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Free To Be You: Teacher Gift · The Father's Business Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: And I am Kimberly Roddy.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Father's Business Podcast.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: We are so glad that you've joined us.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Well, welcome to today's podcast where we have an interview with a dear friend of ours, whitney.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Whitney is a part of our leadership team.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: She has been around the father's business for a while now.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: She is our resident teacher gift, and so today we're talking to Whitney about the teacher gift.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: But I just love Elizabeth and I both we love being around Whitney.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Whitney is someone that I personally feel like I can just breathe with.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: She holds space very well for people, and part of that is her beautiful teacher gift.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: So Elizabeth hit a couple of things for us about the teacher gift and then we'll jump into our interview with Whitney.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just as a reminder, we went through all the gifts in the first podcast of this series, where you can hear a little bit more in-depth about each of the gifts.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: But teachers love truth and that's not to say that the other six gifts don't love truth but they have a passion for knowledge and learning and going deeper.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Research is very fun for the teacher gift and they're always wanting to validate it from a firsthand experience.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: They can be very methodical in their approach because of that.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: They're not going to be a gift that's going to jump before they look.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: They're probably going to hold back a bit and want to know the beginning from the end before they take that first step.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: The question why is very important to the gift.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Because their mind is driven to analyze.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: They ask lots of questions trying to establish what is true.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: With all of that comes a lot of wisdom, and that's what I think I love most about the teacher gift is they listen and they observe others, especially like if they're in a group setting.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: You may think they're being slow to speak, but what they're doing is synthesizing all of the information that's coming their way.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: But when they speak it is beautiful wisdom and most times it's a beautiful summary of kind of what the entire group has been discussing and what they bring to.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: That is an insightful conclusion that brings a depth to truth, and so I am excited that we get to spend time with Whitney today.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Part of her life and processing is a bit slower pace than my profit gift and, just like Kimberly said, when I get around a teacher gift it reminds me to take a breath, take a moment, just enjoy what's right in front of me, rather than always running ahead at 100 miles an hour.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: So we appreciate Whitney being with us today More than other gifts.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: I want the other six gifts to really learn to appreciate the teacher gift.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Appreciate the teacher gift because I think sometimes the teacher gift is misunderstood or I think you have probably experienced a lot of time where people have tried to fix you or change you or encourage you to be different than you are.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: So I am super excited about today that we get to hear from you, whitney, about your beautiful, beautiful teacher gift.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: So I want you to start off by just telling us what do you love about being a teacher gift?
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Gosh, I think the thing that I love is that we think teacher gift and I think we automatically think teacher job or teacher profession.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: There are many of us walking around in teacher clothes, in teacher skin, but we're not teachers.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: By profession we're not teachers, but our gift is one that allows us to be.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: One of the things we talk about is how does God come through in that gift?
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: And I think in the teacher gift.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: It's such a gift that allows compassion, nurture most of all, I think nurture, but that in order to nurture, you have to have patience, you have to have compassion and empathy for the person or the group of people that you're working with, and that's where Jesus comes through in that gift.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: So I love that.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: You know I get to do that.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: I love that in a world where it's hard to find people who will sit quietly and listen and can listen well, people who can listen well, I love that.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: I get to be that person, and that's not because I'm such a good listener, it's because I've learned and I continue to learn how to let God listen through me, how to let God, how to let the Holy Spirit work in me in such a way that I'm listening, not with my ears and my heart, but with His ears and His heart, so that the lesson or the information or the confirmation that that person that's sitting across from me needs is exactly what they get.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: And again, not because I hear their heart, it's because the Spirit of God uses me to share his heart with them uses me to share his heart with him.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: In light of that, where do you I mean, you're kind of addressing this a little bit, but where do you see, or how do you see, the character of God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit in your gift of teaching?
