Consider What You're Considering: A Lesson from King Mosiah

When King Mosiah's people wanted a new king, he gave them counsel that applies to every decision we make in our families today: "I desire that ye should consider the cause which ye are called to consider" (Mosiah 29:5). In other words — consider what you're considering.

In this episode, I share how a family home evening lesson from my dad (and a high school prank gone very wrong) taught my kids this principle, and how it applies to the everyday choices we make in our relationships. Whether it's venting to one family member about another, rescuing our kids from every financial bind, or keeping secrets to "hold the peace," our choices are always creating something — and it's worth asking what.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The powerful question to ask before any decision: "If I made this same choice 100 times, what would it build?"
• How to identify what you're really seeking when you want something (validation? relief? an ally? security?)
• Why choices that feel good in the moment can create patterns that damage our closest relationships
• The story of how my thought "he's mad at me" was creating resentment in my own marriage — and how I changed it
• A simple three-part framework for considering what you're considering:
• Look in — What am I wanting to feel?
• Look forward — What am I creating?
• Look outward — Who is this affecting?

This tool isn't meant to create guilt or shame — it's meant to build awareness. You can get validation, relief, and connection in ways that don't come at the expense of the people you love.

Free Resources: Visit www.brookeoniki.com and click "Free Resources" for short videos on how to stop spiraling thoughts, how to reconnect after a hard interaction with your child, and how to calm an elevated nervous system.

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Welcome to Midlife with Brooke.

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I am your host, Brooke Oniki.

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I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ,

a wife, mother, grandma,

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and a certified life coach.

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On this podcast, we talk about all things

mothering, health and emotional wellbeing.

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I share practical tools and

examples from my life and from the

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lives of my clients to help you

navigate this new season of midlife.

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It can feel tricky and confusing and

a little bit out of our comfort zone

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as our children grow up and they

don't really need us in the same way.

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These concepts and principles have changed

my life and I've watched them change

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the lives of my clients, and I hope that

they can be helpful if there are things

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that you wanna change in your life.

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So let's get started.

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Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Before I start on our discussion

today, I wanna invite you to go

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to my website at brookeoniki.com,

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and Across the top there's an

About Me page, and a Work With

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Me page, and a Podcast page, and

one of them says Free Resources.

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I'm inviting you to go there and look

at the videos that I have there for you

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that talk about how to stop spiraling

thoughts, how to reconnect when you've

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had a hard interaction with one of

your kids, and another one about how to

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calm yourself down when you feel like

you've got an elevated nervous system.

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So I invite you to go

there and watch those.

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They're short, and they give you some

really concrete ideas on what to do

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when you have situations like that.

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So please go and get those free resources.

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Today I want to talk to you

about a scripture in Mosiah

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chapter 29, verse five.

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And this was pointed out to me many years

ago in a family home evening lesson.

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My parents were at our house, and

they taught this lesson to our kids.

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And in this verse, in 29 verse

five, King Mosiah is about ready to

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die, and the people in his kingdom

want another king, and he is a

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little bit concerned about that.

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So he says to them in verse five,

about halfway through the verse, "I

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desire that ye should consider the

cause which ye are called to consider."

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So in more modern terms, he

was asking them to consider

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what they were considering.

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He said, "If you could have an, an honest

and upright person to be your king every

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time, then a king would be really useful."

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But he said, "It's not always like that.

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We don't always have kings that

are righteous and that care

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for the needs of the people."

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They wanted Aaron to be the king,

who was Mosiah's son, but he had

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already gone to the Lamanites to

do some missionary work, and so he

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declined the offer to be the king.

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And so if they assigned someone else

to be the king, Mosiah said, "What

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if my son Aaron turns back to his

evil ways and then comes and tries to

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draw some people out of the kingdom?"

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He said, "I just don't

think it's a good idea.

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It could cause contention

and dissension and division."

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And so he wanted them to

consider this idea that they were

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considering, and look ahead and

see what will that actually create.

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So when my dad was teaching the

family home evening lesson, he

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shared this story with my kids.

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When he was a teacher and a coach

at Bonneville High School in Idaho

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Falls, we had a brand-new high

school that was very beautiful.

