Are you trying to save yourself?

Statistics of individuals with eating disorders among Latter-Day Saints is significantly higher than non-members. Why is this? I feel it is because as members we hold ourselves to a higher standard, we strive to become perfect. Unfortunately media and society connect perfection with being thin and obtaining a flawless body. There are also messages which associate sin with eating certain foods. Have you heard advertisements of “guilt-free, fat-free ice-cream” or statements of “I’m going to be naughty and eat cookies,” or “chocolate is my guilty pleasure?”


As a teen I wanted to be perfect, these messages became entwined with my desire to be faithful and worthy in the gospel.

These associations and my drive to be righteous in all aspects helped to create the deadly disease of Anorexia Nervosa. After a year of extreme deprivation I weighed a mere 85 pounds (I was nearly 5’10” tall at the time) when I was admitted into the hospital.

I no longer knew who I was or how to feed or bathe myself. My mother stayed in the facility completing these tasks for me. My brain, liver, kidney, and other organs began to die. I could no longer speak coherently, and was completely psychotic. The doctors prepared my family for my inevitable death.

The chance of survival was gloom, but the probability that my mind would return to normal functioning was never expected. By a miracle resulting after priesthood blessings, fasts, and many prayers I did survive and my mind and body healed to a full recovery.

My incredible story not only demonstrates the power of prayer and the priesthood but teaches us that we need to remember the Savior’s ability.

I was trying to save myself. I thought I had to become perfect on my own. Even though my relationship with Jesus was strong and pure in regards to Him being my friend, my eternal brother, someone I knew understood and loved me completely, and my Savior who redeemed me from my sins, I didn’t understand or apply His ability to be my teammate— a partner that would fill in my deficit. I needed to internalize this principal, that the demand for perfection on my own was not expected but only required as becoming one with the Lord Jesus Christ before I could fully heal.

My sincerest prayer now as a survivor of anorexia is for youth and adults to gain this understanding along with knowing their divine worth. I know becoming one with Christ and feeling the value He sees in us will help us heal from not only eating disorders, but other mental disorders and addictions.

Deseret Book

I'm excited that Deseret Book is still selling my book both at their store and their online store deseretbook.com
Here is the link: A Future for Tomorrow.

If you have read my book and want to leave a review on this site I would appreciate it. Leave me a comment that you did it and I will enter you into the still ongoing contest for $25 of Scrapbook supplies.


Thanks!

Book Signing - thinking outside the box

This week I did a book signing in a place you wouldn't normally do a book signing. But it turned out great and I met several people with stories I appreciated them sharing.

My son use to take a boys hip hop/ break dancing class and their recitals are PACKED full in the school's gym/ stage area.  I had noticed before that the main teacher (it is a fairly large production now so there are several teachers/classes) allows local people to sell there goods at tables and just now it hit me to ask if I could do the same with my book. I was going to just have them sitting out on one of the tables but she hooked me up to do an official book signing.
It was defiantly thinking outside the box compared to other store book signings I've done. But hey, where there are a large group of people it's always worth a try.

It turned out well with sells, exposure, and sharing my story with others who are experience similar heartbreak one way or another.

CONTEST

I want to share my new trailer of my book with as many people as possible in hopes to reach those who can benefit from my book's message.  I need your help.

Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX2oQ2XW28c   If it doesn't work you can find it on youtube, search under A Future for Tomorrow Surviving Anorexia.

I want to make it fun so I'm making this a contest! You earn entries for each place you share my trailer. 

Just link my trailer to:

*Facebook

*Twitter

*Blog - Posting it on your blog gives you two entries!

*If you do all three you get five entries!

*If you share it on other sites (such as circles of moms) just let me know and that will also give you an entry. 

Just leave a comment on here letting me know where it is at. Thanks!  

PRIZE

$25 worth of Scrapbook supplies from Close to my Heart.  You get to pick what you want!

