Summary and Miracles (fourth and final thought download to my life coach on October 7, 2020)

•  Final update to my life coach on the evening before our 22nd coaching session: 

Coming back to what my coach has tried so hard to teach me: 

* I feel like all the emails I've sent her since Saturday morning have been part of my extremely long thought download. 

* I've tried to feel my feelings of sadness, confusion, frustration, regret, and disappointment by letting the tears come, rather than keeping them inside. 

* I've tried to understand why I felt the way I did and comfort myself, rather than continue to punish myself for all the errors in judgment I made along the way. 

* As I started to see it all in context, it was easier to understand why I made those errors and how I could show compassion to myself, since I wasn't actually trying to do anything wrong. 

* I have renewed my faith in the Savior's atonement by turning more fully toward Him. 

* I've tried to make some course corrections and I've realized that maybe nothing actually went permanently wrong--I can learn from my mistakes and eventually become stronger because of them. 

***

 A miracle happened today. My good friend (Divine Intersection #4) and her husband were invited to the temple for her nephew's pre-mission endowment. She handed out the endowment cards that I gave her at the end of February to the other family members who were attending the session--and ALL EIGHT were completed today! I was so grateful for that unexpected and miraculous gift God orchestrated to uplift me this afternoon just when I needed to know it was going to be okay. I wanted to share all of this with my coach, so that I didn't spend all of tomorrow's session just filling her in.

* My coach's reply: I love how God works through so many people . . . the eight people who just had their work done, the unexpected gift to remind you that everything is okay, the nephew who got to go to the temple still even in the midst of the pandemic, etc. I'm sure there were even more that we aren't even aware of. I think the real miracle for me to see is that you realized that maybe nothing actually permanently went wrong.

* My reply: I agree about the miracles. Heavenly Father is a genius at doing His work and allowing us to help where we can along the way.

***

My sister drove into town on Wednesday night and I was so grateful for the opportunity to walk with her yesterday morning (with our grandson in the stroller) before my coaching session. 

She shared some amazing miracles in her life:

* a neighbor who lives across the street who "just happens" to be a member of the church and is willing to help with car, sprinkler, and computer issues

* the only other family in their ward who has a dad/husband who is deployed "just happens" to have kids the same age as hers

* packages of food they sent miraculously reaching her deployed husband just when he was almost out of food . . .

Then I read these thought downloads to her at the end of our walk. When she was saying goodbye, she said that she thinks the reason I had such a mental block/emotional breakdown over the book is that my journey is continuing and there is still more that needs to be included in the book. I had never considered that I may be having a type of "stupor of thought." That gave me hope and helped me feel less upset about all the struggles of the past few weeks.