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And our high school had its own

football field, and then there were

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two other high schools, and they

actually shared the same football field.

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Well, this particular year Bonneville

had beat Skyline and Idaho Falls both in

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football, and so they thought it would

be funny to sneak into their stadium and

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paint the goal posts green, because that

was Bonneville's color, just because

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they thought that would be funny.

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So they did.

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They snuck in, they painted

the goal posts, and left.

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And of course, everyone knew it must

have been students or players or someone

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who was a fan of the Bonneville Bees.

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Speaker 3: Well, this brand new high

school that we had, a few days later,

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someone came or some people came and

threw gallons of orange paint, which

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was the color of the Idaho Falls Tigers,

all over the outside of our high school,

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and it cost thousands and thousands

of dollars to get that paint removed

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Speaker: And then it escalated to

this fight downtown between students,

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and people were hospitalized, and

it was a really difficult thing.

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And so as my dad shared this with my kids,

he said, "I'm sure that the people who

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decided to go and paint the goal posts

weren't thinking, 'I bet this is gonna

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cause life-threatening harm to someone.'

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They just thought they were

doing something really funny,

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but then it escalated to

something much larger than that."

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And so as my kids grew up, they would

often say when they were trying to

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make a decision about something, "I

need to consider what I'm considering."

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And so today I want to talk to you about

some of the things that we do that maybe

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we should consider what we're considering.

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I had a client come to me once and tell

me, "I talk to my daughter a lot about my

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daughter-in-law and how difficult she is."

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And she realized that this pattern she'd

created was she felt really close to

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her daughter when she vented and shared

these things about her daughter-in-law,

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but it was creating more distance, not

only for her with the daughter-in-law,

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but also with her own daughter.

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And her daughter felt like she needed

to be a confidante with the mother,

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and then she also learned things about

the daughter-in-law that she wouldn't

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have known that caused her to have

hard feelings for the daughter-in-law.

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And so my client decided, "I

don't want to do that anymore.

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I don't like what it's creating for me,

and I also don't like what it's creating

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for my daughter or my daughter-in-law."

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So she considered what she'd been doing.

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She made a course correction and decided

that she wasn't gonna do that anymore.

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So sometimes our consider what

we're considering is something we

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have been doing, a pattern we have

created, and we wanna make a change.

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Sometimes it's something we haven't done

yet, but we're trying to decide what

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would happen if I chose to move down this

path For example, if you have a child

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who comes to you every time they have a

financial problem and says, "I need you

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to help me with this amount of money," we

need to consider what we're considering.

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If I choose to bail this child out once

or twice or a million times over, what

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will that actually create in their life?

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I remember when my kids were little, I

would have conversations with people in

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my neighborhood about taking homework to

school that your kids had left behind,

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or they forgot their lunch, or some

papers they were supposed to turn in.

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Whatever, it could be a million

different things that your child

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calls and says, "Mom, I forgot this."

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And I had some friends who

had a very hard, fast rule.

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They never brought things that

were forgotten, because they

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wanted their children to learn

that you have to be prepared.

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And I didn't really wanna do that, 'cause

I feel like I forget things sometimes.

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And so I made a rule that if

they called me, I would go.

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If I could, I would go

and try to help them out.

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If it became a consistent thing where

they started not thinking about what

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they were taking to school because,

"I know Mom will rescue me," then

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that was a time where I would stop

and say, "Hey, you know, I've already

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brought your homework once this week.

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I only do it once," or, "I'm only gonna

do it three times in the whole school

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year, so make sure that you use those

times wisely and you know this is a time

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I really do need her to bring something."

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So I'm not here to tell you how you should

do it, if you should rescue every time or

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never rescue, but we do want to use this

idea of consider what I'm considering.

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What will this create?

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If I made this choice 100 times

over, what would it build?

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What would it build in my relationship?

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What would it teach my children what

would it create in my own life if I choose

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this thing over and over and over again?

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another example might be keeping

secrets from someone in the family.

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So you might tell your child,

"Let's not tell Dad about this,

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'cause it will only upset him."

