0:01

The Art of Leadership Network. Chronic

0:03

anxiety has a gospel and one of its

0:05

messages are, you can worry your way to

0:07

peace and it's all on me.

0:09

I must, I must, I must. Welcome

0:16

to the Kerry Newhoff Leadership Podcast. It's Kerry

0:18

here and I hope our time together today

0:20

helps you thrive in leadership. I do not

0:22

think you are going to be disappointed. Steve

0:26

Kuss is on the podcast. Oh

0:28

my goodness. Holy guacamole Batman. This

0:30

one goes. Okay, we're going to

0:32

talk about how to know whether

0:34

you have chronic anxiety or anxieties.

0:36

There's more than one. Did you

0:38

know that? How to handle people who get their

0:41

kicks out of kicking you and the problem with

0:43

the complex job description of most lead pastors and

0:45

church leaders. And this

0:47

one is great from the get go. I

0:49

think you're going to love it. Today's episode

0:52

is brought to you by my preaching cheat

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sheet. You know, over 10,000 leaders have downloaded

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things a pastor can delegate to his

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assistant. Simply text my name Kerry

1:20

to 55123. That's C-A-R-E-Y

1:22

to 55123. Hey, a

1:24

couple of listener notes. Thank

1:26

you to Stark267 from Spotify who said,

1:29

I love this. Your 90 minute

1:31

fun time has resonated with me. That was some

1:33

feedback on my solo episode. By the way, we're

1:35

going to do more of them. And

1:38

then Kate Studlin said, excellent content. Thank

1:40

you for all of you who listen

1:42

on Spotify. Really glad for you

1:44

and you know, all the other platforms too. We

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review or send me a note.

1:57

I'm at Kerry at Kerry newhoff.com. We read

1:59

all. and

6:01

you've spent the last few years coaching

6:03

and counseling church leaders and

6:05

leaders exclusively, I

6:08

would love to start by going over the

6:10

top two to three

6:12

issues, the frequent flyer issues that

6:15

you just keep seeing surfacing

6:17

in leaders' lives. Oh, yeah,

6:19

yeah, what a great, I love that question. I

6:22

think one of the top issues that

6:24

I think we're just now starting to

6:26

figure out more about is the way

6:28

that particularly pastors wear multiple hats with

6:30

every person, every relationship. So

6:33

in 2018, my wife became a therapist. She

6:35

stopped being a school teacher, went back to

6:37

school, became a therapist. She

6:39

started a private practice and I told her

6:41

jokingly, I said, hey, I'm gonna preach more

6:43

guilt and shame from the pulpit and

6:46

that'll generate more clients for you. We'll have

6:48

a whole circle of life thing. Just induce

6:50

some religious trauma on people. That's it, that's

6:53

great. Yeah, for the sake of her practice

6:55

strategy. Very humble idea. And

6:57

of course I'm teasing, but she said, oh

6:59

no, I'm not gonna see anybody from our

7:01

church. And I'm like, wait,

7:03

what? And she said, oh, it's

7:05

unethical for a therapist in the state of

7:07

Colorado to wear more than one hat with

7:09

anybody. So I can't, if I have a

7:12

friend hat, I can't also be a therapist.

7:15

If your daughter and my daughter are

7:17

friends, that's too many hats. And I

7:19

just realized, man, pastors only ever wear

7:22

multiple hats. And

7:24

so to me, the understanding

7:26

of, okay, which hats am I

7:28

wearing with my people? It's

7:31

always tempting for a leader to feel sorry for herself,

7:33

but it's also tricky for our people. When I'm knocking

7:35

on somebody's door, they don't

7:37

know which hat is walking through the door.

7:40

Is it the pastor, the fundraiser, the friend?

7:43

So it goes both ways. But

7:45

then related to that, Keri, I

7:47

think you and I both had this experience.

7:49

I'm at home, my pastor hat is off.

7:52

It's in the closet. And

7:54

then a congregant comes over and

7:56

they say, hey, while I'm here, and they've

7:59

got a criticism. something they didn't like.

8:01

I thought you were coming for dinner.

8:03

Yeah. I thought this was a

8:05

friend. I thought this was a friend visit. Yeah.

8:08

Let me go get my pastor hat. And

8:10

so I think one thing I'm encouraging, particularly

8:12

pastors to do is just count up how

8:14

many minutes a week do

8:16

you get to be exactly yourself? Do

8:18

you just get to be you? No

8:21

title, no vocation, and how many people

8:23

in your life? And

8:25

for a lot of pastors, it's actually freakishly small.

8:28

We struggle to find friendships where there's a

8:30

single hat relationship. So I think that's a

8:33

big issue. Kind of related to that, the

8:35

second dynamic I would say is we are

8:37

still, after all these years, we

8:40

are generally more focused on

8:42

mission and others than ourself.