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: Well, going back to nurture, I think patience is, in my own experience, the people that I learned from best were the people that were patient with me.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: You know I could have been in the midst of the most messed up situation you could think of, and the people that I could hear the most were the people that were the most patient with me or seemed to have this sense of I want to hear what your pain is, or I want to hear what your idea is, and what I came to learn was that gave me permission to really be who God created me to be.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: As we walk around and we encounter people in our work, in our community, in our families even, who are struggling, oftentimes, all they really want is to be heard.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: I think Christ, above all else.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: I think he was a good listener.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: He was a great listener.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: The stories that he would share through listener you know the stories that he would share through scripture that we know of.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Imagine all the ones that he shared that we don't know of.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: But I think that that was his gentle, quiet way of really helping somebody to understand, to see into their spirit, to understand why their spirit had been harmed or hurt or why their spirit was thriving.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: Like you know, he came across both ends of the spectrum and everybody in between, but each one of those stories would address in a way that the listener knew that they had been seen and heard and understood.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: And I think that's at the heart of the work that I do.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: I couldn't have learned to do that as a student of my profession, as a professional now, profession as a professional now.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: I couldn't do that had I not been given that opportunity through Ruach to really understand that that is the character of God and how he uses that and how His character, his spirit, aligns with my spirit to use that in the work that I do.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: His spirit aligns with my spirit to use that in the work that I do.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: I do it as a mother too.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: I mean a mother and a wife and a friend.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: I find it just once you know it, once you're aware like you can't leave that stuff behind.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: That's beautiful, whitney, to hear you talk about it.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering when you were first introduced to the teaching on the seven gifts, did you automatically click and go?
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, I'm a teacher.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Or was there some questions that you had about?
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Maybe you're one of the other gifts?
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: So that's a great question, yes and no.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: When I went through the free-to-be book and checked off all the boxes, I equally checked off the mercy and the teacher box.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: But there was something inside of me that said, okay, teacher is the easier, that's what I just fall into gently.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: I knew from a young age that if there was a learning experience in front of me that's what I would gravitate to, and so learning and teaching they've kind of always been at the heart of what creates joy in my life and light and just a feeling of free expression.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: I guess the mercy gift I also knew was accurate, because that often got me in trouble in ways that I didn't always know how to use that mercy gift effectively.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: And so I think a lot of times I would see the mercy gift falling into codependent behavior instead of really fully what God intended it to be.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: I've had to work more at living out and aligning with the mercy gift the way that it's intended to be through scripture, and so that doesn't come as easily for me, but I'm very much aware that it's very much a strong part of who I am.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: But the teacher gift in me, you know, as we were, I can remember, like sitting in group the first time that I was in Ruach and we were in the teacher group and I just remember feeling like, oh my gosh, there's this whole group of like seven or eight people Maybe it wasn't even that many, because the teacher gift is never big, like that group is never a big group and so I just but I remember thinking there are other people in this group that get me Like we don't have to explain each other, we know who we are to each other.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: You know, that helped me to really settle into that gift in a way that I probably wouldn't have embraced it as well as I have and as much as I have over time.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: I thought it was interesting.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: A few months ago you were talking about loving to learn and that kind of thing too, but you were talking about being patient and nurturing and that that's a huge aspect of the teacher.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: I think often we just think of teaching as knowledge, as imparting knowledge right, we think of the act of teaching rather than the motivation behind the teaching.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: And when you said that I was like, yeah, if I really think about true teachers who have impacted my life, they're patient, because it takes a lot of patience to be a teacher.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: And so what do you wish that people really understood about the teacher gift or about that internal design that God has wired into you?
