Latest / Faith Rehab / Ep. 13 - Deana Herd: The Secret That Cost Her Dad His Job

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Ep. 13 - Deana Herd: The Secret That Cost Her Dad His Job · Faith Rehab

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for listening.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Today, we are going to be talking to my friend Dina Hurd, who is an executive coach, trainer, consultant, and just a beautiful human.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm excited to hear her story today.
• 0:14
  unknown: Yes.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: We're also going to learn that God doesn't have a rule book about who belongs in a church.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: And most importantly, we're going to find out how Heidi got her nieces to throw up.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: Let's go.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: Let's go.
• 0:37
  unknown: Okay, all right, right.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, welcome to Faith Rehab Podcast, where we do real talk about church hurt healing and rebuilding faith.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Steve.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: I am a mental health therapist, but I'm not your therapist.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I have a brother who put a couch out on the curb one time, said free, and someone picked it up and took it away.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: And brought it back a couple days later, left it in the same spot and never claimed it again.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_03: You can't do that.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: There's no return policy.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: Apparently, I'm just picturing that the guy saw the couch, brought it home.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: And the wife said no.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, that's that sounds very accurate.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Why didn't he take it to like goodwill or like garbage?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: He brought it all the way back.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm Heidi.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: I am an executive coach, consultant, trainer extraordinaire, the mother of four boys.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was a sophomore in high school, I was invited to this singing competition where I just thought I could sing a song for fun.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I ended up showcasing.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: I like one the entire I went to like socialize, and there was a boy that I liked that was going.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I ended up showcasing and having to sing in front of the whole camp.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that was like the pinnacle of my contemporary Christian music career.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's a top right there.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_03: Downhill from there.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: All downhill.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know who Margaret Becker is?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Do you are you?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: She was a singer from my youth, and I sang one of her songs.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: That was actually like of all the songs I could have sang, it was a very unusual choice.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe if you're lucky enough, I'll do a little give us a few bars, yeah.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: I can't.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_03: That's a hard no, Steve.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, my name is CJ.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: My real name is Christopher Gerald.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_03: That's what CJ is for.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_03: Fun fact.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: Not that fun, actually.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: I don't like Gerald.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: But here's another fun fact.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_03: I used to have voice lessons.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: I got my fun fact from inspired by Heidi.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: But the teacher was like, hey, bring a song that you should sing to show me your skills.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_03: I brought the song My Way by Usher.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: So we we played it.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't sing any of the parts until the Jermaine Dupree rap part came.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I just rapped for this instructor.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_04: Nice.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_03: And he was like, Oh, I don't help with rap.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: I help with singing.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_03: And that was my only uh.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: Did you just say word and walk off?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: Word.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: Man.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: My rap career.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Did you do the whole like usher, usher?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, at the beginning of no.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: I was just quiet the whole song until the end where the rap part was.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know that my car is a song, right?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, Creole Lady Mama Lad is the name of my car.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I sing it.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: I sing it at a dealership, and this guy goes, You should really be on America's Got Talent.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I will.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thanks for listening.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_03: I swear the episode's gonna get better.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have a great interview today with my friend Dina Hurd.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Add it up.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Today I am so happy that we are interviewing my dear friend Dina Hurd.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: I met Dina when we were on a project together, and I thought she was just such a great dresser.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was very superficially attracted to her.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then we were put in a small group together and realized we shared a lot in common.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: She comes to us from Texas, which is so exciting.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: I asked her, I'm like, so are Texans really different than the rest of the United States?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_05: And her answer was, yes, actually.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, we are the only state that was a country prior to actually being a state.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_05: And we tend to think of ourselves in that way.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_05: So we're very independently inclined.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_05: And hope that the rest of the United States is happy that we joined their nation.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_05: I love it.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: Leave in the comments whether you're happy.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Never mind.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Dina epitomizes that like southern hospitality to me.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And she's kind of walked with me through uh some you know difficult couple of years, and she has sent me flowers and chocolate milk, and just I feel very loved and cared for her.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: But professionally, and she can share a little bit more about this, but I think you started off were you a school teacher?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_05: I did.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_05: I started off in education.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_05: In fact, my degree is in edification education.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_05: I have a certification in elementary education through the state of Texas, and I have taught alternative school, charter school, private school, public school.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_05: I thought I would try them all so that I knew that um I needed to leave that vocation.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe did everything you could.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then you kind of found yourself, you worked for a church for a little bit in ministry.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you're you are a pastor's kid yourself.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: So you went back into ministry.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I knew I was called to ministry and shared it with my family uh in the fourth grade.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_05: I was 100% sure that I had skills and talents that were going to be used in a church setting and proclaimed that to anyone and everyone who had listened, probably to the point that it might have been a little annoying for some folks.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um so that I very much had that inclination and wiring uh and went to college and had a double major of ministry as well as education.