Latest / The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast / An Invitation to Begin Again | a conversation with Leeana Tankersley

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An Invitation to Begin Again | a conversation with Leeana Tankersley · The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast

0:13
SPEAKER_02: Hi friends, welcome to the Simply Wholehearted Podcast.
0:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm Amy Wicks, your host, as well as our good friend Ashley Pittman.
0:21
SPEAKER_02: Here at Simply Wholehearted, we are sharing our journey as we discover how to better love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: And even though you might be surrounded by a world of half-heartedness, we hope to inspire you to living wholeheartedly by inviting different friends to share their simple ideas of how they live unplugged, purposefully, intentional in every day.
0:43
SPEAKER_02: Both Ashley and I have been especially excited to share this conversation with Liam and Carsley.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: As soon as I got a book in the mail, I knew I needed to read it next.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: And I was not disappointed.
0:55
SPEAKER_02: I scribbled a ton of notes in my journal.
0:58
SPEAKER_02: I took pictures of pages and shared it with my first friends.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: And I read a few of her chapters a couple of times.
1:04
SPEAKER_02: Just to make sure I took time to slowly digest the list of pages at the beginning.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: So, even if you're behind on a bunch of podcasts because you're somebody within the left group of listening, yep, that's me.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: I encourage you to take this conversation along with you wherever you're headed today.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: I think it's gonna be one of the favorites of the book.
1:26
SPEAKER_02: Oh, Ashley and I had a marathon recording week earlier this month while we were also volunteering at Radiant Church's book camp.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: So unfortunately, Ashley had to join the conversation a little late, but I think it takes to even richer turn when she does join us.
1:41
SPEAKER_02: Now, here's our conversation with Leanna Tangersley.
1:47
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna we're gonna dive in because um our um well so to tell you a little bit, my my youngest was up all night.
1:55
SPEAKER_02: Turns out he has strep.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: So we have our first day of VBS and he has been looking forward to all year because like it was amazing last year.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: It's only three days.
2:04
SPEAKER_02: And Ashley and I are volunteering, so I had to leave because he's like crying.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: And I I have that feeling, you know, that mom instinct, oh, I think this is strep, he's been up all night, sore throat, you know, feels like he's gonna vomit, kind of thing.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: And so, but then I guess check-in was disastrous or like just terrible.
2:22
SPEAKER_02: So she's still there trying to dig them out of the mess.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: And so she's like, I'm gonna try to get here, but you know, yeah.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: And I know the thing is is that I have told Ashley all along uh immediately as I read your first chapter, I was like, Oh, this is Ashley's kind of person, like these, you know, um, just just in the sense of um, she loves to go deep like this, and I love it.
2:46
SPEAKER_02: And um I I I honestly picked up your book and I didn't stop reading it.
2:50
SPEAKER_02: And I have to read a lot of books.
2:53
SPEAKER_02: It was so beautiful.
2:55
SPEAKER_02: And I had um, you know, Karen sent it to me a bun, you know, with a bunch of others, and the cover grabbed me for one.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: It was beautiful.
3:03
SPEAKER_02: And um, will you say the name of the flower?
3:05
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm totally gonna botch it.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Bogan Villa.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: Bogan Villa, okay.
3:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, some people will say Boganvilia, right?
3:12
SPEAKER_03: But I never say it that way because I'm so cal and I know that those double L's are a Y, you know, from the Spanish.
3:16
SPEAKER_03: So Bogan Villa.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: Well, I lived in Camarillo, so you know, right, exactly.
3:21
SPEAKER_03: And it's like it's just tweaking when people say Boganvilia.
3:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I understand because, you know, like my publisher's in the Midwest, and so it's I actually took a picture for the cover brief story.
3:32
SPEAKER_03: Really?
3:33
SPEAKER_03: Because um, I wanted Bogan Villa on the cover and it went along with the theme of the book.
3:38
SPEAKER_03: And they're like, Well, we have to Photoshop it.
3:41
SPEAKER_03: We don't have it, it's February in Michigan, like there's no Bogan Villa here.
3:45
SPEAKER_03: And I said, I've got it everywhere in my yard.
3:47
SPEAKER_03: No, my kids and I will set up the cover shot.
3:50
SPEAKER_03: And then if you like it, great if you don't.
3:52
SPEAKER_03: Because you know, you try to photoshop flowers, it just looks terrible.
3:55
SPEAKER_03: It looked terrible.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, totally.
3:58
SPEAKER_02: I think I would be so picky.
3:59
SPEAKER_02: Like I just that first impressions thing.
4:02
SPEAKER_02: And and it it's a great first impression.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: It's beautiful.
4:05
SPEAKER_02: And that's even better to know that you took the picture and my kids were helping me.
4:09
SPEAKER_03: I said, okay, you guys go pick out the prettiest, most vibrant ones.
4:12
SPEAKER_03: And anyway, it was it's actually a really it was really special in a very unexpected way.
4:17
SPEAKER_03: They just kept sending me comps, and I was like, I don't want to be that person, but it's it doesn't look right.
4:24
SPEAKER_03: It looks like I don't know, an Easter cover of a um flyer for church.
4:29
SPEAKER_03: You know, that's what it looked like.
4:31
SPEAKER_03: And um Photoshop.
4:33
SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
4:34
SPEAKER_03: I was like, it's we just don't have it yet.
4:35
SPEAKER_03: So I said, let me give me a stab, let me take a stab at it.
4:37
SPEAKER_03: And this is just on my phone, you know.
4:38
SPEAKER_03: Like I don't I don't have a good camera or anything.
4:40
SPEAKER_02: So again, so do you have the turquoise background or did they kind of like piece that I knew that they they had started with the turquoise background, but they said you're gonna have to integrate it.
4:51
SPEAKER_03: So I went to Michael's and found a um a tray, like a serving tray.
4:57
SPEAKER_04: That was the bottom of it.
4:58
SPEAKER_03: And I thought if I just lay the flowers on it and take a picture like that, yeah, I think we can crop it.
5:05
SPEAKER_03: They had done this type treatment, which I loved, and I thought that's it, that's what we want.
5:09
SPEAKER_03: Right.
5:09
SPEAKER_03: Um, so anyway, I just happened to find this like perfect aqua that I like.
5:13
SPEAKER_02: And um I don't know, it's so random, but it can't be like no, it totally.
5:18
SPEAKER_02: I think it just carries the whole theme of the book right there.
5:21
SPEAKER_02: I mean, maybe not always the cover is that important, but I don't know.
5:24
SPEAKER_02: I I would definitely die on that hill.
5:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I know, and I have, and and you know, it's and thankfully we were all in agreement.
5:32
SPEAKER_03: So it's it's nice when that happens when everyone's like, yes, this is it.
5:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so it's worth it, it's worth it to hold out for that too.
5:38
SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
5:39
SPEAKER_02: Well, I knew as I read it, I wanted to be your new best friend.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to come out and visit and have coffee in person.
5:45
SPEAKER_02: So I kind of want to, I kind of want to start there.
5:47
SPEAKER_02: I want to get to know you a little bit because I I need to be caught up.
5:50
SPEAKER_02: Um, you've obviously been writing a little while.
5:53
SPEAKER_02: This is your fourth book.
5:54
SPEAKER_02: Is that right?
5:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:55
SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, so tell to get just give us a little history of your writing journey.
6:00
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, you also have spent some time in the Middle East, and that's fascinating in itself.
6:04
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, just catch us up a little bit.
6:08
SPEAKER_03: Well, I um was an English major as an undergrad, and I did my master's degree in English, and so I've just always been a person that loves stories and loves words and loves how the written language can just move us.
6:20
SPEAKER_03: And I mean, I remember reading Charles Dickens when I was in junior high and thinking it is so incredible that someone could write something that would make you laugh out loud or make you cry.
6:31
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
6:32
SPEAKER_03: And it does both.
6:33
SPEAKER_03: What right, what a wow.
6:36
SPEAKER_03: It just stopped me.
6:37
SPEAKER_03: You know, I mean, I was young, young.
6:38
SPEAKER_03: And I would write when I was even younger than that.
6:40
SPEAKER_03: My parents went through a difficult divorce when I was nine.
6:43
SPEAKER_03: And I have, I still have poems that I wrote during that time about, you know, horses and like these big strong things as a way to process some of that.
6:52
SPEAKER_03: And so I think writing is something and words and stories and images, it's something I've always turned to intuitively, something God's just put inside of me.
7:00
SPEAKER_03: I always say that we we can we can remember principles, kind of, but when we're really stressed and we're really tired, what we remember are stories.
7:08
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
7:08
SPEAKER_03: We can see stories and we can retell them.
7:11
SPEAKER_03: And so um, stories have met me and walked with me in my own life.
7:14
SPEAKER_03: And so I think that's just the the foundation of why writing has always been significant to me.
7:19
SPEAKER_03: But who gets to be a writer, right?
7:21
SPEAKER_03: Like you don't get to be a writer, you you need to be a teacher.
7:24
SPEAKER_03: Yes, totally.
7:24
SPEAKER_03: So um, that's the path I took, and I thought I'm gonna be a teacher.
7:27
SPEAKER_03: And then um, it just as God uh sort of opened these bizarre doors, I just kind of kept walking through and it just became clear that my path was to continue writing.
7:37
SPEAKER_03: And so I worked for a long time writing for someone else.
7:41
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
7:41
SPEAKER_03: Um, another person in ministry that um it it was I look back at that time as like training ground where I got thrown everything but in the kitchen sink uh to write, you know, radio copy, television copy, devotionals, magazine articles, letters, and it just it it improved my um craft so much, but I I was not finding my own voice.
8:02
SPEAKER_03: Sure, yep.
8:03
SPEAKER_03: And then it was um, but I had that those hours of just being in the trenches of writing.
