one thought

Things that are true but not significant in purpose include that we have a Heavenly Grandfather.

Been thinking about the theology that we are sons and daughters of Christ... and that gets a bit confusing. Maybe we are messing around too much with the paradigm.

time to share my thoughts again...

I watched a video where it was told how it had been time and again recorded that a man's brain actually shrunk as he became a father. Instantly I was amused when the speaker told of how the shrinkage involved reasoning, troubleshooting,  and empathy most specifically. I thought, "well, that e plains why father's are always depicted as dumb oats. They are only a part of who they were." Then the brain scientist went on to explain how this was an evolved trait specifically aimed at better parenting. "What?" I thought, "how could less brain in those areas help hom be a better parent?" She went on to explain how they shrinkage was a way to physically account for the greater capacities of men from prolonged care was given to his family. In early cognitive development, I have studied a stage when a brain streamlines neural pathways by weeding out non essential ones. So, men, who are loving fathers become honed in on what is relevant to their task, thus giving up a large portion of their brain. Very, counter intuitive, huh? Well, next I was watching a video about how we need to stop trying to solve everything, and just trust (only believe). Now. It may seem counter intuitive, but, I honestly think this is a great way we can shrink our worries and focus on what matters. A good example of this is Abraham's first wife Sarah. It seems like ahe was doing her best to further God's will that Abraham be the father of many nations, even if it is not directly through her... seems pretty astute, but, what if she had simply shrunk and in that more helpless state just believed that God could do his will and if he needed her help, he would ask for it. The story ends up that Sarah, though barren and past child bearing age, she had a child, who would come to be the line from which all Israel (Jacob) would come.

So, my thoughts are that similarly, we ought not try to solve out every perceived trouble, aiming to make our way easier, but, we ought to instead fortify the neural pathway that results in just accepting and believing despite what seems. 

This thought comes from the lense of Job and his ordeal being fresh in my mind from CFM lesson that caused me to consider Heavenly Father asking questions that mortal man cannot answer, so we see that his perspective is much broader than ours and what we see as a huge tragedy might not be that to Him.

I wish I could find the video I saw once about how perspective makes all the difference sometimes. I'll sum it up like this:

https://youtu.be/I9ficvPdpZg?is=daiLeRxgVOPnsble

That is your life. Who cares if it seems like a failure.

morn8ng thought

As I thought about the CFM lesson from the book of Job, it became clear to me in a new way, previously not even considered, that it is absolutely not a big conspiracy, or a matter of dishonestly, it is just a matter that I simply cannot understand yet, due to complexity. I will not assume all the fitness experts are trying to keep us needy, or only sharing half-truths, they are each sharing a part of the larger picture, and it happens that none has offered a truth that I can get behind yet. It is pretty much like Joseph Smith trying to figure out which church to join. It is not that any were lying to scheming, and ultimately when he has a serious question, like Job did as to why he was suffering,  he asked the one who truly knew. It reminds me of people listening to antimormon people or even consulting with them when curious about what we believe... instead of just going to the source.

huge dump

Only kept from the truth because we know not where to look for it.

Like the sculpture of David, that existed within the marble, we are working to find what exists amidst us already, and in particular we are molding our youth or the rising generation.

We need to give children an identity and a purpose. 

Identify next covenant and work towards understanding it fully.

Encourage family history and temple attendance.

Prepare the youth to serve a mission in your home. It is a prophetic priority! Ask the children to promise to serve a mission.

Limit screen time. The church pleads, and thus our Savior does.

     1) tech free zones

     2) model proper use

Things we would not do, but it is only a game, or allow it tod9stract us from thongs that would have value.

Does it invite or impede?

Enlarge or diminish capacity to serve?

Like our walk to the temple, and it was hard to listen to what seemed contrary to what we saw, this guy noted the important message because it came from the surgeon General, but more importantly he noted that it was an apostlistic message that whether or not it seemed important, it is.

"No phone at the dinner table."

A sister taught that if you know this law, then we have to obey it, but perhaps we are not ready to give this message to them cause you need to choose the right.

Intentional parenting....responsibility to sculpt our youth.

plant candy in hopes that it bears fruit of more candy.

Thinking about music, like people and actually we like it to sound beautiful, but in retrospect, in comparison to a person... I want to be beautiful in that I do not want to be noticed, and I do not like to notice how beautiful the singing is, I want it to not even be noticed.

Produce people who are already missionaries before they serve.

