Episode 72: God’s Infinite Approval of You

Welcome to the 100% Awesome Podcast with April Price. You might not know it but every result in your life is 100% because of the thoughts you think, and that my friends is 100% awesome!

Hello podcast universe! Welcome to episode 72 of the 100% Awesome Podcast. I'm April Price, and I'm so happy to be with you sharing this space, and sharing the ideas, the things that are on my mind with you. I hope that they are helping you in your life in a real, and practical way. I know that life isn't easy really ever, but particularly right now it feels like almost everything in the world has gone wrong, right? From ongoing concerns about Covid 19, and some really serious wildfires out west, and threats of hurricanes, and like even freak inland hurricanes. In so many ways, I think we each keep being reminded of how very little control we have. Like when things are stable, and they're going along in predictable ways our brains tend to believe that life is kind of certain and that we have some measure of control.

But of course, this is just an illusion. We have no control. And any certainty we think we have about our lives is just imagined, because anything can change at any moment, and it has always been this way, we just didn't know it. We forgot. But we have never had certainty, we just thought we did. And when we thought we did, things felt a little less scary to our brains. But I think for me what this year has taught me is that I never get to control anything outside of me. Any predictions that my brain makes about how things are going to go are totally made up, right? I only really ever have control over my internal world, what I think, what I feel, and what I do. Like the scope of my control is so much smaller, and so much more intimate than I ever really realized. This year has brought that all into focus, right? And that might seem kind of scary. But what I want you to know is that has always been this way, and we just didn't know it.

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We were completely unaware, and now our sphere of control seemed so small, and yet when we can learn to manage our thoughts, and our feelings, and our actions, our power really becomes limitless. We are not limited by good circumstances, or ideal situations, or what other people do, or think, or say, because no matter what happens outside of us we get to create our own experience of it. And that is the most powerful we can ever be, because we are not dependent on anything else for our feelings or emotional experience, and our brain it really does forget this. It likes to think it's the victim. It thinks it needs to control everything outside of us. But the truth is that no matter what is happening, you have been given the agency to act, and not be acted upon.

This is why I love coaching, and why I think everybody needs a coach, because when you can have the awareness that your experience is being created entirely inside of your own mind, you can overcome the feeling of powerlessness that many of us are experiencing right now. And love your life exactly as it is, no matter what comes. The more you access, and manage the things that you actually have control of internally, the less you need to control everything else externally. So, when my brain is panicking about potential disasters ahead I love knowing that I don't have to believe it, and that whatever happens, I am going to be okay. And that in every case I am 100% IN CHARGE OF MY EXPERIENCE. And if you are struggling right now with any circumstance in your life, and you want to be able to see it in a different way, you can always sign up for a free coaching session, or you can also ask me a question.

So, in a couple of weeks I'm going to dedicate the podcast completely to listener questions. And I want to answer your questions, and show you how to apply the thoughts, and ideas that I share here on the podcast to your individual situation. So, if you would like to ask me a question, this is the perfect opportunity. You can go to the show notes, and click the link to ask me a question, and when you click that link it's going to take you to a page where you can record your question. And then I will be featuring a bunch of you, and your questions on the podcast is gonna be so awesome. I have loved hearing your voices in your questions as I get them, and I just think it's the coolest thing that I get to hear directly from you about the things that are getting in your way right now, keeping you stuck, and I am really looking forward to recording this episode. And if you have a question, and you don't want to hear your voice on the podcast, you can simply email me at aprilpricecoaching.com And get me your question that way.

Okay so, onto the episode. Today's episode has been a long time coming. It's actually been on my mind for a while, and then recently I had a couple of experiences that reminded me that this is something that I really want to talk to you about. So, a few weeks ago my coach had me do an exercise where she had me make a list of all the ways that I help my clients. She said, "Make a list of the problems, that you solve for. Problems, that you know your clients are facing, and that you have solutions for." And so, I made that list, and the very first problem that I wrote down, and that I see so many people struggling with, is that they think that God is disappointed in them, and the way they have lived their life. I personally spent years thinking this thought, and judging myself, and my life, and all my meager efforts, right? Nothing I did was ever good enough, and I felt like I was always coming up short. Certainly, in my own right I was a very imperfect being, I still am. And so, God who is perfect, and wanted me to be perfect, must surely be even more frustrated, and more disappointed in me by my shortcomings, and all the things that I continue to get wrong. And I think this is often the default thought that our brain gives us, that God is disappointed in us, and the way that we are living our life. That he has taught us better than he expects more that we keep falling short, and we're never gonna get it right.