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_05: And so 100% believed that I would use what I learned in the education system to be able to be effective and strategic when it came to church work.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: So really using your professional background in the church.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna add to that, Steve.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: When you worked at the church, what was your job?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: What did you do?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I was a children's minister because the church background that I was in um had some unwritten rules that there wasn't a capacity for a woman to actually lead beyond 12-year-old little boys.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_05: So in that uh, so I was put in a role of uh, you know, children's pastor, children's minister.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Which I want to talk about a little bit when we interview you.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: But then you took all of that and and found your way into the consulting world, the training world.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: You've trained everywhere from Fortune 500 companies to municipalities.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you're you're a coach, you're an executive coach, you work with coaching clients, and we're gonna make sure at the end to plug you so that people know how to find you online and because you're such an encourager and yeah, phenomenal, phenomenal um coach and trainer.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really excited that you're here.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome, Dana.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to be here.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we kind of on uh Faith Rehab Podcast, we kind of follow a format of what's hurt, what's helped, and where are you headed?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I'd really love to hear some of your origin story because you grew up in a ministry family, and I'd love for you to share just kind of your birth order, what was it like growing up in your house, being a pastor's kid, and um, if you feel comfortable sharing a little bit about the dynamic with your family, we would love to hear it.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_05: Well, being a pastor's kid afforded me being known and loved by very many people.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_05: When I was firstborn, my dad actually held me up in front of the whole church and introduced me as you know, Dina Marie Fullenwider.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_05: And from that point on, everyone in the church knew who I was.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_05: And I would just say I had um I had so many sets of grandparents that were all around that uh it was incredibly special.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds like a scene from Lion King.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: I was seeing it like in the back.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: What was going on there?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, yes.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_05: Well, you inspired that scene before still getting to the copyright scene.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so that's the beautiful part of it.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_05: And God used especially those grandmother figures to really nurture me.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_05: The flip side of that is this was a time period in which there wasn't necessarily the openness to mental health that we have now.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_05: And my mother was bipolar, and just especially with having children that just exacerbated everything.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_05: And so there was this balance of being loved by the church, but also actively being taught in the way that would be acceptable for those folks at church, which basically involved I realize now as an adult, being very deceptive about the truth that was going on in my family of origin.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so I'm the oldest child and really um, like I said, got I got to experience.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_05: I think if you've been a preacher's child, then you know there's just some extraordinary things that happen one year we moved around Christmas.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_05: And the house that we moved into already had this beautiful, stunning Christmas tree in the front windows all lit up.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_05: So we're moving in a couple of weeks before Christmas, and it just made it feel like home, even though we were surrounded by boxes and there was food to put in the freezer, and it it just is I so different than how many people, you know, experience life.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember another time that my dad just went out to our mailbox and someone had left$5,000 in an envelope and a note that, you know, God asked us to give this to you.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_05: So I developed a uh a high regard and a high trust for people in church because of my personal experiences.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_05: And sometimes that was met, and other times that was uh was it was a disappointment uh when I found out that you know that necessarily wasn't the case all the time, that there were folks that would take advantage of that trust.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Can I jump in for a second?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, go ahead, Steve.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Just because, you know, because of my background, I'm I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um and having worked with a lot of people with mental illness, and when someone says there's someone's bipolar, there's a difference between lots of kids say that because they get angry or they're frustrated with their parents.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: But bipolar is a really it's so common there's a name for it, and there's a couple of names, but it's intense enough that it's not something that you brush aside.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: High highs, low lows, very intense kind of pulls in that direction.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: And and I'm saying that for the listeners, because you know, of course, you've lived it.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: But what I'm curious about is having been uh following Christ for 50 years and having been a therapist for 30 years, but sometimes in churches, so I'm gonna I'm gonna describe a few things and I'd love for you to talk about it.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if someone has bipolar, we uh churches sometimes try to pray it out of them.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: Or they say, well, maybe there's a demon, or they say, Um, maybe they're just not faithful enough, or they say if they just you know meditated on the word more, they would you know be able to calm.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: And and bipolar has such a deep uh origin uh biologically that it's in the body and brain chemistry.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so sometimes you know Christians have said, well, let's just pray on it, let's, you know, see if we can cast out the demon, let's anoint them oil, some you know.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm just curious, while you were growing up in a church and people experiencing your mom in a certain kind of way without mental health training, what what were they wanting to do?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: What were what were some of the things that you had to endure?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_05: Primarily they didn't know.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_05: We didn't share unless it got incredibly bad, and then she would have to be forcibly put into um there were five different times that she was institutionalized over our lives.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but majority of the time uh the the church didn't know that that was just not a conversation that we we none of the things that you mentioned were part of my experience.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_05: What was part of my experience is uh well, yes, and that that's great.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_05: And yet the instant that it was made a reality, uh my dad was dismissed from his role.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_05: Wait a second, it's just too complicated.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: When the church found out she was bipolar, he he was asked to leave.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: Your family was exiled, essentially.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, really wow.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: What was that like for you?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know that I fully understood it at the time.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_05: I just felt like I had failed because we were supposed to show up as this perfect family.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_05: And I had done some things um, like as young as the fourth grade, started writing checks for our our lunch tickets and you know, but very much become as much as I knew how to be, the adult.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_05: So for me personally, it was just this failure.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_05: I if I could have just shown up in a better way, maybe this wouldn't have happened to our family.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_05: And so yeah, it's it's there was so much just not known about mental illness, that it was just easier to shift and and move this person to go to another direction.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_05: And what's great is that by doing that, there were you know places that we got to go that my dad was very successful at what that's what I will say.