Latest / UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth / EP 48 - The Burnout No One Sees in Strong Leaders

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EP 48 - The Burnout No One Sees in Strong Leaders · UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth

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What happens when the thing that you're known for, strength,
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competence, leadership, becomes a very thing that slowly is
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Halloween you out? Today's conversation is for
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anyone who looks put. Today's conversation is and who
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looks put together on the outside but feels exhausted,
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uncertain, or quietly unraveling on the inside.
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This isn't a story about instant clarity or dramatic
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breakthrough. It's a story of burnout,
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surrender, and learning to trust God when the old ways stopped
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working and yet the next step hasn't been revealed.
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Welcome to Unmasked, where we take off the filters and get
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real about faith, failure, and finding freedom.
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I'm your host, Wesley Farnsworth, a dad, veteran,
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author, and a man who's learned that God does his best work in
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the middle of our mess. Each episode we have honest
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conversations with people who have walked through addiction,
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pain or doubt, and with pastors, leaders, and everyday believers
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who are learning to live and lead authentically.
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So take a breath, pull up a chair, and let's get real.
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This is unmasked. Today, my guest is Cindy Hidink.
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Cindy has spent years working alongside leaders, physicians,
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and high performers, People under constant pressure to
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perform, decide and lead well. But her story isn't about having
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it all figured out. It's about what happens when
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performance stops working, identity begins to crack, and
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God invites us into a slower, humbler way forward.
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We're going to talk honestly about burnout, disappointment,
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letting go of image driven faith, and what it looks like to
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rebuild trust with God when clarity hasn't arrived yet.
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This conversation is gentle, grounded, and deeply human, and
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I think you're going to see a lot of yourself in it.
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So, Cindy, thank you so much for joining us today on Unmasked and
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being willing to be unmasked and Share your story with us.
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Thank you, Wesley. Happy to be here.
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Well, without further ado, let's go ahead and jump in.
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And I can't wait to hear more of your story than what I've
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already heard. So my name is Cindy and for a
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long time I was that person who seems strong and capable and
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dependable on the outside. I was working in very high
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functioning, high level environments and critical
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situations and I was quietly feeling exhausted and burnt out
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and run down from the inside. My story isn't about having
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faith or leadership and everything all figured out.
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It's about what it means when like you let go over the
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performance, let your ego aside and get rid of that identity
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tied to achievement and the pressure to to have it all put
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together. Especially in seasons when we
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just don't know what the next step is.
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So I've walked through burnout, loss of direction, what it feels
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like when you're not sure what your next step is.
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It's not for me. It wasn't necessarily about like
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a big critical situation at any one point in time.
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It was just a slow kind of just a slow evolution of kind of
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coming back to into the edge of myself, finding that place where
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God could meet me, where I actually was not polished, not
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certain, just real. So I've worked over the years
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with people carrying a lot of responsibility and pressure and
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expectation and lots of heavy decisions, important life
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changing decisions, lots of high level executives and different
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things. And I've seen in both them and
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myself that God wasn't asking me or them to lead harder or push
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more. And he was inviting me to lead
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from within, lead from a place of alignment instead of
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performance. And so over time I've come to
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understand that that's what real leadership is.
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It starts with honesty, with kind of knowing yourself, with
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allowing God to reshape your heart and who you are in the
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inside. Before you worry about what
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other people think, before you worry about what the next step
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is, before you about that ego or those expectations of others
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determine what you're meant to do.
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Because sometimes all of that noise and all those things can
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stop us from hearing what we're truly meant to hear.
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And sometimes we completely get lost in that and miss what is
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the voice of God and what is our right path.
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And I deeply care about the stories that remind me of
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people. We don't have to hide.
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We don't have to run from God. We don't need to to run from
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grace because God's going to find us where we're at.
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And he does his most meaningful work when we're in the middle of
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things, in the middle of it, in the middle of the uncertainty,
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when we just sort of like rest, stay and abide in the middle of
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that situation. Yeah, he absolutely does.
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And, you know, talk to us a little bit more about maybe some
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of the events that led up to you maybe finding that burnout and,
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and realizing that the version of yourself that everyone else
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relied was that and. Sure, I could talk about like in
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corporate America and executive and things like that, but I
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think I actually want to talk about something a little bit
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more personal right now. So kind of a concept of like
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knowing yourself. It's not an abstract idea, it's
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something that's more practical. We kind of want to think about
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what that looks like. And for me, there was a point in
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my life when I was so focused on my job.