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And it seems like a good idea, that

we're just eliminating any kind of

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contention, that we're keeping the

peace, but what it's subtly telling my

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child is that we need to manage Dad's

emotions, that rather than seeing him

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as a person to be trusted, we're seeing

him as someone that needs to be managed.

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Consider what you're considering.

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Years ago, before I was a coach,

One of the common patterns I had, if

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my husband came home from work and

went straight into his office and

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didn't say anything to me, my first

thought always was, "He's mad at me."

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Which is interesting, right?

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I hadn't seen him all day long.

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I hadn't had any contact with him.

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Maybe we'd had a phone call.

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But that was the thought my brain

offered to me, "He's mad at me."

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And when I thought that, I felt insecure.

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And when I felt insecure, then

I would start replaying the day.

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When did we talk?

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Did we text?

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Was he mad at me this

morning when he left?

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Did we have a conversation last night?

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I'm running through all these scenarios.

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And then I would move into being kind

of bugged, like, "I would never do that.

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If I needed to go in and work

in my office, I would come in

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and say, 'Hi, how are you doing?

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I just have to do a little bit

of work and then I'll be out.'

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So then I would get

judgmental and hard on him.

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So I would be ruminating on all of

these thoughts, and then he would come

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out of his office and I would give

him the silent treatment or be kind

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of grumpy, because now all of these

thoughts that I'm having are creating

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thoughts of resentment towards him.

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And so then the result was

I was mad at him, right?

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My thought, "He's mad at me," created

an environment where I was mad at him.

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So if that's a pattern That I engage in

regularly, the chances of that spilling

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in to other aspects of our relationship

are really high because I'm having

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these judgmental thoughts of, "I don't

think he's treating me right, and he

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should come out and talk to me, and

he should be this way or that way."

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And that can lead to other

negative interactions.

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So if I consider what I'm

considering, I can decide, hmm,

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first of all, that is just a thought.

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He's mad at me.

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I don't have any evidence for it.

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So when I first started coaching,

I realized, oh, I don't actually

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wanna think that thought.

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That takes me to a terrible place.

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I wanna believe that I can just be a

soft place to land, and when he's done

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doing whatever he needed to do, whatever

happened on the way home, whatever he

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remembered that he needed to finish,

whatever emails he needed to write or

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phone calls he needed to make or loose

ends that he needed to tie up, I can let

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him do that however he needs to do it.

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And if I can keep being a soft place to

land, then I can be calm and peaceful

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so that when he comes out of his office,

we can have a positive interaction.

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If he's mad at me, I'm gonna find out

then 'cause then he can let me know.

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But chances are, whatever's going on

for him has nothing to do with me.

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So I can let him work through whatever

he needs to do, and I can stay

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emotionally in a very grounded space

where I just continue to do what

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I'm doing, and then when he's ready

to talk to me, I'm ready to listen.

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I'm ready to engage.

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I'm not mad at him now because of

all the things that I chose to think.

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So this idea of consider what you're

considering, like is this a pattern

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that I wanna create in my marriage?

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And if it's not, I can back up and I

can change the things that I choose.

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I can change the way that I think.

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I can think, I wanna be a soft place to

land instead of, "I think he's mad at me."

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That's really powerful So you

might be asking, is there some

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sort of method that you use to

consider what you're considering?

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Well, in some cases you've

already started things.

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You've already created patterns.

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So maybe you wanna look back and

see, do I wanna change those?

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Like in my situation of recognizing I

don't like the pattern I've created about

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thinking that my husband's mad at me.

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I didn't like that pattern, and so

I considered what was happening and

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decided to make a different choice,

which has been a huge blessing to me

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and also to my marriage when I don't

get mad over things that I don't need

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to be getting mad about, and I create

a lot less drama when I make things

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mean stuff that they don't even mean.

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So sometimes it's just me considering

the patterns that are already existing

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in myself and try to change them.

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If it's something new, I can

ask myself these questions.

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If it's an existing pattern I can

still ask these questions and decide

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that I want to disrupt the pattern

and choose something different.