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_05: In his role of ministry, there's tremendous success for him.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_05: And in our family, there was tremendous dysfunction.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_05: So the fact that all of that could coexist still baffles me to this day.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_05: I just think God gave him special favor and in some circumstances.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: There was a there was a secret life at home.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, for sure.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, wow.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: But you you're a coach.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: Let's fast forward to your present day.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: You're a coach to help people, and um, we hope in this uh podcast we're gonna help people.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: So churches that are leaning towards we don't know, and then we find out somebody has a mental illness or somebody's been struggling with it, or there's a secret life at home because of that.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: There's a child that's been parenified and has lots of, you know.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: What would you tell them?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how would you help them through that?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: What what what should they have done?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_05: I would shine a light on uh one church that I I crossed a path with them and learned that they actually had someone trained in social work that was their designated person that could help who had relationships in the community.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_05: And so they get it.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_05: They get trauma, they understand mental illness, they understand that um God doesn't have a rule book on who belongs in the church.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, it's very much a place where we're all welcome and we have the honor of standing in the gap for other people.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_05: And I think if you look at the church in Acts, you get to see that in real life.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_05: And my bend is that because I've lived this, I have a unique voice to hear from some folks and understand um and can say you are more than your family of origin.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_05: And you are more than that persona.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, I think the big thing for me is I was so wired to be responsible in so many different areas of my life that I remember particularly once I left college and was living on my own, trying to figure out who is Dina, separate and apart from how she performs.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_05: And I can still, and if it's a stressful day and I'm low energy, I can still default back into performance Dina.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_05: And I have to really check myself because coaching, you don't always get the outcome with somebody that you're hoping for.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_05: You you understand that.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_05: I'm sure, Steve, you're like, I'm I'm bringing it, I'm doing my best therapy that I can possibly do, but it's not working.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I get that, and it's it's frustrating, but also it's there's something beautiful about accepting who you are apart from what you do.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm I'm glad you've had that.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm glad that people get to experience that and see that through you and with you now.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_05: And I let me add to you asked what I would say when I was uh I'm gonna name a resource.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_05: A gentleman named Bob Hamp was at one of the churches that I was at, and he now is on his own.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_05: You can find him, and he absolutely has been a key part of my growth from deconstructing my faith to teaching me about uh freedom ministry and how to really jump in and help folks.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_05: And one of the things that I learned from him was a thing called father ladder.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_05: And the father ladder is how you show up and you see um God the Father, uh, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and it relates back to your family of origin.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_05: So if you're having trouble trusting God, it most likely is a wound from your father.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_05: If you're having trouble really knowing, understanding, and trusting the Holy Spirit, then that's going to be a wound from your mother.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_05: And then if you have a wound from your siblings, then really being able to identify and trust Jesus as Lord and Savior and someone who would die for you and love you, that there can be a disconnect there.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_05: And so having just that framework, because it's in my faith journey, it was easy for me to feel like my my struggle, especially in the Holy Spirit, somehow is just doing it wrong.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_05: But I didn't have, I didn't have the framework until going through that.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think in my early 30s and realizing, okay, okay, this is this is about, you know, the filter in which I'm looking and how just at least on a subconscious level, my guard is not down and I am not able to trust trust, you know, the Holy Spirit or God the Father or anyway, that was huge.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_05: And so I would say if you are in a family that's dysfunctional and heading to a church, trying to work out your your faith, keep in mind that these are connected in your filter, and yet you may be identifying something that's not true about the nature of God.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_05: And it's moving it from understanding that in your head to really understanding that in your heart.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she we Dina and I talked this weekend, and when she shared that with me, it really resonated with me and it made me emotional because I thought about this newer church that I found that I started going to probably a year ago.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I couldn't show up there until I had my personal life figured out, which is like such the opposite of how the church should be.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that especially when you are a pastor's kid, CJ's a pastor's kid, I'm a pastor's kid, you're a pastor's kid.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's it can sometimes be very presentational and image focused.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: And when there's an expectation that you show up a certain way because all eyes are on you, you know, you are demonstrated, you're you're held up in front of the congregation when you were a newborn, it becomes this internal pressure that Steve, you talk about, and external pressure because all eyes are on you.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like the church should be the place where we show up needy, right?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's where we can be blessed through community and met through through our brokenness.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's probably the most relatable thing about Christ is his death was like messy.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a neat and tidy thing.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking of you, Dina, as like this fourth grader who's writing checks and doing laundry and making sure everyone.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's got clean clothes to go to church.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you you knew your role.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: It was like you knew your role and you had this duty and you were going to show up in that space.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then to not be met your emotional needs not being met, which are so critical to any kind of development.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: And what I'm learning in my mid-40s is we can be very high-functioning adults and have successful careers and even be able to articulate our feelings and our experiences, but still have a world of hurt.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: And we're all in process.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you said what did you say to me when we were talking?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: You said, and I want you to try and remember how you said it because I'm going to get it wrong.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: You thought that like holding it all in was godliness.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Is that how you put it?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_05: The capacity to shift the emotion down and aside so that I could show up and be highly functional.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_05: I gave credit as being godliness.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_05: And so the the habit of not feeling was what carried me forward.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_05: You know, give me a difficult situation, give me a crisis.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_05: I can manage anything.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um, what's you know, unnerving is doing the same old, same old every every day.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_05: Like that's that's gonna throw me completely off.