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I was so focused on getting that graduate degree and taking the
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next step that everybody wanted and what seemed like the next
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step in my personal life, my career, all of these things that
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I decided. I've been a runner for a very
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long time. I decided I was going to train
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for 1/2 marathon and I have been running since the age of 14 and
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I had trained and I was training really hard.
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I was extremely disciplined. I love the discipline, I love
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the structure. I love the feeling of proving
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and striving to myself and knowing that I could go farther
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and stronger and faster. So I ran and I ran and I ran
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some more until one day my body just stopped.
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My foot collapsed. I ended up with something called
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a flat foot deformity. I developed injuries so severe
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that I needed a flat foot reconstruction and I ended up
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being taken out of the game completely.
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I missed that half marathon and the one the following year.
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I had a 7 month really intense recovery and all at that same
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point in time the world is shutting down.
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COVID happened and I was sitting home, not able to walk and not
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really working and just sitting there like everything that I
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thought I wanted, everything that I had strived for, all of
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my goals were just disappearing before my very eyes.
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So soon I realized that I was using running and pursuing
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things as an avoidance to kind of get to know me.
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And you hear that a lot with athletes, particularly long
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distance runners, right? You hear that they're always
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running from something. Well, I was no different.
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I was absolutely running from the very edge of myself, and I
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was running from knowing who I was, who God was calling me to
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be. And it wasn't until I was forced
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to come to that place that's stopping where I had to come to
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the edge of myself and look myself in the face and say, OK,
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God, what do you want from me? I had to stop pursuing, stop
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striving. And I'd felt like a failure.
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My body betrayed me. But I learned a lot during that
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pause. I learned something that I now
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call embodied influence, and that's not about how much
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authority you have. It's about whether your
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decisions are aligned and who you actually are and whose you
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actually are. And when you don't embody
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influence, what that looks like is you're overriding the signals
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that your body is telling you. You're overriding the signals of
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your heart and what God is telling you, and you're pursuing
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information from outside. You're looking to others to
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outsource your authority and you're not taking your own
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authority and taking authority from God.
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Make your decisions. And without that clarity, you
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don't really, you don't really know what your next step is
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going to be in life can get really confusing.
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And then you find yourself deep in the throes of burnout.
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And for me it was I thought I was doing things right.
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I thought I was doing what I was supposed to because I was
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pushing through discomfort with that athlete mentality.
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I was leading from urgency, but not from self-awareness.
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I was confusing endurance with integrity, and I was training
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hard. But that's not how you lead in
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crisis. That gets you nowhere and
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nowhere fast. And ultimately that takes you
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out of the game entirely. And then you end up sitting on
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the couch for seven months, sad and depressed, sitting here,
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like, how did I get here? What happened?
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So yeah, so I began to ask different questions.
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What am I driven by? What?
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What do I really want from life? Where am I overriding my own
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limits? And what happens when I leave
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without listening to myself first?
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So I began to think, OK, who do I really want to be?
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What does that look like? And it was in that force
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stillness when you come face to face with yourself, where the
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distractions are no longer there because you you're not being
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distracted by your job, you're not being distracted by other
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people because we were in the middle of isolation right during
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that period of time. And for me, I was still long
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enough to finally hear what God wanted from me.
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And it was just simply abide was kind of the word that came
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through. It was abide.
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So I made a decision I'd never lead in a way that required self
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abandonment again. I knew that I'd I wouldn't
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betray myself and my body in that way.
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I was never going to make decision in a crisis situation
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like that again without really consulting myself and God and
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what God's best for me was. And I wasn't going to outsource
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my energy like that. So often times we're waiting for
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permission from other people to make a decision, right?
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So those decisions don't necessarily have to be
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permission from other people. We have to learn how to trust
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ourselves and our own internal signals and those high 6 moments
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our body gives us the information.
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And in my case, my body said stop.
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Literally stop. I had no choice, but I had to
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stop. And if I didn't stop there was
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like, it stopped me. So that's when you have to sit
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there and just listen and not push harder, but lead better.
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And no one to move, no one to pause, no one to have the
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confidence to do both. And that injury didn't just
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change how I LED, it didn't change how I trained.
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It just changed so much of how I view the world, so much of how
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God views me as a person. And it really forced me to re
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evaluate a lot of aspects of my life.
