4 WAYS TO CREATE SPACE TO ENGAGE IN YOUR OWN STORY

[DAWN GABRIEL]
Hi, I’m Dawn Gabriel, host of Faith Fringes. Podcast, recording live from Castle Rock Colorado, not only where I love to live, but I also work as the owner of a counseling center in the historic downtown. This podcast is a place to explore more than the traditional norms of the Christian culture. For those desiring deeper connection with God and engaging their spirituality in new ways, this will be a safe place to allow doubt, questions and curiosity, without judgment. We will be creating intentional space to listen in on other’s faith journeys, whether that is deconstruction or reconstruction, with the hope of traveling alongside you on your own spiritual path. If you’re interested in getting even more out of this podcast, grab my free email course Spiritual Reflections on my websitefaithfringes.com. Welcome to the podcast.

Hello and welcome back. This is Dawn with Faith Fringes. Thanks so much for being here today. You know, when I first started getting into podcasts, I was actually running and training for a half marathon and then later I was also just taking walks with my dog and I found that my time alone, with my dog or with myself out in nature, listening to podcasts was one of my favorite times of the day. It was so helpful in me just growing and learning. And so as I started Faith Fringes, that was my hope, that maybe you’re taking a hike or a walk, but that I am journeying alongside you, as you’re learning more about your spiritual faith journey. And so I hope you’re enjoying these podcasts and if you are, please go to wherever you listen to podcasts and rate and review and subscribe to Faith Fringes.

And also I ask you to share it with others if you feel like you’re learning something and you feel like you’d love to share that. I would love to have you get the word out to other people. So today, what are we going to go and talk about? We are going to talk about how story and journeying alongside someone is so important. I love the idea of story. I think even as we look at movies or books, we’re so drawn to the story. And so today I want you to kind of ask yourself, have I really given myself time to engage in my own story and maybe what has kept me from doing that and not only that, but what have I listened to somebody else’s story? Like, have you ever had a time where you had your mind made up about someone and later heard their story and it totally changed your perspective?

That’s what I’m talking about. in fact, I have an example. I was at a retreat. It was an exclusive retreat for only five people and it was people who are wanting to really dream big and kind of take the next step in their life and in their profession. And so this was in Colorado and we were being led by an amazing consultant leading this retreat. So we showed up that day and I remember being a little nervous going there. I didn’t know any of the people except the person leading the retreat and we get there and we’re all sharing our big ideas and things we wanted help with and things we wanted to like kind of flush out while we were there and get each other’s feedback. So these were like the other women, it just happened to be four other women that were there with me and they were all rock stars.

As I started hearing their big ideas and dreams, I thought, “Who am I? Oh my gosh. My idea isn’t big enough. I don’t have enough experience.” And I just started the negative self-talk and the doubt, and the comparison was so huge that morning. And as I drove away the afternoon, because it was a two-day retreat, but we went home during the evening and slept at her own house. As I was driving home, I realized, “Whoa, I recognize these are, this is me and my shame cave. This is me with my negative self-talk and I really need to get out of it.” And so I had noticed the signs of just staying in my head too much, not being myself, kind of getting down on myself. So I actually called my husband and it was like an hour drive to get home that day and we processed on the way home. And I said, “I just need to tell you everything in my head so I can get it out so it stops running my feelings right now.”

So it was really helpful to talk to him and kind of get out of that but the interesting thing is because I set it out loud and was kind of working, that night I had a dream. It reminded me, it took me back to junior high, which so, or middle school, I guess, as people call it now, but we called it junior high in my days. In junior high, when I had made, I tried out for cheerleading, I was at a brand new school and I was nervous and I tried out for the cheerleading squad and I’d never done cheerleading before. This was like, I think seventh or eighth grade. And I remember the lady called me to tell me I had made the team, but then she called me back like a few minutes later and said, “You, actually, we made a mistake. We miscounted and you were the 11th person and we only have 10 uniforms, so you can still come on, but we’re going to have to figure things out.”