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_05: That no thank you.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_05: So those those kinds of things, man, it just really threw me.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_05: It it the the and part of that is my father is incredibly optimistic and he always has been.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_05: And now that I'm older, I I realize that some of that was his default mechanism from some pain that he had in his life.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_05: He could shift gears very quickly into a reframe and almost a um fantasy kind of of looking at life, kind of like Pollyanna wave a wand and things are better.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um, that I believe was uh reinforced by my mom's mental illness and him just thinking his mantra was tomorrow will be better.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_05: Tomorrow will be better.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_05: And so um, you know, tomorrow wasn't always better.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_05: And uh I didn't have a capacity to deal with the negative things and truly came to think if I can just be positive enough, there's always a way forward.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_05: And Heidi and I've talked about how connected our wound is to our Enneagram.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_05: And so I my integram is the Enneagram 7, and I have this great ability to reframe pretty much anything.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_05: Like come to me with your issues, and I can help you learn from it.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_05: I can help you move forward in that.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and yet, you know, it's it's now and Heidi knows I hit a pretty huge brick wall back in October of last year and am just now in a place that I haven't in a good headspace and can really function in a way that um that that I can feel again.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_05: I literally went wedding shopping with my daughter in March, saw her in her dress, and disappointed her because I didn't cry.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's a lot of pressure, a life of pressure about how to be performative even with kings.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like if I if I just stuff them all and show the happy face, and that you know, I I love the verse, and I I won't be able to quote exactly where it's from, but I'm sure Heidi will know.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Timothy Award winner.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: That um that when there's a verse in the New Testament that talks about Moses and that we all have unveiled faces.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: And the story from the Old Testament is that Moses, when he saw God, his face was so bright, but when it started to dim, he veiled his face so no one could tell it was dimming.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: And in the New Testament, Paul talks about we all have unveiled faces.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: As Heidi talked earlier about, wouldn't it be great if we could go to church with unveiled faces?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: But what would you say now?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like now that you've gone through that with your daughter and and you've realized that a lifetime of stuffing feelings, I mean, what's the value of feelings now?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: What's the view of that now?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_05: So this this round, I went to a coach who was a secular coach.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_05: It's the first time I had actually gone to someone outside the church, and it wasn't an anti-church thing.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_05: It was just feeling a connection with somebody and understanding.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_05: I just felt an inclination that this is what I was supposed to do, and took uh what's called an energy assessment and scored a zero.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, I had zero energy.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um first time I've ever scored a zero, but you know, hey.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway, and from that learned uh on a scale, it's called a mood meter.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_05: You can look it up, it's originally from Yale, so you can put in mood meter in Yale.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_05: And what I learned is to give myself grace that it didn't matter how fantastic my intentions were.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_05: If I did not have the energy to show up in a non-judgmental way, if I didn't have the energy even to take care of myself, um, I certainly couldn't pour into other people.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_05: And I think it was the first time that I was really able to fully grasp, I have got to give myself grace.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_05: I've talked about it, I've shared it, I've, you know, shared in ladies' glass, I've shared in retreats, but there was a disconnect for me personally, in which some part of me just didn't really believe that was true for me.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I you you still need to show up, you still need to make it happen.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_05: And I felt such shame about not being able to fulfill the things that I had said I was going to do in my work for my clients.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I really had to go through and understand this failure is leading me to this path of growth and handling emotion and handling feelings.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_05: And then also having the capacity for other people.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_05: It's super easy when I'm coaching for someone to think, man, what's going on?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_05: Why can't they just make that shift?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_05: Why are they stuck?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_05: And many times they're stuck just like I was because they they can't feel the feeling in order to go through it.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_05: It's easier to run somewhere else, or maybe they're stuck in guilt or they're they're stuck in shoulds, which should is a word that I actively coach against.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_05: It's a word that shows up, but just basically your brain disconnects from the end of it.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_05: And you don't listen to whatever follows that.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_05: So you make the same mistake again and again, and you do the same thing with those people in your life that you're having conversations with.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_05: And I learned to stop shooting on myself.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_05: And it was huge because it wasn't serving me well.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_05: And the more I did it to myself, the less I tried to put that stipulation on others.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_05: And I had much more of that growth mindset that I was always teaching about, but I just was limited in how I could do it.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_05: And the last week I shared, facilitated with um with leaders about, you know, pet yourself, make sure you're in a good headspace, you know, gauge on the on the mood major, which quadrant you're in.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_05: And then you are responsible for how you show up.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_05: You also need to have grace with your team and look at where there's energy at.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_05: So all of this is being able to, I think, restore dignity to people who cross my path who I never would have had a voice with had I been limited to working in a church.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_05: And so it's for me, this is a whole, it's the redemption arc of my life to be able to go back and be that version, that newer version of me, and give grace and help people see their more than their performance.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um, as much as ironically, I coach to performance.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_05: I also know that it's not uncommon for folks to have values that get compromised on the path to performance.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_05: And I can now speak to that from the aspect of living it out loud, you know, saying that lie to somebody because that report isn't done.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not halfway done with it, I'm gonna have to run home and finish all of it.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_05: But I'm gonna tell you, hey, Steve, you know what?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_05: I've been thinking about it, I'm halfway done, you know, whereas I know that lying is wrong.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's the veils, right?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: We put on veils so that we will look better than we are.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I I exactly there was this moment with you in this last year.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like you, it was almost like a reckoning.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and because I what I said to Dina this weekend, and it's true, there are some people who overfunction in order to feel loved.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I get the impression from you, like you just have a sincere servant's heart.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like you really do, you're you're not doing it because you need to be validated, you're doing it because it's how God wired you.