Interview

I did an interview a while ago and just now found that someone has posted it on YouTube. To check it out click on the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZMZecMUASI

Book Trailer

To check out my Book's Trailer!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX2oQ2XW28c

A Future for Tomorrow Book Trailer

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Sign Language and Video Phone

Some if you might not know that I sign and one of my best friends is deaf.
Sign language is a passion of mine.
I can interpret and have interpreted at the MTC for the deaf missionaries and worked for the School of the Deaf and Blind among other interpreting assignments. I want to interpret again one day after my children are older.


When I first became involved with the Deaf world, if I needed to make a phone call to one of my friends I would use a TTY. It is a typing device where the hearing impaired individual would type the words then the voice operator would read it to me then I would tell the operator what to type. It took forever and often the meaning of the message was lost since spoken English is different than sign, especially ASL (American Sign Language.)
Now there is Video Phone. It is great! The deaf person can sign back and forth with an interpreter who is speaking to the hearing person, or two deaf people can just sign back and forth.  The hearing impaired love speaking in their natural language.
This technology is in jeopardy due to lack of financial aid. Its loss not only hurts the deaf but interpreters too. I was actually hoping to use my interpreting skills to becoming one of these video phone interpreters in the future.

Also my dear friend works for the video phone company called SorsenVRS. She helps set up the system in other hearing impaired family's homes.

If you want to learn more here is a video you can watch, there are subtitles for those of you who don't know sign language. (For some reason when this video is played on my blog it cuts out half the picture you can go to  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IUHLYnc1LI  to see it correctly.)


TO HELP
No money donation required! All you have to do to help is send an email to FCC and it's already set up and typed up for you. All you need to put down is your name, address, email address, and a bullet for hearing or deaf. That's all it takes. It takes two minutes of your time. It's on www.sorensonvrs.com/savevrs.

Thank you

Beauty Is Love Not Looks

Imagine being ravished with cancer, your body emaciated from radiation and chemo, you are bald, rashed, and physically a mess.  This is how Kim Rives found herself.

There are two great quotes I want to share that I found in her book, which I mentioned in my last post, My Walk Thru Heaven.

I want you to return to the scene I first mentioned. This is what Kim said,
"Physically I could see that I was hurting, yet my eyes seemed to be shining like diamonds. They twinkled and sparkled and I literally could see the light of the Lord in them. I knew God was letting me know that beauty comes from love not looks."

There are hundreds of powerful messages in her book but I want to focus on the ones that are relevant to my blog.
Here is the other quote, by Kim, which is full of eternal truth:
"I knew that one of the best gifts to give to God was to love myself. No matter what the situation or circumstance, I needed to love myself unconditionally."

How powerful this concept is. It is actually a gift to our Father in Heaven for us to love ourselves. Think of how badly it hurts him when we do the opposite. When we put ourselves down and withhold loving, accepting feelings toward our self.

 I can compare it to my own children. One of the top qualities I want my children to have is love for themselves. Think of all the heartbreak and poor choices steaming from low self-esteem. 
How do we instill this in our children? I feel modeling this behavior is the most effective way.  I consciously try to let my children hear me speak positivity about myself and I accept compliments graciously. When someone says something positive don't say "no," and try to talk them out of the compliment. Say "Thank you," with a smile. Teach your children to do the same.

I know Father in Heaven wants the best for us ten fold to what we want for our own children.
So I'm choosing, and hope you join me, to give this gift to our Eternal Father-- the gift of loving myself unconditionally.

My Walk Thru Heaven

Wow! What a powerful book! I read My Walk Thru Heaven By Kim Rives this week and can't say enough about it.

"My Walk Thru Heaven is an inspiring true story of a young single mother’s valiant fight against cancer. Losing the battle, she finds herself taking an incredible journey through the portals of death and beyond. Her mission not yet complete, she is commissioned to return from Heaven and share the message she was given."

(three days before Kim died)

This book is very emotional. I will never hear the words breast cancer again without thinking of Kim's incredible story.

After reading this book I felt inspired. I want to show more love, forgive, serve others, and pray more often.