He asked his disciples to come watch with him. I think that the Lord was always with God until that moment, and he asked that he not have to endure it, and he wanted his friends with him, when he needed to be alone. The comfort we get did not come from his friends or his Heavenly Father, but still he prayed even more earnestly, then an Angel came and was there to comfort him.

if every person would do one simple little thing, it would make a huge difference.

by small and simple things.

it was suggested that we ask how people would like to be helped or contacted! I really like that.

pray make sure you do that.

sometimes people will not even ask though they need help. at different times people need more help.

just going around the room reading scriptures is soooo beneficial. and seems a more proper way to study a topic, then ask others to speak about each scripture selected by topic.

the Lord has placed us because he knows us and our abilities, so no need to be something we are not.

feed my sheep

how home teaching is a great way to step out of our comfort zone and assist others.

invitation causes the others to act.

quickly share things, act similarly as we would our neighbor if their house was on fire.

love replaces feelings of anger at rejection... imagine how the savior feels when we reject his atonement.

Learn by study and! by faith.

color by number or mosaic we do not know what we are contributing at the time. this is just to explain how by small and simple means things happen.

often, we do not get our answers as we are praying, but it is as we get up and act, things are orchestrated as such.

we find our identity in being children of God, not work, school or even family. Finding that identity is a reason to come to church.

until he discovered the book of Mormon was true he would not serve a 2 year mission, but he knows it is true. -Elder Jones in Booneville, Mississippi

-From notes taken in 2023 not sure what though.

morning thought

I have decided advertisements, though, not conducive in producing a suitable thriving environment, are an equal trade off to the stress and bad influence experienced through working a "Job" outside the home. Analogous with chosing to walk indoors when I have several very nice outdoor options.

I laughed at AL'S last attitude to pin down what to advertise successfully to me. I wonder how my demographic information could be so wrong that I would get so many i appropriate ads. And then it occurred to me that even in person Doctors who had charts of information and personal interviews were consistantly, but similarly wrong.  At one point. I even called my.mother to intervene, to no avail, it had been undeniably determined that I was depressed... but, even though my son was wrongfully harmed by the prescription, it was prescribed, because qui Bono? Well, maybe ask who suffers?

I also recall 2 other major misdiagnosises.

One was not hastily determined either. I have submitted and taken a 4hour blood glucose test that proved that I was diabetic,  though when.I went to the nutritionist she looked at me and my documented menu, and flatly told me that I was absolutely not diabetic, and ought to continue with my regular diet kniwing that I simply had a higher fasting glucose level, but my body had no trouble with it, infact it thrived on it. Whereas most would read the data and determine glucose insensitivity or something, she told me it was more likely I was malnourished and ought not restrict my diet in any way.

In high school, my physician was examining me for a physical and he expressed a concern. He said that with exercise, the stress placed on my body caused troubling readings, for instance I seemed to have a heart murmur but it was only evident after work. So, he signed me off with a caveat that I not do any prolonged activity like distance running l. But, he felt pretty sure I would not be able to do that on my diet anyway. Funny thing. I ended up becoming and all-state cross-country runner my first season. I not only did compete but scored in the top 15 at state cchampionships. But, he was only expressing a concern because what he saw was contrary to the standard norm, but I believe the human body adapts to what is expected of it regardless what is given, and so just with the given information I am an outlier, and the way I have been profiled it humorous to me because it is so inaccurate, but ought to be expected. Afterall, the point of targeted advertisement is not to be spot on, but appeal to the average or largest number of recipients,  so it makes sense that the ads I am sent are off.

morning thoughts

So, just as I began typing another thought jumped into focus pushing all I had planned to type out of my mind completely. Wait. I remember I was going to talk about the first day back to school, and how I am more nervous for the kids than they are. Makes me think of great and terrible being the same from different view points.

I am going to severely miss having Joseph around. Both he and Brooksie feel like they are so much of me... the notion I have is that they were born so that I might have true friends. I still think ever so highly of Lena. She is a rarest for of perfection, almost incomprehensible a bit like Mary in that they seem to perfect for this world. Turns out I am not going to make a post this morning, but consider long and hard the new notion that just entered my thoughts.

But, I did want to mention how idiotic my fitness journey was. My latest data proved that I may exercise if I want to, but it has no effect upon the scale, whereas peeing of wearing jeans does... also, the last advice I was given (proving how unintelligent the advice is) was to stop smoking and drinking alcohol entirely if I really want to lose weight. Duh! I neither smoke or drink alcohol anyway, never have, and my scale says I need to lose weight. I feel healthy and doubt losing weight of any k8nd would help my health in any way.

morning conclusion

I am going to need to gain weight to get my prayers answered of being healthy. I have been given a gift, a tremendous one that I really ought to be wiser than to fritter it a way in chasing the fleeting standard of beauty tatted by the world. If I truly trust in God that means that I believe that he hears, truly hears and understands, my pleadings. I have been warned that I will be heard and answered but that those answers will not seem correct. But, with eternal perspective I understand what to do for my body and it involves giving up on chasing the notion planted by my peers. That never was or will be the true beauty that I hold the potential for. Though, Physical health is significant, it is not the measure of a successful body. 