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I want to turn a minute to your professional side of things.
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You know, in today's society, it is very easy to get burned out
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because so much is being expected of you.
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You're expected to work around the clock.
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In some jobs, you're expected to answer your phone after hours,
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even if you're off. You know, and it's just very
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easy to get burned out and especially if you're in a
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leadership position because you know, you just there's even more
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added to your plate. So how do you you balance the
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needs of of corporate America and the signals that your body
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is telling you saying, hey, you just need to unplug and get away
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to be able to recharge and be able to give everything that the
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company is asking from you? Yeah.
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That's a great question because as we know, an unresourced body
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is not a body that can give and be of service to others.
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And ultimately that's what that's one of the reasons you
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have your job. Hopefully your job is to serve
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others and corporate America can be very demanding.
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Often times you are asked to do things after hours or different
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things like that. So one of the things and I know
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this is sounds very cliche and very trite is setting
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boundaries. It's, it's not something that
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has to be very abrupt. Boundary setting can be very
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subtle. It can be something like, hey,
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I've only got 10 minutes for this phone call and I've got a
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hard stop at such and such a time.
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So little things like that, little techniques and things
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like that can be a big difference.
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Or just set the expectation of, you know, I, I'm off at such and
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such a time. If it's an emergency, you can
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reach me. But other than that, and then
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define what an emergency would be, those things make a big
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difference. My background is in healthcare
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and healthcare leadership. And I work with a lot of
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healthcare executives and physicians on a regular basis.
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And there's a lot of demand expected on both myself and the
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and the people that I work with. And you want to make sure that
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you are understanding where people are coming from because
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everybody else has different stressors than you do.
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So you want to be respectful of the, the role that the other
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person has. You want to make sure that
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you're giving them grace because you don't know what situation
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they just walked out of, right? Often times they could have had
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a multi $1,000,000 deal on the line or a patient could have
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died or something could have happened and you would know
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nothing about. And then you come at them with
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what you would feel like the largest, biggest, most
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important, important problem in the world.
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So a lot of it is to just kind of come at things
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professionally, carefully, respectfully.
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And also knowing yourself, knowing your own limits, knowing
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what your own boundaries are. And knowing yourself isn't
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someone's tracked idea. It's actually really practical.
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It means knowing what it feels like to feel calm and regulated
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in your body. Sometimes taking a second, just
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take a deep breath and just kind of catch yourself and re
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regulate and kind of just like get your your nervous system
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settled down before you go into a high pressure situation before
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you have that difficult conversation.
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Knowing that you can reward yourself with knowing yourself
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enough to know what lights you up, what quietly drains you and
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setting boundaries around those things.
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When you really know yourself and you know how you can
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describe what triggers you, you can say things like I, I know
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that this is something that I can't address right now, but I
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can get to it back later. Because we're not necessarily
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made-up of one thing. We're a whole bunch of different
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things. And when we we know ourselves
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and we know ourselves with who we are in business and
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relationships and all those different things, it can make a
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huge difference to, to how we interact with ourselves and how
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we interact with others. So when things start to feel
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off, you might look around and think, why am I irritated?
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Why didn't this look good on paper?
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Or what feels wrong inside? What do I feel like I'm forcing
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myself into something that doesn't fit?
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Why? I just feel uncomfortable.
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And often times I think that that comes from places where
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we're lacking clarity. Yeah.
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And I, I like what you said there about showing grace when
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especially when somebody might call after hours or you know,
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something is asked of you because you don't know the
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background of what's been going on.
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And you can ask for those quest clarifying questions and, and do
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things to be able to try and get a better understanding.
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And then like you said, putting some boundaries in place is, is
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important as well. And so I, I appreciate that
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feedback or or that, that information that take when you
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think more about some burnout and then we're going to move on
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to a couple other things. But I want to ask this question,
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what did burnout take from you before it gave you anything
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back? Oh that's a great question.
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Burnout takes so much from us. Burnout can take your mental
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health, your physical health, your calm, your peace.
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For me, burnout took my joy. Burnout stole my joy.
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I was so busy trying to prove and to try and be that I forgot
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to stop and just really enjoy life.
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I was so busy outsourcing everything and trying to get it
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all done that I was so busy that on my weekends I would just
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collapse. And I had all these goals and
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all these things to achieve and then it just stole my joy and my
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happiness. And then on the weekends, I
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would find myself with those Sunday scaryies that you hear
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about. Everybody talks about, oh, I
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don't want any Mondays coming or so forth.