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: I wish that they understood, first of all, that it takes time for me to organize that information and oftentimes, within a group, say and this is just still so, but I've learned to embrace it rather than to hate this part about myself.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: You know, when I'm in a group and many things are being said and I have thoughts and feelings about those things that are being shared, but I'm not talking about them.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: Like you're probably going to hear the exhorter gift, they're going to be the more verbal, the more vocal.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: I'm really content with sitting and waiting and listening to the information that's happening in my brain, in my head, in my heart, before I speak it.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: And I think a lot of times, people, that comes across to people as that I'm not paying attention or that I don't care about what they're saying, when actually it's the very opposite of that trying to hear and listen, because what I want to share, I want it to be, I want that person or that group of people to understand that they're heard and they're understood and that they're seen.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: I know, because I know myself well enough to know this, that if I open my mouth right away, it's not going to come out as eloquently as if Natalie opens her mouth right away, or as when Sylvia said something.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: You know when she would say things it doesn't come out eloquently like that, but there's something there to be said and I know that and so I know to just trust, I know, to.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: What I've learned is to sit comfortably with other people's discomfort and to challenge it in places.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: I have a great story where my mom and I my mom needed to go to the hospital for a procedure, so she checked in and she's kind of in that in-between place right now or at the time of being able to manage her questions and her finances and all that on her own and not so easily doing it.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: So I go along and I try to stay back to allow her you know, to honor her in that place of being able to do what she's able to do, because I want her to keep being able to do that right.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: So I'm kind of stepping back, but things are happening.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: I'm not understanding what's going on, like why is she paying this or why, you know, why didn't she ask about this?
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: We had talked about that earlier and so I'm just kind of watching.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: And as she comes out of that office, as we come out together, I was asking her questions about what had happened and she just looked at me and she said Whitney Lynn, which is then I know I'm in trouble.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: She was like Whitney Lynn, why do you have to ask so many questions?
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: Why can't, why do you do this?
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Why can't you just come here and be with me?
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Normally the inner me would have been like back at the 10-year-old me place going.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: I need to just keep my mouth shut, I need to just be quiet, because this is not.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: She does not like this and I know she doesn't like this.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: But I wanted the information and it was important for me to have the information because to some degree, I do have responsibility in relationship with her.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Now I tried to be patient and I said let's sit down for a minute.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: I said I want to help you understand that I need to ask those questions because I don't.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: You may have the answers to them, but I didn't have the answers to them In order for me to have peace about this and to move forward with you in this place and maybe even to be able to answer questions later on when you can't remember the answers to those questions.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: I need to have't remember the answers to those questions.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: I need to have the information today that I'm asking for.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: And so she still wasn't.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: You know she doesn't receive that well, but and I was.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: I felt like for the first time with her I had stepped into a place where I was able to just acknowledge this is who I am and I understand that you don't.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: This is uncomfortable for you to be asked these questions, but I need the answers and in order to go forward, I need to be able to have information.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: It's not comfortable to have to go to those places with people.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: I wish that the teacher gift wasn't that way and you know, when I'm face to face with Jesus, I think we're going to have a conversation about that, to have a conversation about that.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: But I think also when I think about how I've had to flesh that part of the teacher gift out in my own life.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: It's strengthened me to do the things that have been hard to do because of my own wounding, my know wounding as a child and in young adult life.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: So it's a gift all around, the gift that keeps giving I think your story is probably the story of most teacher gifts that I've talked to, that at some point along in their journey they were met with either straight up comments like why do you have to ask so many questions?
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Or even just the what happens when you ask the third or fourth question?
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: The roll of the eyes, the roll of the eyes when you're asking your questions and you're, you are in a very mature place in your teacher gift and I mean just the way you just described how you reacted when your mom said that.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: I was like, wow, I'm not sure I would have reacted to my mother that way if she said that to me in that moment, and so I want you to.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: For people who are listening to this that may be living with a teacher who is either not understood the gift as much or is not being led so much by the Holy Spirit not understood the gift as much or is not being led so much by the Holy Spirit what would a teacher gift in a more immature state or earlier in your walk with God or not aligning spirit, soul and body with Father, son and Holy Spirit?
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: What kind of reaction would that type of teacher give when people are frustrated with their questions?
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: What's going on inside the internal thinking when the eye rolls and the sighs and those things come?
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Because you're in a very mature place and responding in a great way.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: What would a more immature or less guided by the Holy Spirit teacher gift?
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: What would be their thought process?
