Latest / CEO Kingdom Seekers / Ep 42: Seven Signs You May Have Shadow Work To Do Around Your Spiritual Gifts

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Ep 42: Seven Signs You May Have Shadow Work To Do Around Your Spiritual Gifts · CEO Kingdom Seekers

• 0:00
  Speaker: Hey, y'all.
• 0:00
  Speaker: Welcome back to this week's episode.
• 0:03
  Speaker: Now, y'all, this is a longer episode, okay?
• 0:05
  Speaker: So if you gotta break it into two parts, please do, but, like, this is a powerful episode.
• 0:10
  Speaker: I'm actually adding this sentence in.
• 0:12
  Speaker: Like, I'm adding this sentence and editing it in so that it goes at the beginning of the episode.
• 0:17
  Speaker: This is a powerful episode.
• 0:19
  Speaker: It's a bit longer than I planned on, and you're welcome, because honestly, I think that this is super powerful.
• 0:24
  Speaker: So if you don't listen to the whole thing now, that's cool, but come back and listen to this.
• 0:29
  Speaker: But if the first part resonates, I promise the second part's gonna, gonna hit even harder, okay?
• 0:33
  Speaker: So please come back and finish it so real talk, I had a surprise root canal a few weeks ago, and it has been causing me issues now for over a month, and I have a condition called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
• 0:53
  Speaker: I Was diagnosed when I was nine years old, so I've known I've had it for over 30 years, and it's come with a lot of really wild physical symptoms, one of which being chronic pain.
• 1:06
  Speaker: So I've lived at a two or higher out of 10 pain score for practically my entire life.
• 1:13
  Speaker: So pain is not typically something that'll take me out.
• 1:17
  Speaker: In fact, a lot of times I will be in pain and not even realize I'm in pain until the pain goes away.
• 1:23
  Speaker: And these last few weeks, we're talking five out of 10, seven out of 10 pain.
• 1:30
  Speaker: taking medication, And because of the pain in my mouth, I started clenching my jaw, which then led to some other physical pain throughout the rest of my body.
• 1:40
  Speaker: So, uh, so we've been having a time, okay?
• 1:43
  Speaker: And I'm sharing that with you today because about a month ago, we hired support to help us get our podcast out, and my goal was to be able to get several episodes ahead.
• 1:54
  Speaker: I had, 15-plus guest episodes already recorded that I needed help getting edited and put out.
• 2:00
  Speaker: And I wanted to build up a bank of solo podcast episodes because putting out two podcast episodes a week is no small feat, especially when they're a little So a month ago, we hired a trusted person that we just knew would do a phenomenal job, and I'm so glad that I made that move.
• 2:17
  Speaker: It was a really tough move to make because the way that we run Regulated Routes is we run it completely debt-free.
• 2:24
  Speaker: We do not put anything on credit at all.
• 2:27
  Speaker: 100% of what we do is paid in cash.
• 2:30
  Speaker: So the decision to bring someone in, was a decision that we were like, we need to know that we have the money to do that, because in the past, one of the most painful business lessons that I learned was planning on what you thought you were going to have happen versus what you actually know is a 100% for sure thing.
• 2:49
  Speaker: And so God's been really leading me through this journey of planning on what is already in our storehouses or planning on what is already in our hands rather than planning on what we think might be coming.
• 3:02
  Speaker: And so I'm so glad that we made that decision, even though it was really scary to do that, because this last month, there's no way that I would have gotten these solo podcast episodes out, with the amount of pain that I've been in.
• 3:17
  Speaker: And the accountability has been there as well as going like, okay, I have somebody who is ready to get all of these out.
• 3:22
  Speaker: And yes, we could go back down to doing one podcast a week.
• 3:26
  Speaker: And yes, we could make these other decisions, but that's not what I wanna do.
• 3:29
  Speaker: That's not what I believe God is calling me to do.
• 3:32
  Speaker: In this whole journey over these last several weeks of being in pain and making decisions from a very different place than I would have made them before, making a decision that comes from how much I have grown in my own gifts, how much I have developed in all seven areas, and how I have been intentionally decreasing the distortion and clearing out the diminishment of my gifts and making sure that they are more divinely directed as much as I can.
• 4:03
  Speaker: And, you know, stumbling and falling and failing and like getting back up and dusting myself off in a bunch of different ways.
• 4:09
  Speaker: But like in the process of doing this, I have been realizing how different I look at situations, particularly situations of suffering or situations where before I would have shown up in a distorted or a diminished way in my gifts.
• 4:26
  Speaker: Instead, I'm doing the harder thing.
• 4:28
  Speaker: I'm choosing the tougher thing in the short term that is leading to benefits in the long term.
• 4:35
  Speaker: And I'm able to look back at the decisions I'm making more and go,"Oh, wow, I'm so glad that I did it that way," or,"I'm so glad that we did it that way," rather than going like,"Ugh, I wish I'd done something different." I'm sharing this with you because I want to practice humility.
• 4:49
  Speaker: The word humility means that you own what you're good at, and you own what you're not good at.
• 4:53
  Speaker: And you also understand what comes from God, right?
• 4:56
  Speaker: And so I'm practicing humility here and sharing with y'all of okay, these things are improving, these things are changing, and this is coming from Grow In in my gifts.
• 5:05
  Speaker: This is coming from practicing what I teach.
• 5:08
  Speaker: And so I'm also sharing this because Last week I realized that there were some things that I still wanted to say.
• 5:14
  Speaker: Like I, I just so clearly heard from God,"Hey, you've been talking about Grow In Your Gifts program from this perspective of the professor a lot, and the other six gifts, like they need you to pay them attention too, so keep Grow In Your Gifts open for one more week till Wednesday the 28th.
• 5:30
  Speaker: Allow people to join through this first week of getting started." And I'm so happy that I did that, because we've had a few more people join, which is just so exciting.
• 5:41
  Speaker: And, if you're listening to this, as the episode comes out, you can still join us, all right?
• 5:46
  Speaker: If you're hearing this at the beginning of November, you can still join us.
• 5:49
  Speaker: Just Send me an email or find me on social media and message me.
• 5:53
  Speaker: And I think that this episode is like the perfect episode to come out the day before we close Gr- Grow In Your Gifts, doors, because I wanna talk more about what I just shared here, about the fact that like over the last several episodes, we've talked about how God gives us gifts by His grace, and we learn how to express those gifts through our real lived experiences.
• 6:16
  Speaker: And in the last solo episode 40, I talked about how there are these costumes that we learn to wear because they help us understand who other people want us to be, and then underneath of those costumes, there's armor that we build when life teaches us that parts of ourselves need walled off, either to keep them from being hurt by other people or to prevent us from hurting other people.