• 32:14
  unknown: Yeah.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: But when you were doing it at the expense or cost of your values, like you said, that's when it be, that's where the conflict began.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: And as I watched you kind of like have this reckoning, we were FaceTiming, because I'm in Chicago and she's in Texas, and you know, I'm in Chicago, I'm basically in Wisconsin.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: Just to be clear.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll like do these FaceTime conversations, and um you kind of stopped.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like we were talking, and I don't even remember what we were talking about, but you stopped and you're tear your tears filled your eyes, and you said, Hold on, I'm really angry.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Give me a second.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm laughing because it was like it was really beautiful because this anger was coming up in tears.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like you were raging and you were like frustrated.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: You were recognizing something in you was making you angry, and you wanted to, you like trusted me enough to say, Heidi, can you just take a beat with me for a second?
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is making me angry, and I need to feel this.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it felt so simple or basic, but it was a beautiful moment to bear witness to because I knew that my friend Dina is feeling something that she's pushed down for decades, and we're gonna sit here and let her anger come out how it needs to, so it doesn't come out sideways.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: And how many leaders that you coach, executives that you are in training rooms with, have that same drive for performance, not because they're high performing, but because they've been conditioned from the time that they were small.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: That that's the drive is is what can kill you if we're not paying attention.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_05: Well, and it has been reinforced by years and years and years and years worth of success.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_05: And so it's again going back to that, where is my identity from?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, what what's gonna be my North Star versus, you know, my North Star for years was I'm the responsible one until I couldn't be the responsible one.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_05: And then I was like, oh my gosh, I have no clue who I am.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_05: And I was exhausted and I slept, and I like had health issues that I'd never had before.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_05: And there was no area in my life that I didn't have to just stop and say, it's out of my control.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_05: It's just out of my control.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_05: And that total release is where the blessing of, you know, I can feel now.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_05: I look at pictures with my daughter Katie Beth, and I have cried about the wedding dress now.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_05: Like the capacity to feel has returned.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_05: And I also recognized that because I was so low on energy, I would use adrenaline to make stuff happen for my focus.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_05: And this week in particular, I felt that adrenaline come and go.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_05: And I had a choice of, you know, am I going to continue that habit of jumping on the adrenaline and writing it out?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_05: Or am I just gonna honor the fact that there's a moment of panic, but I don't have to use that panic to focus on and solve a problem.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_05: I can just, I can just feel the panic.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_05: It's biology, it's gonna be about six seconds, and then I've got control about the story I tell myself from that point, and I can reframe and and let's let's do that.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_05: Whereas that was never part of my natural way of growing up.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I just didn't feel, I just I was so conditioned to react.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_05: And the story was protect the family.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_05: Like it was always protect the family.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: You were you were maybe wired up that way, but you were definitely trained that way.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: Families trained kids to do that.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: Dina, tell me what you think about this uh analogy.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because I've used it a lot, and so if it sucks, I need to know now.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll quit.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I I feel like you know, as we're talking about faith rehab, we're talking a lot about people who have been around Christian folks or in churches or whatnot.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, there's a training that comes with that, like be happy, God is good all the time, you know, all that kind of stuff.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: But I think our feelings, the whole array, the joy, the the trials, the struggles, the frustrations, the whole game.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a credit card that eventually you gotta pay the bill.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you can put it off, you can shove it down, you can you you know, you can keep thinking like I'll make the minimum payment, minimum payment, minimum payment.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: Eventually you're gonna have to pay the bill.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: And in some ways, we think that's easier than the alternative.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: Even though, you know, thanks to Brene Brown, lots of people are realizing the alternative the alternative to a credit card is paying cash.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's a lot harder.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta go get it, you gotta have it, you gotta manage it.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: And you can't have more, you can't spend more than you have.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: And Brene Brown's work on vulnerability as an alternative to really shoving it all down, it makes for healthier families, healthier relationships, healthier experience of how we experience a life.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it feels like you experienced in real life and in real time the credit card company came a calling and I had to pay it off.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I was, you know, bankrupt, which happens, right?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_02: And um so tell me what you think of that.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: Because if it sucks, I need to know and quit using it now.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_05: I don't really have an opinion about the value of it.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_05: I would like to share something that was very profound um and has been impactful.