What Blocks Real Authenticity?

If you’ve ever walked away from a conversation thinking, Why didn’t I just say what I really meant?, you’re not alone. We talk about why authenticity is so hard even when we want it, and how hiding, performing, and impression management quietly reshape our relationships with God, ourselves, and other people.

We start by grounding authenticity as being real, whole, and undivided, where our inner life and outer life align. Then we name the internal pressures that sabotage that alignment: fear of rejection, social and cultural expectations, shame and insecurity, the need for control, conflict avoidance, lack of self-awareness, perfectionism, and wounds from the past. Along the way we connect the dots to Scripture (including Genesis 3 and Jesus at the temple) and to emotional maturity, showing how these forces work under the surface long before we notice them.

From there we shift to the outward behaviours that show up when those pressures win: pretending and protecting. Masks can look like polish, competence, or even manufactured vulnerability, while walls can look like withdrawal, withholding, numbing, and chronic avoidance. We also get painfully practical about people pleasing, overcommitting, and performance, and why “God only meets us in reality” becomes a turning point for real spiritual formation.

We close with praxis you can try this week: root your identity in Christ, name the pressures that hook you, and notice the behaviours that signal you’re drifting from your true self. If this helped you, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Authenticity Matters

SPEAKER_08 0:02

Welcome to Praxis, a podcast where we explore how to practice and embody the way of Jesus in our everyday lives. Thanks so much for taking the time to listen. So last time we kicked off a brand new series on authenticity. While authenticity is enjoying a moment in the cultural spotlight right now, its value is nothing new. It's deeply rooted in the biblical vision of being fully known and fully loved. As human beings created in the image of God, we are wired for relationship. We were made to know and to be known. And yet, so often we hide, we perform, and we manage impressions by burying our weaknesses. Slowly we begin living divided and inauthentic lives. The truth is, real relationship is impossible while hiding. Genuine connection requires courage, the willingness to show up vulnerably and authentically. So in this series, we're exploring what authenticity is, what gets in the way of it, and what it takes to pursue it. And our relationship with God, with ourselves, and others. Today we want to discuss what gets in the way of authenticity. So let's get into it.

Allergy Banter And Emotional Allergies

SPEAKER_08 1:22

I'm Katie.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

I'm Josiah. It's good to be with you, friends.

Mac 1:26

Um at the time of recording this, it is the very end of April, which is allergy season.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Um do either of you have allergies? No?

Josiah 1:39

I do, but I I found the right medication. So it's not an issue right now.

Mac 1:46

Okay. Uh what's your medication?

Josiah 1:48

Uh flonase. Flonase. I mean the off-brand one, but yeah. Um Yeah, I have tried I've had seasonal allergies like my whole life. This has always been seasons where your eyes are itchy and burning and just not running down all the time.

Mac 2:07

Oh, it sounds awful.

Josiah 2:08

It's terrible.

Mac 2:09

Yeah, I thought of it because Griffin woke up the other day and like one of his eyes was pretty much like swollen. Almost shut.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Oh no.

Mac 2:18

Of course he has almond eyes, so they're kind of like smaller to begin with. But that's when we realized, oh, you have you've got some allergies. And he really stinks at taking medication. So Yeah.

Josiah 2:29

Well, flonase is like the the spray up your nose. And I have taken everything under the sun. Um and that's the only one that if I take it every day, keeps off the worst of the symptoms.

SPEAKER_08 2:42

Like every day year round?

Josiah 2:43

Or every day just No, just when when the season starts, I get a bottle and you just do it every day. Because it's like last 24 hours, and the more longer it's in your system, the more it'll I don't think you're supposed to do it year round. Like that wouldn't be good. No. No, I'm just saying I do it every day in the when the season's bad. Okay. But like middle of the summer, it's never an issue. It's always beginning of the spring and then fall. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_08 3:08

So Do you have allergies, Mac?

Mac 3:11

I do not. I feel like I'm allergic to other things, though. They're not like, you know, like certain habits and behaviors that other people exhibit. Certain certain personalities. Should I ask? Should I ask? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, we probably shouldn't go down that rabbit trail of the things that I feel allergic to.

Josiah 3:29

Um emotional allergies.

Mac 3:31

Yeah, yeah. I have emotional allergies. Yeah, totally. And I talk about those with my therapist. So that's funny. Um, and this is not that place as much as you want me to be vulnerable and completely transparent.

SPEAKER_08 3:44

Let me tell you about authenticity.

unknown 3:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 3:47

I mean, I've got my coffee allergy. I feel like that is my um, that is my cross to beer.

Josiah 3:52

It's a thorn in your side.

SPEAKER_08 3:53

Yeah, I don't need any more.

Mac 3:54

To be fair, I would imagine you two have some emotional allergies too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 4:00

Yeah. I'm sure I do, but I probably lack the self-awareness to be able to name them. But when I figure them out, I will let you know.

Mac 4:07

You're allergic to self-awareness.

SPEAKER_08 4:08

It's a great place to be.

Mac 4:11

Well, speaking of all things, allergies, right?

Josiah 4:14

Yeah.

Mac 4:15

Don't be allergic to authenticity.

Josiah 4:17

Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

A Clear Definition Of Authenticity

Josiah 4:19

So um, as Katie said earlier, we're we're in a new series on authenticity. Our last episode um was our first one, and we spent some time defining what authenticity is and what it isn't. Um authenticity is actually essential to our relationship with God, ourselves, and others. And ultimately, we believe that even before Brene Brown made it made it popular, it was actually a core value for Jesus. Yeah, eat that, Brene Brown.

SPEAKER_08 4:46

It didn't start with Brene Brown.

unknown 4:48

No.

Josiah 4:50

Um so we uh we came up with a uh a definition, like a key definition, and it's this authenticity is being real or genuine, whole and undivided before God and others, and existing in a state where our inner life and our outer life align. So today, yeah, we we want to talk about what it uh what gets in the way of us showing up and relating authentically. So if authenticity is being real and genuine, whole and undivided, um, and our inner and outer life aligning, what are some of those things that get in the way of this?

Mac 5:28

Yeah, I mean, picking up on that um last phrase of the definition where you talk about the inner life and the outer life being aligned or congruent, um, I think it's helpful to then attend to like both of those. So in other words, I think it's helpful to differentiate between the internal pressures that act on us and the external behaviors then that we exhibit uh when we're being inauthentic. So, in other words, by internal pressures, I mean pressures that sort of act on us, that we feel and sense. And then when we submit to them or pivot out of them, it leads to external behaviors that aren't authentic to who we are. That makes sense. And I I kind of ran a little bit of an experiment over the past few months with some of the leader's journey training I did at a couple group trainings. I asked, you know, maybe 150 people or whatever in tables. I said, hey, come with a come up with a list at your tables to name what internal pressures get in the way of you showing up authentically. And it was really interesting to compare their list to what I had come up with and sort of like pool the best, you know what I mean? Pool people's best thinking when it comes to reflecting. Yes, Katie, reflecting and self-awareness. On like, hey, when I show up inauthentically, here's what I think was acting on me or I was feeling on the inside that led to these external behaviors. So I wonder if we could maybe just like divide those up and spend some time talking about here's some of those internal pressures. And then having done that, let's like look at some of the behavioral ways that we tend to show up inauthentically. Right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 7:16

Sounds good.

Mac 7:17

Um, I'll kick us off. And have you ever received an email or maybe the text message where someone seems to be shouting at you? Like where it's it's like all caps. If they could italicize it, underline it, bold it, and all cap it. You know what I mean? Like one of those.

SPEAKER_07 7:37

Now you can add the effects on the iPhone too of like fireworks, boom.

Mac 7:41

Yeah, like you open it up and there's fireworks in your face. Happy birthday. Yeah. Well, this first one that I'm gonna name in terms of an internal pressure, I feel like it could be capped or fireworked.

Fear Of Rejection Runs The Show

Mac 7:54

Um, because it sort of is present in some of the other ones. Um, it's it's a really important one, and it's just the fear of rejection.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Yeah.