Life is going to be good today!

morning thought

Losing weight is out of the question for me. Perhaps it is the BMI thingy was designed for little people because my readings were all above average or excellent, except for my body weight it is calculated to be high, but, just mu muscle weight is over my desired weight, and the more I work out the lower my fat weight goes and the higher my muscle weight. But, according to  typical calculations, my body fat is dangerously low and so is my subcutaneous fat, still my BMI is "Overweight" though, I do not look or feel overweight. And my calculated age is 53, well, I am still 51 (for about 2 months). But I look much younger than absolutely everyone my age. In fact, just this past week, it was debated when I was declared the oldest person present. Even my siblings have gray hair, but I'm the 2nd oldest. Anyhow, should I stop the strength training? My BMR was estimated to be 1725 calories, so, basically, if I ate that many calories per day ( which I don't) and did not exercise at all I would use every calorie, and I do. I only gain weight when I eat more, out of curiosity not craving or anything. But, consistantly not getting enough energy but forcing my body to work raised my level of cortisol sky high, couple that with not being able to get good sleep (more than about 4 hours) for over 20 years, it is amazing that my body has been able to survive and still be healthy. 

In the hospital, the doctors would tell me that a healthy body gains weight. So, as I increased my health, and did truly feel better, I gained weight. To the point where now, I am overweight... and I don't know what to do. 

Maybe my scale is completely wrong, and it is not muscle but fat and water, but, I do tests on myself and find rules and principles that if adhered to produced exact output. 

1) though I have been told that a brain uses keytones,  I even took exogenous keytones and saw no discernible result.

2) I believed that fasting would force my body to use fat stores for energy, but after 5 days of no food, none of the mentioned results followed and I watched tons of videos. I only have noticed with my new scale that my weight fluctuates between 5lb s of water weight throughout the day, so fasting depleted my water surplus weight, but eventually I gain it back, I thought I was loosing fat or muscle, but currently, I am over 50% water weight, so it makes sense that fasting would cause weight loss.

3) I have been made to believe that people are vastly unhealthy and they need to loose weight to achieve health. I suspect that a I already am healthy and loosing weight would only be the result of me trying to fit a societal standard of appearance because I do not look like an average physically fit person.

morning thought

All along, I have been quantifying my success wrong. I have been waiting to be smaller, and lose weight. But, it has taken me a great deal of time to realize that to more I exercise is directly related to the weight I gain. However, through comparitive unbaised measurements, I realized that (after my huge realization that I was flooded with cortisol) although my body is overweight, it is healthy, and the only factor that are high are water weight and muscle tone making my calcuted (incorrectly, I suspect) bmr is extremely high and my report recommends i gain some fat and try to at least meet my body's metabolic needs.

I have been going by the fact that our health is more driven by what we eat than what stress we put our bodies through. And frankly, it has become nearly impossible to stress out my muscles. They keep growing and adapting. I have significantly more muscle body weight than my husband. And this morning the only thing that gained (causing cumulative weight gain) weight was my fat free body weight which reads well above my desired weight. Thos is what is causing me to ponder this morning. In college, when I was much slimmer, I still weighed over 140lbs. That was about 40 years ago. I needto keep moving, but must stop listening to what others are or do. My weight does not matter, I am healthy by all accounts only I want to be smaller. Honestly, I ought to be a better example to others that despite what the world teaches beauty is, true beauty does not come from external measurements but inner peace.

morning thought

There is so much said regarding temple symbolism. Well, isn't language symbolism, so all the symbols in the temples are messages (that was a random side thought). Our bodies are temples, that is quite well accepted and understood. I was telling my daughter that she believed something, and she was saying it was preposterous because she doesn't even know what she believes yet. But, I was trying to show her, like Sherlock Holmes, or all geometry actually, we can know the unknown through the known, and by what I know, I can extrapolate other things. It was spoken by a church authority once about how we do not get to pick and choose programs and doctrines that they ascribe to. It is like dominoes, because she had just born her testimony about prophets, I knew what she believed about identity because she is not a hypocrite and in the proclamation on the family (Signed by and created by prophets), I digress... my thought was that our bodies are temples and they are full of symbolism. I just saw a video where a person was listing symbols found in our bodies and then with a few assertions explained that that alone was a testimony of creation over evolution, and I liked that thought, so I let it flourish in my thoughts.

brain dump

relationships are only established when there is trust, so we build a relationship with Heavenly father by practicing trust in our Heavenly Father. without trust there is no relationship. 

