Latest / FOLLOW / Why is “help” so hard to say? /// FOLLOW with Rick Dunn

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Why is “help” so hard to say? /// FOLLOW with Rick Dunn · FOLLOW

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: The least safe place to be is alone.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Where would a person go to learn integration in this culture?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like where would you go?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Where would you turn that you might have someone model and give to you this understanding of how we become integrated whole beings in our in our faith?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we need more of those places.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we're usually afraid of what we're about to do.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're afraid of who we have to become to do it.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I cried out to God.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I said, You've got my health, you got my family, you got my job, you got my finances, you got my car, you almost got my house, you got my career.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: What more do you want?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I want you.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And with all the spiritual self I could muster, I said, damn, I don't know how to do that.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the follow podcast, which is built around one core conviction.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: If Jesus was right about God, about life, about the human soul, then it makes sense to rearrange our lives around what he said is true.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what we're exploring together.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: What Jesus said, why it's true, and how to actually rearrange our lives around it.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Rick Dunn, I'm very excited that we're sitting here with you.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: You are, as we know, right now, at the Epistolic Headquarters of Whitehorse.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_03: Worldwide Epistology.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, do this because there will be some of our listeners who may not know what you're up to, but give us you are a pastor, thinker, writer, uh, coach extraordinaire.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: And when I say coach, not just a metaphor, you're a for real coach, like basketball coach, baby.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: So uh tell us, tell us what you're up to right now.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Give us a little background on on your on your life, man.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to be with you and Steve.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Really great just to have a conversation with you.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Whether we recorded it or not, I was gonna have a great time.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, agreed.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, you know, I have over the course of my life, I've had uh three what people might call careers, but it's the same vocation.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was a university professor in a Christian college and seminary where I helped really try to understand how you actually help a person grow into being an effective steward of their spiritual gifts and their relationship in Christ with the world.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that was my first season, my second uh season, 2.0, same vocation, different career.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: I led a church for 22 years, the lead pastor, very young church, very young leaders.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh led it through a lot of transition early on, developed it, kind of aged out one set of staff and brought in a new staff and then handed it off to the new staff to lead.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that started uh 3.0, same vocation.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now I just come alongside leaders from various churches, uh, nonprofits.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's 80% of my time is in that world because I just have such a heart.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think alone is the worst place to be in leadership.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to make sure that I provide those resources through what Horace Leadership Initiative does.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I spend 20% of my time in the marketplace because I love the marketplace.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I love the the difference in the dynamics and yet the sameness of the spiritual, emotional, mental, physical journey.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I find leaders are a lot like athletes.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: They they they really want to run hard, but they also break down over time if they don't take care of themselves.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of my work is just helping connect this relational formation and transformation that's happening inside of them with effective uh leadership principles and work on the outside and just keeping a real dialogue happening between those two things.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I get to sit and watch the Holy Spirit do amazing things with leaders.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: How cool is that to be doing in your 60s?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: You've been in people's lives, like you said, the these have been uh same vocation in different forms in many ways.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I spent a decade well, I spent a decade coaching AAU basketball too, and it's the same thing.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're dealing with the whole person again.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it's all the things, yeah.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: All right, so let me set it up this way.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: Over all these years dealing with people, you've always been dealing with people.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: What have you learned about the intersection of a person, mental health, and faith?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: What like when you hear that, what jumps off the page at you is what you've learned about people and and and and and this whole idea.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: The least safe place to be is alone.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's one thing.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing, I think you know, Eric, my favorite book in the world is The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a there's a there's a page, every page is like a is like should be a I cry.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: I can't read that book.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I read I can't read the book.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know I read it over and over and over.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Every leader I've ever worked with reads the book and we talk about it because it's always touched.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: But there's this line where my pet this one page, the the uh the boy says to the horse, what is the bravest thing you have ever said?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the horse says, Help.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned that.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned that um the natural path of all things is disintegration and the formation and transformation pathways integration.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I also have felt that some of the ways we conceptualize mental health, emotional health.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Scizaro and some people along the way in the last few years have done some really good work, I think, that's elevated that.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: But in my early generations, I think that um, and even now, I think that there's a degree to which we we separate all these things out and don't realize how holistically we are made, organically we made.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we make the redemption story about getting saved and stopping sin.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: These are all good things, by the way.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm all for this, right?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: But the whole redemption story is in partnership with a creation story.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have to understand who we are as these created beings in a disintegrated world that disintegrates and understand what it is the redemption's actually, what God's actually seeking to do with us.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then the last thing I'll say is that um I've never been able to do this well without a mentor, a coach, a counselor, a pastor, or someone.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I just I and I I think I'm pretty smart, but it's smart, skilled, gifted, it won't get you there.