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_05: And it's by a gentleman, his name is Jonathan Haidt, and uh he has a metaphor for how the brain works that you have a six-ton elephant, and on top of that elephant is a writer.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_05: And so the elephant is your emotion, it's your motivation, it's your energy.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then the writer is the logical part of your brain.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_05: And the majority of institutions, church, school, uh, focus on and and correct and and tell that writer what to do.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_05: Whereas if we're gonna go anywhere, we're on top of an elephant.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_05: And if that elephant no longer has the capacity to move, it doesn't matter how much the writer knows.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_05: So um I think with the credit card analogy, what what's striking to me is even if someone was trying to collect, I I didn't have it.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_05: There, that, you know, there was there was nothing there.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_05: So for me, what works about this elephant is it's a living, breathing thing.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_05: And I have to, I have to study the elephant.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_05: And I also know as a leader, I teach leaders to study the elephant as well.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_05: And if we can study the elephant, that is the equivalent of having home-filled advantage at a sporting event because you're tapping into the energy of you know that human, and that's what's gonna allow them to move forward.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: I love that analogy.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: I've heard it before and I love it.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: And and one of as you're describing it, one of the things that I'm picturing in my mind is that the rider, no matter how strong they are, cannot control an elephant.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like you could pull the reins all you want to the left, to the right, to the back, whatever.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: You that you gotta convince that elephant to do something helpful.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, absolutely.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_05: Well, and I think that's the big disconnect, is we we rejoice about the salvations of church, and yet we're just not prepared with the fact that we're gonna have some elephants that are a hot mess that are gonna be all over, you know, the sanctuary, and we can either decide that they're normal or that they need to be veiled.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_05: And the the beauty of how you know you you think about how Peter was with Christ, and yeah, you know, he was unveiled.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: Unhimmed sometimes.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_03: Did you have to do exactly yeah?
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_03: I I love what um what you're what you guys are saying and dialoguing about.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I I always feel like an advocate for church staff people, which we all were at some point.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_03: And it sometimes sometimes feels like our leaders or our church is more like a monarchy where we're all trying to serve this king, which is the pastor and not really the king that we're supposed to be serving, right?
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_03: And we just try to please them without really uh uh feeling safe to open up about our emotions, like the elephant, right?
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, and it would be a good message for pastors and leaders to be like, hey, if you could control that emotion in your staff and be there for them, they could reach much farther than than them just serving you like a king.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like, um, because a lot of the times there there was this experience where there was a leader and uh I knew that you were on his bad side if he said, you know what, let's talk about that over lunch.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_03: That was his like key word of saying, I disagree with you, you shouldn't have brought that up in in front of people, right?
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_03: And that I feel like that feeling is not right.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_03: It should have been opposite.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_03: We're like, oh, I I could feel my staff person is feeling a certain way.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: Let's let's try to control that emotion of elephant and get to the, you know, what we really need to talk about.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_03: So what would you tell like church leaders?
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_03: We have a lot listening, and what would you tell them, like, how how should they handle that, those type of situations?
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_05: I think the first thing is that there is a tendency in humanity for fear and our personal fear to be the capacity in which we hurt others.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_05: So, as the top leader, as the king in the monarchy, um, what are my fears that I personally have?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_05: Do I know them?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_05: Do I understand them?
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_05: Do I see how they can be impactful and triggering when my staff comes to me with a new idea or my staff makes me uncomfortable?
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I'm in charge of submitting all of all of me to God at the throne and it, you know, and help me with this and have some somebody that I talked to Heidi this weekend and said church was a job for me.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_05: And so every Tuesday I went to church in a singles group because most of the time that I was working for a church, I was single.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_05: But at the job, it wasn't safe for me to to share about what was going on in my personal life.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_05: That was, and that was literally something that my dad taught me never ever share with your church staff anything that's going on with your personal life.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_05: They will use it against you.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_03: Which is opposite of what should happen.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_03: But it happens.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_05: So I would say you have to, you have to jump in and take care of yourself.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_05: And then the beauty is God didn't mess up by giving us emotion.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_05: Like that's that's not something to be afraid of.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um, God is not a transactional God.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_05: If he was, there would be no grace.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_05: So He's He's given us a capacity with the Holy Spirit to be able to be there for another person.