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And of course everyone has that. But one of the things that I did
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that started to make a huge difference was I began to
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develop things outside of my job, outside of outside of work,
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outside of an accolade that brought me joy.
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So I love to hike. I love the outdoors.
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I love to be in nature. It's something that grounds me.
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It's where I am the most clear on things.
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I love to swim. I started to learn how to surf.
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I did all of these things so that I was looking forward to my
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time when it was my time. And I think that that matters.
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And that and community and friendships and relationships
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and getting involved with things that just light you up.
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See, on my back, I says, be fearless.
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Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.
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And I got that sign literally in the middle of that period when I
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was at home in burnout, in the middle of it all, not really
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able to walk because that's I made a promise to myself that
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when I could, I would. And so but I began to slowly
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come back to me, back awake to me, and to who I was and to what
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I wanted to be and the things that would bring me joy.
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And I just shifted my perspective from achieving, from
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striving to just being. So there's a difference between
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becoming and being. And so I sort of shifted into
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that being. And I think being is much as a
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verb as becoming. But becoming is an efforted
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stride, whereas being is a is a regulated state.
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OK, so we've talked a lot about burnout, and so I want to shift
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gears now a little bit and just talk about your faith a little
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bit more. You've mentioned it a few
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different times. And so how did your relationship
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with God change when the striving stopped working?
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That's a good question as well. So I've, I have been a Christian
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since I was 8 years old. So I've been a Christian a very
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long time and I have seen all sorts of phases in my walk with
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God. You know, and it's not just
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about the salvation, it's about that sanctification.
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It's about who you are and how you walk out your faith and what
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does that look like. And over time, I began to
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realize that. God had me no matter what
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position I was in. God had me no matter what God
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told me. And he promises all of us that
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we are not defined by our past. We're free in Christ.
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We're deeply loved and fully known and restored.
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We're not broken, we're whole. We're not our circumstances.
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We're who God tells us we are. But for so long in the middle of
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all of that, I was feeling invisible and unloved and
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unworthy and I felt that things had to be earned.
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I wasn't living out my identity and I wasn't living out my
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identity in Christ. I was living out the survival
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patterns that I was pre programmed to do.
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But when we think about how God tells us to make decisions from
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truth and not fear and read from alignment and trust in his
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direction, and that requires courage and faith.
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And that's safe to walk forward in confidence because we know
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who He is and it's because who He said He is.
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And that's how I know who I am because He told me who I am.
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So I am loved, I am chosen. I'm a daughter of daughter of a
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king. I'm all of those different
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things. And so it's when I began to lean
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into my identity. I think of like I am blessed, I
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have a hope, a future. I am forgiven, I am free, and I
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am deeply loved. I am chosen, I am sanctified, I
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can do all things in Christ. I am transformed with a renewing
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of my mind. So I began to to dive deeper
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into that and I have studied theology in college as a second
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degree as well. So I just began to to to change
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my head, align my head and my heart to the word of God and
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what He told me I was and not what the world told me I was and
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not what my mind betrayed me to believe.
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Yeah, that can be very difficult to do.
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And especially just just trusting in God when the futures
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look so uncertain and and murky and and you were sitting there
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and you're like, I just want to know what's next.
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And I'm sure that you've been in situations like that.
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So kind of give give us a glimpse into how you trust in
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God and trust that he's going to provide when you don't see a way
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forward and you're scared out of your mind.
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Yeah. Well, some things that I've
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noticed in the past is I sometimes need to take a day or
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two to kind of be selfish and be greedy and to just dwell in it.
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And I know that that's not something I should do, but
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sometimes I'm like, OK, I need to just sit in this and just it
23:03
for a minute. And once I do that, then I can
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decide. And then I'm good.
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And then I'm like, OK, I had that moment.
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I've set a limit on the amount of time that I'm going to dwell
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and self pity and this and that and like, OK, that time is over.
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And I've set that limit. Once that limits over, then I'm
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like, OK, let's get to action, Let's move.
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Let's see what God has for us next.
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And it's hard because you don't always know the path.
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I mean, obviously he knows everything and has it all
23:30
planned out for us, but we don't know the next step.
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We just have to trust the very next step, not the 50 steps
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ahead. And and sometimes that very
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first step is the hardest one to take because you're like, is
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this, is this floor going to hold?