8:45

And the idea of focusing on ourself feels

8:47

very selfish to us. My

8:49

whole thesis of my work is that the best thing

8:52

a leader has to offer their people is a well

8:54

self. And unfortunately,

8:56

there's plenty of evidence to

8:58

the contrary. And

9:01

particularly our Christian leaders listen to this. They may

9:03

be saying, well, you know, I think Jesus is

9:05

the most important thing. I would just, I

9:07

would say, look, I'm gonna put all my

9:10

chips in on well self because the leaders that

9:12

offer Jesus when they're not well distort

9:14

the gospel, distort and do damage

9:17

to the church. So

9:19

I'm a big fan of a leader learning to

9:21

know when they're well, when they're not well. Everybody

9:24

wants to work with a well leader. Nobody

9:26

wants to work with an unwell leader. Those

9:29

would be two of the biggest issues I'd see. Let's

9:32

go back to hats, Steve. I'm so glad

9:34

you started there. That

9:36

is purifying. I

9:38

mean, I haven't been a pastor for a number of

9:41

years now. You stepped out of the lead role as

9:43

well. What are some

9:45

differences you have noticed now that

9:47

you're no longer the lead pastor?

9:49

How have those roles, those expectations,

9:53

those hats become clearer to you? It's

9:56

been fascinating, Kerry. I

9:58

was probably into this new role. And

12:00

we, you know, it wasn't really related or

12:02

wasn't in trouble. That's for sure. When we

12:04

finally met, I was not in trouble. But

12:06

boy, my brain worked over time. So I

12:09

think that just understanding some of those

12:11

dynamics can really help people be healthier

12:13

as leaders. So not to

12:15

leave a dangling thread when you get a text

12:18

like that, is it

12:20

okay to text back? Hey,

12:22

sure. I'd love to. What's up? Yeah.

12:25

Yeah. I think it's always wise. In play? Yeah.

12:27

I think it's wise to say. That's what I do now.

12:30

I don't like that stuffed dangle. I'm like, can

12:32

you tell me what it's about? And maybe

12:34

that's my anxiety. Maybe that's my like, I

12:37

don't know. Now getting your kicks

12:39

out of kicking the leader. There's

12:43

a phrase that'll preach that

12:45

that resonates. What? And

12:47

you're saying you don't see it. I mean, I get

12:49

it because I have a public profile. I don't get

12:52

a lot of it. I really,

12:54

relatively speaking, I think I'm in the

12:56

bottom percentile of people who get criticized

12:58

online, at least for now. And I'm

13:00

grateful for that. Not ungrateful. What

13:03

have you learned about people who get

13:05

their kicks out of kicking the

13:08

leader? I

13:11

think the biggest thing I've learned is

13:13

less about them and more about my

13:15

incessant need to be understood. Now,

13:18

obviously my field is chronic anxiety.

13:20

Chronic anxiety is always based on a

13:22

false need. There's all kinds of

13:24

anxieties, but chronic is based on

13:26

a false need. What's fascinating about

13:29

this particular kind of anxiety, it's

13:31

probably better known as reactivity, is

13:34

it acts like a real threat in the moment. So,

13:37

you know, I grew up in Western Australia. We

13:39

have nine of the 10 deadliest snakes in the

13:41

world. Australia's, you've, I know you just recently went

13:43

there Kerry. Yeah, so beautiful. Especially, were you in

13:45

Perth? Did you

13:47

get to Perth? Yeah. Come on. Freo, Freo

13:49

man. Like, come on. My sister lives in

13:52

Fremantle. Shout out to Tony and Martin in

13:54

Fremantle. So good. I loved it.

13:56

We can't wait to go back. Yeah. Yeah. But

13:58

Australia is also a great place. I

32:00

think it's actually very possible for

32:02

a pastor to be exactly human sized, learn

32:05

on the job, admit your mistakes, share

32:08

your doubts appropriately. And

32:10

what it ends up doing is that it

32:12

does attract bullies. I attracted some bullies. They

32:15

get their kicks out. Like when you share

32:17

your vulnerability, it will attract some bullies. It

32:20

will also attract vulnerable people who are

32:22

looking, who are spiritually hungry. They're

32:25

the best people any church will ever have. I

32:28

also attracted like spiritual sages that took

32:30

me under their wing. I mean, I'm

32:32

their pastor, they're older than

32:35

me, and they shepherded me. And

32:37

so in my 16 years, it

32:40

really was a beautiful exchange of care

32:43

between me and the congregants, same with

32:45

my staff. I cared for my

32:47

staff, but some of my core leaders that worked

32:49

for me gave me great care. And

32:52

that meant I didn't have to be some

32:55

kind of a thing that God never asked me to

32:57

be. I can be human size. So I

33:00

am passionate about this. I think we can all do that.

33:03

When you look at the health of

33:06

pastors today, I mean, I think if

33:08

you looked at all of us in 2019, we

33:10

didn't know what we were stepping into. We

33:13

got the snot kicked out of us and

33:16

here we are today. Are we

33:19

more resilient? Are we healthier?

33:21

Are we still limping? What's your

33:23

assessment of the state of

33:25

the health of church leaders in

33:28

this moment? I am really

33:31

encouraged by what I'm

33:33

seeing. I'm

33:38

definitely seeing church teams that

33:40

really wanna make an impact in their community and

33:42

around the world. Like good people

33:46

banding together, wanting to make a

33:48

difference. I'm seeing a higher value

33:50

on team wellbeing than I saw

33:53

before COVID. I think before

33:55

COVID it was a little bit of mission

33:57

focus. And now it's...