8:09
SPEAKER_03: And then in 2003, my husband and I got married, and eight days after we got married, we moved to the Middle East.
8:15
SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
8:15
SPEAKER_03: For his job.
8:16
SPEAKER_03: He's in the Navy.
8:17
SPEAKER_03: Okay, and um while we were there, I was not working full time because we were just there for one year, and um, we didn't have kids yet, obviously.
8:25
SPEAKER_03: We just got married, and so it was just this like unique pocket of time, and um writing just flooded me.
8:33
SPEAKER_03: You know, I mean, you're surrounded by this incredibly different culture and landscape completely.
8:40
SPEAKER_03: And I'm a brand new wife, you know, and I'm in like I'm I'm in a Navy culture, I'm in a I'm in a Muslim culture, and so um, and I'm 10,000 miles away from home and all these things.
8:51
SPEAKER_03: So writing just flooded me.
8:52
SPEAKER_03: And my own, and I that's when I think I really started to find my voice and the things that I really cared about.
8:57
SPEAKER_03: And that was again, that was 2003, 2004.
9:01
SPEAKER_03: And during that time, like you can't explain this any other way but God, um, a writing contest sort of landed in my lap.
9:09
SPEAKER_03: And so I submitted all the writing from that year to this writing contest.
9:14
SPEAKER_03: And I ended up getting second place, which I always say that second place sometimes is the best thing, you know.
9:19
SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes, and um so that's it just still go up.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right, but it's enough to know, oh, maybe I got something.
9:26
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
9:26
SPEAKER_03: And so I I started working with the publisher through that, and that that those writings became my first book, Found Art, which a lot of people don't know about because it was released in 09 and it's older now.
9:36
SPEAKER_03: But and then from there, um But I want to go back and read it now.
9:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, design um early marriage, and you know, now that's been some time, you know, because it was really written in 03 and 04, even though it was published in 09.
9:50
SPEAKER_03: And then God just I I keep surrendering it to God.
9:52
SPEAKER_03: Like if you have more for me to say and have more opportunity for me, I'm gonna keep going as long as you'll have me.
9:58
SPEAKER_03: Um, and it just it it ends up that material keeps arriving and things that I'm passionate about keep clarifying and throw in three babies and a move back to the Middle East and back and having a baby in the Middle East and having twins and oh my goodness.
10:13
SPEAKER_03: Um God has delivered material.
10:15
SPEAKER_03: Wow, that's incredible.
10:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
10:17
SPEAKER_03: So then three more books after that.
10:19
SPEAKER_03: And the newest one, as you've mentioned, is Begin Again, and that one just came out in April.
10:23
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
10:23
SPEAKER_02: And it's I it it sound it seems like a culmination of kind of all those years so far and you're processing through them and all of that.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: Though as I read it, I'm like, oh, I wonder what the story is behind that.
10:35
SPEAKER_02: And I love, but I love how you you took us on a very uh generic seems like a yeah, you know, a phrase that doesn't quite fit, but in a way that we could go, we don't even know what the real story is behind it, but we could put our own story in there and go, okay, this is this is what I need to do.
10:52
SPEAKER_02: Like I don't know, I I'm gonna just jump right in.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: Like the I think my favorite chapter, and I've read it twice or three times, but is um don't feed the stray cats.
11:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:01
SPEAKER_02: But that that was so good.
11:03
SPEAKER_02: Would you would you unpack that a little bit in the sense of it you're kind of talking about how we nurture the negative voices, and that is powerful.
11:14
SPEAKER_02: Um, just maybe share some of your testimony and story in that right.
11:18
SPEAKER_03: I just had a very personal relationship with shame in my life.
11:22
SPEAKER_03: And I think I would just many of us do right.
11:25
SPEAKER_03: And I think it's just this sense of like I'm not adequate for my own life.
11:28
SPEAKER_03: Like God's given me so many beautiful things in my life, and somehow I'm just not adequate for it.
11:34
SPEAKER_03: And the the waking up every day and being up against that is demoralizing and it's toxic and it's paralyzing.
11:42
SPEAKER_03: And I think I think as I unpack in this book and in that chapter specifically, my assumption was that I wanted rid of shame and that I wanted rid of those toxic voices, right?
11:54
SPEAKER_03: And I've done a lot of work around that.
11:56
SPEAKER_03: And in the last year and a half, I think what God has been kind of showing me is that I have become so close to those voices that kind of put me down and keep me small and keep me in my place.
12:10
SPEAKER_03: Like, who do you think you are and how dare you?
12:13
SPEAKER_03: That they're almost like, you know, God said to me as I wrote in this chapter, what if shame isn't your and the toxic voices isn't your greatest enemy?
12:22
SPEAKER_03: What if shame is actually your closest friend?
12:25
SPEAKER_03: And it knocked me on my heels because I think the assumption we all are operating under is, of course I want rid of that, of course I want free of that, right?
12:35
SPEAKER_03: But we at the same time serve those voices, listen to them, give them power over any other, because often they're they're yelling the loudest, right?
12:45
SPEAKER_03: Yep, yep.
12:46
SPEAKER_03: And so God's voice is that still small voice.
12:50
SPEAKER_03: We have to get centered often to hear it.
12:52
SPEAKER_03: Our own soul voice can be very quiet and silenced at seasons in our lives.
12:58
SPEAKER_03: But this toxic, this toxic narrative is always alive and well and always very loud.
13:04
SPEAKER_03: And so I think sometimes we assume that that is the true that what it's saying to us is the truest thing about us, that it knows us better than God knows us.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: Yes, God doesn't know what was really true about me.
13:14
SPEAKER_03: You know, you wouldn't love me, and these voices, they know.
13:17
SPEAKER_03: And so God was kind of unpacking.
13:19
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I know that might sound weird, but he was unpacking with me.
13:23
SPEAKER_03: Maybe you're serving them more than you realize.
13:26
SPEAKER_03: And it's this idea of you give a stray cat a morsel because you're trying to get it to go away.
13:32
SPEAKER_03: Right.
13:33
SPEAKER_03: And the metaphor is what I mean, in reality, what happens?
13:36
SPEAKER_03: The cat now knows where its nourishment's coming from.
13:39
SPEAKER_03: Right.
13:39
SPEAKER_03: So it's the same thing with these toxic voices.
13:41
SPEAKER_03: We just give it a little airtime, we give it a little bit of our soul, we we say, okay, yeah, you're right.
13:46
SPEAKER_03: We let it paralyze us a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, and we think now it'll go away.
13:51
SPEAKER_03: And it doesn't.
13:52
SPEAKER_03: It keeps coming back because it knows where it's getting nourished and nurtured.
13:55
SPEAKER_03: So that's the motivation for that chapter, and to stop assuming that um that I um want rid of them as badly as I think I do.
14:06
SPEAKER_02: Well, because it there, like you said, there's something comforting about it because it's familiar.
14:11
SPEAKER_02: Um I I go back to that a lot in my life because there's some things in my life that I want or want to go to because it's familiar, but I know it's not good.
14:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, but feel familiar feels comforting and it feels safe.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: And it's so much easier than doing the hard work of then going, okay, God, what is true?
14:32
SPEAKER_02: And what do you have to say about me?
14:35
SPEAKER_02: And to look at those shame voices or fear voices and whatever it is, and un unpack them and and then I because I think our identity gets wrapped up in it and like and we can't separate it.
14:49
SPEAKER_02: And I think too, it's just that like that ultimate that fear, that scarcity mentality that if we uh really believe in the goodness of God and and that we are who he says we are in him, and in and the then maybe something bad will happen because we finally are seeing the goodness of God for you know what it is, you know.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: So it's just and maybe something really big would happen.
15:13
SPEAKER_03: And maybe that scares us too.
15:15
SPEAKER_03: It does.
15:15
SPEAKER_03: You know, maybe we would be unleashed and free, and there would be a lot of big possibilities.
15:20
SPEAKER_03: And I think that scares us, I think, especially as women, as much as it's just it's safer and more comfortable to be small.
15:28
SPEAKER_03: I write a lot about this idea in my previous book, brazen.
15:31
SPEAKER_03: And the word brazen means unafraid and unashamed and unapologetic, you know, and how I think as women we're just taught to actually be apologetic about taking up space, about our voices, about all of this.
15:44
SPEAKER_03: And so um, you know, yeah, there's a fear, and even what would it be like to just be free?
15:51
SPEAKER_03: What uh what would the rules be?
15:53
SPEAKER_03: What would the guardrails be?
15:54
SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
15:56
SPEAKER_03: Oh, and what would my friends think?
15:58
SPEAKER_03: Like what audacity I would have, right, to be a bigger version of myself and a more integrated version of myself.
16:04
SPEAKER_03: So I think all of these messages are coming at us and kind of keeping us really right where we are in place.
16:11
SPEAKER_03: And I'm not sure that that's the invitation that God has for us.
16:15
SPEAKER_03: I also wanted to bring up about the unknown that you mentioned, which is incredibly important.
16:21
SPEAKER_03: That and I write about it in the chapter Um Let the Dead Trees Go, which those are good companion chapters.
16:26
SPEAKER_02: I was just gonna say, because my husband's an arborist, that was my next favorite.
16:29
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
16:30
SPEAKER_02: So I totally get that.
16:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
16:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but it's this idea where I I had these guys come out to our property.
16:36
SPEAKER_03: We have like about just about an acre, and it's pretty wild, and we keep it pretty wild.
16:40
SPEAKER_03: But every year when it starts to get hot and it's fire season, you've got to have, you know, you can get fined for not having appropriate abatement.
16:46
SPEAKER_03: So I got I brought these guys out.
16:48
SPEAKER_03: Okay, you need to clear some things out.
16:50
SPEAKER_03: And long story short, I knew there were dead things on the property.