Mac 8:02

You know, because we're we are afraid of how someone else might respond, we don't show up as ourselves. Because we're afraid of experiencing maybe relational disapproval, uh, we don't show up authentically. And I imagine this could be experienced in a thousand different ways, depending on your personality and the social situations you're in. From as something as simple as maybe someone says something that you disagree with, and rather than you expressing your own conviction, you stay quiet because you're afraid that if you expressed it, they might it might impact the relationship. They might reject you or distance from you, or maybe something as silly as you're out shopping with your family and you're like, hey, I really like this, and everybody else like is like, that is the stupidest, like, and then you don't get it, you know what I mean, or something like that, where it's like all these lit from little to big ways, all these different ways. And it's so funny watching my kids, you know, in early high school and middle school, because this is like the name of the game. Like they are filtering everything through. If I do this, say this, dress this way, whatever, is it going to lead to more social acceptance or social rejection? And I just, you know, wonder how much that um works against them showing up as they are, and then how much we are just like middle school, us adults, we're just middle school uh students in adult bodies.

Josiah 9:38

Yeah. That is true. Even in like a smaller way, like music, music preference. I wonder sometimes how much of our music preference is actually like what we listen to in private if we weren't telling anybody else what we were listening to.

SPEAKER_08 9:53

Okay, it's so funny you say that because as Mac was talking, I had this memory come up when I was sitting around with a group of friends, like in my mid-20s, probably, and everyone's like, hey, what should we listen to? And I was like, Oh, how about um Matchbox 20? And everyone looks at me and was like, No, no, I was like, Oh, note to solve.

SPEAKER_07 10:08

Not Matchbox 20. Matchbox 20.

Josiah 10:11

You're like, oh yeah, just kidding. I'm a stupid. Yeah, yeah.

Mac 10:16

Matchbox 20 sucks. I remember in the fourth grade, spin doctors.

SPEAKER_08 10:21

Uh no. I couldn't name you a soft. You're a little older than me.

Mac 10:26

I'm totally old. I'm old and naming decrepit. How older are you than me?

SPEAKER_08 10:30

He's 42. You're 37. Okay, I'm I'm right smack between you two.

Mac 10:35

I'm actually 43.

SPEAKER_08 10:37

Oh, you are?

Mac 10:38

That's how old I am, Katie. I thought you were 42. It's bad. I'm getting um old. I'm nearing decrepitude. I'm at that stage where my body is breaking down. My body's breaking down. I can pull a hamstring while putting on socks. That's how old I am. Um, you'll recognize this song. I just pulled up Spotify.

SPEAKER_07 11:01

Yeah, it's such a good song.

Mac 11:04

This was big when I was in Adam Lefton. Doing that. Fourth or fifth grade um Spin Doctor's Two Princess. And I remember like listening to it over and over and over again so I could familiarize myself with the lyrics so that if it came on on the bus or like I could sing it look so cool.

SPEAKER_07 11:24

Yes, I did that with the chumbawomba song. Oh gosh, babies.

Mac 11:30

I listened to Matchbox 20 for hours and I could know every lyric, and then my friends didn't want to listen to it. Yeah. Chumbawamba.

SPEAKER_08 11:40

Yeah, I wonder I wonder if, like, I I totally agree with you, Mike, and yet I wonder like how much we realize we're doing that. Like, how much do we realize what what we're doing is actually being filtered through this question of like, how is this going to land? Because I could tell you, I probably do that and don't even realize it. Like you're just thinking, oh, I'm um, you know, having a conversation. And yet, how much is sort of under the neath the surface of our self-awareness?

Mac 12:07

I read an article recently by a therapist named Amanda E. White. And the title of the article grabbed my attention because it was called, Of course you care what other people think. And it was really interesting because what she noted was for most of human history, other people's opinions of you determined if you survived. So social rejection wasn't just about like embarrassment. Like, oh, I like Matchbox 20, and everybody else doesn't, or I don't know the lyrics to chumbawamba. Um, it was actually very dangerous if your tribe cast you out, excommunicated you, you were alone against predators, starvation, and everything else that could kill you. Right? This is why, like, excommunication in scripture, for instance, with the Israelites, it's a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Yeah.

Mac 12:54

Um, and so the real problem she names is that it's not that you don't care, it's what you do with that caring. And she sort of kind of, I don't know, tries to find a middle ground between completely ignoring um other people's opinions as if you don't care at all. Because sometimes that can be a different form of inauthenticity.

Josiah 13:13

Like, I don't care about I don't care what anybody thinks. The second someone says, I don't care what anybody thinks, I just think you're trying to you obviously care what someone else thinks. Because you wouldn't have said it out loud if you didn't care that I thought that you don't think about what people think. Yes.

Mac 13:32

So she sort of tries to uh weave this middle road, a third way between not caring what anybody thinks and um spiraling into like, you know, depression or whatever because you didn't know the lyrics to the song or whatever it is. Chumba wobble. So, in other words, it's very we need that song playing right now. Um, it's very similar to what we've named in other episodes, like around emotional maturity and not just reacting between the stimulus and the response, you have a choice. And the choice when you're facing fear rejection is to determine how you want to respond. Right? So under social pressure, you might go, I don't even hire, I just heard about matchbox 20. I don't even know who that is. I was just kidding. Or you might go, no, I really like Matchbox 20. Maybe we should listen to this song, friends, you know.

SPEAKER_08 14:25

And what you're saying is it giving yourself some space between um like hearing what someone else says and deciding how to respond allows you to to kind of grapple with that fear.

Mac 14:38

Yeah, I think I I think what the article is naming, and I agree with is having some agency over how much it's acting on you. Between completely dismissing the fear of rejection and pretending it doesn't exist isn't helpful, nor is allowing it to dictate your life. There seems to be some a lot of room on the spectrum between those two ends to choose how much it's going to determine how you show up.

SPEAKER_08 15:03

Yeah, that makes sense. And being aware of it is probably a first step.

Mac 15:05

You don't ignore it, you don't submit to it, but you respond to it in principle.

SPEAKER_08 15:09

Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Uh can I name another one?

Mac 15:14

Yeah, go for it.

Cultural Pressure And Fitting In

SPEAKER_08 15:15

I would say social and cultural pressures. And I think this could be a lot of these, as you said, could be could be related. But um, yeah, I think one of the biggest barriers to authenticity is just the pressure to fit in. And again, I would say oftentimes without even realizing it's happening. But if we think about it, it's almost like every environment we're in has unspoken rules, right? Like what kind of emotions are acceptable in this environment, what kind of personality is rewarded, what kind of faith expression is normal. Um, in church spaces, that might look like feeling like you always need to be doing well spiritually or have the right answers about God. Um, in parenting, it could look like trying to live up to like this ideal version of who you think you're supposed to be. So I just think we adapt our behavior based on like the social and cultural pressures around us, and then over time we can start to lose touch with which what's actually true of us. Like we get we begin to be formed by the expectations of the different environments that we're in.

Mac 16:08

It's almost like you're accenting the first one in a slightly different way, because of course fear and rejection is still there, but you're saying, hey, there seems to be cultural norms that permeate every environment. And if we deviate from those, we we feel pressure to conform, right? Like when it comes to your gender, I would imagine women feel a pressure to conform to certain roles or certain expectations. Men do as well, right? And and so on. We could go into each environment and go, here are the cultural norms or traditions that are in place that everybody feels obligated to sort of fit into. Here's the mold. And oftentimes that mold may not fit authentically with who you are. So then what do you do?

SPEAKER_08 16:51

Yeah. Well, and I think where this becomes really obvious is when you visit a foreign country, you know, you guys have traveled you've traveled, all of a sudden you're in a brand new environment. You want to know an embarrassing story that just comes to mind as I'm talking?

Mac 17:01

I would love to.

SPEAKER_08 17:02

I um so we had a foreign exchange student from Germany when I was in high school. And then when I was like 18, my summer after senior year, I went to stay with her family for a while. And my first meal, like I had just gotten off the plane, got settled, first meal. Um, I sat down with her family, and there was like a water bottle at my table, probably a little bigger than like our average size water bottle. And I like opened it and like took I took a swig of it. And then after I put it down, they started passing it around the table and pouring some into their teeny tiny cups. And I realized, oh, that was the water bottle that was supposed to be for the table, like for everyone. But in America, everything's like bigger, right? And giant. So it looked like a normal water bottle that we would just pick up at a gas station. And I was like, note to self, the water bottles are not, you know, personal here. They're for sharing. So just to say, every and I think every environment has something like that. Like there is a there is a pressure or an expectation that you operate in a certain way. And it's just probably a lot more subtle, like to a point where we don't really realize it because we're just so used to operating in those systems.