• 6:38
  Speaker: So something I've been really meditating on a lot, in my reading, in my prayer time, in scripture, in conversations with clients is, okay if we have these costumes that we put on in order to try to project a perception of ourselves onto other people so that they'll see us the way that we think they want to see us.
• 7:03
  Speaker: If that costume gets put on top of armor, and that armor is either protecting us from someone else or protecting someone else from us, what is it exactly that armor is covering up?
• 7:13
  Speaker: What did we wall off?
• 7:14
  Speaker: What did we put behind the fortress?
• 7:17
  Speaker: So I just finished this book yesterday by Richard Rohr.
• 7:20
  Speaker: He's a Franciscan priest.
• 7:22
  Speaker: He, he talks about how the more that he has learned and gotten into theology and philosophy, like, he's become more traditional and more progressive, simultaneously.
• 7:33
  Speaker: And so I really like his work because he really challenges us to get out of the, what he calls the dualistic thinking and get out of the either/or and come into the both/and.
• 7:43
  Speaker: And I think that this is really important because, so many of us are in dualistic thinking.
• 7:49
  Speaker: And so in his book, Falling Upward, he's talking about the two phases of life that humans experience.
• 7:58
  Speaker: And this maps so perfectly onto the psychological frameworks that I learned back in my academic time and also it maps really well onto a lot of different religions, different spiritual practices, a lot of different, ideologies that are out there which I think is very fascinating because when you can see a thread that runs through lots of different faiths not just different Christian denominations, but a lot of different things, there's-- when you can see that universality to something, universality is typically a sign of divinity, right?
• 8:33
  Speaker: God is everything.
• 8:35
  Speaker: And so if a truth holds true in everything, no matter what, we can oftentimes see that as a sign of God.
• 8:46
  Speaker: So in his book, he's referring to a concept that they talk about a lot in, psychology of the way out is the way in.
• 8:55
  Speaker: In order to go up, we must go down.
• 8:58
  Speaker: In order to, really bring light to the darkness, we have to take the light into the darkness.
• 9:05
  Speaker: And so the two phases of life that Richard Rohr is describing, the first phase is the phase of creating a container, a structure for our ego.
• 9:14
  Speaker: Like really understanding who we are, like planting our flag in the ground and saying,"This is who I am, this is what I believe, this is what I stand for, this is what I don't stand for," and really getting that sense of self and creating that understanding of dualistic thinking, interacting with boundaries so that we can understand, things from a this is and this isn't, or this is good and this is bad, this is what I like and this is what I don't like, this is what I think is correct and this is what I don't think is correct.
• 9:43
  Speaker: That's all very necessary in this first phase of life because you've gotta be able to identify what is and what isn't and the second phase of life he talks about, if setting the container, and really creating the structure and the boundaries, if that's the first phase of life, the second phase of life is understanding what you really want to have in that container, what gets held inside of that container.
• 10:06
  Speaker: And this is where a lot of shadow work gets done, and he uses this word shadow work, and I wanna be really intentional about this word because I know that this gets used in a lot of, New Age and more pagan or spiritual spaces.
• 10:18
  Speaker: And so what I took away from what Rohr describes in this chapter, he is talking about the fact that There's stuff underneath of our armor that the light doesn't reach.
• 10:31
  Speaker: We've cut off and walled off these parts of ourselves, and in order to really understand who we actually are, not who we've built this persona to be, not who we've projected out to the world.
• 10:48
  Speaker: In order to understand, and to be unified, to come into greater unity and greater love and greater compassion and greater understanding with other people, we gotta take that armor off.
• 11:02
  Speaker: We've got to look at where we have covered up and kept the light from getting in because we've decided that those parts don't deserve to be brought to the light.
• 11:16
  Speaker: And so he uses this term, persona, right?
• 11:19
  Speaker: And so I think the persona is made up of two things.
• 11:22
  Speaker: One, it's made up of the costume, and number two, it's made up of the armor.
• 11:26
  Speaker: And persona in Greek means stage mask.
• 11:30
  Speaker: So it's literally the mask that we put on top, right?
• 11:34
  Speaker: And so In the book, Rohr says,"Your persona is what most people want from you and reward you for." And so the costume is what we've learned is acceptable to show other people.
• 11:46
  Speaker: The armor is the strategies that we've developed to protect that persona, okay?
• 11:51
  Speaker: To make sure that you can't actually get underneath and see the darkness that I've hidden underneath of the armor.
• 11:58
  Speaker: Okay?
• 11:59
  Speaker: The shadow is made up of the qualities and the needs, the contradictions, the emotions, the motives, and the parts of ourselves that we struggle to see or acknowledge because they don't align with the persona.
• 12:12
  Speaker: They don't align with the costume that I have put on.
• 12:16
  Speaker: So we're gonna get into some examples of what it can look like for each of these seven giftings, because I think that's really important.
• 12:23
  Speaker: And I wanted to pull in scripture here because I think that if there's one concept that Jesus talks about a lot besides love, right?
• 12:35
  Speaker: He talks a lot about love.
• 12:37
  Speaker: He talks about light.
• 12:39
  Speaker: The Bible talks about light a lot.
• 12:41
  Speaker: And in fact, in John 1:4-5 It says Through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race.
• 12:50
  Speaker: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." Now, something interesting about verbs in the Bible is that verbs, oftentimes the way that we interpret them in English is we'll put a, a tense on them, like a present tense, and oftentimes that present tense is not the only tense that the language meant.
• 13:11
  Speaker: So it's not just saying the darkness has not overcome it, it's saying the darkness will not overcome it or will never overcome it.
• 13:19
  Speaker: I love this because he's talking about that the light is Christ.
• 13:23
  Speaker: Okay?
• 13:23
  Speaker: Jesus Christ is the light.
• 13:27
  Speaker: So when we talk about bringing light into the darkness, when we talk about doing shadow work and removing the costumes and taking off the armor and then allowing the light in to the darkness so that we can reconnect and rediscover these parts of ourselves that have been part of us the entire time and yet we have cut off, we have walled off from the rest of our visible experience.
• 13:57
  Speaker: We're not talking about generic enlightenment.
• 13:59
  Speaker: We're not talking about this clinical self-analysis.
• 14:01
  Speaker: We are talking about allowing Christ to illuminate the parts of us that we have been previously unwilling or even unable to see.
• 14:12
  Speaker: Colossians chapter 3, verses 3 and 4 also talk about this.
• 14:15
  Speaker: St.
• 14:15
  Speaker: Paul talks about how our life is hidden with Christ in God.
• 14:20
  Speaker: Our identities are not located in our costumes, in our personas.
• 14:24
  Speaker: And a lot of times what the world teaches us is you can't do that shadow work without it being incredibly uncomfortable, incredibly difficult, causing all of this mess in your life.