16:53
SPEAKER_03: And one of which is we have this really pretty gate at the front of our property, and there's a tree on either side.
16:58
SPEAKER_03: One tree is flowering, blooming, flourishing.
17:02
SPEAKER_03: The other tree is gray, phony fingers, like like Lord of the Rings, right?
17:08
SPEAKER_03: It's very clear what's happening here.
17:10
SPEAKER_03: But they're on either side of the gate and they're a pair.
17:13
SPEAKER_03: So the guy's like, uh, this one needs to go.
17:15
SPEAKER_03: And I said, Yeah, but um, you know, they're a pair.
17:18
SPEAKER_03: Like they're meant to go together.
17:20
SPEAKER_03: And he's like, Yeah, but it's dead.
17:23
SPEAKER_03: You know, and it's this like, but what will it look like?
17:28
SPEAKER_03: At least I know what it looks like now, right?
17:30
SPEAKER_03: What will it look like when you take that one away?
17:33
SPEAKER_03: And um, that is just for me in my own life, such a metaphor.
17:38
SPEAKER_03: So good.
17:39
SPEAKER_03: I'd rather hold on to something dead and know what it is, yep, then let go and allow space for life, but it's unknown.
17:46
SPEAKER_02: Yep, absolutely.
17:48
SPEAKER_02: Well, and and then too, the other thing is how much of our life or even relationships are built on the dead things, on the negative things.
17:56
SPEAKER_02: Because our our culture, uh whether it's an American culture, Christian culture, we're we're almost too afraid to celebrate.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: And we might be being too braggadocious if we talk about the good things, or if we are, you know, our audacious, brazen selves, uh, you know, in in the fullness of who God made us to be.
18:15
SPEAKER_02: What would we talk about?
18:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, if we're not complaining, or if it's not the negative things, or if we're actually walking in freedom.
18:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's one of those things that somehow we feel like we have to be careful or guarded, and yet that's the very thing that will propel other people into freedom, I believe, and into to being able to address the falsehoods that they're believing as well, and that they keep feeding.
18:38
SPEAKER_03: That's so true.
18:40
SPEAKER_03: You know, the question that I just asked myself, and I would just encourage, I think it's a great practical question is what am I serving that is no longer serving me?
18:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so what voices, what um um assumptions, what what scars, what am I serving that I'm bowing down to and letting control my life that has no interest in serving me, nurturing me, caring for me.
19:06
SPEAKER_03: You know, I I write a lot about image versus identity.
19:10
SPEAKER_03: What parts of my image am I serving that are just not it's not who I really am?
19:15
SPEAKER_03: You know, instead of taking time to nurture this identity, this God-given identity inside of us.
19:20
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I think sometimes you can just start there with that question at the top of your paper.
19:25
SPEAKER_03: What am I serving that is no longer serving me?
19:27
SPEAKER_03: It's interesting what what will come out of that.
19:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, oh, I bet.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: Because, and you know, and I think all of these things, the the root of all of it is that Satan just wants to keep us on under that cloud.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: That he's the only he's the one who's gonna win, he's the one holding us back.
19:42
SPEAKER_02: It's not the Lord's plan to hold us back.
19:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's waiting season, but there's not the holding back in the fullness of who God intended us to be.
19:50
SPEAKER_02: The only one who wants that for us is is the enemy.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: And that's his plan.
19:54
SPEAKER_03: Um, to that's what I was saying about those questions, how dare you, or those statements, how dare you, and who do you think you are?
20:02
SPEAKER_03: You know, when we hear that coming, or even we just feel the energy of that coming into us, we can be sure that's not from God.
20:09
SPEAKER_03: You know, and how many of us are um the minute we have an idea, the minute we have a some energy around something or uh, you know, um some freedom in a certain area of our lives, that that shadow, that darkness comes in.
20:22
SPEAKER_03: How dare you?
20:23
SPEAKER_03: And who do you think you are?
20:24
SPEAKER_03: And that is not the voice of God.
20:27
SPEAKER_03: It's just not.
20:28
SPEAKER_02: I am raising my hand here.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: So guilty of it.
20:32
SPEAKER_02: But it's just it just seems to be and I think I the beautiful thing is that God gives us um these seasons where we we peel back one of those layers and we get freedom and we do and we can walk it out.
20:45
SPEAKER_02: And then I I I just see it as He wants to take us to greater freedom and another level.
20:50
SPEAKER_02: And so still, you know, I just am there again in my life and I I hate that.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: I want to just be, you know, one and done, let's just get this over with.
20:58
SPEAKER_02: But I think in the walking in the spirit by the spirit, being obedient to him and the fullness of who God created us to be, we are gonna have to continue to address it because it's just gonna be an ongoing battle that, you know, we just have to throw out the lies and just hang on to the truth and combat it.
21:16
SPEAKER_03: And this is why the idea of beginning again is so important, because we believe that if we don't get it right on the first shot, we're fail, we're a failure, right?
21:27
SPEAKER_03: And that's just not the spiritual journey.
21:29
SPEAKER_03: It's not the it's not the journey of humanity.
21:31
SPEAKER_03: And I think this is why this concept of begin again has been so important to me.
21:35
SPEAKER_03: Why does it say in Lamentations that his mercies are new every morning if we didn't need them?
21:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's because we need them.
21:43
SPEAKER_03: You know, that that that scripture starts out by saying, because of his great love, we are not consumed.
21:48
SPEAKER_03: How many days do I feel consumed?
21:52
SPEAKER_03: You know, by a thought, by a child, by expectations, by a disappointment, by a regret.
21:57
SPEAKER_03: And he's saying every day, and it gives me chance.
22:00
SPEAKER_03: Chills, just and I, how many times have I talked about this?
22:02
SPEAKER_03: It gives me chills every time.
22:04
SPEAKER_03: He welcomes us into the next new day, the next new moment, because we need it.
22:08
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
22:08
SPEAKER_03: Because his hand is reaching toward us.
22:10
SPEAKER_03: And it's not just an endless loop.
22:12
SPEAKER_03: It's because he's taking us deeper and deeper into himself and into ourselves and into our community.
22:19
SPEAKER_03: I think that is such holy ground.
22:22
SPEAKER_03: And our culture just makes it makes us feel like I think at times that until we're an expert and until we've reached the finish line, we're a failure.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: Right.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's just not the case.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: Talk a little bit because I want to, because actually for me, uh do you know much about the Enneagram?
22:38
SPEAKER_02: I do.
22:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:40
SPEAKER_03: Not a ton, but I'm I'm familiar with it.
22:41
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
22:42
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what number you are?
22:43
SPEAKER_02: I think I'm a seven.
22:44
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
22:45
SPEAKER_02: That's the fun one.
22:48
SPEAKER_03: I have gone back and forth on quite a few, but I I also have some three four in me.
22:52
SPEAKER_03: And then I but then I I that wouldn't surprise me.
22:56
SPEAKER_02: Oh really?
22:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: Well, but as a three, because I'm a three, um which I sh uh kind of grimace at, you know.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I'm I'm learning to embrace it.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: But all of that to say that statement, the very statement of beginning again, like, ah, I don't want to do that.
23:12
SPEAKER_02: Like, I want to be moving forward constantly.
23:15
SPEAKER_02: I want to be like, uh yeah, I want to I want to see forward progress.
23:19
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to have to feel like I what I have to start at square one, but reading it, and that's why I would love for you to take a little time to unpack the title and the inspiration because oh man, that's a game changer.
23:31
SPEAKER_02: There's so much freedom in that statement.
23:34
SPEAKER_02: Like, oh yeah, his mercies are new every morning.
23:37
SPEAKER_02: And actually, some days, every hour, amen.
23:40
SPEAKER_02: Every hour I need you every minute, every moment.
23:44
SPEAKER_02: And I found myself even just saying it to my kids that you know, we have those days, and and I I feel like I kind of uh wrestled some of that idea, maybe a little flavor of that, you know, when they're little, okay.
23:57
SPEAKER_02: We just like you know, restart, let's do reboot.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: But this was just like this is like so soul filling in that like okay, deep breath, I can begin again.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: We can just start afresh and new, and it's not going backwards, we're still going forwards.
24:10
SPEAKER_02: So anyway.
24:12
SPEAKER_03: Well, um, you know, almost 10 years ago I became a mother for the first time.
24:18
SPEAKER_03: And can you hear me okay?
24:19
SPEAKER_03: I feel like we were going in and out there.
24:20
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
24:22
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
24:22
SPEAKER_03: Almost 10 years ago, I became a mother for the first time, and I became a mother to boy girl twins, right?
24:28
SPEAKER_03: And so anyone that's been through motherhood for the first time knows that there's a pretty steep learning curve, even if it's something that you have always wanted.
24:35
SPEAKER_03: And there's something a little bit strange about or disorienting, at least it was to me, to feel like this is something I have always wanted.
24:42
SPEAKER_04: Totally.
24:43
SPEAKER_03: Why is it so hard and why am I so overwhelmed?
24:45
SPEAKER_03: And it immediately made me feel like I was inadequate and failing in some way.
24:49
SPEAKER_03: That if I were better, this would be easier.
24:51
SPEAKER_03: Right.
24:52
SPEAKER_03: You know, I've come to learn in my life that sometimes life is hard because it's hard, not because we're failing.
24:59
SPEAKER_02: Not because there's something wrong with us, because that's what I thought was.
25:01
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what's wrong with me, or what's wrong with my child?
25:04
SPEAKER_02: This is supposed to be amazing.
25:08
SPEAKER_03: And sometimes it's just hard, you know, and that's not like a personal indictment, but it takes time to learn that.
25:13
SPEAKER_03: And then becoming a mother for the first time to twins, it was just enormous.
