The purpose of therapy is to help people make changes that will help them feel better about themselves and their lives. [It is noted that there are times when medication is necessary.]
While serving as a therapist to prisoners, I learned that there were three words that compelled an inmate to fight another inmate. This was a medium security prison so there were no stabbings or anything more serious than a short fistfight until the guards broke it up. Both inmates would end up in solitary confinement, lose privileges including visiting time from their families.
If those men were in my therapy group, I would go visit them and ask what happened. Well, so and so called me one of those names and I had to fight him. If I didn’t, other inmates would think I’m weak. This inmate felt like he had no choice. Was that really true?
By comparison, another inmate shared in group therapy that someone had taken a swing at him and tried to start a fight. The first inmate said that in the past he would not have hesitated to fight. This time he ducked the punch and simply said, “I don’t do that anymore.” He already had the status as an influencer in prison, no one thought he was weak, and he had made a commitment to make good choices.
How often do we let what others think or say influence our behavior? How often do we let words trigger our emotional reactions and sometimes our physical responses? How often do we exercise our moral agency and say, “I don’t do that anymore.” We always have the same power of choice that strengthened his progress in dealing with adversity.
The scriptures are full of experiences where people faced tremendous challenges and even risked death in order to make the right choice to follow the Lord.
- Nephi: “I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded …. “1
- Joshua: “ … choose you this day whom ye will serve … “2
- Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego not hesitating to face the fiery furnace.3
- Queen Esther going in to speak to the king4
- Joseph Smith, Jr.: “… For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it… “5
President Henry B. Eyring has reminded us that “… God’s purpose in the Creation of this world… was to give His children the opportunity to prove themselves able and willing to choose the right when it is hard. In so doing, their natures would be changed and they could become more like Him.”6
Our dear prophet President Russell M. Nelson continually counsels us to make good choices:
“When we choose to repent, we choose to change! We allow the Savior to transform us into the best version of ourselves. We choose to grow spiritually and receive joy—the joy of redemption in Him. When we choose to repent, we choose to become more like Jesus Christ!”7
“Because of Jesus Christ’s infinite Atonement, our Heavenly Father’s plan is a perfect plan! An understanding of God’s fabulous plan takes the mystery out of life and the uncertainty out of our future. It allows each of us to choose how we will live here on earth and where we will live forever.”
May the Lord bless us to feel peace, comfort, and joy as we learn to make good choices, to choose to change, to choose to do better and to be better.
Notes:
- 1 Nephi 3:7
- Joshua 24:15
- Daniel 3:16-18
- Esther 4, 5
- Joseph Smith – History 1
- Eyring, Henry B., Tested, Proved, and Polished, General Conference, October 2020.
- Nelson, Russell M., We Can Do Better and Be Better, General Conference, April 2019.
- Nelson, Russell M., Think Celestial, General Conference, October 2023.