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In the situation with King Mosiah,

his people could ask themselves,

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"What do I believe this will give me?"

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They thought a king would give

them security and clarity.

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They wanted to continue on having someone

in charge that they trusted, that they

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thought was righteous, and that would help

them create a community that they wanted

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Then the second question is,

will this decision give me that?

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And that's the part we have to

consider because King Mosiah was

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saying to them, "Okay, it works

well when you have a righteous king,

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but let's consider if this decision

will continue to make that happen."

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Is it always the case

that a king is righteous?

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Is it always the case that if you chose

someone other than my son, who was the

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direct heir to the throne, if he chooses

not to accept that, what are some of the

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problems that that could create later on?

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So he wanted them to really consider,

will this decision give me that, and he

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wanted them to see that maybe it wouldn't.

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So we can do the same thing in our

own lives when we're considering

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giving our child money or telling

them, "Don't tell your dad about

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this," or, "Don't tell your sister

'cause it will be upsetting to them."

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What do I believe that will give me?

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Do I believe it will give

me validation or relief?

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If I talk to my daughter

about my daughter-in-law, do I

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believe it will give me an ally,

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And then I need to ask, will

this decision give me that?

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It might give it to me in the moment.

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In the moment, I feel like, oh, we

have this close connection 'cause

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we're both bugged at her, or I feel

some relief because I gave my son some

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money and he was really appreciative

'cause I, I got him out of a bind.

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And so in the moment I feel that, but

will this decision hold up over time?

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If I continue to do this 100

times over, what will it create?

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What will it build?

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Such a good question to ask.

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So here are three things that can

help you kind of decide what it

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will create over the long term

instead of just in the moment.

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I need to look in and ask,

what am I wanting to feel?

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I need to look forward, what

will this decision create?

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And I need to look outward

at who is this affecting?

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So what am I wanting to feel?

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Often it is validation or relief

or connection to someone else, and

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sometimes in the moment, yes, it

feels like that's what I'm getting.

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But then I ask these two other questions.

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Look forward, what am I creating?

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If I made this decision, this same

choice 100 times over, what will I build?

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So looking forward, if I confide in

my daughter about my daughter-in-law

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every time I feel hurt or offended,

what am I creating over time?

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most likely I'm creating more

disconnection with my daughter-in-law, and

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also creating some disconnection between

my daughter and my daughter-in-law.

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And Is that what I wanna create?

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If I give my child money every time he has

a financial struggle, what am I creating?

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Am I creating dependency?

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Am I somehow letting him know I don't

think he's smart enough to figure it out,

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that I am undermining his confidence by

always stepping in and saving the day?

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if you have a situation where you're

saying, "Don't tell your dad," or,

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"Don't tell your sister, it will

only upset them," am I creating this

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managing situation where I don't

believe that people can handle their

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own emotions, and so I'm not seeing

them as an equal or treating them

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as a person worthy of knowing and

being a part of what's going on.

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That's just something to really look at.

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Look forward.

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What am I creating?

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And the third one is look outward.

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Who is it affecting?

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Who does it affect when I tell

someone not to tell someone else?

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Or when I give money over and over

and over, how does that affect him?

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If people were overhearing any of these

conversations, would it be problematic?

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I just need to kinda do the test there.

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Like, is this something I would

say if they were here and present?

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Because it's not fair that I'm creating

tension or difficulty for other people

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by not including them in the circle.

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So those are three things to

consider when you're trying to

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decide, is this a behavior or a

pattern that I want to continue?

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I want to look in.

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What am I wanting to feel?

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Look forward.

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What am I creating?

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And look outward.

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Who is this affecting?

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So in closing, as always, I just

want you to know that this is a

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tool to help you, not to make you

feel guilty or bad or ashamed.

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It's just to recognize,

what am I doing here?

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What do I want to feel, and am

I going about it the right way?

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'Cause I can get validation and

relief and allies in other ways.

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I don't need to do it at

the expense of other people.

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So I hope you'll think about that this

week, and I also hope that you'll go to

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the free resources at my website and grab

those great videos that will help you

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in other parts of your relationships.

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All right, have a great week