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Like will this, will this, will this ground hold me?
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Can I trust that this step is OK?
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What will I end up in crisis again?
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You know, and every one of us has had a period of time when we
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have felt like the world around us is collapsing and falling and
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we don't know what to do next. And that's when you just have to
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to stop and breathe and just pray and surrender.
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And it sounds easy, but it's hard and both easy at the same
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time. It's the easiest and hardest
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thing to do because you have to get yourself to the place of
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knowing that you can and that you will.
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And then once you do, it is just this incredible weight, like
24:32
lifted off of you. And then things, they always
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seem to work out. They don't always work out how
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we want them to because we were never promised that.
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We were never promised happiness.
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We were never promised that we'd get the outcome we wanted.
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What we were promised was that God would make himself known.
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And sometimes that means that you don't get the outcome you
24:55
want. Sometimes the loved one dies.
24:58
Sometimes the financial crisis hits the relationship and
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sometimes those things happen and we just have to know that
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through all of that, he's got a purpose in it and we just have
25:10
to rest in that, and that's not always easy.
25:16
No, it absolutely isn't. And I mean, you, you hit the
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nail on the head there. Because, you know, I recently,
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well, this week it came off of a almost nine month unemployment
25:26
stint and I was unable to find something.
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And as I've been reflecting over the last, you know, 8 months, 8
25:33
1/2 months that I've been unemployed, I'm like, OK, like
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if I had my way, I would have found a job the day after I got
25:41
laid off or I, I lost my job. And for a long time I was like,
25:46
OK, God, what are you doing? Like, why am I not getting a
25:49
job? You know, Oh, what, what's going
25:51
on? I'm, and I broke in like what,
25:53
what's, what are you doing? But he's, he's done so much in
25:55
my life during that stint. You know, this, this podcast was
25:59
born out of that stint and so much more.
26:01
And so I like that you mentioned that you don't always know what
26:06
he's going to do. And the answer isn't always yes,
26:09
you know, because there were a number of times I asked, you
26:11
know, I found a job that I was perfectly qualified for.
26:14
And I said, God, please give it to me.
26:16
And I'd wake up the next day, do a rejection e-mail.
26:19
So trusting is not always the easiest thing to do, but it
26:23
always works out in the end to some extent.
26:26
It just may not work out the way that you want it to work out.
26:30
But I like that you you brought that up so real quick.
26:33
If you're listening to this and something in this episode has
26:37
already spoken to you, right? You're you're like, man, that's
26:40
really good. Would you take a moment and
26:42
share the episode with somebody that's listening or somebody
26:45
else that got us put on your mind?
26:47
It's how conversations get started.
26:50
It's how people find freedom is just for the simple text with a
26:54
simple link share. So would you do that for us?
26:56
I'd greatly appreciate it. And I know that the person
26:59
receiving the link would appreciate your thinking of them
27:02
as well. So let's get back into the
27:04
conversation here for a moment and talk a little bit more kind
27:08
of a hybrid here of performance and grace.
27:11
And so I want to ask a question of you and that is how did your,
27:15
how did you recognize that your identity quietly became
27:19
performance based instead of relationship based, especially
27:23
when it comes to your faith? It was slow unraveling.
27:30
It was not necessarily all at once.
27:36
I would say that it was during that time of not knowing what
27:45
was next with COVID and my recovery and all of that.
27:50
And some, oftentimes we get 3 answers.
27:53
We get yes, no, or wait not now. And I kept getting a wait not
27:57
now. And a wait not now is not a no,
28:00
but it's not a yes. So that wait, that forced pause
28:05
during that period, that was when I was like, OK, there's
28:09
nothing I could do to exert this outcome.
28:13
I was, I was not capable. There was no way I could exert
28:19
an outcome of being able to be ambulatory and do that, do that,
28:24
do that race and to be working during that period of time,
28:27
there was nothing I could do. It was all beyond my control.
28:31
So it's during that time when I really had to go back in and be
28:38
like, OK, it's, it's as a weight.
28:41
And when it's a weight, that's when you got to dive in and
28:44
that's when you got to lean into it.
28:47
And so I knew that that was the best option is to just lean into
28:50
the discomfort and press in and dive in to listen to what God
28:56
had for me to hear. It was basically stop and focus
29:03
on me. And I've got you.
29:05
Those are kind of the messages that I got.