34:00

it's more are we well together? And

34:03

I'm glad to see that. There's always a

34:05

concern with driven leaders that the more we

34:07

work on our relational integrity, the less mission

34:09

we get. I can prove all day long

34:12

that the better your team cohesion, the further you'll

34:14

get on your mission. So

34:16

I'm seeing a lot of that. I'm

34:20

generally encouraged. I think what happened through COVID, when

34:22

I was a chaplain, you

34:25

know, I did a lot of emergency room work and

34:27

one of the chaplains pulled me aside. He said, Steve,

34:31

when you're rushing down to the ER to meet

34:33

the family, right? Like what happens is somebody's

34:35

coming through the double doors on a gurney.

34:38

They've come on a helicopter, an ambulance. They're the

34:40

person in the accident. But then a minute

34:42

or two later, this very shocked family walks

34:44

in. They've got the phone call and

34:46

they're rushing in to see how their loved one is. And

34:48

of course my job is to care for all of them.

34:51

The chaplain said, he said, your

34:54

job is to figure out what was going on

34:56

in that family one minute before their phone rang.

34:59

Like before the crisis hit, what was

35:01

the dynamic? And the crisis didn't create

35:03

that dynamic in the family. It just

35:06

reveals it. That's how

35:08

I see COVID. I just

35:10

think leaders just

35:12

blew into COVID thinking we were fine.

35:15

And COVID didn't create anything. It

35:18

just exposed everything. So

35:21

if COVID kind of locked us down in March of

35:23

2020, what was happening

35:25

in January? Same. Leaders

35:27

running on fumes, ignoring wellbeing, acting

35:30

out of reactivity, and then COVID just exposed it

35:33

all. I think

35:35

that's a fair analysis. So you would say there's

35:37

been an improvement. First of all, huge casualty rate

35:39

over the last few years. A lot of people

35:41

who were in leadership aren't anymore. Yeah.

35:44

But those who remain are overall

35:48

taking their health more seriously, which

35:50

is good. If you look

35:52

at the data, particularly the Barna data, there seems

35:54

to be a dividing line over 45 under 45.

35:58

And almost, I'm sure you've seen the data. I'm

38:00

seeing a lot of Gen Zs that

38:02

actually have a pretty epic work-life

38:05

balance, where they

38:07

actually have seen our generation pour

38:09

it all out and they are

38:11

trying to figure out a less

38:13

enmeshed relationship with their work. I

38:16

find myself defending Gen Z and

38:18

Millennials to older generation. The

38:21

other interesting thing I'll just point out is our

38:23

Gen Zs and our, I'll say Z for, I

38:25

know most of our audience are tripping up on

38:27

the Z here. By

38:30

the way, Kerry, it's Zebra, not

38:32

Zebra, if I may. Oh, really? I've

38:35

never heard that. Zebra? Oh,

38:37

come on. Okay. Zebra. I

38:40

try so hard. Canadians are in between America and

38:42

Britain. We just know. Yeah. It's

38:44

like we weigh peppers and meat

38:46

in grams, but we measure ourselves

38:48

in pounds. We

38:51

travel in kilometers, but I'm like 6'2". So

38:55

it's just this mashup hybrid that

38:57

nobody really understands. It's

38:59

beautiful. Yeah. Oh,

39:01

man. The

39:04

other thing that our Gen Z and our

39:06

Millennials do is they're fluent in the language

39:08

of anxiety and this can

39:10

trip up. I'm a Gen Xer and

39:12

our boomers, we get tripped up by it. And

39:15

our tendency is to say, just get over it. Our

39:18

grandparents fought Hitler and they weren't anxious. I

39:21

would just say, well, they did drink a lot,

39:23

let's be honest. And

39:26

also for many of them, their spouses said,

39:28

he came home and he was a stranger

39:30

to me. So

39:32

our younger generation is actually teaching us

39:35

how to be more in touch with

39:37

ourselves. What's interesting is

39:39

they present like they're not very

39:41

resilient, but after that initial anxiety

39:43

conversation, there's a profound resilience in

39:45

a lot of our young people.

39:48

So I think it's actually on

39:50

us older generations to learn how

39:52

to listen to that language

39:54

and then see what's past it. So

39:57

I'm a big defender of the young people.

46:00

anxiety. So to

46:02

circle back, and I've talked about a lot,

46:04

are you an anxious person, you know, us

46:06

Tony, but one solution

46:09

to chronic anxiety is detaching. And

46:13

typically, somebody like you, I'm always

46:15

careful to talk directly, but somebody

46:17

like you would tend to detach

46:20

because you don't want to get into it. Whereas

46:23

someone like me tends to enmesh,

46:26

so one of my false needs is I need to be

46:28

needed. So when somebody

46:30

has a need, I can't tell between

46:32

their need and my need to be needed. I

46:35

tend to always over commit. Whereas

46:38

somebody who's maybe a bit more cool,

46:40

they will tend to not want to

46:42

tolerate the nonsense. Yeah, that would be

46:44

me. I'm gonna take a step back

46:46

or I'm just not gonna engage. Yep.