25:18
SPEAKER_03: It was perfect in so many ways, and it was so overwhelming and so big.
25:23
SPEAKER_03: And I just I say, you know, I felt like nailed to the couch, totally in love and totally overwhelmed.
25:30
SPEAKER_03: And about three months after they were born, maybe I was reading a book and I came across this line from the monk Saint Benedict, who we might know from the Benedictine rule.
25:40
SPEAKER_03: And um, he he wrote this always we begin again.
25:44
SPEAKER_03: It's so simple.
25:45
SPEAKER_03: And I remember that I say, you know, it wasn't just a line, it was a lifeline.
25:51
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
25:51
SPEAKER_03: And it was like God hand delivered it to me.
25:54
SPEAKER_03: And yes, this is difficult, and yes, this is big and it's perfect, and you're so afraid of messing up these gorgeous, perfect, healthy babies.
26:03
SPEAKER_03: But what, but you can always just begin again.
26:06
SPEAKER_03: It's okay.
26:07
SPEAKER_03: Like let's let's remember that we're human.
26:10
SPEAKER_03: Let's remember that I'm here.
26:12
SPEAKER_03: And going back to your comment about being a three, you know, it's I think part of that is is the journey of accepting humanity, which is terrible.
26:22
SPEAKER_03: Dang it.
26:23
SPEAKER_03: I have limits.
26:24
SPEAKER_03: I have to, I have to learn the hard way.
26:25
SPEAKER_03: What?
26:26
SPEAKER_02: Superhuman.
26:28
SPEAKER_03: I have to rely on God's grace and other people.
26:30
SPEAKER_03: That's a real big bummer, you know.
26:32
SPEAKER_03: So um, I read that line and it just it has literally walked with me.
26:37
SPEAKER_03: I it's like I put it in my pocket and it's walked with me since.
26:41
SPEAKER_03: And um, in in a couple of my other books, I would do a chapter on this idea of beginning again, but I just wasn't done talking about it.
26:49
SPEAKER_03: And my my um publisher said, What do you want to work on next?
26:51
SPEAKER_03: And I said, I want to I want to do a whole book on this idea.
26:54
SPEAKER_03: And here's why, as I researched it more, I what I realized is um, and I'm a words person, you know, I love to understand what's the word begin, we use it a lot.
27:06
SPEAKER_03: But it's more than just this the starting line.
27:09
SPEAKER_03: You know, we could think that the word begin just means to start.
27:12
SPEAKER_03: If you look at the etymology, it means to open or to open up.
27:17
SPEAKER_03: This has been so significant to me because often what we need to step into the next new moment in order to receive God's grace is we have to open up inside of ourselves, uh often in the very place we want to slam shut, shut down, close off, and hide.
27:34
SPEAKER_03: Right.
27:35
SPEAKER_02: Because we're so ashamed.
27:36
SPEAKER_03: Don't touch that part of my life.
27:38
SPEAKER_03: Don't get in there.
27:39
SPEAKER_03: I don't need your grace.
27:40
SPEAKER_03: I'm doing fine over here in my closet in the corner, huddled.
27:43
SPEAKER_03: You know, I'm great.
27:45
SPEAKER_03: Um don't get in chocolate peanut butter support.
27:48
SPEAKER_03: Other people, other people.
27:49
SPEAKER_03: We don't want to let them into that, right?
27:51
SPEAKER_03: I don't no, nope, don't ask me how I'm doing.
27:53
SPEAKER_03: And if you ask me, I'm gonna give you a very slick answer because I don't want to open up.
27:58
SPEAKER_03: And so what I'm learning in my own life, and this again is like every day, is that to begin again actually means to open up in the place where I want to hide, gloss over, shut down.
28:10
SPEAKER_03: And that is incredibly significant.
28:12
SPEAKER_03: And once you once you're aware of that, you realize, man, my tendency is to just block that off.
28:21
SPEAKER_03: And God is reaching towards me in the in these moments, He's reaching toward me with grace and with love.
28:27
SPEAKER_03: And I don't want any part of it.
28:28
SPEAKER_03: I want to say, no, thanks.
28:29
SPEAKER_03: I'm good over here.
28:30
SPEAKER_03: You know, leave me alone and let me huddle in the corner.
28:33
SPEAKER_03: And um, so the practice of beginning again is actually the practice of opening ourselves up to love, to grace, to support, to help, which is also opening ourselves up to our humanity.
28:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's bad news.
28:47
SPEAKER_02: It is, it is because it's like we gotta face the reality of our fallenness and our need, and that we can't just pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and we keep going for a while.
28:58
SPEAKER_02: But we're gonna just end up in a heap.
29:03
SPEAKER_03: I think one of the things for me along this is it's very vulnerable.
29:06
SPEAKER_03: It's vulnerable to tolerate people seeing us in need.
29:10
SPEAKER_03: And I what I'm learning about myself is even tolerating letting God see me in need and meet me in that.
29:17
SPEAKER_03: It's very vulnerable.
29:18
SPEAKER_03: I just want to have a slick altogether exterior.
29:21
SPEAKER_03: Like totally, I want to be just waltzing through Target with my you know flowy calf tan and my spray tan, you know, and just like killing it with my three little dufflings behind me.
29:31
SPEAKER_02: Right.
29:32
SPEAKER_02: Very obedient, of course.
29:34
SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
29:34
SPEAKER_03: It's just never that way.
29:36
SPEAKER_02: I'm not in Target because I'm pretty sure there's demons in Target that just like make my kids wild, right?
29:42
SPEAKER_03: Irrationally.
29:44
SPEAKER_03: I know, I know.
29:45
SPEAKER_03: So um, yeah, it's it's hard for me personally, and maybe other people don't struggle with this as much and they don't really have a problem with sort of the messiness and letting people see them in the messiness.
29:57
SPEAKER_03: But it's just a big thing that I've had to um get more comfortable with.
30:01
SPEAKER_03: Even my dearest, closest friends that have seen me in all kinds of states, you know.
30:05
SPEAKER_03: I just I think I think there's a part of me that feels like I just want to be admired, and then that would that that would be enough.
30:13
SPEAKER_04: Yes, right?
30:14
SPEAKER_03: Yes, totally this idea that actually what we really want is deeper than that, and it's not just to be admired, it's to be loved.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
30:23
SPEAKER_03: And we can't fully experience unconditional love if we won't let people just see us.
30:29
SPEAKER_02: I know, and I think that reminds me so much of um I and maybe that's a personality thing because that's totally my thing too, is that no matter how much um how close I am to a person or I love the person or I love them in their own mess when it comes to me, oh man.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: And I just your your little, your chapter, not little, but your chapter on the target experience.
30:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
30:52
SPEAKER_02: I just thought what a beautiful thing how you you let yourself be rescued and you let yourself um be vulnerable in that moment and other people to come in and to help you through that and how they did, which was just I loved it.
31:09
SPEAKER_03: Well, and in that chapter, I I go through a terrible scene in Target, as you know, with my children, and this woman like really accosts me verbally.
31:17
SPEAKER_03: And the next thing, and I my husband's in the middle of a very long and extended deployment, and I am just in that moment feeling so incredibly depleted.
31:27
SPEAKER_03: Like, when was the last time I had a shower?
31:28
SPEAKER_03: Am I even wearing a bra right now?
31:30
SPEAKER_03: Like, I don't know for sure.
31:32
SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
31:32
SPEAKER_03: I'm just trying to get out of there, right?
31:34
SPEAKER_03: You know, and next thing you know, as as you as you know because you've read the chapter, two of my oldest and closest, my dearest friends show up at Target, unbeknownst to me in separate times.
31:47
SPEAKER_03: They all they just show up.
31:49
SPEAKER_03: And even though they are my oldest and dearest friends, I don't want them to see me like that.
31:55
SPEAKER_03: You know, and um the looks in their eyes, they're so they feel so bad for me.
32:01
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
32:02
SPEAKER_03: It's hard to like, yeah, it's hard to like see that kind of empathy on someone else's face for you.
32:07
SPEAKER_03: Like, oh man, I'm in bad shape.
32:09
SPEAKER_03: I'm the one in need.
32:10
SPEAKER_03: I am in bad shape.
32:12
SPEAKER_03: And they're looking at me and they know it, you know, and um, but it was so uncanny.
32:18
SPEAKER_03: Like God has brought my two oldest and closest friends into this moment where I am like devastated.
32:29
SPEAKER_03: It is clear to me that I am I am to accept this love and this rescue as if it were God's hands, because it was.
32:37
SPEAKER_02: Yes, it was.
32:38
SPEAKER_02: I that's what I just thought was so cool because you couldn't you couldn't have jumped that up, you couldn't have written, you know, like pulled that out, like that you're in your most neediness moment and two people who I mean, just really God's angels in that moment.
32:53
unknown: Yes.
32:54
SPEAKER_03: And the whole point of that chapter is learning to tolerate love.
33:00
SPEAKER_03: And we tolerate and receive love, not when we're our shiniest and on the stage and looking great.
33:05
SPEAKER_03: We we learn to be loved, you know, and it just gets me when we're reduced and diminished.
33:11
SPEAKER_03: And so I think the journey of that for me and for you and for those that are listening that are like us is to allow our humanity to surface a little more.
33:20
SPEAKER_03: And that that's really gonna meet our deepest longings, which is which is to experience rest and to experience love and to experience lightness in the in this life.
33:29
SPEAKER_02: Man, I'll tell you, there's so much freedom, there's so much rest in that thing when we let the facade down and we just are who we are and we be real with the right people.
33:40
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, maybe you can't do that with everyone and you you figure out who your friends are, and you know, but certainly the Lord, the most important person, is come as you are, it's unconditional, and you know, just there for you.