29:12
What was the hardest part for you when it came to letting go
29:15
and how did you finally be able to let go and let God have
29:20
control? Interestingly enough, it was how
29:26
I felt that other people would view me.
29:30
It was the expectations that I felt that others had of me.
29:34
That was the hardest part for me.
29:36
It wasn't what I kind of thought of myself.
29:39
It was a combination of that, but it was more what will other
29:42
people think of me? What do other people expect of
29:45
me? And when I sort of had to let
29:47
that aspect of it go, the expectations of others and see
29:51
myself through God's eyes, that's when everything shifted.
29:58
So what did surrender actually look like in real life?
30:03
Not spiritually ideal, but practically.
30:07
Yeah, practically. Surrender meant asking for help,
30:13
telling people what I needed, reaching out to people that
30:16
cared about me. Surrender looks like being
30:19
vulnerable and saying the thing I was afraid to say.
30:24
Surrender looked like admitting where I was wrong.
30:28
Surrender looked like apologizing where I was selfish.
30:31
Surrender looked like owning my mistakes.
30:38
Surrender looked like letting go of dreams that I'd had for a
30:44
long time and knowing that a different path was before me,
30:49
and learning to embrace and find the joy in those other things
30:52
that I had to rediscover and to learn.
30:57
Letting go of dreams is not something that's easy to do.
31:00
We all have dreams of what we want to become, and it's having
31:03
to let go of those is not the easiest thing to do.
31:06
So I can definitely see how that would be difficult for you.
31:10
So in the middle of all of this uncertainty, in the middle of
31:13
letting everything go, how did God meet you?
31:22
How did God meet you in the uncertainty instead of removing
31:26
it? I wished if he would have
31:30
removed it because it would have been a lot easier.
31:32
But sometimes you know that you just have to walk a path to its
31:35
completion. You have to take that step and
31:38
you have to go. So I was met by people coming to
31:45
people I didn't expect, coming to love me and support me, was
31:51
met by friendship and grace and community.
31:57
I was met in the quiet of my own devotional time.
32:01
I was met in the quiet of my own writing.
32:03
I was met through study. I was met through when I was
32:10
able to, being outside, being alone in the stillness and just
32:15
quietly listening and letting, letting all of the outside
32:19
influence and stress go away so that I would just listen to what
32:23
God had for me. And that was one of the biggest
32:27
things, just being still enough to listen, to hear what he
32:30
actually wanted for me to do. And sometimes it was simply
32:35
wait. It was simply wait, Trust me,
32:39
I've got you, I love you, you are enough.
32:42
And I would just keep hearing these phrases.
32:44
You are enough, I've got you, I love you.
32:46
Just repeat it in my heart and my brain, and I just began to
32:51
assimilate them into my identity and who I was and to know that
32:56
and to trust that a little bit more every day.
32:59
It wasn't always easy. It's definitely not easy.
33:04
And I, I love that you brought up community because, you know,
33:08
this show is called Unmasked. And part of being unmasked is,
33:12
like you said, asking for help and then admitting when we're
33:16
struggling with something and being vulnerable and being
33:20
willing to talk about those things going in our lives and
33:23
taking off the mask that says, Hey, I'm fine.
33:26
I'm fine. When really on the inside you're
33:28
struggling, right? Because that's that's just the
33:31
go to response to everybody. You know, now it's like I cut,
33:34
it's the new 4 letter word, It's the new four letter F word.
33:37
You know, it's you know, I'm fine.
33:40
Well, OK, now how are you truly right?
33:42
And so having a community is so important that you can somebody
33:47
that you can be vulnerable with that you can be honest with
33:50
that. They know you well enough to be
33:52
able to call you on it when you're blowing smoke up the
33:55
rear, you know, and, and just being, being honest with and so
34:00
a part of being unmasked is also having that integrity.
34:04
So what does living with integrity instead of image look
34:09
like now? Living in integrity is a lot
34:14
like living in alignment. And I know alignment is a very
34:16
much a buzzword, but living in integrity is for me, it's about
34:22
being true to who God has called me to be and to serve the
34:26
purpose that he has for me and not the purpose that that I
34:31
think that others have for me. And one of the ways that that
34:34
happens is I do have those people in my life, the friends,
34:37
the family who know me and love me enough.
