Purging Myself of False Beliefs

A lot of the learning I have done over the last several months has involved purging myself of false beliefs. A useful skill I have developed during my learning process is tracing my emotions back to the belief that triggered them, and then deciding if that belief is true or false and whether I still want to believe it or not. When you can find the source of your emotions, it gives you the power to change them and makes you feel like much less of a victim. Here are some of the false beliefs I have discovered and had to purge myself of so far:

1. Life is about spending time with people you love. This is false. This is a great perk to life, but it is not what life is about. Life is about learning to become like God and helping others do the same. It’s about using the talents I have been given to build God's kingdom on the earth and bless others' lives and become better in the process. I can't just center my life on others and live their life instead of my own, like I have a tendency to do with people I love a lot. Like Christ explains in His parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), I can't bury or neglect my own talents; I have to use my time here on earth wisely and make my own plans and goals to improve myself and bless others, not just hang around cool people and expect them to make me happy and save me instead of the Savior. This is not the path to lasting joy and fulfillment. I have to put God and loving and serving Him first. I often get in trouble by switching up those first two commandments. The first commandment is “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” and the second is “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:36-40). When I start loving others with all my heart, soul and mind and keep God at a distance, that’s when I get into trouble. It was a little tricky to figure this false belief out, because loving other people is a good thing, but when I put loving other people before loving and serving God, my life starts to get out of balance and the peace and joy that comes from having my will aligned with the Lord’s is missing.
   
   
2. I can control how others feel about me. This is also false. I realized that in my life I’ve always tried to do everything “right” so that people would have no excuse not to like me. I thought that if I was nice and thoughtful and serviceable enough, I could control the way other people felt about me. This is not true. It doesn't matter how nice or thoughtful or serviceable I am: I can't make someone love me more than they choose to love me or give me more in the relationship than they choose to give. As evidenced by the life of the Savior, even if I was a perfect person and did everything perfectly, people could still choose not to like me. And I am far from perfect. I have to let other people make their own choices about whether they want to love me in spite of my imperfections and weaknesses. I need to stop loving and serving others with strings attached, trying to obligate other people to love, protect and take care of me by offering them martyr-like service instead of setting appropriate boundaries on what I am willing to do and allowing others to set their own boundaries. People don't like being forced into loving someone; they want to make that choice freely, not guilted into it because you go to such great lengths to be nice and thoughtful and to serve them.
   
   
3. Other people's ideas, beliefs, or opinions are more correct and/or important than my own. If someone disagrees with my idea or opinion, it means they don't like me. If I have a bad or flawed idea, this makes me a bad person. These are all false beliefs. My own ideas, beliefs, and opinions are just as valid and important as anyone else's. Just because someone else has a certain opinion and declares it very boldly and confidently does not make it true. Other people disapproving of what I am doing does not necessarily make what I am doing wrong. Other people having different opinions than me doesn't make my opinions wrong or of less intrinsic value, nor does it make me of less intrinsic value. It's very possible to disagree with someone and still love them and not think any less of them. Having an idea that doesn't work or that has cons is an opportunity to learn and come up with a different idea, not a reason to repent.

A lot of the things I've been learning are probably obvious to a lot of people, but they were not obvious to me. I didn't even realize I believed a lot of these things until recently. It can be hard to recognize the underlying assumptions you are making that are guiding your thoughts, feelings and actions. Not until you recognize these assumptions do you have the power to question them and to change them.

All the false beliefs I've been recognizing in myself have made me more aware of the beliefs that other people hold and are using to guide their thoughts and decisions. For example, I recently took a survey about my thoughts on the equality of men and women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was a pretty biased survey; you could tell what opinions the survey writers held on the matter, and I definitely felt from the questions and the answer options I was given like I was being pushed to give evidence for their opinions rather than being given the opportunity to honestly communicate my own thoughts.

One specific question on the survey really stood out to me though because of the false belief I recognized behind the question. The question asked something along the lines of, if women held more leadership roles in the church, how would that affect your religious/spiritual life? This question assumes that other people can have a significant influence on a person's personal religious/spiritual life. This is false. The quality of my religious/spiritual life completely depends on me and the personal relationship that I develop with my Heavenly Father. Other people only have as much power over my religious/spiritual life as I give them. Other people's choices or responsibilities in the church have nothing to do with my own personal relationship with Deity. As Paul explains so eloquently in Romans 8:35, 37-39:

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We have to take responsibility for the quality of our own religious/spiritual life and not blame any lack we feel in that area on other people or on circumstances that we think are less than ideal. The weaknesses and shortcomings of men and women cannot separate us from the love of God and a rich religious/spiritual life.

As I've discovered and worked to rid myself of the false beliefs I've developed throughout my life and replace them with truth, my heart and my perspective have changed, and I have been able to feel so much more peace and joy in my life and to become so much better of a disciple of Christ.

In honor of the Christmas season, and in celebration of His birth and life, I want to share my personal testimony of Jesus Christ with you.

My Testimony of Jesus Christ

I know Jesus Christ lives. I know that He came to earth to free us from sin and death. I know that through His atonement we can be cleansed from all our sins and have our hearts changed. I have seen my own heart change as I have humbly sought His will for me and prayed sincerely for help to change. I know that the more we align our lives with God's will, the more joy and peace we will feel, no matter what hardships we are facing. Christ really is the Prince of Peace and can give us peace and comfort that passes understanding even in the darkest times of our lives. As we learn to follow His example and become true disciples of Christ, we will come to a greater understanding of spiritual truths and our burdens will be lightened.

I know that we each had a personal relationship with our Savior before this life and that He wants nothing more than to see us safely back home again with our Father in Heaven and has made that possible for each one of us through His atonement and is cheering us on every step of the way. He is patient and forgiving of our weaknesses, empathetic to our sorrows and struggles, and joyous at our triumphs. He is our Savior and Redeemer, our advocate with the Father, and a true and trusted friend to all who humbly seek Him. My gift to Him and to you this holiday season is to share my testimony of my Savior, Jesus Christ, in His name, amen.