• 14:40
  Speaker: You can't take off the costume and take off the armor without having an identity crisis.
• 14:46
  Speaker: and what I wanna bring through here is that w- yes, this is gonna be painful, and yes, there's gonna be moments you suffer, and yes, you are going to be humbled.
• 14:56
  Speaker: and Rohr even talks about this.
• 14:57
  Speaker: You're gonna get really comfortable feeling humiliation.
• 15:01
  Speaker: Humiliation is us being humbled.
• 15:05
  Speaker: It's our nose, hitting the ground because we have bowed down so low that we are on the floor That's a posture of surrender as much as it's a posture of humiliation.
• 15:15
  Speaker: Rohr talks about how in the second half of life, it is this willingness to be called forth by God into these shadowlands, and to look at the three key fears that every human has.
• 15:34
  Speaker: And these three key fears are what cause us to cut off the pieces and parts of ourselves in the first place.
• 15:42
  Speaker: Now, these are reflection categories for you.
• 15:46
  Speaker: When we look at why we would exile, pieces and parts of ourselves, why we would hide them behind these fortresses, I want to be really clear.
• 15:53
  Speaker: These three fears that I'm gonna talk about are, mentioned in a lot of different places, which again, I love because again, if you find these three things being talked about in lots of different places across denominations, across religions, across, across a lot of places that are typically divided, if this truth shows up in every area, then it's probably a truth.
• 16:19
  Speaker: I don't wanna clinically reduce your shadow work to these three places, and it shows up time and time again.
• 16:25
  Speaker: Another book that I read recently is The Lie You Didn't Know You Believed.
• 16:30
  Speaker: It's by Jennie Allen, and she talks about these three fears.
• 16:35
  Speaker: I've also learned these three fears from Tony Robbins.
• 16:37
  Speaker: I've learned these three fears in, I've learned these three fears in other church settings.
• 16:41
  Speaker: I've learned these three fears in my psychology classes.
• 16:43
  Speaker: I've heard these three fears in a lot of different places, okay?
• 16:47
  Speaker: Here's what they are.
• 16:49
  Speaker: I am powerless, so I don't have control.
• 16:53
  Speaker: I can't stop what's happening, so I lack the ability or the knowledge, the resources, the influence, the agency, the choice to prevent suffering from happening, so I feel out of control.
• 17:06
  Speaker: Number two, I'm unlovable.
• 17:10
  Speaker: When people fully see me, I will disappoint them, I will need too much, I will become too much, I will stop being useful, I will be rejected, abandoned, disconnected, or no longer chosen.
• 17:23
  Speaker: That's number two.
• 17:25
  Speaker: And number three is I'm unworthy.
• 17:27
  Speaker: Something about me is bad.
• 17:29
  Speaker: Something about me is inadequate, defective, insignificant, shameful, or without value.
• 17:35
  Speaker: We actually used to teach about these in our trauma institute, and it's a, it's one of our most powerful teachings.
• 17:40
  Speaker: And, and I'm just like, even as we're talking right here, I'm like, man, I gotta bring this back.
• 17:43
  Speaker: Because every time I teach it somewhere, people are like,"This is the wildest thing I've heard." But we call it the six chronic patterns of dysregulation The six chronic patterns of dysregulation are connected to these three core fears.
• 17:58
  Speaker: The fear that I won't be able to be in power and I won't have control, I won't have agency, the fear that I won't be able to connect and belong, and the fear that I won't be able to maintain my life That I'll be ostracized and excluded and I won't be able to feed myself.
• 18:14
  Speaker: I won't be able to find a place to live.
• 18:15
  Speaker: I won't be able to have shelter.
• 18:16
  Speaker: I won't be able to physically maintain my ability to survive Now, the way that this connects back to gifts, let's take a child who has a primary motivational gift of CEO.
• 18:35
  Speaker: They're a natural leader.
• 18:37
  Speaker: So this natural leading child takes initiative, organizes others, has really strong opinions, and is born into a lived experience where they are frequent-- she is frequently told that she is bossy or too much.
• 18:53
  Speaker: If the experience lands as when I take charge, when I take command, I am unlovable, she may diminish her leadership.
• 19:06
  Speaker: She might decide to define herself as,"I'm just easygoing." The persona that she puts on is, I just sit at the table, and I let other people lead, and I don't have opinions." And the armor that she's put over top is,"Don't let anybody see that you're opinionated.
• 19:24
  Speaker: Don't let anybody see that you would love to be sitting at the front of the room." So the armor is,"I'm not gonna let anyone get close to that part of me that is opinionated." She's protecting the part that has been cut off that is the natural dominant leader Okay?
• 19:46
  Speaker: Now, notice what might also get triggered there.
• 19:51
  Speaker: I'm powerless, right?
• 19:53
  Speaker: So if she feels like the only way that I can have power is by not taking command, but when I don't take command, I feel out of power, we've now created a really tough situation for life.
• 20:08
  Speaker: Because in order to try to maintain my ability to be loved, I have to cut myself off from my power.
• 20:19
  Speaker: So the opposite direction of this is maybe you're a child who is relatively easygoing.
• 20:25
  Speaker: Maybe you don't actually care.
• 20:27
  Speaker: Maybe you love it when other people lead'cause that you just love to pay attention and listen.
• 20:31
  Speaker: Maybe you're more, maybe your primary motivational gift is consoler, and you're like,"I don't wanna be a CEO.
• 20:36
  Speaker: I, I love just following." And you grow up in a family where nobody else takes the lead.
• 20:44
  Speaker: Maybe you have parents who don't even pay the bills don't work.
• 20:48
  Speaker: They struggle to take care of themselves.
• 20:50
  Speaker: And so you are parentified into this space, maybe as the oldest child, where you say,"Oh my gosh, I have to take care of myself and my my younger siblings, because if I don't, nobody else will.
• 21:00
  Speaker: So let me be the CEO.
• 21:01
  Speaker: Let me step in and build the vision.
• 21:03
  Speaker: Let me be the parent, essentially.
• 21:06
  Speaker: Let me lead.
• 21:07
  Speaker: Let me take over." And i'm stepping into this leadership, but it is very distorted.
• 21:13
  Speaker: I'm doing it from this place of I have to, not because it's what I'm naturally motivated to do So this child might actually wall off the part of them that feels really powerless and helpless that's like,"My parents should be the ones handling this," and they might wall that feeling off.
• 21:32
  Speaker: They might wall off their desire to be a child, to not be in charge, and then develop this gift in a very distorted way because it's not how they quote-unquote,"should" have developed the gift.
• 21:47
  Speaker: As a child, if you recognize that your parents do not have the capacity to love you and care for you and protect you the way that you need it, you will wall off the need to be loved and cared for and protected.
