Why You Can't Discern Mission Without Healing

Episode 100           

So many of us wish to know our gifts and our mission or vocation, but few know that without healing and integration we won’t be able to truly discern or live out our giftings or vocation.

In this episode I explain WHY it is that trying to discern our gifts or mission without going through healing is often ineffective, resulting in us remaining trapped in not knowing who our True Self is.

If you’re actively discerning a vocation or trying to deepen your self-knowledge, listen to this episode!

This episode is part of a series taken from my 30 Day Instagram Live Challenge where I went on live video to speak about different aspects of the interior journey every day for 30 days straight.

Watch this recording on YouTube.

Follow me on my Instagram account @animann for more material on the integration journey and subscribe to my monthly reflections on Begin Again.

CHAPTER MARKERS
(00:00:00) - Special Message From Ann
(00:05:43) - Introduction
(00:07:57) - Trauma & Personality Tests
(00:13:22) - An MBTI (Myers Briggs) Example
(00:20:36) - Traume & Vocation Discernment
(00:25:52) - Does Personality Change With Age?
(00:31:46) - Conclusion

TRANSCRIPT
Available here.

REFLECTION PROMPT
- Are you trying to discern your life's mission and purpose before you know and love who God created you to be? 

Transcript

EPISODE 100 | WHY YOU CAN'T DISCERN MISSION WITHOUT HEALING
 
 [00:00:00] SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM ANN
Hey, dear listeners. This is the 100th episode of Becoming Me, and I just wanted to record a special introduction. I just really want to thank you all for being with me on this adventure. This podcast is... has been going on for a little bit over three years now and it was, it has always been, I would say, an exercise of obedience and a leap into the dark.

[00:00:32] I have found myself being very grateful for this opportunity to share nuggets, you know, of realization and wisdom, hopefully wisdom, from my own journey with you. And I'm always so moved when one of you Reaches out to me via maybe direct message on Instagram or email or something and share with me how this podcast has been speaking into your life and helping you make your own journey.

[00:01:08] The content and the nature of the Becoming Me podcast fits a niche that I Personally, I guess I kind of felt was missing for me in my journey and that's also why I feel called to talk about things the way I do in a very integrated way about this interior journey, not just being a spiritual journey, but really a human journey and how each of these dimensions strengthen and nurture and support the other dimension of the interior journey.

[00:01:38] So 100th episode happens to be Uh, an episode during my 30 day I G life challenge where I talk about. So, why it is that healing is necessary for us to be able to discern and fulfil our mission? Because this topic kind of like hits right at the heart of Becoming Me. So many of us, we long to be more fully alive, to be more fully ourselves, and a big part of that is this longing for significance, that we have something beautiful and good and true to offer the world as well.

[00:02:17] We want to be able to believe that. God created us, you know, not just in a sense for love, because that is true, that is true, but we also want to be able to, to be part of that outpouring of God's love into the world in some unique way. And I think that longing, that longing is part of what was gifted to us when God created us.

[00:02:44] So many of us want to jump ahead and look for how we are gifted, how we are maybe unique in our personalities. We want to do strength finders, you know, maybe find out what our spiritual giftings and charisms are. I think it's not just a curiosity about who we are, getting to know ourselves, but this longing to know how we fit into the bigger picture, into God's kingdom, but the reality of this whole journey of discerning our personal vocation is that it is long, and it is layered, and it is complex. And what many of us don't realize until we really start making this journey is how challenging it is. And why a big part of why it's so challenging is that we need to make that journey into integration and healing as part of becoming who we are.

[00:03:39] It's not just about finding out how we are gifted. Because, even if we could really find out how we are gifted in all the ways that we are gifted, without that integration, without that healing, we don't have that core strength, that resilience, that interior integrity and spiritual courage to actually live out our gifts.

[00:04:04] to the fullest. And that fulfilment of whatever mission we may have in our life requires that core strength. And that core strength can only come from integration and healing. And so that's what this episode is about, really. And I'm so glad that you are here for this milestone episode. And I invite you to You know, say a little prayer for me as you listen to this episode.

