Karen Papin: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Divine Worth Podcast, where we are letting go of our self-doubt, anxiety, fear, limiting beliefs, so that we can step into the divine roles that God has for us. I am your host life coach, Karen Pathen, and together we are embracing our divine worth and potential.
Karen Papin: All right. Welcome to the Divine Worth Podcast. Today’s special guest is Summer Davis. She is a certified life coach, a wife of 25 years, and mom to five awesome boys, two of whom have served mission so far. She helps LDS pre missionaries and their parents build the mental and emotional strength to thrive before, during, and after mission.
Karen Papin: She knows firsthand the challenges young adults face and is passionate about teaching them the tools to navigate missionary life with confidence, manage stress, overcome anxiety and self doubt, and stay focused on their purpose through coaching. She helps them become mentally strong and mission ready.
Karen Papin: And [00:01:00] so I’m excited to have Summer on here today. Summer. Thank you so much for being willing to be on here and do this podcast.
Summer Davis: Thank you for having me. Yeah, I’m excited.
Karen Papin: I’m excited too. And you’re on here, to really talk to us about what it actually means to be mentally strong. I love that you have that focus for people who are preparing for missionaries, preparing for their missions, and also as they get home from their missions and while they’re on their mission and everything related to that, yet that focus of being.
Karen Papin: Mentally strong is something that we can all learn from. So I’m excited to really dive into that with you today. So to begin, what do you feel it means to be mentally strong?
Summer Davis: So, mentally strong to me means being able to overcome challenges and to get through hard things without getting stuck in that negative emotion and unable to move forward.
Summer Davis: Right? It means being able to manage your thoughts and create emotions that are gonna propel you forward rather than, [00:02:00] a lot of times we end up, you know, focusing on our past or being past focused and allowing what have we accomplished in our past or not accomplished in our past, and we make that mean something about ourselves.
Summer Davis: And so I think being mentally strong means being. Future focused. It means being able to overcome setbacks, overcome challenges, and really just focusing on growth and purpose and not necessarily getting stuck in our overwhelm and our anxiety and our struggles. Yeah, I think just really, and for missionaries, I think it’s so important and all of us, like you said, I think it’s so important for all of us to develop mental strength because we all have challenges in life.
Summer Davis: Life is hard. It’s hard for everyone. Nobody gets through this life without some real challenges and really learning how to navigate those challenges. In a way that we actually are learning from them, rather than allowing them to bring us down is I think where the real power lies in [00:03:00] developing that mental strength.
Karen Papin: How do you feel that it relates to divine worth and potential?
Summer Davis: So I think that divine worth means understanding who we are, right? We’re children of God. We have this potential. And I think that it relates in that we’re able to fulfill our potential when we are mentally strong.
Summer Davis: And it’s just so powerful to know. What a blessing it is that we know from the age of three years old, we start singing, I’m a child of God, right? We’re like, I’m a child of God and he has sent me here, has given me an earthly home with parents kind and dear. I mean, I go through the whole thing, lead me, guide me, walk beside me, help me find the way, teach me all that I must do to live with him someday.
Summer Davis: And I tell them, do you even understand how powerful it is that at three years old. You learn who you are, where you came from, why you’re here, where you’re going. There are so many people in this world that [00:04:00] don’t know those answers, and they’re stuck in anxiety and fear about this life because they don’t understand that this life is a term.
Summer Davis: This is really about our eternity, right? Like we’re learning and growing here to reach our potential in eternities. And so I think having that longer term perspective when we understand our divine worth is really important because it really helps us to see these challenges that we face is opportunities for growth rather than punishments from God.
Summer Davis: I think a lot of times people see challenges as a punishment from God, and it’s like, what did I do to deserve this? Right? I remember I even went through a really challenging time and being a member of the church my whole life, I really was caught off guard. It really surprised me later when I looked back at the situation to see how entitled I felt to have an easy life.
Summer Davis: I thought, well, I’m do my best to keep the commandments and I do my best to go to church, and I fulfill my calling and I’m trying to raise good boys to go out and serve and do all these things, like, why would you [00:05:00] allow this to happen to me? Now I look back and I’m like, that was the biggest growth point of my whole life.
Summer Davis: That experience. As difficult as it was, I consider it a sacred experience because it really propelled me into doing what I am doing now. And that is serving others. Teaching others how to overcome their challenges, teaching others how to look at their purpose, look at their pain with purpose. I always say there’s purpose in your pain.
Summer Davis: So whatever you’re struggling with, whatever you’re suffering from, there’s a purpose in it. There’s a reason. There’s something that Heavenly Father’s trying to teach you, so let’s figure out what that is.
Karen Papin: That kind of goes back to what you were mentioning when you were talking about what being mentally strong really is it’s more future focus and focusing on the growth and so as you’re talking about these trials and things that we go through in life and there’s purpose in the pain, that’s a great sentence right there to remind us and pull us out of the [00:06:00] despair, but remind us that there is actually hope and there’s a purpose to this.
Summer Davis: Yeah, I love that. I really truly believe that it doesn’t matter where we are in life. It doesn’t matter like what our challenges are, what we’re going through. Heavenly father is teaching us. He’s in the details of our lives. He’s never abandoning us. He’s always there in the details. One really awesome video that I love to watch, it’s about, I believe President Packer, where he’s in the military and he doesn’t give this promotion that he wants.