• 22:06
  Speaker: Before I get into these seven ways that you might recognize that you're ready to do this work, to get into the second phase of life, and again, this isn't a chronological thing, okay?
• 22:15
  Speaker: There's people who are 70 who still aren't in their second phase.
• 22:18
  Speaker: There's people who are 30 who are already several years into their second phase.
• 22:22
  Speaker: Typically, it starts around midlife, 40 to 50.
• 22:25
  Speaker: All right?
• 22:26
  Speaker: Either way, whether it's diminishment of a gift or it's distortion of a gift, both of those are consequences of these core fears that we have.
• 22:38
  Speaker: So the diminishment looks like something about expressing this gift becomes costly, so I turn it down, I hide it, I distrust it, I stop practicing it.
• 22:45
  Speaker: I construct a persona around being its opposite.
• 22:49
  Speaker: Distortion looks like the gift is highly active and gets recruited into protection.
• 22:55
  Speaker: It gets falsely developed, so it protects you against powerlessness, it protects you against rejection, against shame, inadequacy, uncertainty, or some other feared experience.
• 23:04
  Speaker: All right?
• 23:05
  Speaker: Any gift can be expressed in a way that helps you stay armored up against these three fears, and two people can display nearly identical behavior for completely different reasons.
• 23:20
  Speaker: This is why it's so important for us to actually get underneath to really do this work of exploring the shadows.
• 23:29
  Speaker: So I'm gonna walk through the seven ways that you know that there's some shadow work that needs to happen.
• 23:35
  Speaker: That you know whether you're in this first phase of life where you're still constructing, or you're in this second phase of life where you're like,"Yeah, I gotta get in here and do some deconstruction and reconstruction, and I wanna be intentional with those words, because I think some of y'all will hear those words, and you'll think about the traditional church deconstruction.
• 23:52
  Speaker: That's not what I'm talking about.
• 23:53
  Speaker: I'm talking about taking off the costumes, taking off the armor, and seeing what's underneath with God, and allowing Him to take you through this process gently and kindly, and not in this way that causes an identity crisis.
• 24:08
  Speaker: And remember, we're bringing Jesus into this, okay?
• 24:10
  Speaker: So as I describe these seven ways, we're bringing Jesus into this.
• 24:16
  Speaker: So right here, even just pausing, taking a breath, taking a beat, and asking Christ to come into this with you as I describe these, okay?
• 24:31
  Speaker: So number one, you need to keep being the person that everyone rewards.
• 24:39
  Speaker: So what version of you gets rewarded the most in your life?
• 24:46
  Speaker: Is it the competent CEO?
• 24:49
  Speaker: Is it the helpful builder, the wise professor, the compassionate consoler, the responsible steward, the perceptive judge, the motivating coach?
• 25:00
  Speaker: Okay, what version when you show up that way to the outside world, and particularly with your family of origin, a lot of times we see this Like what gets you rewarded?
• 25:14
  Speaker: What keeps people happy?
• 25:15
  Speaker: What maintains the peace?
• 25:20
  Speaker: And then here's the flip side of this question.
• 25:22
  Speaker: What part of you is, quote-unquote,"not allowed" to show up because it would contradict that costume?
• 25:31
  Speaker: So if you're supposed to be the capable one, you can't be helpless.
• 25:36
  Speaker: If you're supposed to be the wise one, you can't ever be confused.
• 25:39
  Speaker: If you're supposed to be the compassionate one you can't be angry.
• 25:42
  Speaker: If you're supposed to be the responsible one, you can't need rescuing.
• 25:46
  Speaker: If you're supposed to be the leader, you can't be uncertain.
• 25:49
  Speaker: If you're supposed to be the helper, you can't need advice or support.
• 25:56
  Speaker: So here's how we, we identify the fear underneath of this.
• 26:03
  Speaker: If that other part became visible, what are you afraid it would mean?
• 26:09
  Speaker: Would you become more powerless, more unlovable, or more unworthy?
• 26:14
  Speaker: And it might be more than one The persona oftentimes isn't just there to portray a strength out to others.
• 26:25
  Speaker: It's there to cover up the armor that is present that helps keep your weaknesses Out of sight, Okay?
• 26:37
  Speaker: Now, number two We know that there's some shadow work to be done if you are highly defensive about a particular part of your gifting.
• 26:47
  Speaker: So when other people give you feedback, when other people hold up a mirror, and Richard Rohr talks about this later on in that book, Falling Upward.
• 26:54
  Speaker: He talks about how in the second phase of life, you stop caring about where the feedback comes from, why it was said, who said it, their motive, any of it, and you ask yourself,"Is this objectively true?" And it has to do with that willingness to be humbled, willingness to look at the ego, willingness to recognize where you have armored up and put on a persona.
• 27:21
  Speaker: So what criticism produces a disproportionate reaction?
• 27:25
  Speaker: Like what triggers you?
• 27:27
  Speaker: What disregulates you more than other things?
• 27:30
  Speaker: You're controlling, you don't know everything, you can't fix this, you're too sensitive, you're wrong.
• 27:37
  Speaker: That's your responsibility, and you should have picked it up and you didn't.
• 27:42
  Speaker: Look, please don't hear what I'm not saying.
• 27:45
  Speaker: The criticism is likely unfair.
• 27:47
  Speaker: Other people holding up mirrors to us, they don't often do it kindly.
• 27:51
  Speaker: Sometimes they do, and we don't take it as kind.
• 27:55
  Speaker: But a lot of times, the feedback that they give us, it comes across as mean.
• 27:58
  Speaker: It's not kind.
• 28:01
  Speaker: And while we don't want to assume that every accusation that people put on us is revelation, sometimes they're right, y'all.
• 28:08
  Speaker: So we wanna ask here, why does this accusation, why does this feedback, this criticism feel particularly dangerous?
• 28:18
  Speaker: What would it seem to prove about me if it were true?
• 28:23
  Speaker: That I am powerless, that I am unlovable, that I am unworthy Rohr talks about when we do this work that we've gotta be able to ask that question, is it objectively true?
• 28:37
  Speaker: He talks about the scripture from Matthew 7, where Jesus talks about being willing to take the plank out of our own eyes instead of calling out the splinter in someone else's And a lot of times when people offer us feedback like this, this is another way to know that you got some shadow work to do, is that you you pull a Missy Elliott.
• 28:56
  Speaker: You flip it and reverse it, right?
• 29:00
  Speaker: You make it about them, not about you.
• 29:05
  Speaker: Like they give you a piece of criticism or feedback and instead of pausing to truly check in and ask yourself if it's true, you go"Well, you do this," or,"I only do that because you do this," and you make it about the other person You get consumed with what another person cannot see instead of being willing to examine your own vision, your own clarity.
