We passed through a classic butler’s pantry of high glass cabinets crammed full of vivid china, and then on through a modern kitchen, out French doors and down painted wooden steps onto a sprawling flagstone patio. There ahead lay the huge octagonal swimming pool, shimmering with a wealth of submerged light and beyond that, a tall dignified cabana. Long limestone balustrades enclosed the garden patches, which were bursting with tropical plants, and very suddenly the air was filled with the strong scent of the night jasmine. Great arching branches of the rain tree poured over us from the left. And the cicadas sang loudly from the many crowding trees. There was no traffic sounds from the World beyond. The very air itself was blessed. We all followed into a different World, beyond the measurements of Italian balustrade and perfectly square flagstone. By focusing on a single value, we close ourselves off to many other possibilities that may seem contrary to the chosen one. A person who has been raised to believe that one’s emotions are bad or that any emotional expression is excessive or immature has probably had this kind of attitude reinforced through pleasurable stimulus where rewards are used to strengthen a given response or through the use of related behaviors to avoid some kind of punishment. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

The Savior loves each of his Father’s children. He fully comprehends the pain and struggling that many experiences as they live with a broad range of challenges. Some people grow up in families where a lot of sharing goes on. Possibly the learned attitude was more firmly entrenched in him because he learned it from his parents, or his friends, or another person equally as important to him. Most young people hesitate to go against the teachings and beliefs of those whom they love and respect, tending to feel disloyal if they do. Those who want to acquire a fuller, deeper, wider range of emotional responses must evaluate the learning that took place before. Do you hold to emotional shallowness because you really believe in it, or because people you love, respect, or fear believe in it? The person who answers yes to the former may have an easier time changing his or her behavior than the one who subscribes to the latter reason, but both might well benefit from an experimental emotional spending spree! If the other-directed experimenter feels tremendously guilty that he or she let someone down, or is ashamed and fearful that others might find out and think less of him or her, one can try letting those feelings have their free run. It may be that just having whatever feelings are stimulated is the best practice. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

A case history serves as an excellent example of this type of role playing: A young man would like to experience an esthetic reaction, but his parents, especially his father, are cold toward art (expect the great masters) and have negative attitudes towards artists and arty people. His mother is somewhat social-minded, want him to become a doctor or an attorney. His father prefers that he follow in the family business. The boy has the aptitude for either business or some form of professional service career, and actually, is interested in both. He also wants to please his parents. He finds his friends telling him he is cold, colorless, unexciting, and he feels that they are right. He seldom experiences stronger anger, fear, sexual passion, or excitement. He says he have never had an esthetic experience, one where he felt overwhelmed by the beauty or rhythm or symmetry of anything. In talking this over with his psychology professor, he is advised to go into his room, lock the door, turn on the radio (preferably at a time when he is alone in the house), lie on the bed, and let his imagination go when the music play. He is told to try instrumental music so he does not have any word-associations interfering. #RandolpHarris 3 of 9

While listening to the music, the young man worries continually about his parents coming home and discovering him wasting his study time. However, his teacher has told him to experience whatever feelings he can, to know that they are his feelings and should be allowed to come out. He discovers that his fear of being discovered turns easily into resentment and anger that other people are telling him what he can and cannot feel. He sees his parents’ faces as he is meditating on his feelings, and even the face of his teacher, who also is influencing his emotions. He experiences the anger and talks it out, telling his parents off and his teacher too! Concerned that he might be overheard, he looks up and listens for footsteps outside. He then feels foolish and does not like it, but he continues to feel the foolishness. Then he experiences guilt. He berates himself for feeling angry at these people: think of all the parents have sacrificed and done for him! And, he is full of guilt at the anger he felt toward the teacher: after all the teacher was the one who had listened to him, encouraged him to try his feelings out. In fact, the teacher would want him to work this guilt out as well. So, he lets himself go. The guilt cases him to think of ways in which he exhibited other ingratitude and pettiness. However, he cannot fix any kind of punishment for himself. He is puzzled. Why not? #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