46:49

So that's oddly enough an

46:51

attempted solution to chronic anxiety. Your

46:54

body is telling you, get out of it. I

46:56

can't, who has, you're saying, who has time for

46:58

this? But actually, you could be in it and

47:00

be just fine. Hmm. Hmm.

47:04

Yeah, interesting, you know, because I think this is

47:06

what Tony would say, and she's probably listening to

47:08

this, so I will maybe have

47:10

to issue a retraction or correction. But what

47:12

she would say is when I'm stressed, I

47:15

go to control. And control for me these

47:18

days is, particularly

47:20

in the summer, I'll go mow the

47:22

lawn, I'll go get that last leaf

47:24

off the patio, I'll organize

47:27

my office, like my tolerance

47:30

for any disorder goes to

47:32

zero. Yeah. And it used

47:34

to express itself as frustration, grumpiness, and anger.

47:36

I'm working on that more. And now I

47:39

just kind of go out, do my thing

47:41

for a half hour, 20 minutes, an hour.

47:43

And then I'm like, okay,

47:45

but I would say like, I don't

47:48

take that to bed with me. I'm asleep

47:50

within 10 minutes. I don't wake up ruminating

47:53

as a rule. There's a couple of things

47:55

that will get me ruminating, but they're usually

47:57

personal and people close to me. So

47:59

they're not. They're not issues. It's like people

48:01

in that inner inner circle who might

48:03

be struggling, that will

48:06

bother my sleep. Other than that, it

48:08

really doesn't. I

48:11

wake up like you at first and goal most days,

48:13

like, yeah, had a great night's sleep, let's go for

48:15

it. That can get deflated over the

48:17

course of a day, depending on what a day brings. But

48:19

I usually wake up in that resilient place.

48:22

And I generally have an optimistic view

48:24

of the world and

48:26

some confidence. So, you

48:29

know, I look at that and I'm not trying to say,

48:31

oh, this is great. But like, I just want to know,

48:33

do I struggle with anxiety? I want to figure

48:36

that out. Because when I do, it goes to

48:38

control and control goes to the environment.

48:40

I would say that's my number one response. This

48:43

is a really, I'm so glad you're asking,

48:45

this is a really common case that I

48:48

work with, with people, is

48:50

your average leader that is a strong

48:52

leader, they see anger or

48:54

that kind of irritability as a

48:56

strength. And it's in

48:58

fact an anxious response. And that's why it's

49:00

confusing, because you probably just think about anxiety

49:03

as somebody that's just fretting and worrying. But

49:05

self- Yeah, cowering in the corner, whereas I

49:07

come out, you know, chest out, ready to

49:09

go. Yeah, so there's two

49:12

reactions. There's self-pity, which is the

49:14

one you're more thinking, but then

49:16

there's self-righteousness, which is, and

49:18

I'm the same, Kerry, I tend to go to

49:20

self-righteousness. So the way we talk about it is

49:22

there's human size, then there's bigger than human and

49:25

smaller than human. I get self-righteous

49:27

when I'm anxious. Why isn't everyone doing

49:29

their job? Why? I kind

49:31

of get into this judge and jury thing. But

49:34

to your point, it's quite possible

49:36

that you're a very healthy person

49:39

and that you slip into occasional bouts of

49:41

anxiety, that would be a very normal thing.

49:45

But that anger, that need to

49:47

control, so just really quickly, the

49:49

five core false needs, control,

49:52

affection, knowing the answer,

49:55

that's one of mine. If I'm in a

49:57

room and I know the answer, I need you to know

49:59

I know. It's so hard for me to

50:01

say, I don't know. So

50:03

control perfection, knowing the answer, being there for

50:05

people when they're hurting and people's approval. Now-

50:10

I probably was five for five as a younger leader.

50:12

I think I'm two for five today. And

50:15

each of those five are God's core attributes. God

50:17

is in control so humans don't have to be.

50:19

God is perfect. God knows everything. God is there

50:22

for everybody. We don't have to go, they call

50:24

it a Messiah complex, right? When you're always saving

50:26

the day. God gives us

50:28

our approval. We're unconditionally loved. Chronic

50:31

anxiety shows up when we are stepping into

50:33

God's realm. Let's

50:36

suggest that you might be a control freak.

50:41

You don't need to suggest that. That's

50:43

an established fact. Okay. So

50:45

all anxiety is simply the twisting

50:48

of your gifting into an extreme.

50:51

So you'll probably carry very good at

50:53

making sure the experience is great. So

50:55

these young people you're heading down to,

50:58

I can probably guarantee to those young people, Carrie's

51:01

gonna give them a great experience because you're

51:03

thinking through the whole environment, what it's gonna

51:05

be like. That's your gift from God. I'll

51:08

give an example. I spoke at a conference

51:10

and it was one of those hotel rooms,

51:12

you know, the ballroom. And

51:14

I walk in and the conference organizer

51:16

had seen that there weren't many power

51:18

outlets in the ballroom. So she went

51:21

to Home Depot, bought extension cords and

51:23

power strips so that she

51:25

could duct tape every table

51:27

had a power strip waiting. So when you

51:29

walked into the conference, you sit at the

51:31

table, there's a power strip, you plug in

51:34

your device. Now that is a thoughtful person.