And I don’t remember exactly what she said, but I do remember how I felt like, “Oh, I shouldn’t be on this team. I wasn’t good enough. I was their last pick.” And it was so fascinating. I had never remembered that story before, until I had gone on this retreat and this is what came up in my dream that day. It wasn’t, I just woke up remembering it and it wasn’t a dream. It was a real story and I realized, “Oh, I wonder if that’s what I’m feeling with these other women there of, I don’t really belong, they are better than me, I was the last pick.” And so it was just fascinating to really sit with, this was an old story of mine years and years ago, that was still affecting me today.

And how many of you have that happen when you are in a new situation and you’re feeling insecure and things come up and rise up from a past part of your story? So let me keep going with the story. So I went back the second day for this retreat and I got there and I said, “Hey, I just need to share. I’m in my head too much.” And I kind of shared, and as I was sharing, guess what? Every single other woman there shared a similar in her head moment as she was driving home or going back to wherever she was staying that night. All of us were feeling the same way that our ideas weren’t big enough. We were comparing ourselves to one another and I was just hit by the, by, “Wow. We all have similar things going on in our heads.” And it was so cool for us to really just share that with one another and then we were able to get some really amazing work done. And I still cherish that those two days with those women, because it was so powerful getting their feedback on my big idea.

It actually helped me turn into this podcast. Like I was I was going on a totally different direction with the podcast and they actually said, “Dawn, you come alive during this podcast. We’re really excited about it.” So I was just shocked and, not shocked, but it was like a really poignant moment for me to realize, “Get out of your head, make sure you hear other people’s story, engage in your own story.” And that’s what I want to bring to you today. I want to kind of break apart. Like why are we getting in our way? Why is it so important to create space, to engage your story? What’s keeping us from engaging our story? What’s keeping us from listening to other stories? And I’ve kind of narrowed it down to a few things and this might not be all inclusive, but these are the things I’ve seen as I walk with people and as I walk with my own journey of self-awareness and try to be a better person. I have noticed that comparison, judgment, lack of self-awareness, lack of space, like just creating the space to engage in yourself and other stories, those are kind of some things that are coming to the surface.

So I was thinking about this and I think the first thing we all need to get clear about our own journey. So getting clear about your journey, the first thing I think to realize is not all journeys are an equal playing field. A lot of times what happens is you compare yourself to someone who’s in a totally different phase of life or totally different scenario. And it’s not an equal playing field. You have to really get clear on what are your values? What is your definition of success, or what is your definition of your experience or your own pain and what do you want? What is meaningful to you? And if you’re like me, I tend to have, like, I don’t know if you guys know the Enneagram but I am an Enneagram three and I have a lot of vision and a lot of exciting ideas.

So I want to value everything and you can’t tell you everything. Something will always feel undone or not enough if you’re comparing yourself to others and you’re trying to value everything. You really have to narrow down, what are the top three values that you, three to five, but narrow it down. Don’t have a big list like I usually do of like 10 to 20, like narrow it down, stay true to what you want, what you value, what you believe, not with somebody else’s. You don’t know what they’re valuing, or maybe you do, but you have to ask yourself, is this what I really want? And so are you comparing yourself with someone who’s on a completely different journey? And not only that, do you know that person’s story? Do you know their pain? Because a lot of times, how are we seeing this person’s story?

We’re seeing it on social media and I call it the highlight reel on Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest, even, like nobody’s showing the real life behind the scenes. I mean, some people are, but even then it’s a spin, but you don’t know the whole story. And until you know that person’s story, you can’t compare yourself, good or bad, this can go both ways, where you are comparing yourself saying, “Thank God that’s not me. Or, oh my gosh, I’m not good enough.” You have to be careful because you don’t know the person behind the pictures on social media.