He decided that he is not really as guilt-ridden as this mental wandering had led him to think he was. He realizes that he had been very grateful for all the help he had gotten. He had shown his appreciation in many ways. He did not need to feel a deep, all-influencing debt of obligation. Again, he feels anger and resentment, but this time it feels better. Suddenly, he finds his foot is beating time to the music. He has been caught up in the rhythm of the sound being played, even while he was working through several emotional reactions. He decides to encourage this response and starts conducting the music with his hands, but his awkwardness and lack of knowledge about music embarrass him. He stops and lets the feeling of embarrassment flood over him. It burns. However, he hears the music more deeply, feeling it, and with every new emotion he experiences, the music seems to mean more to him. He feels caught up in the music. Suddenly, he feels a chill as a particular poignant chord sounds. This is strange to him, a sensation he cannot identify. After reporting this set of novel sensations, thoughts, and experiences to his psychology teacher, he asked if there were something wrong with him. The psychologist suggested that the only wrong might be the fact that the young man had never before experiences those feelings. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

For the young man, the feelings were new, different, strange, unusual. The psychologist enterpreted the entire session as an esthetic event, even the guilt, shame, resentment, fear, and confusion. These strong emotions, strange to the boy, had cleared away the tangled three-dimensional emotional cobwebs that had kept the music from entering into his consciousness. The young man was partly pleased, partly skeptical, and partly confused. Nonetheless, he continued to practice experiencing his emotions and became better able to accept them and use them. If one can share those emotions with other, one is sharing oneself. And the rewards—in feeling understood and accepted—are powerful. Another reward is in freedom; covering up emotions literally drains physical energy and causes tension. Communication is more than sharing words. It is the wise sharing of emotions, feelings, and concerns. It is the sharing of oneself totally. “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, where ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ sake hath forgiven you,” reports 3 Nephi 4.29-32. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

We know that the adversary tempts all of us to be unkind, and there are many examples of this. Persistent unkindness is known by many names, such as bullying, ganging up on someone, or joining together to reject others. These examples deliberately inflict pain on people. However, if we are cruel or mean to others, it is not pleasing to the Lord. Stand out; be different from the World. You and I know that you are to be a light to the World. Therefore, the Lord needs you to look like, sound like, act like, and dress like you are a child of God. Reach out and be loving and considerate of other, even to not response negatively to a disharmonious situation when we feel someone has wronged us. It is important that we are generous towards one another, and seek to strengthen one another. Our World needs your goodness and love. Be kind to one another. Jesus taught us to love one another and to treat others as we want to be treated. As we strive to be kind, we draw closer to God and Jesus and their loving influence. However, if we participate in any meanness or pettiness—individually or with a group—resolve now to change and encourage others to change. Lessons taught through the traditions we establish in our homes, though small and simple, are increasingly important in today’s World. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9

A major goal of all psychotherapies is to enable the client to experience more of one’s emotional life than before and to feel safe and accepted while doing it. Too many clients come to psychotherapists for help in blocking certain kinds of feelings. They have been conditioned or trained to believe that restraint and denial of some feelings is of the utmost importance to their social well-being. Confidentiality is a basic requirement of psychotherapy. Research shows that most people who receive psychotherapy experience symptom relief and are better able to function in their lives. About 75 percent of people who enter psychotherapy show some benefit from it. Psychotherapy has been shown to improve emotions and behaviors and to be linked with beneficial changes in the brain and body. The benefits also include fewer sick days, less disability, fewer medical problems, and increased work satisfaction. With the use of brain imagining techniques researchers have been able to see changes in the brain after a person has undergone psychotherapy. Numerous studies have identified brain changes in people with mental infirmaries (including depression, panic disorder, PTSD, and other condition) as a result of undergoing psychotherapy. In most causes the brain changes resulting from psychotherapy were similar to changes resulting from medication. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9

While raising our children, we establish traditions within our home and we build patterns of communication and behavior within our family relationships. In doing so, the traditions we establish should ingrain strong, unwavering characteristics of goodness in our children that will infuse the with strength to confront the challenges of life. By these efforts, our beloved prophet urges us to make our homes sanctuaries of faith. Love releases us into the realm of divine imagination, where the soul is expanded and reminded of its Heavenly cravings and needs. Love allows a person to see the true angelic nature of another person, the halo, the aureole of divinity. Love brings consciousness closer to the dream state. The soul is reaching toward its proper yearnings. This is the type of love that guides us to eternal life. “My soul delighteth in plainness unto my people, that they may learn,” reports 2 Nephi 25.4. Love is the means of entry and our guide to eternal life. If we can honor love as it present itself, taking shapes and directions we would never have predicted or desired, then we are on the way toward discovering the deepest levels of the soul, where meaning and value reveal themselves slowly and paradoxically. We sail trustingly toward fate, while plucking the strings of our own resources. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9