51:37

But if you take her and I said to her,

51:39

oh, do you have a struggle with control? And she's

51:41

like, how did you know? We just met. Because

51:45

she's attention to detail. She's thinking

51:47

through my experience. That's human size.

51:49

She can be thoughtful and attention

51:51

to detail and not be anxious.

51:54

But if she was sitting as I'm teaching, I

51:56

did a workshop. And if she's

51:59

worried about everyone, Is everyone having a good

52:01

time? Man, John looks bored. Now she's in

52:03

a control freak status. So

52:05

every one of us, like I'm a

52:07

good carer, but I need to

52:09

be needed. So one of those is like my gift from

52:11

God. And then at one extreme,

52:13

it becomes my source of anxiety. This

52:16

is so helpful. And the reason I'm interested

52:19

in the conversation

52:21

is I

52:23

just know I can get better. And I

52:25

know that if I get better,

52:27

the people closest to me are

52:30

gonna have a better experience of

52:32

me, right? They're not gonna absorb

52:34

all the shrapnel when I'm rattled

52:36

or I'm upset about something. And

52:39

it leads to greater self-regulation as

52:41

Daniel Goldman so famously said all

52:43

those years ago. This

52:46

is so helpful. So Steve, you got

52:48

a new book. I wanna mention it quickly.

52:50

It's called The Expectation Gap. And

52:52

you deal with an issue that I think a

52:54

lot of people struggle with. And

52:56

I'll just lob it to you this way.

52:59

You said you feel more like an employee than

53:02

a child of God. I

53:04

can easily just based on my own

53:07

natural default theology, feel

53:10

like I'm performing for God rather

53:12

than responding to God. In

53:14

other words, I hope I get it right. I'm

53:17

doing my best here, rather than, oh

53:19

man, you are unconditionally

53:22

loved. So talk

53:24

about that. Why'd you write it?

53:27

And what were some

53:29

of the expectation gaps you encountered? Yeah,

53:32

I think every Christian has three gaps. And

53:34

we have more, but the three most common

53:36

are, I believe God loves me, but I don't

53:38

feel it. I believe God's with me. I don't see

53:40

it. I thought I'd be further along

53:42

in my faith by now. Those are the three. Yeah.

53:46

Yeah. And I think, Kerry, I

53:48

was looking around. I'm trained in

53:50

systems theory. I've been trained in

53:53

notice recurring patterns. And

53:55

so I noticed in our churches, why are

53:57

we talking about? Why

54:00

aren't we saying that it was easier to follow God in

54:02

the Bible than it is today? We

54:05

tend to lionize the global persecuted

54:07

church. We tend

54:09

to lionize the disciples in Acts chapter two.

54:13

But it was simpler back then. And

54:16

I don't hear anyone saying it, really. Like

54:19

following Jesus was tangible. If

54:22

I'm a disciple, where is he? Oh,

54:24

there he is. Okay, let me walk. I can

54:27

literally follow him. Now I may not understand what

54:29

he's saying. He may baffle me most of the

54:31

time. I may be tapping Thaddeus on the shoulder

54:33

and saying, what the heck is he talking about?

54:35

Sure. But he was tactile.