Another thing I think that comes to mind is letting go of perfection. I don’t know if any of you listening are a perfectionist. That’s something I have struggled with and worked on. But when you’re a perfectionist, you’re kind of setting yourself up for failure because has anybody ever reached perfection? And yet you’re still trying to go after perfection. It’s a setup. You’re constantly living in failure and feeling bad. So a lot of times when I am, I realize I’m being overly perfectionistic, I realize I have to examine my expectations. What are my real expectations? What am I really saying to myself? Like jumping in there and is this a realistic expectation or is this based on somebody else? How can I rearrange this so it matches my values and what I’m really wanting?

So what’s an example of that? So a lot of times, when you have an expectation, I’ll give one that I used a lot in this last year with the whole pandemic. I don’t know when you’re listening to this, but we, at the time of this recording, we are a little over a year when the pandemic hit and everything shut down and we’re slowly coming out of that with vaccines. And it’s getting to be summer again, but when in the middle of the pandemic, a lot of people’s expectations of trying to juggle, working from home and remote learning, and then all the things in the community that was happening in the nation that was happening, there was just so much intensity. And a lot of times I saw, I worked a lot with women and so I saw a lot of moms who are also working moms really feeling the stress of, “Now I have to teach. I have to still work, figure out how that all goes.”

And the perfectionistic and the extreme expectations are high. And so I constantly was saying, “Your expectations are too high. Let’s lower them right now. Like, let’s just hope our kids can pass the place we are in because it is not, we are not trained as teachers. Nobody has done this before. Let’s just lower the bar.” And a lot of times I tell people who are going through hard times, like I work a lot with people who are going through divorce and supporting them in that hard, hard journey and a lot of times I tell them, “Look, this is not the time to start a new fad diet where it’s super stressful and learning how to cook all Quito. It is not a time to make the perfect meals for your kids. It’s the time to go to Costco and buy a huge pack of paper plates and buy the ready-made meals they have. At least buy at least three for this week and go home and just cook those. Like lower the expectations. Like right now you’re in survival mode and you’re grieving and you’re hurting.”

So that’s kind of what I want to say is examine your expectations. Are they realistic? Are they making you insane? And a lot of times like grounding yourself in who you truly are and for me, that means grounding myself and who I am in God, who He says I am, not what the church or religion or friends say, but like, what is the real truth of who I am to God? And He says, I am enough because of Him, because of what He has done through His son Jesus. And because I am enough and because I am accepted, I don’t have to get all worked up on what the world is saying and even what church is saying, because sometimes churches add another list on what you need to do to be, like have a relationship with God. And I don’t agree with that. Go back to the truth. Who does God really say you are? And he says, we are His sons and daughters and we are part of the Trinity. We are part of, we are made in His image. And so we are made to be relational, we are made to be loved and to be accepted, and we are enough in Him.

So a lot of times really grounding on that has been helpful. And I’m not saying it’s been easy, but it’s been helpful. And so even in our brokenness, even in our humanness, God still calls us the beloved. Think about that. When you hear the word, the beloved, what does that mean to you? Have you ever heard of that before? So learning to, I know for me, I had to learn to accept that part of God. I was used to doing things for God. And so learning to accept, “No, I am the beloved,” in the midst of my brokenness, in the midst of my humanness and learning to trust God for my heart and for my relationships and realizing others will be disappointing to you. Others will be messy. That is part of learning people’s stories and journeys. They’re messy. And guess what? It’s okay. We need to still hear people’s stories.

So as I’m saying that I’m wondering what’s coming up for you and what, if maybe somebody’s stories come up or if your own stories coming up on how that has impacted how you’ve lived life? I know one thing that also has been really hard and I alluded to it before, is we compare ourselves a lot. I don’t know if that is something our parents’ generations has struggled with, but I know it’s something my generation and the generations below me have struggled with. And I do think some of it has to do with social media. So let’s take a deeper look at the comparison. And I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this. I’m sure you have, but comparison is a trap. Like why is it a trap? So first let’s ask ourselves, what situation are you most likely to compare yourself in?