• 44:16
  unknown: And
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_05: to you know be able to validate somebody else's feelings.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, you know, part of what I have done is learned how to be a mediator.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_05: And so learning how to validate people's stories so that we could come to that place of a logical, you know, ending to the lawsuit was a huge thing that was part of, you know, my journey because I had been on staff and learned exactly what you're talking about.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_05: Keep your mouth shut, don't, don't, don't complain, don't cause any waves, make other people look good.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it was no different than my my childhood.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_05: You know, if I can just make everybody else look good, then I will, I will have job security.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I will never forget when I was at college, they threw out a stat and I want to say, I know it was over 30, I want to say it was 34% of folks that are in ministry come from a highly dysfunctional background.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: Which I don't I think is okay if because those are people that are finding some some uh grace and rebirth what I struggle with and and I I guess I want to kind of shout out to all the church leaders is that if we know this, we keep hearing this story over and over and over.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately we keep hearing this story over and over and over we wish we could quit hearing it and go do a podcast about something way more fun.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: But one of the things that you said and one of the things that I just want to call out church leaders is to go let's figure out a way to do it.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: God hasn't designed a church that would just hurt people you know through and through and throughout generations.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_02: God has designed a a church that would be healing and helping one another and if we can't figure out how to work with the unveiled faces around us then maybe we're hitting the target but not the bullseye if you will.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know churches I think a lot of churches doing a lot of great stuff but if unless we can figure that out and I'm not saying that theoretically I'm saying that because I know there are people like the four of us and people that are listening that want genuine unveiled vulnerable relationships.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah and one of the things that you've said and your dad told you is we don't know who's safe.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so when we figure out who's safe we gotta lean into that and really then cluster you know make clusters of that and if we can infect you know those around us with that then I think real change happens.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: I do think that it can be a challenge because what most of us in church work are challenged with are you know growth and salvations and tithing and staff and maybe staff development when really what we're called to do is to equip the saints to do the work of the gospel which means we have to train and help and and understand everyone around us also has gifts.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: Also has value in God's kingdom also has value to God and we can be vulnerable and present that.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's what's been so rewarding for me and I want to take a corner because we need to wrap this up in sort of what's what's how where you headed and but I'm hearing a couple of things from you Dina and Steve a little bit in what you're saying too.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: Dina you said that you kind of felt this pressure growing up that you had to take care of the family and what I want to say to you is you are taking care of your family.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: And now I get to be a part of that family.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what I mean like when I think about my church hurt when Steve and I started having these conversations about the podcast he said I want to have people on who've really processed it.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like well then I don't know that you want me on because I got a lot of anger and I thought I'd kind of find my people like we're gonna be mad together.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: And instead what God is doing in him through the people that we're interviewing is it's healing my heart.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so Steve when you say like if the church is about healing and helping each other it's through these conversations realizing that the church is so much bigger than the people that we worship next to on a Sunday morning.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the connection that we have with our brothers and sisters all over the world who have their own stories and it's it's a gift when you're able to have the perspective and look back at your life and go, okay God doesn't make mistakes none of this surprised him so how are we going to move forward and I think what impressed me about you and this is where I want you to kind of land this conversation is you still go to church.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm always so surprised I'm like wow that's amazing and so I want you to tell me just a little bit about um you know where are you headed and what does church mean for to you now and and what that looks like.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_05: So church is community.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_05: It's not like when our daughter was younger it was being very mindful of things.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_05: I wanted to make sure that we were exposing her to things that were the same as what we were like there was a congruency between the belief of the church and our beliefs.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_05: And now it is primarily not a place that I'm going to get fed.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_05: I can I can go many places on podcasts or you know that that's not my priority.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_05: My priority is living life with people and um that has been I I think heaven is what you actually described Steve when you talked about you know being in a place where where the church shows up each with each other for the way that they're supposed to that's the beauty of heaven and not not to be negative just to be realistic I have the capacity to wound another person in my low energy in my uh just fill in the blank whatever whatever's going on.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_05: If you cross my path in the last six months, I wasn't able to show up for you.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_05: I barely could show up for myself.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_05: And so part of the human condition is the fact that we will hurt each other in our marriages, in our parenting relationships, in our close relationships.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_05: And so I think for us it's about how can we be agents of restoration?