Summer Davis: And he was so angry with the Lord, and it’s like, Lord, why would you do this to me? Why wouldn’t you allow me to have this? And it talks about the current bush and how the gardener was cutting the bushes down. And the, and the bush said, why would you cut me down? Why would you do this? And the gardener said.
Summer Davis: I know that this is what’s best for you. I can see your potential. I know that this is going to help you in the long run, grow. And I always think of that as I’m going through challenges. Like how many father is the gardener? He knows what branches need to [00:07:00] be cut. He knows how to make the corrections that I need in order to reach my full potential.
Summer Davis: And I think that really applying that into our lives is really powerful because in those difficult moments, in those really hard days. If we have that faith in our Heavenly Father that he knows he sees the big picture, it allows us to overcome them or endure it well, right.
Karen Papin: That’s so true.
Karen Papin: It reminds me of, I think of the scripture a lot in relation to divine worth, but Proverbs three, five and six, and specifically verse six, where it’s like. Well first off, verse five, ’cause it’s saying trust in the Lord with all of my heart. It’s like trust in his vision, trust in this plan that he has for you and then in verse six, acknowledge him all along the way.
Karen Papin: Because as we’re acknowledging him, then we see that the proof that yes, he loves us. Yes, he is there. Yes, he is helping us through it.
Summer Davis: Yeah, and I love using scriptures as like [00:08:00] affirmations. For when I’m like struggling or when things are going wrong, it’s like I have one that I use often. It’s Romans 8 28 and it says, you know, all things work for good for those that love God.
Summer Davis: Right? So I look at that and I’m like, all things, not just easy things, not just like when life is. You know, wonderful and great and everything’s easy. It’s all things. The hard things are working for our good, the difficult days are working for our good. one of the reasons I went into, you know, one of the reasons I went into coaching and mental health specifically and even into missionary work is because I have a DHD.
Summer Davis: And for much of my life I struggled with anxiety severely, like I had severe anxiety when I was a child, when I was a teenager. I mean, honestly, maybe up until about 10 years ago, I had crippling anxiety, I would say, and I just didn’t learn. I didn’t know that. I didn’t have to believe every scary thought that I had.
Summer Davis: I [00:09:00] thought that it meant something, and learning to overcome that. I look at that now as a blessing. I look back and I’m like, man, all those panic attacks that I had, all that, all those scary moments, the depression that it led to sometimes because of the overwhelm, like those difficult days I had with one of my kids, I struggled with postpartum, like those four dark, hard days.
Summer Davis: That wasn’t easy. But I look back now at those days as such a blessing and a gift. When somebody tells me I have anxiety and depression, I’m like, oh, I’m so sad for you. I’m like. Wow, you are really gaining an education, that some people don’t get in life. And I consider it a great education that heavenly father blessed me with.
Summer Davis: I look back on those difficult days and I look at all the things that I learned. I’m just really grateful for those hard days. I’m really grateful. That I have empathy for people who struggle and I understand it. I know what they’re feeling and what they’re going through. And [00:10:00] so I look at that with any experience in life.
Summer Davis: It’s just heavenly father giving us an education in a way that will help us to serve his children down the road. And it’s funny because talking about missionary work, my mom always said that a mission is the Lord’s University. ’cause people would say, but I’m gonna not get my education. I’m gonna miss out on.
Summer Davis: two years of school and every, I would be behind in two years and she would say, no, Ashley, you’re gonna be way ahead of the game because you’re gonna be at the Lord’s University. He’s gonna teach you firsthand. And so, these kids go out and they struggle and then they don’t have tools and they don’t know what to do and how to handle these situations.
Summer Davis: And that’s kind of where I come in, where I’m like, okay, I’ve been there. I understand these struggles. Let me give you the tools that you need in order to overcome them and to grow from them.
Karen Papin: Right, and I love that you’re helping them to do that. I’ve seen a lot of people who just. As they’re preparing for those mission, [00:11:00] their missions, it’s, it’s hard.
Karen Papin: I, I served a mission too. It was hard. It was wonderful and it was hard. No good growing experience.
Summer Davis: Actually didn’t, I didn’t serve a mission. My boys have served missions, but I feel like I’ve always been that cheerleader on the sidelines. Like writing my boys, talking my boys. And one of the reasons why I went into missionaries, because I was really considering, I started with teenagers with mental health.
Summer Davis: Right. And then I was like, well, let’s kind of move that into like LDS youth so that they can be prepared for their missions. Because I’m seeing a lot of missionaries come home. I’m talking to mission presidents who are saying that their missionaries on the mission are struggling. I’m talking to a lot of parents who are saying, my kids don’t feel like they’re capable of going on a mission, right?
Summer Davis: Like that. They don’t have. That, that they don’t have the ability to go. And so when my son was on his mission, he would say, you know, mom, a lot of kids are struggling out here. I have a companion that’s struggling with this. Do you have any advice? And so I kind of was coaching him a little bit on how to coach missionaries.
Summer Davis: And [00:12:00] that led into me, it’s kind of a whole long story, but it led into me like really turning my attention and my focus to missionaries.
Karen Papin: Well, it’s definitely needed and so it’s awesome that you’re doing that. I love it. How do you develop that emotional, spiritual resilience when things are not going as planned and when you’re in the midst of a trial or when it’s just like, I thought it was gonna go completely different way than it actually went.
Summer Davis: In those moments. I think from a spiritual perspective, I think learning to understand God’s grace. I coach so many young adults who are so hard on themselves. They’re so critical. We live in a world where social media has made them think that they should be something that they’re not, that they should be more than they are.
