Media addicted and spiritually desensitized?

Today while driving I happened upon a sermon being given about Media addiction and becoming spiritually desensitized. He challenged everyone to do a media fast and find out how addicted to media you are, or how spiritually desensitized you have become.
While this may sound easy, it may well be the hardest thing you do.


1. Take upon yourself to have a media fast for 1-10 days
This means totally unplugged from the media.  Turn off that phone, turn off the television, the radio in the car etc. It all has to go.  

Do this for at least one day, but up to ten if you can handle it.
Some will start to get jittery after an hour, going to check the phone. You may begin itching for that feeling of connection, stirring to hear the background sounds of all the media noise that is always around. If it is hard to go even an hour, you know that you are addicted.

2. After a period of media fasting turn on prime-time television and watch for an hour.

You may be shocked at what you find.

I have taken time to fast from the media several times over the last few years. I even wrote about it nearly 3 years ago on my other blog encouraging people to take time out to unplug.  It is nice to get away from the media for a bit. It is nice to take a breather, but I did not go on to step 2. I did not stop to look at these questions: How does all the media affect us? Do we really get desensitized by it?
  
 Recently I had an experience that put it all into perspective. I was watching the television and I started noticing that on this particular show people were being brutalized and shot right in front of my face and I was watching realized that I was not having much of a reaction to it. It was just "normal" All of a sudden a passage of scripture from the Book of Mormon ran through my mind from Mormon 2:18......  "a continual scene of  wickedness and abominations has been before my eyes" It awoke me to the state that I was in. 

I also at this time had an experience where I had picked a TV series for my husband and I to watch. We began the series and after a few episodes I noticed that there were things happening in the show that I knew were not good, yet I watched on because I was addicted to the series. A few more episodes and I found myself watching the women on this show-- women who were living a life far different from my own and found myself thinking "Is that what men want a woman to be like? Maybe I should...."  All of a sudden; I awoke to my thoughts and said "Whoa! hold on a minute, Did I really just think that?"  I was shocked and in disbelief that I had those thoughts. I told my husband that we could not watch that show anymore because it was affecting my thoughts and the way I related to the world.  He agreed, yet he was like me--addicted!  

A few more episodes and we finally decided to put the series away for good. It was poisoning us.  I began to be more aware of what the family was being exposed to. I was finding it hard to be a good Christian/Proverbs 31 woman when other ideas and ways to behave were being presented before me. It was all becoming too appealing. I was starting to want to please the world as opposed to God. It was a startling realization for me to realize that I had convinced myself that "it isn't all that bad, there are worse things that we could be watching" but drop by drop it was adding up, the attitudes of what we were exposing ourselves to was creeping in my attitude and thoughts were changing. I was accepting things that 5 years ago I would have never even have imagined.  It was time for a real change. 

Now, We unplug a whole lot more. We are finding more time dedicated to learning the ways of the Lord and reading the scriptures. We are finding ourselves telling  and retelling the stories of courage and hope from them. We are very aware of the media and are limiting its influence. We still watch more TV than needed, but I am putting a plan in place to limit the amount of media this summer while the children are out of school.  It is a battle worth fighting.  Being aware is the first step to lasting change. I am glad I became aware and have been able to begin a new chapter in our lives.  Now it is your turn. Try the challenge, see what happens in your life.

Blessings to you,

Happy Momma 



  

putting things in the right order (let God be first in your life)

"The average woman today, I believe, would do well to appraise her interests, evaluate the activities in which she is engaged, and then take steps to simplify her life, putting things of first importance first, placing emphasis where the rewards will be greatest and most enduring, and ridding herself of the less rewarding activities."
Belle S. Spafford, the ninth Relief Society general president.