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But I want you to know that your brain is wrong about this. Like it's not wrong that you're making mistakes, but it's wrong that that is a problem. It's wrong that you shouldn't be making mistakes, and that somehow all of this is a huge disappointment to God. And I think if you could change one thought among all the thoughts your brain is giving you, I think this is one of those most powerful ones that you can choose to change. And so, I'm going to make a case for this today, and I'm going to talk about how this default thought offered to us by our brain is just an optional thought. And that it is most likely not creating the results we really want in our lives. And then I'm going to offer you a few different ways of looking at things.

Okay so, I want to start by reminding you that every thought you have is given to you by a brain that is offering you thoughts that it thinks is going to be helpful to you, to keep you alive, to protect you from threats, and that is just doing what it can to notify you of danger. So, the other night it was almost time for bed, and someone in our neighborhood lit off a firework. There is like this huge boom that just came out of nowhere, and our dog Auggie just about lost his mind. He was freaking out, and he would just crazy barking. He's running around, he's like lunging himself at the door trying to get out of the house. He wanted to get outside so badly and see what was wrong, to see what the danger was to determine the threat level, right? And he was completely alarmed, and totally convinced that we were all in mortal danger. Now of course, I knew that there was no real threat, I knew that I was not going to die, it was just a firework, right? And I knew that we were not in any real danger. But Augie didn't. He was just responding instinctively, and it took us a really long time to calm him down. And in so many ways this is just how your brain is. It perceives threats that aren't actually threats, and it freaks out when it thinks you are in danger, and it just starts barking, right? By giving you thoughts.

Now, if you were to look at that barking, look at those thoughts, logically your higher brain can see you aren't going to die. You aren't in any real danger, it's just a firework, right? And your lower brain is freaking out for no reason, and it does that by offering you thoughts. But, because we aren't in actual danger, we don't have to accept these thoughts as true. We don't have to believe what our brain is barking about, we can just look at the thoughts, and decide what we want to think. That is the power of having a prefrontal cortex, right? This is what separates me from Auggie. Sometimes, right? You have the power to evaluate every thought your brain offers you, and decide and choose what you want to think. And it's no different when it comes to the thought that God is disappointed in you, and the way you are living your life. So today, I thought I would show you how to question this thought that God is disappointed in you, in the same way that I help my clients question their limiting or counter-productive thoughts, so that I can kind of model it for you. How we question our thoughts how we believe something new, and how we decide to believe something new, and I hope that will be helpful to you as you evaluate all the thoughts in your life, but especially this one about God is disappointed in you.

So, the first thing, when our brain offers us a thought, right? When it starts barking, is to see if keeping the thought is going to help us, if we actually need it to survive, right? In other words, is the thought serving us? Does it help us to think it? We want to do this as curiously as possible. In a way I want you to imagine your brain is barking, right? And you just want to figure out if there's a real threat here, you want to figure out if you want to let it keep barking, and question whether, or not that barking is actually helping you. So, to do this we want to figure out what result this thought creates in our life, to see whether or not we want to keep thinking it. No thought is inherently good, or bad, or right, or wrong. There are just thoughts that are useful, and give us the results we want in our lives, or thoughts that don't, and we want to decide, and determine what we want to think, or choose to keep thinking based on what kind of results it gives us in our lives.