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, I know, when I was in that place early on in the beginning years of understanding or even not even knowing what the teacher gift was, I think inside I felt like just inadequate to answer.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: You know, to contribute to answer the question, I knew that what I had was good information like that.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: There was always some level of understanding that helped me to know that I had something to share.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: But I felt like there was some defect in me that couldn't share in a way that people understood.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: I think I remember having a conversation with your mom one time, with Sylvia, about that part of the teacher gift.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: When we think of the teacher gift and we think of the profession of the teacher, we think of the teacher gift and we think of the profession of the teacher and I've thought about this many times through the years.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: We think about how a teacher doesn't just show up in the classroom and then automatically know how to teach a classroom, full teaching fifth graders, maybe for all of 20 years or something like that.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: Every year she prepares, every day she prepares because she has.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: There may be aspects of her teaching career profession that she knows she has to cover because that's what that profession is, but each individual student that comes into that room needs to be seen and heard in a different way than the person that, than the child that she saw before last year or maybe even that same child last week.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: So, learning for myself that, to give myself grace in that place of of knowing that the best way that I can nurture my teacher self into being a more mature teacher person self was to know that it's a learning process, learning how to share that teacher gift, learning how to just rest fully in it and not feel so just kind of wonky and like I'm in my skin but I'm not in my skin, kind of thing.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: That has helped me tremendously to just be able to take the time I've had, time, my whole experience from the day that I left Ruach until you know, and really truly all the other stuff in life before that, but essentially, especially after leaving Ruach, just learning to sit comfortably with that teacher gift, to know that I'm not going to be teacher gift, to know that I'm not going to be necessarily understood and that's okay.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: That's really God's job.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: In the whole process of using the teacher gift and living the teacher gift, that really is God's job to help people understand I am his mouthpiece, I'm the skin and bones that sit, you know, across the sofa from the client that I'm working with at the time.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: What's in me is what God put there and I think just you know, being patient with a spouse or a co-worker and helping them to understand who you are and that you were created to be that person, you know, I think that's a powerful thing, and also just to take courage in the fact that God's created you that way.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: I'm working with an individual right now and as I watch her step into the power of her own gift, I am just watching her be brave, more and more than she ever was, and I think the reason I'm able to walk that journey with her is because that's the journey that I walked myself.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Reason I'm able to walk that journey with her is because that's the journey that I walked myself and I want that for anybody else that wants it in their lives.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: So, as a teacher, you know, gift I place myself in the place to be used that way.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: What would you say are some of the parts of the teacher gift that you really struggle with?
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: What would you say are some of the parts of the teacher gift that you really struggle with.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: We live in a culture that's we live in a drive-through mentality culture.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: So I think that part of me that slows down.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: I mean there's nothing fast about me.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: I don't process things quickly.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: I don't make decisions quickly, you probably noticed I don't answer emails quickly.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: I mean that and and I know that's going to be frustrating for the whole world it's frustrating for me at times and there are times that I ask myself why can't I just be that person that just flicks off that email really fast and can you know, come up with an answer really fast to share with a group of people?
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: It's maddening at times until I remember that the world, especially our world today, needs people who can slow down and be quiet, sit in the pain.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: I love the methods that I use in therapy are experiential, and the experiential part of that that I like, that I really love, is just that when a couple comes in and they're like we had a fight coming on, you know, coming over here and they're both, they've got their arms crossed, they're turned.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: You know, I have a sofa that's this big and you could drive an 18 wheeler through the middle of them, you know, and I'm like great, let's get in that fight, what was that fight about?
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: And I sit and I listen to them and I allow them to listen to their own story and to themselves, and the way that they're interacting with each other, I just I feel like we just need that in the world today.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: I feel like that place of slowing down, that place of taking time, that place of meditation.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: If we're going to be proactively listening, I think those are all places that the teacher gift excels in, but at the same time, it's difficult.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: It's a difficult place in the world that we live in today and I oftentimes just have to remind myself God is in the midst of this.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: He's the one who gives me the strength to do this in a place where I want to sometimes just get up out of my own chair and go slow yourself down Like wait on the Lord, you don't have to have this answer today.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: He's going to give you an answer.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Be patient.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: We don't operate like that.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: So I think that's the biggest for me, one of the biggest struggles of the teacher gift.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Whitney, I hadn't really taken the time to think about that because, I mean, I talk about all the time the pace at which we have to run.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Life now is hard, and and this is coming from a profit gift who can, who can keep up with a faster clip of life, right, and even I feel like I'm running on a treadmill that's going about two notches faster than I feel comfortable running on most of the time, and so that's a new thought and perspective for me to think about just how much more of a struggle it is for a teacher gift who wants the time and the space, and our culture is not honoring that.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: But in other ways, I'm like you know what?
