Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture
Ep. 302 Arianna Molloy - How We Can Find and Maintain a Healthy Calling
Today we're talking about something that impacts all of us - our calling and how we can pursue meaningful work without burning out. I'm sitting down with Arianna Molloy, author of "Healthy Calling," to unpack what it really means to live out our purpose without getting crushed by pressure and expectations. We'll explore some critical questions: What does calling really look like? How do we recognize our unique gifts? And most importantly, how can we stay passionate about our work without losing ourselves in the process? Whether you're a pastor feeling overwhelmed, a professional struggling with workplace stress, or someone trying to figure out your next career move, this conversation offers practical wisdom about finding purpose and maintaining your energy. Arianna brings incredible insights from her research and personal journey that will help you reframe how you think about work, calling, and your own potential. So join us as we discover how we can live out our calling without burning out.
Arianna is a Communication professor at Biola University, where she designs and teaches Organizational Communication courses. She has also partnered with Biola’s Office of Faculty Advancement, leading the Pedagogy Development Consulting program. Her research focuses on meaningful work, work as a calling, and the link between humility and burnout, with publications in premier journals such as the International Journal of Business Communication and Communication Studies. One of her collaborations won “Article of the Year” in the Journal of Management, Spirituality, and Religion. She views her role as a professor through the lens of being a mentor who loves to learn. While she’s been honored with awards like Biola’s Provost Award for “Excellence in Teaching” and the “Faculty Excellence” award, her deepest joy comes from witnessing the transformation in her students' lives.
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If I mess up. Oh, well, I cannot let that be the defining factor of whether or not I live out the calling God's given me, because it's not about me. And so I think that's part of that humility factor. If I'm so consumed with my own weaknesses, I am thinking about myself. Guess another word for that is pride. You can be prideful about what you're good at, and you can be super prideful about what you're terrible at.
Joshua Johnson:Hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host, Joshua Johnson, today we're talking about something that impacts all of us, our calling and how we can pursue meaningful work without burning out. I'm sitting down with Ariana Malloy, author of healthy calling, to unpack what it really means to live out our purpose without getting crushed by pressure and expectations. We'll explore some critical questions, what does calling really look like? How do we recognize our unique gifts and most importantly, how can we stay passionate about our work without losing ourselves in the process? Whether you're a pastor feeling overwhelmed, a professional struggling with workplace stress, or someone trying to figure out your next career move, this conversation offers practical wisdom about finding purpose and maintaining your energy. Ariana brings incredible insights from her research and personal journey that will help you reframe how do you think about work calling and your own potential? So join us as we discover how we could live out our calling without burning out. Here's my conversation with Ariana Malloy. Ariana, welcome shifting culture. Really excited to have you on. Thanks for joining me.
Arianna Molloy:I'm so thrilled to be here and to chat with you and all the others. We want
Joshua Johnson:to talk about your book healthy calling, and how to have a calling in which you can work in a healthy way, not that doesn't lead to burnout. So we don't have burnout. Burnout is horrible and leads to all sorts of problems, and we see especially now. I mean, you look in the ministry space, pastors are are burning out left and right. You look in the workplace, there's high rates of depression and anxiety everywhere. It feels like this is something that is more prevalent than ever. But before we dive into all of those burnout things, since we are talking about calling, I'd love to just explore yours. What was your calling like when you think of calling? What is it?
Arianna Molloy:Yeah. So first of all, when we're talking about a calling, we have to distinguish what type of calling are we talking about. So as believers, we all are called. Our primary calling is to love God and love others. So that's what we're all called to do is to love God and love others. Now, there are specific ways in our lives that when we do that, when we are loving God and loving others, it also ignites a particular skill set or passion that we have, and so theologians and social scientists will call that a secondary calling. So our primary calling is to love God and love others. And our secondary calling is there are certain places in our life, whether it be work, paid work, unpaid work, relationships, service, ministry, different things, that when we're doing those, it actually feels like we are worshiping the Lord in a sweet spot kind of way. Okay, so just to distinguish that. So for me, I think that my first sense of calling was to be a daughter. I just love my parents, and I realized that's a very privileged perspective. They are not perfect people, but I I grew up in a home where my parents grew up in sort of dysfunctional, is not the not the right word, but homes that were very fractured, but they chose to do something different. And so they committed to each other, to to love each other and love me well, and I did feel loved. And so I just remember knowing God's love through them. And they are exceptional people. And so when I was a freshman in college and I had no idea what major to choose. I remember coming home and visiting them and being like, can I just be a professional daughter? Because I totally know how to do that, you know. And so I think I felt that sense. I also felt really called to be a good friend. Relationships are a high priority to me. I was the last person in my social group to get married. And so I think in my single years, I sort of probably, in an almost unhealthy way, was really there for my friends. And so I because I had extra time, and I had extra, you know, hours, and so I really was there for all of my people. And I'm an only child, so my friends are like family to me. So to me, they're the. Relationships that I pour into. So I felt really called to that. I felt really called to be a mentor. I started mentoring in high school and then in college, and then post college, and to me when we can see people who are a little bit after us, who need to be seen and heard and encouraged and help them feel like they are not alone. That is what the body of Christ is all about, you know. So I felt very called to that. But the reason I'm kind of going in a circle is I had no clue what to do at my job, you know, like I just couldn't I couldn't imagine sitting behind a desk all day. That didn't seem right for me. But I also like structure and reliability, but I also like adventure, and