[00:04:29] Can you pray for me that I will continue to walk in my own path? However, the Lord may be inviting me to and I also wish to surrender this podcast again into the Lord's hands. I started this podcast in response to his invitation and I really wish to continue to let him hold the reins on this and that's not easy.

[00:04:52] I want to say Lord, let me love this podcast and the people who are listening to this podcast with open hands to hold on to it, cherishing it, but also holding on to it very loosely. May it truly be a vehicle for his purposes, for the Lord's purposes, and you know, should the day come that the Lord asked me to just stop making this podcast, I wish to be able to respond to that with, you know, with joy and with freedom as well, trusting that my journey and my mission doesn't begin and end with this podcast, and trusting that he knows what he's doing, even when I do not. So, thank you so much. Please pray for me. And I hope you enjoy this 100th episode of the Becoming Me podcast.
 
 [00:05:43] INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Becoming Me, your podcast companion and coach in your journey to a more integrated and authentic self. I am your host, Ann Yeong, and I'm here to help you grow in self-discovery and wholeness. If you long to live a more authentic and integrated life and would like to hear honest insights about the rewards and challenges of this journey, then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me. 

[00:06:20] Hello again, hello everyone and today is day 25 of my 30 day IG live challenge and I thought that for today I would just like to give a brief sharing on something that I've observed a lot and I've always wondered why it is that it isn't talked about more, there isn't more awareness around this question.

[00:06:50] So, what is today's topic? Okay, so, I want to talk about why we can't really discern our mission or our vocation without healing first. We can't properly discern our mission and vocation without healing. So, in the circles that I'm in, and I think a lot of you who follow my content are in, it is quite common and desirable for people to want to say, I want to discern what my mission is or what my vocation is, that this may include discerning state of life vocation, discerning, for example, my call to marriage or discerning if this person is the person that I should marry, or maybe discerning religious life.

[00:07:32] Whether I'm meant to enter religious life or discerning if I should maybe become a priest, for example, right? So, that's state of life vocation, but there's also personal vocation. And we see this come up when people express their desire to, to know what did God create them for? What is like that special work that maybe they are best equipped to do to serve in the world.
 
 [00:07:57] TRAUMA AFFECTS ACCURACY OF PERSONALITY TESTS
We all long for meaning and purpose. And a big part of this desire for meaning and purpose manifests itself in us longing to know what is our mission. So, a smaller subset of that longing to know mission is the desire for us to know our gifts or to know our personality. Right? We, so, we take different kinds of assessments, different kinds of tests to tell us maybe what our strengths are, what our personality is, how we function in relation to other people.

[00:08:30] So, we like, we like to do that. In fact, I think it's very common for people to do a lot of those free online tests that are now available, right. To figure out like, so, for example, a big one will be Myers Briggs and it's actually one of the instruments that I actually use. I'm actually trained and certified to use with my clients, but I find there's just so much going on.

[00:08:52] Even outside of just doing all these tests on personality or motivation that, that actually impacts even the accuracy of these assessments. Most people don't know that. So, I'm here to tell you that I'm here to share this information, right? So, if you're someone who has been wondering and wanting to know more about yourself and trying to discern maybe your vocation, your mission, and you are in the process of that.

[00:09:15] Let me go in for retreat and taking assessments and tests to figure out like your personality, et cetera. So, I'm here to tell you that there are factors that affect the accuracy of this test that would then affect in terms of the accuracy of the data that you have when you're praying about and discerning about where God may be calling you.

[00:09:35] All right. And, and I guess there are many things that affect, but today I want to talk about. our background, the trauma that may have happened in our life. So, this is something that I see happen again and again in my clients. Okay. And the clients that I actually take through my signature program which is a longer deeper process for people who are really getting very serious about wanting to figure out who they are.

[00:10:01] So, a lot of times these are people who they're not like really young they're maybe in their 30s 40s or 50s and They've spent a lot of money on their education. They've really maybe been working for a long time And even though they've like they've worked for a long time they may have risen up the ladder in the corporate world or wherever they are they still don't know who they are and they are and they're still trying to figure out what is my mission in life, right?