54:38

And even in Acts chapter two, how

54:41

many churches have Acts chapter two as their vision,

54:43

their goal? But listen, if

54:45

you and I were in church, Kerry, like

54:47

if you came to my church this Sunday

54:50

and Robin came up to give the announcements,

54:52

and as Robin's given the announcements, like

54:54

the storm blew this kind of fireball and

54:56

it rested on her head. And

54:59

you and I are like, man, her hair is

55:01

not burning up. That's weird. And then she starts

55:03

speaking Farsi. And suddenly

55:05

the refugees behind us are crying because

55:07

she's speaking in their language. And

55:10

then she says, hey, this refugee family

55:12

just moved here. They need a car. We

55:15

would probably hand our keys over because

55:18

we witnessed the tactile experience

55:20

of God. But nowadays, most

55:22

of us, even my charismatic

55:24

sisters and brothers would admit,

55:27

it's hard to experience an invisible

55:29

God. So I wanted to

55:31

just come clean as a pastor and say, listen,

55:33

this is hard. It's

55:36

less tangible. Like I can

55:38

experience you, I can hold my wife's

55:40

hand. I can tell my friend a

55:42

joke and he can laugh at me,

55:44

but relating to God is much less

55:46

visceral. It's much less tactical, tactile. So

55:49

I wanted to write a book just to show us how

55:51

can we actually engage an invisible God

55:54

in more tangible ways. And

55:56

the other thing I was noticing is, look, I

55:58

had bet my whole life. on

56:00

freedom in Christ, why is my body

56:02

not free? Like my brain believes

56:05

in freedom, my body does not, I'm all

56:07

bound, my brain believes in the love of

56:09

God. And so, you know, I

56:11

dug, I got pretty deep in the book, like

56:14

to be Frank Carey, as I dug deeper and

56:16

deeper into my life, I realized, okay,

56:19

my belief in Jesus is not my core

56:21

belief, I always thought it was. It's

56:24

my most precious belief, for sure. Jesus

56:27

is my most precious, but I have these beliefs that

56:29

take over my life. And one

56:31

of my deepest beliefs that took me a while to find it

56:34

is that I'm not worth loving, I'm

56:36

not worth your time. Even

56:38

now, I'm probably boring you. Like it's

56:40

crazy, Carey, the things that I say

56:43

about myself. And so

56:45

in the book, I kind of show us these

56:47

deeper messages at Gospels, and

56:49

I'm putting way more faith in

56:51

that message than in the goodness of Jesus. So

56:54

when Jesus says that God knows the number of

56:57

hairs in my head, I'm like, no, He doesn't

56:59

bother with me. So

57:02

where do those beliefs come from? Because I

57:05

think we all have them. I have them,

57:07

I mean, totally, I've never said this before,

57:09

but often when I'm prepping for Wednesday interviews,

57:11

we usually do these on a Wednesday. I'm

57:14

like, all right, here we go, I hope somebody will

57:17

listen to this. Now I know the math, I know

57:19

people are listening to it, but I

57:21

don't feel the moment, do you

57:23

know what I mean? Now often when I see

57:25

the response, I'm like, oh yeah, this is a

57:27

great episode, or I see it after,

57:29

but in the moment, it just feels, and

57:32

I mean, by the way, for the record, this

57:35

has been a fantastic interview. Man, it just started

57:37

with a bang and it keeps going, so that's

57:39

my honest assessment of it. I've had two great

57:41

ones today, but yeah,

57:44

getting ready for it, I don't

57:46

always feel it either. Yeah, unfortunately

57:50

it does go back to our childhood. You don't have

57:52

to rummage around. Of course, I knew you were gonna

57:54

go there. Yeah, I'm so sorry. You

57:56

don't have to rummage around in your

57:58

childhood, but basically as a simple idea.

58:00

kids are powerless in a world of

58:02

power. And so we simply

58:05

don't get all of our needs met even

58:07

from the most loving people in our life.

58:10

You know what could be for your dad

58:12

or your school teacher could just be another

58:14

Wednesday for them is

58:16

a colossal wound for you. You know

58:19

like that's the way it works when you're a

58:21

kid. I have a friend where the school teacher

58:23

dragged him up in third grade in front of

58:25

the class and used him as an example of

58:27

what not to be. Now let's

58:30

be honest not that school teacher's finest

58:32

moment but here's what's crazy that might

58:34

be a decent teacher who was having a really

58:36

bad day. She may not remember

58:38

that but for my friend it shaped his

58:40

whole life and he

58:42

made an agreement with himself I will

58:45

never be that exposed again I'm gonna

58:47

protect myself. So most of

58:49

our anxiety and the condemnation that

58:51

we carry is a weird form

58:53

of self-protection. Have you ever worked

58:55

with a perfectionist that when

58:58

you sit down with them they point out all

59:00

the mistakes in their project before you can they're

59:02

like preempting you. I've had that happen

59:04

I've had perfectionist work for me we'll have

59:06

a one-on-one and they'll say Steve before

59:09

you get started let me show you where I did it wrong and I'm

59:11

like what are you what are you talking I wouldn't

59:13

have even noticed. That's what is that

59:15

voice in your head right? That's what your

59:17

inner critic is doing is it's condemning you

59:19

to protect you from exterior

59:22

condemnation but it's competing

59:24

with the gospel of Jesus. John says

59:26

in 1st John 3 19 20

59:29

this is how we relax

59:32

into God's presence is the way I would say it

59:35

is even when our heart condemns us

59:37

God is greater than our heart and he

59:39

knows everything so whenever we

59:42

are vulnerable and exposed which we are

59:44

with God God knows everything and sees

59:46

everything whenever we're vulnerable and exposed

59:48

we try to protect ourselves by condemning

59:50

ourselves so that God can't and

59:53

by doing that it's hard for us to then

59:55

relax into the love of God because

59:57

we're depending on ourself to be well. instead

1:00:00

of relaxing into God's love. So that's kind of in

1:00:02

a nutshell. I get into it more in the book

1:00:04

on how to do that, but that's kind of what's

1:00:07

happening. Let's talk about feeling

1:00:09

it in your body, your

1:00:11

body not releasing it. I think, you know, it's

1:00:13

still on New York Times best sellers list. Not

1:00:16

an easy book to read. I haven't read

1:00:18

it for full disclosure, but my wife has.

1:00:20

The Body Keeps the Score by, what is

1:00:22

it? Vessels and a

1:00:24

Cock? Something like that. Dutch dude.

1:00:27

Anyway, you know, and

1:00:29

talks about the body holding on

1:00:31

to trauma. So how does

1:00:34

that work? And how would you know you're

1:00:36

experiencing that? And then what do you do

1:00:38

about it? Such a great

1:00:41

question. We would

1:00:43

benefit from Mrs. Cuss, the friendly neighborhood

1:00:45

trauma therapist being on the show. Most

1:00:49

of what I've learned about trauma, I know

1:00:51

from Lisa, but it's

1:00:53

still true, whether it's trauma or not,

1:00:56

our body reveals

1:00:58

our core beliefs and

1:01:01

our brain holds our precious belief in Jesus,

1:01:03

particularly those of us, like

1:01:06

I'm in a stream of Christianity

1:01:08

that's highly cognitive. And

1:01:12

I'm bent toward the cognitive. And

1:01:15

so, okay, so I believe in God's love. I can tell

1:01:17

it to and quote the verses, but

1:01:20

my body acts as if I have to

1:01:22

earn it or provide it, or

1:01:24

there's never enough of it to go around, or

1:01:26

I've lost it. And

1:01:29

so you can learn over time. And again, I

1:01:31

give us, it's really important for me to give

1:01:33

tactical tools because on a podcast like this, I

1:01:35

don't want to like leave people hanging, but in

1:01:38

the book, I lead us through a

1:01:40

series of tools where you can learn

1:01:42

to physiologically relax into God's presence.