I don't really want to have to be accountable to other people all the time, but I like being part of a team, and so it took me a while to realize that one way I could feel called in my work is to be a professor. And I remember, actually I got my masters, and I really enjoyed that. I worked in a church afterwards, which was a terrible experience. We can talk about that or not. I worked for a non profit, which was a lovely experience. But for both, I was a little bit I was a little bit bored, and again, I was single at the time, so I'm like, okay, what can I do to, you know, really take advantage of my life and adventure. And I thought, if I can get a full ride scholarship, why not get a PhD? I don't know what for. I even remember I had a phenomenal Master's experience, graduate experience, and when I was applying for my PhD, I remember a well meaning person. I'm not, I won't call her a friend necessarily, took me to lunch and said, hey, you know, I don't think you have what it takes to go to get your PhD. I just want to, I just want to help you out and just let you know I don't think you ought to do that. I just remember feeling so devastated, you know, because I didn't quite know what else to do, but it felt like that was the thing to do. And and then within that same week, I was driving on the freeway in Seattle, which is where I'm I'm from originally. I remember exactly where I was, and I got a phone call from my top choice university that I got a full ride scholarship, and I had to pull over because I was like, wait, what? Amazing, yeah. And so I got my PhD, but I honestly didn't even know what I was going to do with it. And so I the third year of my PhD, I was walking on campus, and for this program, you get to teach undergrads and then also take classes. And I remember I was I was praying over I was a very secular university, and I was praying over my classrooms, just laying hands on the on the seats and the doorways. And I was walking along the campus, and I saw these freshmen with their parents, and I saw the look on their face of trying to be brave, but also very scared, and I called my parents, and I said, I think I'm supposed to be a professor. And so, you know, there's more to the story about where the Lord would call me. He called me to Biola, and I didn't want to be in California, so that was a whole thing. But I think my calling has been very process based. And I would say, while I feel called to be a professor. It's very important to distinguish that should the Lord ever move me to something else, I can still enact that calling, which has to do with collaborative learning, speaking before large groups, and speaking one on one, mentorship and, you know, partial independence with team based work as well. So I think one of the things about calling is we get distracted by the label and we forget that it's about the thing that we get to do that's
Joshua Johnson:so good, it's about the thing that we get to do. And you just name the things that you feel these are your callings right? Collaborative Learning, speaking in front of large groups, these types of things. This is your calling. And it can be as a professor in Biola, but maybe you're going to be called somewhere else to be able to do those sort of things that are your purpose. How did you find those are the things that you are called to, no matter what vocation you're in? Oh,
Arianna Molloy:such a good question. Totally by trial and error. It was a lot of like doing internships or job shadowing or networking. I did a lot of informational interviews. So I asked to meet people who were doing work that I was fascinated by, pastoral work, psychology, all these things, even like someone who worked with like animal training and shelter, you know, pet shelters, and I just asked them about their work, and I learned what I didn't like and what I did like. And then I did some, you know, jobs. I worked at a radio station, which, oh my gosh, I loved that so much, but I learned about the things I didn't like, and in the moment that felt defeating, but looking back, it was refining. I learned about the things that I was good at. And in the moment, I didn't have a name for it, I thought everyone could do these things. And then in in retrospect, I realized, no, no, no, this is God's fingerprint on me, and to own that. And so I think that I learned it along the way, and I also had wise counselors. That I pursued. They didn't pursue me necessarily. I have to go pursue them and say, Hey, what do you think about this as an idea? And, you know, get their feedback on that as well.
Joshua Johnson:You know, yesterday or maybe two days ago, my parents were here, my son's spring break, and my dad is working on something about people in the in the marketplace work, and work is calling, and he's gonna do a whole program, and he is seeing that people are really confused with the word calling, yeah, when it comes to work and ministry. And I think that calling is reserved for ministry, and then work is just something that you do. Can you help us define what is calling as a whole life, and not just in regards to ministry or as regards to work? How could we see it holistically, that there is a calling all the time for everybody, whatever they're doing,
Arianna Molloy:absolutely and again, primary calling to love God and love others. So we ask can ask ourselves every day, Okay, Lord, how can I? How can I demonstrate my love to you? And who are the people that I can do that to as well? You know? But that secondary calling requires a bit of bravery. It requires a bit of vulnerability to think about, what are you good at and what do you care about? Now, as it relates to calling in the workplace, I've done a lot of research with this, interviewed a ton of people, and I'm a qualitative researcher, so I'm a social scientist, and I would say across the board, whether you're a believer or not, people can feel called, and absolutely no one profession owns that. So you can talk to doctors, they feel called, stay at home, parents. They can feel called custodial staff and construction workers, beauticians, artists, lawyers, financial advisors, athletes, teachers. They feel called. So we have to stop giving an inflated hierarchy to people who are in explicit ministry. Now that kind of calling does perform faith in a unique way that can lend itself to a unique type of burnout. So I want to be clear that that is there's a lot of pressure there, but if you were to talk to health professionals who see people dying and hurting every day physically, you can't tell me that they are not burnt out, or that they don't feel that calling. I've interviewed them, I've worked with them, I've consulted with them. So I think we need to be careful not to show a kind of favoritism that way. But here's there are four things that happen when we experience work now, I'm talking about anything that you do on a daily basis or a routine basis that requires mental and emotional exertion. So it doesn't have to be paid work. It can be any kind of endeavor that you're doing. There are four things that need to happen that act that that fall into the definition of work as a calling. The first is that you find it meaningful. So this could, and that's very subjective, right? I mean, my mother can plant a plant, and just by being around the