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So, remember our brain is always offering us thoughts that it thinks will be helpful in keeping us safe when it offers us the thought that God is disappointed in us, and the way we've lived our life. In this case it's worried about the potential danger of the wrath of God, like this could be very potentially very dangerous. And so, our brain wants us to know that we might have a problem here, so it offers us a thought. It doesn't mean the thought is inherently true, it doesn't mean the thought has merit even just because it has appeared. It means that our brain, concerned about our safety, and survival, has offered it to us. "This might help," it says. It says, "I thought you should know you might be in danger of the wrath of God. I thought it was important for you to know that." So here is a thought, but is it serving us? So when we think that God is disappointed in us in the way we are living our life, first notice how you feel when you think this thought. How do you feel when you think God is disappointed in you? Maybe you feel discouraged Maybe you feel ashamed Maybe you feel hopeless. Maybe you feel frustrated with yourself. For me when my brain offers me this thought, I usually feel shame. Big surprise! But once you have identified the feeling the thought creates, you can then ask yourself when I feel this way, what do I do?

So, when you feel shame, or hopelessness, or discouragement, what do you do? So, when I feel shame I avoid God, I don't pray, I don't read my scriptures, I beat myself up, I spend a lot of time noticing all the ways I fall short. And then I give up a little more. I tell myself, "Hey look you're never going to make it. This is pointless." And then, I start letting other things slide. I tell myself that I can't ever measure up, and then, I go about proving that true. And the result of all of this is that I create less connection with God, and I end up being disappointed in myself, and the way that I am living my life.

So, notice that my brain gave me the thought that God is disappointed in me so that I would be aware of the disconnection between us, between me and God, and the possible dangers that is to me. But the thought itself only increases that disconnection, and the shame I feel only grows. That's how we know that the thought is not serving us. It is not getting me the result I want which is more connection with God. Which is the desire to be close to God, and feel his love, which is what my brain ironically was worried about in the first place, right? The thought that God is disappointed in me in the way that I am living my life, is actually having the opposite effect that I want, and it is producing the very outcome that my brain was worried about. So, this isn't an effective thought it is not getting me the results I really want in my life. And when I can see this, then I can start to question the thought.

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So, most of us when we find a thought that we know isn't serving us we immediately want to swap that thought out, and think something else. But before we can think something new, we need to show ourselves, show our brain, that this thing we are believing, this thought that God is disappointed in us, isn't actually true. It's just something our brain made up, and we don't have to keep thinking it. So, I want to question this thought, and along the way I'm going to offer you some other ways to think about your relationship with God. So, let's start with the idea that God is disappointed. That thought kind of feels true doesn't it. It seems like if we as imperfect beings are disappointed with ourselves then surely God who is a perfect being, and has even higher standards must be even more disappointed But, disappointment is a feeling. A feeling that we feel when our expectations don't line up with our reality. We feel disappointed when we think things are going to go one way, and then they go another.

I think most of you are probably very well acquainted with the feeling of disappointment this year, right? Disappointment is always created when there is a disparity between what is, and what we expected, right? Our expectation isn't lining up with our reality, and so, we are disappointed, but notice that as humans we don't actually ever know how things are going to go. We think we do, we kind of try to predict it, and we make up what is supposed to happen, but it often doesn't turn out that way, and sometimes when it turns out differently than we expected. We feel disappointed, but God always knows how things are going to go. He is never surprised by things, he's never shocked that it's going the way it is because he always knows how it's going to go. He knows everything from the beginning to the end. Past, present, and future, are always before him, and he knows us. He knows us, and the lessons we need, and the ways we are going to learn while we're here on Earth. And he never has expectations that are different than reality.

And so, he can never be disappointed, so the thought that he is disappointed in us is not even possible. His perfect knowledge is never at odds with some made up expectation. It can never go differently than he knew it would. He knows us best, and loves us most, and he can never be disappointed in us. We are always exactly where we should be, exactly where he knows we are in our learning, and our growth. And no one knows that better than him. So, that's the first idea we want to question. Our brain says God is disappointed, but that's not even true, it's actually not even possible. And I know this idea might make some of you uncomfortable. You think, well like if I'm not a disappointment then, that must mean that I'm meeting expectation, and that just can't be right. Right? Because I'm a mess. And if being a mess is meeting his expectations, either his expectations are really low, and that can't be right. Because God is perfect, and he expects us to be perfect, or I'm just kidding myself. I'm just deluding myself that he could find me acceptable. And what if I just use this idea to justify a whole lot of bad behavior, and I never change, right? But I want to offer you that I think the opposite is true. He is asking us to try, and then he asks us to be perfect through the grace of his son. He invites us to be perfected in Christ, but he never expects us to do it right.