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's this internal world that God's after something more, and that more is our whole person redemption.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a lot of things I've learned, but that's a start.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Rick, I I remember uh Dallas Wither came and spoke at my alma mater, and after he spoke at the convocation, uh the person who was the chaplain came up to him in front of everyone, and he would do this for anybody who spoke.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: He he'd ask him a question.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And the question he asked after he taught was, Hey, you've been teaching for 30 years.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: What's different about the freshmen that enter your class at USC uh today than the freshman that entered in 30 years ago?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: And Dallas didn't miss a beauty goes.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's easy.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they're all distracted today than they were 30 years ago.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: If I were to ask you a similar question, when you think about the phrase mental health or mental well-being, or that that spiritual mental well-being, um what is true today that wasn't true 30 years ago when you started in ministry or started teaching students?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um where are we farther along?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Where are we and and and it's a little bit of just kind of pressing into some of the answers you just kind of left, but I'm just like, I feel like you've been able to see three decades plus of the of a conversation where it was so stigmatized, and now you can you can't walk through Barnes Noble without seeing a book on some form of self-help mental health kind of conversation.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: So talk just about that landscape and where you feel like faith, church, I don't know, it's got it right, wrong, missing, confusing, or however the white horse legend uh would would attack it.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think several things.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're exactly right.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's been a lot of wonderful naming and permission giving for like, hey, you can you can talk with a therapist, and that's actually a really healthy thing to do.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'd I've worked with leaders and I'll get to certain places where I'm saying, you know, what I'm what I'm walking through with you is is very transformative, but there's places you need to go that are not, they're that's not my strength.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's not my primary gifting and training.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So let me just let me back up just a little bit.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Let you go do a little bit of work on that, and then let's re-enter as you've done some work on that.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I and I find most people, Steve, are like, okay, I can go do that.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if you go back 30, 40 years, they're like, are you saying something's like really wrong?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's something, you know, is there am I am I messed up?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, my answer would be more than you know.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like you, yes, you're messed up.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's the point, right?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I think we're we're more at ease with that, and I like that.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think that we are, I think we've got some work to do on on how these things are understood.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I love that you're doing this podcast.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, part of Whitehorse's work is to integrate the whole person, think about whole person spirituality and how all these things are apart and how God got like we read Ephesians 1, he says, before the foundation of the world, that he set this thing up, this redemption story, to the praise of his glorious grace.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is just not a big theory.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: He actually put neuroplasticity in your brain so that it could be rewired, relearned, and grow into an understanding of what it means to be loved deeply by a Father God.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: So this is this is powerful stuff, you know.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: The emotions that are given are beautiful things.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, having said that, I think the the loss of certainty about what is true, what is truth even possible, is a struggle in our culture.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think that creates enormous anxiety there.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, none of this is really true, so you just make it up for yourself.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, but the minute we put anybody in the position of God, we put them in a very unhealthy position that is guaranteed to start setting up some real uh uh anxieties.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then we do have, you know, and I don't want to overdo because I don't think all social media is bad, I don't think all phones are bad and all that, but my gracious, the lack of ability to communicate, the lack of ability to have intimate conversations, the misunderstanding of what intimacy is.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh all of these things have uh it's like a it's like having a wound that just keeps getting, it just doesn't get really cared for.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: You kind of like a you put a band-aid on it, and you put a little alcohol on it, and you rub some ibuprofen on it.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, not ibuprofen, that uh neosporin on it, you know, take the ibuprofen, but you hadn't gotten in there and lance the boil.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I just feel like there's a lot of rupture happening.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and my wife is a therapist, my best friend is a therapist, my oldest daughter is a therapist.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I always say it takes a village to keep me like steady.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and when they share with me, they share.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: It just feels my daughter's a child therapist, it just feels like it's harder and harder for our younger generation to get solid grounding, intimate relationships, and the kinds of conversations that actually form health and depth in us.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And without the conversations, it does not happen.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: You're dealing with leaders always have been dealing with leaders, really, right?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: What's your biggest concern about what you see in this day and age?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: And and we can start with leaders, but you could go anywhere with that.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like when you look across the landscape specifically as it relates to mental health, how how we think, resiliency, these things.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: What's the thing that pops off the chart that you go, man, this does concern me?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think that there are a lot of people who peddled really hard to do what they thought was the right thing, whether it's Christian faith or mindfulness or financial success or whatever the thing was you thought was gonna get you there.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you just pedaled hard and you pedaled hard and pedaled hard, and you look around and it did it wasn't enough.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not working for everybody else.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not like you sit around during the day and and watch your your favorite brand of news or or read your uh feeds and think, oh, I think this is actually gonna get better.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: I actually think this is all gonna work out just fine.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's the opposite.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: You feel less hopeful.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And another thing is this like I this is when I'm working with people and leaders, uh I I love working with a person who's gotten far enough to know this isn't gonna satisfy.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like I thought that I thought when you you know that if-when, if I ever get to this place, when I get to this place, then man, it's gonna be, and you get there and you're like, the the internal turmoil is louder than it was when I started.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of my story, is I had a what I call a crisis type of experience in my 30s because my life was going to hell in a handbasket.