33:53
SPEAKER_02: So okay, I'm taking a quick minute to interrupt and share a little bit about our two mini series that we have available, giving you practical and inspiring ideas to put into practice right away.
34:06
SPEAKER_02: Our Soul Time mini series is about taking the time to overwhelm yourself with what fills your picture so you feel loved, valued, and well taken care of in your spirit, mind, and body.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: And I'm happy to say none of our ideas require the time or finances needed for a shopping spree.
34:24
SPEAKER_02: Our second email mini-series is about creating meaningful minutes and how to find an overall rhythm and intentionality to her days.
34:33
SPEAKER_02: So if you're a mama looking for ideas to keep your kids busy this summer without using electronics, you may want to join us.
34:40
SPEAKER_02: Now back to her conversation with Leanna Tinkersley.
34:46
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna um interrupt real quick.
34:48
SPEAKER_02: Ashley has appeared.
34:50
SPEAKER_02: So sorry.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: We had uh some major glitches over at the VBS.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: So we'll edit this part out.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: No, it's okay.
34:59
SPEAKER_02: Guys, don't you worry.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: I need I get it.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: It's technology stuff.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: It was fun times.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: I think I have PTSD.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: No, it's okay.
35:10
SPEAKER_02: And I leave you high and dry.
35:12
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't it wasn't a failure because it maybe it would have been it would it was not you for sure.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: You would have been no help whatsoever, honestly.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: You would not have been able to.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: There was nothing.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to tell me I was so needed in that moment.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, I love it.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, there's nothing you could have done.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: It was just that kind of a thing.
35:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, tech difficulty.
35:29
SPEAKER_02: Tech.
35:30
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: Anyway.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: Well, we have covered a lot of ground, but I actually want to go backwards a little bit because we just I dove right into like some of my favorite chapters and what was taken of me.
35:40
SPEAKER_02: But um, okay, so uh you're in the middle niece, your husb East, your husband.
35:46
SPEAKER_02: Did I say niece?
35:47
SPEAKER_02: You said niece, but we can say what is east.
35:49
SPEAKER_02: I'll just blame the no sleep.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: Totally.
35:55
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, you're in the middle east, you're you have twins and a third baby.
36:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's that's a little crazy.
36:04
SPEAKER_02: That's a little not everyone goes through that.
36:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean, obviously through your writing, it's produced your journey has produced really great fruit.
36:12
SPEAKER_02: But talk a little bit about that and that experience.
36:15
SPEAKER_02: And oh my goodness, you wouldn't wish that on your best, you know, your worst enemy.
36:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, the word is it was gnarly.
36:23
SPEAKER_03: You know, it's just gnarly.
36:24
SPEAKER_03: It's a it's uh it's it was extreme and it was difficult, and it was also this like enormous adventure.
36:32
SPEAKER_03: And I think what we forget is that adventures are amazing, but they're also can be very hard.
36:37
SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, I think what I learned, um one of the greatest lessons I learned through all of that is that um, first of all, when I was in it, I all I could think about was why this was so hard and why I couldn't make it, why it could it didn't feel easier, why I couldn't make it easier, and why I couldn't make it look better on social media.
36:58
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's the truth, you know?
37:00
SPEAKER_03: And I was watching other mothers, I was watching other women whose kids were much older and who um just had more capacity or just had older kids at a different season of life.
37:11
SPEAKER_03: And it just felt like they were doing this with such ease.
37:13
SPEAKER_03: And why couldn't I, you know?
37:15
SPEAKER_03: And if you were to tell me now that you were going through something like that, I would have such great compassion for you, you know.
37:21
SPEAKER_03: But I could muster absolutely no compassion for myself.
37:24
SPEAKER_03: And I always say you can be in really challenging circumstances.
37:30
SPEAKER_03: But here's the thing I know about us as women we're we're we're actually very strong, we're very resilient, and we can get ourselves and our kids through a lot of things.
37:36
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
37:37
SPEAKER_03: But what will paralyze us faster than any stress is when we are in the ring with ourselves and we are not on our own team.
37:45
SPEAKER_03: You know, there's that amazing line from Oh, the places you'll go by Dr.
37:49
SPEAKER_03: Seuss.
37:49
SPEAKER_03: You guys have read that book to your kids?
37:52
SPEAKER_03: And this line, I mean, this thing is like so gorgeous.
37:55
SPEAKER_03: He he writes, I'm afraid that sometimes you'll play lonely games too, games you can't win because you'll play against you.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
38:04
SPEAKER_03: If that could that's the summary of that experience for me.
38:07
SPEAKER_03: And so what I've learned from that is how significant it is to have compassion for ourselves, to treat ourselves as we would a dear friend instead of an enemy.
38:17
SPEAKER_03: And um, how that's actually a discipline and a practice.
38:20
SPEAKER_03: It's we don't wait till that feels easy or feels good.
38:22
SPEAKER_03: We we think about how do I love my closest friends?
38:26
SPEAKER_03: Could I love myself in that way right now?
38:28
SPEAKER_03: And then also I think the other big the big thing from that is um how many times God personally and intimately reached out to me to remind me that you can be on the far side of the sea and I can still find you and I can still see you and I love you.
38:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
38:47
SPEAKER_02: That's beautiful.
38:49
SPEAKER_02: I think in that whole sorry, we're all getting emotional.
38:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because we just realize how like I think through those years too, for I think it's I had two kids 14 months apart.
39:01
SPEAKER_02: I had three kids in three and a half years, you know, and that too, and just like away from family and it wasn't like over the ocean.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: But I I I think like I beat myself up so much and I worked harder.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: And I because I was trying to like make it easier, you know, or like thinking like like you said, like I'm that there's something wrong or flat or I need to do something better, or you know, like I've gotta make them sleep or I you know, whatever it is, or eat this or do that or get healthy.
39:27
SPEAKER_02: And instead, when I think a lot of that time is uh was like I was actually being invited to rest.
39:33
SPEAKER_02: And like you said, even figure out what you know, I I share with other moms that whole idea of um you know radical self-care soul time, I call it, and you don't devote a chapter to it and then have other women share their ideas of what that could look like.
39:49
SPEAKER_02: And man, I why I didn't do that for myself um so often.
39:53
SPEAKER_02: I just go, you know, because who loses out?
39:56
SPEAKER_02: Those that you love most, because you're fighting yourself through it instead of everybody loses in that scenario.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: There's no winner.
40:06
unknown: Yeah.
40:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I if you guys have read the chapter called Bullying versus Believing in the book, um, this is a nice segue into that concept where I think, and especially in the early years of motherhood, but certainly in other seasons of life too, we believe that if we just push and punish and bully ourselves more, we'll get to where we want to go.
40:27
SPEAKER_03: You know, and as women also like think about January 1, you know, we're thinking about how can I deprive, starve, run myself into the body that I want, for example, you know, and so a lot of our mentality is, I think, and I don't know if this is cultural or I don't know what it is, but um, if I can just punish myself enough, bully, I I like the word bully.
40:49
SPEAKER_03: If I just bully myself enough, I'll get where I want to go.
40:53
SPEAKER_03: And um I think that we don't bully ourselves into new territory.
40:58
SPEAKER_03: We believe ourselves there.
41:00
SPEAKER_03: And here's just kind of briefly what I mean by that is that um we can bully ourselves into behavior modification.
41:09
SPEAKER_03: We can do the same things with our kids, right?
41:11
SPEAKER_03: Think about an abusive parent.
41:13
SPEAKER_03: You can hit your child, an abusive parent can hit their child and make them do what they want them to do, right?
41:19
SPEAKER_03: That's behavior modification and it's based on fear.
41:22
SPEAKER_03: It's not based on love, it's not based on a greater vision for our lives, it's based on fear.
41:27
SPEAKER_03: Um, or but believing in ourselves is a larger vision for our lives, believing that we deserve more, believing that we carry within us the image of God.
41:38
SPEAKER_03: And so we don't want anything to come in the way of that.
41:41
SPEAKER_03: And so we want to live out of that God-given image.
41:44
SPEAKER_03: That is a whole different motivation than if you could just get your act together, you would be skinnier, a better mom, um, you'd have your life more organized.
41:53
SPEAKER_03: Do you understand?
41:54
SPEAKER_03: I mean, do you see how that those are two totally separate mentalities?
41:57
SPEAKER_03: My mom said to me a long time ago, people do not make lasting change from a place of weakness, they make it from a place of strength.
42:04
SPEAKER_03: And so I I think that this is gospel, that God is inviting us and leading us into new territory because it's better for us, not because we're bad and we're a failure and we're awful.
42:16
SPEAKER_03: But how do we what we we turn that on ourselves, right?
42:20
SPEAKER_03: Like if I was just better, if I wasn't such a failure, if I wasn't messing up time and time again, I could get it right.
42:26
SPEAKER_03: It's that's never going to be motivation for transformation.
42:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
42:29
SPEAKER_02: Well, not lasting transformation, and that's right.
42:32
SPEAKER_02: For sure.
42:33
SPEAKER_02: That just miserable hot mess over and over again.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: Sure enough, I tried that.
42:38
SPEAKER_03: Sure enough, it's I mean, we all do it.
42:41
SPEAKER_03: And and I like I said before, it's a discipline to forge a new relationship with yourself.
42:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a discipline.
42:48
SPEAKER_03: It's like I'm gonna not be in an adversarial relationship with myself anymore, right?
42:53
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna start thinking about the things that I do, the ways I talk to and talk about the people in my life that I love the most.
42:59
SPEAKER_03: And I'm gonna start using that language on myself.
43:02
SPEAKER_03: Whoa, what a radical concept.
43:04
SPEAKER_03: You know, like really quick, I just want to say this.
43:07
SPEAKER_03: I think about the people in my life, the the warrior sisters in my life that I am like obsessed with, that I truly love.
