8

KNOW YOUR DEEPLY HELD BELIEFS

We have already established that identifying our strengths is key to defining our dreams. In the preceding chapters we discussed innate talents and acquired competencies. The third category of strengths is our principles, including the core religious beliefs by which we define ourselves. Whether we come from a strong religious tradition or not, we all have a basic foundation of principles and beliefs that guide our actions and are an essential part of our truest selves. Identifying these foundational ideas can help us uncover and delineate our deepest dreams.

About six months after my husband and I moved to New York City, I was waiting for the train at Lincoln Center and animatedly describing a film I had seen at Lincoln Center a few days before to a group of women from my church. I was excited to be living in New York, discovering, seeing, learning—and I was happy. After a few minutes of listening to my enthusiastic description of the film, a woman a few years younger than me, whose husband was in school and who had two children, declared dismissively, “You really do need to start having children.”

Pop went my bubble.

It’s been twenty years, but I still remember the who, what, where, and when of that encounter. I was hurt. To be fair, I know I’ve said similarly hurtful and judgmental things to other women. But the comment, coming from someone with whom I shared a religious tradition, led me to wonder: Was I bad because I didn’t yet have children? Because I had time and money to go see a movie? Was it wrong of me to be pursuing a career? Within my church culture, there is an expectation that a woman’s first priority is to have children; a career is not considered as important or as desirable as motherhood, and there’s a perception that career and motherhood don’t mix.

These were questions I needed to grapple with. They were among the “big questions” I needed to ask and answer. At the time, the answer for us was that pursuing our careers and delaying parenthood was the right decision. It was also an imperative for me, in part because of my religious tradition, to eventually become a mother. Yet I faced the reality of needing to earn money while my husband was in school. Furthermore, I wanted to work and have a career. I knew these incongruities needed to be reconciled.

Ten years later, I faced another tough decision. I was now a new, first-time mom. I had moved from investment banking to equity research and my husband was busy with his post-doctoral fellowship and responsibilities at church. On top of that, I was about halfway through grad school at New York University. This time around, the answer was family first. I dropped out of NYU. Occasionally I still pine for the master’s in business administration I don’t have, but at that moment stepping away was the right choice.

DREAMING INSPIRED BY CORE BELIEFS

Our deeply held beliefs can put boundaries on our dreams, but as our dreams tap into what we hold most dear, these same principles provide scaffolding for our emerging dreams. Neylan McBaine, a Yale University graduate, and the founder and editor of The Mormon Women Project (mormonwoman.com), is an example of how our dreams are inspired by and spring from our deeply held beliefs.

Neylan McBaine: The Mormon Women Project

I’m a born-and-raised New Yorker: a Manhattanite, at that. I went to one of those Gossip Girl schools, the one Jackie Kennedy attended as a girl. I am the daughter of an opera singer and a lawyer, and that makes me a bohemian with a Wall Street sensibility. My educational pedigree continued at the Julliard School, where I studied piano, and Yale University, where I majored in English.

But there is one label that defines me more than all of these fancy designations: I am a Mormon. Not just any Mormon, a Mormon woman, which means that people I meet, when assaulted with all the brand names and movie-set locations of my childhood, get a very confused look on their face when they also find out I go to church for three hours a week, sustain a living prophet, and believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. “But aren’t you a thinking person?” their look seems to ask. Or, as one of my dearest New York friends revealed one tipsy evening, “How did I become friends with a freakin’ Mormon?”

If left merely to the impressions of the media, one might understandably think that a woman with my background couldn’t possibly be affiliated with an organization that—as it is so often presented—funnels its women into wifely and motherly servitude and has some sort of relationship (no one’s quite sure) with polygamy. But Mormonism’s best-kept secret is that intelligent, engaged, and proactive women are legion in our culture. Why doesn’t anyone know about us?

Part of the problem is that many Mormon women themselves don’t recognize that these intelligent, engaged women are in our midst. Many are afraid to admit they are one of these women. “If I were a ‘good’ Mormon, I wouldn’t have gotten my master’s degree. I wouldn’t be working, and I wouldn’t want to work so much. I’d want to be a mother and have kids and stay home,” one young filmmaker said to me. How did we get to a point in our culture where our free agency—the ability to choose, which our doctrine holds as the most ennobled quality of our human condition—has been disparaged to the degree that a young, talented woman feels ashamed of her pursuits?

