address as much as we should, especially among the male population.

I will be the first to admit that I am my own worst critic.  My inner voice is constantly telling me that I am not enough.  This may be a shocking revelation to many, I'm not sure that I give off that vibe, but sometimes I feel like I can never be good enough for the standards that I want to have.  I am constantly making mistakes and falling back on commitments to myself and others.  That some how I'm going to disappoint both God and the people I love.  It is all quite frustrating.  

However, in spite of all this, the last and least productive thing that I need to do is mentally pummel myself into submission, to the point that I don't even believe that I am really capable of anything.  Believe it or not, I have been there before.  

It doesn't help that Mormon culture is pretty infamous for having ridiculously high standards and even more severe self-punishment when those standards are not met.  Is it any wonder why Utah is among the most depressed states in the country?  

How damaging is it for us to believe will never be good enough?  Very.  What if we believe we are not worth anyone's time because we just can't get it right?  What if we feel like everybody deserves to be happy but us because we keep failing?  If you can imagine, it's a very hard thing to deal with.  It's even worse for relationships.

What if we kept trying to find reasons we shouldn't date someone because we didn't feel worthy to date them?  Yeah.  It's rough.

Maybe some of us don't have it that bad, maybe we just lack a little confidence in social settings and it's frustrating to us.  Maybe we think we're a little too dull to date the kind of person we want to date.  There's quite the spectrum of ways we see ourselves falling short, however, the bottom line is we need to change that little voice inside our heads that says we are not enough.  

It has been said that, "all significant battles are waged within the self" (Sheldon Kopp).  No more is that true in our own self image and the constant nagging that says because we don't measure up to unrealistic expectations, or even realistic ones, we are not enough.

It made a world of difference for me today to even just cease the inner critic for a few hours.  I felt so much better as a result of believing that even though I'm not perfect, I'm enough.  Tiffany Peterson once suggested an exercise to be done in the mirror.  She suggested that we take a little time (I believe it was 5-10 minutes) at the end of the day, just before going to bed, to look into the mirror and congratulate ourselves for all the good things that we had done today, the things that we had accomplished, and to remind ourselves that we are enough.  

It's a little weird at first, but it is a great experience to try at least once.  It may even draw a few tears.  

My challenge for myself and to anyone who has made it this far in my post is to silence that inner critic (although it is healthy, to own up to shortcoming on a regular basis, as long as it doesn't impede our growth) and love ourselves; take some time to identify who you want to become and how you want to get there; and take some time to get to know yourself, your wants and desires, and what moves you.  It may sound a little narcissistic, but oh how it helps you.  Especially if you're struggling.  

I promise that as you do this, no matter where you fall on the self-pummeling spectrum, you will feel a burden lifted off your shoulders.  For some of you, it will make a world of difference.  

So, in case you don't believe it, you are enough.  You know how I know?  God made us all after His image, and with the explicit destiny of becoming as He is.  We have a grand destiny ahead of us and He is with us through all the setbacks and falls, cheering us on.  Even if we can't see it.  You are enough because He is enough.  He gave His Son so we could be enough.

Good luck my friends.  I'm also cheering for you.

I wish you well in your inner journeyings.

- Morgan

P.S.

Some more great books, literature, and media to check out:

This LDS talk

Also this TED talk

This book

Also this book

This person

A Brave New World - Seeing Things Differently

A Brave New World

Today was an interesting day.  Well, I guess if you look at it from an outside point of view it was actually really boring - I woke up, ran, got ready, ate breakfast/lunch, worked, read a book, read scriptures, then played volleyball.  However, the reality of the situation is that I'm in a completely different town, house, and circumstance than I was a week ago.  It's crazy how things can change so fast.  However, what's also crazy is how even if you change your surroundings some things are still exactly the same.

I've been thinking about this a lot as I have been trying to get know people around here.  I feel like I've been especially awkward and quiet in certain social situations - a problem that I run into in places where I don't know anybody.  It's honestly quite frustrating, and I was beginning to wonder if maybe it was where I was - there are already little tight nit groups and I'm just sitting on the outside, looking in.  However, today I had something of a revelation.

A Little Story

I was reminded of this story in the book I was reading earlier:

A traveler on the outskirts of a great city asked an older fellow seated on the side of the road, "What are people like in this city?"
     "What were they like where you came from?" the man asked.
     "Horrible," the traveler reported.  "Mean, untrustworthy, detestable, in all respects."
     "Ah," said the old man, "you will find them the same in the city ahead."
     It wasn't minutes after the first traveler had left that another stopped by and asked the old man the same question about the people in the city he was entering.  Again, the old man asked the traveler what the people where he had just come from were like.
     "They were fine people:  honest, industrious, and generous to a fault," declared the second traveler.  "I was sorry to leave."
     The old man answered, "That's exactly how you'll find the people here."

Where We Are

I had thought about this in the past and a lesson that I had learned years ago in my service a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to mind.  As a missionary, I frequently ran into both members of the church and missionaries who thought wherever they were - stake, ward, area - was the worst.  The worst area, the worst members, and just plain mean people.  Likewise, there were also members and missionaries who thought where they were was just great.  It didn't matter where they were, wherever they were, the work flourished.  It was then that I learned where you are is less important than who you are.

Here's the thing, at the end of the day, a change of scenery will change how some events play out, but it doesn't change you.  Moving to a bigger city means more opportunities to meet different types of a people (and for you singles out there, a bigger dating pool to select from).  However, if you were not as proactive about reaching out and meeting people where you lived before as you should have been, you're going to have that same problem regardless of your location.

Another Lesson

Here's another lesson to chisel in stone:  who we are determines how we see other people and how we see the world

If we had problems where we were before, we're going to have problems wherever we end up.  Why?  Because chances are the problems were less external and more internal.  If we thought the people we associated with were fools in the last place we lived, we're probably going to think they're fools no matter where we go.

Now, sometimes there are some genuine problems that we run into in different places.  Yes, there are some crazies out there and some bad situations, but before we condemn people or places, we should take a good look at ourselves and our lenses.  

It's important that we understand as well that what we are is what we're going to get, or in other words, we attract people that we are like (There's a wonderful scripture in D&C 88:40 to back that thought up).

This is important information for those looking to date or create any type of relationship.  If we don't like the people that we are drawing to us, well, maybe it's time to take a look at ourselves.  We may be surprised as to what we find.

Conclusion

So what's the solution if we are having problems with people or places?

Well, at least part of the antidote comes down to looking inside and come to terms with what you find.  Once we've done some introspection, and we don't like what we see, the next step is to fix it, mend it, strengthen it, or at the very least be able to recognize that there is a problem.  This is the beginning of real personal growth - being able to see ourselves as we really are.

So that's the challenge, take a little time, figure out whatever it is that might troubling us, and look deep inside to find what we can do inside to resolve it.  Sometimes, we really can't change some things in life, but we can change our attitudes and our actions.  Ask Victor Frankl.  Understanding there are some things we can't change and taking steps to change those things that are within our control can make all the difference.

The best part is, when you've taken control of what have control over, wherever you are, can end up being a brave new world.  Even somewhere you've been all your life.  It's amazing what an inner change can do to your outer surroundings.

How did my day end?  I decided to try my best to not be weird, to be friendly and outgoing, and well, I got a date this weekend.  So, I practiced what I've been preaching.  Give it a shot, who knows what will come of a little change on the inside.

- Morgan