Right in the front cover of my bible I have a quote from Elder Neil A Maxwell it says....
If you have not chosen the kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead. It is a strong reminder to me to get things in order. We have been warned often about letting the things of the world get in the way of  us seeking the things of the Lord. It can often be difficult with so many voices and so many things pulling us in so many ways. I know from experience that Satan is very good at distracting us and keeping us from the things of most importance. We get weighed down by so many little things. One of the hardest things for many of us to say is "no". This can be troubling because often what happens is that we end up saying yes to so many good things that we inadvertently find ourselves saying no to things that matter most. We end up overwhelmed and thinking about the worldly things more often than the things of God.

 

Life is busy, there are many things that are to be done. It is easy to become worried, stressed and overwhelmed by the things we are doing. It becomes easy to get caught up and  forget our purpose and our creator.  Sometimes we need to just stop and look at the wonderful things around us and breathe in heaven for a moment, then make more opportunities to breathe life from the heavens.  Here is an excerpt from a book that I am writing that illustrates my point.     


" I remember one Sunday morning when my young daughter who was about four years old came into the bathroom while I was getting ready for church. She told me. "Mom you and I, we look so beautiful in our dresses; let's dance" The old worried, stressed out me would have pushed that aside and say, "Not now, I don't have the time, we are going to be late".  I was learning the power of those little moments. I swept up my daughter and took  ten or fifteen seconds to whisk her about the bathroom in a magical dance. In those few seconds we were swept up into a fantasy land,  a magical moment that could have easily been lost. The dance only lasted a few moments, but the feelings lasted most of the day, and the memory will last a lifetime." 

    
I pray that you will take this to heart and spend a moment to ponder on the things of God today. That you will breathe in life from him. That you will make thoughts of Heaven a regular part of your daily life. 
Blessings
Happy Momma

First responses are not always the best response

 

Life is not always about what happens to us, but how we respond to the situations around us. Sometimes it begins with making a different choice other than what our "first response" would dictate.
I recently read an article from hands free momma's blog which helped me to remember that I am not alone it all this.

http://www.handsfreemama.com/2014/05/09/today-i-lived-and-you-did-too/#more-5603

Here are a few thoughts that come out of my book "Goodbye surviving, Hello thriving"  I hope to have it available early fall.  

 

Life has been a journey. It has taken me to places that I never imagined. But I have had to learn new skills and habits along the way. I also have had to break some of those habits that have not served me well. I have had to learn  some "new responses" to situations.

"I remember one Sunday morning when my young daughter who was about four years old came into the bathroom while I was getting ready for church. She told me. "Mom you and I, we look so beautiful in our dresses; let's dance! " The old, worried, stressed out me would have pushed that aside and say, "Not now honey, I don't have the time we are going to be late."  I was learning the power of those little moments. I swept up my daughter and took ten or fifteen seconds out of my life to whisk her about the bathroom in a magical dance. In those few seconds we were both swept up into a fantasy land,  a magical moment that could have easily been lost. The dance only lasted a few moments, but the feelings lasted most of the day, and the memory will last a lifetime."   

 

 

Adaption and learning new strategies and habits

We become what we repeatedly do. Steven covey (7 habits of highly effective teens)

"Sometimes, I get the feeling that we're just a bunch of habits. The gestures we repeat over and over, they're just our need to be recognized. Without them, we'd be unidentifiable. We have to reinvent ourselves every minute.” Nicole Krauss

"It has been said that we are nothing more than our behaviors repeated throughout  our entire life. We are made up of daily life choices. We are also talking of daily habits, especially the ones that seem like they are not a choice anymore because they come so easily, and we do not consciously realize that we are making a choice because it is just habit. Some daily habits serve us well, but far too many of us have habits and strategies for getting us through life that really do not serve us well. We all have a habit of insisting on keeping up these broken strategies that really do not work. Why?  Because they are habits, and habits have a history of being too hard to break. Let me share with you an example from my own life.  