The importance of marriage and motherhood is never in question among faithful Mormons, and my own youth was filled with female role models who remain true to themselves, their talents, their interests, and their families. With the help of prayer, faith, and a hard-won understanding of our unique missions in life, this balance is not only possible, it is demanded by a doctrine that celebrates individual worth. But this balance is not widely practiced. As I’ve grown older, I’ve seen many Mormon women feel ostracized and sometimes leave the church altogether because they’re not sure how their choices fit into “the mold.” These experiences have prompted me to share some of the role models from my own life and search out others who have made thoughtful, considered choices about who they want to be.

I founded The Mormon Women Project to shed light on the immense strength and variety of the seven million Mormon women throughout the world. The project, housed at mormonwomen.com, is a digital library of interviews with Latter-Day Saint women. My hope is that by profiling women who have made proactive choices in their lives, while still remaining committed to their faith, the project will broaden the definition of what it means to be a Mormon woman today.

Faustina Otoo, a convert to the church in Accra, Ghana, is just as “Mormon” as a young, full-time mother in Utah.

So, too, is Myrna Castellar, a recovering heroin addict in New York.

Karen Bybee is no less a mother to her three sons because she has a successful international sports management career planning World Cup and Olympic events.

With single women making up the largest single demographic of church membership, student Jenny Reeder should be lauded for her pursuit of a doctorate, not left out because she hasn’t yet married.

The power of our stories comes from the irony inherent in their telling: at once, we feel the commonness and also the uniqueness of our own personal circumstance. Our faith in a common doctrine brings us together as a people, despite our varying locales or ages or ethnicities. Yet each of our stories is so individual that we cannot doubt the power of our personal missions and the solitary responsibility we each have to make something of ourselves.

Neylan’s dreams have been sculpted by her religious identity, and her quest to help Mormon women see the diversity in their ranks is inspired by dearly held beliefs instilled by her parents, her church, and her particular upbringing in New York City. My dream to be a missionary for a year and a half during my early twenties sprang from my belief in God. Like Abigail Adams, I believed and continue to believe that, “religion is the only sure and permanent foundation of life.” Madeleine L’Engle, the beloved children’s author, echoes the sentiment. About her Newbery Award–winning book A Wrinkle in Time, she wrote, “If I’ve ever written a book that says what I feel about God and the universe this is it. This is my psalm of praise.”

What we believe propels each of us uniquely. Contrast L’Engle’s experience of writing a psalm of praise with the experience of Ranya Idliby. Idliby is an American Muslim of Palestinian descent. She is the coauthor of The Faith Club, a book written by mothers of three different faiths about their experience in the aftermath of September 11th. Idliby writes, “As the city began to mourn, churches and temples opened their doors for worship and emotional support. I longed for a mosque or a Muslim religious leader who could help support my family during this horrific time. I needed a spiritual community, a safe haven where we could seek comfort.” In a time of tragedy, Idliby sought comfort in her faith.

This was an especially difficult time to be a Muslim in American, as Idliby was both challenged by those of her faith (“Muslims abroad who questioned the possibility of a future for American Muslims”) and those not of her faith (“the stereotypes and prejudices were heightened by 9/11”), and she again looked to her core religious beliefs for answers. She writes, “As I started researching Islam, I stumbled upon Muhammad’s night flight journey and ascension to heaven in which Muhammad rides a magical winged horse ridden before him by Jesus, Moses, and other biblical prophets. As he ascends a jeweled staircase to the kingdom of God, Muhammad is welcomed by various prophets as a fellow brother and prophet.”

This canonized story prompted the thought, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to find a Christian and a Jewish mother to write a children’s book with me that would highlight the connection within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam?” The result of her conversations with Suzanne Oliver and Priscilla Warner wasn’t ultimately as simple as a children’s book, but rather a memoir of spiritual reflection titled The Faith Club: A Muslim, a Christian, a Jew—Three Women Search for Understanding. Idliby’s deeply held beliefs not only provided solace to her, but her beliefs became the driver of a dream.

Even when we aren’t sure we want to espouse our deeply ingrained beliefs, they are there and they influence what we do. Penelope Trunk, the founder of Brazen Careerist, a blog/social network to help young people manage their careers, writes:

I am starting to think that the most effective preparation for a good career is religion.

I am writing this post on the eve of Yom Kippur. I am constantly trying to figure out how religion fits in my life. Sometimes I think it doesn’t fit. And I can’t figure out what to do with my kids on Yom Kippur, so I’m sending them to school. I never once, in eighteen years, went to school on Yom Kippur. So I know it’s going to feel [bad].

