Latest / The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast / A Blueprint to Build Your Wholehearted Table with Alli Patterson

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A Blueprint to Build Your Wholehearted Table with Alli Patterson · The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Simply Wholehearted Podcast with Amy Wicks, your wholehearted life and business coach.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: You should know this podcast will inspire you to grow in self-awareness, be passionate about your faith, and get clear on your calling.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: If you are new here, then welcome to a community of multi-passionate women who love to go deep on topics like faith, Enneagram, relationships, leadership, and community.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: This conversation might provide the step you need to make the change you desire.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: So let's get started.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: One of the most impactful ways to stay on this path and this journey to wholeheartedness is by intentionally building a table of people who reflect God's love, offer wise counsel, and provide life-giving friendship, comradeship, safety, and even community.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Jesus modeled this for us with his relationships and he demonstrated that we were never meant to navigate life alone.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's really clear.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: And yet many of us still struggle with loneliness or feel unsupported, even when we're surrounded by people and lots of human beings.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: But that's why I want to invite you to this important step of intentionally inviting the right voices into your table or to sit at your table, if you will.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to have voices who will encourage you, challenge you, and even help you to discern God's voice in every chapter of your life, or in every season, even the dark and difficult ones.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: In today's episode, I'm kicking off the new series, Building Your Wholehearted Table.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And today, Ali Patterson, who's a teaching pastor and author of Blueprint for Belonging, is going to help me begin this conversation.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Ali's book is a beautiful guide to redesigning your relational world using Jesus' example.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: She's going to share about the five types of relationships that Jesus prioritized and why building intentional relationships is transformative.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: And in addition, she's also going to give a few tips to how you surround yourself with people who can help you thrive.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: It really was the perfect conversation.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't ask for a better beginning to this concept.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it just was so rich.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: We could have kept talking.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: There was so much to share.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why you're going to want to get her book, Blueprint for Belonging.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you're also going to want to consider this.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Did you know your personality type is connected to your approach to relationships?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's true.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you've been curious to know how your unique wiring influences the way you connect with others, I'd love to talk with you.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually opening up my calendar right now to offer some more complimentary clarity calls.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: In these next couple weeks, you can grab a call with me and we can explore together how you can build the table that God is calling you to create in the year ahead.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you probably heard me talk about it in last episode.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's true there will be another summit happening in March.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's the Wholehearted Abundance Summit and all the details that are available as of right now, you can find in the show notes, including some details on special bonuses available for you.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Now let's dive right into this conversation with Allie Patterson.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Allie, I'm so glad to have you here.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to learn more about your new book that is Blueprint for Belonging.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's so timely, not only for my podcast series, but for the world where I'm hearing women time and time again talk about loneliness.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: And even though they're surrounded by a lot of people, they feel lonely.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, we're gonna unpack the book and we're gonna hear all sorts of bits and pieces of the wisdom that you've shared in it.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: But what has been most surprising for you or transformative as you wrote the book and as you're launching it?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's a whole thing.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it is a whole thing for sure.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thanks for having me on.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think as I wrote the book, I almost didn't write the book.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: And there's, I think it's the reason that um we all maybe feel a little bit of I felt like I should have figured out how to do relationships better by now.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I've been at it for a long time.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: I try to be a good friend, I feel like I should be better at this, you know.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was a little bit daunting to me.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I really realized, no, I have to push through this and just be a learner and a grower along with the topic of the book, because it really emerged to me from the life of Jesus.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was a little bit put off at first thinking I'm not the right one to bring this message out because I'm not even the best friend that I know, you know, let alone some big relationship expert.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I I heard and saw what you just said that most of the, especially women, because in smaller group settings, it tends to be single gender a lot.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: So in in I explored deeply this topic with women before I wrote the book, and I repeatedly heard about loneliness.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: And the tricky thing about that that I discovered as I was writing it is that we all experience it in very different ways.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: And as I put the book together, I began to realize oh, this explains so much, this idea of a blueprint, because we all have different pieces of it that are working and not working, that are in place and not in place.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: And that really changes how we experience the sensation of feeling alone.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like I have a husband I love and a great best friend, but I'm missing another significant part of the blueprint in my life.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: So when I feel lonely, we all use the same word, but we mean very different things by it.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think the the blueprint helps us get a little closer to how can I actually talk to God about this?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: How can I develop the relationships that I might be missing in those spaces where I experience that?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: So that's really what I began to see.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: And also, I don't know that I'm ever going to feel like, oh, I've got this all figured out.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm really good at relationships now because whoever feels like that?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: Whoever feels like that.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: So, and you know, if there's something helpful, I think from the pages of scripture, my goodness, we need to be talking about it.