• 29:30
  Speaker: This is honestly how I know that I've entered into the second phase, although I am humble enough to recognize that I am early in and that I still got a lot of work to do.
• 29:40
  Speaker: There's a lot of shadow to look at.
• 29:42
  Speaker: I've been getting less defensive when people tell me that I'm doing something that bothers them Because I understand how I don't have to be powerful because God is powerful.
• 29:55
  Speaker: God delights in me, and He loves me, and so I know that I'm lovable because God loves me.
• 30:02
  Speaker: I don't have to be worthy to other people or get my worth from the opinions of other people because I know how much God values me.
• 30:07
  Speaker: I know how worthy I am to Him.
• 30:11
  Speaker: So I know how much power I have through Christ.
• 30:13
  Speaker: I know how much love I have through Christ.
• 30:14
  Speaker: I know how much worth I have through Christ.
• 30:16
  Speaker: So other people saying things, giving me feedback, giving me criticism, it's less likely to trigger those feelings of powerlessness and being unlovable or being unworthy because I know that God feels that way about me.
• 30:31
  Speaker: I know Jesus died for me because of those three things.
• 30:37
  Speaker: So you starting to become less defensive is a sign that you're coming into the second stage of life.
• 30:42
  Speaker: And also, if you are highly defensive about a particular area, that is something that I encourage you to bring into our Grow In Your Gifts program, and let's look at it And maybe you don't wanna do it in the group.
• 30:54
  Speaker: Maybe you wanna do our optional upgrade where you come in and we do some personalized work together.
• 31:00
  Speaker: Maybe that's what you wanna look at in the hour-long session we have together.
• 31:03
  Speaker: Maybe you wanna look at your defensiveness.
• 31:05
  Speaker: You wanna look at your disproportionate reactions and figure out why the heck that bothers you so much.
• 31:12
  Speaker: Now, point three what you can't tolerate in someone else may resemble your own shadows We project as humans a lot, All right?
• 31:29
  Speaker: And projection is useful when we use it to identify the quality that we have forbidden in ourselves.
• 31:37
  Speaker: So Do you get frustrated with needy people because you've learned that having needs makes you powerless or unlovable?
• 31:45
  Speaker: Do you get really frustrated with lazy people because you learned that your productivity determines how worthy you are?
• 31:51
  Speaker: Do you get really frustrated with emotional people because when you felt strong emotion as a child, it made you feel dangerously out of control?
• 31:59
  Speaker: Or when you felt strong emotion as a child, It triggered one of your caregivers to treat you in an out of control way?
• 32:07
  Speaker: People who take up space.
• 32:10
  Speaker: Do you learn that visibility makes you unlovable?
• 32:13
  Speaker: People who don't know or who are clueless or who make what you would call, dumb decisions.
• 32:19
  Speaker: Did you learn that uncertainty or lack of intelligence makes you unworthy?
• 32:25
  Speaker: Look, maybe the thing that you're seeing in other people that really bothers you, that you struggle to tolerate in other people, maybe their behavior is really unhealthy, and why can't you tolerate it?
• 32:42
  Speaker: I support in a really cool nonprofit called Women of Good Work here in Columbus, and we had this amazing event last week.
• 32:50
  Speaker: And there were two songs that the worship team sang, and they were so incredible.
• 32:55
  Speaker: They just did such an amazing job.
• 32:58
  Speaker: And then we went to church last night, and we typically go in the morning, which is the more, traditional service.
• 33:06
  Speaker: And, with our schedules with our kids, we bounce around.
• 33:09
  Speaker: So as long as we get to church, we're stoked.
• 33:12
  Speaker: And so we go to the 5:30, and it's a contemporary service where they sing more contemporary music.
• 33:16
  Speaker: Now, it's not our favorite, and sometimes that's the one that we get to go to.
• 33:20
  Speaker: Now, do you wanna know why that's not my favorite now?
• 33:24
  Speaker: They change how the songs are sang.
• 33:26
  Speaker: So at church, they ended up singing the two songs that we sang at the Women of Good Work event, but they changed the kind of the tempo and the flow and, like, how it's sang, and that irritated me so badly because it caused people to kinda stumble and to trip and it looked-- it kinda seemed like they didn't have en-a lot of time to practice beforehand.
• 33:48
  Speaker: Now, here's the thing, y'all.
• 33:49
  Speaker: I'm not brave enough to get up and go join the choir and sing in front of people.
• 33:56
  Speaker: That's a huge struggle of mine.
• 33:58
  Speaker: I've been told I'm a really good singer.
• 33:59
  Speaker: I struggle to sing in public if there's not other people singing with me I'm not up there braving my soul and risking my like, my reputation.
• 34:11
  Speaker: My persona doesn't allow me to do that,'cause it's like, hey, you don't wanna embarrass yourself.
• 34:15
  Speaker: And I'm getting irritated with these people for how they chose to sing the music because to me, I said this in the car afterwards, and as soon as I heard it come out of my mouth I was so convicted, especially'cause one of my kids went,"I actually liked it, Mom." I said,"I'm frustrated because I wish they would either do it the way that it was originally designed, or if you're gonna go rogue, make it better".
• 34:40
  Speaker: And what I realized is that what I was taught is in order to be accepted, in order to be worthy and loved, you need to either do it exactly the way that somebody else has told you to do it, or you need to find a way to improve upon it so that they won't be mad at your improvisation That's what I realized.
• 35:07
  Speaker: I'm irritated because number one, I don't feel brave enough to be up there, and number two I'm holding them to a ridiculously high standard that I'm not even willing to do myself.
• 35:21
  Speaker: Now, here's number four.
• 35:23
  Speaker: You're using a real gift to keep that shadow walled off.
• 35:31
  Speaker: TLC and I, we run an agency.
• 35:34
  Speaker: I have intentionally developed my CEO and my steward and my builder gifts.
• 35:40
  Speaker: They are genuinely developed gifts.
• 35:43
  Speaker: And something that happens so often, and this is tied to my church experience that I just described.
• 35:49
  Speaker: The three gifts that I will accidentally center my work in are those gifts, the CEO, the steward, and the builder.
• 35:57
  Speaker: The CEO gift allows me to decide, and fix, and lead, and create certainty, and move.
• 36:03
  Speaker: The steward gift allows me to plan, and to allocate, and to manage, and to make sure that everything's happening the way it's supposed to.
• 36:11
  Speaker: The builder gift allows me to get stuff done, and check off the list, and and check off the boxes, and cross off the list items, and feel accomplished.
• 36:22
  Speaker: And those are all egoic.
• 36:23
  Speaker: Those are part of my persona.