1:01:44

Can you give us an example? Yeah,

1:01:47

so if you can notice like control, like

1:01:50

next time you go to mow the lawn

1:01:52

out of grumpiness, which may happen

1:01:54

less and less as you get older. That's not uncommon

1:01:56

carry that we all mature in. It does happen less

1:01:58

and less, but it does still happen. I

1:02:01

actually enjoy mowing the lawn. Does anyone who

1:02:03

follows me on Instagram knows? It's

1:02:05

a happy obsession. Well, and

1:02:07

Tony could maybe help us here

1:02:09

by provoking you. Maybe

1:02:12

she would do us all a favor and

1:02:14

provoke you into anxiety. And then- That

1:02:16

never happens. You know, Steve, never. But

1:02:19

if you, the first step is noticing.

1:02:21

So if you can learn to notice your

1:02:23

body, you

1:02:25

notice three places, you're spinning mind for some

1:02:28

of us, racing heart for some of us,

1:02:30

and then tightening body for some of us. And

1:02:34

if you can learn to first notice your

1:02:37

physiological reaction, or

1:02:39

you for some people carry, it can be as simple

1:02:42

as realizing, I'm

1:02:45

not on the couch watching Netflix,

1:02:47

I'm binging. Like I've gone from

1:02:50

relaxing to binging.

1:02:53

That would be the same with eating and

1:02:55

drinking. You know, a glass of wine, great.

1:02:57

A bottle of wine, that's a problem. And

1:03:00

so what you're noticing is your

1:03:02

coping mechanisms when you didn't

1:03:05

get what you think you needed. Control

1:03:07

or needing to be liked, whatever

1:03:09

it is. And

1:03:12

then you are intentionally diffusing

1:03:14

your anxiety and remembering God's

1:03:16

presence. So I've talked before

1:03:19

about a life-giving list. I'm

1:03:21

just trying to, yeah, it's still one

1:03:23

of my favorite tools. I'm just trying to stub

1:03:26

my toe on the love of God eight to

1:03:28

12 times a day. So

1:03:31

that's one thing. In the new book, I've got a

1:03:33

new tool that I'm really excited about it. I call

1:03:35

it, put yourself on your

1:03:37

conscious list of relationships. It's, Carrie,

1:03:40

I need to work on the title. It's a

1:03:42

little long, but that's the tool. Put yourself, if

1:03:44

I were to ask you, Carrie, who are you

1:03:46

in relationship with? You would get

1:03:48

to your second cousin twice removed before

1:03:50

you would name yourself. We

1:03:52

just don't consider that we're in relationship with this

1:03:54

all, but we are. And

1:03:57

then it gets really interesting when I say,

1:03:59

okay. List three things that

1:04:01

you do for people you love. List

1:04:04

one thing you do to yourself you

1:04:06

would never do to someone you love.

1:04:08

Oh yeah. So in my life, I

1:04:11

call my friends and I check on them. When

1:04:14

they tell me how they're doing, I believe them.

1:04:16

I don't say, suck it up, Dave. I'd never

1:04:18

say that to Dave. Even though I say it

1:04:21

to myself all the time. And

1:04:24

then I try to give them words of encouragement. Something

1:04:26

I do to myself. I

1:04:28

started this tool in 2016. So I don't do

1:04:30

this as much anymore. I used to call myself

1:04:33

a moron 50 to 100 times a week. I

1:04:37

actually counted it in the research videos.

1:04:40

I took inventory of my life. So

1:04:42

I would never, Kerry, I would

1:04:44

never in a million years call you a moron.

1:04:46

Call you a moron? No, but I freely do

1:04:48

it to myself. And so what I'm trying to

1:04:50

do is I'm so obsessed with

1:04:53

loving my neighbor as myself. I've forgotten to

1:04:55

love myself as my neighbor. And

1:04:58

how can I relax into the love of God

1:05:01

when I'm treating myself so poorly? This

1:05:04

is not self actualization. This isn't some

1:05:06

kind of self-improvement. I'm talking about worship.

1:05:09

So what I picture with my conscious list

1:05:11

of relationships is first of all, number one,

1:05:14

I'm in relationship with myself. Do

1:05:16

I know how I'm doing? And

1:05:18

for me, most often I don't. Somebody says, how

1:05:20

are you doing, Steve? And I say, I'm fine.

