Blog #1003 Love and Trust

Blog #1003  Love and Trust

My last blog focused on loving another individual without trying to make that person bad or good in our minds, without condoning painful behaviors and without accepting underserved blame ourselves.  This blog is about love and trust. Love and trust are not the same thing.  While it is wonderful when you can trust those you love that is not always the case.  Love does not imply trust. Sometimes you will hear people assert that “if you really loved me or if you really forgave me, then you would trust me”.  This is not true.  It is something that abusive people often say to the people they have hurt but it is not true. We are commanded by the Savior to love our enemies.  We are also commanded to forgive.  There is no commandment that says we should trust our enemies or trust people who hurt us even though we may love and forgive them.  

For us love and forgiveness are gifts that we can give freely without condition in obedience to the Lord’s commandments.  We give those gifts not based on the merit of the individual but out of a desire to be obedient to the Lord’s will.   Conversely, there is no place in the scriptures where we are commanded to trust those that hurt us. Trust is not a gift that is granted freely without condition.  Trust is earned.  Even God does not trust until trust is earned.

Nephi the son of Heleman was one of the people in the scriptures who earned the Lord’s trust.  In Heleman 10:3-10 the Lord tells Nephi that he has been observing his behavior and has determined that Nephi "will not ask contrary to God’s will".  Because of this Nephi is granted great power.  God desires to give all of His children all that He has but He does not do that until He knows that they "will not ask contrary to His will".  

This can be a model for us that we can use in determining who we can trust.  When we have proven someone over a period of time and know that they "will not ask contrary to our will" we can give them all we have to give.  For example, with our children, when we know that a child "will not ask contrary to our will" then we can leave the younger children in their care.  When we know a child "will not ask contrary to our will" then we can let them use the family car.  When we know someone "will not ask contrary to our will" then we can share the deepest desires of our hearts or our personal resources.  Remember that love and forgiveness can be freely granted as gifts regardless of merit but trust is earned.

Blog 1002 Learning to Love

In my last blog I posted a quote from Viktor Frankl on “The Meaning of Love”.  This quote was taken  from his world famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning.  There are many of us who would like to learn to love in the way he describes.  We would like to learn to love in a way that enables us to see what is potential in those around us and in a way that enables those around us to more easily actualize all that is good in themselves.  We would also like to learn to see and actualize all that is good in our own selves.

I would like to suggest an exercise that might be helpful.  The exercise is simple and yet could very possibly take a lifetime to master.  You simply choose an individual and attempt to feel within yourself a pure, plutonic, Christ like love for that individual.  I suggest you start with someone that you already have positive feelings toward.  After you master this exercise for those who are easy for you to love you could choose to work toward having loving feelings for those who are more difficult for you to love.  You can practice on anyone who crosses your path.  You don’t have to know the person well to do this exercise.

It might be helpful to close your eyes and visualize the individual that you are attempting to love in a pure, Christ like manner.  Allow yourself to sense or visualize your own body and soul filling with love and light from the Savior and extend that love to the individual you have chosen.  Notice anything within yourself that blocks you from freely extending those loving feelings to the other individual.  At first you may just sense a block or a void or a disruption.  As you continue you may be able to identify and release the cause of the block or the meaning of the disruption.  The cause is within yourself.  First look within yourself to see if you are judging this individual in any way.  If you find that you are judging this individual then release your judgments.  Simply dismiss them from your mind and your being.  Do not analyze them or wonder about them or dispute them.  Simply release the judgments from your mind.  Next look inside yourself for any criticism of this individual.  Again don’t analyze your criticisms just recognize them and release them from your mind and your being.   Check again inside yourself and see if there is a free flow of love and light to this individual or if it is blocked or disrupted in some way.  If so then look within your self again and check to see if you have any unkind thoughts or any ill will toward  this individual.  If so then simply release them.  Some people find it helpful or even essential to ask the Savior for His assistance in this process.  Check inside of yourself for any fear that may be blocking your capacity to love this individual in a pure Christ like manner.  Dismiss the fears.  Look for resentments, coveting, envy, jealousy or any other feeling that is blocking you from feeling the pure love of Christ for this person.  Check for each, one at a time, and release them.  When you have completed this exercise visualize your body and the other individuals body completely filled with unrestrained love and light. 

It is important in doing this exercise that you keep your mind and heart in the realm of truth.  It is not necessary to distort the truth in order to love another individual.  The Savior instructed us in the Sermon on the Mount to love our enemies.  He did not deny that they are our enemies and we do not have to deny that they are our enemies.  We can love our enemies as they are.  We do not have to distort them or their intentions in order to love them.  We do not need to pretend that they did not mean to hurt us or imagine that they are sorry for their behaviors.  We don’t need to assume they didn’t know they were hurting us.  We can simply choose to relinquish our judgments, release the unkind feelings and love them.  