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: So a hundred percent.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, it's such a good point here that we tend to count ourselves out before even putting pen to paper because we think we have to be an expert or have it a hundred percent figured out and it be a thing of five, 10 years ago that we learned when I think the invitation as we write, if it's going to be quality, is that we're living it out and figuring it out.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And we have current language and current experience and even current empathy for what we're speaking to.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I know that I know that that's how the book reads because that's where I am.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there are some pieces that I think, oh, my experience with this piece is a little bit more positive, a little bit more finished.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: I can talk with a little bit more authority about that.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then other places, I'm like, I can tell you what it looks like to mess this up a lot.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully that's helpful, you know.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: So it's definitely um, it's definitely been a journey and one that sort of continues in my life.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it was really good to see that as I started to get language around some of the things that are in the book, it really explained to me a spot in my own life that I would have long since told you was a struggle for me.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it explained it exactly.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: So it was like it was holding up well with my own experience of my own relationships and my own life, which is of course the Bible does that, but surprise, surprise.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: Right, surprise.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: But it is it is helpful to see that an ancient life and what God has for us in the life of his son is still so incredibly helpful for us, even now when we do relationships in very, very different ways with different tools and all that kind of stuff.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you also kind of hinted at that there's right now you have a great marriage relationship and you have the best friend and partner, comrade.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this speaks to the reality that we are all building a relationship table and each of us is gonna have a unique setup where we have gaps in certain empty seats in certain places, gaps in certain.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: So if we're if we're speaking to the friend who's still single and waiting for her spouse, that might be the chapter or the the relationship that's gonna speak the loudest to the the you know, the loudest longing, if you will, where and but they might have all the other seats filled really well.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that might be flourishing and bountiful and so good to do two things to acknowledge we don't none of us have every seat filled every chapter of our life.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's just the reality because people come and go.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: We sometimes move or they move or we grow, we mature past one another, different elements that or just different capacities.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so to be able to note the longing, but also that I do have these things in place that are really positive, really wonderful.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I think I find that incredibly encouraging, especially in that example you gave, but really from anyone's vantage point, it equally helps you put your finger on the longing that you might have for a particular kind of relationship, but it very much encourages and solidifies your view on the ones that you do have.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: And the beautiful thing about what I started to get a hold of as I looked at the life of Jesus and wrote the book is that your soul, like the way we were knit together, the way that we were created is for relational connection.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: And while we as humans, we might have a priority order.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sure.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: We actually have a desire list of all of these kinds for our soul to feel alive, for us to be truly human and fully thriving.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so, in wonderful ways, if you're missing one, you're like, okay, really?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's not necessarily more important than this other type.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, it gives you a whole blueprint, you know, the the sort of design that God was um showing us through through the life of Jesus.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it really, if you overlay that on yours, there'll be parts that are like, yeah, that's amazing.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: I totally have that.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I never even think about it because it's working so well.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so it can also be just a source of really big encouragement if there is a longing that you feel.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because we just place a lot of priority and importance on certain kinds.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not sure they're always the ones that are truly going to do what we hope they will do for our thriving.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, for sure.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because then now we're talking about expectations and uh unspoken demands that we might even be placing on someone to fulfill or satisfy a longing that they were never meant to.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm I'm curious for you.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Was there a moment?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, you've learned a lot through the book and you even questioned, should I be the one?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: But was what was the moment or a catalyst that you realized, oh, you needed to be more intentional with your relationships?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe it told you something about your personality.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I know we we talk about Enneagram type here.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay that if you don't know it, but maybe it would be like maybe it connects to it, which I think a lot of times it does.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you can tell me since you're probably much more of an expert than I am, but I think I have a couple of clues, and we'll just you can play detective with me for a minute.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: I took the Enneagram like in an abbreviated version.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: So basically the output was a pie chart that was like, you're probably, and it would tell you the percent that you probably are this.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: So my big two pieces of the pie were eight and five.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, it seems like fives are easy to identify.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm going to guess that I'm an eight based on the results and my reading and things like that.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you can tell me, I think what I'm about to say fits that, but you can educate me a little bit.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: What I've seen in my life is a struggle to build a circle.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, like the in the book, I talk about your core as your closest view.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: Your circle is your kind of dozen, let's say.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: These would have been the disciples in the life of Jesus when we have a look at his public ministry years.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: It would have been like, it's like your friends, you're 10 to 15 people in your life that you're just regularly with.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: That has always been a struggle for me to build.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that I realized over time is that I will default to alone.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: I will work alone, I will do it alone, I will get it done by myself.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like if I need to, I'll just be by myself.