[00:10:26] So, it's one thing to ask that question when you're in your teens, in your 20s, but by the time you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s, you find that you're still asking that question. There is a sense of urgency, right? So, this process that I bring my clients through often what we find and what they discover is when they haven't healed from certain traumatic experiences, by traumatic I mean, there's a wide spectrum, okay, but let's say a child that was very neglected and had to learn to parent herself, had to learn to take care of the daily bread and butter kind of things, you know? They have to be routine find food to be on a table this can often happen.

[00:11:14] We call this parentification, right? When let's say maybe your parents the parents are one or both parents were either mentally ill or physically ill Was not able to be there for the child So, there are survival skills that we pick up because of, let's say, the circumstances, and you learn to be and operate in a certain way in the world, and maybe you've overcome these difficult situations in your childhood.

[00:11:36] I actually have clients, multiple, that have similar kind of stories where they've managed to do well, they are very highly functioning, but because of the environment that they had in their younger days, in their childhood, in their youth it is a certain, there's a certain conditioning and scripts has allowed them to survive.

[00:11:55] Now, they are lost about who am I really, right? And when they take these tests, like for example, the Myers Briggs or the motivation code, which is another instrument that I use, a lot of times what the instrument picks up is what they've learned to do, what they've learned to, how they've learned to operate in order to survive.

[00:12:16] Okay, it may not actually be picking up their real natural self, their real natural motivation, and their real natural cognitive preference or the temperament or the personality. Why, so why does this matter? It matters because when we are operating out of our scripts and our learned behaviour, even if we become very skilled at it and we can do it well, we are not necessarily free.

[00:12:46] We're not we're not really acting from a place of freedom okay; there's often a lot of compulsion involved the way that we operate in the world is often matched with certain subconscious narratives like this is what it means to be a good person. This is what it means to be a loving person, right?

[00:13:02] So, I have to be, for example, really organized, really scheduled to be responsible in order because that's how I learned to survive. And this has become part of my identity. I take pride in being very scheduled, very organized knowing how to anticipate all possible scenarios. I'm always prepared, for example.

[00:13:22] AN MBTI (MYERS BRIGGS) EXAMPLE
Now, speaking now in Myers Briggs terms. Okay. Some of you may know those are the four letters at the very last letter. There's either a P or a J and that's how we deal with the outside world. And it tends to be the J's those who have a J at the end that are very scheduled, very methodical, very well planned in advance in time and they don't like changes to plans, right?

[00:13:43] But they are very trustworthy when it comes to, let's say, planning events and stuff like that, because they make sure everything falls in place. The Ps on the other hand, are known for spontaneity, adaptability, being more emergent. They're okay with jumping into something without a plan because they are confident that as they do it, the plan will kind of like unveil and is a real thing.

[00:14:10] It's a different way of being in the world, okay? And, and neither is better than the other. But sometimes, so, for example, someone who is actually by nature a P, so, I'm actually one of such a person, but I was trained from young to operate as a J to be very methodical, very scheduled, very well planned, and I was rewarded and affirmed for it, so, I did well because of that.

[00:14:37] And I still appreciate picking up those skills, but when you keep using what is actually not your natural preference and what you're kind of like, you're not, you're not aligned with the natural, the design that was given to you. It tends to take up a lot more energy. It drains you. You're not as effective in it.

[00:14:56] Okay. So, you can do it. You can train yourself to do it even well, but it's so arduous and you're not actually leaning into the strength that actually was given to you naturally as yours. But when we haven't healed, we haven't integrated, we haven't healed from let's say our past traumas, we can't help but lean into what we've picked up that helped us survive and or helped us to get the approval and the love that we needed.

[00:15:25] We will be afraid to let go of that, that way of operating. Which means, if I'm still... not really aware of who I truly am, like what my real natural preference is what makes me the most happy, the most free, what I can do effortlessly with more ease because I'm really stuck with this need to be a certain way.

[00:15:50] I'm stuck with the person I should be. Then I can't really discover who I really am. I need healing, a process of healing, to begin to be able to see myself as I really am. And then... to embrace myself as I really am. So, that's another thing that often comes up with some of my clients, not with everyone, with some of them, as things emerge about who they really are, they find that they have a difficult time accepting it, you know?

[00:16:18] They can't deny that it's true about them, but there's something in them that goes, why? Why is this me? You know? And I always invite them to be curious when there's such a response. Where's that response coming from? That you are, that you are uncomfortable or don't like what you're seeing about yourself.

