143. Becoming — Growing the Capacity Your Dream Requires

In the last episode of Dates, Mates & Babies, Jason and Lauren talked about honoring the one who dared to dream. But dreaming is only the beginning. In this episode, they explore the next phase of the journey: becoming.

The dream isn’t usually the problem—and the delay isn’t punishment. Often, the space between dreaming and fulfillment is where the real work happens. As Lauren says, “God cares less about giving you the dream quickly than forming you to carry it well.”

Jason and Lauren discuss the gap between desire and capacity—how desire reveals what we want, but capacity determines what we can actually sustain. From marriage to motherhood to calling, many of the things we long for require emotional, relational, and spiritual maturity that takes time to develop.

They unpack what becoming actually looks like in real life: conflict that exposes ego, responsibility that reveals control issues, feedback that surfaces insecurity, and hidden seasons where faithfulness grows without applause. As Jason shares, true maturity isn’t just about achievement—it’s about emotional regulation, humility, and consistency.

The conversation also addresses common lies we believe during seasons of growth: that we’re behind, that detours mean we missed it, or that if something were meant to be it would come easily. Instead, Jason and Lauren invite listeners to see these seasons as intentional formation, not failure.

They close with practical ways to build capacity—growing emotional resilience, staying faithful in hidden seasons, taking ownership of personal triggers, and learning to do small things consistently over time.

Because becoming isn’t about striving to be impressive. It’s about growing sturdy enough to carry the life you once dreamed about.

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Transcript

Welcome And Series Context

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We're the Balatons and we are passionate about people.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Every human was created for fulfilling relational connection.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

But that's not always what comes easiest.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

We know this because of our wide range of personal experience as well as our years of working with people.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

So we're going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family, and parenting to encourage, entertain, and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Welcome back, everyone, to Dates, Mates and Babies with the Valitons. It's great to be with y'all.

Announcing The Memoir Project

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Yes, good to be back. We are going to be talking today, kind of working our way through the next episode in a little short series that we started a few weeks ago, actually. And guys, we told you in that first episode, we told you about a really fun project that I have been working on for the last year. I've been writing a book, I wrote a book this past year, which was really fun. It's it's a memoir. It's about this really common life arc, the story arc that happens in the life of every person, really. And it's this process of dreaming, becoming, and letting go in life. And we can see that pattern all over in our life. But for me specifically, you know, my journey of motherhood is something that I had a lot of fun writing about. And in speaking to these subjects, in our last episode, we talked a lot about the dreaming phase of life and how important that is, why we actually have to go through that season, how dreaming often introduces us to our design. And then we often, as women, I think men probably experience this to some degree too, but as women in particular, we often get to a spot where we feel a bit disoriented when the things that we've imagined don't come to pass quite like we like we expect. Yeah. Well, today we're gonna kind of keep going in this little mini-series. And I want to tell you, the book is done, which is really exciting. It's like this, it's there, it's ready to rock and roll. We're still in the process of figuring out when the right time is to launch this book, you guys. So stay tuned for that. But in the meantime, we're gonna enjoy kind of covering some of these top of mind topics.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Yeah.

Defining The Becoming Season

Every Dream Has A Price

SPEAKER_00 2:33

But yeah, today we're gonna talk about what I've been calling the becoming phase of life. And it really is as we transition into more maturity, we are no longer just sitting with our dreams and our expectations, but there are there's some reality that has, you know, we have the rubber has met the road and we're in reality in this becoming phase of life. And I think different people might call it different things, but it really truly is that capacity forming season where we grow into ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Yeah, when I think about this, I think the phrase that comes to mind is every dream has a price. And what that means to me is a lot of things. Like if you have a dream of being in shape, the price for becoming in shape is a lot of physical exercise. Yeah, it's a lot of self-restraint. If you dream of becoming a great mother, well, the price that you pay for becoming a great mother is building the capacity to mother children, yeah. To take something that is untrained, unlearned, untaught, and nurture it to a really incredible, beautiful adult. And this there is this gap between the desire or the dream and the price that we pay.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

The capacity to actually handle that dream.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

And I found that in my life I've very much overestimated the cost.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Underestimated the cost.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Underestimated, yes, sorry. Yeah. Very much underestimated the cost of what where I'm at today and what I need to do in order to be able to sustain what it is that I'm dreaming about. Yeah. Or even actualize or realize what it is. And I think I don't think that there's I don't think that God is going like I'm going to selfishly or I'm going to not make all these things happen in your life.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

I think that in a lot of circumstances, like I for me, sorry. I'm just processing through this. Like with Liam, I haven't thought I'm going to make life really tough for him.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

I'm going to find ways to make it tough.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

No. Life is Life will find you and it's tough.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Life is tough, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Like I'm going to be there with you and help form you along in this process. Right. And I think that God's a lot like that. Like I'm with you and I'm going to help you along in this process.

