My Podcast Interview

I listened to this podcast right after I woke up this morning. 

I've been so nervous ever since Tamara asked to interview me right after General Conference. The interview was via Zoom back on October 14th. 

I'm so grateful it wasn't a disaster! That means God was totally involved. So, yay!! 

I'm also grateful to have this small summary of my journey--since my book isn't nearly as easy to get through. Writing is still so hard for me and I'm still such a beginner. 

I've been listening to her book on Audible and I'm seriously so impressed with Tamara's talent--with that and with the podcast. 

I'm really grateful that she reached out to me, so that I could meet her. 

I've gone back to listen to several of her podcasts, and I always feel uplifted. It's a great resource during these COVID-19 times and also as we head into the gray days of winter. 

I hope there will be something helpful in what I say, if you choose to listen to it. 

• Here is the information she sent me this morning:

Your interview is LIVE and will be listened to by the Stories of Hope in Hard Times audience today! That is pretty sweet considering you rocked the interview! 

I will be sharing your podcast on all of my social media accounts—Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Your podcast information will also go out in my newsletter today. 

Thank you for sharing such an amazing story of hope! 

Click this link to listen to your podcast and see your show notes and transcript on my website. 

You can also find it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuGdoLgmpls 

You can also listen to your show on other podcasting apps and websites: iTunes or Podcasts, Stitcher, Podbean, Soundcloud, YouTube, iHeartRadio, and even at https://resiliencetalk.airtime.pro/#. 

Have an awesome day and enjoy sharing your story of hope! 

Tamara 

Chapter 16: Connection is Critical

* I have pieced this together several different ways and I still think the paragraphs need polishing. I'm going to come back to it with fresh eyes another time. (I added more content and rearranged several more sentences on July 28, 2020.)

            The final missing link for me was connection with the people around me. I never fully realized that because of the social anxiety I felt for so many years. However, being with people has made all the difference. Dr. Brené Brown is a famous researcher, author, and speaker who has studied connection and empathy for many years. I learned from her that connection is what gives meaning and purpose to our lives. 

            The original prompting to “know more people in the stake” happened on the evening of September 4, 2013. God went big with that prompting. He didn’t tell me who I should know, so I figured I just needed to try to know everyone. I started with women in my ward (church congregation) and neighborhood. Then, I gradually branched out to the other wards in our stake (since that was the word used in my prompting). I continued to receive promptings and, as I acted each time, I was gradually able to face and overcome my fears. Visiting with women helped me to regularly challenge my social anxiety and I began to focus on problems and struggles outside of my own. When I knew more about the women, I could begin to love and serve them. Plus, I learned something from every person I spent time with and that helped me to continue to progress. As I practiced visiting, my courage and capacity increased. God knows how to do His work and miracles occurred during the time I spent with several women.

            People sometimes wonder how I decided who to visit. At first, I just tried to act on any opportunity to talk with people, since each conversation helped me to more fully face my fears. Then I began interacting with people in a much more deliberate way. It started with making a goal to meet as many women as I could before and after stake activities. As I developed more courage, I looked over ward lists and called or emailed women whose names stood out to me to see if they would let me visit them. Sometimes, I would just knock on doors of the houses I felt drawn to while I was out walking each day. Occasionally, the women I visited would give me a name of another woman that would benefit from a visit. At one point, I was strongly inspired to visit all the Relief Society presidents and bishop’s wives in the stake as well. I also spoke directly to several of the bishops to find out the needs of the women in their wards. Three of the bishops gave me a name of a woman in their ward who struggled with depression. At first, many of the women thought I was selling something, but they were pleasantly surprised when that never came up in our visits. 

            A few months into the visiting, I realized that I was supposed to consider this as an unofficial full-time mission, so I visited for several hours on most days for 23 months. (I had two surgeries during that time, so I wanted to make sure I gave the Lord the full 18 months.) I wanted to show God how I would have served with my whole heart on my actual full-time mission in 1993 and 1994 if I hadn’t been so depressed and anxious for most of that time. I continued to visit on a more casual level for several years after that as well. I ended up visiting approximately 500 women in our stake and I eventually stretched myself even more to visit old friends. My visiting journey took me all over the Wasatch Front of north-central Utah (as far as Payson in the south, to Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain in the west, and as far as Layton in the north). The whole process was Spirit-led and I really didn't have my own agenda. 