43:14
SPEAKER_03: Not just people that I see at church.
43:15
SPEAKER_03: Hi, how you doing?
43:16
SPEAKER_03: How you doing?
43:16
SPEAKER_03: But like those women that are like a part of my soul.
43:19
SPEAKER_03: And if they say, you know, I'm struggling and I need prayer and I'm going through this really tough thing in my marriage, I say, come over, you know, and I make them the cop their coffee the way they like it, and I get them their water the way they like it.
43:30
SPEAKER_03: And I light the really expensive anthropology candle for them, right?
43:34
SPEAKER_03: That I would never light for myself.
43:36
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
43:36
SPEAKER_03: And I say, come in and sit down and let's talk about it.
43:38
SPEAKER_03: And she's and she says to me, you know, this thing that's been going on in my marriage for the last year, it's still going on and it's still really hard.
43:44
SPEAKER_03: And I don't say to her, you know, oh, you know, do you know how many times you've needed prayer?
43:49
SPEAKER_03: Such a burden.
43:50
SPEAKER_03: You know, I don't say that.
43:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but I but I say that to myself.
43:54
SPEAKER_03: Why can't you just get it together?
43:56
SPEAKER_03: You know, you're such a burden to you, the people around you, right?
43:58
SPEAKER_03: And I just say to my friends.
44:00
SPEAKER_03: I see you, and this is so hard.
44:02
SPEAKER_03: I love you and come over at any time.
44:04
SPEAKER_03: And I'll always make you coffee the way you like it.
44:06
SPEAKER_03: And we'll always burn the really the one that costs six dollars a minute to burn.
44:09
SPEAKER_03: It's fine.
44:13
SPEAKER_02: And so I got it going right now in honor.
44:18
SPEAKER_03: Turn some of that treatment and love and empathy on myself.
44:23
SPEAKER_03: And that's not gonna make me soft or you know, slothful or prideful.
44:28
SPEAKER_03: Right.
44:29
SPEAKER_03: I mean, none of that.
44:30
SPEAKER_03: It's gonna, it's gonna motivate change.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
44:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, change coming from love, from a place of love in yourself and from accepting the love that he has for us.
44:42
SPEAKER_03: And you guys know there's a chapter right on the heels of that that says love is the fuel.
44:47
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, right.
44:48
SPEAKER_03: Love is the fuel for that, for that, that transforming grace in our lives.
44:53
SPEAKER_03: It is it is God's, it is motivated for us from love.
44:57
SPEAKER_03: And I think some of us that grew up in in in in the church, certain kinds of traditions of the church, it's God trying to um modify our behavior, right?
45:07
SPEAKER_03: It's what's uh the fuel.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:09
SPEAKER_03: And it's a totally different thing to sit in God's love for us and realize it's it's your kindness that leads us to redemption.
45:18
SPEAKER_03: It's not it's not your um judgment.
45:21
SPEAKER_00: Right.
45:22
SPEAKER_03: It's your love for us because you want something more for us.
45:24
SPEAKER_03: We don't deserve to keep hurting ourselves.
45:26
SPEAKER_03: You don't want that for us, you know.
45:27
SPEAKER_03: It's beautiful when we can really sit in that and marinate in it.
45:32
SPEAKER_02: That's that's the yeah, key.
45:34
SPEAKER_02: Staying and sitting and not just doing to work.
45:39
SPEAKER_02: Okay, because I know you wrote about a little bit and were both advocates, but speak to because I was sharing I was sharing some of this with a friend who's going through a lot.
45:51
SPEAKER_02: And um she didn't have the whole context of the book, but it brought up, well, what about the need for counseling?
45:59
SPEAKER_02: Are you saying that this is just something or therapy or whatever you want to call it?
46:03
SPEAKER_02: Um because you have your own unique experience.
46:06
SPEAKER_02: And you know, she was like, Well, I I think this is all well and good, but I think, you know, sometimes you just need that.
46:13
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, oh yes, yes, you know, and here's the context of the book, and yes, you know, um in your situation, that's exactly what you need to be doing.
46:21
SPEAKER_02: And we're talking about this is you know, this is bigger than just rerouting the traffic in your mind.
46:27
SPEAKER_02: This is, you know, reprogramming and you know, asking someone else for help.
46:32
SPEAKER_02: So just talk a little bit about what you what led to your decision to reach out for help outside just friends.
46:39
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, maybe as women are like, okay, maybe I need more help than just sitting talking over coffee.
46:45
SPEAKER_03: Oh, that I'm so glad you're bringing this up.
46:47
SPEAKER_03: This is everything.
46:48
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so in my life, what I've realized is I need my tribe, which are my um my relationships around me.
46:56
SPEAKER_03: It's like my circle, like I said, my warrior sisters.
46:58
SPEAKER_03: That's my tribe.
46:59
SPEAKER_03: And I meet with my tribe um on in some way, at least a few times a month, and we talk about what is actually really going on in our lives.
47:08
SPEAKER_03: We don't talk about a book, we don't talk about this concept from scripture, although those things get brought in.
47:14
SPEAKER_03: We actually sit down and talk about what is really going on in our lives.
47:17
SPEAKER_03: And that has been, that has been, I've done that for uh over a dozen years, and it is absolutely a lifeline.
47:26
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
47:26
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so we need that tribe, we need that um that uh community.
47:32
SPEAKER_03: The other thing we all need is a guide.
47:35
SPEAKER_03: So, and and I mean this separate from the Holy Spirit.
47:38
SPEAKER_03: I mean a person that's a trained professional guide in our lives.
47:42
SPEAKER_03: And this is another thing that I just described to is um we need those that cushion of those parallel relationships, but we need someone who's ahead of us and who can walk us through.
47:52
SPEAKER_03: And for me, that's been a therapist in certain seasons, and that's also been um, and or a spiritual director in certain seasons.
48:00
SPEAKER_03: I think that can be a pastor, but I also want to caution that I think sometimes it needs to be a person trained in helping people walk through the emotional journey of their lives.
48:09
SPEAKER_03: A lot of the things that have happened to us, especially in our early years, are blocking us.
48:14
SPEAKER_03: And um, they're blocking us from God, they're blocking us in our bodies, the trauma.
48:19
SPEAKER_03: And so we need someone who is trained in helping us walk through that.
48:23
SPEAKER_03: And um, you guys know the subtitle of the book is The Brave Practice of Releasing Hurt and Receiving Rest.
48:30
SPEAKER_03: I I personally don't have the skill to um lead myself through releasing some of the hurt in my own story.
48:38
SPEAKER_03: I have friends that want to come around me and support me as I'm doing that, but I need a guide to help me unpack the important points of my story, specifically the trauma.
48:50
SPEAKER_03: And I was I was saying earlier um in our conversation that um when I was nine, my parents went through a difficult divorce, and that just got that whole experience got stuck in my body, in my heart, yeah, yeah, in my journey.
49:06
SPEAKER_03: And how many times that nine-year-old girl is um, I'm giving you a really long answer because I think this is so important.
49:13
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's worth it.
49:14
SPEAKER_02: That's great.
49:15
SPEAKER_03: How many times that nine-year-old girl is in charge of my life?
49:19
SPEAKER_03: Her fear, her paralysis, her pain, her sense of like, where is everybody?
49:26
SPEAKER_03: And and does anyone see me and what I'm going through?
49:30
SPEAKER_03: And she becomes the person who's parenting my children.
49:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, she becomes the loudest voice in my marriage.
49:35
SPEAKER_03: And there are things that that nine-year-old girl wants to say to us that are invaluable.
49:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but she cannot be the person who's in charge all the time.
49:44
SPEAKER_03: We will make decisions out of fear and being frantic and just trying to quell her uh trauma.
49:50
SPEAKER_03: So I I can't um I believe God can heal us from anything, but I believe God uses trained professionals to help us walk through specifically things like that in our lives.
50:03
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
50:04
SPEAKER_03: And help us talk to and meet with that nine-year-old girl.
50:08
SPEAKER_03: Sit down and look at her.
50:09
SPEAKER_03: What do you need to say to me?
50:10
SPEAKER_03: Bring Jesus into the room to and um lead us beyond hers to where she's an integrated part of us, but her fear and her woundedness is not the loudest thing online.
50:23
SPEAKER_04: Right.
50:24
SPEAKER_03: Um, that has been a journey that has required a guide for me.
50:29
SPEAKER_03: So I just ask women to look at their lives.
50:31
SPEAKER_03: Do you have some?
50:32
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't take a hundred, but do you have at least one person in your tribe that you can talk to about what's really going on in your life?
50:38
SPEAKER_03: And then do you have a guide?
50:39
SPEAKER_03: Maybe it's a mentor, maybe it's a pastor, but I think there are seasons in our lives where it needs to be a therapist, a counselor, someone trained in helping us walk through trauma.
50:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
50:50
SPEAKER_02: Because it takes a unique skill set to, like you said, be able to identify that, not um you don't want to get rid of that person because that nine-year-old girl is still important and value and who valuable in who you are.
51:06
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's it's allowing her the freedom to speak in the right time and freeing her voice, but not when you're angry at your kids.
51:19
SPEAKER_03: Right, or you're scared because you've got to make a decision about where to send your kids to school.
51:24
SPEAKER_03: And she is frantic because she's been abandoned and she has been ignored at times.
51:29
SPEAKER_03: And so she is so worried for your kids that your kids are going to go through the same thing.
51:33
SPEAKER_03: And so she's screaming at the top of her lungs.
51:35
SPEAKER_03: And you're trying to make a decision about your kids' school, and she is is you're up at night because she's screaming so loud in your ear.
51:43
SPEAKER_03: Right.
51:44
SPEAKER_02: Oh, really good.
51:46
SPEAKER_02: Well, and um oh dang it, I've done that.