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was just like I, it was like, you know, it's it was like at some point, I I'm not gonna recant all the things, but if if my wife had left me, and thank God she didn't, but if she'd left me, the one consolation I had, I was gonna write a heck of a country music song because everything, everything was a disaster.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and I went and worked through that and got did some really good things, and I got some counseling and got some help, and and that kind of made sense.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know what didn't make sense is when, like, uh 20 years later, everything looks great and it comes up again.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I am now I am really scared.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because when it hits the fan, I understand my mental health and emotion.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I understand I'm a hot mess.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: I struggle a lot with my anxiety internal world.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: But when it's all working and it's not, and I that's a lot of what I work with leaders.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, man, I thought, I thought by this point, this was it.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I this is in this, isn't this what you do?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like you, you build your church, you you serve on the mission field, you you sell your company, like, like is this not, and you're like, no.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think that's sometimes scarier.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the comfort, the level of comfort we have in the world and the way it feels so threatened right now, I think really um agitates this stuff inside of us.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And where and I'll say one more thing.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Where would a person go to learn integration in this culture?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where would you go?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: What where would you turn that you might have someone model and give to you this understanding of of of how we are, how we become integrated whole beings in our in our faith.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we need more of those places.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: Go go back, Rick.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you said you went through one of the things we talked about on one of the previous episodes is that everybody has mental health issues.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's just the reality of human we're we all have a level of brokenness.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: We don't suffer the same, but we all have something that we suffer through, that we carry through, right?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: And comparison is not helpful, right?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's not helpful to be like, well, it's not as bad as Jim, but because whatever you're carrying, you're carrying.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I wonder, I wonder when you look back at your your 30s, when you look back at what sounds like your 50s, could you walk through what you learned?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: What did you learn in that process?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because it sounds like it was pretty unsettling as these things are when you get into these spots where you're like, um I say this sometimes, that the delta between what you think's gonna happen, what actually happens, what uh how the the size of that difference, the size of that delta is directly correlated to the amount of pain that you have, right?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you're like if you're like, well, I really thought that this was going to be X, and it turned out to be something quite different.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's often there's so much pain in that.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we do live in a culture of comfort.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: You I want to talk about that, but I wonder if you couldn't just go back in time a little bit and talk a little about what you learned in that second go-round.
• 17:47
  unknown: Yeah.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me give both of them a couple of minutes each, and then the overarching thing, and then you can pull the threads.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: How's that?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um in my 30s, I came to the place where I didn't know how to have a marriage, care for my kids, pay my bills, and do the job I was doing as a seminary professor.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't figure out how to, and I felt like an idiot because I couldn't.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just blame myself.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you should be able to figure this out, Rick.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I What does that look like when you say you couldn't just wasn't thriving, couldn't get thriving too much.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it wasn't thriving.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then everything, my I destroy my back in an injury, my car dies, my house catches on fire.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like, what you know, I have a kid who's sick all the time.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: I my wife miscarries.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: I just it just it just goes and it goes and it goes, and it finally I'm like, okay, okay, okay.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I just said, you know, my wife and I said, Well, okay, we're gonna quit this, we're gonna do something else.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I wind up, that's how I wound up in back in the church in Tennessee, which, of course, this you this is so classic.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: I told my wife, as long as we don't go to the South, and as long as I don't go to church, we're fine.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, you know, I think that's my unconscious self already knowing what was coming and was unwilling to acknowledge it.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say also, I don't think we're usually afraid of what we're about to do.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I think we're afraid of who we have to become to do it.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew something there.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I lay on my bed on Vicodin, and I cried out to God.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: I said, You've got my health, you got my family, you got my job, you got my finances, you got my car, you almost got my house, you got my career.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: What more do you want?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, he said, I want you.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And with all the spiritual self I could muster, I said, damn, I don't know how to do that.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that was the lesson in my 30s.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: This was never about your career.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, my career for its little pond that it was was taken off.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it never was about your career.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: It never was about what you could do or how far you could get away from your Appalachian roots that would somehow prove that you like were actually more capable than people might think you are.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's not, it was always about the relationship.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that was really good that God did that.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it was very gracious of him, but it started me on like a 10-year tough vocational journey because when I went to the church, everything just got worse.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the the for many years, as long as the more I tried to be that, seemed like the worse it got.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: But out of that came a real redemption.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the first thing I learned is that God is not committed to my divine, He's not committed to my human success story, He's committed to His divine redemption story.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the story I gotta learn how to live in.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't understand.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: If I'd understood, I'd have done some more about it.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't know.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I have tons of compassion on people.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know what what am I supposed to do with this?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I know, I know, I've been there.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's about surrender.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so later, what happened is that the the church is thriving, everything's going, everything's, you know, it's moving, even my basketball's, I'm winning, you know, everything's where it ought to be, right?