|
When Church Socializing Goes BadlyBeing a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints offers many advantages, including for single members. One advantage is the chance to socialize with other fellow members. To bond, connect with, and fellowship with each other. This also affords us dating and relationship opportunities in the ward, stake, and with other regional singles. This is all a good thing, right? Well, it is a good thing when the socializing goes well. When we in fact bond and connect with other members in
|
|
Emotional EatingOne of the greatest challenges we all have in this life is to control and overcome “the natural man”. As stated in the Book of Mormon: For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all
|
|
Why Keep TryingWhen single in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, there are many challenges. One of the greatest challenges is to find, commit, nurture, and have a successful marriage. Ideally, a temple marriage. However, when one has experienced relational failure, heartache, heartbreak, and disappointment, it can be difficult to keep putting oneself out there. As frustrations mount, it can be natural to want to quit trying and even resign oneself to being “eternally single”. Or others may
|
|
Gym EtiquetteA current trend going on with social media: Tik Tok, Instagram, etc. involve videos where women share videos of men behaving badly at gyms, or at least badly in her interpretation. Gym shaming videos involve women secretly or openly taping men saying or doing things she deems offensive. I have watched several of these videos and honestly, I don’t really see what is so offensive by the guy with most of these videos. The supposedly offensive moments seemed pretty innocent to me, others may feel
|
|
The Psychology of Hair ColorColor has been shown to lead to certain emotional reactions in others and matters a good deal in how you come across to others. In this article I will give a brief review of the 4 main hair colors and the different messages and feelings hair color tends to elicit in others. The point of such as article is to 1) help you if you are considering coloring and changing your hair color, 2) help you understand how your hair color—whatever it is—sends a message and gives impressions to others about
|
|
Choosing Our Spouses— Spiritual ConfirmationsAn area of challenge amongst single members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is choice of spouse. When we choose to date, start a relationship, and marry someone, we pray about it in hopes of making the right decision. We are told to pray for guidance, direction, and inspiration. We learn we need to ask for help from the Spirit to let us know what is the right/best choice to make. So, what does that mean for the choice we ultimately make? Ask for Guidance: Here are some
|
|
Dating Quotes from the ProphetsOne of the best things about being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is how we are led, guided, and directed by modern day prophets and modern revelation. Over the many years of restoration, much guidance has been given to the single members. I am sure I could create 100s of articles with this title that review quality dating and relationship-oriented quotes for singles. In this little article I will review some good quotes I am aware of, along with a few thoughts on
|
|
Fear of Missing Out—FOMOIn the 1960s-70s, the classic game show “Let’s Make a Deal” put contestants in a challenging spot. Audience members were invited to make a tough decision: they could have and retain a decent prize shown to them, or choose an alternative prize or two that was hiding behind a curtain, a door, or some other concealment. Here lied the dilemma: do they stay with the known desirable prize, or do they roll the dice and choose one of the unknown options? Perhaps that unknown prize is much better, like
|
|
Having HopeFaith, the first principle of the gospel, is defined in the scriptures as follows: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (JST Hebrews 11:1). So having hope is an essential element of faith. Furthermore, to have hope is defined in the Google dictionary as, “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” Now, why would having hope be an important principle for singles in the church to possess? Because if you are single and want to
|
|
OptimismAn important thing to keep in mind as a single person is, “is ____ trait about me attractive or repelling”? If a trait is repelling, it will effectively keep people away from you and make beginning and sustaining a relationship a challenging endeavor. Conversely, the more attractive things you have about yourself, the more relationship opportunities you will have, as well as a greater ability for these relationships to be lasting or even lead to marriage. One trait I invite you to consider
|
|
Mixed Message with AttractivenessAt church we learn the valuable message that how you look really doesn’t matter, especially in an eternal sense. Yet as single adults the message is also sent to date, have relationships, and marry—hopefully in the temple now or later. That marriage is created by God and that is what we need to be searching for and living. The thing is, marriage and physical intimacy requires mutual physical attraction, among other things. So, is there a contradiction there in those 2 ideas of inner worth and
|
|
Gendered Language: Dr. Deborah TannenIn 1990, Dr. Deborah Tannen came out with an interesting and useful research-based book, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. The ideas are pretty useful in this book, so I thought I would review a few of the main ideas. Deborah Tannen is a top and longtime expert in linguistics and gender differences from Georgetown University. As a researcher and an author, she shares several useful ideas in her book regarding the main differences between how men and women primarily
|
|
Love LanguagesIn 1992, a book was published with some helpful and user-friendly information for marriages and couple relationships in general. The book is called: The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate by Gary Chapman. In this article, some key ideas will be shared from The Five Love Languages, along with some opinions and suggestions for how to implement these ideas. Whenever a book comes out that is still talked about and utilized 3 decades later, the ideas must have
|
|
Men and Women—Why the Animosity?It is interesting. I have been doing psychotherapy with individuals, couples, and families since 1997. Over these many years I have seen numerous trends and developments, some good and some not so good. One trend that I would say has gone from bad to worse is the general relationships today between men and women. With each passing month and year, it seems the general animosity, resentment, suspicion, blame, and misunderstanding between both sides has gotten worse and worse. Why is this and what
|
|
The Contrast Effect: Hurting AttractionThe internet has been great for many things: temple work, instant and convenient communications around the world, instantaneous access to information on most any subject, automation for businesses, and so many other things. However, the internet has also resulted in a number of new technology based problems. One notable problem primarily resulting from the internet and technology is called “the contrast effect”. Basically the relational “contrast effect” is a numbing effect where the most
|
|
The Degrees of the Celestial KingdomA doctrinal topic of particular interest to single members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the celestial kingdom. More specifically with this particular article, the differences between the 1st degree of the celestial kingdom will be examined versus the 2nd and 3rd degrees, according to the scriptures. What are these differences and why do they matter to single members? We do know the top degree of the celestial kingdom is for those who have a temple marriage and are
|