plant, it blossoms. I mean, she has a green thumb. Like nobody's business. I kill plants. It's not that I don't like them. I don't know what they're saying. You know, if it was an animal or a person, I could totally key in on that, but I'm a terrible plant gardener person, but it's meaningful to her. I love hearing people's stories. I could sit and have a coffee with someone all day long. Give me 12 people back to back, and I would be all about it. I love it. I'd be exhausted at the end, but it fills my cup. That would not be the case for everybody you know. So it's meaningful. The second thing is that you can identify a caller now as Christians, that's God, but there's a lot of people that I've interviewed who are not identifiers as Christians, and so they might think the universe is calling them. They might feel like their internal self is calling them. They might feel like an artist, her paint brush is calling her, or a musician, his guitar is calling him, or a teacher, the classroom itself is calling her, and so you can identify that. And the reason that's important is that calling is about relationship. So identifying a caller is identifying this feeling of something pulling you in a certain direction. The third thing is that you're using your passion and your skill set. I don't know about you, but when I'm given an opportunity to do something, well, gosh, it feels good like it feels to do something you're good at. I'm pretty good at event planning. I don't like it. And so one of the things that you'll find is that you can do something you're good at for a while, but long term motivation does not live in that plane. You also have to care about it. Now. You can't just care about it because it feels terrible to like something, but like be really bad at it. It just like it doesn't work. You need both of those things. And I think that in this sort of tool belt society. So the newest generation that we're thinking about as they enter college, they're the tool belt generation. They want to acquire skills, and they want to apply them. I think that we've done a disservice in the way we talk about college as other because college is where you get you learn about those skills. You get to have a trial and error applying them, and then you get to go out there and do more of it, but you have to have that skill set and passion. You can think of someone who feels called to be a surgeon. They wouldn't go into the surgery room on day one and be like, well, where's the knife? You know, they they have to train. And I think apprenticeship is so important, we've lost the art of apprenticeship. But this, this fourth thing is also really important. This is the relational part as well. It's something we call in the social sciences pro social behavior, and it's other focus. So a calling will always, always be about how you impact others. And so that's different than a hobby, which is fine, and you can still experience a worshipfulness in doing a hobby that's between you and God, but a calling is necessarily relational. It has to be a relationship with the caller. We know that as God, the called ourselves and the community that we serve. And the reason that this is important is that burnout from a calling happens when we feel this pull towards relationships with God or with others, because we know we can make a difference, but we are tired and we've run out. So
Joshua Johnson:when I when I have a sense of calling, I know and I'm in my sweet spot. There's purpose. I'm moving in a direction that I think that I could have an impact in this world. I have a relationship with the caller. How do I move towards burnout? Like, why am I moving so much? Because everything about it feels good. Yeah, I'm excited to work in this space. I'm excited to be here, but if I exert too much, I get towards burnout. How do how do we move towards burnout like? What does it look like? What is burnout? Okay,
Arianna Molloy:well, the quick answer, and then I'll unpack it. The quick answer is, when we become so distracted with the calling that we forget that the point is the caller. We go towards burnout when we are so focused on the pursuit of our calling that we forget about the relationships that we have with ourselves. Are we getting enough sleep? Are we eating well? Are we getting enough exercise, like, are we Doom scrolling at night rather than to going to bed when we should with our caller? Have we spent time with him today? Are we allowing him to soften our hearts where cynicism so easily corrodes and then relationship with the community. Are we showing up for the people that we've committed to? Is our community? Are we? Are we just kind of around sort of cynical and sarcastic people too much, where they're corroding our calling, which is really easy to do. We go from venting, which is necessary to complaining which is harmful. And so I would say that's the short answer is, when we get distracted with calling instead of caller. The longer answer is a little more complicated, because a lot of things can impact it. There are things outside of our control. Life circumstances I know, for me, in the last three or four years, my family experienced significant health trauma that had lots of ER visits and terminal diagnoses and actually loss of life that was, that was a life burnout. And even though my my work was fine, it, of course, is going to impact my work. And I don't have control over those things. We don't always have control over a boss that's difficult, or, if you think about a pastor, a congregation that's just complaining all the time, we know or or an epidemic that's happening, and the health the health care professionals are dealing with that, or in education, there's not enough monetary support. We don't always have control over that. Here are the two things we have control over, okay, workaholism and job Idolization. And what I what I hope we can key in on is, yes, when you feel called to your work, when that happens, you're actually the most motivated, the most satisfied, the most resilient than any other peer group, so more than people who approach it as a job or a career. If you feel called, you're the one people want in the room. You make everything better. The problem is you are also the most prone to burnout, more than any other group. You are the most prone to burnout, and that kind of burnout, the calling burnout, is different than regular burnout. So
Joshua Johnson:then let's take both workaholics, yeah, and people idolize their job. If I look at the people who have suffered burnout. One of the factors that I have seen is that they believe that the work is through them, like it's required that they are there or the work doesn't get done. They see themselves as the most important thing. In the room for whatever this work is. How is that impacting burnout, and how do we move away from our own self importance? Yeah, in our calling. Because I don't know about you, but when I feel called, I feel like it's my calling. It somewhat does revolve around me. Totally.
Arianna Molloy:Yeah. So I talk a lot about this in my book, but, and again, I almost wish that this wasn't the answer, because it's it's not that exciting, and it doesn't sound as thrilling, but the research shows that the way to have a healthy calling is to dig deep into the virtue of humility.