Waiting, Delay, And Formation

When Fulfillment Feels Unfulfilling

Motherhood Expectations Versus Reality

Growth Inside The Dream

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Yeah, I think a lot of us, every one of us will experience at one point in life or another, the strong desire for the fulfillment of a dream and the waiting that we endure because timing often doesn't happen as we hope or as we expect. So there's a waiting component and there's a lot of formation that happens in the waiting. And I write a lot about this in my book because, you know, that's a large part of my story. Our story is one of the deepest desires of my heart was to birth and raise my own babies. And there was a huge delay in that compared to what I had expected, right? There's another kind, though, of becoming, there's another type of formation that happens. And it's actually when you're walking out the thing. And so it's not always just about waiting, it's not always just about delay. There's actually a lot of formation that takes place in the walking out of the dream fulfilled. And I think that for a lot of us, one of the most disorienting things is when a dream does come to pass or you're walking in the fulfillment of something, and it is far less satisfying than you thought it would be. So for example, you long to be married. Maybe you're in a dating relationship, you're excited about the prospect of marriage, you get engaged, you plan a wedding, you get married. And then six months into marriage, you realize wow, our conflict resolution skills are garbage. And we are not thriving in this area. Like we keep coming up on something that's really painful and hard. And marriage, which you've spent your entire life dreaming about, is something that is requiring more of you than you expected. Or for me, you know, motherhood. We we got married and had uh we had our three kiddos right out the gate from your previous marriage. And so on that level, you know, things happened right away. Well, I mean, that was a that was a huge dream of mine. And I remember considering it such this like wild, miraculous provision. Like, I get a husband and three kids out of this deal. This is amazing. And some of the logistical parts of being a parent were things that I had been ready for for years. You know, I was 25 years old. I was ready. I, you know, I knew what I was bringing to the table. I was gonna get this ship in shape and we were gonna be on a schedule and I'm driving to soccer practices and I'm making meals and I'm doing all this logistics stuff that I had considered the role of a parent. And then I get into it and I realize, wow, I never factored in the emotional growth it would require of me to become a less selfish person, a less controlling person, a less afraid person. And I'm finding myself in my desire come true of being a parent, and I've never been so uncomfortable in my life. And then we have babies. And I think to myself, well, this is this is my actual the epitome of dreams come true, is I get to be pregnant, I get to birth my own kids. That was not a guarantee for us. It was a miracle that it happened. And within the first few days of bringing our little girl home, I was so overwhelmed and exhausted that I I felt a measure of regret. Like, God, can you take her back, please? Like, I've ruined our life. We had it made. We had done all these years of parenting. So we get into this sweet spot where we think we've we've got it made, and it ends up being so much harder than you really imagine. And I think those are the times in life where you just really realize that, you know, there's a becoming and a formation that happen as you wait for the thing to come to pass. And then there's a becoming and a formation that takes place when you're doing the thing. And it's not an arrival. Like a dream fulfilled is not an arrival at a destination, it's an invitation into a lot more growth.

Lies That Derail Becoming

Capacity Is King

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah. I often think that the hardest part is the lies that happen inside of the becoming. Because it takes so much effort and energy to really stay on track and to have vision. And as soon as you don't have vision anymore, you have hopelessness. And hopelessness keeps you in bed, right? And so the lies that happen are things like if it was meant to be, it would be easier, or everyone else is further along. Or like, I shouldn't have to grow this much, or I shouldn't have to do this much. Those types of things create so much hopelessness inside of you that even when you're on the journey, you don't want to be on it because you feel like you're doing something wrong, instead of going like, wow, I'm doing something really hard, but it's really important. I'm doing something really challenging, but look how far I've gone. And as soon as you get to the point where you are no longer believing the truth about your season, or as soon as like the enemy or whatever gets into a place where you think that the work that you're doing is pointless, is purposeless, you begin to go downhill. It reminds me of when Nehemiah was rebuilding the walls and Sambalat and Tobiah were coming to him and they were saying things like, even if a fox jumped on it, it's gonna break, it's not gonna hold. The work that you're doing is you're doing it out of your own glory, you know, like you're trying to, you're trying to get everyone to praise you. You know, all those things that Sambala and Tobiah were accusing, it's the accusation. Yeah. And I think this is the most important part in my mind in the becoming season because I think more often than not, this is where people lose it. And what can be a really beautiful, like, okay, I'm doing something hard, but there's a lot of purpose in it. I'm doing something challenging, but this is what I've dreamed about my whole life. Or I'm I'm in a season that I didn't expect to be in, but I know God's with me. Look at all the things, look at the fruit, or look at all the things that He's done in my life, or I'm just gonna trust him in this hard thing and see what happens. When we do that, it builds it it builds a bunch of capacity in us. And I think capacity really is the energy to do life without capacity, life like becoming is impossible. And to the to the uh degree that you have capacity determines really how quickly, how far you can go, how much you enjoy life. And so I really we should talk a bit about building capacity because in the becoming, capacity's king.