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: That's what we all crave.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: You know what that's what we all crave.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: It's like even sitting here with you I was like this is so refreshing, just to be with Whitney, and so I think you do have such an amazing gift to give to your family and also your culture, your clients, everyone, and so I appreciate the invitation to take a breath.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: I've often said that's one of the things I love about the teacher gift is they're the anchor that kind of slows down my impulsiveness, but I'd never really thought about that more on the cultural scale that we're living now.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Because you're right, everybody you send a text, you want an answer immediately you sent.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: I mean everything is instant and sometimes instant answers.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: I mean I know for sure for me sometimes when I spout off my instant answer that wasn't the best thing for the situation and so needing to tap into that teacher gift more and more and be uncomfortable with the waiting and not jumping in to fix it.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: So I really appreciate that about you.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about ways that maybe you've been misunderstood.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Can you think of ways that perhaps a teacher gift can hurt others, even if unintentional?
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the difficulties in the teacher process is that we often want I'm going to think through every process that you know whatever scenario is in front of me, I'm going to think through how do I help that person feel seen, heard and understood.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: But there's also a part of me that's very perfectionist and that kind of comes with the teacher.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: I think that comes with the teacher territory, and so that's hard on people who are just trying to find their way.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: So, learning that perfectionism can be destructive in relationships, that it can be destructive personally, that it can cancel out all the nurturing that you're hoping to do when you approach something like it's just a task to be, you know, tackled and accomplished, and sometimes the bar is set so high that regular other people, non-teacher people, can't reach that bar.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: That's painful.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: I mean I had a supervisor when I was in school and she very much held the bar very, very high and I felt like I had met my match in the teacher's gifted category.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: But I was extremely frustrated all the time.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: I always wanted to quit.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: I would often say to you know, doug, my husband.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: I would say I'm not cut out for this, I'm ready to just stop here, turn around, go in a different direction, and thank God, you know that didn't happen.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: And even my clinical supervisor said maybe you need to look for a different supervisor.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the bar is really really high and you're a student.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: You want to try to achieve that, but you're just a student, you're not a professional counselor.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: At this point I prayed about it and it felt like God said to me no, stay in this place, stay in this place.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: And you know, what I learned was that holding the bar that high without a relational connection is maddening for the person that is trying to achieve that high of a standard, for the person that is trying to achieve that high of a standard, whereas two things matter a relational connection, and the bar doesn't always have to be that high.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: I probably will never.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm 63 years old.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: I may have I don't know how much more time God's going to give me working as a therapist or even breathing air, but I know that I'm never going to.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: This is not my goal anymore.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: It's just not my goal anymore and I feel peace about that.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: I'm not struggling with it In the meantime.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: On the flip side of that, I'm very aware of when my own perfectionist tendencies are causing someone to feel the way I felt in that relationship and so I can back it up.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: I can.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: I'm really good at apologizing and repairing breaks in the relationships.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: For, you know, just going out ahead of the person and not nurturing and not being, you know, not understanding, not seeing them, not hearing them.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: Do you think there was a, was there a season in your life where the bar was that high for you?
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: You didn't, until you kind of walked through that experience, you, like you said, you kind of saw the impact of that bar.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: But for yourself, do you think, as a teacher, that that struggle with perfection, that bar was high and you were striving for that at times.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, I think it's always been a.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: You know, I come from a generation of strivers and perfectionists and codependent people, and so it you know the enemy knows us well and he will use the parts of our story, the threads within the generations of our families that he knows he can use, and he very well used that in my life.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: I'm glad that I came to understand that, glad that I came to understand that, and I think that this definitely is one of the places where the teacher gift could have been a disaster for me, had I not really had a course correction and I feel like that's what ROC was for me was a real course correction.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: So we've talked a lot around this question, but if you want to add anything to it, how do you see your gift impacting others?