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm like, and I went to that chair of the elder board and I said, man, I don't, I just need to tell you I'm not okay.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, his eyes got really big because when your lead pastor of your large church tells your elder chair you're not okay, they're like, oh no, here it comes.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, no, no, no, no, it's okay.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not not not nothing's coming.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: The words I would use now is I didn't know how to be present with myself, which made it impossible for me to be present with God and my wife and my kids in the way I wanted to.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: My very emotionally intelligent son, youngest son, I said, you know, I wished I'd been more present than you when you were a kid.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Oh, Dad, you were present with me.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: You just weren't present with yourself.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, sir.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate that.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: But what I learned in that is, Eric Steve, I didn't know my story.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: My story was locked away.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: To protect me, I thought, and to make sure I can keep running this game of my human success story.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: I locked away my story.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And until I walked through that story, named it, knew it, engaged with God my father in it, it wasn't my redemption story.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was the story that kept me locked.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I learned that mentally, emotionally, and all the things are, and I just I walked through all of that.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: For I think at some point in this series you had Dr.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Harv Powers as one of your guests, and Harve was my coach.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: He and I have worked together now, but back in the day, a few years ago, he was my coach and he walked me through that.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it was such a gift for somebody to say, oh yeah, I mean, that's that's what this looks like, and that's how this works.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he normalized it, and all of a sudden, instead of feeling like an out of control, imploding, incompetent person, I felt like a person who was being pursued again by his father, but now pursuing the parts I didn't even know about.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the things I learned.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I have uh a multi-year process of trying to work through the anxiety that I have, I just lived with it like it was a I just thought I thought everybody was messed up in the head with anxiety.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just thought that was a common thing.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, working through anxiety, some of my false narratives about myself.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's where we all have such false narratives about ourselves and our guy.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh my wife for for decades had been saying, You're not present, you're not present.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't have any.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: What are you talking about?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and then to finally realize, oh yeah, I'm not, because I'm not present with me.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a psychological, spiritual, emotional process.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Rick, you said something, and and I I had to write it down because I thought it was fascinating.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I and I and I'm wondering how much.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: So if you give me like a a little bit of uh a second just to kind of rift to get to this question and see if it if it makes any sense.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of what we're describing that kind of maybe is that initial kind of set off of mental health struggles often is something circumstantial.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you mentioned like house miscarriage, all of this like that.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: It all makes sense, yeah.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's all makes sense.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: You have this.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Then you end up moving to and you use these two kind of like um compare and contrast of a human success story versus a divine redemption story.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, depending on like what from the outside, you could look at all the circumstantial stuff that you went through, and then you moved to Tennessee, and you're pastoring a large church, and you're like, and everyone on the outside could be looking at you going, oh, this is the divine redemption story.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: But in some ways, and I'm not saying this is entirely that, in some ways, it it seemed like you were kind of alluding to, man, this in a lot of ways was like a human success story.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and and I and I wonder like how many people are thinking that they are living a divine redemption story when in actuality they are chasing this human success story that is icing, smells like Jesus, looks like Jesus, has a lot of Jesus lingo, but deep down it's not working, and it's almost creating more bitterness and resentment towards Jesus, but they don't know how to actually get on the divine redemption story plan.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: How did you am I am I reading what you were describing in a in a way?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: So so one, what how would you define what a divine redemption story is, and then how do you and you kind of you use words like surrender, which you had my heart right there, but like how does one exit the human success story plan and begin to allow their nervous system to kind of rest into a divine redemption story?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and well, first of all, I was realizing that who wants to do that?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, yeah, it sounds really good, doesn't it?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds so spiritual, but when it comes down to I really thought, I thought, Steve, you know what's gonna happen?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get to the place where my body and my mind are so in love with Jesus that every fiber of my being just wants to follow him.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's not true.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: I still have to tap into his work and his spirit, because my body and my mind are still like, I'm not sure this, I've got main character syndrome.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure this is like what I want here, because I think I've got a pretty good gig here and what I can do.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: I tell every leader, you get a picture on the wall of your ideal leadership self.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And every day you come in and you look at it.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And no matter how good the circumstances are, you look at that picture and you don't have imposter syndrome, I don't measure up, whatever.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, first step is realize your father didn't draw that picture.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: You did.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's see what he might draw.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I really believe it's it sounds really oversimplification, it's actually true.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's the recentering, it's their surrender that I don't have to be enough.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't about what I can do or accomplish.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was really made for divine relationship and intimacy.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you get into the counseling world, I'm an objects relation conceptual person and it's about relationship.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh had a chance with sit sit with Dan Siegel, you may recognize that name, he's just an enormous name, and sit with him for a week with a small group and just talking about how our minds, that the neuroplasticity happens, the growth happens, all this stuff starts happening when we're in relationship.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I just think we were made for that.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so when a leader or a person, when anybody says, you know what, I I'm gonna surrender this main character syndrome.