The Good Girl Syndrome: Serving From Wholeness, Not Wounds | Kate Bartley Pt. 2

What if the freedom you've been praying for has been inside you the whole time?

We're back with Part 2 of my conversation with Kate Bartley, somatic coach, former physical therapist, former minister, cancer survivor, and author of The Good Girl RX. And if Part 1 cracked something open, this one goes deeper.

We pick up right where we left off, in that tender, honest place where so many women live: wanting to follow God's will, but so afraid of getting it wrong that we stop trusting the voice inside us altogether. And from there, the conversation just opens up into something I think you're going to want to sit with.

We talk about what it actually looks like to be led by the Holy Spirit from the inside out, not by rules, not by other people's approval, not by how much you're producing. We get into the harvest, the seasons, the long game, and why so many women are white-knuckling outcomes that were never theirs to control in the first place. And Kate leaves us with something practical, a simple way to come back to yourself when the anxiety and the pressure and the not-enough feeling starts to rise.

This one is rich. Take your time with it.

In this episode we cover:

• Why women serve from their wounds instead of their wholeness
• What it means to follow peace as a spiritual practice
• Learning to trust the Holy Spirit within you, not just around you
• The seed time and harvest principle, and releasing the outcome
• Recognizing the season you're in instead of planting in winter
• How building a business surfaces your deepest healing work
• A practical self-attunement tool you can use today

Connect with Kate Bartley: KateBartley.com

Mentioned in this episode: The Good Girl RX by Kate Bartley

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Transcript

Recap and Introduction

Daphne Boyd 0:02

Welcome back to the Grit and Grace podcast. I'm your host, Daphne Boyd, and if you're joining us for the first time today, I want to encourage you to go back and listen to part one of this conversation. First, you're gonna want the full picture. Last month I sat down with Kate Bartley, somatic coach, former physical therapist, former minister, Christian, author, speaker, and the author of the Good Girl Rx. And if you listen to that episode, you already know it was one of those conversations that just goes. No script, no agenda, just honest. We talked about the good girl wounds. So many of us carry what it looks like when we lose ourselves in performance and service, and we ended right in the middle of something really tender. That fear of stepping outside of God's will. That place where you want to follow the Holy Spirit, but you're so afraid of getting it wrong. That you end up paralyzed instead of free, and that is exactly where we pick it back up today. In this part of the conversation, Kate and I get into what it actually looks like to follow peace, to be led from the inside out instead of constantly seeking validation from the outside in. We talk about the harvest, the seasons, the long game, and why so many women are serving from their wounds instead of their wholeness. There's so much in this one, and I think it is going to land right where you are. So grab your coffee, take a breath, and let's get back into it. If it was not for me, having the Holy Spirit in my life at an early age and being submissive to that, over and over and over again. I would very much thrive as a Pharisee. I am that kind of person that I thrive within those rules and limitations and like the yeses and the nos and the blacks and white things, right? Mm-hmm. But I would not be free. I would not have peace. I would not be happy. I would not fulfill the calling that God has on my life if I was to live like that. So there's a lot of times where I'm able to look at my human nature. And my human nature is not to be like crazy and let's just go do this and this and this and be like, that's what I think a lot of people's perception is. It's like, oh, and you come to Jesus then, you know, it has to be. That's not my human nature, you know? My human nature is to, is to live within like boundaries and live very like small and, and live within a box. And I'm okay. I'm safe inside that box. I'm safe inside those boundaries. And that's okay to a certain degree, right? Yeah. But um, I've had to look, because I'm a mother. I try to look at things through a parent like God as a parent, and then us as children, and there are boundaries that I would put around my toddler, obviously. Mm-hmm. That would, that don't apply to my 20-year-old, you know, that don't, apply to my adult child. And it's not because he, isn't capable of, of falling that or, or, or that she, she's not able to do these things. It's the fact that their stage of development, their stage of understanding, their emotional development, their experiences within their world and what has shaped them to make, you know, good decisions and things like that. And I feel like God does the same thing to us, you know, and so there is. A stage of our Christian development where we need those rules, we need those boundaries. We need those like boxes around us and you know, the little baby gates,

Kate Bartley 3:28

right?

Daphne Boyd 3:28

Yeah. Like, don't go in that room or don't go in that, you know? Um,

Kate Bartley 3:31

and we need, yeah. We, and we also need, we need to see Jesus as the, as the, as the model of unconditional love.

Daphne Boyd 3:40

Right?

Kate Bartley 3:40

We, we need to see that before we're ready to internalize it as Christ within us.

Daphne Boyd 3:45

Right.

