Overcoming Sadness

Hey kids!

I’ve been going around asking people if they have questions. I’ve written them all down, and will be answering all of them in the upcoming posts to come. That is the beauty of not having a whole bunch of followers; it’s less busy when answering their questions!

Today I have decided to answer the following question submitted by a dear friend of mine: when you feel sad, what do you do to overcome the hard times?

That to me is a very important question, because everyone feels sad at some point in their lives. Even 4-year olds when their toys break (I still vividly remember that gloomy day). At the same time, however, it is a difficult question to answer, because people are different. What may work for one person might not work for another person because they have different personalities and/or different reasons as to why they’re sad. But my hope is that through this post, I will be able to reach out to you and help you get through whatever it is you’re going through. So bear with me!

I’ve definitely felt sad in my life. Either because I lost something or someone, something didn’t work out for me (or nothing did for that matter), someone put me down, or I felt a void in my life. So I can definitely say I’ve experienced sadness for many different reasons and have had many different reactions.

Remember God wants us to be happy!

First of all, it is important to remember that we didn’t come to this Earth to be miserable. What did Lehi say to Jacob? Come on, it’s a scripture mastery (I think.. I didn’t really pay attention in seminary)! “Adam fell that men might be” blablabla okay, enough with appetizers, let’s get to the meaty stuff, “and men are, that they might have joy.” Say whaaa? Yeah, girl! Or boy if you’re a dude reading this. I repeat, “men are, that they might have joy.” Did that just blow your mind out of your brain or what? A prophet of God back in 600 B.C said that! And God found that so important for us to know, that He had Joseph Smith translate that to English so that we can be aware that, I repeat, “men are, that they might have joy.” Oh, and this is on 2 Nephi 2:25!

Okay, so do we have that clear? God wants us to be happy! And it makes total sense. I want you to pause for a second and think of someone you love with all your heart. Got someone in mind? (If not then girl, you need to go out and make some friends!) For those of you that do, how do you feel when that person is sad? Heartbroken I would hope! You would give anything to make them happy and change their scenario. You hate seeing them like that and you’re ready to help them with whatever they need. When you truly love someone, your #1 wish is for them to be completely happy! Now think of God: He is our loving Heavenly Father. He knows us more than anyone else in this world. He knows our strengths, our weaknesses, our potential, our fears, our concerns, our feelings, and exactly what we’re going through. He loves us with a love that is so pure and perfect, that no human can fully comprehend it. He loves us so much, He sent His son to come to Earth and suffer the most painful sacrifice ever performed so that our burdens can be lifted up from our backs. I know all of this is true. I know He loves you (yes you!). He’s listening to your prayers, and He can send His angels to protect you.

Let God help you!

I know what you’re probably thinking: “well if He loves me so much, then why would He let me go through this? I’d never let a person I love go through what I’m going through! Mimimimimimi!” What I have to say to that? I dunno, bud. I have absolutely no idea what you’re going through. Why don’t you ask God? This leads me to my next topic: prayer! Not gonna lie, sometimes when I prayed, I wondered if anyone was listening. What an idiot I was, because now I know with all the certainty in my heart that He was in fact listening and that it broke His heart to see me that way! Pray always. Don’t ever give up. He wants to talk to you. He obviously has prepared a tremendous life lesson for you out of this if it’s hurting you so bad. He is listening. I know it with all my heart! I promise you that as you pray consistently, you will feel His love for you and you will know all of this I’m saying for yourself. And if needs be, ask for priesthood blessings! They really helped me in ways that are too sacred for me to explain on the internet. Go to the temple! The other day I went to the temple and read my patriarchal blessing over and over as I waited to do confirmations for the dead. I recommend it! Fasting makes me grumpy, but boy does it help! I also recommend reading the Book of Mormon. I don’t know how I can possibly articulate my certainty that this book is true, but it is. Read it, and you’ll know it is true! And as you read it, you will feel the hand of God in your life as you read His word, and you will feel Him reaching out to you ever strongly.

As you do all of this, just remember: God wants you to be happy! If we do those things but we don’t have the faith that God will help us, then it’s pointless. Why? Because when we have faith we are showing God we WANT him to help us.

