29. Who are your people?

Have you ever stopped to take inventory of your relationships?  Who are your people?

In this episode of the Heart Work with PBJ podcast, Dr. Patrice Buckner Jackson encourages us to take inventory of our relationships.  What role does each person play in your life?  Determine which people are attachments, assignments, or connections and treat each relationship as such.

Watch the podcast on YouTube.

Purchase the eBook at www.mythofbalancedtime.com

Follow me on IG @drpatricebucknerjackson

Transcript

0:00

Hey, Hey friends, it's Dr. Patrice Buckner Jackson. But you can call me PBJ. Welcome to another episode of the Heart Work with PBJ Podcast, where we are disrupting cycles of burnout for people who do their work from the heart. You know who you are my heart workers you are giving, you are serving, you are taking care of everybody else. And you need a place that you can come and be refreshed and refilled and revived. And this is your place This podcast is is dedicated to you, the hard workers, the ones who give the ones who love the ones who serve. I am so excited to be here with you one more time friends. Before we get into our episode, do not forget, if you're not following me on Instagram, you need to be following me on Instagram. That's where you get your spoonful of PBJ every Monday and of course, a new episode of the heart work with PBJ podcast every Wednesday. So follow me@drpatricebucknerjackson on Instagram. Again, that's@drpatricebucknerjackson on Instagram. Make sure you get your spoonful of PBJ every Monday. All right, y'all ready for this? Let's get into it. So friends today, today, today, today, we are talking about your people. Now I know I know, I always say you got to start with you. Right. So we've talked about our values. We talked about our energy, our motivation, our purpose, our priorities and our sacrifices. But today, I want to talk about your people. Now it doesn't start with people disrupting burnout doesn't start with people. But we have to address our engagement with people. Because that's what hard workers do. We do everything for the sake of others, we do our purpose to serve, we know that it is for other people. But I'm here to tell you today, you have to understand the role that people play in your life. If you don't understand the role of each person, then you will not be able to engage them in the way you are called to engage them. Every person has a role in your life. And you need to be aware of what their role is, so that you will know what your interaction with them should be. So that is what we're talking about. Consider the people that are closest to you. Consider the people that you spend the most time with, consider the people in your life. What are their roles? What are their roles? Why have they been assigned to your life? And have they been assigned to your life? The first thing I need to encourage you Is everybody is not your assignment. Everybody that comes along has not been assigned to your life. You can't serve everybody nobody can. There's a specific group of people that you are uniquely and specifically gifted and ordained to serve. So you've got to recognize who are your people? Who are your people, who are the people that you're called to? Who are the people that you're connected with? Who are the people that you are meant to do life with, you're meant to walk with? Who are your people, there are three roles of people that I want to discuss with you today. And kind of walk through this with you. So that you will know how to identify how to classify how to respond to the people in your life. And I have to tell you that this lesson was learned while I was going through my season of burnout, every person that came into my life, I wanted to take care of them. I wanted to make sure they were okay. I wanted to be their answer. And because I didn't understand the roles of the people in my life. I found myself stretched out and overwhelmed with too many relationships, too many connections too many people, some people that were not assigned to me at all, but also other people that I didn't understand their role. So I I was not treating our relationship in the way that it needed to be treated. So that's what I want to talk to you about today. What are the roles Who are your people? And what are the roles of the people in your life. So the first role I want to talk about today is attachments, who are the people who are attachments in your life. So when you think about an attachment, I want you to think about a relationship that draws everything out of you. And I want to actually warn you about attachments today. So if you have relationships in your life, that literally draw out of you, and give nothing back, but draw out of you to the point that you are exhausted, that you are tired that you are worn out that you have nothing else to give my friends that is an attachment. And that is a relationship that needs to be cut out of your life. Consider an attachment like a leech. So a leech will attach itself to a host. And it will feed itself feed itself and feed itself. But it is drawing literal life out of the host and giving nothing back. So what are those relationships in your life, that are literally drawing life out of you, and giving nothing back only for their own benefit for their own good, it's all about that person or that group of people? What are the attachments in your life, those areas in those relationships where you feel exhausted, where you feel depleted, where you leave that interaction, and you literally need to go someplace and recover. Those are attachments. And sometimes, especially when we think about it from the aspect of ministry, or you know, from faith where we are called to love everybody, you are called to love everybody, but you're not called to serve everybody, you're called to love everybody. But you are not called to serve everybody. And those attachments in your life. If you're if you don't identify them, if you're not careful, they will drain out of you what is meant for somebody else, they will drain out of you what is meant for you. So what are the attachments? What relationships in your life are like a leech, and they are drawing the life, the energy, the goodness out of you for their own selfish benefit, and they are not assigned to your life. And you know it because you leave a exhausted, you leave overwhelmed, you leave burnt out, identify the attachments, and disconnect yourself. Disconnect yourself from the attachments, you have to lose that number. If you have to let them know, be very clear that you're moving in a different direction, whatever it takes, but attachments don't serve you. And honestly friends is not serving them. If somebody is an attachment in your life, you become a crutch to them. It's not helpful when you become a crutch. They're not learning, they're not getting better, they're not getting stronger, they're literally just drawing it out of you. So identify the attachments in your life, those relationships that take and take and take and take and leave you depleted attachments. So you got to identify the attachments. The next role that I want to bring to your attention are assignments. Now assignments are different from attachments. assignments are those relationships in your life, where you are called to serve them. So I've told you that I work in higher education. And when you work in colleges and universities, it's very easy to connect with your students because they're living there and