Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone

At University101, Brandon talked about this one thing that has awakened me from a deep slumber.  If you do this one thing, then you will be able to live life with incredible certainty and confidence.  If you don’t do this one thing, you will face the same trials repeatedly and experience unnecessary pain.  And the one thing that Brandon taught me is that you need to be willing to be uncomfortable now to be comfortable later.

Before I learned this one thing, I struggled for years to make decisions and reach goals that would help me to feel happy and fulfilled in my life.  After I learned this one thing, I quickly made decisions and reached goals that that gave me peace, joy and happiness. Let me share with you a story…

A life pattern was revealed to me when I realized that most major decisions in my life were based on what was convenient for me in the short-term vs. what was best for me in the long-term.  Each time I came to the edge of my understanding and had the opportunity to take the next step, I backed off to feel relief. The connection I hadn’t clearly made until Brandon taught it in University 101 was that I did this because I did not have deep trust in the Creator. I did not have a desire to know his will for me because I was afraid of what he would ask me to do.
After I became aware of this life pattern, I had a “dark night of the soul.  Seeing how my Hyena has blinded me to this knowledge has been an excruciatingly painful realization. However, I also realize that the Creator gave me that part of myself because there must be opposition in all things. He gave me that part of myself so that it could empower my Lion to overcome it and by doing so, I would be made stronger.

On the bright side, this knowledge has given me the courage to make some huge changes in my life over the last few months such as receiving my endowments, getting my Patriarchal Blessing and deciding to have another baby.  It’s also giving me the courage to make some other huge life changes in the next few months that I was unwilling to even consider at the beginning of this year.  I know it’s going to be hard work. I can’t see all the steps in front of me…but that’s not the point. I have finally realized that the point is that I need to develop that deep trust in the Creator and that he wants to give me so much more. However, before he can do that, he needs to stretch me to make a little more room inside my soul so that I can receive it. As he does that, I just need to trust that He is not going to let me fall as I walk over that edge…