Summer Davis: There’s that comparison. There’s constant comparison and thinking that. Everybody else is better than them or that they have it better, or that they have it [00:13:00] more figured out than they do, right? And so what happens is they tend to be very critical on themselves and as a, as adults as well, which many adults who are very, were very critical.
Summer Davis: And I will say I used to be very critical of myself. I look back five years ago and I’m like, I remember being upset and having conversations with myself where I’m like, whoa, that was cruel. I wouldn’t have said those things to my worst enemy. And here my primitive brain is telling me that I’m not good enough, that I should be doing better and we think that being critical on ourselves is going to change our outcome, right?
Summer Davis: It’s gonna make things better when things don’t go right. Like if we’re just more critical on ourselves, if we just can do this or that, then we can make it work, right? But it, the act, the opposite is actually true. The more that we have self love. The more gentle we are with ourselves, the kinder we are with ourselves, the more we accept the grace that heavenly Father is offering [00:14:00] us, the more resilience we will have when things don’t go as planned and you know.
Summer Davis: Especially with these young adults and missionaries, I see these missionaries that are so eager. They’re just so eager and anxious to go out and like baptize, right? And to teach people, and to offer people this grace that they know heavenly father. Has for them, right? But then they go home and they criticize and they think they’re not good enough and they, you know, there’s this real, attitude of perfectionism where I’m not good enough.
Summer Davis: I need to be better. And, you know, rather than understanding that Heavenly Father meets us where we are, he loves us as we are. And he helps us to grow and being critical and harsh and mean. That’s not the Savior’s way. That’s not how heavenly father does things. I remember when I was younger, I would have these panic attacks and I would think I wasn’t doing things right and I’m not doing, and I would have all this anxiety coming up and all these [00:15:00] bad feelings, right?
Summer Davis: And I just remember one time my husband said to me, he said, honey, heavenly father doesn’t work through fear. That just hit me so hard because I’m thinking that these are promptings, right? That heaven father is feeding me these promptings. And that really is a challenge when it comes to mental health and our testimony because our mental health and our spiritual health go hand in hand.
Summer Davis: And I can tell you from personal experience that when you think that Heavenly Father’s prompting you to do something, and really it’s just your anxiety. It can mess with your testimony and you feeling like you have a connection with Heavenly Father, right? And so I think really understanding that Heavenly Father does not speak to us through fear.
Summer Davis: He doesn’t, he can give us warnings, but he’s not gonna create fear and anxiety and panic, right? He speaks to us through peace and love and know those pure feelings. And so I think that really [00:16:00] understanding and learning how to have that relationship with our heavenly Father. And accepting his grace and being kind and loving and gentle with ourselves is really how we develop resilience in difficult times.
Summer Davis: Then as a coach, I would say like kind of a non-spiritual, but more in a, I mean for me, coaching and spirituality go hand in hand, but tools that I would offer my clients, I would say maybe set a new goal when things don’t go as planned. Look at it as just, what do I need to adjust here and set a new goal and start working towards that new goal.
Summer Davis: But really ask ourselves like, what did heavenly, what was what? What was heavenly father trying to teach me? Why didn’t this work out? What do I need to change? How can I create this outcome that I wanted? And a lot of times, oftentimes, as a coach, it’s how we’re thinking, right? It is changing our perspective and how we’re thinking and seeing things through a new lens.
Summer Davis: And I think another powerful tool is asking ourselves what is our why? What is my why? [00:17:00] I like literally use that all the time. It’s like, why am I doing what I’m doing? Is it a strong enough why to keep me going in those difficult moments or when things don’t work out or go things like I planned.
Summer Davis: If it’s a strong enough why I’m gonna push through and I’m gonna keep doing it. And if it’s not, I’m gonna pray about it and I’m gonna ask is this something that I need to keep pursuing? Is this, because sometimes things don’t work out because it’s not where we’re supposed to go. It’s not the direction we’re supposed to take.
Summer Davis: Right. And so really asking ourselves if our why is strong enough and asking heavenly father if we’re on the right path and if we’re, doing what he wants us to be doing.
Karen Papin: Yeah. Yeah. We need to ponder it and think about it and pray. Seek his guidance. I. As you were talking, some of the things that came to mind there, there’s a couple of scriptures where it’s like, here’s these great people that we admire and we would love to be like Nephi and like the brother of Jared who, well, so [00:18:00] Nephi, he was trying to get the plates and he tried a couple different things before it was like, okay, spirit, just leave me.
Karen Papin: You know, to be able to get it. And with the brother of Jared, it’s like the Lord wants us to figure it out. Like he wanted the brother of Jared to figure out how to get light into the ship. And so from there, like we can take that and we can be like, okay, what is it you want us to learn from this? And we take action and the Lord will guide us and he will give us.
Karen Papin: The direction as needed. But yeah, we, he wants us to learn from the whole process and sometimes it takes several tries over and over again.
Summer Davis: Yeah. And I think sometimes it’s like the example I used before, like the current bush, right? Sometimes we’re being cut down so that we can actually grow so that, we’re growing in the right direction.
Summer Davis: Maybe the direction we’re growing isn’t the direction we’re supposed to be in. And so we get cut down, right? We get corrected. And so just again, having that perspective of Heavenly Father sees the big picture and we [00:19:00] don’t, and not to look, and this, I think this is key, is to not look at every setback as punishment.