[00:16:37] And when we sit with that, or when they sit with that, often it emerges that, see, it's part of the conditioning that they've had, right? It's, it's, it goes against what has been valued maybe in their families in their environments. Maybe it, it is the opposite of what has helped them to survive.

[00:16:53] So, it's almost like instinctively, they belittle or distrust. That other, those traits that are actually theirs, that God has given them because they've come to believe they have to be something else in order to succeed or to do well. Now when we're still in that state, and a lot of this happens without our awareness until we have cultivated deeper self-awareness, right?

[00:17:17] We won't be aware that this is happening. Imagine trying to discern big questions like, what is my mission, Lord? You know, like, who am I am I called to marriage or am I called to the priesthood or religious life? Which order am I called to discern with? You know, am I called to, or which person am I marrying?

[00:17:35] Should I be marrying? Is it this person? When we're still operating in blindness, so, to speak, we can't make these decisions. I'm not saying that we can't at all, and we often do, but the truth is that a lot of times. We don't really go in with the full set of data, right? And that's what happens in life.

[00:17:56] A lot of times we make permanent decisions based on faulty information, but part of life is also then dealing with the consequences of that afterwards, right? And healing can still happen afterwards. Life is not so rigid. God is not so rigid. But I'm just sharing that, wherever we are at this point in our life, when we begin to really want to seriously ask, what is the work of my life?

[00:18:21] Or who, where am I, where am I meant to be so that I can contribute at the highest for God's kingdom? And this is especially an urgent question I find for people, like I said in midlife I have one client, it was so special to me when he said he's 50 this year, and he's really excited about doing this work this year with me because he said if he lives to be 75, he says, For the next 25 years of my life, I will have so much more clarity.

[00:18:50] I can go where I know I'm, I was created to go, not necessarily at one place, but you, you finally, you know how to discern and align because you have something concrete to discern with, and not just abstract principles and ideas. But the process that we need to go through is not just a process of understanding, right?

[00:19:09] Like I said, even going for different tests and all that is not necessarily going to help you unless you have more self-awareness and unless you have become more free to see yourself and accept yourself as you are. Okay, yes, I see that comment there. Erica, as someone who has consistently identified as a J, the idea of being a natural P is terrifying.

[00:19:29] I don't know whether you are, you're saying that about me because I shared that. But yes, if you were talking about, it is terrifying. I really didn't want it to be true. There's a part of me that freaked out that I could be a P because subconsciously I think I've always prided myself in being very together.

[00:19:47] Not that I'm not okay, but I think the real me is quite, it's a lot more spontaneous and abstract and creative, but it took me a long process to embrace that about myself. So, first to accept it and then to actually embrace it and then to love it about myself. That, that took a few years. That took a few years, right?

[00:20:09] But it was only when I did and I could, then I was ready for God to reveal to me more about the vocation, the personal vocation that he actually has given me. Because if I reject, if any part of me is still rejecting unconsciously, what he has, the design that he has given me, then I'm not really truly open not able to surrender or trust what my mission might be, right?

[00:20:36] VOCATION DISCERNMENT SHOULD TAKE TRAUMA SERIOUSLY
So, it's so funny that I think a lot of Christians, a lot of Catholics, we say we want to know our mission. I mean, there's a part of us that feels like we want to know our purpose. We want to know, have meaning. We want to know our mission. We want to discern, right? Like where God is leading us. But at the same time, we are not willing to see ourselves as we really are, as God has created us.

[00:20:57] We are not ready to do the interior journey, to do the interior work of healing, right? So, when that happens, it’s like we, there's this, there's this contradiction and we don't even realize it. We don't even realize it. And it's hard sometimes to explain this or say this to someone. Sometimes I know people who are intentionally trying to discern, for example, like as a state of life. Am I called to the priesthood? Am I called to religious life? Or they're trying to figure out a change in career path, maybe at midlife. They know that what they have up to now, for example, isn't working. But they're still going blind into trying something different.

[00:21:35] Or a young person may be discerning with one order and another religious order, and nothing seems to really fit. And they have some sense of what to look for. And of course, they may have people, formators or special directors that are help to do, are discerning with them.