Kate Bartley 3:45

You know? And that's okay. Like we, again, it's part of our psychological healthy development. Spiritual formation and psychological development all go together. Like we're, it's, it's a whole thing. And so yeah. We need that. Exactly what you said. Like we need a foundation of safety and structure and we need healthy attachment, so we don't ever wanna shame any of that stuff. It's, it's really important.

Serving From Wounds vs. Wholeness

Daphne Boyd 4:07

Absolutely. And it, it's very much, but I don't like it when it is the only thing Yeah. Right. That people associate with Christianity or with church living or with even just like, you have a new generation of millennials and Gen Z that are coming into marriage, coming into motherhood, even coming into the church, you know, and saying, I, I, I wasn't raised this way, but I wanna live, you know, I wanna, I wanna be a good wife. I, my parents were divorced. I don't know what that looks like. I wanna be a good wife. And my mother was, you know, absent or she, she worked a lot or whatever, right? And so I wanna be a good mother. And, um, you know, and I, I don't know what it means to serve in the church. We didn't grow up that way, you know? So I want to be a good Christian and serve in the church. And so you, and then right away. Have all of these misperceptions of what that actually means. Yeah. Well, it means self-sacrifice. It means all these things. It means, you know, and so

Kate Bartley 5:06

on when you, when you say that, you know what I see now when we're sitting in church, and again, I, I appreciate my foundation. I, I appreciate, you know, um, some of the things that I see now, I'm just like, what are we doing? And I, and I know we're not doing it on purpose, but this is what I see now. So here we are, we have this beautiful sermon and we've maybe, invited people to, to soften and open their hearts and, and to be held in love, right? To have his love reflected and right. And you see these people that are raising their hands like, please, yes, I need that. I need that unconditional love that I never experienced as a child, right? I need it in my life right now. But as soon as you see that softening and that opening and that surrender and that desire to be receptive to it, we turn it around and we say, okay, now go and be grateful for it. And go and do and serve. And we didn't even give them five minutes to sit in that posture. Yeah. I'm like, what are we doing? It's like, we feel so, like, it's like in our gratitude, we don't know how to sit in that long enough. We have to turn it into something of service to feel okay about it. And we need to encourage people to sit in it a little longer. Or, or they're, they're serving out of their trauma instead of out of, out of their healing. Um, they're serving out of a need to feel, they're serving for value, they're serving for God instead of from God.

Daphne Boyd 6:29

Mm-hmm.

Kate Bartley 6:30

Does that make sense?

Daphne Boyd 6:31

Yeah. And, and I, and, and I am one of those that believed in the scripture, you know, faith without Works is dead, obviously. It did. Yeah. And, the Bible says to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, not in that we are not saved through. Through believing in Jesus. Yeah. But that it's an ongoing thing. It's not one of those things where like, oh, I prayed the sinner's prayer when I was nine years old and never, you know, lived. That's not, I don't believe that.

Kate Bartley 6:55

Yeah. But,

Daphne Boyd 6:56

but at the same time, I feel like, and, and I come from a Pentecostal background, so, and, and I still very much consider myself Pentecostal, but from, from that is also a lot of legalism, a lot of, a lot of self-righteousness. Yeah. You know, and a lot of works, you know, and it's not, it's not in the same way as what we would say, other denominations or other religions are, or whatever. But at the same time. We still do it, it's still there. It's still prevalent. We just do it in a different way, you know?

Kate Bartley 7:32

Yeah.

Daphne Boyd 7:33

I'm able to see it now'cause I've been in the church 30 years. I've been saved and a Christian and serving the Lord for 30 years. So I'm able to see it now as an adult, as a mature Christian, and look at this. And I'm like, this is not right. We're not, and then we're not giving people liberty. We're not giving, especially women, we're not giving women liberty. We're not giving them the freedom. And then it becomes, it's almost like I see more people leave the church or leave from following after God or leave from, um, serving him because they feel that weight and they feel that pressure and they feel like I'll never measure up. And so even within the church, even where, where we are supposed to get, filled, right? Like we're supposed to have that fulfillment. Mm-hmm. We feel it more being a pressure. So it's like your daughter who I run away from this because I can't, I can't express myself. Yeah. I can't, um, meet those expectations. Yeah. And I'll never be able to perform the way you want me to perform with, with the boundaries you're giving me to perform them in and all of that. Yeah. You know, so, so a lot of women are, and I'm not blaming the, I'm not blaming the church necessarily for people falling away from the faith. I think that's between a person and God. That's between you and God. Mm-hmm. But at the same time, we are not doing a great job.

Kate Bartley 8:51

Yeah. Yeah.

Daphne Boyd 8:51

A stewarding of stewarding that, you know.