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I also have a history that God has put his finger on and really um increased my freedom over time, but it's just still there in my life.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: Is part of your story.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, part of my story is just a struggle with rejection.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so those two things do not help you build a circle.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: No, because when you build a circle, you are inviting, connecting, you're rhythmic with people, you're with them a lot, you're playing, you're being invited and you're accepting invitations.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: And if you struggle with rejection, that's gonna be difficult, especially if you do not if you are not received sometimes.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: And in my work life, I will go, you know what?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: I can just do this by myself, you know.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'll just get this done by myself.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Or get it, you know.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna rely on others, yes.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, I think those dynamics, which are pieces of my story, probably pieces of my personality, are they have made, and I'm a mom of four.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: And kids at most stages, not at every stage, but at most stages, take up that circle like space because you're for sure, especially as they become teenagers and adults.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Which all of mine are teenagers, and um I so I just I'm I'm a little crowded already in that space with with four kids that I'm with all the time and things like that.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: So all of those dynamics have added up to what I've my moments where I feel lonely are the times where I want someone to hang with.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to go for a run with someone.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: I want you to ask me to your barbecue.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: If I have a gathering, I really don't want you to say no, because that's really gonna hurt my feelings.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: So sometimes we'll put me off of even asking.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: So all of those things will have made it a challenge for me to build what what we call in the book a circle, which is a really obvious realm of relationship in our life, but it's been my biggest challenge.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you for sharing this.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: I I really just appreciate the vulnerability because um I I think I think a lot of women would go, yeah, me too.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um I find that right.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I I love this, and I'll just give a little caveat, a little Enneagram speech.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: I never tell someone what their type is.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's not my job, but I get to guide someone to the understanding better of who they are and how they're wired and their core longing and core desires.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so what I think is kind of fun, we'll we'll tie this back and forth to the desire, you know, blueprint for belonging.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all of us are wanting to belong.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: And what does that look like?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: What tends to also be our um the hiccup or our obstacle or where we tend to trip up the most and building relationships.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so from the Enneagram perspective, what's interesting to know is the five and eight are very much connected.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: They're it's not yeah, even though they're not numbers together, they are connected in lines of integration and disintegration.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: For the eight, the disintegration line is the five.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the so the eight that's normally more assertive and more um going towards others and looking to engage others when they feel um fearful of being betrayed or they have been rejected, or it doesn't feel safe to be vulnerable, they go to the low side of the five.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: So they pull away and they kind of close in and they say, No, I not today.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um I can't do this.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: Does that feel familiar?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's so familiar because I um I think I live, I have lived in that space for a long time.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: And most people that would have known me over time would say I would be someone that would come toward others.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: But for many years, that that just in practice would not have been true.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: Not because I would have trouble building a relationship, but because for whatever reason, I I just wouldn't or couldn't.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that that does check out.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um one of the things that I also do when you said that it's the line of disintegration for an eight, one of the things I'll do in my work if I'm stressed is I I will over-research things.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like I will I will go to like, if I can't figure this out, the answer is there somewhere.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: I am going to figure this out.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like I will practice, you know, and I'll go to, I think, what is five behavior, which is more of a natural researcher curiosity digger inner, but I'll really I will go to that when in times of stress.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it feels the most comfortable in and in this, I'll use this big word, maladaptive behavior.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because while it is good to be a researcher, you're you're going to research as a way to satisfy the pain point instead of the real step, right?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I I've seen my I some of my most dear friends are eights.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I've seen this pattern of behavior play out in real time in the hardest moments of their story.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we've been able to talk about it.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: What's so great is every once in a while we give each other a nudge and be like, hey, you're doing that thing again.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Doing the thing.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Whether, you know, whether it looks more like doom scrolling or it seems all great because they're doing all this research, but they're staying up till 1 a.m.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: and not getting enough sleep and trying to satisfy some itch that they can never scratch.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when it, you know, oh, this is coming out of a place of disintegration or stress or unhealth.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of I'm I'm just becoming wiser and I'm just, you know, doing this to learn more.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: When I was in seminary is a beautiful example of that because when I was learning in seminary, I would sometimes, I know I'm I'm like, I guess I'm gonna say this.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: I would sometimes be so in love with what I was learning that I would cry when I would write a paper.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's like so beautiful.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like this is so powerful and so good.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: And and it it like blesses me to the degree that I just I would cry.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm so blessed to be able to study this and to know God better through that that vein.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it was such a deep blessing to me in so many ways.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's that beautiful, yeah.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is, and and it's very different than the frenetic, I'm gonna figure this out, get to the bottom of it, research it to death so I can have the right answer and be confident again.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's a 100%.