[00:21:49] But sometimes I also wonder even within those systems where we are helping people discern, we're co-discerning with people, how much awareness is there about trauma? About the impact of trauma on the actual personality and temperament and the way a person operates on how significant compulsions are. So, when we're not free to be ourselves, we don't know who we really are.

[00:22:18] And if we're discerning with a partner, whether it's for marriage or let's say religious life or whatnot kind of thing, they can't see the real us either. How do we call discern? It's hard, right? It's hard. So, all that aside, no matter where we may be at this point in our life, we can, it's never too late to, to refine, right?

[00:22:36] That question. So, Lord, who am I? And who have you created me to be? And where are you calling me? And for anyone who sincerely wants to know the answer to that question, I guess I'm trying to say you have to do the inner work of healing. It's a process. It's not an option because if you don't do that work, you will always be struggling.

[00:22:57] And feeling like you don't quite know who you are and you don't quite know where God is leading you because you're not free. Okay, yes, so Erika adds, yes, especially when we have built up so much comfort in our own identities and the boxes that have developed mainly out of survival. Absolutely, absolutely.

[00:23:15] So, I was just talking to a client. We just did I just did a Myers Briggs debrief and it shows torn between two types, right? And she was so confused because the type that came out from the online assessment, she said, like, this describes me to a T, right? It's, it's, it's, and actually I was thinking to myself, yes it does.

[00:23:32] It describes you as you have become you as you have learned to operate to a T. And the other one, which actually is what she hypothesized that she was, she was herself it's, it's also true of her, so she was kind of confused. So, we talked, we had this conversation because she's actually in the process right now of healing and all that.

[00:23:50] And I told her, we don't need to force a decision now, right? There's this awareness, right, that this could be the you that has allowed you to survive. And it is good. But it is tiring to keep operating in a way that you were not naturally designed, gifted. to operate, you can. Right, but then you wonder, why is it that I'm not joyful?

[00:24:18] Why is it that I don't feel like myself? Because you're not operating the way that actually you're designed to. So, slowly, what I told her was, as she continues to heal and integrate, and she's also starting to do inner child healing work, is that you may begin to recognize Like, it's really a sense of recognition.

[00:24:36] Oh, this is actually how I really am. Right? When I'm not trying to have to be a certain way. When I feel more safe. When I don't have to be the adult, for example, in the room. You know, this is actually me. And I said, the difference, you see, even with our backgrounds, with our trauma and our wounds, there is a blessing.

[00:24:57] Okay. Nothing is wasted. So, for example, if I, just talking about my example now, I grew up being trained very strongly to be a J, to be very organized, systematic. When I discovered I was a P and I relaxed into it, that was when my husband told me I was a lot more fun to be with because actually I'm, I'm actually a lot more fun loving than I ever allowed myself to be.

[00:25:17] Right. And when you have to keep operating out of, Your non preference. It takes a lot of effort. So, it's hard to be fun and have fun when you keep having to when you're when you're having to have a lot of concentration all the time and operate out of your natural preference, right? You know, I just I lost my train of thought.

[00:25:36] What was I talking about? Why was I saying this about the J and the P? What was I talking about?

[00:25:52] DO OUR PERSONALITIES CHANGE WITH AGE?
Okay, I'm just going to answer this question first that you sent in. Question about temperament. I have always heard that we can't really change our temperament after our 20s. Do you agree or can it be hidden? Okay.

[00:26:04] Okay there are different schools of thought. Okay the one that I align with, let's say in both motivation code and Myers Briggs. What they presuppose, the theory, is that actually our natural motivational design, our natural temperament, is actually fixed.

[00:26:20] The natural temperament is fixed, okay? The preference is fixed. But that doesn't mean that our, the expressions of that doesn't change. So, it's very different, right? There's the design and then there's the way that it's expressed. Those are two very different things. The expression can change over time and the expression can be affected by many things including trauma.

[00:26:40] Including healing, when you begin to heal from your trauma and all that kind of thing, the expression of it would change, but the presupposition with both of these is that the innate, natural, given design doesn't change, right? But at different stages in life, different states of development, when you're in crisis or at midlife, there are things that change.