1:05:23

Which is code for I have

1:05:25

no idea. I don't think about

1:05:27

it. That is what it's code for. Yep. So

1:05:31

if you're like me, then I've committed to

1:05:33

wait until I know the answer. When somebody

1:05:35

now asks me, I say to them,

1:05:38

I don't know how I'm doing. I'm so glad you asked, cause

1:05:40

I don't know. Let's wait and see. And

1:05:43

it usually takes me about 30 seconds. And

1:05:46

that's when I discover, oh, the reason

1:05:48

they're asking how I'm doing is they

1:05:50

know I'm anxious and I don't know

1:05:52

I'm anxious. It's really humbling, especially as

1:05:54

an anxiety expert, like I'm still generally

1:05:57

out of touch with my anxiety. Now

1:06:01

that I've done that, I can start to realize

1:06:03

the way I treat myself, I would never treat

1:06:05

my friends. What if I started to

1:06:07

treat myself the way I treat

1:06:09

my friends? So now I've learned to check on

1:06:11

myself a few times a day and I've learned

1:06:13

to believe myself. I was

1:06:16

raised in a family where I didn't have the rights to my

1:06:18

emotions. And look, I was raised

1:06:20

in a great family, but we

1:06:22

did not give ourselves

1:06:24

permission to have emotions. And

1:06:27

so believing myself has been huge for me,

1:06:29

Kerry, because what we do as leaders is

1:06:32

we syncretize our anxiety with the gospel.

1:06:35

So I would say, well, a pastor doesn't

1:06:38

get to be a human. I'm a pastor.

1:06:40

I got to get back in there and

1:06:42

go and get pummeled and let them treat

1:06:44

me like a punching bag and meet

1:06:47

with all these people with cancer, but I can't grieve.

1:06:50

But believing myself, I've now opened my

1:06:52

life up to a world of emotions.

1:06:54

It's very uncomfortable for me and I

1:06:58

get to feel my feelings and I'm

1:07:00

a healthier person. That was a long answer, but

1:07:02

that's a way that you can relax into

1:07:04

God's presence. We syncretize

1:07:07

our emotions with the

1:07:09

gospel. It's huge. I

1:07:14

know I read the book to endorse it

1:07:16

months and months and months ago and then

1:07:18

refreshed. Is that in

1:07:20

the book or have you written on that

1:07:22

elsewhere? We syncretize our emotions with the gospel.

1:07:24

I don't know that I said it quite

1:07:26

that succinctly, but yes, it's in there. The

1:07:29

implication for preaching, if you're preaching to a

1:07:31

hundred people or a thousand people or ten

1:07:34

thousand people, everyone is

1:07:36

syncretizing what you are saying

1:07:38

about the gospel to their emotions. Never

1:07:41

thought about it that way. Wow.

1:07:44

And I'd love

1:07:46

to go to the third point you

1:07:48

talk about. I thought I'd be further

1:07:50

along by now. After

1:07:53

every leader everywhere, and I've had the

1:07:55

privilege of hanging out with some of

1:07:57

the leaders of the biggest

1:07:59

churches. is the biggest companies, the

1:08:01

biggest organizations in America, in

1:08:04

the world, almost

1:08:06

to a person. There's two things, and

1:08:08

I think they're both sincerely true. Number

1:08:10

one, I had no idea it would be this

1:08:12

big. And I thought

1:08:15

I'd be further along by now. It's

1:08:18

like I would put myself in that category. Never

1:08:20

thought I would be doing what I'm doing. Never

1:08:22

thought it would have this kind of reach. And

1:08:25

I thought, I think I would be further along by

1:08:27

now. What's underneath that? What's

1:08:31

underneath that is the human's desire

1:08:33

to be God, to

1:08:36

be blunt. Sorry, I asked the

1:08:38

question. Next question. Yeah.

1:08:41

All right, keep going. The very first temptation that humans

1:08:43

were offered in the Garden of Eden is you can be

1:08:45

like God. And so we try to be in control,

1:08:47

we try to be perfect, we try

1:08:49

to know everything. We

1:08:52

refuse to realize I am

1:08:54

a human being, and

1:08:57

history has been changed by

1:08:59

human-sized followers of a supernatural God.

1:09:02

But most leaders try to be

1:09:05

superhuman, and we cross into

1:09:07

God's territory. But honestly,

1:09:09

Kerry, to be frank, I wrote the

1:09:11

chapter for congregants more than leaders, because

1:09:15

what we do in the

1:09:17

church is we perpetuate assumptions,

1:09:20

and then we read those assumptions

1:09:23

onto Scripture. So we share

1:09:25

cliches with each other that aren't in the Bible,

1:09:27

but then when we open our Bible, we read

1:09:29

them on. So the simplest example

1:09:31

I put it in the book is Peter walking on

1:09:33

water. Like, have you ever heard a

1:09:35

sermon or read a book where

1:09:37

somebody says, all right, everyone, Peter

1:09:40

walked on water, 11 disciples did

1:09:42

not walk on water. At

1:09:44

the end of the story, all 12

1:09:46

worship Jesus. So here's a

1:09:49

good exegetical treatment of the passage. Stay

1:09:51

in the boat. Watch your friend

1:09:53

almost drown. You'll worship Jesus anyway. But

1:09:57

every week in our pulpit, we expect our whole life to be in

1:09:59

the water.