Mac 17:59

Whoopsadaisy.

SPEAKER_08 18:00

Whoopsies.

Mac 18:01

Can I save this moment by introducing you to Chumbawamba?

Josiah 18:06

Who awesome? Matchbox 20.

SPEAKER_08 18:11

I have been I stand by my love for Matchbox 20.

Mac 18:14

Yeah. I don't mind it. My sister actually gave me a Matchbox uh 20 C D, that's how old I am, in uh probably high school. She was a little bit, she's older than me. And she just the note in the you know gift was trust me on this one.

SPEAKER_07 18:31

Oh funny. That's all it says. Which one was it?

Mac 18:34

I don't know. Okay. Um I listened to it for a while and it was enjoyable, but not like top tier. You know.

SPEAKER_08 18:44

I mean, you're not I listen, I had CDs. You probably had CDs, right, Joseph? Yeah. Okay. The big black binder of all the CDs that we drove around with the Sharpies for different mixes for different things.

Mac 18:53

Yep. Um, one of the things that gets gets at this for me, I've been sort of obsessed with this text for a while, like a couple months now, is Jesus at the temple when he's 12 years old. I think I might have talked about this at the during our last recording, but I'm still just like reading it over and over and over again. And it seems to be exactly what you're talking about. That there was uh cultural expectations about how Jesus was to behave, almost like a herd mentality. Like they were they were traveling together. This was the tradition, this was the custom. They're in uh Jerusalem for the Passover, then they're gonna travel as a group back to their hometown. Like the the context is familial norms, cultural norms, and this group inertia. And Jesus very much, not out of rebellion, but out of alignment with his father, does something different. And it sort of creates a panic moment for Mary and Joseph. And when they find him in the temple attending to his father's business, they're like, How could you do this to us? And he's like, But didn't you know like what I would be about? That isn't just like straight up rebellion. He's like clarifying for them that I'm going to be aligned with my father and about my father's business. And by the way, it's going to upset norms, family norms, cultural norms, expectations you have of me, expectations other people have of me. And I think what that's been doing in my heart over the past couple months is just going, where am I blindly following norms and expectations so as not to upset or offend or whatever? And how might that be getting in the way of like being aligned with what God's asking me to do?

Josiah 20:42

Yeah. Yeah, if you don't think you're influenced by this one as much, um, you know, just imagine going back home to family and uh I mean, even you could even do it as an experiment. Just uh go back home to your family and uh pretend like you have different political convictions than just than your family does.

Mac 21:04

Just make it and see what happens.

Josiah 21:05

Yeah, just see what happens. Like you'd see that, like, oh, there is a current going one way. And if I were to define myself differently, this would be very, very disruptive. Yes. Um, yeah, so let's name another one, name another one.

Shame And Insecurity Make Us Hide

Josiah 21:21

Um, and I think this one I would argue is probably might be at the root of most of them is shame and insecurity. You feel like parts of yourself, or maybe you yourself as a whole are either unworthy, unlovable, and we do a fair amount of things driven by this that keep us hidden. Um you know, we uh may uh be aware of those parts of ourself that someone else deems less than, and underneath it all, it's like, well, I can't let anybody know that. I can't expose that part of myself to these people. Because you know. Because like then um then the gig is up, the truth is out, and I'm you know I'm not as good as these other people. There's lots of comparison that sort of drives this idea that I can't really be myself, fully myself, in any given moment. Because that's too scary.

Mac 22:21

This is where Genesis 3, I think, is so insightful because when it describes Adam and Eve before they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it says that they were naked and felt no shame. They didn't have anything to hide, anything to lose, anything to fear, like they could be completely open and transparent with one another. And then the author makes that notation that, like, after they eat of the tree, what do they do? They hide from one another and sow fig leaves. And I just think what you're narrating is the presence of shame, right? It it's like shame takes root in their lives, and what does it cause them to do? Hide and cover up, and now they're not uh their authentic selves with one another. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 22:59

Yeah, I feel like my kids often do this. Like if they know they did something wrong, one particular comes to mind. Like Which one? Maybe you can guess by the pronouns. Okay. If she knows she did something wrong, uh no, she she goes and hides and doesn't want to talk about it. And it's like you can just see the shame and how powerful that is. And so as a parent, kind constantly trying to counteract, like, yes, you did something wrong, but like we can talk about it.

Josiah 23:23

Yeah. Yeah. I have I have a daughter who um clearly feels shame about doing things wrong, but uh has become much too trustworthy of her ability to lie and manipulate her way out of consequences. So she will do a fair amount of work to cover up what's really happening rather than just accepting, yeah, I messed up. Knowing that you'll be forgiven and we'll find a way to make it right.

SPEAKER_08 23:52

And you see you see shame driving that.

Josiah 23:54

Oh yeah. Yeah. It's it's I I can't even admit to myself that I did something wrong. And all the shame all the blame gets put out to someone else or something else or circumstances, and just an inability to reckon with the fact that, oh, I did something wrong, but that doesn't have to mean I am wrong or I am a bad person. Um, but I think shame is just at the core of that. And I and I don't think that's very far off base from a lot of people showing up inauthentically in their lives, whether it be through dishonesty um or through hiding. I think that it just it's this strong drive to have us figured out any other way to be besides authentic with the people in our lives.

Mac 24:38

And it's hard work to get underneath your shame triggers and see how those were maybe took root during your first formation and then continued to go deeper, those roots continue to drive into deeper soil uh throughout your life and and and get underneath those and uproot them. That's hard work. I uh remember the book uh The Soul of Shame by Kurt Thompson. So if you haven't read that, that might be a good one to read. But creating space with trusted people where you can name your shame and insecurity is deeply healing. I mean, we try to do that as a staff team, and one of the things I noticed in recent iterations of that, some of the folks on our staff that are more quiet, just naturally more quiet and you know, not as vocal during staff meetings when we got underneath why that is, there's some sh like shame stuff there. Like, oh, my voice wasn't valued growing up, and so I often don't feel like it's worth important enough for someone else to listen to me or hear me. It's like, oh my goodness, like what what would it look like if we had a greater awareness of other people's shame triggers, not to take responsibility for them, uh, but to invite them and cheer them on to like undo them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 25:55

Yeah. And the irony being that the shame is what's keeping them from being fully known. And yet all of us sitting around the table want to fully know the person.

SPEAKER_05 26:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 26:05

And so the one thing that would help dismantle that shame and get through to that shame is keeping them from moving forward authentically.

Mac 26:13

Yeah. Which is right why, of course, it requires, as we name in the intro, courage. You know, vulnerability requires courage.

Control And Image Management

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Yeah.

Mac 26:21

Another one is desire for control. Um, when a desire for control is driving us, authenticity takes a back seat.

SPEAKER_08 26:33

I'm curious what you have to say about this one. That's interesting.

Mac 26:36

Yeah. So I think uh control is about sort of managing and manipulating outcomes, like securing outcomes. Could be perceptions of other people or decisions that are be made, whatever. And often it's rooted in a desire to feel secure or safe, validated. We need things to go our way in order to remain stable on the inside. Because if things don't go my way, well, that will be deeply disorienting and um reduce my stability. But but here's the connection I would make is when um securing outcomes becomes the goal, when manipulating circumstances to secure an outcome becomes the goal, what ends up happening is the end I'm trying to secure causes me to do things that aren't true to my values. So, in other words, we justify the means in order to secure a certain end, even if the end, the means to get there, um might violate who we are. Does that make sense? Um maybe an example of this was I I would think of maybe like doping in sports. Um, so like Lance Armstrong, for instance, you know, he won all those Tours de France um multiple years in a row. I once watched watched his documentary and he didn't start that way. He started completely natural. And then when he got into the tour, everybody was doping. It wasn't like, hey, this is an exception to get an edge. It was like, this is what you have to do just to stay in the in the in the core group. And so like it just was kind of to me like this creep of like, up, in order to do the like this outcome is really important to me. I want to be competitive, I want to win. The means I have this is what I have to do to get there. And it's out of alignment with my integrity and who I am. Does that make sense? So maybe like a couple examples of the more practical because I'm not um, you know, a cyclist. I I did wear cycle shorts for a while. Um I did a triathlon, a sprint triathlon years ago. Um, this was before I was pulling hamstrings while putting on socks. But um okay, so leadership. You feel pressure to make a decision, but aren't certain about what option is best. Instead of acknowledging that, which might, you know, involve some risk, you speak with confident certainty about what to do, even though you're not certain at all. Right? Because you're trying to secure like uh other people's perception of you that you're confident and you know what to do. Uh, relationships, you avoid hard conversations or don't say what you actually feel because you want to control the stability of the relationship or manage the other person's perception of you, how they feel about you. You get what I'm saying? Like, just think about it. Can you guys think of an example of like, oh, this outcome really mattered to me? And in order to like secure that outcome, actually did something that was inauthentic to me or to my guiding principles and values.