51:49
SPEAKER_03: Of course.
51:52
SPEAKER_03: So we take what we learn, what we are unpacking in the counselor's office, the therapist's office, the spiritual director's office.
51:58
SPEAKER_03: We bring that and we we get with God with all of that written down in our journal or written down in our hearts, and we say, God, I feel and we bring it to him.
52:07
SPEAKER_03: And we let him help us unpack that and we allow his voice to speak into that.
52:12
SPEAKER_03: And and this is when I did that, and you guys know because I wrote about it in the book, of course, there's the chapter Bring Her to Me.
52:20
SPEAKER_03: Which is the thing, I've gotten more feedback on that chapter than any other chapter in the book by far.
52:25
SPEAKER_02: Because I have not heard anyone say it like that.
52:28
SPEAKER_03: Huh.
52:28
SPEAKER_03: I it was profound.
52:30
SPEAKER_02: So I it was odd.
52:32
SPEAKER_03: This is a great example of me be sitting with the counselor, sitting with this, I was actually my spiritual director during this season, and us talking about this nine-year-old girl and her bringing up to her bringing up to me the role of this nine-year-old girl in my life, and that we don't eradicate her and reject her, but somehow we also can't let her be the loudest voice in our lives, right?
52:51
SPEAKER_03: Because she's a child, and now we're an adult, and so we have to move into the world as an adult.
52:57
SPEAKER_03: And so um I brought that concept to God one morning, and that is what God said to me, Liana.
53:06
SPEAKER_03: You are trying to carry her around on your back.
53:08
SPEAKER_03: You're trying to love her and help her because you're scared if you don't, she will go through this whole abandonment thing all over again.
53:15
SPEAKER_03: And she is taking over your life, and she's causing you to enter into your life and into your decisions with such great fear and anxiety.
53:24
SPEAKER_03: So, what I need you to do is bring her to me.
53:28
SPEAKER_03: And it was this gorgeous conversation about taking her off my back, putting her down in front of me, scooping her up and all of her great neediness and bringing her to God and realizing that He could do more for her than I ever could.
53:44
SPEAKER_03: And he said to me, You can come back and see her whenever you need to.
53:47
SPEAKER_03: She's gonna have things to tell you, and you're gonna have things to tell her.
53:51
SPEAKER_03: But in the meantime, you can go out and be free, and I'm gonna take great care of her.
53:55
SPEAKER_03: So I'm not rejecting her, but I'm also not spending my life schlepping her around and trying to meet all these needs for her that I cannot.
54:02
SPEAKER_00: Right.
54:02
SPEAKER_03: That I can that's really good.
54:06
SPEAKER_02: Wow, I don't want this conversation to end up either.
54:10
SPEAKER_02: That's really good.
54:13
SPEAKER_02: Liana, thank you so much.
54:15
SPEAKER_02: You're so welcome.
54:16
SPEAKER_02: We all have that.
54:18
SPEAKER_03: Oh, thank you.
54:19
SPEAKER_03: We all have that that young that young version of ourselves that needs love and healing and comfort.
54:27
SPEAKER_03: And we have, I think part of the journey of beginning again is learning how to be with her and learning how to allow God to be with her and um just the transformation and the healing that that creates.
54:39
SPEAKER_02: So good.
54:40
SPEAKER_02: That is so good.
54:41
SPEAKER_02: Well, since it's summertime, um, I want to transition a little bit.
54:46
SPEAKER_02: Um, but Ashley, did you have anything else to say?
54:49
SPEAKER_02: I can't.
54:50
SPEAKER_02: You can't, okay.
54:52
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm sort of taken over because Ashley is thinking she wants to say, but she can't.
54:55
SPEAKER_00: I can't because I'll just blubber.
54:57
SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.
54:57
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's okay.
54:58
SPEAKER_00: It's okay if you need to.
55:00
SPEAKER_02: I know that's oh no, it's all right.
55:02
SPEAKER_02: Um Ashley was desperate for because she is like a mess, needed Kleenex, and I normally have a box of Kleenix here, and I didn't know.
55:12
SPEAKER_02: And so I know, I know.
55:14
SPEAKER_02: So it's um sweet lord.
55:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I told you I was like so sad that she wasn't gonna be here.
55:19
SPEAKER_02: Don't let this fall on you.
55:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
55:21
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
55:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because um you can why don't you talk?
55:25
SPEAKER_02: We can edit a little bit.
55:26
SPEAKER_02: Just a couple minutes.
55:27
SPEAKER_02: We have a couple more minutes.
55:29
SPEAKER_02: Just pass it.
55:31
SPEAKER_01: This is the process I'm in.
55:34
SPEAKER_01: And there's some things like I can't identify yet.
55:37
SPEAKER_01: Why have all these fears?
55:40
SPEAKER_01: But they're there.
55:41
SPEAKER_01: It is funny.
55:42
SPEAKER_01: I just emailed my therapist this morning because I was I had an appointment with her yesterday.
55:46
SPEAKER_01: And afterwards, it was just like I've just bobbed.
55:50
SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden all these emotions popped out, and I was just feeling really it's hard to explain.
55:55
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you've experienced it.
55:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:57
SPEAKER_01: Um but it just feels like I'm reacting to things that don't make sense.
56:02
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just some of it.
56:05
SPEAKER_01: I understand it's a little bit.
56:06
SPEAKER_01: It's like there's the parts that I know, like in relationships that I know where I've been hurt by this person.
56:11
SPEAKER_01: But then there's the face that goes way back that I know is older.
56:14
SPEAKER_01: Like it feels really old, like young, like a really young place, and it's terrified.
56:20
SPEAKER_01: And so that's why I was just emailed.
56:22
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I just realized I'm absolutely terrified of allowing somebody to love me in a really deep way.
56:27
SPEAKER_01: It makes no sense because it's what we all want.
56:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm absolutely terrified of it.
56:34
SPEAKER_01: So I'm just now really, I think, getting into the depths of you know, this young person.
56:40
SPEAKER_01: And we've done a lot of work.
56:41
SPEAKER_01: I've been seeing her for almost a year and a half and worked for a lot of things.
56:45
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, I'm just saying this is where I am right now, so it's just really hitting me.
56:50
SPEAKER_01: But it's good work.
56:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know it's important work to do, but I just thought that was a beautiful picture of taking her uh to God.
57:00
SPEAKER_01: Because I've just tried to stomp on her, basically.
57:03
SPEAKER_01: It's like just shove her down, stop acting that way.
57:05
SPEAKER_01: What's your problem?
57:06
SPEAKER_01: You know, instead of showing compassion, it's just been how can I squash this person and act like an adult?
57:12
SPEAKER_01: Why can't I just move on?
57:14
SPEAKER_01: You know?
57:14
SPEAKER_01: So it's just really, it's really good.
57:17
SPEAKER_03: And how it was explained to me, Ashley, is that um the more we do that, the louder she yells because she needs attention.
57:24
SPEAKER_03: Because it's not just attention, there's something she wants to tell us.
57:29
SPEAKER_03: There's something she's trying to tell you, and that's frightening.
57:33
SPEAKER_03: Yes, because what it is overwhelming, and it's overwhelming, and but the the more we avoid her or reject her or tell her to shut up or whatever, the more she's actually in control.
57:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I think that's what we're feeling.
57:46
SPEAKER_03: It's like, why am I having these huge feelings?
57:48
SPEAKER_03: Because she's really online trying to get our attention.
57:51
SPEAKER_03: And I remember uh the counselor saying to me, you know, I'd like you to do this exercise.
57:57
SPEAKER_03: I'd like you to sit down with her and just ask her what she wants to tell you.
58:01
SPEAKER_03: Sit in, sit, sit uh cross-legged and face to face and say, okay, I'm listening.
58:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm listening.
58:08
SPEAKER_03: And it is scary as a bad word.
58:12
SPEAKER_02: Right, stolen.
58:14
SPEAKER_03: Because she is the most unrefined version of you.
58:18
SPEAKER_03: She's raw, rah, raw.
58:20
SPEAKER_03: And it's like, what is she going to say?
58:24
SPEAKER_03: And she's a little bit like less socially refined, you know, right.
58:29
SPEAKER_03: She's gonna say things that might be wild or scary, or so I just so understand how raw and poignant this is.
58:37
SPEAKER_03: And I believe it is, it's not just important work, it's essential work.
58:41
SPEAKER_03: And you will come through it because you're doing it, and you will be um, you will have a level of freedom and rest that you haven't yet experienced.
58:51
SPEAKER_03: And I know that.
58:52
SPEAKER_03: I don't just say it, I know it.
58:55
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
58:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it sounds good.
58:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
58:58
SPEAKER_03: And thank you for sharing that so vulnerably.
59:00
SPEAKER_03: It is not easy to talk about.
59:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it isn't and so many are afraid to do the hard work, and I hope that, you know, if nothing else, there's so many takeaways from this conversation, from your book, from your life, is that um you just it's it's not worth trying to do it on your own and staying stuck and carrying that, you know, whatever it is on your back.
59:26
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
59:26
SPEAKER_02: Um it's hard, but it's so worth the freedom.
59:30
SPEAKER_02: Coming to the other side.
59:31
SPEAKER_03: And we teach our babies how to do this, right?
59:33
SPEAKER_03: We want to teach our babies how to do this when they hit up against hard things or they have trauma stuck in their bodies because we don't want to believe it, but they will.
59:40
SPEAKER_03: Yep, yep, yep.
59:41
SPEAKER_03: And we we gotta have we've gotta do it if we want to teach them how to do it and not get stuck in their lives.
59:47
SPEAKER_00: Right.
59:47
SPEAKER_00: I know that's so hard because I can already see it.
59:49
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I see it in one of my kids specifically.