Joshua Johnson:Oh, humility. Oh yes,
Arianna Molloy:that old thing, you know. So I was experiencing burnout my first time professionally, not including like grad school, which is not a sustainable experience anyway. But when I got my job at Biola, I got, I started to get opportunities that were awesome. And I know this is a terribly privileged problem, but like, I had all these cool opportunities. People wanted me to be a part of committees and teach overloads and do guest speaking, and I saw the difference I could make in students lives, and it was thrilling, and it was wonderful. And I remember waking up in the middle of the night one night my third year, and my heart was just pounding, and I was like, clammy, and I felt just sort of cynical and like just sort of that, that joy was gone. And I started doing a checklist in my mind of, Okay, what does this mean? Because I've been studying this for a while, and I realized I'm experiencing some burnout. So I went to the dean of my school and said, I think I'm really getting burnt out. I was planning a wedding at the time. I mean, it was all it was all the things. And he said, Okay, let me help you figure out what you can say no to and what you can say yes to. And we found a research fellowship where for an entire semester I could have a half course load. You know, I love teaching. It's literally my passion, but to cut it in half, and then I could study this theme that these scholars from across the world were studying. I didn't even pay attention to what it was I show up the first day, we're sitting in these cherry wood furniture, blush leather chairs with good food, and all these intellectuals are in the room, and I'm so excited. And turns out it's about humility. And for an entire semester, we were studying what theologians, psychologists, organizational, communication scholars, are talking about with humility. And what began to happen? I had no intention of combining that with my own research on calling, but what began to happen is, as we were talking about the criteria of humility, distinguishing that between passivity and modesty, which are not the same thing, I was thinking about all of the people that I've interviewed who managed to have a healthy calling, who either got towards burnout and then got out of it, or really primarily avoided it. And it was exactly what humility is. It literally overlaid on top of it. So I published some some research and really began understanding that the way to a healthy calling is by prioritizing humility. Well, how do you do that? Because it's kind of like to pursue humility, like, can you humble? And you know all the
Joshua Johnson:things? Well, my wife tells me multiple times a week that I'm so humble. She's saying it sarcastically, but, yeah, she does tell me all the time.
Arianna Molloy:So this, there's a lot more to say about it, and I do talk about it in the book a lot more, but we could boil it down to three things. You can look at it through Scripture. It's evidence there, because all truth is God's truth, right? So what the social scientists are finding out about humility not a surprise to God. This was already there in the Bible, but it's that you know your strengths and your weaknesses. That's the first one, and you're not distracted by either one. Okay, so this is really important. You are clear on what you're good at, but that's not what drives you you're also clear on where you need to grow, but that's not what holds you back. You know what you're good at, and you know where you need to grow, and it's not the thing you focus on. And the way to to kind of live in that space is to live in gratitude, to thank the Lord for what he has done and what he will do. I remember my first my second year, actually, I think it was my second year in my job at Biola. Yes, it was. I was nominated for an award for Most Outstanding Professor. You don't usually get nominated for this in that early in your career. I have a phenomenal I had a phenomenal boss at the time, Dr Todd Lewis, and he nominated me, and I got the I got the award. And when he told me he was so excited, I had done a terrible job that day teaching, and so I was, I was like, Oh, wow. And I pointed out to him the things that I had done terribly. And he said, Stop, don't do that. I see the good in you, and when you reject it, you're not only insulting me, but you're not giving an opportunity for God to be glorified. And so I had to take a minute to realize like my tendency is not to be distracted by my strengths, is to be distracted by my weaknesses, and maybe that's a way of trying to not be prideful. But regardless. Just, I have to just, like, let it go and just say, Thank You God you know, and not hold on to it. So the second part of humility is a lifestyle of learning. We know that Jesus was called rabbi and teacher. We know that wisdom means that you recognize you don't know everything. It is the fear of knowledge. It's knowing, hey, there's more I need to know. And you can even use this as a diagnostic of like, am I being defensive in this meeting right now? Huh? Am I unwilling to learn something new? Do I think that I know the best way? Because that's not humility. We have to be open to the fact that there's more than one way to do something, that there's more that we're going to need to know, and that when someone gives us a new idea, it does not threaten what we already know. The third thing about humility is that humility allows you to take a pause from what you're doing, because you know that you are not the linchpin, right? You are not God. It's very clear on the role of who God is. And so that third part of humility is that Sabbath thing. It's saying, You know what, if I walk away and things fall apart, I'm probably not leading Well anyway, I need to be able to take a moment and take a breath, because to truly keep growing, to lean into those first two parts of humility, we have to take time to reflect and reflection not happen when you without pausing to examine what's going on in Life. So I would say the way to protect that sense of healthy calling is we have to make sure that we are aware of what we're good at, so that we're not incompetent we can contribute, not get distracted by our weaknesses, keep learning and regularly build in moments where we pause from the chaos and cacophony of the noises around us, including the visual noise of screens and social media that we pause and quiet our hearts to listen for what the Lord the Holy Spirit may be wanting us to see and know. How did
Joshua Johnson:you move past the place where you focus too much on your weaknesses? I won't put anything on you because I we're we just met, but I feel like we know each other before we know each other already. But okay, so if you're covering things up, sometimes you're saying, I have some weaknesses. What that does to a lot of people when they're workaholics is that they they're they're just covering up their weaknesses through working really hard and letting people see their strengths and not see their weaknesses. How did you start to open up and be okay with saying I do have some weaknesses, and it's okay and I don't have to focus on them. I could say those are the weaknesses, but I do have strengths, and I'm able to work well, even despite my weaknesses. Yeah,