• 36:26
  Speaker: I don't actually care what the plan is, I just wanna be considered in the plan, but otherwise, I don't care.
• 36:30
  Speaker: If somebody else is willing to create a plan and allocate assets and just tell me what to do, I'm so down with that.
• 36:36
  Speaker: I'm so down to not be the one who checks off the boxes and gets things done.
• 36:40
  Speaker: I like, I do not have to be the one who completes the task.
• 36:43
  Speaker: And also, I don't have to be the one who's leading.
• 36:45
  Speaker: If there's a good leader in front of me, I love following.
• 36:49
  Speaker: I love following.
• 36:55
  Speaker: What I wanna do more than anything is I wanna be able to think and read and study and ask questions and solve puzzles and sit with complexity and teach from discovery and just figure out what don't we know yet?
• 37:07
  Speaker: What don't I know yet, so I can go learn about it When I center my work in that and then do tasks or do activities that require the gifts of CEO and steward and builder, I will rock that.
• 37:25
  Speaker: This podcast episode is case in point.
• 37:27
  Speaker: I had planned to record this a few days ago, and I knew in my soul I do not have the information I need.
• 37:33
  Speaker: There's some other experience I've gotta have.
• 37:34
  Speaker: There's some book I've gotta read.
• 37:35
  Speaker: There's something else.
• 37:36
  Speaker: There's more information that's gotta come in for me to do this.
• 37:39
  Speaker: And I told this to TLC on Friday.
• 37:40
  Speaker: I was like, there's just something missing.
• 37:42
  Speaker: I'm not quite sure what it is yet, but I'm not ready to record." And I know I gotta record by Monday at 5:00'cause I gotta be able to get this to team to get this episode out, and I trust that God will give me the information.
• 37:53
  Speaker: I trust th- that God will give me the wisdom for this episode, and sure enough, there it is.
• 37:57
  Speaker: But if I had centered CEO or steward or builder, what I would've done is I would've forced that episode out.
• 38:05
  Speaker: "Oh, let me just make myself uncomfortable in the short term for the long term." No, that's not actually what I'm doing.
• 38:10
  Speaker: It isn't beneficial for me long term to do this episode when I'm not ready to do it, because it's not gonna be as good.
• 38:17
  Speaker: Oh, as a steward, okay, this is where you have the time, and you've gotta allocate your assets appropriately, and you gotta make sure...
• 38:22
  Speaker: no, I am allocating my assets appropriately because I'm gonna read, and I'm gonna think, and I'm gonna have conversations.
• 38:27
  Speaker: I'm not gonna worry about this, and I'm gonna allocate time on Monday to get it done.
• 38:33
  Speaker: And God forbid, something else comes up, my mouth's hurting too bad, I can't get this done.
• 38:37
  Speaker: That's okay.
• 38:38
  Speaker: It's my show.
• 38:39
  Speaker: It can go out Tuesday.
• 38:41
  Speaker: I don't have to force our team to get the episode out.
• 38:44
  Speaker: I'm not gonna stress them out.
• 38:46
  Speaker: It'll come out when it comes out.
• 38:49
  Speaker: And on the builder side, same thing.
• 38:50
  Speaker: "Oh I just wanna check off the task box, and I just wanna be able to say it's done." No.
• 38:55
  Speaker: What's the point in checking off a box if it's not good?
• 39:00
  Speaker: Now, the fifth way you know that y- you got some shadow work to do around your gifts.
• 39:06
  Speaker: You've become better at explaining and defending your darkness than welcoming the light into it.
• 39:14
  Speaker: You understand how your gifts have been formed, and you can describe to me exactly the experiences that you've gone through that have made it so you've created that costume, and Why you've created that costume and why you put on that armor, and you can name why your gifts became diminished or why they're distorted.
• 39:28
  Speaker: And yes, that's deeply important.
• 39:31
  Speaker: And that insight can become just another layer of armor if the story only explains why your protected pattern must remain.
• 39:43
  Speaker: This is where you ask yourself, is understanding why I cut off this part of me helping me bring more of myself honestly before God?
• 39:51
  Speaker: Is it allowing me to take that armor off and allow cracks to happen, and let Jesus' light in?
• 39:59
  Speaker: Is it allowing the Holy Spirit to enter my heart and to help me bust up this armor so that the light can go out?
• 40:05
  Speaker: Or is it just helping me justify why this part of me can't be welcomed, can't be healed, can't be looked at, can't be integrated.
• 40:15
  Speaker: Now, in a previous episode with Kurt Bush, I talked about this,'cause a lot of what I'm talking about today is connected to internal family systems, and this episode's already long enough, so I'm not gonna bring that in here.
• 40:25
  Speaker: And there's this thing called an exile, which is the part of yourself that you have cut off.
• 40:31
  Speaker: And we talk about the fact that our exiles it's not that they are dangerous, but they are undeveloped.
• 40:36
  Speaker: They are parts of ourselves that have not been integrated, and so they're a little wild.
• 40:39
  Speaker: You locked them in the basement for decades.
• 40:42
  Speaker: When they come up, they're not used to interacting with people.
• 40:45
  Speaker: They're not used to the light.
• 40:48
  Speaker: So it doesn't mean that every part that we reintegrate, should be allowed to direct our behavior.
• 40:53
  Speaker: It's not"Oh, I cut off this part of myself that felt really unloved or really powerless, when I made mistakes, so I should just allow myself to make as many mistakes as possible and, consequences be damned." No.
• 41:05
  Speaker: No, No.
• 41:06
  Speaker: That's not what we're saying.
• 41:09
  Speaker: I use the image of we're gonna invite that part of you back upstairs after you've locked it in the basement for so long.
• 41:16
  Speaker: You're gonna invite it upstairs.
• 41:18
  Speaker: You're gonna sit it on the couch.
• 41:19
  Speaker: You're gonna give it a glass of lemonade, and you're gonna watch it very closely because it's immature, because it's undeveloped, because it needs formation.
• 41:27
  Speaker: It needs guidelines and boundaries and support.
• 41:31
  Speaker: You don't just let it run wild in your house.
• 41:37
  Speaker: So spiritual formation includes bringing your whole human experience before God for discernment rather than like amputating whatever feels inconvenient or shameful or needy or angry or uncertain or weak.
• 41:48
  Speaker: And that formation, that integration work needs to be done intentionally and with God's direction.
• 41:59
  Speaker: So we wanna stop using our understanding of why that part got cut off as justification for keeping it locked in the basement, and we also don't wanna just open up the basement door and be like,"Yeah, come out and do whatever you want." All right?
• 42:15
  Speaker: It's a both/and.
• 42:17
  Speaker: We wanna let that part out, and we wanna make sure that we form it intentionally.