Summer Davis: I think there are a lot of people that really look at setbacks as like punishment. Why would God do this to me? Why wouldn’t he support me in this? Why would he allow this to happen? Right. And that’s natural. Like I said, I myself found myself in this spot where I was like feeling entitled to have.
Summer Davis: Everything go my way and everything to go right and you know, things to work out, and sometimes working out means not getting what we want. Sometimes it means having to go through really hard things. Sometimes it means experiencing really difficult emotions, but when we have that faith and knowing that having Father is in the details, then it helps us to get through those difficult challenges better.
Summer Davis: You know, and in a way that helps us to learn and grow from them, rather than kind of resent, have frustration and anger
Karen Papin: so what are some common fears or doubts that people experience when they’re preparing for a mission and [00:20:00] how do you help them overcome them?
Summer Davis: Yeah. So a lot of young adults really struggle with anxiety.
Summer Davis: Right now, it’s really kind of a big trigger word, I guess I would say is anxiety, self-doubt, fear of failure, feeling like they aren’t good enough or that they, especially with missionaries, a lot of ’em are worrying right now that. That they’ll end up coming home early. We all know kids who struggled on their mission and came home early, right?
Summer Davis: And how difficult that was for them. And these young adults are seeing that. And so it’s creating this fear that what if I come home early, which I mean, I just posted something the other day about how amazing service missions are. I mean, I know a wonderful, amazing girl who came home and finished her mission as a service missionary and just really blossomed and thrived.
Summer Davis: And she even use the opportunity to reach out to others in ways that I think are [00:21:00] amazing. I think it’s kind of on a lot of their minds, am I capable of doing this? And I would say, yes, you are very capable. Is it gonna be easy? No, it’s not gonna be easy. It’s gonna be difficult. And do you need to learn skills in order to be effective and successful?
Summer Davis: Yeah, we need to learn some skills so that we can get through this and learn and grow through our challenges rather than, allow them to really boil up and get bigger and bigger. Because what I see is a lot of missionaries right now, they have these challenges. I was actually talking to some sister missionaries the other day.
Summer Davis: We had them over for dinner and they said So many people in our mission are struggling with mental health. And they just don’t know what to do. Right. And actually the LDS coaches had a podcast, and there was a woman who is a coach and a therapist and she was saying that there there’s a difference.
Summer Davis: Therapy is for overcoming trauma and healing and, diagnosis and those kinds of things where coaching is skill building. I. We’re building [00:22:00] skills. I loved when she said that because I’m like, yes, I’ve been trying to put that into words, but it’s all about building skills to build emotional resilience, and we know that this is really important.
Summer Davis: It’s something that the church is really trying to focus on. I actually taught emotional resilience in my word for a long time, and again, it helped me to see how needed it is, but really just learning how to feel our feelings. And to not buffer, because a lot of missionaries are getting out into the field and they’re not, they don’t have their buffers, and we’re so used to pulling up cell phones and video games and television and food and whatever the buffer is.
Summer Davis: We’re using those and then when they get on their mission and those buffers aren’t there anymore, well then the emotions are boiling up and they’re coming out, but they don’t know what to do with them. Right. So I think really learning to build those skills is gonna be powerful. One thing that I really, it’s part of my program.
Summer Davis: [00:23:00] I have a program called Mission Possible. It’s a eight week self-paced program where they watch videos and they learn all the skills and then they meet with me once a week and we go over them. And, one thing that I love talking to them about is their primitive brain. When I learned about this, my whole world changed.
Summer Davis: Because like I said, my anxiety was in full force, my primitive brain, I didn’t realize that it was my primitive brain. I didn’t have to believe all those thoughts , that my brain was throwing at me. And I love to use the word primitive because it’s just a survival, it’s a survival part of your brain.
Summer Davis: It’s trying to keep you safe and. Nowadays, we don’t have to be kept safe from animals that are trying to come after us, right? We don’t have to hide in a cave because, of destruction going on outside of the cave. Now it’s really the external world of social media and friends and just our lives, right?
Summer Davis: There’s so much coming at us where maybe our brain says, don’t go to that. Get together [00:24:00] because people aren’t gonna like you. You don’t know anybody. You know what if they laugh at you? What if they don’t like how you’re dressed? What if they don’t like how you look? And all these things coming at these teenagers.
Summer Davis: And really all we have to do is say, is that thought true? Usually it’s not even true. The thing that we’re thinking that’s holding us back, it’s not true. What is this thought creating for me? What’s creating fear? It’s creating anxiety. It’s creating, it’s making me hold back. It’s making me hide. It’s making me withdraw.
Summer Davis: Right. Who would I be if I never thought this? I would probably be more outgoing. I wouldn’t be so shy. I would speak out more. I would, right. This is called the five question turnaround. It’s a tool that I use. What’s the opposite of this thought? You know, how might that thought be true? Then you’re actually proving.
Summer Davis: The positive of that negative thought that you’re having, and you’re really learning how to overcome that primitive brain. And I think that is [00:25:00] a tool that every young adult needs to learn. Because comparing ourselves on social media and having all of these things coming at us, and we’re having all these thoughts, 60,000 thoughts in a day, right?
Summer Davis: And we don’t know how they’re affecting us until we take a look at them. And so really, I try to teaching adults that, hey. Let’s look at your thoughts. Let’s be a watcher of your thoughts and see what thoughts are hurting you and what thoughts are serving you and the ones that are hurting you. Let’s challenge those thoughts and let’s try to generate new thoughts that are gonna serve you and help you propel into the future rather than keep you stuck and in your past.