Take a moment to think, when does that come up the most for you? For me, it’s probably parenting because that’s where I feel the most insecure. I started parenting at the age of 37. I was older and it was something I had never trained in. I was always working with adults and women and hiking and outdoors and adventure and kids. Man, I had no clue. So I compare myself a lot about parenting situations. I always joke and say, “I’m not a Pinterest mom. I’m more of an Amazon mom.” I order everything on Amazon. I don’t make it myself. Sometimes I do when I get to create a flare, but what situations are you most likely to compare yourself in and when you do, what are you usually saying to yourself? What does it sound like in your head?

What are you saying, “I wish I had X, Y, Z, or, oh, if only I could do what she’s doing or what he’s doing, or if only I could have a house like that, or if only I could have a degree and a career like this person? I wish I could do it like this, or they’re better than me.” Because basically when you’re saying, I wish I had this, you’re saying, what I have is not good enough. Who I am and what I’m doing is not good enough. And so really dig deep. What are you actually saying to yourself when you’re comparing or maybe like, what about the other side? Are you judging someone else and feeling better about yourself? What’s that about? We’ve all done that too. I have a story of that. This is, I’m going to share it, but it’s kind of embarrassing because it shows sometimes my head space, I was going to a school of spiritual direction this past year and it was actually by one of my favorite mentors I’ve mentioned before Larry Crabb.

He’s written over 40 books and my master’s program was based on a lot of his books. So I knew a lot of his content. So I went in thinking this will just be a refresher and the people there aren’t therapists and I mean, I’m not going to learn not much. It’s just going to be refresher and seem to be good to get away for a week and just listen and learn from Dr. Larry Crabb. But I had heard that we were going to be broken up into triads, which are a group of three people where you actually practice spiritual direction with one another. And I thought, “Oh great. This is not going to go well. I’m exhausted. I don’t want to pour into these people.” And I was being so judgmental in my head. Now I wasn’t admitting this to anyone and almost even not myself, but when I went in there the first day and I met with the two other people there, I remember feeling a wall and it was a wall of judgment.

It’s funny now that I know the two that I was with, we had an amazing week once I let those walls down and heard their stories and they heard mine. It was a beautiful space of connecting and community just for that week that it was super powerful in my life. And I realized my comparing in my head was going the opposite way. And I honestly, I usually do it the other way. I usually am more down on myself, but this time I was feeling better then. So that’s what I was saying. That comparison goes both ways. It’s trap. So notice, be aware of what situations and how are you feeling when you start to compare either way, like better than, or not enough. Just be aware of that. So if I was to do it over again, I would definitely go a little more humble and I am so grateful for those two people that were in my group that week. It was very life-changing.

So after this is bringing some stuff up now, what do we do with it? I want to give some ideas that maybe you can try to help work on this. I would recommend a social media cleanse, just to try it, because what happens when we cleanse? Think of when we cleanse something from our body, like physically. We first go through withdrawal, but we also notice how much we were emotionally and physically attached to that thing. So when you do a social media cleanse, I think it’s going to really show you how much time you were doing on social media and also watch your thoughts and mood, watch how they were impacted by social media. I realized there are certain times I have to make sure I’m not on social media. Like when I’m recording a podcast, I make sure I don’t get on social media before, because I don’t want anything in my head that I don’t want there. And I don’t need to be like thinking anybody else’s values and motivations.

Does that make sense? I really just need to stay away. So it can be a cleanse for like a certain time of day, or I would recommend doing a week cleanse and see what happens and watch like what, how your mood and thoughts change, and maybe even your actions. Get creative during that time, and then step away before you respond, notice your feelings, and just kind of see how that impacts you. And then if you like that, do it regularly, maybe a certain day, you’ll cleanse from it, or maybe once a month or every other month. Just think about it. See how it, do an experiment, see how it affects you.

Another thing that helps when we’re thinking about comparing and helping us listen to people’s stories and our own story is practicing gratitude. So if comparison steals joy away from a situation, gratitude is helping turn our focus back to things that we can be grateful for. I’m sure you’ve all heard or done some kind of practice of gratitude, but try it in specific to comparison of other stories and your own. So turn your focus to gratitude and maybe even do something for someone else, like send a thank you card of what you’re grateful for, even to that person you were comparing yourself to last week.