• 42:23
  Speaker: Now the sixth sign that that you've got some shadow work to do in starting to enter into this second phase of life, is that you've renamed your armor as a virtue, and I see people do this often.
• 42:32
  Speaker: I've done it myself, so if you see yourself in this, I love you, I see you.
• 42:36
  Speaker: Also, please keep listening.
• 42:37
  Speaker: You like your armor.
• 42:40
  Speaker: You think your armor is righteous and holy.
• 42:44
  Speaker: So when you practice your over-control as a CEO you redefine it.
• 42:49
  Speaker: You spin it as,"I'm just being responsible." When you defend your professor-motivated superiority and over-preparation, you say"Well, I just care about accuracy.
• 43:02
  Speaker: I just really care about making everything right." When somebody shows you your enmeshment as a consoler, they show you your codependency, you're like"Well, I just really wanna make sure people are taken care of and they know that they're loved.
• 43:14
  Speaker: I'm just super compassionate When you over-function in your builder gift, you're like"Well, I just have a servant's heart, and I just, I care so much When you defend your vice grip on your assets as steward, you say, I'm being a good steward.
• 43:36
  Speaker: I'm being intentional.
• 43:37
  Speaker: I'm making sure that everything goes to the right place." When you defend the pressure that you apply as a coach gift, you say I see people's potential, and I just wanna make sure that they reach what they're able to reach.
• 43:51
  Speaker: When you defend your harshness as a judge gift, you're like I just care about the truth.
• 43:56
  Speaker: They deserve to know the truth." Now, this is where we look at the fruit that your defense of this armor is producing If other people are bringing this to you and showing it to you, it, it's probably not producing the fruit that you want to produce externally.
• 44:20
  Speaker: And if you're really honest with yourself right here Your defense of this armor has probably led you to stop examining the fruit.
• 44:30
  Speaker: You probably don't ask yourself how you feel.
• 44:34
  Speaker: What part of you comes running out of the basement if you stop defending this armor that you've put on?
• 44:40
  Speaker: That part scares you, and you don't even wanna look at it.
• 44:44
  Speaker: Rohr talks about this.
• 44:45
  Speaker: He says the more that we get wrapped up in our own inflated sense of ego and pride, and the more that we put on this persona and we strengthen this armor Not only do we want to look at it less, we lose the ability to look at it.
• 45:09
  Speaker: It reminds me of the example we used to use in the trauma world a lot, where we'd talk about how as a fish, if you're born into dirty water and then somebody pulls you out and puts you in, like, a clean fishbowl, you're like,"Whoa.
• 45:23
  Speaker: What is this?" And if you're born in clean water and somebody slowly pours dirt into that water, you don't notice how much harder it becomes for you to see Until it gets so dark that you're like,"Wait a minute." So a lot of this darkness, this, this shadow that has been building up behind this armor that you have, your armor feels very necessary because it's getting darker and darker.
• 45:56
  Speaker: But also it comes from this place of you don't even see how dark it's become.
• 46:00
  Speaker: You don't even see how little light is getting in there anymore.
• 46:04
  Speaker: Now here's the last sign, sign number seven, that there is some shadow work to be done.
• 46:10
  Speaker: You are protecting the costume.
• 46:13
  Speaker: You have gotten so attached to your persona You think if you let that go, you're not even gonna know who you are.
• 46:24
  Speaker: And in a way, you're right.
• 46:26
  Speaker: That is a reasonable fear.
• 46:28
  Speaker: When you take off the costume, and this comes back to that identity crisis piece.
• 46:32
  Speaker: You're afraid that you're not even gonna know who you are And here's the beautiful part.
• 46:41
  Speaker: There's gonna be moments where you are like,"I don't know what's me and what's not me.
• 46:45
  Speaker: I don't even know who I am anymore." And this goes back to episode 40, baring yourself and being able to stand naked and vulnerably in front of God, and have Him show you,"This is exactly who you are, Lee.
• 46:59
  Speaker: This is who I made you to be." You have spent so many years insisting that this is who you are and developing a structure and an ego and like a container around this is who I am and this is who I'm not, and this is what's okay, and this is what isn't.
• 47:20
  Speaker: The costume and the armor are both preventing the light from getting in.
• 47:24
  Speaker: And both are preventing the light from getting out.
• 47:30
  Speaker: So spiritual formation, growing in your gifts includes welcoming back into God's presence the parts of yourself that you've spent years insisting that they cannot be there.
• 47:43
  Speaker: So when we go back to that example of letting those parts of yourself that you cut off come upstairs and sit on the couch, they might be dirty.
• 47:52
  Speaker: They might need a really good bath and a nap and a snack before they are even remotely presentable to the outside world.
• 48:01
  Speaker: Okay?
• 48:06
  Speaker: And God has been with you the entire time that you've had those parts locked up.
• 48:14
  Speaker: He's been with you the entire time.
• 48:15
  Speaker: He could see all of those parts because God can see behind the costume, and he can see behind the armor.
• 48:21
  Speaker: God can see in darkness.
• 48:25
  Speaker: I learned about this in, in another book, that what we perceive as darkness isn't true darkness.
• 48:34
  Speaker: There's still these tiny little pieces these flashes of light that are happening.
• 48:37
  Speaker: And so even though it looks pitch black to us and we can't see anything, there's still light there.
• 48:42
  Speaker: Which makes sense, because God's in everything, right?
• 48:46
  Speaker: So even in those areas that we're like,"Oh my gosh, this is just too dark," God sees.
• 48:51
  Speaker: In those areas where we feel completely blinded, like we cannot see a thing, God sees.
• 48:56
  Speaker: He sees those parts of you even though you have put them in the dark.
• 49:01
  Speaker: No part of your human experience has to remain hidden from God in order for you to be loved by Him.
• 49:06
  Speaker: He already loves it all Look, maybe you couldn't afford to need help because that need other people told you made you powerless or maybe they didn't tell you that, but that was the vibe you got.
• 49:24
  Speaker: That was what you picked up.
• 49:26
  Speaker: Maybe you couldn't afford to disappoint someone because the disapproval led you to feel unlovable.
• 49:31
  Speaker: Maybe you couldn't afford to be wrong because the mistakes made you feel unworthy.
• 49:34
  Speaker: So you built this costume, you put armor underneath of it, and eventually you forgot there was anything underneath.
• 49:39
  Speaker: But who you are is underneath.
• 49:42
  Speaker: And if we go back to John 1:5, Christ's light is not arriving because God has finally discovered that exile.
• 49:49
  Speaker: He already sees it.
• 49:50
  Speaker: The light is already there.
• 49:52
  Speaker: You have to be willing to allow it to get bright enough that you can see it, that you become willing enough to see what He already sees, and you allow Him into the places that you have been protecting.