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I love that you bring that up because that is the the beautiful idea about the past and Enneagram speak is that it goes both ways.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I've likened it to uh a lot of my family lives in Colorado.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: So Kansas City to Colorado, I-70.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um when you're supposed to be going west, you know, or when you're going to go to Colorado, you're supposed to be going west.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: When you're supposed to be going, you know, to Kansas City, you're supposed to be going east.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I've gone the wrong way accidentally, getting off and on the freeway.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a terrible story, but true.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: But ultimately, none of them are bad things.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's good to go to Colorado and it's good to go to Kansas City, but we need to know what direction we need to go when at Right time, right?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think this brings up that point is like the five piece of you is such a gift, not only to you, but to the world when you're supposed to be going that direction, right?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm such a learner.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm I'm an avid lover of I'm I'm just like I could sit for hours, and that's why when I saw the pie when I did the Enneagram, I was like, maybe I am a five, because I mean you can see the books behind me in my study.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like I sit for hours.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'll get curious about something when I'm reading, and I'll see you later.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like after I go down the rabbit hole of like, where was that place?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: And what is that thing?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not for a reason, it's because I love I love it just brings you joy.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: It it brings me joy, it makes me feel connected to God.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just go for it.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a little bit, it's a huge blessing.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I've definitely seen the the dark side of that.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, my mind racing at three o'clock in the morning going, I will crack this, you know, one way or the other.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll get up and go, like, I'm gonna write down these four things, and that's gonna give me the answer.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I love it.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, when you decide to go down more of the rabbit hole or, you know, the rabbit trail of Enneagram, you'll I always encourage people to look at those core desires and longings and see how those speak to you.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for some people, it's not always clear because sometimes we haven't felt permission to name some of that.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: But for others, people will read it and go, like, oh yeah, that that's it.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: That is true, more than even behavior.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Behavior sometimes can indicate, but really those phrases I think should well, you know, grab us a little bit.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I love it.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks for indulging.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: I this is so fun to learn about it.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's fun, it's one of those things that's fun to talk about.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it's almost um, I love talking to others who know it better because I don't, I'm not like entrenched in what I think I am.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just like, I I think this is a good thing.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's fun to explore and talk about.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: It is, it is.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've loved it.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's been um a fun theme to weave in through the years, and it's been very helpful to um make it a piece of my coaching.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the only thing I coach with or any the only tool I use, but oh man, it it just it's so helpful for the doors that it opens and the aha's it gives.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: So sure.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in that, I mean we we could probably create a whole episode of maybe the different obstacles or the the hindrances that get in our way for building relationships.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: But as we're talking about and exploring about building our table over the next several weeks and maybe actually really that next couple of months, how do we begin to understand how to intentionally choose um who sits with us and who speaks to our lives into our lives?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: How can someone start assessing that and determine who they still need at their table?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: Great question.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um so what I was really interested in as I looked at that through the book is types of people.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, not so much like, yes, through the book, I even ask people to write down like who's coming to mind as you read this chapter and like space right in the book where just jot those people down, you know, name name those names so you can put your head around them.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: But as I think about it now that I've looked at the book like this, I think about um the fact that I over or underdevelop certain parts of my table or this blueprint of relationships, if you will, um, because I truly value certain relationships more.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so I have built them better over time, the ones that I am either better at building or I just naturally value because of who I am.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so part of the trick for me was realizing there's there's some types of relationships that I have undervalued, that God values, that I have undervalued.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so part of the trick for me is realizing like, where are my tendencies actually tripping me up as far as like as I look at the relationships in my life, I I highly value my core few.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: I would be hard pressed to tell you a time in my life where I did not have a pretty solid core.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's a really good indication that I'm not only comfortable there, I'm skilled at that, I'm I'm able to do the things that it takes to build that.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's not everybody.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: I have drastically undervalued another part of the blueprint that I just refer to as community.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's a larger realm, it's more varied.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: It tends to be um people that are not necessarily going the same direction as us, that we just get to know in other kind of random ways in our life.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: We sort of collect people over time.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I will tend to let people like that just pass out of my life quickly as though they don't mean much.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's cool.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so as I really understood, like, what is this realm and how did Jesus treat these people in his life?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: I began to have a higher value for them in my life and to realize, like, oh wow, um I have just been, I've treated this whole realm of relationship like it's disposable.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's highly valuable to have somebody that's known me for 20 years, even if we're not best buddies anymore.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's very, very valuable in a totally different kind of way.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, as I began to get a hold of my own, just my own judgments, I think would be a good word.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like I have just my own judgments about what sorts of people are the most important or less important, I realized my relational patterns kind of follow that.