Striving With Oneness With Others As Well As Within Ourselves

How Can I Increase Spirituality in my Life?

Part 6

Continued from last week’s letter

So far we have covered the first 8 of 10 points, which will help us to gain spirituality. These points are from a talk delivered by Elder Joe J Christensen. We now continue with number 9 …

9. Strive for oneness with others as well as within yourself, between the ideal and actual self.

Often, I will suggest to missionaries that they engage in an exercise as they are completing their missions. This exercise is called listing your “unifying principles”.

As a young businessman, the opportunity arose to attend what was billed as a Time Management Seminar. A trainer by the name of Charles Hobbs had developed a behavioral model. His approach was also to life as a whole and not just to the aspect of business. One thing that I really picked up on was his “Unifying Principles” concept. This involves an exercise to determine what is really important to us as individuals, and then to prepare related task statements. Performing these tasks, which relate directly to one’s personal priorities, helps to ensure that one is unified between actions and self-proclaimed principles.

Let’s look at this process in detail and try to see how it could increase spirituality…

A. Brainstorm – Write down anything and everything that comes to your mind when you ask yourself “what is important to me”. This could run the gambit between the 10 commandments and what flavor of ice cream makes you happy.

It will probably contain philosophy as well as favorite activities. It is important to list everything that comes to your mind and be very open. This is not the time to judge “is this really important to me” just write it down.

B. Divide the list into three categories by priority - The “A”s are those things that are most important. These are things that would be hard to do without; things that, if eliminated, would leave you lost or incomplete. Most of these will probably revolve around God, family relationships, and virtues. The “B”s are things that are of intense interest to you. Although not critical to your happiness they are a big part of you and your personality. These are things that make life enjoyable, and are laudable. They can be activities or philosophies. Often they can center on learning and self-improvement. The “C”s are the things that are nice, but not really that important to you.

C. Rank the “A” and “B” items in order of priority – This is a little more difficult but is crucial to the exercise. Soon you have a list in order of highest to lowest priority …. A.1, A.2, A.3 etc. …A.1 being the Item of top importance to you. Repeat with the B’s. The “C”s are put on the shelf and kept as a list of things that you like, yet they no longer play into this “Unifying Principles” exercise.

D. Prepare action statements to go with each of your principles – This is the time consuming part of the exercise. When doing this myself, it was a process of over several weeks. This is the part where prayer and inspiration are important.

Here are a few examples…

Eg. A1- Love God. Always be involved in my ward, socially as well as spiritually. Attend Church somewhere every Sunday, even on vacations and never be ‘on the water’ on a Sunday. Have meaningful prayer and scripture study daily. Always be worthy of, and have, a current Temple recommend.

A2 – Love Wife. Think of her needs before my own. Make sure that we share hobbies and interests so that we share time together: be careful not to overindulge in Sports at the expense of quality time with family. Make Birthday, Mother’s day and Anniversary a happy celebration for her. Take time to listen and not just “try to ‘solve it’ and move on”.

B7 – Learn about History – Always be reading a book about history. Take time to learn about the history of the places that I visit. Study about the lives of my ancestors and historical figures and try to emulate their good qualities and characteristics.

This sounds like a lot of effort, doesn’t it? I would suggest that you not do this until the last few weeks of your mission. You may even want to do step D. after you return home and can see life both from the perspective of being a full time servant of the Lord and as a saint with both earthly and spiritual concerns. After completing this process you will have a standard against which to measure yourself. Along with the Scriptures and Prayer, your “Unifying Principles” can tell you a great deal about how you are doing. When a major decision looms, a quick review of these principles can be one source of perspective, along with prayer for inspiration.

The act of determining if we measure up to our ‘ideal self’ is part of repentance.

Each Sunday as we partake of the Sacrament we renew covenants and ponder ways in which we can improve. We try to become more unified with God as well as to become closer to being ‘our best self’.

As missionaries we should be constantly comparing ourselves to our ‘best self’. As we set specific goals, perform well, evaluate and make needed adjustments, We can feel more unified with ourselves and with the Lord. This eliminates feelings of guilt and a separation from the Spirit’s guidance. Perhaps this drawing explains the point in a visual way. (It is interesting to note that the person who becomes totally disconnected with his unifying principles suffers tremendous feelings of guilt. He will either repent or be constantly justifying and trying to assuage the guilt feelings. Lashing out against his value system seems to grow out of this extreme ‘disconnect’. Thus we see one of the reasons that there is so much ‘anti’ material out there.)

Elder Christensen explains, “We often do not actually measure up to what we know we ideally ought to be. Sometimes we are not “one” as we are commanded to become. In order to become one, we need to engage in the process of the “at-one-ment,” or making the Atonement of Jesus Christ operative in our lives. We can grow toward that perfect oneness by applying those basic principles of faith in Christ unto repentance. Thus we can change, and our actual lives will come closer each day to becoming one with our ideal selves. If we are moving in that positive direction, the Spirit will be with us, but if we are going in the other direction, it will not. As the Lord said, “Be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine” (D&C 38:27).

Let us strive to more closely align our actions, to our ideals.

As we repent and improve we will feel more unity with Christ and we will find that the atonement plays a bigger and bigger role in our lives. This will lead to greater spirituality.

Have a wonderful week,

We love you all,

President Brubakwe