Arianna Molloy:good, yeah. I think my tendency wasn't, and isn't, to cover up. It's to hold back. It's to not, it's not it's to not lean in, to not sit at the table, it's to not take advantage of opportunities. And so I think for me, the weaknesses, when I'm aware of my weaknesses, I'm very hard on myself, and then I don't say yes to opportunities God's given me, I take myself out of the game. And so one of the things that's helped me get over that is the fact that it's not about me, so if I mess up, oh well, I cannot let that be the defining factor of whether or not I live out the calling God's given me, because it's not about me. And so I think that's part of that humility factor. If I'm so consumed with my own weaknesses, I am thinking about myself. Guess another word for that is pride. You can be prideful about what you're good at, and you can be super prideful about what you're terrible at. It's just a self focus. And so I think for me, I do have to, on a weekly basis, take stock of where I feel like I have failed. And I don't know where that message came from. It certainly didn't come from my parents. I just innately have a awareness of like, here's where I want to be and here's where I actually was, which is lower. And wow, that's a bummer. You know, I confess to you that my natural mindset is a fixed mindset rather than a growth mindset. Fixed Mindset sees failure as devastating. Growth Mindset sees failure as an opportunity to learn. But I think that I have intentionally, it's not a natural thing, but I intentionally say, Well, this is an opportunity to learn, and I do love to learn, so perhaps that Learning Mode is there? But, you know, yeah, I mean, I think just forgiving yourself, and for me, if I'm so focused on my weaknesses, the alarm in my mind is, oh, I'm thinking about myself. That's not the point here. Can God speak through donkeys? Can God speak through the rocks? The rocks will cry out. Can God work through people who are lacking in confidence? Absolutely and so I try just to be like, Yeah, I see you. I see you. Imposter syndrome, you're welcome to stay, but you have to sit in the corner. I'm not even gonna wait for you to leave. I'm gonna just keep going. I think
Joshua Johnson:some people think when they think of healthy calling, or they think of healthy work, and they think of a work life balance, but sometimes. Sometimes moving into like, healthy work is not about having the right balance of saying, I'm gonna just work, you know, 50% of the time, I'm gonna do this a certain amount of time, and just get everything in the right position and the right percentage, and then I'm going to be okay. So if it's not just balance and percentage, then what does it look like when we're like, working hard but not moving towards burnout? How do we work hard without burning out? Oh
Arianna Molloy:gosh, these are such good questions. I love them. They're really they're you're really keying in on some things that are not examined often. And that's the whole point here, is to take apart, taken for granted, assumptions. So several things. One is, we all have different capacities. So I'm married to an Enneagram three. He has an amazing high capacity. He loves to be busy. He loves to use every part of the toothpaste tube, you know, squeeze it out, roll it to the very end, like, he will literally, like, shake the toothpaste on toothpaste. I mean, I think I have a high capacity, probably in comparison to to, you know, other folks in general. But within academics, my capacity is very medium. I need to rest and restore. And I know that about myself. So I think part of it is really getting comfortable to what your capacity is and not apologizing for it. We could go into the whole conversation of, how do you rest? Because also learning the types of rest that you need is important. There's seven types of rest, and if you need to key in on which one will actually restore you, that's important. So for my husband to sit still, usually not a good choice for him. He doesn't that's, that's not restorative, but to be, to be creative, to play, to do dynamic rest, where he's doing something other that's fun. Fun for him is restorative. Contemplative nature is restorative to me. So
Joshua Johnson:how do you do this? So we'll keep on with this conversation. But how do we how do you do that? So think of Sabbath, yeah, for you and rest. So if you have contemplative nature, and your husband likes to play and really get after it, yeah, how do you do it together? How do you connect and rest at the same time?
Arianna Molloy:Great question. The third year of our marriage, we were sitting in a Taiwan hotel lobby area having tea. It's called asleep, if anyone's been there before in Taiwan, my mother, my husband's Chinese, Taiwanese, and my mother in law had her husband had just passed away, and so had gone there to take her back home. And we were exhausted, and it was the middle of summer, and it is sticky there. I mean, you get out of the shower and you're like, I Why don't I even shower? I'm already sticking so we've been working really hard, and we decided to take a break. And we love we travel quite a bit, and we love to actually have high tea wherever we travel in the world, because tea is done differently and and it's just a fun cultural moment where you can kind of relax and also take part in in what's happening in that context. And we were chatting about this because we had committed to sabbathing together when we got married. I had started sabbathing prior to that. He hadn't really done that in a routine way, but he was like, I want to do it. And we just were having a lot of challenge doing that together. One of us was never that excited about it. And so we sat there and we actually talked through Gary Thomas's sacred pathways of how you feel close to God, and just identified, what are the ways that you feel close to God. And that's not exactly the same thing as Sabbath, but it can inform you on things to do. And so we drew on a napkin, like, how do we do this together? And so we still try to figure it out. I mean, it's also really hard to do when you have children, sometimes we'll take turns. So sometimes it's every other Sabbath. It'll be like the way that I Sabbath and he'll do it with me and the way that he Sabbaths, and I'll do it with him. Or sometimes we'll do half the day the way I restore, and the other half that he restores. And because Sabbath is also a relational act, I think we confuse Sabbath with solitude, because they often go together, but they're not actually the same. And this is why, I think, when I was single and I was trying to Sabbath, it was also really hard, because I often found myself lonely, and we don't do a good job as the church sabbathing together. It should be a relational act together. So I would say that. And then, you know, as a with a child, now it's even more so. So so here's an example of how we Sabbath right now on Saturdays. That's how we we Sabbath on Saturdays. We don't set an alarm and we wake up naturally. Usually, my child is the alarm and he'll wake us up.
