My Story: Discovering My Passion for Personal Growth (Part 2)

*You can find part 1 here

Photo by Michał Gałężewski on Unsplash

So initially, my passion for personal growth stemmed from a desire to have a positive birth experience with my 3rd baby.  But another thing that had been something that I thought about and stressed about a lot was my fear of driving.  (you can read the details of that story here.) For a few years, I had been trying to understand myself and why I had this fear and how I could get past it.  But I just hadn't found the right answers yet.  

  

A couple weeks after E was born, I went to a Relief Society activity. This lady from LDS Family Services came to talk to us about this personality assessment called Persogenics. The purpose of the activity was to help us understand ourselves and our spouse's personalities better so we could strengthen our marriages.

 *my notes

When the lady was explaining the different personality types, she talked about what each one was motivated by. When she got to the Amiable one, she said that they are motivated by peace. That was like a light bulb moment for me. 1. I have been drawn to things that talk about peace and peacemakers ever since my patriarchal blessing. 2. I was in still very much in the middle of my driving fears and really resonated with the idea that I was motivated by peace. I wanted to get over my fears so I could feel peace, but I also knew that keeping internal peace (and not getting super stressed out and anxious) usually meant me just avoiding the driving thing all together.  

I think that this Persogenics activity made me really interested in personality tests and how they offered me glimpses of myself that I had never really noticed or been able to explain before. It was only a few months later that I ran across Carol Tuttle's work of Energy Profiling. This gave me even more detail about who I am, how I think, how I move through the world. Overtime, I am learning more and more about what it means to be a peacemaker (in general and for me personally) and why I am one (and how I can strengthen those gifts that are inside me.)

I really enjoyed using the Hypnobabies birthing method - mostly because of the peace that I found when I used the techniques. Actually, a big part of it is controlling the pain by breathing into the areas that are feeling the discomfort/pressure/pain and repeating "peace" over and over again. 

I have also come to find overtime that I really am motivated by peace. I am sure that this is probably true for most people, but I definitely find it to be true for me. If I am not feeling at peace inside (if I'm stressed about something, if I'm worried, if I am feeling off physically, etc.) I am not a very nice person to be around. I snap at the kids (and J) more easily, I can't think about anything except for the thing that is stressing me out, etc.  Or I don't even know what is stressing me out because it's under the surface, but I know that there is something going on because I don't feel at peace. When I feel at peace inside, my life goes so much smoother and I am such a better version of myself.

When I am feeling stressed or worried about something, I will often say a prayer and ask Heavenly Father to "speak peace to my soul." I don't remember where I first heard this phrase, but when I heard it, it really stuck out to me and I have adopted it as my own.

So I feel like I have been on a quest for several years to discover how to bring more peace into my life.  One, so I can better understand how to fulfill my role as a peacemaker, and two so I can have more peace in my own soul.  I know that true peace comes from Jesus Christ.  He is the source of peace.  He is the Prince of Peace. But I often struggle with the how when it comes to accessing that peace.  I believe that Heavenly Father gives us tools to work with that can give us more access to the peace of Jesus Christ.  My quest for personal growth has led me to some of those tools, and it has also strengthened my testimony and ability to better use some of the tools that I already had.     

In April 2015, I was browsing Facebook one day and ran across a post by Mark Bacera about the morning routine that he had been doing.  (side note, Mark and my husband are good friends and grew up together in Guam.)

I normally just scroll on past after skimming people's posts, but this time I remember feeling really drawn to what Mark mentioned.  So I clicked on the link that went to his blog where he was recording his journey with the "Miracle Morning" ritual.  I read a few of his posts and instantly felt intrigued and wanted to try this morning routine out for myself.

I immediately ordered the book, The Miracle Morning, that his routine was based off of and when the book came a couple days later I dove in and read it.  The book was really motivating and I started getting up early (5:00 am) so that I could do the morning routine.  I fell in love with waking up early and spending time on personal growth before my kids woke up.  Sure, getting out of bed wasn't always easy and there were plenty of mornings (still are) where I wanted to just keep pressing snooze and sleep in, but I didn't.  I pushed through and woke up early anyway.  And I have never regretted it.

In a lot of ways, this morning routine was phase 2 of discovering my passion for personal growth.  Porter's birth got the ball rolling (but I didn't really recognize it until 18 months later) but The Miracle Morning gave that ball a big push.  It helped to engrain in me a strong desire to improve and to always be learning and growing and working on becoming better. I have now been doing this routine (adapted to me personally, and its been different at different stages (pregnancy and newborn phases)) for 2+ years.  I love it.

I have experienced so much growth from this daily ritual.  I have been led to many resources and tools that have blessed my life, including resources and paradigm shifts that helped me to progress and heal from my driving fears.  I have come to know myself in much deeper ways than I ever did before and that has been liberating, healing, motivating, and exciting.

Soon I plan to write a few posts that talk about the details of this morning routine.  If you want the details sooner than that, feel free to e-mail me at goodmorningshelly@gmail.com.  I have a document all typed up and ready to send to you that outlines the routine and the details of it.    



*Mark actually went on to write his own book called The Latter-Day Morning, which is based off the same routine as The Miracle Morning, but adapted for a Mormon audience.  I really enjoyed Mark's book and gained additional insights from it and I would highly recommend it as well.