34:40
And that took years to cultivate to have those people who will
34:44
call you out if you're, if you look like you're maybe not doing
34:48
something and like, hey, this doesn't seem right or maybe
34:52
maybe this or that, and they can help, help help you along the
34:55
way. So having that is important,
34:59
knowing that no matter what, you're going to stick to what
35:05
you truly believe to be right and authentic and true for you,
35:09
along with what your morals are, with what your values are, what
35:12
scripture tells us to to be true.
35:16
And having the support of people who also have those same values,
35:21
who know you, who love you, who can call you out if they see you
35:25
straying from them, who will accept you for who you are no
35:29
matter what. All of that is part of having
35:32
integrity to me. How do you balance?
35:37
So if if you have somebody that's you know, you're like,
35:41
man, I'm living on mask now and I know that I have an issue with
35:45
this, but I know that if I bring this up, it's going to upset XY
35:51
or Z or I know that if I bring it up, my employer is not going
35:55
to be happy because this is what's expected of me.
35:58
But I know that I shouldn't do that.
36:01
How do you balance that in order to still live unmasked?
36:05
But also when in some cases maybe perform what's being asked
36:10
of you to do or salvage a relationship?
36:15
Or do you not salvage? Like how do you in your eyes,
36:18
how do you do that? Well, each situation is going to
36:21
be different, of course, So let's just take personal life
36:25
for for example. So in personal life
36:28
relationships, the best relationships are oftentimes the
36:33
most challenging relationships, right?
36:35
The people closest to you are the ones that can hurt you the
36:37
most, that you've often heard that risk.
36:39
So there's a sense of risk when you're coming to someone with an
36:43
issue or a problem. If you come at them with this
36:46
issue or problem, you could, you have to weigh your options, like
36:51
if I come at them with this, I could risk losing the
36:53
relationship. And what is and what is the
36:55
value of that relationship to is it worth it to come with this to
36:59
this person about this particular situation?
37:01
And if I do, what are the consequences of that?
37:04
Or is there a halfway point? Or do I just bury this and
37:07
pretend it doesn't exist? And that usually doesn't work
37:10
because usually what that does is that leaves an unspoken
37:13
tension that ultimately boils up and bubbles up later on.
37:17
And often times those are the relationships that you end up
37:21
with a bigger problem later on because you didn't address that
37:25
wasn't when it was a little problem.
37:26
And sometimes those relationships can implode
37:29
completely. And whereas if you had addressed
37:32
the issue or the thing sooner, you could have worked it out
37:36
together. And but it does, it risks both
37:39
people being vulnerable and being seen.
37:42
And you know, you have to make a determination what the what the
37:46
level of risk is for yourself. It's a risk assessment really.
37:51
Yeah, and I, I like to tell people too sometimes, you know,
37:54
sometimes you telling somebody that they're doing something or
37:58
acting a certain way or, or saying certain things that
38:02
offend you, you know, if that if that maybe you're the boundary
38:05
that you're struggling with. Sometimes you saying it brings
38:08
something to light for them that they didn't even know was an
38:12
issue. And chances are if you have a
38:14
problem with it, you there's probably other people as well.
38:17
And so sometimes as hard as it is, calling that out and letting
38:21
them know actually helps them in in the long run and it gives
38:25
them the opportunity to be vulnerable in in response.
38:27
So I definitely like that you brought that up.
38:30
And So what would you say to somebody who's out there and
38:34
listening today and they're just exhausted.
38:37
They're just so exhausted, but they don't know how to stop
38:41
striving. Well, if you don't stop, your
38:47
body will stop you. Everything that we do gets kind
38:53
of held in our bodies. And sometimes if we continue
38:56
striving and continue going, our bodies will force us to stop.
39:00
So often times we need to kind of find little ways to resource
39:04
ourselves, whether that's something in your health, in
39:09
your diet, getting a massage, something to resource yourself
39:14
to kind of stave off that exhaustion, to rejuvenate you,
39:17
find a new hobby, find something that brings you joy.
39:21
But a lot of it, a lot of this does come down to how you treat
39:25
your body. Like God tells us our body is a
39:27
temple and we want to make sure that we're treating the temple.
39:30
We only get one, that we're treating it well.
39:32
So things like nutritious food, sleep habits, you know,
39:38
counseling, all different things like that.
39:40
There's a lot of resources and there's, there's so many to name
39:43
breath work, all different things like that can make a
39:45
difference. And whatever combination of
39:48
things, try out what works for you, what works for you, what
39:53
the routine is. It's going to work for you.