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He doesn't expect us to ever do it differently than we do because he is omniscient. And notice that when we think we fall below his expectations we already know that it doesn't give us great results when we feel shame and hopelessness and frustration, our behavior doesn't improve, right? At least not long term, because that improvement whatever it is is always motivated by fear, instead of love. And the truth is when we think that God loves, and approves of us, we don't do less, we do more. This is the difference between acting out of fear, or acting out of love. Our human brain is always offering us fear as the motivating factor, but God is always offering us love. That's why the natural man, the natural human part of us, is an enemy to God. That human part of us, the part of us that barks about all the things that are wrong with us, is an enemy to God, meaning it has the opposite instincts, and designs of God. God wants us to choose, and decide on him, and his way of living out of love, not fear. And our primitive brains are only working out of fear. Quite frankly, I kind of think that the judgment bar of God is going to be a cakewalk compared to the trials that we put ourselves on, in the way that we judge ourselves. This judgement of ourselves is the biggest thing getting in our way of change. Our own condemnation of ourselves keeps us farther from God and farther from the emotions that create different actions in our life, than anything else.

Okay so, this brings us to the second part of this thought that I want to question, and that is the idea that we are doing it wrong, and God is upset by this. That in so many ways he doesn't approve of the way we are living our lives. And your brain might be saying, "Well April, surely I am falling short. How could he approve of the way I'm living? I mean God has laws, right? He has commandments, he has recommendations for living, and I am totally messing that up, right? Surely that part is true, right?" And I want to say maybe, but what we want to question is the assumption underneath it. There is an assumption underneath it, that if God has laws, that that means he expects us to obey the law, and that he is upset when we don't. But again, stay with me, I think we're wrong about God's expectations being different than what is. And I think you can see that when you look at the plan itself, at the heart of God's plan is the need for a Savior.

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He built the plan around having a Savior, not because he needed a fail-safe in case we messed up the plan, but because that was always the plan. It is the plan of redemption, not the plan of perfection. Of course, you will mess up. Of course, you will fall short, and break the laws. That is how you will learn, there is no other way to learn. Remember that the laws, and commandments exist outside of God. That he is God, because he lives so perfectly within the laws, but he has exercised his own agency to be able to do that, and that is what we are learning to do. And in fact, what God expected is for us to mess up, and he purposefully designed the plan for that reality, not for that rare contingency. I think that God wants us to learn to obey, because our lives get better when we do, we have more power when we do. Not because it makes his life better. When we obey, we grow, we get stronger, because whenever we exercise our agency over our brains natural human instincts, and choose, and decide what to think, and how to act, we become more like him. We act more within those laws, and become like him. We are here to progress in our ability to control those things that we can control. And this is why he is giving us this experience in the first place, to learn those skills. But he doesn't need us to obey so that he is not upset, he wants us to obey, for us. To aid us in our eternal becoming.

And this is kind of hard for us to understand, because as human parents we often want our children to obey because of how it makes us feel, because it makes us feel that our children are safe, or they're doing it right. And if they're safe, and they're doing it right, then we are doing it right for their parents. But God doesn't have any of this emotional attachment to our choices. He doesn't make our decisions mean anything about him, or our eternal safety. He knows that our choices are not about him, they are about our learning, they are about us, and where we are in our progression, in our skills to overcome our humanness. And so, he doesn't need us to obey in order to feel okay about himself or us. There are laws, and he wants us to obey for us, because we are going to have a different experience if we do, and we are going to get to grow in amazing ways. But he doesn't need us to to obey for him, he can feel okay about himself as a parent, and the plan he has created for us without needing us to obey. So, that's kind of how we go about questioning our thoughts. We take the thought apart, and we ask ourselves is this even true.

