Inception Thoughts

Dear Kids,

There is a movie called "Inception". The basic storyline is about a man who has the technology to insert himself into other people's dreams. He uses this technology as his job. He and his wife end up going "under" for a long enough period of time in their dreams to be there for years and years in their minds, but only for a day in reality. He comes to understand that he can place in her mind a "thought" that will dominate all of her behavior when they finally wake up. This deep thought placed in the subconscious mind is called 'Inception'.

He ends up being hired by someone to place an 'Inception' subconcious thought into a competitors mind in order to change the course of his company.

There is a purpose to me telling you all of this I promise!

I have been doing quite a bit of inner work, especially since the mother's homeschool retreat in September that I went to. I had so many validations from the spirit at that retreat.

Some of the inner work I have been doing consists inside of my feelings and relationship with your dad. I have always had this underlying feeling that if any "success" was going to happen in our family, if any "recognition" was going to come to us, if any "building" of ourselves was going to happen, it would be because of me. It has been a predominant but underlying thought I have had for many, many years. In my meditations, I have always visualized and felt that I was the more dominant reason in my meditations and visualizations in our future.

I knew this was wrong, but it was still a deep feeling of mine. So I started changing my meditations in the last month or so. I have been visualizing your dad and I together. I have a practice during meditations of almost "seeing" my mind opening on the top and light and knowledge is being poured into it from heaven. I changed that so instead of seeing just "me" in this visualization I have been seeing your dad and I together, standing side by side and when the top of our heads open, it happens across both of us. I have another practice of seeing a spark in my heart and it expands from inside of me to all around me, to filling my home, filling our town and then filling the world. I have changed that so instead of seeing just spark in my heart, I have been seeing your dad and I together and the spark is between both of us and then expanding from there.

This has been really powerful to experience these types of visualizations and meditations with both of us in mind, especially to get away from the "it's all because of me" thought and complex. It is wrong to be so 'me' focused.

Since doing that, there was a day when I was sitting on the porch while you were all playing with friends in the circle. Then I had this inspiration come to me, "Andrea, you have an inception thought that you placed in your subconscious years ago that Satan is using to destroy you and using to 'get' to you and keep you and Brent from accomplishing things together and getting to a level together in your relationship."

When the spirit told me that I started feeling and thinking about what it could be. Then I had flashes back from when we were dating. And then I knew! the thought came as clear as day. The inception thought was this:

I don't know if Brent is the man it talks about in my patriarchal blessing.

THAT was the thought I had several times while I was dating your dad. I had those thoughts because of your dad's past sins and choices. In my blessing it talks about that if I use the power the Lord has given to me with my testimony of Jesus Christ, then my family, my children and my husband will not fall to the temptations the adversary places in our paths. There are also other places in my blessing that it tells us very specifically what we will be doing, involved is sitting in some of the highest councils of the church and being an inspiration to couples, families, and individuals all over the world.

Now, as we are here in this story, obviously it is 12 years later and I did choose to marry your dad. I had several experiences that confirmed to me the power of us being together that it was the right choice. But I have always been confused with the promise in my patriarchal blessing about my spouse not falling to the temptations of the adversary, especially because of the places where Brent has had to come back from. I either put all the responsibility of his choices on my shoulders and that I didn't use my power "right", or that he wasn't the right man. THAT was the inception thought that has been in my subconscious for YEARS.

When the spirit hit me with the inception thought, and how Satan has taken that thought which had originated from me, and twisted it in my mind and my energies in my marriage, I couldn't believe the power I have been giving away.

I talked to your dad about this as well. I told him about this whole experience and then he had some very good insight for me. He said this, "Andrea, it's interesting because when I hear the word 'fall' I think in the scriptures when the people fell completely away from the church and completely lost their testimonies. Even though I 'gave in' to temptations around me, I never fully 'fell'. I knew every second of everyday that I was making the wrong choices. I KNEW the church was still true, I never lost my testimony, I never lost my love from my Heavenly Father and my Savior, I never lost my testimony of Joseph Smith. I never fully "fell". And that is because of your promise in your blessing. I 'gave in' and made bad choices... but I never 'fell'."

That did my heart so much good talking to him about all of this. The spirit confirmed to me that he was right! That is exactly what my blessing meant about falling. The hold Satan has had on my thoughts inside of my marriage from that deep, subconscious thought, has been a strangle hold for me. I feel like in the last month after going through this break through that my thoughts and feels and hopes for our marriage has been set free!

It has caused me to pay attention to other "inception" thoughts that I have placed in my subconscious mind, and rewriting them where appropriate.

So I want you to remember how powerful your thoughts are. They are SO POWERFUL. Thoughts truly do become things. We have ALL the control and power over our lives because of the way we feed our minds, hearts, and spirits through the power of our thoughts. Don't ever let anyone tell you differently. Our thoughts are tangible things, we create the whole melody of our lives.

I do believe that things happen "to" us. But I believe it is 95% of the time that things are "created" by us. Sometimes, the Lord places things in our laps that we didn't invite there. But that is rare. MUCH more rare than we want to admit. It is more acceptable to feel like 95% of the things that happen in our lives have happened "to" us instead of seeing the power we have in our minds and souls inside of the creation of our lives. We create. We are Gods and Goddess's in embryo. We have more power than we can possibly comprehend. And that is not prideful or boasting. It is simple fact. The other part of this is that GOD wants us to discover this power. That is one reason why we are NOTHING without him. He is our mentor on this road to Godhood. We cannot do it without Him. We must have Him by our side the entire time. But most of the time the things that happen to us are created by something we have either thought, or caused to happen to us.

I love you kids. Pay attention to the thoughts you place in your subconscious. It is life changing.