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: I think, yeah, well, I'll just, I'll go back to the way the world is today.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: When somebody sits in my office or if I'm with a friend having lunch, or oftentimes people will say, elizabeth, just what you said earlier, I feel such peace after being with you, or I feel like I was heard, or I feel like I can breathe easy.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: I think that's the gift that the teacher gift gives the world and I think our world really desperately needs that today and I think our world really desperately needs that today and we'll need it even more.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: Our pain is going to increase, right, our suffering.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: We know, through God's word, this is not going to get easier for us.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: We're not traveling a journey that's going to turn easy all of a sudden.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: At some point next year or five years from now, it's going to get more and more difficult and, as believers, it's going to become more difficult for us as followers of Jesus Christ.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: But in the midst of all that chaos, in the midst of the pain and the suffering, I think Jesus wants us to know.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: I think our Father in Heaven wants us to know that we have peace, no matter what the circumstances are, and I think the Spirit wants us to know that we can be peace in an environment where there is no peace, and he will help us align ourselves.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: I can align my spirit with his spirit and then I am.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: You know, I am allowing myself to be used as a tool in our culture today for peace and for compassion.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: I think that's huge and I think it is a gift to be used by such a holy God.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: When I think about it, I can't not cry.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: You know, it's just a gift to be chosen by Him as a daughter, but then for Him to not be satisfied and just allowing me to be chosen, that he's going to walk with me and flesh all of this out, all of this teacher gift, all of this grace gift, and then connect me with all the other gifts in a way that makes my life full and meaningful.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: There are no words for that, at least not any that I can come up with right away.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: As we close, thinking about people that maybe are reading Free to Be you for the first time or listen to this podcast and they think they might be a teacher gift, but they're not sure.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: What wisdom or advice do you have to people who are trying to kind of figure out if the teacher gift might be their, their gift?
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: well.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: Find a teacher gifted person first of all, because you need support, like you need validation that that is your gift and that all the things that you may have struggled with in that gift, in the living out of that gift, you know there's somebody else out there that can understand that.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: And then find a mentor so that you can have growth in that place in your life and you can have somebody to help you flesh out what's healthy and what's not healthy.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: And again, I think our Ruach family helps us do that so well.
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: I have many that I've stayed in touch with, two others in particular that I stay in touch with on a very regular basis and there are so many times that Natalie will just say to me in her way you know, well, you know that is just not the teacher gift in you.
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: Why are you like?
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: You know that's not how you feel, or you know that's not how you're working that out, or that doesn't sound like you.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: And it's accountability.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: You know it's accountability in that place of my gift where I have somebody who knows me well, knows the journey I've been on and can help in that journey.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: But I think reading materials in free-to-be, not just you know, not just checking off the boxes and knowing what you're, but reading the second half of the book, like going through that and really with somebody else.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: If you need to do that, you know.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: And then attend Ruach.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: Like when the opportunities come up, put yourself in the place to make the sacrifice of time and energy and finances to to be in the presence of people.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: That it's the sacrifice of time and energy and finances to be in the presence of people.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: It's the focus of Ruach is to help us to align ourselves with the Spirit in the working out of our giftedness, you know, as we've been gifted by God.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: So I think those are the primary things.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Great answer.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: It's what I got.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: One of the things that I used to love about coming to the RUAC conferences was being able to be with our leadership team.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Right, and there's everyone.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Like you can think about all the different connections that you have with people and what they offer you.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: Right, and so not from a selfish perspective, but like I always knew Natalie was going to try to hug me and we'd have this game where it's like she's going to hug me, I'm going to be like, no, don't hug me, and it's just like this thing you do.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: But then, like you know, with you Whitney, there's just this we could talk about some things that I think just there was a connection there, but there was also just a.