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually think my father uh he loves me and he values me, and I think that's actually all I really ever needed and wanted, and that's all he was ever pursuing in me.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then you get people around you who help you do that, and then you get exposed for why you don't do it.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: What you know, mind traps, false narratives, emotional things, this unconscious, like we have these unconscious things that are moving us and shaping us all the time.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we start being exposed, we start being aware of those things.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that I think that sometimes we think then there must be something wrong with us where it's it's more like, no, this is exactly where you want to be.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is where the this is where the freedom is going to come.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that includes the freedom to say, you know what?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: I need a therapist.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm I can't do this by myself.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I need a mentor, I need a coach, I need a spiritual director, I need to get in a in a group.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know what to do with my sexual desires.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think I probably should get some help with that.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what to do with this SOB critical voice in my head that just beats the crap out of me every night, no matter what I do.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And every time somebody says something to me negative, it's like it's giving it a hammer.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think I probably need some help with that.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm struggling with depression and I can't find my way out of it.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's releasing the thought that, well, I should be able to work my way out of this.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: All of those things, I think, is when you just stop saying you're enough.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, um, so there's a name for what you're describing, it's just called narrative identity.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: So, like Dan McAdams does a bunch of work on this, right?
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: Where he talks about uh he's done tons of research.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: He's out of Northwestern and um tons of research on the story we tell ourselves that uh actually uh we don't just have experiences, we actually weave them into a narrative.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we do all the time, every day.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we're doing, and so there is this like two people can and we've seen it, you can go through the same things, right?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: Go through the exact same thing.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: So house burns down, pets heads fall off, you know, all the pieces.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: And uh if you um I'll use it this way if you weave that into a narration of contamination story, like I'm just bad, I'm just cursed versus going through the same, and this is what you were talking about, Rick, going through the same thing and and and you weave them into a redemption story, the the outcomes truly are different.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: They they are truly different, but I think this is what you're talking about, and why when we talk about friends, coaches, therapists, is that and there's our there are actually forms of therapy that begin to get down to narrating at the sentence level, but it is going through the sentence level and going, wait, hold hold on, hold on, hold on.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: You're having a coach like Dr.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: Harvard Powers or having a therapist go, no, but let's let's isolate what you think that story means.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really interesting as you talk about neuroplasticity because what they've also found is that trauma, when we talk about trauma, trauma isn't just the event, it's the story that we attach to it.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: So and why that matters is because those stories can be edited.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the neuroplasticity, right?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: We can't look, I'm not saying that what we experience, I mean, your house burning down is terrible, and a miscarriage is painful, and divorce is real.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's not that these scars aren't real.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's not what we're saying.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's just we attach them and we have the ability to attach them to a different narrative.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: And if we can attach them to the a different narrative, our we can do brain surgery on ourselves.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's neuroplasticity.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: And often our theological narrative is I really need to get this straightened out so I can be really better for God.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: I really need to work, I need to, I need to not deal with this.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I always say to I re you know, my word I often use is reframe here.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna reframe that for you.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: That thing that you are most afraid of in yourself is the greatest access point you have to God that you will ever have.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: And as long as you're running away from it, you're gonna miss him.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: But if you'll run toward him, he's actually waiting for you there because he's wanting to redeem and work on that.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the place where the real stuff starts to happen.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: You really start to understand what the bigger story is.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and if if I'm sitting with someone who I did this recently, they've got a trauma, an intense trauma background.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I just said to the leader, I said, Hey, I as a pastor, I don't think this is the work I should be doing with you right now because I don't have the gifting training for this level of trauma.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'll keep walking with you, but let's get you a really good therapist and let's work on that, because he or she will have the skills for this.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: My wife's a trauma therapist, they'll work you walk you through this.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then as you are gaining freedom from that story and seeing and able to understand meeting God in that place and yourself in that place, and that you no longer have to live under its effect that it's had on you the way it has.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: You can actually begin to have freedom.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't deny it.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: You just begin to work through it in a way that you're it it no longer has the power to define you.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Then we can start working on these other things.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I can't imagine.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm gonna say this, y'all can, your listeners can figure this out for themselves.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: I can't imagine someone's gonna go through their lives and not at least more than once have a season where like, hey, I need help.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: I need help.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm not saying you have to go to a therapist, I think it's a great idea.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but I need I need someone that really helps me because here's you guys are both leaders.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: The most important thing you start with in leadership is your definition of reality.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: So if you define reality correctly, you got a shot at making some really good decisions.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have the wrong definition of reality, it doesn't matter how smart you are, you're gonna, you're, you're gonna miss the whole point.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, Eric, I don't, I don't believe I can have the right definition of reality about me by myself.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the right definition of reality is what is that anxiety thing?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: What is that, what is the root of that?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Where does that come from?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Why do I have that dream of being chased through the woods every night?