59:51
SPEAKER_00: And so it it hurts to see it in um but I mean, if I can learn, you know, I can learn and then I'd be so happy to take them to someone who could help them as well.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, so that's really good.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, or just model you know, or model it, right?
1:00:06
SPEAKER_02: Model what to do with it.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_02: And modeling that you're going to get help.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_02: That it's not you just trying to muster through.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_03: Yes, normalize that there are seasons in life where we need extra support.
1:00:18
SPEAKER_03: This is what I say to my kids all the time.
1:00:20
SPEAKER_03: There are just seasons in life where we need extra support.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_03: You know, it's not like there's something wrong or with us, or it's just you just need more support.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_03: And isn't that a lesson we want our kids to carry with them into life?
1:00:31
SPEAKER_03: That you don't have to do it on your own, you don't have to figure everything out.
1:00:34
SPEAKER_03: That's not the spiritual journey, that's not the surrendered life with Christ.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_03: That sometimes we need extra help and support.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_03: Right.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's that's a message I think people really need to hear because not everybody believes that.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_00: They think, well, I've got Jesus and that's all I need.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_00: And he made us to meet each other.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_00: Sorry your dog said amen.
1:00:53
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_02: Some fright.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_03: My dog just got spayed two days ago.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_02: And so she's oh gosh, she's got this giant cone.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_03: Anyway, what this cone is this conversation is everything.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_03: Isn't it?
1:01:04
SPEAKER_03: We've had tornado sirens, and we've had dogs that are barking with cones on, and we've had children.
1:01:09
SPEAKER_03: Little kids who want to puke and like oh my gosh, you tried.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_03: That means there's something important that needs to come out of this and it's trying to get rid of it every time.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_02: This is huge.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_02: Like your book is I just I I feel like there are some books in here that I say like it's so important.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_02: These are one of them that I'm like, okay, if you only get one book this year, this is the book that you need to get because we all have our stuff.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_02: Like no one's exempt from this.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_02: Yes, maybe, maybe your perspective, you don't have a heart as hard of a time showing your nitty-gritty or you know, your failed self and all that sort of stuff.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_02: But we have all those things, you know, that we're kind of carrying around.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_02: And and even if we've done some work maybe 15, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago, you might have some more to do.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_02: That's okay, because life has happened since you collect more, it keeps coming.
1:02:00
SPEAKER_02: Because we live with people and humans, and that's just life.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_03: Well, for myself too, I've done a lot of work around this.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_03: And then all of a sudden, my twins turn the age that I was when my parents divorced.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_03: And it's like, whoa, I'm watching this little girl that's nine years old walk around in front of me.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_03: And that triggered some things that I was not expecting, you know, and it's not a failure to say, always we begin again.
1:02:27
SPEAKER_03: There's more work to do here because I don't want to parent my precious Lane out of that terrified nine-year-old self, right?
1:02:35
SPEAKER_03: So I've got to give her some attention and attend to her so that the the the warrior mother, Liana, yeah, can parent Lane, right?
1:02:44
SPEAKER_03: Sometimes we are that weak child, but we also have to remember that we're also that strong mother.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_03: And so how do we um nurture those parts of ourselves too?
1:02:52
SPEAKER_03: So that we can parent our children, you know, from our whole selves.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_03: Our whole selves.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_02: Well, all of the relationships.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_02: I think of my single friends or friends who don't have kids yet, and there's so many areas of influence that we can have um in just such greater measure if we are willing to do some of this hard work.
1:03:11
SPEAKER_02: Because the the work that we can do, the life we can bring, uh, you know, care, you know, bring other people on the same journey that we've been through, but just we can see we can see with greater love and greater greater clarity.
1:03:24
SPEAKER_02: We can see as God sees.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_02: I mean, because that's that's actually what we're supposed to do, you know, break our heart for what breaks yours.
1:03:30
SPEAKER_02: Let us see with your love, let's love what you love.
1:03:33
SPEAKER_02: And and I think those are the things that, you know, those hurts, those wounds that get in the way of doing, actually living that out, and we'd be so powerful and effective wherever the Lord has us, whatever season, um, if we're willing to do that.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_03: And I so agree, wouldn't it be remarkable if we were living, breathing, producing loving from not from a place of hurt, yeah, but from a place of rest.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_03: Yep, God given rest.
1:04:01
SPEAKER_03: I mean, imagine, imagine.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_02: It'd be amazing.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
1:04:07
SPEAKER_02: I mean, talk about a revival.
1:04:09
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:04:10
SPEAKER_02: That's what would happen.
1:04:11
SPEAKER_03: Right.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
1:04:15
SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, so obviously this conversation has come quite under fire, and I know why.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_02: Um that we've had to reschedule before, and I hope, by the way, the family emergency that you're okay, that whatever was happening, and you don't have to share details, but I'm so sorry, but I am really grateful that we were able to make this happen.
1:04:34
SPEAKER_03: You guys are so generous, and I appreciate I so appreciate you supporting the book and supporting the message of the book and and how it is.
1:04:43
SPEAKER_03: It's a it's an important, it has changed my life, and I believe that um it it can be a life-changing message for a lot of people.
1:04:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
1:04:51
SPEAKER_02: Well, before we let you go, what are some of you know the things that you have ahead?
1:04:55
SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna just be able to enjoy the summer with your kids?
1:04:58
SPEAKER_02: Do you have some travel?
1:04:59
SPEAKER_02: Are you hitting up the beach every, you know, five days a week?
1:05:04
SPEAKER_02: What does that look like for you?
1:05:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, a little jealous.
1:05:08
SPEAKER_03: I know, I know.
1:05:10
SPEAKER_03: My kids um still have another week of school.
1:05:12
SPEAKER_03: So it feels like we should be out because the sun is shining and the pool is sparkling, but they um they still have one more week of school.
1:05:19
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, we're gonna have some family time this summer.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_03: My mom turns turned 75 this summer, and my my little brother turns 40 this year.
1:05:29
SPEAKER_03: So we're gonna do a um a special family time together on the East Coast to celebrate those big milestone birthdays.
1:05:35
SPEAKER_03: And um, you know, we do go to the beach quite a bit, but we are spoiled to have a pool right here.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_03: So we end up spending so much in the pool.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_03: And yeah, and just the the being together around it in and around the pool is probably one of my favorite things.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_03: Eating, eating, um, eating dinner on the patio.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_03: That's one of my favorite things to do in the summer is just make a plate of like a charcuterie board and just sit on the patio and eat together.
1:05:59
SPEAKER_03: So we'll do all of that and and like I said, some fun family time too.
1:06:04
SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
1:06:04
SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm sure we're gonna be seeing more from you as the Lord allows, and just as you like I I think it comes from you willing to being willing to do the hard work.
1:06:14
SPEAKER_02: And I I think if we're willing to do the hard work, these are some of the things that it produces is these messages and being a freedom carrier.
1:06:22
SPEAKER_02: So thank you.
1:06:24
SPEAKER_02: Yes, thank you for having me.
1:06:25
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
1:06:26
SPEAKER_02: Have a wonderful day.
1:06:27
SPEAKER_02: Bye.
1:06:28
SPEAKER_02: You guys too, bye.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_02: Are you ready to accept the invitation to begin again?
1:06:34
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes in the journey to wholeheartedness, we can get mixed up thinking ambition, striving, and trying will get us to our end goal.
1:06:44
SPEAKER_02: The real practice of wholeheartedness is about being willing to fall apart and letting wrong mindsets and carefully constructed walls in our life to come down so we can surrender to his process.
1:06:56
SPEAKER_02: It's about less trying and more trusting of the Lord's goodness and his plans.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_02: Less striving and more surrender to his love and keeping of our hearts.
1:07:07
SPEAKER_02: I'd love to have you get Leanna's latest book, Begin Again.
1:07:11
SPEAKER_02: And if you resonated with this conversation, you might want to check out a few of our past conversations with authors like Christine Hoover and episode 47.
1:07:20
SPEAKER_02: And because this message for me anyway connects strongly to my journey in understanding Rest and Sabbath, I have to recommend our conversation with Shelley Miller, which is episode 29.
1:07:31
SPEAKER_02: And of course, my favorite are both the conversations with Sarah Hagerty, number 8 and 24, and they are rich with poetic wisdom.
1:07:42
SPEAKER_02: Also, we still have both of our mini-series available for you to join, and you'll get eight weeks of inspiration for more school time.
1:07:51
SPEAKER_02: And for you, Mamas, we have ideas glorious to create meaningful moments with your kids.
1:07:56
SPEAKER_02: Also, be on the lookout for our Instagram and Facebook for a July calendar that's easily printable from your phone and includes 31 ideas to better connect with your kids this summer.
1:08:09
SPEAKER_02: Hey, and thanks again for not keeping this podcast all to yourself.
1:08:13
SPEAKER_02: Seriously, each of your ratings, reviews, and your shares are truly important and valuable to us.
1:08:19
SPEAKER_02: Here's a review from Some of that.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_02: They write, this podcast has made me laugh and cry all in one episode.
1:08:28
SPEAKER_02: The truth presented has helped me as a parent in finding tools for engaging my kids.
1:08:32
SPEAKER_02: It has also touched the deep questions I've asked of God and has made me realize I am not alone.
1:08:38
SPEAKER_02: Listening to this podcast allows me the time I need to refocus and gain an internal perspective.
1:08:45
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much, Sumavat.
1:08:48
SPEAKER_02: Your review is a huge blessing and so encouraging.
1:08:52
SPEAKER_02: So, why don't you hop on your favorite podcast app and leave a review for us or even on our Facebook page?
1:08:58
SPEAKER_02: Until next week, we hope you'll be joining us as we discover more ways to live a simply wholehearted life.
1:09:05
SPEAKER_02: Unplugged, purposeful, and intentional.