Normal is just a setting on a dryer!

I have never really felt normal.
Does anyone really know what normal is?

Jeremy often says of something
he feels apprehensive about,
"I am not Normal to that."

He is nervous.

I know that feeling.

I am not normal to a lot of things.

I had to take a good look at myself, literally.

A visual rhetoric of who I am.
Last semester I had an assignment
to do a self-portrait.

It could not be traditional.

It had to say something about you.

The first portrait I drew I looked so depressed.
It was awful/painful to look at.

I did it looking at myself in a mirror.

The product of that was me recognizing
just how depressed I had become.
I was not fun to be around,
and if this reflection was what those
who had to be around me saw
I realized just why my phone had stopped ringing,
and why those who have known me well
had run the other way.

I was looking pretty miserable,
and acting the part too.

For a few weeks I really thought about this.

I then decided to draw me the way I wanted me to be.

Brian said it looked more like Denise Richards.
That was quite a compliment
because I personally think
she is beautiful.

So I began to work on myself from the inside out.

Probably the hardest part was having to take a really good look at myself.
I really don't like pictures of myself.
I generally delete them off the camera
as soon as they are taken.

This project was sucking the life out of me,
or was it.

Somehow I think that looking at myself,
microscopically, helped me to realize
that I like what I see.

From the inside out.
Whatever I have been through to get to
where I am now, has been worth it.

I know my eyebrows need plucking,
and I have some skin tone issues that
I don't care to see so repetitively.

But....I like me.
Who I am on the inside,
who I reflect on the outside.

And I am not Normal.
No one is.

"Normal is just
a setting on the Dryer."
[words of the most inspired man I know,
My Grandfather Cecil Hansen]

We are all just trying to get by,
the best we can.

Shouldn't we be a little kinder to others,
starting with ourselves.

Sundays lesson in Relief Society
talked about being a Heavenly Family.

Inspired our instructor moved us to ponder this.

"Do you have Charity for yourself?"
How does your knowledge
that you are a Child of God
influence your
thoughts, actions, words?

How we treat others?
How we treat OURSELVES?

"We are valued Daughters of our Heavenly Father.
We have Divine Nature."

We can learn to love ourselves.
Respect.
Trust.
Forgive ourselves.

All our experiences have purpose.

"But we understand that these would
be given to us for our experience and our good."
[Doctrine and Covenants 122:7, loosely quoted]

If we allowed them to these trials
would purify us rather than defeat us.

They would teach us to have Endurance,
Patience, Charity.

So how do we develop Charity for ourselves.
We can learn to LOVE OURSELVES.
Which means that we understand our
TRUE WORTH as children
of our Heavenly Father.

The Savior taught that we must love others.

AS WE LOVE OURSELVES.
[Matthew 22:39]

To Love ourselves, we must respect
and trust ourselves.

[and FORGIVE ourselves]

This means we must be obedient
to the principles of the gospel, repent...and
forgive ourselves when we have repented.

We WILL come to love ourselves better when we can feel
thedeep,comforting assurances
that the Savior truly loves us.

...and only by coming to know Him.

Today I have been in great reflection of this.
Of the circumstances we all find ourselves in,
our judgments of others,
and our literal judgment of ourselves.

I have been pondering many things today and came upon this in my reading and reflections:

[...of daunting difficulties and challenges facing the world]
"We will be victorious...Chart your course, study diligently, pray...never despair.
It has been said, 'The Lord shapes the back to bear the burden placed upon it.' "

And further, "Prayer is the place where burdens change shoulders."

[Quote #1, T.S. Monson, LDS Church News, 10-16-10;
Quote #2 Guideposts, pg. 14, Feb 2010]

Yesterday in my challenges I lost my patience again. Poor Gavin. He was at the blunt end of my rhetorical knife. I texted him an apology...I was at the hospital seeing a Sweet Sister in our ward who at 87 years old has broken her hip. She is well, and will be ...just needed a visitor.

Gavin wanted a ride home from school, a simple request, but was at the end of a long list of TO DO's that I feel I am failing lately....

I couldn't be where I was and there for him at the same time, and so it made me feel I was failing him....I wasn't ...but I felt that way.

I told him I was sorry...my response was so impatient again. I really have nothing left and feel horribly overwhelmed. ...however I should not have reacted so intensely...

He responded: "It's okay mommy. I love you. Please be safe on your way home. I understand."


HOW CAN HE FORGIVE SO EASILY....i broke into tears...


Gavin: [i texted back] Thanks. The hardest part is forgiving myself. I can't keep acting like this. I told him I love him...I am proud of him and that he is such a great example to me. Such Endless Potential.

At this point he makes such an impression on me. He calls and says: Mamma thanks. [I love it when he calls me Mamma]. He says "I hope you know that no one could replace you. See you when you get home."


Wow, how does a 15 year old already get what I am just learning. No one can replace us. Even if all we can do is a little. Even if all we can do is just get by, one day at a time. We are an integral part of our Heavenly Fathers plan, and we are so important to one another. No one can replace that part of who we are.


It was such a challenge to really look at myself, and to realize that even if I don't like what I see on the outside that in overcoming some of my internal challenges I can learn to see myself for more than the eye beholds.

Introspection, in all of the challenges that I have faced, and continue to face, I desire to just learn to love others, as I love myself....and that means that I better start liking who I am. I am no good to anyone if at first I don't learn to like who I see looking back at me everyday. I can be of no good in serving others if I don't decide that who I am is enough. I don't need to be like anyone else...I don't need to be normal to this or that.


I just need to have Faith in who I am and in WHOSE I am.

I just need to be me.