I don’t know if you know this, but you can’t have gratitude and fear in the same place. So the fear of not enough can’t be there if you’re in a grateful spot. It takes it away. It takes over the fear, which I love. Try it. Practice it. See what happens. Try it out for yourself and let me know what you find. You can drop me a line at my email, dawn@faithfringes.com and let me know if any of these things are working for you.

Another thing is getting clear about your journey. We talked about that earlier, but again, remembering not all journeys are an equal playing field, hone in on your values, your definition of success. Maybe even write this down. I’m really big on writing things down. It takes a different mode and creative space when you actually write things down on paper. It becomes its own entity almost. And it’s more powerful when you write stuff down. So write your values, your definition of success. What do you want? What’s meaningful to you and see how that helps you get back to not comparing.

So another thing that helps in comparison and people’s journeys is being in authentic community. And I don’t know if you have already listened to my podcast episode on authentic community, but that would be a helpful one to go deeper into it. I’m not going to go completely into it now, but I’ll just touch on a few things. So with authentic community, what does that mean? It means you’re looking for people you can be vulnerable with, people you can trust, people who have a deep connection, that you can have soul conversations, like conversations that matter. And this is real connection, not social media connection. Although sometimes that can turn into real connection.

I’m talking real face-to-face or Zoom to Zoom or even on the phone, like real connection where you are feeling seen and heard and truly holding space for one another in this authenticity. And so I highly recommend that and just holding space for not only your own story, but someone else’s is so important. I think as I sit as a therapist and I sit with people in their stories, it is one of my most sacred favorite places is just holding the sacred space to hear someone’s story that maybe they haven’t shared before or maybe they haven’t shared it in that way. And it’s just beautiful to sit there and hear it. I don’t know if any of you have heard of, I’m going to blank on his name right now, Curt, I’m so sorry. I can’t think of his name, but he’s an author and he’s a Christian psychiatrist and he works hugely with how shame affects the brain.

So he has talked about like literally in the brain when someone sits across from another person and they tell their story and that story is received with empathy and kindness that their brain actually changes. It actually heals. And I think that’s so powerful. I think it’s Curt Thompson and I am sorry. I do not have it. I will find it and put it in the show notes for those of you. He has two books on it and they’re so powerful. I’ll put it in the show notes for those of you who are wanting. And I apologize for not having that in front of me. It just came to me, but I would highly recommend reading those books. I have another book that I think, another few books that are really helpful. One is called Soul Conversations by Dr. Larry Crabb, another Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown.

I am constantly going to be giving ideas for books from Larry and Brené. Those are my top two. Another one Life of the Beloved by Henry Nowan, another excellent book to kind of just jump into your own story and really work on what am I really wanting to say about myself and what am I really wanting to place my values on?

So I hope this has helped you today, really just think about why a story is so important? Why do we need to keep space for our own story? Why do we need to create space for other stories? And I hope it’s really giving you time to think and just process. And I’d love to hear more. Feel free to drop me an email. Don’t miss an episode. Make sure you rate, review and subscribe to Faith Fringes wherever you listen to podcasts. And I can’t wait to hear from you and can’t wait to be back again. Thanks so much.

Thank you for listening today at Faith Fringes Podcast. If you want to explore more of your own faith journey, I offer my free eight-week email course called Spiritual Reflections, where you take a deeper dive into your own story included as a journaling workbook that has guided exercises. So if you want to explore more of what you were brought up to believe, or even look at where you may have been disillusioned or hurt, but yet still deep down you desire to authentically connect with God, then this course is for you. Just go to faithfringes.com to sign up.

Also, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email and tell me what’s on your mind. You can reach me at dawn@faithfringes.com.

Faith Fringes is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith in Practice, Beta Male Revolution, Empowered and Unapologetic or Impact Driven Leader, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.