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Something's chased.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is my dream I went to Harvard.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm being chased through the woods every night.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I run and I run and I get to this cabin.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I run inside the cabin, I slam the door shut, and I lean against the door and I go, and then I look over and there's a cellar door, and there's screams coming out from the cellar.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now maybe that's because I watched the movie The Road, but I'm telling you, I'm telling you, why do I feel like at night I have nowhere safe to go and I'm about to get just annihilated?
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a spiritual thing, but it's also a mental thing, and it's an emotional thing, and it's an unconscious part of my story.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: And without somebody to to to to to hold space with me for that story and make it safe for that story to come out, I'm going to keep living like that.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, it's really good when you know Harb didn't get up and run screaming out of the room or start an exorcism.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: He just said, yeah, that's a very common story when you've been when you're kind of where you are right now.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's let's understand more about him.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: I just wholeheartedly agree.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: I just feel like I wish I had.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I love learning from guys like Ian Hart and others, but is the is discernment?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: Is learning to discern um is this the proper definition of reality?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: Is this is this something I need help with?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Is this is this do I have the right characters in my life right now?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um it feels like one of the like if you think about working out, like I feel like a lot of leaders have skipped leg day when it comes to discernment.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they've worked other muscles out, but the discernment musculature to step back and go to to just to say those two words.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's three words.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: I need help.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, to to be able to look at a situation, and as you were talking about parks, like man, I uh you know I often say people are people are very perceptive, they're just crappy interpreters of reality.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_03: That's so true.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: They're good, but they're good at what they perceive.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you're perceiving it's just the story you are telling, and you you're not discerning that perception biblically, you're not discerning that perception from the truest true of you, you're not discerning that from a place of health and wholeness and well-being.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and and again, three of us have a ton of training, a ton of resources, a ton of people in our lives, but it's like, man, that muscle to get there just takes pain on a stick and time and vulnerability and surrender.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: I say all that to go percentages of leaders that you've worked with that you go, man, they have a they are like tone or above average strength and discernment.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: Are are we is or or percentage that are just and have not worked that out, and they they actually think they are really good at discernment.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like they they've tricked themselves to think like, oh yeah, I'm good at this, I don't need the help.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I uh yeah, does it make sense?
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: It makes a ton of sense.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: I I think, Steve, I would just say it's that I'm gonna local, I'm gonna focus it.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's that willingness to actually have discernment about yourself.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I think that's the that's the readiness thing.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have a phrase we use in Whitehorse, uh compassionate, courageous curiosity.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna approach myself with compassion because I'm already pretty sure I'm a hot mess.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: However, I might line up in your psychological analysis of me, I'm pretty sure there's a mess going on in here.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: I've got I got so much evidence of that.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna be courageous because when I see it for what it is, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna walk away from it.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because the moment at which you can't name something is the moment you're being invited into his naming it.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is so important.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: The moment you can't name it, which is the thing, when when a leader can't name something, understand something, the tendency is to double down on what they were doing before, work harder, do harder, get away from that thing and get back into certainty as if there was a thing, and at least their mind certainty.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that first is like, no, I'm gonna stay right here because his love is gonna cast out that his love's gonna meet me in that fear.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just gonna be curious.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna take me a long time to under what's underneath here didn't get here overnight.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want to be curious about that.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: So being curious, being courageous, being compassionate, it's a very simple application of Jesus Christ's came full of grace and truth.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: Give yourself walk in grace and truth, but man, just want to know.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I I'm a little bit skewed, Steve, because if you don't want to do that, you don't work, go off with me.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's real, you know.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I've I've sat down with people and I say, you know, I'm I'm looking at you and your organization.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: If I want to work with you, and I said, well, here's what we do, and and I'm I'm I'll go home and tell my wife, there's no way, because they're not at the point of where compassionate, courageous curiosity has captured their imagination.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean they're good or bad, it's just that they're not there.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're not there, then pretty soon your eyes will cross sit with me because I'm just gonna keep asking you with me to seek how the Holy Spirit might show you something.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, can I give one more thing?
