I just read President Uchtdorf's talk from the Oct. 2014 General Conference. It is hard for me to separate out my thoughts from the healthy to the unhealthy. President Uchdorf is saying that if we don't step back and evaluate and honestly take stock of our good qualities as well as our bad, then we will be deceiving ourselves. He says:
"But being able to see ourselves clearly is essential to our spiritual
growth and well-being. If our weaknesses and shortcomings remain
obscured in the shadows, then the redeeming power of the Savior cannot
heal them and make them strengths.12
Ironically, our blindness toward our human weaknesses will also make us
blind to the divine potential that our Father yearns to nurture within
each of us."
I am reminded of an experiment that I did in college (go Aggies) wherein I tried to only have positive thoughts towards people that I passed while walking through campus. It is natural to notice a person's physical appearance and make judgement calls based on what we see. These judgement calls are based on our own biases and likes and dislikes, making it natural for many of our thoughts to be negative, because we are all different. Different clothing likes, hairstyle, physical makeup of our bodies. That is the worst one of all: to judge someone based on the size/shape/color of their body, something that is completely out of their control.
In college I wondered what would happen to myself if I only let myself have positive thoughts about the people that I passed. The main thought being they are a child of God. Wow! How my perspective changed. All the outward physical things I could notice no longer mattered. The longer the experiment went on, as with anything we do for a length of time, I began to do this naturally, without thought or effort. Then I noticed that my heart began to change towards the people I encountered. I began to wonder, instead, about their well being or what might be happening in their life. Do they need a friend? Are they having a bad day? Are they healthy and happy?
How does this apply to President Uchtdorf's teachings? Well his teaching applies to me in this way, because if I am to take an honest look at my life there are some people in it that I need to use this experiment on in its concentrated form. In other words every time I think about them I need to think of the good and dispel as quickly as possible any negative thoughts, even if I think they are true.