Being Spirit-Led From the Inside Out

Kate Bartley 8:54

Yeah. Yeah. And I think there was a question you asked at the beginning that I think comes back to, and what I heard from so many of the women that I interviewed and have worked with is we need each other to be the mirrors of Christ to each other. And so often we're the mirrors of our own projection and expectation. Oh yeah. And so we come into, um. You know, uh, the church and instead of being asked when we're signing up for nursery, um, you know, what's your life like right now and what do, how much space? And, you know, if you've got a woman that's got all this time and space and she wants to serve and she wants to build relationships, yeah. Sign her up. But you got a woman that's teaching full-time and has kids, she's raising and, and you know, she's, you, you can feel into whether this is a good fit for her or not, you know? Mm-hmm. But like if we can just, if the person that is working in the ministry is putting those expectations on themselves, it that's gonna get projected down. Yeah. Um, and that's what I had to realize is, oh my gosh, what am I modeling right? What am I modeling? Um, but yeah, in that, when you were talking about how some people will come to the church and, and, to me, coming to Christ looks. When my daughter was four years old on her little bike rolling down the sidewalk with her hand stretched out and just glee, just giddy. Like that's, that's what being in Christ is supposed to feel like. And when we are, when we are living that way from that place, we don't wanna sit on the couch, we wanna move from there. We wanna, we do. There is fruit. Yeah, there is, there is productivity. But it comes out of that aliveness. It comes out of that choice that, oh my gosh, this lights me up and I wanna go and hold those babies. Right. There's a, there's a very different Yeah. Driving force and motivating force to that versus. Oh gosh, they're overwhelmed in there. And I should go hold those babies because nobody else will if I don't. Right. Like it's very different.

Daphne Boyd 10:52

Well, and that's what I, that's what I was alluding to earlier is the church doesn't do a good enough job of teaching being led by the Holy Spirit or what that looks like because, well, it doesn't model it, I think it's not necessarily like a black and white thing. Like you, like I said, the rules and the boundaries, those are needed. But it's similar to, and the only way I can, I can think about it in my mind right now is like a, a husband and a wife's relationship. And so there's, there are rules, right? There's some boundaries around that relationship. But for the most part, nobody has to teach you. How to be with your husband. Nobody has to teach you how to spend time with him.

Kate Bartley 11:31

You learn. Yeah, yeah.

Daphne Boyd 11:32

You know what I'm saying? Like the, those are, those are things that, that, that, it's a, it's a relationship and because it's a relationship, it, it builds and it grows and it intertwines together in various ways that like somebody else couldn't understand in the, in the middle of that, you know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. But I think about it as a picture between a husband and a wife. And, and the reason I say that I've been married for this year will be 24 years. And so the relationship that we have has been built a long time. The nuances that we have, the looks we give each other, the Yeah. The understanding that we have together, how we spend time together, the little jokes, the everything, right? Like I can just say something and right away he'll pick up the conversation and we start talking. Probably nobody else understands, you know? It's those types of things that can't be taught. Right. Like when you, when you're there on your wedding day, nobody gives you that little black and white outline of how this is what your relationship is supposed to look like, right? And like, oh, you know, follow these rules and you'll have this relationship. And you're like, wait, what? Because that has to be an experience. That has to be a lived experience, a lived relationship. And that's what I mean when I say we're good at, in the church, especially women, putting those boundaries around things, right. Don't do this, do that. You know, and we need that, um, especially early on in our walk, but nobody, we're not being taught very well or as often as we should, of how to have that. Relationship, that intimacy with God to where we are walking in that relationship with him, we're communicating with him. Our lived experiences with him are kind of like interweaving. And so then we, we can be led by the spirit and we can know what his heart is in that situation. And we know where our heart is in a situation, you know, because, because of that back and forth with him, because of that relationship with him. Um, and I feel like those things can't be taught. They have to be experienced, you know? Um, but we're not giving liberty inside the church to a lot of that, you know? Um, either that or it's, or like Paul says, don't let your liberty or don't let your freedom be evil spoken of. There are movements or cultures within the modern church now that are like, well, anything goes and it's fine. Yeah. You've got all these different things, you know, and so it's like, don't let your good be evil spoken of. Don't, don't use your liberty to, to sin. Right? Yeah. Paul said, um, so, so there's that. But like that's, I'm not necessarily addressing a sin issue or a black and white issue. I really am trying to narrow down more of like women that want to serve God. Women that want to live for Jesus. Women that want to raise their families in the Lord. They want God's will in their life and they want to walk in that. Right. And they don't have the liberty to do, or they don't feel, they don't know what that looks like. They don't know what that freedom looks like, you know?

Kate Bartley 14:38

Yeah. What do you think when they're wanting that? What are the, what's the go-to way of seeking it and trying to discover it? When they're trying

Daphne Boyd 14:47

to walk in that freedom.