SPEAKER_08 29:50

Yeah, I'd have to think to think of an example. I I just think this one is interesting because I feel like it's not nearly as obvious as the others. Like if I think about um the times that I'm inauthentic, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be inclined to think, oh, I was trying to control that person. But I think you're exactly right. At the root of it is I can't I care a lot about what that person thinks about me. I can't handle, you know, the attention, the rejection, whatever it is. So I'm actually, rather than respecting their own agency to think what they're gonna think, I'm trying to manage their perception of me.

Mac 30:27

Yes. And maybe it there's a through line to fear and rejection, that first one we were naming. Because the more we try to control how other people perceive us, like I'm cool, I know the lyrics to Chumbawamba, right? Um You are never gonna like that.

SPEAKER_07 30:42

I'm fine with that.

Mac 30:42

The more we drift into inauthenticity.

SPEAKER_07 30:47

Yeah.

Mac 30:47

Like we're outsourcing who we are in order to control an outcome or another person. Yeah. And it just strikes me that Jesus didn't do this. So he didn't manage other people's perceptions. In fact, there's tons of times where Jesus said or did things that he knew would be misperceived, and he still did them and didn't provide the clarity that I think most of us would want to do. Um He didn't avoid truth uh in order to earn or maintain approval with other people. He often said and did things that were disruptive and actually increased the chances of rejection from other people. Not saying we should go around doing that. I'm just saying nope. Jesus seemed to, when there was a collision between maintaining approval and saying what needed to be said or staying aligned with God, we know what he chose. Um, he didn't present a curated version of himself in order to win other people over.

Josiah 31:43

Yeah. Um I think that people would use saying what needs to be said as like uh I'm being authentic. Yes. We kind of name that.

Mac 31:54

Yeah. Uh right. We talked about that uh last episode.

Josiah 31:58

Yes. So I think that um for me, like sometimes also the desire to control things is like also controlling circumstances and being authentic is also gonna be like a release of the control of those circumstances because you're not trying to manipulate them in some sort of way.

Mac 32:20

Sometimes we'll just even control our environment to avoid the vulnerability of uncertainty. Uh so for instance, when my second son was born, Kier, he had what was called failure to thrive. He was not eating, and we had to spend a week in children's hospital running all sorts of tests. It was horrible. Uh, when he was in the hospital, I remember coming home and mowing the grass. It was March. Like we didn't need to mow the grass. And as I began to reflect on that, you know, that thing called self-awareness, Katie.

SPEAKER_08 32:58

Um We might have done an episode or two on it.

Mac 33:01

Yep. I realized it's way easier. Like I'm uh to like controlling the length of the grass is easier for me in this moment than being open and honest and authentic about all the fear I have with my son.

SPEAKER_07 33:20

Yeah.

Mac 33:21

So there's a lot of angles to this one. I I do agree. Perhaps what I'm naming is a little bit harder to get our hands around, uh, but I'm I'm willing to suggest that the people who are most controlling around us are compensating their their their it's it's acting against their ability to be authentic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 33:42

Josiah, you and I both read a book called The Cost of Control a couple years ago by Sharon, Sharon Hattie Miller, and she goes through all these different chapters of what control looks like. And I think one of them is managing the perceptions of others. Yeah. And I remember that being a light bulb moment for me because I'm someone who's had a long journey with authenticity and I would never have been able to see it as control. Um, but sure enough, I started to see how, hey, every time I'm not living into my values or saying what I really think or believe or feel. Um at some level, it is about me going. If I'm talking to you, Josiah, I want to control how you see me. I want to control how you relate to me. I want to control whether you think of me as your friend. I want to control whether you think of me as competent. Like those are all me trying to control rather than me going, I'm gonna live into my values and let the chips fall where they may. And you're just gonna think what you're gonna think, you're gonna react how you're gonna react, you're gonna have your own agency. Maybe just to break it down a level, I'm just going, this is uh, this is, I think, a more difficult one to see. Um, but man, it it it really is.

Mac 34:45

You're you're articulating it beautifully.

SPEAKER_08 34:47

Yeah.

Josiah 34:48

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And she she names in the book that it's also like a it's a it's really a source of anxiety in our life too. The desire to control things like is a perpetuate of like a self-perpetuating cycle of like, I seek to control this thing in order to manage how people see me or various other things. And that leads to more and more like action and effort that has to be given to try to control the thing, which leads to more anxious thoughts and worry about it. Um so it's fascinating, but also a little off topic.

Mac 35:20

Well, you have some reading assignment for there. You've got to read the soul of shame and the cost of control.

Conflict Avoidance Creates Fake Peace

SPEAKER_08 35:25

Yeah. Uh another one I would name would be conflict avoidance. Uh conflict avoidance meaning like avoiding tension or disagreement by masking our true feelings. Um, I think, you know, for me, it can be easy to see how my how my authenticity might break down once tension enters the room or enters a conversation. I think it's one thing to be yourself with someone when you like see things eye to eye and you find yourself agreeing with on everything and um things are great and they're your bestie. But all of a sudden you notice a gap between what they think and what you think, or what they feel, or what you feel, or what they want, what you want, et cetera. And then this internal dialogue starts going in my head that, like, okay, if I say what I really think, will this damage the relationship? How am I going to tend to that gap between you and me? Um, is this a conflict that's worth the relational tension? And I would want to normalize this to some extent. I think a lot of us have learned either explicitly or implicitly that conflict is dangerous or having conflict is not loving. Um, having conflict is harsh, whatever. But I do think that it's worth naming that at in the end, avoiding conflict doesn't actually preserve the relationship. It actually does the opposite of what we're trying to do.

Mac 36:36

Oh, yeah. Yeah. There have been times when I have chosen um harmony over honesty in an effort not to like hurt the relationship. And it just elongated the timeline before the relationship came to an end, you know?

Josiah 36:52

Yeah. Yeah. And it's also probably worth naming that uh there is also wisdom in figuring out what is worth having conflict over, slash what's the right timing to bring something up. Um but what you're naming is the the the fear of what might happen with this relationship or in this instance, um, if I bring it up, can keep us from living honestly and authentically with people in our lives.

Mac 37:20

Again, there seems to be a concern underneath some of the things we're naming just to kind of become an unfiltered reactive jerk in the name of authenticity. We're not saying that, right? Um when we talk about engaging in conflict or choosing honesty, um, even though it might disrupt some harmony, or not giving a carte blanche permission just to kind of unfiltered say whatever you think, it still needs to be filtered through the law of love, you know, cruciform love for the other person. Like I'm I'm assuming, nope, this doesn't change my fundamental posture that I'm acting out of love for the sake of this other person and for our relationship.

Josiah 38:01

Yeah. And it's also, I think it's also uh there's probably like acute and chronic conflict avoidance, you know, like the in in the acute way of like there are instances when it's gonna be wise to not bring something up. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But uh, but the motivation for that is like isn't necessarily what we're speaking of. But the chronic avoidance of conflict as it happens over time, causes it might cause you to be connected to someone and they don't even really know who you are. I mean, I would I I think it probably happens in a lot of marriages.

Mac 38:35

Oh yeah.