            Visiting gave me opportunities to learn how to develop close friendships and to help other women who also struggle with emotional or physical challenges. I am so grateful for the lasting friendships I developed with several of the women in my neighborhood. I learned from Brené Brown that connection is a result of being authentic. In order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to really be seen. Because of our close connection, we shared very important and personal details about our lives with each other, which helped us feel validated, encouraged, and loved. These friends have helped me through many challenges and I've been grateful for the chance to support them in some of their challenges as well.         

            During my visiting journey, I decided I would try to be “the friend of the friendless.” That way, they would each have a friend and I would have more friends as well. Learning to visit helped me take the focus off myself and my own struggles. My perspective gradually switched to other people and how I could help them. Most of the women I was prompted to visit needed what I had to offer and I even started walking or visiting regularly with a few who struggled with depression. They knew they could trust me because I was able to show them empathy from my similar experiences. I learned from Brené Brown that empathy fuels connection. It is being willing to recognize another person’s perspective. It is staying out of judgment. It is recognizing emotion in other people and then communicating that. Empathy is feeling with people. It is expressing that you know what it feels like to be overwhelmed and that they are not alone. As time went on, I gradually learned that I didn’t have to be at the same level of friendship with everyone, which was an important distinction for me to understand. 

            Later, I was asked on several different occasions how I coped with feeling overwhelmed, used, or burned out in the process of trying to help people with ongoing difficult struggles. I have compiled a few of my answers that continue to be a good reference for me. The main answer is that Jesus is the only One with the power to save us. Our part is to turn our lives over to Him and to point those we love and are concerned about toward Him. Sometimes, our wells may feel like they are empty while we are giving all we can and trying to help people who need a lot of attention. The best way I have learned to handle that is to always pray for them and then turn the situation over to God after we have done all we are able to do each day. If we focus on building and strengthening them, they will be more able to overcome their own challenges with God’s help. During the whole process, it is really important to love people right where they are. This also includes ourselves! We need to learn to see the good in others while we are trying to help them overcome bad habits or challenges and reach the potential they may not even see yet.         

            As I went along, I realized “there are several ways up a mountain” and I needed to find different ways to reach the women I hoped to visit. I needed to learn to trust my instincts and be willing to accept rejection. I gradually learned to be “thick skinned” and vulnerable at the same time. I had to be okay with most of the women not wanting me to come back for a second visit. (I visited approximately 500 women, but I visited many of those women more than once. I ended up visiting the ones who needed the most help several times.) Some visits were very uncomfortable and I often stumbled over my words. To this day, I’m not sure why I was supposed to visit a few of the women. During those particular visits, I reminded myself that there will never be a time when it is okay to not be kind. This also applies to challenging relationships with a family member or someone we are trying to help in general. God can help us find the balance of maintaining boundaries and being assertive, while still being kind and loving. We may need to reevaluate occasionally how we can be less rigid or judgemental in our interactions with other people. If there are differences in religious belief, it’s important to remember not to dilute doctrine, but we can always soften the way we interact with people.

            In summary, I was still very anxious in the beginning. At first, it was all about me – until I figured out what I needed to do. I used to not understand how I could serve people because I don’t cook, sew, or have other obvious talents. However, God gradually showed me what I could do as I continued visiting and He gave me the confidence to stretch out of my comfort zone to do it. I learned to look beyond my own needs and made myself vulnerable in the process. Occasionally, the anxiety would overwhelm me again and I had to remind myself why I was visiting in the first place. The original prompting continued to build my confidence, though, and I knew it wasn’t about me anymore. This journey changed my life in significant ways and I will never be the same. Instead of hiding, I learned to look outward. I truly found myself as I lost myself in loving and serving other people. 