Another question that Byron Katie asked that I find very helpful is asking, "Who would I be without this thought? Who would I be without this thought?" In other words, who would I be? What would I be doing? How would my life be different if I didn't have the thought that God was disappointed in me? Like right away, when I ask this question my brain says, "Well then I wouldn't be scared of God. Which would make my relationship with him better. I would actually try harder if I didn't think he was disappointed if I didn't have the thought that he was disappointed. I would go to him more. I would stop condemning myself for my mistakes. I would repent faster, and I would get busy trying again without spending so much time beating myself up, and living in regret if I didn't believe that God was disappointed in me, I would be closer to him." So, as you know as humans, there is kind of this universal experience of "not enough ness." It is as I said last week in the podcast, "The factory setting of our brain." And I think that factory setting is there as a result of our separation from God. That when we came to Earth we were as Katherine Thomas says, "Orphaned from God." And I think that leaves us with a kind of permanent feeling of incompleteness, and lack. While we are here, and the thought that God is disappointed in me only makes this separation bigger. So, this is how Katherine Thomas says it, and I know that I've shared this with you before, but I think it is so instructive and can really give us some insight.

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So, I'm going to share it with you again. Okay she said, "As we came to Earth, separated from the presence of heavenly parents, we died spiritually, and in a sense, we were orphaned. And now with memory veiled, and much reduced from our pre-mortal state, somewhat as aliens in a world that is inimical to our spiritual natures. We may carry an insecurity a self-pain that pervades much of our emotional life. Is it possible that in our efforts to find security we have fallen into a number of errors."

And I think that one of these errors that she talks about is the idea that God is disappointed with us. Like in an effort to find security our brain keeps telling us that he is disappointed in us so that we can fix this, and correct this, and get back in his graces, and feel secure again. But this thought is actually making us feel less secure, and it is increasing the separation. And what I want to show you is that this "not enough ness" this feeling of not enough, this is not created by God's actual disappointment. It is only created by our brains response to the disparity we feel between being with God, and living with him, and being here, and having a human experience separated from him.

So, last week I was tenderly reminded of this once again. So, David and I had the chance to go to the temple with our daughter who is serving a mission right now in our faith. We go to the temple to make covenant with God, to promise to live our lives in a certain way, and in return he offers us his greatest blessings. And as I watched my daughter have this experience, she was overwhelmed by the love of God, by His infinite approval of her, by his unending love of who she is, even as flawed, and imperfect and human as she is. And it was so easy in that moment to remember that this is how he views each of us, with infinite approval, and unending belief in our capacity to progress, and grow. His infinite approval does not mean that there is not more he wants for us, it just means that he doesn't condemn us for where we are. And as we had this experience together, I felt that utter-a-surety that we will make it. That the plan is working, that we are supposed to make all the mistakes, and learn in the exact ways that we are. But there is never any condemnation for where we are, there is never disappointment for what should have been. That is never how God sees us. In those moments in the temple, it was so easy to see the truth that our human brain conceals from us. And does not understand that God in fact cannot be disappointed, he can only be love. Unconditional love. Because of who he is, and when we don't feel that love, it isn't because of who we are, and the many ways that we've failed in that somehow we have become unworthy of that love. It is just because our brain is thinking the thought that he is disappointed, and that thought is the only thing that creates the separation between us.

God's love is unchanging. Because he is God. Because he is God, he has learned to perfectly obey the laws, and in his infinite mercy, and grace, and generosity he is offering us each now the chance to learn the same lessons. Not for him, but for us. And nothing you can do can disappoint him. It is impossible because of who he is, and nothing you can do is beyond God's grace, because of who he is. That is what makes the plan so incredible. It is the perfectly designed learning experience in which messing up is not only the expectation, it is the way it was designed to be.

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I want to offer you the thought that God's approval of you is infinite and sure. And at the same time he has an unending belief in our capacity to progress, and grow. Our brains think that these two ideas cannot exist at the same time, that he can't approve of us and also want us to grow. It thinks that they are in opposition to each other, but in fact they are just a paradox. They are both equally true. He approves of you and where you are. And, he believes in your ability to continue to grow, and progress. And that my friends is 100% awesome! I love you for listening and I'll see you next week!

Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. If you want to take the things I've talked about and apply them in your life so that you can love your Earth-life experience. Sign up for a free coaching session at aprilpricecoaching.com This is where the real magic happens and your life starts to change forever as your coach. I'll show you that believing your life is 100% awesome is totally available to every one of us. The way things are is not the way things have to stay, and that my friends is 100% awesome!