Josiah 38:36

They get into ruts of not showing up fully authentically, avoiding things, uh no, he can't handle that, or she would not she'd blow up if she knew about this, things like that. And then pretty soon, you know, it's 10, 20 years, and you look across the table from someone and you're like, oh, I don't really know you. Right.

SPEAKER_08 38:52

And this one is so deceiving because we think we're avoiding conflict to preserve connection with the person. Um, but at the end we're actually doing the opposite. We're preserving a connection, but it's not a real kind of connection. It's actually like a fake connection.

Mac 39:09

Yeah. That's true. Yeah. And it does require tons of wisdom and discernment. I mean, going back to marriage, for instance, not everything that like I want to express is going to be helpful to Josie. Like there's there's this thing called grace. So if she doesn't show up well, it's not like I need to confront that every time. It's like, hey, come on.

Josiah 39:28

Does this need to like it? Doesn't mean that you need to like every time you every time someone does something you don't like, you need to tell them about it.

Mac 39:36

Yeah, but I do think that this is probably okay. I tend to be more of a direct person. I'm not known for most people wouldn't associate me with conflict avoidance. But it might be shocking for them to learn that I've heard you say this, yeah. That I actually do it's hard work for me to step into conflict. I don't love it. Um, I am often motivated to like deepen and preserve the relationship. Um conflict, initiating conflict isn't a sign that you don't care. It's a sign that you do, because it's often way easier not to have the conversation than to have it.

SPEAKER_05 40:13

Yeah.

Mac 40:14

And I've noticed that there are certain environments where it's a lot harder for me to be honest rather than just like preserve harmony. I noticed this with my family, like not uh nuclear family, but like extended family. When I'm with my in-laws or my extended family, like there's all sorts of different opinions, and it's just easier to just kind of nod and smile. Another environment I feel it a lot, and I'm growing in my ability to not do this, is in on Sunday mornings with our church. So if you're listening, I'll just be honest with you. On a typical Sunday, I absorb a lot of commentary that people throw at me. I have a lot of interactions with people. Some of them are very unusual. Some of them are odd, fine, but some of them are like borderline, disrespectful, and rude. And I have been learning with my therapist how to hold up a mirror in those moments rather than just absorb it. Like, oh yeah, that's fine. Because I think there's this expectation that church leaders sometimes feel to be just like, you know, sponges. You can come throw anything at me, and I'm just gonna respond with grace and love and maturity and all that stuff. And I'm not wanting to dodge maturity. Um, but I am learning very slowly with a lot of help in these moments, instead of going, I'm just a sponge that has to absorb whatever you throw at me, doormat, a doormat, to go, time out. What you're saying or doing right now impacts me this way. I'm feeling hurt by what you're doing. Um, and that to me is kind of illustrates what we're talking about. It's way easier for me to, especially because on Sunday morning, all the interactions are not like intimate, they're not always they're acquaintances, or you know what I mean? Some of them are really close to me. But a lot of times it's like I don't have the depth of relationship where that feels like worth it. Yeah. But the trade-off, as you were naming, Katie, is continuing to absorb it, which then doesn't do good work for my heart or soul. So I think we said this in a previous episode. I want to have thick skin and a soft heart. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 42:29

Yeah, I love that.

Josiah 42:31

Yeah. No, that is really true.

SPEAKER_08 42:33

And again, just pointing to Jesus, reading through the gospels, he does a uh just beautiful, it gives us a beautiful example of engaging conflict with grace and

Self-Awareness And Naming Your Values

SPEAKER_08 42:42

truth.

Josiah 42:42

Yeah, so another one to name, uh, and this is for you, Katie, mostly, is uh the lack of self-awareness.

SPEAKER_08 42:49

That's why I have good friends like you guys.

Josiah 42:51

I know.

SPEAKER_08 42:52

She's a as soon as I started working here, my self-awareness increased greatly.

Josiah 42:56

No, for real though. Uh yeah, a lack of self- self-awareness, I guess it just goes almost without saying that if you don't know who you are, then how are you supposed to show up authentically? You may or may not be being authentic in any given moment. So um I think that the I think that all of us could probably name parts of our lives where we weren't self-aware, maybe in the past, but we could also name other people that we interact with where you realize uh you start to look that like, oh, I I don't think that they know why they're doing the thing they're doing any more than I do, really, or sometimes you observe it, but I think that uh, you know, we've talked about it in various ways throughout many, many podcasts episodes that self awareness is sort of the the key to unlocking a lot of the growth and maturity and becoming more like Jesus, like an awareness of your feelings, your values and desires. And the ability to express them. Um I actually did uh a couple years ago, probably with my my therapist, we did like a values exercise. And it it's simple enough. You just get a huge long list of uh options for values. Brene Brown has an exercise like that. That's probably where it came from, honestly.

SPEAKER_08 44:22

A big it's like a big sheet of paper that you print out and it's got all these different values that you can pick up.

Mac 44:27

Okay. Yeah. Brene Brown, you're back in our good grade.

Josiah 44:29

Let's look at Yeah, the uh all of the values were like cut out in small little sheets of paper. And you essentially just sit in a more of a reflective state, like, hey, which one of these feel more important to me than others? Um, which ones do you kind of re that resonate with with you? And um, I found it very, very helpful because you start to realize what things are more important to me than others, and and you know, as we spoke about before, not filtering that through what someone else thinks my values are supposed to be. And I would imagine that for many of us growing up in um the evangelical Christian context, I always felt a lot of pressure to conform, to have certain ideologies and beliefs that weren't necessarily the main Christian beliefs. They were more doctrinal or opinions, and um found it very, very helpful to like name, hey, this is actually what I value in my life. And um, being able to understand that gives you more peace to show up in a way that um is actually you.

Mac 45:35

Yeah, I mean, and we've talked a lot about uh self-differentiation being the ability to define yourself and be connected at the same time. And I think we underestimate how much work it is to be able to define ourselves, know what I really think, what I really believe, what I value, what I'm willing and not willing to do. Like that is a lot of work. And if we just outsource that to meeting the expectations of other people, what happens over time is the expectations of other people that we've adopted become part of our self-understanding. And we end up self-deceived because we've adopted and downloaded who we are from the expectations of others rather than taking the time to figure it out. And I know we're gonna talk a lot about that in our next episode how when we're living authentic inauthentically, it actually uh leads to a false self that then gets in the way of us living into God's design for us.

SPEAKER_08 46:31

Yeah. So yeah, I feel like I've had a long personal journey kind of with this one. I would say, um, gosh, in my college years, I would almost maybe call it like a crisis of authenticity. I didn't want to be an authentic, but I just started increasingly knowing, like, oh man, it's I'm having a hard time being consistent across like many different environments. And the best thing for me, I think, was moving to California. I went to California then for law school. And while it was really hard, because I had probably close friends, I went to Poverdine, yep, I had really close friends. I had like a great community here, people that I loved. It was really good for me to just get space and distance because there was a sense in which it was like, well, I don't want to be an authentic, but like, who am I? Not to be cliche, I had to go find myself. But like, but seriously, but if you spend enough time just sort of adapting to whoever is around you, um you can't be authentic if you don't know what's actually true, right? Inside of you. And so for me, you know, just getting space, spending a lot of time with God and going, God, um, how did you create me? What's important to me? What do I really think and feel? Like it was actually, I don't know if I would have narrated this at the time, but looking back, I can see, yeah, that space, that just time alone, having quiet, having um, having just kind of being thrown out there halfway across the country by myself, allowed me then to fit have three years to figure out really who I was. And then I was able to um eventually move back and now, you know, reestablish a lot of connection, but based on based on that foundation.