39:54
Change one little thing, one little habit at a time.
39:57
Because if you go all in, like it's New Year's Day, I'm going
40:00
to go do 50 new things and I'm going to lose 100 lbs and I'm
40:04
going to eat only clean and give up sugar.
40:07
And if you go and do that, you're going to fail in every
40:09
one of them. So little changes over time have
40:14
a vast cumulative effect, but you still kind of need to figure
40:18
out what works for you and what. Doesn't work for you.
40:21
So little changes, little tweaks, not big, big jumps,
40:25
because that can be overwhelming.
40:26
And that's when people quit and they end up worse off than they
40:29
were before. Absolutely.
40:32
I, I, I'm talk about that quite often is, you know, don't you
40:36
just like the same goes, you know, how do you eat an elephant
40:40
or an apple one bite at a time, right?
40:42
You got to do the same thing when it comes to change.
40:44
And so with that in mind, what is the one thing that you find
40:49
works best for you to ground yourself and to be able to keep
40:55
yourself from getting too exhausted?
40:58
This is my favorite thing. So it's actually a combination
41:01
of a couple of things. It's one thing, it's one
41:04
activity, but it's several things together.
41:06
So for me, that's getting outside, moving my body and
41:10
breathing that that breathing with motion outside in nature,
41:17
it's just so rejuvenating. It's just how I can feel close
41:22
to God. It's how I can feel clear.
41:25
It's how I can align myself to make good decisions.
41:29
It's how I get re energized. It's just all of those things.
41:32
So it's a combination of being outside, moving my body,
41:35
breathing deeply, and just praying in as I'm doing all of
41:41
that so that I can just hear what I meant to hear.
41:46
Love it. Well, Cindy, I have one more
41:48
question for you. But before I ask it, I want to
41:51
give you a chance to be able to speak to the listeners.
41:53
And if they're out there and they're saying, man, Cindy, I
41:56
love what you've been talking about.
41:57
What would you or how how can they find you online and and
42:01
find out more about you? Sure.
42:04
Right now it's Cindy hitting at Instagram and Cynthia hitting at
42:08
LinkedIn. And I will have a an e-mail list
42:12
and a quiz about leadership archetypes coming out very soon.
42:16
And eventually they'll be a sub stack as well, but that's not
42:20
there yet. But that's where we're at right
42:22
now. Awesome.
42:24
Well, if you're looking for those links and you're like,
42:26
wait, wait, wait, what did she say?
42:27
I'll have those links down in the show notes.
42:29
And by the time you're listening to this episode, the quiz that
42:32
she mentioned will be out. So make sure you go and check
42:35
that out and take the quiz. And so, Cindy, if somebody
42:39
listening today is just feeling burned out, they're disappointed
42:43
or they're stuck between who they were and who they're
42:47
becoming, what is the one thing that you would want them to hear
42:52
out of today's conversation? One thing between who they are
42:58
and who they're becoming, no matter what, God has got you.
43:12
God's got you. There's a plan for your life and
43:15
God already knows what it is. You just have to know yourself
43:19
and to listen to what it is and He will always meet you where
43:23
you are. You're never too far gone.
43:28
Couldn't have said it better myself.
43:29
Well, Cindy, thank you so much for being with us today on
43:32
Unmasked and sharing your story and the advice with the
43:37
listeners today. I know that people definitely
43:41
have gotten something from it, and so I greatly appreciate you
43:44
being with us. Thank you very much.
43:47
I appreciate sharing all my opinions with you.
43:50
Thank you. Absolutely.
43:57
Well, thanks for joining me today on Unmasked.
43:59
And a huge thanks again to my guest Cindy for sharing so
44:03
openly and honestly. If something in this episode
44:05
spoke to you, don't let it stop with you.
44:08
Share with one person that God put on your heart while you were
44:11
listening. You never know whose
44:13
breakthrough might start with just that simple message.
44:16
If you want more encouragement, want to work with new
44:18
one-on-one, or you're interested in having me speak at your
44:20
church or event, you can find everything@wesleyfarnsworth.com
44:25
and make sure you join the Unmasked community by connecting
44:27
with me on social media so that we can keep walking this journey
44:30
together. Until next time, remember that
44:33
grace is greater than your past and real freedom begins the
44:36
moment that you choose to live unmasked.
44:39
God bless you.