Part 2: Overcoming Obstacles

            In this section, I will describe some of the obstacles I’ve faced in my life and ways that I’ve learned to overcome them in varying degrees. I will give an overview of my journey here and then will discuss some more specific lessons I’ve learned in the following chapters.

             I have struggled with depression for over half my life. I started showing more serious signs of it in high school (around 1987). It became much worse when I served a proselyting mission in Pennsylvania and Maryland (1993-1994), but I was miraculously able to stay in the mission field for the entire 18 months. I literally prayed my way through those extremely difficult times and the Savior’s atonement carried me. I wasn’t aware at the time that my future husband was serving as a missionary in the same mission. We didn’t know each other before our missions, we only crossed paths briefly a couple of times in the mission field, but we flew home on the same airplane. Our parents lived a few blocks away from each other (and still do), so that made it easy for us to get to know each other and date after our missions.  

            Because of his encouragement, I sought medical attention for my emotional struggles and was diagnosed with mild bipolar disorder, but my challenge is mostly with depression and social anxiety. I improved over the following months with a combination of therapy and mood stabilizing medication. We were married in the Bountiful Utah Temple a year after returning from the mission field (1995) and I decided to stop taking the medication so we could start our family. We were grateful to welcome our daughter 9 months and 6 days later (1996) and our son was born just under three years after her (1999). I tried to keep my life very simple during those years, but our son ended up in the newborn intensive care unit for the first ten days of his life and that was the opposite of simple.

            My emotional health declined quickly and we decided it was time to resume therapy and medication. However, the combination of medicine that worked so well before no longer worked. We spent the next decade trying different types, dosages, and combinations of medication without long-term success. When I was in the worst stage of my depression (from about 2008 to 2010), I spent most of my time in bed, not wanting to leave our bedroom and especially not wanting to leave the house. I couldn’t remember anything positive. I felt like everything I said or did or thought was wrong. In fact, I couldn’t even carry on much of a conversation. It felt like there was no way out. 

            I really wanted to attend church, the temple, and other church activities, but every time I even thought about going, I felt extremely anxious and cried almost uncontrollably. When I didn’t end up going, I felt really guilty and that guilt would make my depression worse. It was a very miserable and hopeless cycle. However, when I did actually make it to church, I almost always felt guilty from something that was said in a talk or lesson and then I often cried uncontrollably at church too. I then ended up spending most of my time hiding in the bathroom because I couldn’t compose myself enough to go back to the meeting. When I returned home after meetings, I second guessed every little thing I said or did –  or didn’t say or do. That made it even harder to go the next time. It was a very dark and lonely time for me. 

            At one extremely low point in fall 2010, I realized I wasn’t doing anything to help anyone in my life, including myself. If I had actually been suicidal, I would have tried to end my life. But, since I wasn’t, I decided I needed to learn to live. I was inspired to start walking to destinations all over town as an excuse to leave the house without having to interact with too many people. I bought small amounts of groceries, picked up prescriptions, picked up and dropped off books at the library, mailed letters and bill payments at a mail box in the business park near our home, returned hangers to the dry cleaners, and donated small items to Savers. As I walked in the sunshine and fresh air, the endorphins started working again, and I gradually found purpose in living.

            I had two very large obstacles to face in the next two years. In August 2012, my husband of seventeen years unexpectedly talked to me about a drastic change in his spiritual beliefs, which we previously had in common. I didn’t understand how that could be, since he had worked so hard on his mission and served faithfully in many callings. However, I tried to support him in his decision, even though it took years to gradually begin to understand his perspective. Then, in January 2013, I was officially diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, after experiencing symptoms off and on since 2001. I gave myself daily injections at home for 3 ½ years, received monthly infusions at the oncology lab for the next two years, and am now continuing to receive infusions twice each year. I have limited feeling in my lower right side, but can still function well overall. Since then, both of our children have chosen to not share my spiritual beliefs either.

            Several times, I’ve had the choice of giving up and going back to bed or continuing to face my challenges. I have allowed myself time to mourn in each case, since the future has increasingly become less certain. However, I have made the deliberate decision again and again to continue believing, progressing, and trying my best.