I had found myself in a bad habit of yelling at my children. The trouble  was that the children were beginning to model that same behavior. I found myself hating the fact that they were yelling at one another. We were getting to be a very loud family. I found myself wondering what it was going to be like once they all reached the teenage years. The thought of three very loud, yelling teenagers was frightening. We found ourselves yelling at each other to a point that everyone was yelling and nobody was  listening to anybody. Everyone was getting louder and louder to be heard over the other yellers.  It was out of control. I could only see it getting worse and worse, with no end in sight

It was my middle child who was the catalyst for change. She began holding her hands over her ears for large parts of the day. She is very sensitive to words, and yelling was over the top for her. She couldn't stand it anymore. I would notice her in the midst of the yelling with her hands over her ears.  Then I noticed that she would just tune out anything and everything going on in the house for large parts of the day. She was not happy in life.  She was spending way too much time with her hands over her ears or just plain tuned out to life. I knew it was not healthy for a 5 year old to be like this, I just didn't know what to do about it.  

One day I came to this daughter to give her a compliment on something that she had done well, and out of habit her hands went over her ears and her eyes closed. I was not angry at all, and I was not yelling, but she had gotten into the habit, she was ready for me to start yelling because most of the time it was that way.  I stood there in shock. What had we come too?  I felt like a monster, my child was hiding from me, and all I wanted to do was to tell her that I loved her and that she had done a good job.  My heart was about to break. I slowly took her hands off her ears, I whispered to her, "please open your eyes, I want to talk to you."  She shook her head  to tell me no.  I began to feel angry at her response toward me, but more angry with myself. The feelings I had were so strong, but the sadness coming from her was even stronger. I shut my mouth and waited.  She finally opened her eyes, but wouldn't look at me. When I finally  reached under her chin and held her head up, she looked at me with such sadness in her huge blue eyes, I was pierced to the soul.  "Why did you cover your ears when you saw me coming?" I asked,--- " I thought you were going to yell at me like you always do." was her reply, "I do not like the yelling and everyone keeps on yelling all the time, it never stops."  Oh my heart ached, I vowed that moment that we were going to change that habit.

How? What needed to happen for us to change? I called a family meeting right away. I announced that there was a new family rule. No yelling. I was going to start and set the example. We had to break this habit and replace it with another. "Yelling is not communicating" became our key phrase. The other was, "We do not communicate by yelling".  When we found ourselves yelling the new habit was this.... We were to stop, take a deep breath, and repeat one of those two phrases before continuing on with what we wanted to say in a nice, calm voice.

It was hard work. I would get about three words into my yelling rant and then have to stop, take a deep breath, repeat the phrase, then speak softly and kindly. It seemed like I was repeating these phrases five thousand times a day. It was exhausting at times.  About the third day, I was ready to give in, I had tried, but it was such hard work. I felt like it was constantly on my mind and a constant battle I didn't know I would ever win. I felt like I didn't have time to stop, and repeat the phrase so many times a day, but my little blue eyed girl caught my attention again. I noticed that she was not spending so much of her time tuned out to life with her hands over her ears. I also noticed that the sparkle was coming back to her eyes. She was doing better, and we were beginning to see results in the rest of us too. So we continued on the journey.

It was nearly six months into the journey when I realized that I had made it until noon without having to repeat the words; "yelling is not how we communicate".  I was overjoyed. We had come so far. It was no longer a constant, conscious, nearly overwhelming effort.  It was becoming a new habit not to yell. It made those long days in the beginning worth it. "

 

My hope and prayer is that we will find a desire to be better, to do better, to be a little slower in responding becoming aware that there may be something better than that "first initial response".   

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

What do you seek?

We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul- We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things. (Article of faith #13 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints)


Part of this comes from Philippians 4:8-9
8. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
9.  The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

How I love these words of inspiration.  Practice being good and God will be with you. What a great promise given to us.

Seek after the good things. There are so many good things out there, yet often they are overshadowed by the "Other things" The biggest challenge is keeping our eye on the main goal. One of the Devils greatest tools is distraction. He gets us to forget what it is that we really desire.

 

 

 

How can we keep from being distracted and caught in the Devils trap?  We can seek after the "good things" in life. By seeking out good music, books, friends, and so on we are surrounding ourselves with constant reminders of what we are striving for, constant reminders that we are choosing the things of the Kingdom of God thus keeping the Devil from permanently distracting us.   