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: There's like I want to sit here and just listen to you talk Like, oh yeah, I'm supposed to ask you a question.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: I'm supposed to be like, but there's, there is wisdom that you have, that you offer and you do in such a relational way.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: That's so appreciated, and I love hearing you talk about how you've like coming to terms and coming to grasp and understand and accept and be assured and not that we don't wrestle with that, but that God has wired you this way and he's gifted you this way, and so of course, we struggle and we weave in and out of those things as we walk through the daily life.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: But you being able to rest in being the teacher gift and all the good, the bad and ugly that that brings allows you to be that presence for people.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: So I'm sure that I know you're that for your family and your clients and your friends, but even us who don't get to interact regularly, like being with you again, I'm like, oh yeah, like I missed this about Whitney, Just being able to be your present.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: You are present with us, right, Like you offer your presence and who you are genuinely to us, and that is a gift, like you said, that the Lord gives you in the situations that you walk into.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: And so if more people could get in touch with that and rest in that part of the teacher gift, I think it's a beautiful thing that the teacher has to offer not just the wisdom and the knowledge that they have, but the ability to allow people to experience.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: That is a beautiful side of it.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: So I appreciate you being that with us today.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: Thank you for that.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: I don't remember which Ruach it was, but when Sylvia said you know, go out, sit on the land wherever you know, take a walk or whatever, and ask God what he calls you, what is his name for you.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: And I can remember, you know, sitting under a pecan tree and just like looking out over the water and the sun was catching the ripples on the water, and I asked him who do you call me and what is your name for me?
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: And I had been called many things in my life that were not affirming in many ways and I was really afraid to ask that question honestly.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: Immediately he said sunshine, my name, I call you sunshine.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: You know, through the years I've just learned that sunshine gives light, you know.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: So I often ask myself if I'm going, especially if I'm going into an environment where I'm afraid.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: If somebody asked me to lead a Bible study and I'm like, oh, shoot, okay, yes, I can do it, but gosh, I'm afraid you know what if I don't do this, well, you know all the questions in my head.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: But when I remind myself that I'm God's light in that environment, that he's actually inviting me to go in that environment with His light, and it might not.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: It could be just sitting with my grandkids and whatever.
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be leading a Bible study or counseling with people or whatever, but just anything.
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: Just remind myself that I carry his light.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: It doesn't really matter if I fail or don't fail, because he will not let me fail, and I think it's the walking out of that and faith that really is a sign of maturity in all of our gifts.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: I think we all, if we're all honest, I think all of us are afraid of our gifts to some degree.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: They're all parts of our gifts.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: I think we all, if we're all honest, I think all of us are afraid of our gifts to some degree.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: They're all parts of our gifts that we don't like to some degree, that we wish we didn't have to walk through.
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: But when we know who Jesus calls us to be, if we know we're the light or if we know that we're the strength or we know that we're the, if we know we're the light or if we know that we're the strength or we know that we're the whatever, then we can really gather ourselves and be present for them.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: And that's amazing when we get through it and realize that's what God had planned all along.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: He had a design, he had a plan.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: He always does Imagine that I know right.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Well, whitney, thank you so much for sharing that with us today.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: Thanks for sharing all of your, your wisdom and your vulnerability and your heart with us today on the podcast.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: We really appreciate you offering your teacher gift to us today and hopefully hopefully people can take away a lot of things from you talking about your gift yourself.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: And then I hope that you know we have a Ruach Journey Conference coming up in October and I hope that, as people heard you today, that even encouraging other teachers like get a mentor, get around other people Ruach will be a place that people can do that, and you've had that experience there as well as I have, and so I hope that today's podcast conversation will be an opportunity for people to join us in October and be a part of experiencing this Ruach friendship and family that we have.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: So thanks again for sharing with us today.
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: My pleasure, love you guys.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: This podcast is made possible through donations by people like you.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: To donate, go to wwwTheFathersBusinesscom.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us at the Fathers Biz on Instagram and Facebook.