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: And and this book and The Life of Jesus has challenged me in a couple of those ways to realize that I have undervalued certain kinds of people in my life.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's gonna be so interesting to hear how that hits um people because I'm sure for some, they're like, Oh, yeah, I didn't even think about that before because we are called to be intentional with all of those realms, which leads me to we keep talking about the blueprint, and that is part of the title, but you have an actual blueprint.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, and for us to be able to have a visual.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, can you talk us through that visual as those that are listening?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so we can get kind of a picture of what we're working on.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it is not the beautiful part, is it is not complicated, but it's really easy to see in your own life once you can see the picture of it.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought, what better thing to do than just make a picture of it?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just write right on it.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: I just made my own blueprint with my own set of names many times.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so the smallest realm, I'll start from the middle and go out is your core.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: And in the life of Jesus, if you know his life well, you would recognize Peter, James, and John as the three names that repeat over and over through the gospels that he does different things with.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: So the book really explores what's he doing?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: What, why those three?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: What's he behaving like?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: Why is he telling them different things?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: What's he doing to build that relationship?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: So we really explore like, okay, that's a great example of a core.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: And he builds those relationships in very different ways than other people in his life.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's true.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: The next realm is the circle, which we already referenced earlier, like 10, 10-ish, 10 to 12, 10 to 15.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: And interestingly, about the circle, there's a lot of um sociological research that backs up our capacity for like closer relationships as human beings, it doesn't vary very much.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: It caps out at about 15, which is really so I have experienced that.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: I would validate it's so true.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so your core plus another, I don't know, 10-ish people.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no matter how amazingly relational you might be, we are just not built to carry a lot.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: Or how wonderful the other people are.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yes, yes, it's not to them, it's our own limited human capacity.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: You just hit on something key that we talk about through the book is sometimes like how are we making these decisions?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: Is a big question.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: That is a big question.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: We can come back to that, but even non-faith-based, nothing to do with anything biblical would back up roughly that number of people for your closer folks.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, beyond that is my favorite realm.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the most, it carries so much power.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know that we really think about this realm a lot.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: And in the blueprint, they're called comrades.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I chose that word specifically because it conjures up a mission and a battlefield.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: These are the people that are on the same mission as you.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: And um, the better and more specifically you know your mission, which of course for many of us happens over time.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: We don't always know exactly what our life is about for a while.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: And we have a journey of figuring out what we're skilled at, what we're passionate about, maybe what we're called to, all of those things.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: As your understanding of your mission improves, this realm can get really powerful because it can be big, it can be highly varied, you can carry people over time, they don't need to live near you.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: But people that are on the same mission as you are deeply, they're like your encouragers.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: If you know the story of Barnabas in the Bible, he is an amazing comrade.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: If you watch his behavior with the other apostles, he's a perfect representation of somebody that you would want in this realm.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so you can carry these really powerful relationships.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: And we have all experienced this, I think, where you connect with someone and you can't quite put your finger on why you can pick up with them.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: You're not close, maybe you never have been, but you understand each other in a way that even maybe your best friend or your spouse does not, because you share a very specific mission in common.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: So this realm is very exciting to me because even as we age, it gets better.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: If we're getting closer and deeper into the places in our life where we're really called to be, this realm gets more and more and more powerful and more and more and more developed.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: So, um, and then the two bigger ones beyond that, I reference community.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of the mixed network of relationships you pick up over time.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: And um, some of them are current and they always will be.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: They'll be like fond, loving people in your life, and they will hang out in your realm of community forever.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that is okay.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, one of the things as women, I think we tend to do is we feel responsible to pull everybody closer.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost like we feel like if we have a relationship, we should be pulling it closer.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: And the way we watch Jesus deal with community really fights that.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a really fascinating challenge to some of us who feel that responsibility to always be pulling people in.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um totally my Achilles heel and has gotten me into trouble way too much in my life.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think, I think there are a number of women that I know who would say they have overwhelmed themselves relationally because of that tendency.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that can be actually like a breath of fresh air to realize, oh, I can love people without making them all my best friends.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Or feel guilty that I haven't done enough to um it's not even like I beat myself up for I think I haven't been intentional enough because I haven't offered all these opportunities to connect.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: But then when I look at my calendar, there's just no margin.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not because I don't really like them or wouldn't want to spend more time with them.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not physically possible, humanly possible.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know what Jesus does to love people in this realm?