 

Choose to surround yourself with goodness. Choose righteousness. Choose God.  Teach your children the same. 

 

God bless you all on your journey,

 

Happy Momma   

 

Has Christ consumed you heart and mind?

I have been reading a wonderful book Anchored: Pressing On by Pressing Into the Savior. It is an easy to read book about a young woman's true conversion to Christ.  Here is one of my favorite quotes from the book.

 

She writes in a way that really spoke to my heart. I would encourage you to pick it up and read it. It is worth reading.  

Anchored: Pressing On by Pressing Into the Savior



PS. I wrote this post of my own accord simply because I really liked the book.

The above links are affiliate links. This just means that I am referring you to Amazon to purchase the book. If you buy through Amazon you are supporting my work here, but more importantly you are helping a young woman (Teresa Blondo) share her conversion story and helping to spread the word of the Lord.





As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Proverbs  22:6
 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Joshua 24:15
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

photo from Bing images

These are the scriptures that we used in our ward (congregational) conference.  It was a very nice meeting. I very much enjoyed our Bishop's remarks. He encouraged us to make time to teach and train our children, to read scripture with them, to pray with them and never forget to do these important things. He also offered us advice as how to take advantage of those "teaching moments." He suggested that they come rather quickly but if we listen to the spirit we would be guided as to what to say and how to teach our children when the moments arise. He suggested that we need to instill into the children wisdom and understanding of basic Christian living. Help them understand why we pray, why we go to church etc.

Our stake president ( a regional leader over several congregations) also spoke. He invited us to make our homes a learning place, a safe place for those who dwell. No matter where you are, you can improve the home and everyone in that home has a duty to help in that effort. Whether it be the good and faithful family, or the home on the verge of collapse, the single parent home, empty nesters, blended families, newly married, or those waiting to begin a family; making home a safe place should be a top priority along with teaching the gospel of Christ.  

We were urged to make our homes a place of security where everyone feels loved and accepted. We were encouraged to become close to each other. We were encouraged to show love one for another. Our wonderful stake president talked of some of the practices in our home. The question he posed to us..."Is this practice sustainable for the future of our family?"  He talked about such things as abuse, quarreling among siblings, backbiting, spousal intolerance, and the media that we bring into our homes (just to name a few). Are these things sustainable for the future of our families? He also talked about making changes  in the way we do things in our homes so that we have sustainable practices in our home things such as; family prayer, scripture study, working together, good wholesome movies and other media. He urged us to be connected with our family members in real ways.  I wrote a blog post about this very thing. I invited people to Unplug from all the devices and become a present parent. As we as a society become more and more dependent upon the electronic world it is even more important to plug into our families and their needs. 

As the music director for the children I was able to speak with the children about how they could serve the Lord in their own homes. It is a wonderful opportunity to hear the children sing such wonderful songs of the church. The children had some wonderful ideas we had a great time with that.  Later in in discussion with the children I was impressed by the honesty of some of them. We were discussing good vs bad choices. Some scenarios were created for the children, then the question was asked "What would you do in this situation?" and of course all the children knew what the "right" answer was. But from where I was sitting (close by to a group of 10 year old boys) I overheard, "I know that's the right thing to do, but I would probably choose to do..."  I brought it to the attention of the group leader and we were able to discuss knowing the right answer and what really happens. We were able to encourage them to try and make the "right choices" even when sometimes we would rather make a different choice. We were able to take that time to teach in that moment just as the Bishop had directed us to do. It came fast and could have been easily lost.


In the quest for eternal life, there is but one important thing. Choose to put the kingdom of God first in your life. It is hard with so many things pulling at us. This is why daily discipleship is so important. It keeps the important things at the forefront of the mind.  My you find joy and peace in your daily walk with Christ.





PS here is a link to that post I wrote

Life less hurried/ UNPLUG