Joshua Johnson:My child's always the alarm.
Arianna Molloy:We will make pancakes, we'll watch a movie together or a show together, and we'll take time to pray. We have, until recently, been doing the prayer of examine, which is about five steps, where you think about your your day and your week, and you talk about you just it's just beautiful. You can look it up. We listen to each other. Recently, we've been doing the Lectio 365 which I really enjoy as well, and and ultimately. Whatever we do that day, we try to do it in an unrushed manner. And we do what John Mark comer talks about is we don't focus on our work, the work the tyranny of the urgent. We try not to focus on our worries, which is really hard for me. I'm an Enneagram six. I naturally think about, is everybody safe? What's gonna happen? How do we strategize about that? And even the once, like the needs that we have, we don't think about those three things. And anytime it comes to your mind, for me, I probably do it on like an hourly basis. Lord, I give this to you. I'm distracted by these things. I give it to you. And we also are not on our phone that day. We have an unplugged box, and we just don't go on our phone. And so do we do it well, usually not, but do we do it anyway? Absolutely? Yeah,
Joshua Johnson:that's so good. Yes, we have screen free Saturdays as well, and it's really, really key. It's huge. Spend time with family, doing all those Sabbath things. It's really regenerative and restorative for us as a family and that we could continue in our work, we have to have it. So rest is really important to work hard without burning out. Okay, so rest is one. What else is the
Arianna Molloy:other thing is to begin to identify the difference between stress and chronic stress. So in every kind of job, there's going to be stressful seasons. You know, for us as academics, it's midterms and finals. You know, for other corporate organizations, it's at the end of each quarter or the closing year. God bless the tax people during tax season, right? It's those things. It's, you know, in in health care settings, it's almost every day, you know, but it's, they're these, they're these seasons that there's a deadline and that is normal stress. It could even be like you're moving you're remodeling your kitchen, you know, you're getting married, you're about to have a baby, all those things, those are, those are seasons of stress. That's normal. Chronic stress is when we normalize survival mode and we think that that's the way to live. Chronic stress is continual, and three things happen. I'm a communication professor, three things actually happen in our communication that really cause relational breakdown with others, with ourselves and even with God. The first of those things is that we tend to withdraw. When you're in survival mode, it's a natural mechanism to withdraw, because you can't handle it all. And the reality is, withdrawing itself is not a bad thing, but we don't tend to communicate that we're doing it. And so to the people in our lives that we love, and to those in our workplace, we withdraw and they feel hurt by it. They misunderstand our withdrawal. We hurt ourselves by doing it, because typically how we withdraw, if you feel called, is to work more and to be on your screen, because all of those things feel controllable. So we withdraw. And a perfect example is you're talking to someone, and you can tell that they're exhausted, and then look a little bothered, and you say, Hey, are you okay? And they say, I'm fine. They might even say it, looking down at their phone while they're talking to you, I'm fine, they might cross their arms. I'm fine. Yeah, that's not a good sign. And so if you need to withdraw you, you need to tell people, Hey, I'm actually having a little bit of a hard time right now. If I don't seem like myself this week, I just want to explain why. Or, hey, you know, I don't think I can talk about this thing this week. I'm really overloaded. Can we revisit this next week? So that's communicating the withdraw, you know, or, Hey, I need to have some alone time this week. It has nothing to do with you. I just need a little alone time. That's good. That's a good job. The second thing that can happen in chronic stress is something called reduced awareness. So approximately 70% of our communication is non verbal. I'm just going to let that land for a second. 70% right? So if 70% are not the actual words that we're saying but how we're saying them, there's, like, eight different ways that nonverbal communication comes out how we're saying them. And if we have reduced awareness where we are in survival mode, and our goal is to, like, get be safe and get it done right, like you are missing 70% of the communication around you. Chances are that's going to lead to conflict. So that's a bummer. You also in that reduced awareness component. Not only are you missing out on those cues of others, you're missing out on the cues of yourself, and we become over like, almost overly aware of everything we're doing wrong. It's kind of like if there's a blemish on your face, you think everyone can see it, but really probably not, and so you become overly self aware. The third thing that happens in chronic stress is that physical tension that can lead to panic attacks, depression, accelerated heart rate, lack of sleep, just a change in the tone of voice and facial expressions that that can really create a sense of physical tension. And the problem is, when we have that kind of anxiety to others, it's usually communicated. They usually feel it as aggressiveness or passiveness, even though that's not what we're intending. It comes across as, like, really intense or like, I don't even care. And so the problem. Problem with chronic stress is that chronic stress is the genesis of burnout. We just miss so much. And so I would say when we're in that place, it is not gonna go away on its own. We have to make changes that will probably feel uncomfortable and really, really hard. So
Joshua Johnson:then, what does it look like to get out of survival mode, like, Are there steps to say, Wow, this is not healthy. This isn't working. We need to shift something here. What do we do? So
Arianna Molloy:couple things. First is course correction. Takes time, so be very realistic about the fact that it's not going to change overnight. That's the first thing. The second thing is, if we've been in survival mode, what will happen? People call it. I've heard the term Sabbath sadness, but I think we need to almost change that a little bit. It's almost like, like burnout sadness, almost doesn't have the same alliteration. But when you slow down, when you try to take a course correction, all of the emotions that you've been pushing down will rise to the surface, and it can be wildly uncomfortable and deeply depressing. And so couple things about that emotions are tunnels that we have to actually go through. We cannot avoid them, but we're also not supposed to live in the tunnel, so we have to let ourselves have a little bit of that sadness. I'm not talking about depression. I'm just talking about sadness, and to let ourselves be sad a little bit. God might be trying to tell us something in that sadness. There's something important about lament and examination, but it's an emotion, so you don't want to get stuck in the tunnel. So I would say Sabbath sadness, or that sense of lingering sadness, is