• 50:07
  Speaker: One of the things that Rohr says in this that I think is so profound is that one of the key mistakes that the church has made is confusing our shadow with our sin.
• 50:20
  Speaker: When we confuse our shadow with our sin, We think that those parts that we have placed in the darkness are bad, are sinful, are wrong, and they're not.
• 50:36
  Speaker: And in fact, keeping those parts cut off oftentimes leads us to sin.
• 50:41
  Speaker: Because what is sin?
• 50:43
  Speaker: Sin is turning away from God.
• 50:44
  Speaker: Well, If our whole, full, integrated selves are not turned and open to the light of God's love, then it's gonna make it pretty hard for us to not sin.
• 51:04
  Speaker: It is your integrated self that will sin less.
• 51:06
  Speaker: It is your integrated self that will turn away from God less because all parts of you can be turned towards Him.
• 51:14
  Speaker: The shadow isn't hiding something terrible about you.
• 51:16
  Speaker: It's hiding something that you learned you couldn't afford to be, but you are that.
• 51:23
  Speaker: Maybe you are somewhat irresponsible.
• 51:26
  Speaker: Maybe you are goofy.
• 51:28
  Speaker: Maybe you are a little weird.
• 51:30
  Speaker: Maybe you are so intelligent that other people don't understand you.
• 51:35
  Speaker: Maybe you do get really hyper-fixated in some places, and it is annoying to the average person.
• 51:40
  Speaker: Maybe you are high maintenance.
• 51:41
  Speaker: Maybe you do need more care than the average person needs.
• 51:46
  Speaker: Maybe you are needy.
• 51:51
  Speaker: Maybe you are more discerning.
• 51:56
  Speaker: Maybe you are more sensitive.
• 52:00
  Speaker: Maybe you are more silly.
• 52:02
  Speaker: Maybe you are more serious.
• 52:03
  Speaker: Like, Maybe you are all of those things.
• 52:05
  Speaker: That's not sin.
• 52:08
  Speaker: That's just how God made you.
• 52:11
  Speaker: So I wanna wrap this up by giving you a five-question reflection practice All right?
• 52:19
  Speaker: And I'll make sure that this is in the show notes.
• 52:21
  Speaker: Number one, we're gonna look at your costume.
• 52:24
  Speaker: What version of myself have I learned is acceptable, rewarded, or the safest to show to others?
• 52:34
  Speaker: Number two, my armor.
• 52:38
  Speaker: What do I do in order to ensure that persona, that costume gets seen by other people?
• 52:43
  Speaker: How do I protect the other parts of me and make sure that only the costume is seen Your shadow, those exiles.
• 52:56
  Speaker: What feelings or needs, what qualities or characteristics of myself, what limitations or vulnerable experiences do I cut off and hide so that I can't encounter them or other people can't encounter them as well?
• 53:17
  Speaker: Number four, fear.
• 53:20
  Speaker: What fears do those parts confirm for me?
• 53:27
  Speaker: That I'm powerless, that I'm unlovable or unworthy, or maybe all three.
• 53:35
  Speaker: And then number five, light.
• 53:38
  Speaker: Where does God want you to let the light in?
• 53:44
  Speaker: What does He want you to see or to receive or to heal or to surrender or reorder here so that the gift can be more freely directed by Him?
• 53:59
  Speaker: I don't want you to rush immediately to fixing or doing something about this.
• 54:04
  Speaker: If you decide to answer these five questions, I want to invite you to just sit with it and give it over to God and ask him,"God, what do you want me to understand here?" And be willing to be humbled Like I said at the beginning, I think this episode is a tough one.
• 54:24
  Speaker: We've spent this time looking at what the armor's protecting and what has become difficult for you to see.
• 54:30
  Speaker: And so coming back to John 1:5, looking at the light shines in the darkness, and it will not be overcome.
• 54:38
  Speaker: It is not overcome.
• 54:39
  Speaker: We don't wanna be fascinated with our shadow to the point that we're, again, like just practicing this never-ending self-awareness.
• 54:46
  Speaker: We want to ensure that when we do this work, it is allowing us to be increasingly willing to let Christ's light reach what we have spent years protecting.
• 54:57
  Speaker: This is not about becoming more holy and more righteous from the perspective of sinning less or being better or growing in your gifts so that you can be more effective, more productive, any of that.
• 55:08
  Speaker: It is allowing yourself to be whole, W-H-O-L-E, and integrated so that when you turn towards God, all of you goes with you, and allowing the Holy Spirit and the light of Jesus to permeate and to infuse into every single part of you.
• 55:31
  Speaker: It is about recognizing what you have learned that you can't afford to be and where your gifts have protected you from feeling those fear feelings, and just simply asking yourself what could happen if you allowed God to meet you in that.
• 55:48
  Speaker: And so I truly hope that you will join us inside Grow In Your Gifts.
• 55:52
  Speaker: And like I said, if you're hearing this after the 28th and you'd like in, just send us an email.
• 55:56
  Speaker: I promise you there is an opportunity for you to do this work, whether it's gonna be in this live course or some other way.
• 56:01
  Speaker: We're already gonna have ways that you can do this no matter what point you stumble upon us in this journey and you decide that you wanna grow in your gifts with us.
• 56:10
  Speaker: We do have something for you.
• 56:12
  Speaker: So I just wanna end this with a short prayer and say, God, I humbly pray in the name of Your Son, Jesus, that You help all of us continue to let the light in and to recognize it's already there.
• 56:26
  Speaker: And that even in the darkest places inside of us, the places that we've cut off, the places that we pretend that we can't see or that we don't want anyone else to see, that You're already in them and You already love them and You already know them, and allow us to let Your light in so that we can see them and know them and love them and reconnect with them.
• 56:43
  Speaker: Because when we reconnect with ourselves, that's how we reconnect with everyone else.
• 56:46
  Speaker: When we unify ourselves, we unify with the rest of the universe, which is You.
• 56:55
  Speaker: And so God, I just thank you so much for this message and this wisdom.
• 56:58
  Speaker: And I pray that whoever's listening to this recognizes that they don't have to have an identity crisis to do this shadow work.
• 57:04
  Speaker: That they're able to ask the question of,"Who am I really?" And take off these costumes and armor, and look at the shadow underneath and recognize that it's nothing to be afraid of.
• 57:13
  Speaker: It's just something to understand.
• 57:16
  Speaker: It's something to understand so that it can be loved.
• 57:19
  Speaker: I pray all this in your name, Jesus.
• 57:21
  Speaker: Amen.
• 57:22
  Speaker: All right, y'all.
• 57:22
  Speaker: I hope to see you inside Grow In Your Gifts, and if not, i'll see you next episode.