Love,

Your Mom

Elijah Teaching Me To Try Again

Dear Kids,

This motherhood gig is not for the faint of heart.

The other day I woke up NOT prepared to face the day. I didn't get up and do my normal routine (reading, praying, exercising, meditation and taking a luxurious shower) which always throws things off for our entire day. I can't believe the difference in our days when I get up and get all my "soul-filling-self-care" in for the day before I start to face the motherhood battle.

Anyway, this particular day I didn't get all that done. I woke up reacting to the day from the moment my eyes saw the light through the cracks in my eyes. I consciously knew I shouldn't be feeling to negative about the day already. There was no crisis, no emergency, but subconsciously I was in one of those "funks" and wasn't shaking it off. And children are the BEST at soaking up energy from anyone around them, doesn't matter what kind of energy it is, they soak it up and emulate it.

So, of course, that also lead to reaction from everyone...but especially Elijah. He's been figuring out so many things in his soul I feel like for the entire six years of his life. He is full of fire, fight, spunk, humor, and particularities. Inside of those strengths are a bunch of weaknesses wrapped up in the package, and anger is one of those things. He reacts with anger and defensiveness automatically to EVERYTHING if he is allowed to. He isn't afraid to face life square in the eyes.

When I am reactive, and he is reactive, it is a bad combination. And this day was after a week of HARD mom days (days that I wasn't reactive and really doing my job well... but they there still hard and had reached a climax of exhaustion). Before 9am this day I already had to interfere with about five fights going on, with Elijah being in the middle of them.

I asked him to brush his teeth and he snapped at me, "I can't find my toothbrush!!" I said as calmly as I could, "Don't you remember... you threw it at me yesterday in the kitchen. Do you remember where it landed?" It was under the stove. Gathering the grim and muck. But I was waiting for him to be ready to get it out from under there.

To the kitchen we went. He reached under and he couldn't reach it. So he snapped at me to help him. "Try again buddy." Again a bad reaction. "Try again." Finally, he got to the place of saying, "Mom, will you help me please."

I ALWAYS wait for him ask kindly before doing anything, because he can be very demanding, and this day, the way it was starting out, was leading to some major "try again" statements ALL DAY.

Back to the toothbrush. I got something to help me reach it under the stove. Pulled it out and not a second after I got it out from under the stove Elijah grabbed it out of my hand. In the process he completely knee'd me in the face... specifically my nose. It brought tears to my eyes. Remember I am on the kitchen floor, laying flat on my stomach because of getting this toothbrush out from under the stove. Elijah was on my right side, so when my left had came out holding the toothbrush and he reached across to grab it so suddenly, my face was in the way.

Well... it didn't just bring tears to my eyes because it hurt, it also brought tears to my eyes because of emotion. Through the tears and emotion I blurted out, "TRY AGAIN! You can't grab things out of my hands! You hurt me!"

He was taken aback because he could tell my reaction wasn't normal. He asked me nice, I gave him the toothbrush then I rushed to my room. Your dad was there finishing up his shower and came out just in time for my outburst and the blur of my body rushing past him to go to my room away from all of it.

There I just broke down. My mind starting whirring around in circles with thoughts of complete despair. I can't do this! I can't raise this child! I can't raise these children! I am so tired of all the fights! All the exhaustion of NEVER being done! I am sick of doing dished and laundry all the time! I am so tired of kids never getting a long! Why can't I just have a bad day and have it not affect everyone else in the process!

I just went through all the reasons why I was DONE. I didn't want to do this motherhood thing anymore. It was one of those climax moments of insanity, but full of reality all at the same time. In the midst of my break down, Brent came in to me and just rubbed my head without saying a word. When I calmed down and got my emotions and thoughts under control, he simply said, "You are amazing. No one can do this but you. You are perfect for the job. Even when you have bad days."

In that moment, I didn't believe those words. But it was good to hear. Then I saw a timid little face peak around the corner looking at me from the hallway. My Elijah Boy. I saw him, made myself give a half hearted smile, and he came rushing to me with his snuggly, soft blanket wrapped around him. He looked at me with such remorse and whispered, "I'm really sorry I hurt you mom."

I gathered him up in my arms and hugged him and rocked him. My heart just burst open in love for this boy. I just imagined him, after I went momentarily insane, running to his room, wrapping himself up in his soft blanket, and trying to figure out in his little heart what had just happened. I told him I was sorry for my outburst and we just held each other for a bit. Then he leaned back and I smiled at him and said, "Let's try again. Let's start over. Let's say a prayer." He could feel my heart completely forgave him, opened myself up to him, and had turned to God together to find healing. Children are so responsive to pure love. Love with no other motive besides just forgiveness, accepting, repenting and moving forward together with Christ helping us.

That climatic moment changed the course of the day. That is something I love about conflict... when we choose to let the seed of benefit from the pain be planted in our hearts, it brings us together.

I am so grateful for real life moments like these to remind me of my humanity. To help me empathize with others. To help me let down my walls, get my emotions out, and to try again. Take a deep breath and try again. And again. Just like I told my son, "Try again."... it is the same for me. Try again mom. It's okay, you will get it after a few tries. And it's okay. We are all children learning together how to walk on this road of life back home.

I try again another day. I breath in another day. Remind myself that there will be peace in my home as long as their is peace in my heart. I am realistic enough about my humanity to understand that this won't be the last time I will feel like giving up. And it won't be the last time that I will pick myself back up to "Try Again". But among all the trying, doing, completing, and living in this life are moments like those of that face looking at me around the corner and rushing to me with an open heart to consummate our love together once again.

I love you kids,

Your Mom