[00:27:02] So, there's actually a lot of... to the, to at least to the instruments that I choose to use so that because I want something, I want tools that can help my clients develop in depth self-understanding. Okay. It's not just a cursory, oh, I'm like this, and this is what it means. It's really about how to build that relationship and deepen that relationship with ourself.

[00:27:22] Okay. So, what I was talking about before I lost my train of thought was, I was talking about how we have formed certain patterns out of survival because of trauma. I was going to say there's a gift in that, even in the, even in the trauma. So, I learned how to function as a J, right? What happened after I began to heal?

[00:27:41] And I, when I've gone through more healing and I realized I was a P in the Myers Briggs and I embraced that, I became a P, I'm an ENFP, that has also in a sense developed to a quite a high degree how to operate as a J. But the difference now is being more healed and more integrated, I am free. I don't feel a compulsion to use the preference of J, like being organized and systematic.

[00:28:10] But when I need to use it, I can use it, right? And I've developed it over the years. So, in a sense, I'm thankful that I've honed that so that like even doing the work that I need to do now, I'm doing a lot of things on my own. There's a lot of planning and systems kind of stuff behind the scenes. If I hadn't...

[00:28:29] Developed my non preferred function in the sense usually P's find it very easy to start things but they are very weak on following through. Okay, so J's are better at following through So, I need to draw on my non preferred Functions in the Myers Briggs sense to do what I need to do and that's when it tires me more is when it drains me more But I can freely choose to use it when I need to use it and I can let go of it and not use it when I don't have to use it.

[00:28:56] And I know how to give myself rest and break after having to use my non preferred function. All of this would not have been possible before healing, because I would just have been acting out of my script and out of my, my compulsions. Yeah. So, we can't really see ourselves clearly, and lead ourselves properly, until we have begun healing.

[00:29:20] So, I just want to end off. So, today's show is kind of like a short cause I have a lunch appointment, but there's a post that I made previously, and it's in my IG feed. And I think there's also a video I made on this and it's one of my pinned... videos and I talk about the four different layers of self-knowledge.

[00:29:40] Can I invite you, if you're interested in what we're talking about, to go and look at that because to really understand ourself, which is necessary in order for us to discern our mission, discern our vocation, we need to know ourselves intellectually, that's kind of like the about knowledge, we need to know ourselves experientially, we need to be able to affectively know ourselves, that actually includes attuning to ourselves.

[00:30:04] Being with ourselves, holding, attuning to our own, our emotions. See, it's different from just intellectually knowing things about ourselves. I need to know how to accompany and attune to myself. And then the deepest layer of self-knowledge, I call it unitive knowledge. This is where it's, this is where really the integration happens together with the spiritual.

[00:30:25] Where I, the different parts of me come together. I need to be able to attune to myself before that can happen. Right? I need to learn things about myself, understand things about myself intellectually, be attentive to my experiences of myself, how I experience the world, what actually is comfortable for me, what's uncomfortable, where is it that I really do things effortlessly, and where I really struggle experientially, right?

[00:30:51] And attuned to how I feel about all that. And then slowly things come together and I lead myself. I learned to lead myself and I'm not just a victim of my past. I'm not held prisoner by my compulsions and my scripts. I become more free and then as these layers of self-knowledge deepen, I become much more able to discern not just like who I am, who I'm not, but also where God is calling me and I also become more free to go where he is calling me.

[00:31:21] Okay, so That's the sharing for today. I hope it gives you something to think about Thank you so much erica for your questions and helping me catch my train of thought again and Yeah, if there's anything else that came up from this sharing, please feel free to send me a message Okay, and ask and ask me the question and I will revert at some point at some later life .Thank you. Bye!

[00:31:46] CONCLUSION
Thank you for listening to Becoming Me. The most important thing about making this journey is to keep taking steps in the right direction. No matter how small those steps might be, no matter where you might be in your life right now, it is always possible to begin. The world would be a poorer place without you becoming more fully alive.

If you like what you hear on this podcast and would like to receive a monthly written reflection from me, as well as be updated on my latest content and offers, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter, Begin Again. You can find the link to do that in the show notes. Until the next episode, happy becoming!