Building Emotional Capacity

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Yeah, absolutely. I think I think one of the most mature things we can do is when we find ourselves in a season where you're like, wow, there's a lot of tension here. There's a lot of rub. This is really hard. I am not finding this to be fun or easy. That is a great indicator that you're in a growth, an invitation to growth season. And if you can lean into that rather than have the attitude, how do we just make it through? If you can really lean into it, then you can be intentional about your growth in a few different key areas. I think when we're looking at growing capacity inside of a hard season or in a becoming season of formation, we're looking at building emotional capacity, spiritual capacity, relational capacity, and then leadership, leadership capacity in some, in some sense. So, you know, emotionally, I think there's a couple keys to making sure that in a becoming season, we're making the most out of growing our emotional capacity. And that's our ability to manage our internal world regardless of circumstance. So we're learning to stay in peace under stress. We're learning to stay regulated emotionally inside of our nervous system when things are triggering. We're looking to grow our ability to handle conflict and resolve conflict with people in our lives.

Spiritual Capacity And Faithfulness

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Can I add one thing to this? I think a big part of building emotional capacity is not shoving your emotions down. And we've talked a lot about this before of going and either practicing the emotion wheel or just getting really good at going, wow, I feel really hopeless today or I feel really sad today, or having a way to unpack what's going on inside of you. Because if you think about it, like if you're stuffing, if you stuff a jar full, you can't put anything else in that jar. And capacity means that there's room. And so emptying out those emotions on a regular basis so that you can actually stay current and you're no longer being swallowed by the things that you're stuffing.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Absolutely. Yeah. And then, you know, talking about spiritual capacity, there's always an opportunity to grow inside of our inside of our trust in God when we hit hard times. And I think ultimately our job is to stay faithful.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Our job is to stay faithful and to practice trusting that the Lord doesn't ever change and that he's for us, even in hard times. And so, you know, whether it's in a hidden season or a trial season or in a season of lack, our job is to stay faithful and obedient and to let the Lord work and expand us in those spaces.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Yeah, you see where David strengthens himself and the Lord. All through Psalms, you see David like, My life's horrible, like my body's aching. But you, oh God, are a strong tower, you're a fortress, you're a relief in my times of trouble. And you see David grow his spiritual capacity in those times because he's remembering who God is and and the different names of God and what God's going to do. And I just think that that's so massive, right? If we can continually put who is God and and what is God doing in my life. And man, you can just really strengthen yourself so much.

Relational Ownership And Growth

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Absolutely. Relationally, there's always space to grow. And when we're in those seasons where, okay, I'm walking this out. Maybe I'm waiting, maybe I'm in the waiting time, but often I'm walking it out. And there is relational tension that comes and helps indicate for us that there's room to grow. And so I think we have to get really serious about not outsourcing our growth to our spouse or our pastor or anybody else. We have to be able to take a lot of radical ownership over our relationships, our friendships, our marriages, our relationships with our kids and understand that in spaces where I'm feeling triggered or in spaces where I'm challenged to back away from connection, that we're really choosing to lean in and grow the areas that we know we need to grow in order to have fruit in our relationships.

Leadership Through Small Habits

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah. The last one is leadership capacity. To me, this is do a great job at keeping your own promises, at leading yourself well. And I think a great start for that is you know, reading the tiny habits or atomic habits book, but it's build endurance. Yeah. Build endurance through small little tiny accumulations of really, really good habits. If you keep your promises to yourself, the things that you say you're gonna do every single day, then you are worth following. Yeah. You are trustworthy, you are steadfast and steady. And I think as a leader, when you're building your leadership capacity, those are the most important things. You know, just answer the question would I want to follow me? Am I building trust with the people that are around me, with my kids, with my spouse, with my workplace? Am I doing the small things every single day that set me up for success? And if you're not, then that's a great place to speed up this process and to maximize this process of becoming that the Lord has us in. You know, the Israelites went around and round and round and round and around not the wilderness, not because God didn't want them to get to the promised land.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Right.

Formed For The Promised Land

SPEAKER_01 19:02

He was intent on forming them into the people that could handle the promised land.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

And so until they were able to actually drive out the lies, the trauma, the past pain, and grow their leadership capacity, they didn't get into the promised land. And so I just think it's really important in our life. Like the this these seasons of becoming are, depending upon how we see them and how proactive we are in them, actually creates a ton of joy and a ton of fruit in our lives. And we can really, really grow and use these to our benefit.

Spot The Stretch And Lean In

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Yeah, absolutely. So I think, you know, recognizing where is life stretching you, what is happening that is not meeting my expectations. Where am I really challenged and where am I finding tension? And those are places where, gosh, with a lot of intentionality and leaning into some of those growth spots, those opportunities, we can actually make the most of these becoming formation seasons.

Thanks And Listener Actions

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yeah, it's true. Guys, thank you so much for being with us today. If you enjoyed it, please send this episode to somebody. Also, go on to our podcast and leave a review. Those help so much. Otherwise, we will see you next week.