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_05: Because this is going to happen and we have to stop saying that the church is going to look different than outside the church because it's a fallen world and this is this is part of the story.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_05: Once we recognize hey this is part of the story, then I think we have the capacity to give people the the permission to be unveiled because we're like yes and I I went through some some yucky stuff but the church isn't what it was back then.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_05: It's a better situation and I can be an ambassador for dignity for you know in the middle of this and that's the honor that I I have in in this moment in time.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_05: I I was angry for a really long time about a lot of injustices that happened and eventually just realized that I I see the same stuff in my work you know in the corporate world and I don't get mad.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah yeah why why is that why why it's still human at least in the church I know people are going and there's a source that that can be a part of the healing um so yeah because we we like expect church people to be supernatural when they're just regular people like corporate people we don't expect that from corporate people so we don't get let down.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah it's so unreasonable.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely I even think when you and I started our friendship Dina I feel like we had this very mature conversation of like hey I'm probably gonna hurt you and you're probably gonna hurt me but can we just like stay in touch through that let each other know and not to ghost each other yes yeah because I think in both of our stories we have woundedness where like people just kind of ghosted us and to be able to start with that realistic like I don't want to hurt you but it it's possible that it could happen and let's just have grace for each other.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_01: Remember we're all in process and um I'm just so thankful that our our paths crossed how they did and I feel like I could talk to you on this podcast for hours because I know you have so many more we might have to do a part two uh with Dina because I think there's some more stuff that that happened that um will resonate with our listeners.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_02: But um I'm gonna tell you something that you said that's gonna just rattle around in my brain for a while and so I thank you for it.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_02: That you said God doesn't have a rule book on who belongs in the church.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that we think that as people are walking in the front door and I hope that as agents of transformation as you say as agents of um restoration that we can continue to go everyone here belongs and let me love them in a way that makes sense to them.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so thank you for that.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah would you come back if we wanted you to come back don't answer yet you haven't heard it she's like we can afford you that's a conversation I'd love to have I I think there's many folks that are searching and I just would like to give hope and I would say if you are female and the church has hurt you I do have um a Facebook group that I try to put lots of lots of different um all sorts of different things.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_05: You may get a somatic exercise you may get a scripture you may get something funny the whole gist of it is I get it.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_05: I get it.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_05: And so just know if you look up a sacred space on Facebook um I'll let you in and and as long as you help me love on people you're good.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh that's awesome.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anywhere else people can find you?
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_05: I know you're on LinkedIn I am on LinkedIn if you find a website don't fill anything out because it means to I've been really busy and I haven't okay I've lost my password and it's just it's a random floating I I don't know I need to redo it.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_05: I'm working on it.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway yeah find me on LinkedIn and I do follow you on Facebook the sacred space it it's so encouraging and it's very relatable and it's a great little community and I think that's a a good way to find Dina.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: But thank you again friend for sharing your story and you just you have so much depth and wisdom on and you're funny and and you're real you know I think about the Velveteen rabbit with the worn ears and the eyeball that's fallen off like but it it's it's real and I'm not saying that your eyeballs way better than that.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_02: Dina's beautiful does not look like an old toy I didn't land where I thought we were going to I told you I'd hurt no thank you so much for joining us this was really great I feel like I learned a lot and I appreciate you I appreciate you all as well thank you okay all right right hey thanks for listening today this was such a great conversation Dina thank you so much and I know that we typically end with stories that are a little quirkier or a little funny or something like that.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_02: And Heidi told me a story and I have so many questions.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_02: So go to that Heidi.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: All right so I I was having a month that was like financially incredibly tight and I was going through some stuff personally and you know Dina and I were just kind of sharing like we always do through you know Marco Polo is our main way of conversating.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: And she just like I it I don't even think it really had to do with anything other than she wanted to lift my spirits she sent me chocolate milk or was it hot chocolate?
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember it was it was chocolate milk.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: Clementines were they like little oranges and flowers flowers and chocolate and chocolate.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: And my cousin sister Sisson called and said are you able to take my nieces overnight and I thought I can but I don't have any groceries in my house.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't say that to Sarah I just said I I'll take them but I was feeling really bad because I thought I have nothing I'll take them but I won't feed them I can't feed them half of lunch at my doorstep from Texas is chocolate milk good chocolate and oranges and the kids ate them until they puked but I I called her I'm like oh my gosh Dina you won't even believe this so that's our little I thought that was such a cool thing.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_05: So that was the whole like the the easy way to make hot chocolate that is delicious is to get peppermint chocolate and melt it in like the chocolate milk.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_05: So you just you can do it simply like in the microwave but then you pull it out and it tastes amazing or you can put it in a crock pot, you know, but the thing I knew is Heidi doesn't have a lot of time.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_05: I know this is going to taste great and she can do one you know mug or she can do for a whole group.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_05: So that's what I'm thinking is Heidi just deserves to chill, enjoy this.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that the oranges are like little Clementines are just a seasonal kind of thing.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_05: So I had no idea that it was going to turn into this special moment for her.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_05: And I just think that's one of those intuitions where you have to listen when God prompts you and it because it makes no sense.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_05: Like you know why am I sending Clementine that you know well I thought it was to bless Heidi and it was but she would got to use it with you know her family as well.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah I thought it was a good gift that it was a snack but it's a great gift that they threw up yeah yeah that's what a memory all night all night long here's my question you mailed chocolate milk like yeah like I'm thinking like kernel that's like just door dash it yeah so I knew I asked her for her address didn't tell her what's going on it didn't come from Texas Steve I was just picturing from Texas like a little you know one of those cartons you get in elementary school like a no yeah Texas from a box and and just hope it doesn't leak.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway you know what a giver you are Heidi what a giver you are you shared all of that with all of your family that's for our today just give give give and um thanks for listening to the Faith Rehab podcast where we are the snack leaders in the world.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_03: See everyone be blessed.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks Tina thank you again