Karen Papin: Love it. Yep. I use those questions a lot too in my coaching as well because they are powerful and it really gets you to stop and think and then just gain clarity that you need in order to be able to move forward. And one of the things that I say is, um, that I often say when I’m working with my clients is that you need it.
Karen Papin: Well, one, we have this gift of agency, [00:26:00] but if we’re not clear. On where we want to go, then it’s a little hard to use that agency to direct us in that direction ’cause we don’t know. And so it’s like clarity is the key to intention. And intention is the key to agency.
Summer Davis: Yes. I
Karen Papin: love that. Embrace it. Right?
Summer Davis: Yeah.
Summer Davis: I love that. And it’s, you know, just a difference of acting and being acted upon. I think for a lot of my life, I was just being acted upon. I wasn’t really intentional. And for me a lot of that holding back was anxiety. I just didn’t know how to manage it. I didn’t learn to not believe those negative thoughts that were coming at me.
Summer Davis: And once I learned that skill, everything changed. And so now it’s interesting because with my kids, I talked to my kids so different. I don’t know if you experienced this, but from the time I went to the life coach school and before that, I am a different mother. I talk to my kids completely different than I used to.
Summer Davis: I’ll use the experience of one of my sons. I remember it kind of hit me [00:27:00] when he came in one day and this was, I think I was still in training. I think I was like in my life coach training, and he came in and he was like, I feel like I’m gonna fail my test. I feel like it’s gonna go all wrong. I feel like this is gonna, and I went, wait a minute, I’m gonna fail my test Isn’t a feeling, that’s a thought. And so I said to him, I said, that’s actually a thought. How does that make you feel when you have that thought? And I walked him through the whole model, like, oh, I feel really anxious. I feel really, you know, unsettled.
Summer Davis: Like, I can’t focus. I can’t. I’m like, okay, what do you do when you’re think, you know? And I, and he was like, well, I’m avoiding studying and I’m turning to video games because I don’t wanna think about it. And that was the first time that I really thought, you know what? I, for years have not recognized my children’s thought errors.
Summer Davis: When they’re talking, I think it’s so important to get our kids to talk so that we can listen for thought errors that they have and then not necessarily point ’em out and kind of [00:28:00] snatch ’em, but just get them thinking. My kids all the time, they’ll be like, and they do it to me too now, so I’ll say something and they’re like, mom, is that a thought or is that, you know, like they’ll tell me like, oh, that’s actually just a thought.
Summer Davis: They’ll kind of correct me now. But I really talk to my kids differently to help them. Actually run the model through as they’re talking to themselves, right? Or even that que that turnaround. Like, is this thought even true? Why am I thinking this? Where is this thought coming from? What is it making me feel?
Summer Davis: And so my kids are just so much more resilient and really have learned to manage their thoughts a lot more. So I think that’s powerful for parents.
Karen Papin: Yeah. That’s great. One question and I’d like to go more into this is that I was gonna ask and I will ask, is how can we as parents help our kids to develop this mental strength?
Karen Papin: But before we really dive into that, I am wondering, can you explain, for those who don’t know what the model is, can you explain that for them?
Summer Davis: Yeah, sure. So the model is a [00:29:00] tool that we use to help us see what our thoughts are creating for us. So oftentimes we think that our circumstance or what’s happening outside of us is creating our feelings, and we all want to have good feelings, right?
Summer Davis: That’s what we’re all striving for. We all wanna feel good. And so we think that if we change our circumstance where, circumstances include, you know, people, our circumstances, we can’t change people. Where we live. That’s a circumstance. Traffic, that’s a circumstance. You know, the weather, those kinds of things.
Summer Davis: Those are circumstances, things that we can’t change. And we spend a lot of our time being frustrated because we’re trying to change our circumstance to make us happy, and we don’t have any control of our circumstance. So the model teaches us that all of our power lies in our thoughts about our circumstances, right?
Summer Davis: And so when we learn to watch our thoughts create our feelings. Our feelings are what drive our actions and our actions are actually what create the results and the outcomes in our life. So we can [00:30:00] change any outcome that we have in our life by looking at our thoughts. Because our thoughts really, our life is created by what we’re thinking.
Summer Davis: And I didn’t know that. I never, I did not know that. So for me it was like, oh my gosh, my whole world just changed because I can make things happen by how I’m thinking, you know? So that’s the model. I think it’s a very, very powerful tool and I use it in my coaching all the time.
Karen Papin: Great. Thank you so much for explaining that.
Karen Papin: Okay, so now let’s go into that question. Like one thing that you’ve talked about was that you use the model on your kids. What are some other ways that, that we as parents can help our kids to be able to build this mental strength?
Summer Davis: I think something that is really powerful and important is teaching our kids to have.
Summer Davis: Good habits and routines. My son is serving in Argentina right now, and I asked him this few weeks ago, I said, how do you keep your head in such a good place? He’s just always so positive. And I’m like, what are [00:31:00] you doing? And he goes, you know, mom, really it’s about my habits. I’ve developed habits that help me to keep my mind.
Summer Davis: Moving forward, right? And in a good place. And so I actually, I created a journal that I use as part of my program. And in this journal, it’s a weekly check-in. It’s designed for missionaries. So it’s a weekly check-in. ’cause I know how busy missionaries are. They don’t have time to sit and journal every day, right?