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: It it was such a relief to me.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: This this was it was a challenge because this is the one I kind of devalued.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: I said, I would like kind of drop people on the roadside, like if they weren't current in my life, which is terrible.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't anything intentional.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'd just be like, oh, we're done, you know.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think more people are like what you're describing that try to hold everybody and feel terrible that they can't do it all all the time.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus did good when he could.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: When he came face to face with someone in his community and he had the means to bless them, he blessed them.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: So good.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: And when he wasn't with them, you don't see any sign that he's like, Oh man, I gotta get back to those people.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: I really gotta have coffee with them.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he's like, I gotta go be with the father.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: Instead, you see when he passes through, he values, he pays attention, he loves, he blesses, and he moves on.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's really, really interesting.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: I can't wait for you to read it all.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: The last realm is the crowd, which I doubt it might be my favorite chapter of the book because I doubt we understand God's intention in this realm.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: And we are pushing this out of our modern life.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's so fascinating.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: The era of COVID kind of put the gas pedal on this, where we started to be very reluctant about being around crowds, and we almost traded them for online crowds, like, oh, just more of my life will happen online.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's my crowd.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: But online crowds are very rarely crowds.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because they're cultivated to be like us.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so it almost guarantees that you're not really interacting with the true biblical nature of a crowd, which is somebody that you don't know, you have no stake in their life.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: And this is so interesting because some amazing things happen through crowds in the life of Jesus.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so true.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: The um book really dives into one particular parable he tells, where without the crowd, we can't even understand what the love of God is like.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because he passes us by like a stranger in the crowd, and he gives to us like abundantly, abundantly to at minimum strangers.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll go beyond that.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: If you add in the rest of scripture, you understand we were not just strangers, we are we're enemies of God in the crowd.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: And he goes outside of his own community to come and get us.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so without interacting in the crowd, we don't actually participate in the deepest expression of the love of God.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: We actually steal it from ourselves, and it's so crazy.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: It it still messes with me.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: That it that's why I said it might be my favorite chapter of the book.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and in the book study that I put together, there's a video study that's coming out along with the book.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: There's a really cool interview with what I called in the book Divine Appointments.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's like God can cross your path with anybody he wants to in the crowd at any time that he wants to.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's a really cool interview about um a life that got saved because of crossing paths in the crowd.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: In a crowd.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so, but in our modern way of life, we have minimized these, or we've cultivated them, or we are afraid of them, or we think they're pointless in our life when really, according to the words of Jesus, we are actually stealing from ourselves the best chance we have to experience and practice the most selfless kind of love.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it it's it's amazing.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I will, I'm again, right along with everybody else.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going, wait, oh my gosh, this is blowing my mind.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: I know I know I've got to tell you what I'm thinking because this is I just thank you for bringing this up because I haven't thought about it this way.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: But uh a while ago, I heard this concept that business owners in particular tend to use the word empower flippantly.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: It becomes a kitschy kind of uh, you know, part of their vision statement or tagline.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: But people don't actually understand what the word empower is.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so that provoked me to really research what does empower mean?
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it literally means allowing some of your power, authority, knowledge, um, uh even like faith to depart and, you know, uh be depleted from you.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it was such an interesting concept to me because I was like, whoa, because I don't ever want to use words flippantly.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: But then I began to see how there were different, um, especially in the uh the role I'm in, I do a lot of one-on-one guidance, coaching, spiritual direction, and but then also group coaching.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: And there there was that element of like, oh, I feel depleted.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: And why is that?