Similarly it is not necessary to distort our own feelings, thoughts, actions or intentions in order to love another individual.  We do not need to make ourselves the “bad one” by saying things like “It is all right to hurt me”.  In the eyes of the Lord it is not all right to hurt people and that includes hurting you.  Neither is it necessary to distort the truth by accepting undeserved blame if the situation was truly not your fault.  When someone hurts us we do not have to say, "That is OK" or "It was my own fault that I got hurt".  It is important to keep our minds and hearts in truth in order to do this exercise.  I like to think of this exercise as being like the “mote and the beam” from the Savior’s teachings.  We are attempting to remove the “beam” from our own eyes so that we can see the “mote” more clearly in our brother’s eye.  We are not doing this exercise so that so we can deny the mote exists or in an attempt to cover it up or excuse it away.  When we finally can remove the “beam” from our eyes with the Savior’s help we are then in a position to see the "mote" more clearly and to receive direction from Him regarding our relationship with the other individual. 

Lunch & Learn April 19, 2011

“Advanced Mind Moment”

Topic for the Tuesday, April 19, 2001

“Lunch and Learn” 

Dr. Daniel Amen is the premier pioneer in the use of brain scans in psychiatry.  It is his firm belief that if we want to know what is happening in the brain we have to look at the brain.  Just as doctors take an x-ray of a broken arm he believes that we must take a picture of the brain in order to discover what the problem is and how to correct it.  He uses a method called SPECT imaging which employs radioactive isotopes to make the blood flow patterns in the brain visible.  He research has led to a wealth of information about how the brain works.

Dr. Amen’s first best seller was called Change your Brain, Change your Life.  It is written for the lay population and it is reported that even children have been able to understand the functioning of their brains through reading his book.  Recently he released a new book called Change Your Brain, Change Your Body  based on years of experience with brain imaging and his work with many clients on the Mind Body connection.  The basic difference between the two books is that the first book focuses on how your brain effects the way you process information and the second book focuses on how the way you process information impacts your brain and your body. The free “Lunch and Learn” sponsored by Advanced Health Clinic on the third Tuesday in April will feature a brief review of both books as well as a mini lesson on reading SPECT imaging brain scans and an introduction to Dr. Amen’s website, www.amenclinics.com.  

Lunch & Learn March 15th

The "Advanced Mind Moment" portion of the March "Lunch and Learn" (formerly Brown Bag Lunch) will focus on Autism.  Two books will be featured this month, Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin and a fictional novel, House Rules by Jodi Picoult.  Both books help the reader understand the how the mind works for people with Asperger's Syndrome which is a mild form of Autism. 

Temple Grandin has a Ph. D. in animal science from the University of Illinois and has designed one third of all of the livestock-handling facilities in the United States as well as many in other countries throughout the world.  She lectures widely on Autism.  She describes her mental process as "thinking in pictures".  She has the ability to alter the images in her brain and combine the various images and see them from any perspective.  This ability has enabled her to succeed and excel in a world that processes information in a way that is foreign to person's with Autism.  She readily admits that not all Austic persons think in visual images but her work has enabled scientists to begin to understand an entirely different way of coding experience.  She has become famous because she can see with "a cow's eye view" and has thus been able to design livestock facilities that the cattle move through without being prodded or forced which many people once thought impossible.  She can look at a facility and discover what aspects are causing the cattle to balk. 

Jodi Picoult has created a main character in her book who also has Asperger's Syndrome and thinks in pictures.  Her main character is a male teenage boy but is based on hours of conversation with a teenage girl with Asperger's.  The book tells the story from the perspective of the main character, his brother, his mother and a detective.  Each describes the same event the way they experienced it.  It is an easy read and paints a picture of life with Autism and life in a family with a child with Autism.

Besides thinking in pictures two other features of Asperger's and Autism are noteworthy.  TheAutistic brain lacks the capacity to gate out information.  Gating out information means that most brains have the capacity to pay attention to certain stimuli and to be completely unaware of other stimuli.  It is this capability that allow us to pay attention to one conversation when we are in a crowed room with many people and background noises.  The Autistic mind is continually bombarded with sensation.  It is also very difficult for an Autistic Individual to form close emotional ties with other people.  These features of Autism are addressed in both books.  

Blog 1001

Blog 1001

I like the following quote from Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl who was an Austrian Psychiatrist.  He was imprisoned as a Jew in Hitler's concentration camps during World War II and wrote this now famous book based on his experiences and the system of psychotherapy he developed out of them.  He believes that man can endure and overcome if he can find meaning in his suffering.  The following quote is about the power of love to transform individuals.

THE MEANING OF LOVE, page 134 Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

   "Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality.  No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.  By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized.  Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities.  By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true."  

This kind of love is sometimes referred to as "Universal Love" or "Christlike Love" or "Unconditional Love."   This is not the same kind of love that blinds a person to the faults of another or even excuses these faults.  This love only enables us to see another person clearly and to see what is potential and could be actualized or brought into being within this person.