Mac 48:01

What a great little indicator or light on the dashboard if you to to alert, hey, I might be operating not out of who I am, but out of a group expectation if I find myself showing up very differently across different groups. Right. That that might be something

Perfectionism And Performing As Leaders

Mac 48:16

to note. Um, another one is perfectionism. Um, so I'm an Enneagram one. Well, I don't really fit neatly there. I'm still waiting on Josiah's definitive typing of me. Um, I score high as a three and an eight as well. My joke is I'm a one-wing eight because I just well, you're in the gut triad somewhere, so oh yeah. Definitely. Um, but I feel this as a leader a lot. Like the the need to model the way, lead by example, always be at my best, right? Um and I've noticed that there are times when that really disrupts or gets in the way of me just showing up authentically. Um, because I need to like, I feel like there's a standard I need to maintain. Right. Um it reminds me of this a little bit. Um, you may remember this, but my predecessor at one point, um previous leader uh made a comparison to Disneyland, and he talked about how like anybody who works at Disney Disneyland, there's like a tunnel system. Okay. And the moment they step out of the tunnel, they have to be in character. Okay. And I was told that like the moment you step out of the office on a Sunday, you're to be in pastoral character. And um, and that's kind of what I'm getting at. Like, uh, yep, when I'm trying to maintain a certain like image, um, it actually gets in the way of me being being honest. And so I've been learning, uh, perhaps very slowly what it looks like to be human-sized.

Josiah 50:07

Yeah. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. For clarity. Um, what is when you feel like you can't show up perfectly? What is your instinct to do then?

Mac 50:19

In terms of like when this perfectionism is taking over. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I just know how to compartmentalize whatever it is that's like um okay. So like right now I'm doing that to a degree, if I'm honest. Um we lost a friend this week. You know, at the time of this recording, um, Caleb, we learned that Caleb uh DeVries passed away um Friday night. And um that sucks. It's really hard. And I was texting with Alex, your husband, Katie. Um, how you doing? And so on, checking in with him. He said, How are you doing? And I go, I just have a compartment that I can put this in, and I won't give myself permission to feel it until the funeral's over. I'm not saying that's right. I'm just going, that's how I've learned to navigate these tough moments. Yeah. When you're sort of in this weird space where you have to lead and you're grieving at the same time. Um, and I think that like what I'm trying to name is like that takes over more than probably people realize that there's something going on underneath the surface, and my skill set is to learn how to like compartmentalize, dis disconnect from that in order to maintain a professional standard over here. Yeah. And I'm trying to give myself permission to be more human-sized.

Josiah 51:42

To show up and if you don't have it all put together, you can still show up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:47

Yeah.

Josiah 51:48

Because I think that a lot of in I think a lot of other people who struggle with perfectionism, um it's also an excuse to not show up at all. If I can't show up perfectly, if I can't do this thing perfectly, if I can't say this thing perfectly, I won't say it at all. And um it sounds like the growth for those people is is like being able to be less than ideal in this instance, but I'm still here.

Mac 52:18

Yeah. And if I'm honest, one of the things that makes it hard for me, um, and this is less the case with friends or our staff, but definitely the case um with the broader community, um, is that the moments where I'm not perfect typically result in intense accusation. And that just really sucks because it means that on a weekend, if I have an interaction that's less than perfect, um, may not be immediate, but down the road, people hold on to that and then it comes back to sort of like be thrown in your face. Um and I just think that does bad work. Yeah. I think that as I preached about last weekend, like we need to become a community of grace and peace, where the grace we've received from God is the grace we extend to one another. And the peace we have with God is the peace we pursue with one another. And I think in our relationships to the degree that someone makes a mistake and we either throw that right back in their face and or hold on to it at a time when we're frustrated to leverage sort of shame or guilt, um, to that degree we're denying the gospel. Yeah.

Josiah 53:32

If I'm honest, I struggle with this in my home with my kids. I I have an instinct to want to extend lots of grace. Uh I am an Ennegram four. So uh people being able to show up emotionally authentic is a value to me. I want my kids in my home to feel safe, to just express themselves and not feel like every tiny word is gonna get nitpicked if they don't say it perfectly. And that's nice. There's a lot I have lot lots of grace for that. But you're also shepherding these kids and um having to address continual patterns and feeling the tension of, yeah, like you did make a mistake, and and I don't want you to have to beat yourself up about it, but it does have to be addressed. And um and then uh ultimately there's character issues or continued patterns. How do you address those without feeling without making it like you're rubbing their nose in it when they make a mistake? Um and when they don't have the self-awareness to bring it up themselves, and you're the one who always has to bring it up, it can feel I don't know, I can feel a con like a conflict of two different values for me as a parent. Yeah. Sometimes yeah, I could see that.

SPEAKER_08 54:53

Maybe you're saying in some ways your default is the opposite. But I'm sh but but I guess I would ask the question when you do address it, um I can imagine, Josiah, you're not addressing it from this place of saying, hey, you need to present this more polished version of yourself so that other people think more highly of our family, right? That would be that perfectionism.

Josiah 55:13

Yeah, well, and and and honestly, like to bring it back to authenticity for me as a dad is I um authenticity for me is being willing to bring things up with the kids. I want to sweep things under the rug, not because I don't care about their character, but because I don't want to deal with the conflict. I want it to just be peace, but it's pseudo-peace because you have, you know, kids running around and they're crashing into each other and in terms of pr pr pretending like everything's fine, um, is an in is an inauthentic way of me showing up as a dad.

SPEAKER_08 55:50

Yeah. Yeah, you said something, Mac, that I want to double click on, and that's that you, especially when it comes to just being kind of present in our congregation, one of the reasons

Past Wounds And Self-Protection

SPEAKER_08 56:00

you feel pressure to present this polished image of yourself is because in the past, when you haven't, it hasn't gone well and it's been met with intense accusation. Um that would lead me to um probably name this this last one as just wounds from the past being a reason we don't show up authentically. I think for a lot of us, this this um this sense of inauthenticity uh isn't just theoretical, it really is experiential. Like at some point we were honest and it didn't go well. Perhaps we tried to show up vulnerably and we felt dismissed, or we spoke up and we were rejected. So I think all of us could point to experiences where we learned like, oh, it's safer to hide. So I think we're gonna spend our next episode on this. So I don't want to say too much here, but I guess then I would just name that our resistance to authenticity, I think, really makes sense in light of our story. I think we each have a story there.

Mac 56:57

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, self-protection gets in the way of authenticity. And I have lots of stories as a kid, um, including the pressure to perform. So I I experienced a lot of that growing up in a way that was great in some respects because it challenged me to become who I could reach my potential, and that there was a shadow side to that, right? Um, and and of course, uh experiences growing up where you put yourself out there in some way and experience social rejection, and then you go, oh, it's not okay for me to be that way. I shouldn't share with people that I like chumbawamba, obviously. And I don't want to experience that um kind of rejection again. They don't want to be friends with me because I don't know the lyrics. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 57:42

Well, my parents took the CD away when they read the lyrics.

Mac 57:44

Well, yeah, as they should have. That's almost as bad as Alanis Morris had a jagged little pill. Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 57:51

So don't even get me started.

Mac 57:52

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_03 57:54

Okay, so we've I remember that.

Two Big Behaviors Masks And Walls

Mac 57:59

All right, so we've got uh we just gave you a ton of internal pressures um that you might feel acting on you that that inhibits or gets in the way of you showing up authentically, fear of rejection, uh, social and cultural norms, shame and insecurity, desire for control, conflict avoidance, lack of awareness, and perfectionism up and the moods from the past. Let's shift gears and then go, okay, assuming that these internal pressures have their way, right? They sort of take over. Um what does that lead to behaviorally in how we show up? Um, in other words, if these pressures sort of act on us and we submit to them, what does that look like behaviorally? And uh one that I would name, maybe the first behavior, is just pretending. Right? Instead of being real with people, we pretend with people. We uh one way I like to think about it is we put on a mask, right? So if your real face is this, I put on a mask so that you can't see the real me. I might be hurting or sad inside, but I smile. Um, I might be afraid and insecure, but I exude confidence, whatever it might be. And the more we do that, the more we sort of uh pretend or project an image, the more disconnected our relationships become from who we really are.

SPEAKER_08 59:30

Yeah. Yeah, and I think in the last episode we talked about the difference between honesty and transparency, right? And this that would just again um want to emphasize that there's discernment required here. You're not always going to be 100% authentic all the time. That doesn't mean you're fake and pretending. But I do think there are lots of subtle ways that we probably don't even realize that we're we're pretending because we're not being overly right. It's not overt, it's not extreme. We can point to other people who seem really fake, and but but I think that self-awareness.