Summer Davis: So every week they kind of check in and like, okay, what are my wins? Let’s celebrate your wins. Let’s look at the progress. Then what are my setbacks? What’s holding me back? What thoughts do I need to look at that are hurting me, that I need to challenge? Let’s turn that thought around and create an affirmation that you’re gonna use for the week, and you’re gonna prove that affirmation, everything that you do to, you know, I’m not good enough.
Summer Davis: Let’s change that to I’m learning and I’m growing every day. Okay? Every day, write down something that you’re doing to learn and grow. Let’s prove that thought so that the thought, I’m not good enough, starts to dissipate and go away. [00:32:00] Right. we set goals and break our goals down. What are obstacles that are gonna get in our way so that we can’t over, you know, meet our goals and what are some strategies that we can do to make sure that we reach those goals, and then we create tasks for that.
Summer Davis: So I, I created that for kind of a weekly check-in. But for a daily check-in, it’s just kind of like, check, check, check. I got that done. I got that done. I got that done. ’cause I know how busy missionaries are, but I really, what I love is I have a power morning strategy. I call it power morning strategy.
Summer Davis: ’cause the power stands for a po. A powerful affirmation. You wanna have a powerful affirmation every day. You wanna organize your day, organize your tasks. You wanna speak words of gratitude. Gratitude is so important when it comes to maintaining good mental health. So whether that’s through journaling or through prayer, let’s express gratitude.
Summer Davis: Maybe writing a note to somebody, even just sending someone a text and telling them how grateful you are for them. Words of gratitude are powerful and important, and just even recognizing our blessings it turns our focus from our burdens to our blessings. [00:33:00] Right? And so I think gratitude is really powerful.
Summer Davis: E is for exercise and eat healthy exercise is so powerful. There are studies that have been done to prove that exercise is as effective as an antidepressant. It releases and endorphins, it releases serotonin, it releases dopamine, and these are all chemicals that our brain naturally produces.
Summer Davis: So we have medicine in our brain and it just needs to be released, and that happens when we exercise. And so these are mood stabilizers. They help us to feel better. They help, they call ’em happy chemicals, right? They really help our sleep. They help our appetite. They’re just really powerful chemicals that if we just exercise, those will naturally get released and we will feel better.
Summer Davis: It will boost our mood and just really change a lot of things that are going wrong for us. A lot of times people can’t sleep in those kinds of things, but exercising can help you with that. And then R is [00:34:00] read your scriptures. If we’re in our scriptures every day, even for five minutes, I mean sometimes I just five minutes or I turn on a podcast.
Summer Davis: Sometimes I don’t get to read my scriptures every day and I just listen to a podcast for a little bit. Really can just turn our shift, our lens right, shift our perspective. And help us to see our day a little better and something that actually, Dr. Eon, so I’m also certified through the Eon University as a brain health coach, I just love learning about our brain and he always says, when your brain works right, you work right.
Summer Davis: When your brain is healthy, you’re healthy. And so one thing that I love that he talks about is that our brain looks for evidence of what we tell it. So he says every morning, and this is why I’m so I push affirmations, is that if you’re telling yourself, I’m gonna have a horrible day today, your brain is gonna look for all the evidence that it is a horrible day.
Summer Davis: But if you tell your brain, today’s gonna be amazing. It’s gonna look for [00:35:00] everything. I mean, you’re gonna notice the smile that someone shoots over at you. You’re gonna notice that it’s a nice day out. You’re gonna notice all of the positive things. And then the same is true opposite. If you’re thinking like everything’s gonna go wrong, I just, I can’t seem to get things together.
Summer Davis: Your brain’s gonna look for evidence of that and you’re gonna feel it. So I think, so to answer your question, I think the question was how can parents,
Karen Papin: yes.
Summer Davis: Yeah. So parents learning these tools and strategies and then reminding their kids that, okay, what are some habits that help you? And really kind of following those habits and checking in and saying, Hey, you know what?
Summer Davis: You’ve been on the video game for a little while. It’s maybe we should get up and go for a walk. Let’s go for a walk. And I don’t think parents need to be afraid to have their kids upset with them. One of my boys one time was going through a little phase of some depression and didn’t wanna get out of bed, and I said, Nope, I’m not leaving here until you get outta bed.
Summer Davis: Get up. And he was mad at [00:36:00] me and angry with me and I’m like, I don’t care. You’re going for a walk with me. Get up right now. And he stumbled out and stomped around and was all upset and angry. And the first 20 minutes didn’t say a word to me. By the end of the walk, we were talking and having a good time and
Summer Davis: he was telling me some of his concerns and some things that were bothering him. So, you know, as parents, we don’t have to be our kid’s best friend all the time. We need to be that person that, Hey, I know that this is what’s best for you, so get up and do it. You know? So.
Karen Papin: Yeah. And that builds that mental strength as well.
Summer Davis: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And we want them to have their agency and choose it. Right? Like that’s what we want, but we also need to guide them to it so that they can see. And so I will even tell my kids like. Okay. You feel crummy right now. Go for a walk and when you come back, tell me how you feel. Go to the gym and exercise.
Summer Davis: When you come back, tell me how you feel. Oh, I feel so much better. Okay. I want you to notice that and recognize that, and the next time that you feel crummy, I want you to think to yourself, I need to get [00:37:00] myself to the gym. I need to go for a walk. Or when they have a bad thought and I say, you know what?
Summer Davis: Maybe go think about that thought and see what it’s creating for you. They come back, well, what is that thought creating for you? Well, how is it making you feel? Well, what can you learn from that? And really helping them to see how these positive habits and these positive thoughts are affecting them.