not a signal that something is wrong. It's a signal that you're a human who has feelings that need to be examined. The other thing I would say is absolutely have places of accountability. So people who have a healthy calling, have some some element of like an advisory board, and it might not be official, like you might not meet together collectively in a boardroom, but you might have three to five people, or if you don't have this to set it up, three to five people who you really respect, people that you think can speak into your life, and you check in with at least One of them once a month, so that every month, you're having a place to check in with people who know you, who know your goals, who can remind you of who you are when you've forgotten. And you know, there were times in my life where they weren't even people I knew, like CS Lewis was like, on my personal board of advisors, you know, Bernie Brown was like, Okay, I'm gonna listen to what you're you're saying, and I'm going to apply that to my life. My parents are on my advisory board. Our mutual friend Debbie Pope, you know, she's someone that I met with periodically, a lot in grad school, she would have been on my advisory board. And my best friend is on my advisory board. And when I meet with them, and I know in my mind, I'm not doing well right now, I think I want to withdraw. What I actually need to do is reach out. I need to reach out to this person who I know is healthy, who's not going to tear me down, but who's going to remind me of who I am. And frankly, I need to be careful of being around these other people who are very fine people, but are probably not going to help me out. In this mode, often
Joshua Johnson:in that mode, problem mode, we are going to withdraw. We're going to be inward focused. We'll be focused on our feelings, and if we don't reach out, it also reminds me, we have to look out for other people as well, and we have to, we have to be people that reach out, because sometimes it's it's hard when you're in that space to be vulnerable enough to reach out, especially if you don't have built up relationships where you can be vulnerable. What is it? What did it take for you, then, to find those people to be vulnerable with and to open yourself up? How did you find how did you find your friends, like good friend, deep, deep soul friends that can help you. It's
Arianna Molloy:a little bit like dating. It can feel awkward. You're like, trial and error. Like, does this person get me? Do I feel good about you know myself after so, I mean, is it trial and error? You might think that this person that you've selected in your mind is going to be great, and you meet with them, you're like, I don't think so. And it's okay, you can, I mean, you don't have to move forward. I think I've because I've always been passionate about mentorship, and I love to learn from others. I've always been very watchful of like, Who do I think is making some great choices, and how can I learn from them? I guess I just automatically, like, I need to ask them to coffee, I'm going to send them an email. I want to ask some questions, and the most of the time, people love to give advice, so that, I mean, if you're not asking for a job, if you're just asking for advice, people generally want to give that. I looked at the track record of others. I smile when you're initially saying that, because I remember a very key time right after I'd had my son again, my husband and I were kind of the last to get married. And we were also kind of the last to have kids, so a lot of our friends have kids that are older. So we were going through it, you know, at a different stage. And what that means for me is I was in a different place in my career. I wasn't starting off. I was like in it, and I wanted to keep going. And my sweet, amazing, incredible parents knew that I felt called to be a professor, and they actually moved from Seattle to California. They left their community to come be grandparents and help us raise our kids so that I could keep doing what I'm doing. And my husband made changes in his job too to do the same thing. So that's pretty amazing. But I was like, How do I get back to work after, you know, having maternity leave and stuff. So I thought about the four or five women on my campus who were great scholars. They were publishing things who talked well of their spouses and who liked their kids, which actually is hard to find, all those three things, and I met with them. And I guess maybe because I'm a qualitative researcher. I came with about 10 questions, I wrote down the answers, I thematically analyzed the main code, and I realized it was like, an n of five. No, there's only five people. But I looked at that and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna apply this. And so I guess for me, mentorship is seasonal. Sometimes you meet with someone for a while and it no longer serves you or them, and that has to be okay too. Mentorship is not a covenant like marriage, so it is okay to modify those things. But I think for me, I just, I looked for people who gave me life, who inspired me, and I, I set up meetings with them, and in my mind, I'll even put a calendar reminder of like, okay, contact this person in two weeks. Contact this person in three weeks. One last thing
Joshua Johnson:before we get into final questions. Being called means that you're also focused on community, that there is an impact. How do we find impact when we're doing a job? So you're not the boss, you're not running things, you're just doing doing something. How do we find that impact so that we can keep going, that we could be healthy and have a healthy work and healthy calling. But no, it's just something we have to do so that we could provide for our family. Sure, how do we find that impact? Yeah, so
Arianna Molloy:again, to experience your paid work as a calling is great. Not everyone has to do that. They can have their paid work be a job or a career, and they might find their sense of calling in a side gig, a side hustle, or in a place of serving. I mean, I don't know any church that says, nope. We don't need any volunteers, right? So there's always places to go where you can live out that sense of contributing and serving in terms of impact, this is part of the tension of calling, is that we don't always see it. You know, unlike a career which is motivated by explicit, tangible outcomes, look, I helped make this playground happen. Look, I got a new corner office. Look, I got to take my family on vacation. Look, I got this bonus in my check. Oh, calling is more intangible, and sometimes I think that can lead to that workaholism or job vitalization, because we're wanting to see this tangible impact. When I meet with students in the moment, I don't always see the impact, but I'll tell you what, when I get these emails or texts from students who have graduated and who say, Dr Malloy, I just want to tell you what I learned is what I'm experiencing. I cry. I mean, I just like it brings tears to my eyes. And so I guess in one way, I would say, Hey everyone else, make sure you tell people when they're impacting you. We need to do a lot better of a job giving feedback. It is not enough even to honestly say, Good job explain why it was good, be specific. And so impact is an important thing to need and want. I believe that the Lord will reveal that to you as you keep doing what you're meant to do.