Mac 1:00:01

Yeah, it's just like always presenting a polished version of ourselves, right? Um I might even say, hey, there's a difference between real vulnerability and like calculated faux vulnerability. Totally.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:12

And the church, okay. Don't even get me started. I feel like in the church context, just generally in in church and faith spaces, there is a lot of manufactured vulnerability. Because it works, you know what I mean? Like if I'm gonna do a big speaking gig somewhere and I can cut sort of like pick a story that that prompt tears at this moment.

Mac 1:00:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:33

It happens all the time. All the time.

Mac 1:00:36

Yeah. So that works against behaviorally, once those internal pressures grab a hold of us, one of the ways it shows up is just pretending. Yeah.

Josiah 1:00:49

Yeah. Another way uh it shows up is is protecting. So if if uh if our inauthenticity leads us to show up with masks, it can also cause us to build walls. So it keeps people out. Um this can look like withholding from people, uh, intentionally withholding what you're actually thinking and feeling, shutting down when you're in conflict, um uh numbing or checking out to avoid being vulnerable with a person or even with yourself. Um you deal with something big. Uh it also like it also could be um, yeah, I I think avoiding uh could look like mowing the lawn instead of dealing with how you're really feeling about about your son, right? Um, so there's things we do, we don't want people too close. So we build a wall and say, this is as close as you get. And um, yeah, obviously that's problematic.

Mac 1:01:56

These two seem to me to go together. So, like when we pretend, when we wear a mask, to the degree that other people buy it, right? They sort of submit to the image that we're projecting. Well, then to that degree, we need to pretend or erect walls to keep people a distance from seeing the real me. Because the other person likes a pretend version of me, not the real me. So I'm constantly maintaining this mask while at the same time erecting boundaries to keep them from seeing who I really am.

Josiah 1:02:38

Yeah, yeah, they do go hand in hand.

Mac 1:02:40

And I think everything that we could name about how things show up behavior behaviorally probably fall under these two categories of pretending, protecting. Sometimes at the leader's journey, we talk about um hiding and hustling, right? The the pretending is that hustle, um, that performative piece, and then hiding is that protective piece, that avoidance piece, right?

Josiah 1:03:06

Yeah. Yeah. And ultimately, it just leads to people being there's a certain level of distance people are going to have to the real you. Whether it's like stiff arming them intentionally with like avoidance and uh withholding and shutting down, or it's pretending like I'm something I'm not. So the thing they're interacting with is actually quite far from who I I really am.

Mac 1:03:35

Which, to our point earlier, it obstructs the possibility of real relationship. Yeah. Right. Because if, for instance, um I present myself in a certain way that's not true to who I am, I I I put on a mask, I pretend, and Josiah responds favorably. Well, the truth is he doesn't love or favor the real me, but a pretend me. And I know that. Deep down inside, I know that. Oh, he just likes the version I'm projecting rather than the real version. And so we're not, I'm not actually giving you an opportunity to be in relationship with me. Yeah. But a pretend me.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:13

Yeah.

Josiah 1:04:14

Yeah. Yeah. And this, just to put it to another layer, is in our relationship with God, we've named this like God only meets us in reality. So this is this this is like a you know, this like correlates to that in a way that if we want to have a real relationship with God, we also have to relate to him with that authentic place. So if you you can see maybe how it works with your relationships with other people that they're interacting with a person that isn't fully you, well, God refuses to do that. And so often when we find ourselves like distant from God, it's because we've been incongruent with ourselves and God's waiting to relate to the real us.

Mac 1:04:59

God is committed to meeting us in reality. So let's just um maybe double click on that for a moment. We're saying pretending and um protecting. Protecting. Thank you, Katie. Are the two big behavioral ways this shows up? But there's a lot of uh like those are umbrellas for other behaviors, yeah. Right?

People Pleasing Overcommitting Performing

Mac 1:05:22

That could show up in a million different ways. Just, I don't know, maybe cast some vision for us of like, you know, here's an example of how that would show up underneath that umbrella.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:30

Yeah, one kind of that comes to mind for me is just pleasing, like people pleasing, placating others. Um man, for me, I can point to times when my decisions are driven more by how something would be received than by whether it's aligned with what's true for me, my values, my limits, what I actually need. So practically this can look a lot of different ways. One way I think it can often look like for me is overcommitting to things. Um, saying, Yes, I can do that when I really. Should be saying no, taking on something because I don't want to disappoint someone, even if I really don't have the capacity to do it, or maybe I just don't want to do it. Um, and what's tricky is it can look loving on the outside. It can even feel loving when I'm doing it. Like, oh, this person needs me or want to do something. I'm so Christ-like. I'm so Christ-like. Um, I'm being helpful, I'm being generous. Um, and all those things can be true, but underneath, what's at the root of me saying yes, if I really mean no, is fear. Um, probably goes back to that fear of rejection or conflict avoidance or whatever. So I continue to adjust myself to keep this relationship feeling okay. And frankly, I I wish I could give everyone what they wanted of me all the time. Like I really do. I don't, I don't, I don't think when I look at myself and I really get self-aware, I don't feel like I'm being malicious in any sense. I really truly wish I could be everything that everyone needs me to be because I care for these people. I really do. But it's so easy then to miss the cost. Yeah. Which is, okay, no, I'm depleted, exhausted. I'm living a life other than what's really feels aligned. I'm not grounded, I'm not centered, and this other person doesn't actually know who I really am.

unknown 1:07:12

Yeah.

Mac 1:07:12

And what strikes me is how that's like an amalgamation of both of those things. So you're pretending like you can be there for people, like you're projecting in it. I'm always here for you, blah, blah, blah. But then you're hiding the cost and how it's really how you're really doing.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:26

Yeah.

Mac 1:07:26

I'm weary, I'm worn out, I'm burdened, whatever.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:29

Yeah. Yep.

Josiah 1:07:30

Yeah. And I would add there's probably also an avoidance of having to say no and disappointing someone.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:37

Yeah, for sure.

Josiah 1:07:38

Right. Mm-hmm. Because there's a Yeah, saying no stinks. The mo Yeah. The the motivation, although is probably uh mostly like a pure motive of I want to help people, but I'm not being honest about my limitations.

Mac 1:07:51

There's also a the shadow side of like if I think you might be prompting some self-awareness for a Katie. I want to help people, but I also want to avoid the disappointment. I do not want them to think less of me. Right.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:04

Well, I mean, I don't really have limits.

Josiah 1:08:07

Maybe this is more theoretical. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is just an idea. I have a uh I have an example of this. Uh I wasn't necessarily gonna share this, but it's simple. I uh recently had someone from our denomination reach out to me. Well, I should just say not that recent, several months ago. And that's important to the story, that uh they were starting like a like a worship department within our com our uh denomination nationally, and she asked me to lead like an online cohort once every few months um with people in our area, just to she said, just facilitate getting people together and being able to send emails. And um I should have said no, but I didn't. Um, if I was honest with myself, I should have said no. I'm I'm going to school full-time. I've got six kids and schedules to manage. Um, and I should have given to someone given it to someone who had more capacity. But if I'm honest looking back, I was flattered that someone asked me. Um, and my motivation for doing so was not driven out of value to serve our people. It was done out of um wanting to please others or look like I was probably better than I was. And uh um subsequently, I have not scheduled even one of those cohorts yet. So um, and I got reminded of it because I got an email. Not not about me directly, but like, hey, how's it all going? And I'm like, oh my gosh. Fantastic. I have done nothing. Um so that's I mean, a little vulnerable, but it's lower stakes. But it's an example where I'm even just in this moment reflecting, like, I my motivation for saying yes was not authentic to doing so. I overcommitted because I thought it was going to increase some sort of image or or something, or at least maybe my own view of myself. I think I'm a better person.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:07

Well, thanks for sharing. I think we all do that probably on a regular basis.

Josiah 1:10:12

Yeah. So another one that I think is tied to that um in some ways, but if uh we sometimes please others and placate others in order to maintain some sort of image, we also perform our way into that image. So um if I can perform perfectly, if I can perform all my job functions perfectly, if I can uh be competent and efficient and um never take a break that I can present myself in a way that avoids someone seeing how I'm really doing. You know, if like uh you have the masks on, this is almost like the the dancing monkey that just never stops and um is always performing for others, but less connected to what's internally driving them to do so.

Mac 1:11:07

Do you know that song, Dance Monkey?