Summer Davis: Because unless we point it out to them, they’re not gonna notice. And so I think it’s really important to, to point out to our kids, oh, that made you feel good? Okay, take note of that. And next time you’re feeling bad or, oh, you’ve been on video games for two hours and you don’t feel good. Hmm. I wonder why.
Summer Davis: What do you think could be going on there? You know? You’ve been sitting on the couch watching tv. I wonder if that could have something to do with why you don’t have any energy right now. You know? So really pointing out to them that they feel good when they go out and socialize and make connections.
Summer Davis: They feel good when they’re with other people. They feel good when they’re exercising or, you know, eating healthy or whatever it is. Like point that out. I think that’s really important to do.
Karen Papin: Love [00:38:00] that. Thank you for sharing that. I love what so much of what you’ve been talking about is like very clear, actionable things and so it, so this is great.
Karen Papin: There’s like so many takeaways, so many things that people can kinda just grab and be like, okay, I’m gonna try this and then take action today on it. So thank you so much for. Everything that you are sharing.
Summer Davis: You’re welcome. Thank you.
Karen Papin: Trying to think where we wanna go ’cause I feel like we can talk for like another hour.
Summer Davis: I know. So what do we wanna cover and just talking too much.
Karen Papin: Oh no, this is awesome. Totally awesome. I’m just, I’m just trying to figure out, okay. What’s most important for us to focus on at this moment? Okay. Yeah. I’m gonna ask this and then I’ll do the questions I always ask. So
Karen Papin: many people struggle with fear and self doubt when they’re stepping into new callings or challenges or like when they’re preparing for the mission, how can they shift their mindset?
Karen Papin: So what if they’re in this mindset of, what if I fail? How do they shift outta that? [00:39:00]
Summer Davis: Think just turning it around would be awesome and saying, what do I have to learn?
Summer Davis: How might this help me grow? I love to just kinda, and you can’t always do this. And some people are like, oh, so just toxic positivity all the time, right? And I’m like, no, no. Like, how do you wanna feel about it? If you want to feel uncertain and unsure and you wanna stay there, that’s okay.
Summer Davis: We can stay there for a little bit until you’re ready to move past that. I’m not someone that’s gonna just. Say, let’s just change your emotion today. Right? But if someone comes to me and says, Hey, I’m feeling this way and I don’t wanna feel this way, I’m gonna say, well, let’s look at your thoughts and how can we shift that?
Summer Davis: How can we change that? And I think some thoughts are as easy as, let’s just turn it around. Some are, you know, some are more traumatic, some are more deep, some are more heavy, that you really need to, I look at the model as a more deep dive. Into your thoughts and feelings and what they’re creating for you and what you wanna do about it.
Summer Davis: Right? I [00:40:00] look at the five question turnaround as more of a, okay, this thought just isn’t serving me right now, and I wanna, I wanna feel different. What’s a good thought that I can come up with? Right? So I think there are times that you can just go, okay, this thought doesn’t feel great. I’m gonna try a new thought on, you know, I’ve heard people say that that thoughts are like hats, right?
Summer Davis: Just try ’em on, see what fits. If a thought feels good, keep it. If it doesn’t feel good, let’s get rid of it. You know? Let’s start proving the other thought. And so if you’re thinking, what if I fail? First, I would say, well answer that question. What if you fail? What’s the worst that could happen? Right? It’s the worst that can happen.
Summer Davis: Usually it’s just a negative emotion that’s gonna happen, right? But in the case of missionaries feeling like, what if I fail and I come home early? You know, I would say, well, what’s the opposite of that thought? It doesn’t have to be, I’m gonna be the most successful, powerful missionary there ever was.
Summer Davis: That might not be believable, and that’s gonna cause some inadequacy, right? But what is a believable thought? Well, for me, a [00:41:00] believable thought would be something like, what if it helps me to learn and grow? What if Henley father has a lot of lessons for me to learn? What if this helps me to reach my potential.
Summer Davis: What if the hard that comes at me is what I need to reach the potential for who I truly need to become? Just that minor shift, it’s not going from, I’m not good enough to, I’m the most amazing person in the world. It’s just shifting to, I’m a human and I’m learning and I’m right where I need to be right now, and the Lord’s gonna meet me where I’m at and he’s gonna magnify my efforts.
Summer Davis: Right. And really creating those thoughts that are gonna help us to. Grow and to thrive. Just really quickly, if I could share a few some advice that I would give to missionaries who are feeling unprepared and inadequate. I know a lot of young adults are like, oh yeah, mission would be great, but I’m not capable.
Summer Davis: I can’t do it. And I actually had posted something a while back and about missionaries and somebody made a comment that said, well, if a missionary, if somebody is feeling [00:42:00] anxious, then they, maybe they need to question their calling. Maybe they shouldn’t be going on a mission. maybe that’s the Lord telling them that.
Summer Davis: I have one son that served Ogden, Utah, Spanish speaking. And then I have one son serving now in Buenos Aires, Argentina. And my son that is home is the one that served in Ogden, and he posted all of these comments that I was like, yes, he’s a beast.
Summer Davis: He is just like nailing it, right? And so I just wanna read a few of those to your listeners. One of ’em says, God doesn’t call people who are qualified. He calls people who are willing and then he qualifies them. That’s a quote by President Jeffrey R. Holland. Another one is when the Lord calls us to a task, he often magnifies us so that we can perform far beyond our natural abilities.