I wish I could not care about religion because I’m an intellectual or because I’m fine doing it however I do it. But one thing that I know for sure is that religion is great preparation for getting what you want out of your work life . . . So while I’m being a bad Jew on Yom Kippur, I’m thinking that all career questions are really: “What is my purpose in life?”

When we dream within the context of what we believe—in effect asking and answering the question “What is my purpose in life?”—we believe that what we do really matters. And dreams that truly matter emerge from the deepest questions about who we are and what our lives should be.

DREAMING IN THE CONTEXT OF YOUR BELIEFS

It’s not always easy to integrate our secular lives with our spiritual lives, which revolve around our principles, perhaps even our religion. Haven’t we all had moments when we wish we could just ignore this piece of ourselves? But what we believe is who we are. There are unique tensions because of what we believe, but from these principles also come our strengths.

To close this chapter, I’d like to share some of my core beliefs, or guiding principles, that lead me to believe that dreaming is essential, help me sift through possible dreams, and encourage me as I seek to achieve my dreams.

You can bet your life, and that, and twice its double, that God knew exactly where he wanted you to be placed.

—Stevie Wonder, songwriter/musician

These lyrics, from Stevie Wonder’s album Songs in the Key of Life, encapsulate what I believe about your life and mine. Each of us is exactly where we are supposed to be. So we can learn what we need to learn, accomplish what we are meant to accomplish, help those we were meant to help. In short, where we are, who we are, and what we do matters.

The only safe harbor is our convictions.

—Whitney Johnson (me!)

As I mentioned in chapter 2, I came by this principle or maxim the hard way. It was my job as an investment analyst to have an opinion about whether people should buy or sell certain stocks. Yet, I had grown up, as do most girls, learning to give up resources, including my views and opinions. This background made it difficult for me to expressly and publicly state my views because they would inevitably make someone angry with me. The experience taught me that I need to speak my truth, clearly and gently, and then let things fall where they may.

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.

—Samuel Johnson, eighteenth-century English author

This wisdom from Samuel Johnson is as true today as it was in the eighteenth century. If my dreams don’t ultimately strengthen my relationships, if the fleece I gather isn’t spun into wool that binds me to those I love, then it’s not a dream I want to dream.

The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul.

—Dieter F. Uchtdorf, religious leader and former German aviator

When we create, we are dreaming and we are happy. Easier said than done. Hence, this book.

I pass the test.

—Lady Galadriel in Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

When Frodo, encouraged by Lady Galadriel’s goodness and wisdom, offers her the Ring, she wants to accept it, desperately. She says, “I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired to ask what you offer. And now at last it comes. . . . I shall be beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night, stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair.” No matter how much I may desire to do good, once I have that power, it can corrupt me. I want to “pass the test,” as Galadriel did.

Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.

—Albert Einstein, twentieth-century theoretical physicist and philosopher

Just as you and I choose whether to see coincidence or God’s imprint in our lives, we choose to see doors to our dreams closing or opening.

Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself . . . Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn . . . the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing . . . it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy me something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith’s.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, nineteenth-century essayist and philosopher

Ralph Waldo Emerson says in one paragraph what it took me three chapters to say about our strengths. When we can uncover our strengths, or what I sometimes refer to as our magic, and share this with others, we give a true gift. For me, when I can help someone discover the gift she has to give, the achievement I feel is sublime.

And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee saying, this is the way, walk ye in it.

—King James Bible, Isaiah 30:21

I saved this one for last because, for me, it’s foundational to dreaming. It’s about believing that dreams are essential, that we can discover our dreams and have the courage to pursue them. Trust yourself. Trust your intuition, for God, I believe, is the author of our intuition.

What we believe deeply inspires and informs our dreams, creating unique tensions and opportunities, but only when we dream within the context of our deeply held beliefs can we discover what we were meant to do. As we articulate our core beliefs, we will undoubtedly find that our dreams spring from and are aligned with our cherished beliefs.

DRAWING ON DEEPLY HELD BELIEFS . . .

• If we want to have happy lives, we need to know the purpose of our lives. Doesn’t dreaming involve figuring out the purpose of our lives and having the resolve to accomplish that purpose?

• How does your core belief system, whether it’s your faith or otherwise, inform your choices and your dreams?

• What are your guiding principles?

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