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm I'm going long on this one.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: You use the word but you use the word vulnerability.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing, okay?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: What what do I need every day that I'm like this?
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta have this every day.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm gonna be a parent, a husband, a dad, a husband, a leader.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: I need wisdom, I need uh strength, and I need courage.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty much.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty much.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: If I could get those things, I think I can get through this.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what's the biblical model of wisdom?
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uncertainty.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: You ask for it because you don't have all that you need.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what's the biblical model of strength?
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, his grace is sufficient for your weakness, that's where your strength comes from.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what's the biblical model for courage?
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really afraid, but I know my father loves me, and that gives me the courage to move forward.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: So the entire spiritual formation model of the scriptures is a vulnerability model.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and a mental health crisis or a mental health challenge is not something it can feel like it's going to take you out.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually inviting you into that vulnerability where you can really have that wisdom and strength and courage that you'll never manufacture by yourself.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: You'll never be there.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: Can I can I circle back to something you both were talking about?
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think it's really key, this whole idea of discernment, like discerning this whole thing.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_02: And um, this is how, and Carter, I've I I really am I've been thinking a lot about this idea of discernment.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how do we become better interpreters of reality?
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: And discernment is that, but then well, how do you do that?
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: And the way I think about discernment is um um like data collection without a story attached.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's it.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: All I'm doing is so, like, for instance, um, people who uh know me, in fact, it's right here on my computer, these guys can see it.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: I have a feelings wheel, right?
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the reasons why I think that's really powerful is it's naming something that's going on inside you.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to attach a story to it, you just name this thing.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm feeling really anxious, or I'm feeling really vulnerable, or I'm feeling whatever I'm feeling.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um it it's information, it's it's information.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Information.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: There's other pieces of information that we gather in the discernment process, right?
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: Without attaching a story to it, you do have to attach a narrative at some point to the data.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: But that's why what you're saying, Rick, matters is, and then you testing it in the presence of trusted people.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: Here's the data.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: Here's what I'm feeling.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: Here's what I'm seeing.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: Here's what I'm hearing.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: Let me run that through.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: And there's that's why the work matters.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like um running it through, like, well, what is this feeling?
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: And and what could it be?
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: And test, but testing it in the presence of other people is actually a part of discernment.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I think this is what's going on.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think this is what's happening.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: Do you is that what's happening?
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like, Carter has been this, he knows like, man, I love Steve because he's walked through uh I met him in one of the toughest seasons of my life.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he's walked through seasons where I quite honestly was discerning situations not accurately.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_02: All right, I just was like all this past stuff was fill like clouding, and he was always a trusted space where I could test discernment.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I trusted him.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so when Steve would say, Yeah, man, I maybe not exactly the way you're thinking about it, like maybe not.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: It did reframe it helped me go back and go, okay, then let me look at the data points again.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: Let me just look at the data points again.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I want to say this last thing about feelings.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to disregard feelings, but Dallas said it this way.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: He said, they're great servants, terrible masters, you know, and and that's the part where when we I let a feeling I attach a narrative to it and I let it win without running it through a process of discernment and testing it in in community of coaches and people I trust, it's when we get ourselves into these tough spots.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: So just a well, so can I build on that just real quickly?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: What happens is if you allow the feeling to define the narrative in that moment, the narrative will come from the an earlier time in your life when you felt that way.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just attached to it.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's you you just it's the narrative you know, it's the unconscious way you your operating system.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's when you get that out.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I will, here's what I will, I will if you tell me if I'm wrong, and then you can put it on the on the podcast, you can let people hear me being wrong.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: Steve was a he was compassionate towards you.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: He courageously pursued you, and he was curious about who is this man, not just like, hey, I gotta give this guy an answer, or I think this guy's in trouble.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta fix him.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: He was curious about who you were.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: No, that was always true.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think um, again, Steve allowed me to bring it to him as well.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like the trusted people in your life that allow you to bring it to them.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't mean you don't uh step in and recognize, but um he created this safe space, right?
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: Where I could just and we need that.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's what you're saying.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like you needed heart powers.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: We we need a group of people around as therapists, uh, doing we we we that we can bring and test our hypothesis about what I'm experiencing.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like, hey, am I experiencing this?
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_02: And here's what's the good news the more that you test it, the more you understand what this is, I love the word discernment, the quicker you get at it.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's core sort of like where's Waldo, you know?