Summer Davis: And that comes from Henry b Eyring. The enabling power of the atonement of Jesus Christ strengthens us to do and be good and to serve beyond our own individual desire and natural capacity. And that is David Bednar. [00:43:00] And then the last one comes from Thomas s Monson, he says. Whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies.
Summer Davis: And so I would tell people who are struggling or who are dealing with self-doubt and fear in regards to a mission and also in regards to anything new that you’re trying in life, any new calling, any new job, any new opportunity, I would say the Lord calls you and then he qualifies you. The Lord takes what you have and he magnifies it.
Summer Davis: And so it is scary when we look at it and we think that we have to do all this, we have to figure this out. When I realized what I needed to do in order to be a life coach and start an Instagram page and put my face on it, I was terrified. There’s things that I wanna do and I’m still, you know, kinda working my way there.
Summer Davis: But the Lord has absolutely magnified my efforts and I, and when I feel fear coming in, or when I feel self-doubt, I do think, okay, well I’m gonna put forth [00:44:00] my best effort. And then I know that heavenly father is going to magnify whatever I have to offer. And I think if these young adults can look at that as they walk into a mission, they can know, Hey, I don’t have to be the most amazing scriptor to go on a mission.
Summer Davis: I don’t have to understand everything in the gospel today. I can walk in and heavenly Father is going to magnify what I have and make it so much more.
Karen Papin: Yeah. and sometimes that best effort is, well, I went and I taught, you know, five lessons today, or, you know, sometimes that’s the best effort. Sometimes it’s, I tried, I, I tried, I got out of bed and that is the best I can do.
Summer Davis: Yeah, that, that’s progress. You got out of bed on a hard day. That’s something that a lot of people don’t do. Congratulations. That is awesome. You know, I say celebrate every win every. Even if it seems small to someone else, getting out of bed [00:45:00] to some people is really difficult to do when you’re dealing with mental health challenges and that kind of thing.
Summer Davis: Showing up in the world is difficult, and so celebrate that and what, however it looks.
Karen Papin: Well. Summer, this has been awesome. I’ve really enjoyed talking with you today. I just have a couple more questions for you. The first is, what is your favorite Divine worth scripture?
Summer Davis: Act. It’s actually the one we’ve just been studying this week.
Summer Davis: And come follow me. I love, I remember reading this when I was a teenager and it says the worth of a soul is great in the sight of God. I love that because it tells us that we are of great worth. We tend to think of that as other people. Right that other people have great worth in the sight of God.
Summer Davis: But no, we are those people. We have great worth to him, enough worth that he sent the Savior to come in a tone for us so that we [00:46:00] can return to him. That was not a small sacrifice, and I think that if we can think about that in our hard moments, it just really helps us to see how much Heavenly Father loves us.
Summer Davis: Right. And this isn’t a scripture, but I will tell you that something that really, I look back on it, and I think it’s what got me through my teenage years and I think is so powerful is the young men’s and young women’s theme. I mean, every Sunday going in and saying, I am a daughter of a heavenly father who loves me and I love him.
Summer Davis: And saying that every week and having that affirmation of knowing that. I’m a daughter of God and he loves me and I love him, and I’m not exactly sure how the men, the boys go, but I know it’s very similar. So, you know, I love that scripture. The worth of a soul is great and I think about it often, and I also often think about the young women’s theme and how powerful that is.
Karen Papin: Okay. I love the theme too. What is one small and [00:47:00] simple action those listening can do today to apply what we’ve been talking about?
Summer Davis: I think memorize a scripture. Find a scripture that speaks to you that is powerful, that you can turn to in your hard moments. Memorize it because if you do, it’s gonna come to the front of your mind when you’re struggling.
Summer Davis: It’s gonna become a great source of strength for you. So find those scriptures. I love the one, in Philippians. It’s actually on my logo for my mission possible class, and it’s, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. You’re capable of so much more than you believe you are.
Summer Davis: Because Christ is with you and he’s strengthening you and he’s helping you to do it. And so any scripture like that is going to help you reconnect with your divine worth, with our Heavenly Father is to me something that is so powerful in those [00:48:00] difficult moments. So I would say memorize and read scripture and recall it when you’re questioning your worth.
Karen Papin: Okay, last question is how can those listening connect with you?
Summer Davis: So for right now, I use my Instagram kind of as my business page, and so they can go to Summer Davis coaching on Instagram. I also have a page on Facebook. They can look up Summer Davis coaching, but I really nurture my Instagram more and in the link in my bio, I have all the links to my program to, I actually have a video in there that talks about the five question turnaround.
Summer Davis: So parents wanna understand that a little bit deeper. I can go and watch that. Yeah, that’s how you can schedule a free 30 minute call with me or learn more about what I do.
Karen Papin: Great. Well, summer, thank you so much for coming on here today.
Summer Davis: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
Karen Papin:
To learn more about your divine worth and potential, you can download some free scripture cards focused on your worth at https://karenpapin.com/scripturecards. You are of worth. You have a purpose. The Lord loves you and he believes in you and only you can make the impact on this world that you are meant to make.
Join me next time as we talk more about divine worth and potential.
Does what God is prompting you to do feel daunting? With your own personalized fear to faith meditation you can create new thought patterns to move you from fear to faith in God’s plan for you.
Learn more about what God sees in you with these scriptures that show you your divine worth and potential.
This free 7 day gratitude course is to guide you to have the eyes to see God’s love for you and those around you.
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