Kim is LDS but she has written her journey so that members of other faiths can enjoy and understand her experience.

I recommend this book highly.

Each of our stories are unique but there are many things similarities in her story as I experienced and wrote about in mine (A Future for Tomorrow)  Some things I feel both our books do are reminds us how thin the veil is and how important love, service, prayer, and  forgiveness are and that miracles are possible.

 I know the painful process of baring your soul, forfeiting your privacy in hopes to help others with your trial and doing it out of obedience when the Lord tells you it is what is meant for you to do.  I am thankful that Kim hearkened to this instruction and wrote her story for the world to benefit from.

Kim is also a song writer and singer. Her music is even more powerful knowing the situation around each song's lyrics.

The Remarkable Soul of a Woman

I saw the book The Remarkable Soul of a Woman advertised on TV and thought it would be a great one to own and give for Mother's Day.  After buying it, I began to read it and noticed something familiar! It is the same talk I recently heard by Diter F. Uchtdorf and posted about just a few posts ago. 

When I heard the talk I sensed it's powerful message for the daughters of God and am now thrilled to see that it has been turned into a beautiful book with pictures to emphasize its message. 

It can be purchased at Deseret Book.

Summer in Paris

I was asked to do a book review of Summer in Paris by Michele Ashman Bell. (click on her name to see her blog.  Picture of Michele below )

I love doing book reviews because as a busy mother of three it gives me an excuse to actually take the time to read!  I need to learn to take more time for myself I suppose, but with a two month old, 3 year old, and 6 year old and not to mention demands of a wife, housekeeper, and church callings. I just keep reminding myself there is a time and season for all things. My time for luxury reading as much as I would like might come a little later down the road. 

However, I actually have two books to tell you about that I have been able to read. One will wait until a later post. This post is all about Michele's Summer in Paris a book geared toward tweens and teens, but I found myself enjoying it plenty and I think anyone of any age can find the fun in its story.

Here is the blurb:

Kenzie Williams feels like she has it all; wealth, friends, popularity and talent. But when her father tells her that he has declared bankruptcy, her whole world in New York City turns upside down. Her parents' solution while they sort through their financial and marital problems is to send Kenzie to live with her relatives in Paris . . . Idaho!

Feeling like she's been sentenced to three months in Hickville Prison, Kenzie arrives in Idaho feeling like a square peg, with name brand clothes, in a round, horribly podunk, hole.

Leaving everything she loves behind, Kenzie is forced to get up at the crack of dawn, do chores, and hang out with her cousin's loser friends. She feels like she's about to die until she meets Adam White, the town outcast, whose been accused of killing his best friend and is being blamed for some trouble that's been happening around town.

Not only is Adam the best-looking guy she's ever seen, but he's also the most fascinating guy she's ever met and Kenzie is determined to get to know him and find out his secret. But, the longer she stays in Paris, the more she realizes, Adam isn't the only one keeping secrets.

I liked the concept of the city girl being thrown into the "Hickville Prison" to later find the depth of a small town, value of hard work, and good people.  

 I'm from a tiny ranch town so I could relate to the descriptions and events Michele described in her setting town of Paris, Idaho. I found myself chuckling to the "small town" ways she depicted humorously. 

It's not hard to fall in love with her characters. Kenzie's flaws only made her character more believable and true to live. I also enjoyed the mystery about Adam's character.

I don't know Michele Ashman Bell personally but she must be full of personality because her writing was entwined with spunky charm.

For instance here is a snip it or two from her book, "Not to mention how annoying she found the two girls who looked like extras from Saved by the Bell. . ."   or "He seemed dumb as Play-Doah, but there was something teddy-bearish and lovable about him.  I could list many of the similes she wrote that made me smile.

The story was delightful and entertaining. I would recommend it to anyone but especially to tweens and teens. It was a perfect balance of suspense, light heartiness, and romance. Another great thing is it is clean and has settle values.  When my daughter is older I hope she will read it.