So if God wants you to be happy, who do you think wants you to be sad? I’ll give you a hint: it rhymes with Patan! Yes, you got it! Satan does! Verse 27 of that same chapter I just quoted, “(…)the devil (…) seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.” When you hear voices in your head giving you reasons as to why you deserve to feel sad, it’s just Satan being Satan. Ignore him. Don’t let him mess with your head. Don’t let him manipulate you into thinking you deserve to be miserable, that God isn’t listening, that you can’t be helped, or that things won’t get better. Don’t forget that he is the father of all bullcrap. I mean, lies! He’s a liar. Okay? So don’t listen to Him. Stay close to God. Do the things that invite the spirit (prayer, blessings, scriptures, fasting, church attendance, etc.) so that he won’t have power over you.

Smile :)

Ok, I’m done with the whole God vs. Satan topic. We all know Satan already lost anyway! Today I came across a meme on my news feed that says, “A strong woman is one who is able to smile this morning like she wasn’t crying last night…” 

One of my biggest pet peeves when I’m going through a trial is when someone says, “Oh, don’t worry. Everything’s gonna be okay! You just need faith. Be happy!” Seriously, do you think I ENJOY balling my eyes out before going to bed? Do you think I WANT to be sad? And who are YOU to tell me everything will be okay when you have no idea how I feel? And who says I haven’t put every inch of my faith into getting through this? DUHHH!!! Makes you wonder why you waste your time asking naïve people like that for advice, eh?

Man, I remember there was one trial I was going through… I was so sad I didn’t even have the motivation to get out of bed every morning. And when I did I was lucky to keep a straight face and not think about what I was going through. I’d be in the bus sometimes zoning out or even in the middle of class and before I know it, I feel tears running down my cheeks because I caught myself thinking about it again. It was kind of awkward, cuz I was in public and all! I guess it’s a good thing girls can get away with randomly crying since they have all those crazy hormones that make them kinda bipolar… which wasn’t the case for me, of course. It wasn’t the hormones or the time of month that made me sad; it was the situation I was facing.

Count your blessings

That is precisely why I couldn’t agree more with the meme! It definitely requires strength to smile like you weren’t crying the night before. Not necessarily smiling in the sense that you pretend like there’s nothing happening or you go out and get drunk because you’re giddy when you’re drunk! What I mean is you try to see the bright side of things, which I know can be extremely difficult. But seriously try to count all of your blessings! It’s hard, but there’s a reason why they say it’s a strong woman who does it!

Remember hymn #241? “When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed, when you are discouraged thinking all is lost, count your many blessings; name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done. (…) Are you ever burdened with a load of care? Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear? Count your many blessings every doubt will fly, and you will be singing as the days go by.” You can find the rest of the lyrics on lds.org!

Serve

What I also interpret from that meme is to focus on making someone else happy… mother always said that if you’re having a bad day, serve someone. You may think, “That’s stupid! I’m too busy solving my own problems! Ain’t nobody got time for dat!” But trust me on this. Think about it: you’ve obviously been unable to solve your own problems so far, so you might as well try solving someone else’s! It’s as if your laptop broke and your friend’s teddy bear got ripped. While you wait for a repair technician, sow your friend’s teddy bear. I have a testimony that service is the best remedy for depression. I never had Prozac so I can’t say it’s more effective, but every time I forgot myself and focused on someone else, somehow God blessed me so that my problems didn’t seem as important. Don’t ever allow Satan to make you think you’re incapable of helping someone. That’s a bunch of bullcrap. When we are in the service of others, God will help us reach out to them in miraculous ways. Even if it’s just smiling to a stranger on the street and wishing them a good day! Every day when you wake up, tell yourself, “today I’m gonna make at least one person smile.” Then go and do it!

At the end of the day, what do I know?

If you haven’t done any of this, then do them all! Especially the one about serving. If you have, then keep doing it. You can even pray to God and tell Him you’ve done everything you can, and ask Him what else is there to do. Have faith. Show Him you want to be helped. At the end of the day, no matter how long you rant to me for, or how detailed you are, I will never 100% know how you feel. Only Jesus Christ, because He has felt exactly what you are feeling in the garden of Gethsemane so you can be healed from that pain. He has felt it specifically and He saw your face as He felt it. It hurt Him not just because of the pain itself, but at the thought of you having to go through that 2,000 years later. So let Him help you. It hurts Him to see you like this. He will know how to help you more than anyone else. Be willing to accept His will. Have the faith that His will is what’s best for you. I can’t say He can completely take that pain away from you all the time. But I can say He will always give you the strength to overcome that pain you feel. (This article by Elder Bednar goes into even more detail: https://www.lds.org/ensign/2012/04/the-atonement-and-the-journey-of-mortality?lang=eng). And that strength is what will shape you to become like God one day.

Stay strong,

Miss Mottola! :]