SPEAKER_08 1:11:10

Do you want to sing it for us?

Mac 1:11:11

I'm not good at singing. They don't even let me turn on my mic during worship because I would ruin it. Um but I resonate with that song because Sunday morning often feels like, okay, here I go again, do it all again. You know? Yeah. Um so maybe one of the exercises is just to go, okay, hiding and hustling, performing and protecting. How are how what are the myriad of ways that shows up for me behaviorally underneath those two sort of containers or headers?

The False Self And Real Freedom

Mac 1:11:42

And the result of this, and we're going to talk about this next week, is just that the more you live incongruently with who you are, the more you are living out of a false self, not your real self. And your false self, just to kind of cast some vision, is an identity that we tend to construct to function, to succeed, to survive, apart from securely being rooted in God. And it's shaped by fear and performance and all the things we've named. It often what makes it tricky is that it presents itself as strength, incompetency or whatever. But underneath it is really insecurity. And so the pseudo-self, this false self, is not who we really are. That's going to be really important, just to kind of note for our next episode. It's not who you really are. It is who we believe we must be in order to feel safe, significant, loved. And part of the contrast is to go, hey, the more rooted you are in Christ, the more you put on who you really are in Christ, the more you can shed that false self, right?

SPEAKER_08 1:12:49

Yeah. Yeah, it makes me think of our year-long leadership intensives. A lot of the work that we do in those groups is around identity. It's about figuring out who we are in Christ, right? And we all know that I'm God's child, I'm loved, I'm fully redeemed, I'm fully known. But to really, really like sit in that and root your identity in that, um, I think is really the answer to all of this that we're talking about. If I'm if I'm trying to get my worth from how people perceive me, I will always be managing myself. It just only gets more exhausting and never gets easier. You're just constantly trying to manage that gap. And the gap just widens and widens and widens. So you gotta expend more energy trying to manage it. And but if my identity is secure in Christ, if I'm already fully known and fully loved, then well, then I'm actually free to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:39

And I don't think this makes vulnerability easy, but I think it gives us a foundation to begin practicing it.

Mac 1:13:45

Totally. And that's a perfect segue into praxis time.

Josiah 1:13:49

That's good.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:50

Praxis podcast.

Mac 1:13:51

Wrong button. Um all the buttons.

Praxis Practices For This Week

Mac 1:13:54

Yeah, yeah. So we always want to end with giving, like, okay, this isn't just a conversation, this is something we can actually live into and practice in our everyday lives. And I'll name our first practice because you just said, we just said that this is the solution. Um, it's to get your identity in Christ. It's not something that happens in in our prayer time, right? This is deep work, long work. Um, and it struck me as interesting. You're you said, Katie, hey, we all know who we are. We're we're a child of God, we're fearfully and wonderfully made, we're a new creation in Christ, like all this stuff. But do we? You know what I mean? There's like a like I'm not saying we don't know some of those phrases, but what I am saying is, but do we really know, like in our bones, that that's who we are? There's there's something deeper that we need to attend to than just like knowing the verses or bel like on a surface level, believing that's true. Public beliefs are different than like core beliefs. So, what would it look like? And you can Google this. You could you could Google who who am I in Christ? And there's lists that will pop up right away that give you probably about a hundred descriptors of here's who you are as someone created in God's image, right? You're fearfully, wonderfully made, all this stuff. Um, you're sealed with the Holy Spirit, you're born again, you're the apple of God's eye, you have peace with God. Like there's all these descriptors. And I've mentioned before, I don't know if I've done this on this podcast, but I've mentioned it before that when I was in college, I took probably about 40 of those and just spent one week on each one as an attempt to go, I don't just want to believe this is true, I want to like believe in the core of my being that this is true. And again, it's long work, but it's the best work because the more secure you are in Christ, the less you are knocked off course by those internal pressures, um, by the behavior of other people and so on, and the more you can show up the way you need to.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:59

We were having a conversation recently with someone who was ready to go in, who's preparing to go into full-time mission work overseas. And this person named that as they were getting ready to go, this became kind of an identity crisis of wait a second, I'm ready, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna commit my life to sharing God's love with people overseas. And I don't actually believe that this is true about myself. I don't actually in my bones, I know that I'm loved by God, but I realize I don't actually believe it. And um, and she just described how she spent time doing a similar exercise to what you did, like meditating in scripture and just letting that really sink in, and how over time God allowed that to be true of her.

Mac 1:16:35

Yeah, it's interesting that Jesus, I wouldn't call it an identity crisis, but there was an identity affirmation moment before he launched into public ministry.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:44

Yeah.

Mac 1:16:44

And I think there's something to be said about her story and what I'm narrating. Um, what we see in the life of Jesus, before you're gonna serve and minister to other people, you gotta get your identity from God.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:55

Yeah.

Mac 1:16:55

Otherwise you're gonna be doing it to gain something rather than, you know, to express who you are. Yeah.

Josiah 1:17:02

Yeah, we have a a saying in our in those in the curriculum that just says that uh if like every behavioral problem is ultimately an identity crisis. And it is an interesting thought experiment, maybe along with the the um dwelling in those identity passages, is just to imagine if I actually believed this was true, how would that impact how I showed up in any given situation?

Mac 1:17:31

Yeah.

Josiah 1:17:31

Yeah.

Mac 1:17:32

Yeah. So get your identity in Christ and you can start this week. One day a week, take one of those affirmations of here's who I am in relationship to Jesus, and and try to drink deeply of that in a way that's transformative.

Josiah 1:17:46

Yeah. Another practice would be to identify those internal pressures that act on you the most. Um, we went through kind of a longer list in this episode, and I would just encourage you go through the list and um try to sense which ones like stand out. Like, ooh, that's me. That is something I I struggle with. And the point of that is not necessarily like go and hurry up and fix it and fix myself. Um, often it's enough just to be aware because as you become aware of those things, we stop being compulsive with our behavior. And we start to, when we can observe it, it allows that uh it allows the space between the stimulus and response and the Holy Spirit to lead us into some something different.

Mac 1:18:40

Yeah, you can't take off what you can't name. So it's important to be able to go, oh, I'm doing that chumbawamba thing again.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:47

What if I actually really wanted to know the chumbawamba?

Josiah 1:18:50

Yeah, the real application was Katie was being authentic.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:56

I actually wanted to be cool at the party, but yeah.

Mac 1:18:58

Yeah, she really wanted to drink the whiskey drink, then the vodka drink.

unknown 1:19:02

You got it.

SPEAKER_08 1:19:03

See? You knew it too. Um yeah, and maybe a third practice is just to identify the behaviors that you tend to embody when you're living authentically. So getting, again, going back to like self-awareness and reflection, get to know yourself well enough to go, uh, I'm acting unauthentically here, I'm acting authentically for here. Um again, one one thing that I would name, it's kind of like a light on the dashboard for me, is when I if I notice like I'm less present, right? Like if I'm putting all my energy into managing how I'm coming across to someone, I find it's actually much more difficult to truly like hear what they're saying and get present to them and to listen well. Um, but if I'm living authentically, I'm more grounded, more present, more honest, and I'm able to just enter into a deeper relationship because of that presence. So I would invite our listeners to ask, what do I do when I tend to feel pressure? Do I perform? Do I withdraw? Do I people please? Like as you think through the examples we've named, identify begin to identify what's true for you so that you can notice it in the moment.

Mac 1:20:02

Yeah. So you we all have some work to do. Oh, yeah. Get your identity in Christ. God will meet you in that space with grace. Name the internal pressures, name the behaviors. And um that's the work. It's a lifelong work. Um, hey, thanks for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed this conversation. Um, next time, as we alluded to, we're gonna talk about the false self and what it means to take that off so we can live into our new self, who God has designed and created us to be. So that's where we're headed, and we hope you'll continue to tune in.

Closing And Next Week Preview

Josiah 1:20:35

Practice is recorded and produced at CrossPoint Community Church. You can find out more about the show and our church at crosspoint WI.com. If you have any questions, comments, or have any suggestions for future topics, feel free to send us an email. And also, if you enjoy the show, consider leaving a review. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

Mac 1:20:59

I have a podcast praxis suggestion, and that would be to change the theme music to chumbalumba.