Our Heavenly Father trusted us by letting us go, that is soooo difficult to do with our children.

God gave us ways to return, like the atonement, so that we could be forgiven. likewise, we need to record or journal so that our children will know, if needed, how the proper way was established to handled the situation. salvation is personal, not congregational. 

God understands us individually, and will do all he can to help us return, we just need to learn to believe that and accept and live by that knowledge. 

A covenant is more than a promise.

God is bound to keep any of his covenants he makes (d&c 82:10)and he made some with us.

I think of Abraham's covenant and how Sarah demonstrated and it is recorded for every generation how she lacked faith or trust that God would be able to keep his promise without her help, so she gave Abraham her handmaiden, and to this day so much blood shed and strife is a result of that choice.

When we break covenants we suffer the consequences... the only exception is the atonement. (pause to think)

Everything in nature functions through laws or in other words - by way covenant we can depend that the sun will raise each morning.

new schedule

From all of my research, which has been scientific and thorough, I am going to start a new routine, aimed at health and ultimately happiness ( which is what I was indirectly aiming for with the weight loss crap). My new plan will avoid snake oil or other stumbling blocks or detours that money can cause by being free....cause if someone is selling it, you cannot trust them.

1) wake up and do radio taiso, followed by stretch routine. Taichi for balance while my glucose spikes, then study the Book of Mormon until the kids go to school. Then do my mile walk while doing Icelandic vocabulary.

2) at noon, eat  followed by AB workout.

3) composition time until kids get home.

4) dinner, then walk as a family.

5) no food or electronics after 8pm.

6) CFM scripture at 8pm.

7) Take a bath, do stretch routine, and fall asleep by 10pm

are you really strong enough?

I felt inspired to record the impression I just had during my morning study of The Book of Mormon. I am trying to wrap my head around every concept and story in a broad stroke of firstly, 1 Nephi, and Someone me toned something I never  considered implications of before. It was in the dream that Lehi had of the tree of life, and he portook of tge fruit and it was incredibly desirous...yeah, and then he instantly looks for his family to share it with. And when he sees them he calls out and beckons to them. Isn't that noteworthy?

He does not leave the tree once he finds it, though he wants to share it, no doubt about it. It reminded me of a scene in the video about Gordon B. Hinckley where his wife says that she always knew that he would place God first in his life. And it is clear how if you place God first, your relationship with eachother will be strengthened, I digress... The realization to share was that one ought not ever considered themselves sufficient to a task, or in otherworldly, strong enough. 

We often feel mighty and strong and sure when we are being helped but if we wander off to help others that confidence will fade fast.

long story made short

I have made the resolution to study the book of Mormon for at least an hour per day. Because I am following, though late, Ezra Taft Benson's admonition to start from the inside out. And though I made huge progress in health beauty alludes me physically, and I realized that appearance does not even matter... there was a line from the movie Amadeus where a opera singer says, "only talent concerns a woman of taste." When told that Mozart was not at all attractive.

Is it Lymphatic?

I suppose mostly this will be a proof of trusting science to provide the unknown truth.

I just knew my problem was dehydration, although I proved undeniably, to myself several times that it was not an issue. Still, I could not leave well enough alone and day after day found myself pondering and searching for the answer to what ailed me. I mean, wasn't I unhealthy? Even common sense and most others expressed the opinion that it was a total waste of my time in trying to fix something that was not broken. As the new year came, I decided to adopt a new resolution to accept myself as I was and channel my money, time, and effort in new directions. Still, I found myself like a dog returning to it's own vomit.

Then, this morning everything clicked! All of the angles would add up to make a perfect triangle with this one angle! So, I have adopted it and my outlook has already improved significantly. Now, it is merely a matter of seeing if it hands on produces the desired result.

I started calculating and realized that I had been dehydrated, which is what all of my symptoms suggest, only if I drank more, I instantly peed it out. I always sort of gut reaction, sought out lymphatic  exercises not really even knowing what they were and several times I suspected I had liver or kidney issues, but then Boom! All at once I would loose weight, like over night whenever I drank alot of certain teas.

I realized what it was. I had a lymphatic blockage, and so mu body adapted so I would not retain too much water. But, I found a simple daily lymphatic routine which I fully believe with resolve each and every issue I ever had as long as I drink enough.

Bottom line: it is never a good thing to align your problems with problems that merely share symptoms.