it's such a critical season of their lives and you get to know their families and their backgrounds and where they come from in their story. It's very, very easy to connect with your students and almost too much. You know, I've seen people in my profession become too connected to students, where the student they consider the student their friend. And I always tell my students I tell them like you don't need PBJ you don't need Patrice, you need Dr. Jackson, r. Jackson is the one that can s rve you that the Jackson is t e one that can help you, r ght. There has to be a line b tween friendship and the ones t at you serve. And we're going t talk about connections in a m nute. That's the friendship r alm but your assignments you c nnot expect them to give back t you the way that a friend w ll. That puts your r lationship out of order and o t of alignment. When you are c lled to serve someone, they a e not called to be your best f iend, they are not called to b your confidant. They're not c lled to be your hangout p rtner, but you are created to s rve them. And you serve them. A d you don't have to expect a ything from them, but you s rve them. And you keep that r lationship in the right p rspective of what it means to s rve them. You keep that r lationship in a place that t ey are receiving, and every n w and then they might bless y u they might be they might e courage you. But that's a b nus. When you have an a signment, if you are blessed b that relationship, that is a b nus. Your purpose is toward y ur assignments. Your purpose i all about those people that y u have been created and called a d destined to serve. And we g t fuel that we get excited for s rving in our purpose, but your p rpose is not for you. Your p rpose is not for you. Your p rpose is for your assignments. Y ur purpose is for other p ople, those people that you a e called to serve this s ecific people. You know, I h ve over 9000 students at my university right now, ranging from medical students, to dental students, to undergraduate students of all kinds of majors of all of those students, even though I'm there, and for any of them that might need me, I am specifically called and there to serve specific ones. That's why it takes all of us because there are students who will connect with a colleague, or connect with somebody else on my team, and they may not have that connection with me. But there are other students who have that connection with me, because they are my assignments. So I am very clear, and I have peace about who I'm called to serve. And it's okay. It's okay, if there is a person or a group of people that don't necessarily connect to my message, or they don't connect with the way that I serve, or what I have to give or bring to the table. It's okay, they're just not my people. And you need to have the freedom and the peace, to know when somebody is just not your person. So who are your assignments, who have you been called to serve created to serve who is connected to your purpose, who is connected to your story who is connected to your your mission in a way that they gain strength, and they get better? Here's the difference between an attachment and an assignment. When a person is your assignment, they get better with every interaction. You can see the growth, you can see the progress, you can see them moving not towards your goal, but towards their goal. That's your assignment. When you serve, and you see the growth, and then you see the improvement and they are gaining, and they're getting better. That's your assignment. That's your people. That is your person, that is who your call to your purpose is for them. Those are your assignments. The final role that I want to encourage you today is your connections. Now, when we talk about connections, we're talking about a given take a back and forth you give, they give you give they give, these are your confidence, these are your friends, these are your closest, this is where you get refilled. These are love relationships. So Rev. Jackson is my connection. Rev j is my connection I give to him, and he gives to me, and it's a constant back and forth, and not a back and forth in the way that we're weighing it out. So you did something for me yesterday, so I gotta do something for you today. That's not how that works. But in our relationship in the whole of our relationship is a constant back and forth. And it's not just one lane or just one focus on one person giving, but we both give. And we both benefit. And we both grow. It's a connection. And let me tell you, you're going to have very few connections, real connections. You know, we live in a day and age where we call any and everybody friend. We use the term friends so loosely right now, through social media and other means. And I call you all friends. I call you friends because we're in community. I acknowledge you as friends because we're in community, but please know, I know who my confidence they are. I know who the people are that I can call and I can share even if it's embarrassing, even if it's painful, if it hurts or even if I need to celebrate I know who those people are. And there's a handful of them. But the reason why I know who those people are, is because we've been through it together, we walk through it together, their life, my life were intertwined. Our paths did not just cross, but our paths combined. And now we're walking forward together, hand in hand, supporting each other, strengthening each other. Those are your connections, you need to identify who your connections are. And you need to honor those relationships, and you need to protect them, protect them. And listen, it changes with the season, sometimes, somebody who was a strong connection for you 10 years ago, may not be that connection today. And that's okay. people grow, people change our life, our lives change, our focus may change. And so it's okay, it doesn't mean it has doesn't have to be ugly. It doesn't have to be a problem, it's just change, and change happens. But in every season of your life, there's someone that you're called to walk with. There is somebody there are people who are assigned to your life, none of us are called to do this life alone. None of us are called to walk by ourselves. So today, friends, I want you to consider the relationships in your life. And I want you to analyze how you engage with those relationships? And what role Who are your people? What role do those relationships play in your life? Are they attachments? is are these relationships bringing harm? Or taking away from who you are? Or who you're called to be in? And if they are? How will you deal with that attachment? What is your plan for severing that attachment? So that you can live and so that they can live as well? Are they your assignment? Are they your people, the people that you're called to serve the people that you are purpose to the ones that connect to your message in your story? Or are they your connections, those folks that will walk with you, those people that your path in their path are intertwined, or those those relationships that you need to protect, and you need to cover and you need to acknowledge the importance of it in your life. Check your relationships, check your people know the role that they play, honor that role. Whatever that role is, honor that role and keep it in perspective. Friends. That's what I got for you today. I hope that it was a blessing. As always, just know that you are powerful. You are significant. And you are loved. Love always, PBJ