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, I've truly empowered them.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I need to plug in more to the source, right?
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to figure out my soul care.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I think what kind of where I'm going, this is like moment too, you know, that was my mind-blowing emoji, you know, sound.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: But that uh I think about the moment when God goes through the crowd, the woman grabs the hem of his garment and he feels that power leave.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I I just thought, oh, similarly, I can be just as impactful and empowering someone who crosses my path in a crowd, even if it's just for a moment, even if I never see them again.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, it's just I can offer that same intentionality as I do in my one-on-ones or group coaching or at a party.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's so beautiful because as I was getting a hold of like again, the way that you watch Jesus interact in the crowd is exactly what you just described.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: He gives of things of deep value.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he does not withhold, he doesn't give craps in this, he gives incredible value and love and resources and healing and you know, miraculous things happen in the crowd, and he never sees them again.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I so underplay my own ability to impact the lives of others.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like when you stand in Starbucks line with your phone in your face, yeah, exactly.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: You don't get that opportunity.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you miss it.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it really challenged my habits when I'm out and about, going like, do I need to look at my phone right now?
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: How about if I just see if God is here, if there's a present person that He has in front of me?
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_02: Why don't I just keep my phone in my pocket for a minute?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: So it really challenged some of my habits to shut out that realm of people in my life.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: Now, do you want to find your wise counsel in the crowd?
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: No, but yeah, that's right.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: You can be you can be lifted up in a moment through the Holy Spirit by an interaction in the crowd.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe you need the empowerment, maybe you need the gift of that.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe God has gifts for you.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: And and also maybe you are a gift to someone else.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's it really bothered me when I saw, like, whoa, the patterns of our lives.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even think we see this coming.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: I don't, I don't think we are thinking about the I really thought about what about sometimes we think about the cost of saying yes to do that.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like you mentioned, it depletes us in some way.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: Money, time, energy, whatever.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: But what about the cost of saying no?
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that's what I started to feel uncomfortable about because I'm a really good no-sayer.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm a pretty good boundaries.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: Good boundaries.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: But what if I'm saying no in situations where God is actually trying to give something to me?
• 43:06
  unknown: Yeah.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a cost to saying no.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's a cost to doing my banking on my phone while I'm waiting for my coffee at Starbucks.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, actually, I don't even drink Starbucks, but my kids do, so I'll go in there.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's a universal language for getting coffee.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm not a big coffee drinker, but whatever.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: I do.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's good.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_02: But when we do that, it started to dawn on me.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: I can easily tell you the cost of saying yes, but I wasn't even thinking about the cost of saying no to my goal.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like to my thriving.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because we all want to wake up and wonder what could happen today?
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: Is my life a value today?
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: When I'm just running errands, when I'm just filling the blank, going to my kids' game or stopping by somebody's work or going out to Lunch or doing my job in the same office I'm always in is my life of unique value today.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: And many times the answer to that is in the crowd.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, you know, God can do anything, and it's part of the wonder of letting him.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's oftentimes like hiding in there, you know, in in the crowd.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I find it intriguing and kind of adventurous to start to raise my awareness of that in my life again.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I still want to check my email while I'm in line, you know?
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, sure.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_02: All these regular habits we have that have pushed the crowd just right out of our life.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: So one of my questions to God has been where do I need to be attentive to this?
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: Where can you access me and and where is this relevant for me?
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because I don't, you know, we don't need to do this every day all the time.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: But maybe if I'm sitting in the same crowd at the same basketball games 22 times a season, that might be a better crowd to pay attention in, you know?
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: So um, you know, just little things like that that cause me to go back to God with my own life, open it in front of him and go, what does this mean for me?
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: What do you want me to do?
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: With the people around me that might be different than what I'm doing.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: And to me, that's the entire point of the book is to have that conversation because the more we can, the more we push toward the life of Christ, the more life we find for our own.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and the entire thing ends with by really saying, you can have this whole blueprint in place.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: And unless God is occupying the very center in a relationship with Christ, you're always going to shove things where they don't belong.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: Your blueprint is never gonna hold up, you know, because you're gonna go looking for what's in the middle in all these other spaces.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: Other places, right.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it goes back to that expectation or requirement.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: I I think it's really important to highlight what you were touching on, and that is our society.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I was actually just hearing this on a John Eldridge podcast, and it kind of confirms some other conversations I've been having, but we've really become a self-preserving society where we are operating in this, again, using that big word, maladaptive behavior, to avoid those situations that might make us uncomfortable or that require more time or could ask more intentionality.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so the question to be asking is what is mine to do today?