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and total full circle, you know, earlier today, Rick, Eric was telling a story, and I didn't have your three C's language to it, you know.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like I didn't, I like but as you're describing this, Eric was telling the story, and like he was for himself had become compassionate, courageous, and curious, and he was like, I need to go for a walk.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not gonna I'm not gonna attach a feeling to that narrative.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm gonna I'm gonna sit and I'm gonna allow my nervous system to like rest and my soul to integrate.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and there are there are times where he didn't he didn't need to call anybody because he had he had built that muscle up and had now begun to recognize oh I'm I'm safe too.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: I I got this.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: And and there are times where of course, yeah, you want to be able to have those trusted advisors.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're all better when we have friends and therapists and pastors and you know, all that.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: But also when you can when you start to to learn that skill, and then you actually realize I can be that for myself too.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: There there are these moments where I can step back and go, gosh, for so long nobody taught me how to be that for me.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: For yourself, that's right.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I I I knew I ought to be it for somebody else.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's true.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: I know how to be that for myself.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's similar to what you're saying, what you're saying, Rick, of like, you know, dad, you were present, you just weren't present to you.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's it's well now once you can do that for you, that empath that just begins to go, it's it is a it is it is unmatched grace and truth.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's just a I don't know.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: So it just it's kind of this full circle beautiful moment of like, yeah.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it's true.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think of it like a cascading waterfall.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: When you when you can learn to partner with the Holy Spirit in your own leading of yourself into these places, and knowing that the path of humility and surrender is how you get follow where the Holy Spirit leads you and leads you and guides you and comforts you in all the things, um, then it just starts to there's a cascading of that.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: You become a person whose presence is at in some level echoing his presence, which is the which is the whole thing.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, that's what happened, right?
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: We lost his presence.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: We lost his presence.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: The whole thing was designed for his presence.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: The garden, everything's designed, and we lost it.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: And we can't find our way back by ourselves.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: But the more we learn to access that, the more we have to offer that to other people.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's beautifully said, and I and I, and it's a um it's a lot about how I think about my journey at 65.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's not I can't look ahead to a very many people like, hey, well, you've been down this road and you're older than me.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's fewer and fewer of them, right?
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but maybe that's why I love this season of life because I feel like I'm more and more able to use your words, Steve.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm more and more able to be that for myself.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I know how to gather my people around me.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: I know when I can just gather and say, man, I'm just gonna take some, I'm a I'm a hot mess here, and you know this about me, and I'm in it.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm all in it, and just wanted to get it out in space so we could just acknowledge it, and now I can we now I can deal with it for what it really is.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an unconscious driver, it's the reality, but I'm not ashamed of it.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think shame is something that drives people with mental health issues and the things we're talking about, sense of brokenness, sense of fear, sense of weakness, whatever.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you you experience this shaming stuff, and uh, you know, it's just um it's I think it's why people love people like uh uh Brendan Manning.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's because it it's like the cloud of shame.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, hey, we can just lift that off and just live without that.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's grace.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's grace.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, man, this that's as good a spot as any to end.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: So um pretty amazing for real.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_02: Rick, you are a gift, man.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_02: Gift to the kingdom, um, gift to leaders.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: You have been a gift, your personal gift to me and the place that I serve.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just and your voice, thank you.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for thank you.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for taking all that you've learned and then um sharing that with leaders all over the place, including me.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm really grateful, man, for real.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you're one of my favorite humans.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: So just know that it's easy for me because you're one of my favorite, I love you, one of my favorite humans.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Steve, uh, the time I have spent with you, I I think I told you when I went to this workshop you did on teaching, I learned a ton.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: You taught me a ton, but I learned more watching you teach.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that drew my heart to you.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, yeah, that guy, the the posture of that guy is what I want to follow and the things I learned from him.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a really humble and honor to get to spend time with you guys and and share some of my story.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: And and um, and and I hope that when people listen, that I hope they'll feel like, hey, there's an invitation there.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's a there's an invitation.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be the hugest step of all, but there's an invitation to say, help.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: Help.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's it's a courageous thing when you do it.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: So good.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Rick.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's a man, that's uh what's so fun about podcasts too, is you you in the way that you know Parks and I have like talked about this, half the time we're like, oh, we got an idea, and then it's like all of a sudden it's just like you chase where the energy wants to go.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden it's like I'm taking copious notes here, and I'm like, oh man, this is I feel like I need to Venmo you money, uh Rick.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it just like it just says money so that when I take him out, he can pay for it.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_02: Wait a minute.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: Wait, how does it happen?
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you guys so much, thanks.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh uh just I pray great favor on this conversation in the lives of your listeners.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, man.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's gonna do it for today.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_02: If something landed for you in this conversation, don't just let it sit.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: Take it with you.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: Carry it into your week, talk about it with someone, let it do something in you.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want to go deeper, click on the link in the show notes.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_02: We'll be back soon with more.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_02: But until then, keep following.