Joshua Johnson:Because we both had a professor in common, Debbie Pope in college, we both had her. She had a big impact on my life and love of literature, wanting to be creative and being in this space. And I know she had a big impact on you. What did you take and learn from her as you moved into the role as professor? How did she and what she did for you impacts what you are doing for students today.
Arianna Molloy:Debbie Pope, I love you forever and always. I had her as a freshman in college at a university that just wasn't the right fit for me, so I was not really that excited about other things, but when I was in her classroom, I felt seen and heard. I took a public speaking class from her, and it was as if every part of me was lit up inside with like a constellation of stars. I just felt she equipped me to understand the importance of organization and preparedness. She allowed me to be creative. She helped me feel seen and heard. She was a. Little bit eccentric, but full, full, unapologetically, full of energy. And I think she let every student who walked in be themselves, but she called them to a higher standard. At the same time, she forced us to watch ourselves after we did our talks, you know, she would record them, and that was maybe one of the best communication techniques I've ever experienced, and I do that when I do consulting. So when I'm working with corporate folks or nonprofit or especially pastoral staff, I'll have them watch themselves twice, once with the sound on, once with the sound off, and look at some of their communication patterns. That was amazing and so and she also has taught me what it means to embrace life fully at whatever stage you're in. Her energy has remained high regardless of you know the time passing. So I think when I go to my classes, I want every student in that room, the ones in the front, the ones on the side, the ones in the back, the ones who arrive early, the ones who arrive late. I want them all to know I see them and they have the capacity for more, and I want them to can you continue to be who they are, but just learn more about what that means to be critical thinkers so that they are not taken advantage of by by messages that really aren't meant for them to adopt. So
Joshua Johnson:good. Ariana, if people go out, get your book healthy calling, what do you hope for your readers?
Arianna Molloy:Yeah, thank you. Well, I'd be so grateful first of all, if you do get it and if you want to leave me a review, I'd be super grateful for that, because that helps other people know whether or not it's worth to read. I wrote this book imagining sitting across from from the reader with a coffee to walk alongside them, I would hope that they don't read it, try to read it overnight, that they read it, you know, allowing the process. There's questions at the end of every chapter for them to think about. It's a great book to do in a small group or a book study, but I think my hope would be that they would have language to name feelings and experiences that have held them in a kind of prison, because when we name something, the chains unlock, and when we name something, the door opens, and when we name something, we are empowered to move forward. So that would be my hope. I'm not going to get all the answers. I'm still learning myself. I won't ever promise that it's easy, but I will promise that we can experience growth. And if you've been burnt out, or you are burnt out, you do not have to stay there. That is not how the rest of your life has to look
Joshua Johnson:so good if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give? I
Arianna Molloy:heard this combination of a phrase recently. I just love it so much. And I would say you are never too much, and you are always enough. I love
Joshua Johnson:that. Can I take that too? Please? I give it to you. I need that. Anything you've been reading or watching lately you could recommend,
Arianna Molloy:oh my gosh. Well, I fast to you as a full time professor. And I have a young kid, and we help out with my parents, who have some different health needs. I don't know that we have a whole lot of time. I am still savoring the liturgy of everyday life and also practicing the way. I actually really love fiction. So I'm reading this fantastic book about an author, a scientist, who lives in the world of fairies, like she studies them, like actual, like it's existing. It's, it's really lovely. I try to read something of CS Lewis's almost at all times. So that's, that's real. And yeah, I mean, we're reading, we're watching all kinds of shows, but I don't know if I'd recommend them. You know, I have really been enjoying listening to podcasts like yours, because I think podcasts are a way to connect to others that we don't have time to talk with in person, or don't have the ability to but to just keep learning. I think is, is really, really important.
Joshua Johnson:Well, healthy calling should be available anywhere you get books. So go and get healthy calling anywhere else you'd like to point people to how could they connect with you?
Arianna Molloy:Great. So you can go to my website, arianamoloy.com and so we, I have a lot of resources there on meaningful work calling and just generally, healthy communication tips in the workplace. And if you want to reach out to me, I'd be so happy to chat about anything else. There's a way to do that on my website, Ariana malloy.com but
Joshua Johnson:she is not the best conversation partner about basketball. But anything else, if you want to connect, if you want to talk to Ariana,
Arianna Molloy:that's true. I mean, I can make the Dodgers because we are a Dodgers family, or the Seahawks, because I'm from Seattle, Go Hawks, but yeah, basketball, I just don't, I don't know that I can contribute
Joshua Johnson:much. There you go. There you go. Big, a big Seahawks fan over here from Seattle as well. So Ariana, this was such a fantastic conversation, it made me want to go take you and your husband out to dinner. Go to Din Tai Fung with some Xiao Long Bao, and that would be amazing. That would be fun. So I would love to continue this conversation and continue to talk to you, because it's great, because healthy calling and healthy work is such an important thing to know that we can work out our calling in a healthy way, in a way that gives honor and glory to God. But. In doesn't lead to burnout, that it doesn't lead to a place where, okay, I'm done, finished. We can't do this anymore. What incredible, incredible research that you have done so that you could find places where we can be healthy in our work. So thank you for this conversation. I loved it. Thank you, me too. You