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that goes both ways.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we put tasks on ourselves of that are not ours.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: But if we're asking, what is mine to do today, Lord, there could be an important assignment as we're in the checkout line, or definitely as we're going through the crowd at the basketball game that we could miss and miss out on the benefits, the eternal benefits, and then just the joy of the Holy Spirit that comes along with it.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: I if I know that every time Jesus interacted with someone in his community face to face, he gave to them, he blessed them.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: Then when I run into somebody in my community, I'm all ears.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like, Lord, what do you am I to am I to bless somehow?
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: What is that?
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: What does that look like?
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it's opened up all this fodder, all this talk between me and God about the stumbling blocks in my own heart to some of this stuff, my own tendencies, my history, you know, all of that kind of thing surfaces when really we're just on a journey to look more and more like Christ.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so where we see a blueprint, it's just a great thing to hold it up and ask God, how can I, how can I move toward this?
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: What opportunities do you have for me?
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: Because I know they're gonna result in more life.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I also know I'm broken, I might mess it up.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: There's probably still gonna be some holes, and and okay, but let's that would be like ignoring the best nutritional plan for your body just because you couldn't eat perfectly every day, you know.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: Just because you have that piece of chocolate, you throw it all out the window.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right, exactly.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: And dark chocolate, as we know, is totally an antioxidant.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's a superfood.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: Basically good for you.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: Totally a superfood.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't even I love this.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: There were so many questions that I was hoping to ask you that we've run out of time for, but what I think we've covered has been so rich and good and and how I usually love to do it, which is just we had a conversation about your work and your heart is on display and your passion.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I would just ask in our in closing, is there anything else that you didn't say or share that you'd love for us to know?
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think um I I've gotten to see the blueprint picture and I was just so I love the visual element that's very helpful for me.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I want the tactical, practical, but you have you have both of those.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: You have the spiritual, you have the life of Christ, you have the tactical, practical.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the next step.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: So anything for us as you encourage us before, or as we get the book in our Amazon cart and order it.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_02: I would just say I hope and think that it will be grace to you because um sometimes I I I hesitated at the beginning thinking the very last thing I would ever want is for somebody to feel like, oh, well, here's another religious checklist.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_02: This is what I should be not doing.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it doesn't it doesn't feel like that.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: It should feel like grace to go.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_02: I have opportunities to grow in these ways.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I know how to talk to God better about this thing.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_02: I feel and hope that it will feel like grace to you.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it's wonderful.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's just perfect because I I try to at the beginning of the year to think about the relationships I want to be intentional with.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: And this is perfectly aligned with thinking through the specific, okay, what are some of my gaps at the table?
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then even having language around these different circles that you have outlined in the blueprint.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just, yeah, uh, it's been so helpful.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for your time, Ali.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: This has been beautiful, and I'm so excited for my friends to not only share this conversation with their friends, but also get your book.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me on.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for letting me talk about it.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I've been living with it for a couple of years, so it's really fun to get to talk to people.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: I bet I can only imagine.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: So good.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: Allie was a true delight.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope that her wisdom reminded you that building a wholehearted table isn't about exclusivity, it's about intentionality.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's truly about surrounding yourself with wise counsel, life-giving friends, and a supportive community that can help you stay grounded and flourish in your faith, your family, and your finances.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if this conversation resonated with you, or if there is something specific you learned from it, I hope that you will turn around and share it with a friend who's also needing encouragement to rethink the relationships this year.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, if you've wondered how your Enneagram type influences the way you connect with others, I invite you to get your complimentary, which means a no-cost clarity call with me.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've opened a few extra spots in my calendar and I'd love to chat with you.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: This could be a great step to understanding yourself better and designing that table which aligns with God's purpose for your life.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: And while I continue to roll out the red carpet for you for the wholehearted abundance summit happening in March, you can still get on the wait list and some more information at the links in the show notes.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: This summit is going to be a powerful opportunity to deepen your connection with God, grow in relationships, and step into a season of abundance.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: Friend, you are going to love the practical takeaways, the inspiration that comes from these expert speakers.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: And just like in years past, it's gonna be a totally free event.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that you continue to build a table that reflects God's love and purpose for you.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't wait to hear about the fruit of that in your life.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, friend, we're all broken, we're all blewing it, but the brave one does something about it.