Kate Bartley 14:49

Yeah. What do, what do most women end up doing when they're like, okay, I want God's will. I wanna walk in freedom, but I, I want to be in participation with the Holy Spirit and like what do we, what do, what's the typical thing that we're doing to try to discover that and align with that?

Daphne Boyd 15:08

Yeah. I know that my experience was probably the long way around the, my, you, you serve and you work and you walk around the mountain a few times and then you're like, why am I doing this right? Mm-hmm. And we learn to follow. You have to learn to follow the, the leading of the Holy Spirit. You have to learn to follow that pillar of fire by night in the cloud of fire, the cloud by day, right? Like when the cloud moves, you move and when the cloud stops, you stop. And it's one of those things that there's, there's not really like a. Walk around the mountain seven times and then move forward to the left, you know? Mm-hmm. There's none of that in Christianity. Um, it's mostly, if you even reading the Old Testament, and let's not, let's take before the Holy Spirit was released from the Holy of Holies. Let's go back into the Old Testament. And there, there wasn't, there was a lot of rules, but how God led the children of Israel was, just follow me. I'm not gonna tell you where you're going. Like when he told Abraham to leave his father, he was like, go to the place that I'll show you.

Kate Bartley 16:07

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Daphne Boyd 16:09

You know? Yeah. And when he told the children of Israel to leave Egypt, he said, follow the, the pillar of fire by night, you know, in the cloud of fire by day. And when the cloud moves, you move. Yeah. And when the cloud sits, you sit. You know?

Kate Bartley 16:21

Yes. Yeah.

Daphne Boyd 16:21

And so it's you see that exemplified in the Old Testament. We see it in the New Testament with the Holy Spirit. And I've had to learn to live like that. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. I, for me, so for how it looked like for me to, to learn to learn that was to like crash and burn a lot of times mm-hmm. Was to just like bump up against like, resistance and not, either not feeling the way that I felt like I should feel or not, not getting the things in my life that I felt like I should have. Right? Like, just like, I keep doing this and I keep doing this, and it just keeps bumping in, and then I'm gonna like, stop and then think about like, what, and then just start, start doing what feels right. Mm-hmm. Not to sound, I'm not saying follow your feelings or fo you know, whatever. Right. But I'm just saying like, when you start following the Holy Spirit. Which is to follow peace,

Kate Bartley 17:12

which is a feeling.

Daphne Boyd 17:13

Yeah. It is a feeling. And you, and you and the Bible says to follow peace. And when you start to follow peace, you're like, well, I don't have peace about this, but I do have peace about that. And sometimes the peace comes from like not doing something like mm-hmm. I'm not doing that anymore. And then they're like, you're like, oh my God, I feel peace about that. And then you're like, oh, that's scary. You know? Yeah. And so then we stop it and we, we follow peace. And it, it is harder to live that way. It's in a, in a sense.

Kate Bartley 17:41

There's so much,

Learning to Trust Your Own Validation

Daphne Boyd 17:41

there's a lot more freedom there. So

Kate Bartley 17:42

there's so much juicy stuff that you just said that would take us in a million different things. But, but I'll, I'll, I'll come back to this for just a minute.'cause it reminds me of a, some of the story and, and what's in the book is, is yeah. As a younger woman, I think, you know, that that's what I was doing is this. And again, um, a lot of it was good. Like, again, a lot of learning to follow Jesus is, is. Um, what we see and we read about in Jesus's character and what he's doing. So the scripture can be a beautiful reflection of that also in people's lives that are mentors that have the light of Christ in them. But eventually we have to internalize that, right? Right. Otherwise, we're constantly being led by a cloud outside of ourselves. Right. And the Holy Spirit doesn't live outside of ourselves, right? And so we can never be self-led. Um, and it feels really, uh, codependent to never get there, um, to be honest. And so it's what, what I found myself doing is I was, was so paralyzed. I got to a place in my life where I'm seeking. I wanna stay in God's will. I'm so afraid of stepping outside of as will and making the wrong choice or going like, like if I felt led to do something or excitement about something, or passion about something, if I told somebody else about it and they didn't reflect that passion, or I found myself and I hit a wall. I used their mirror as my validate. I, I began to question, oh, wait, maybe I wasn't hearing from God. Maybe that wasn't God. And, and I was like, I didn't know how to trust that. Does that make sense?

Daphne Boyd 19:14

Mm-hmm.

Identity, Stardust, and Your Gifts

Kate Bartley 19:15

And so as soon as I hit resistance, I just would go, oh, I, I would second guess everything that I just felt in that leadership that was, that was stirring up from within me. And so I was very aware of, there was a fear of, of leaving or like, you know, like Moses says, I don't wanna go astray from your presence. I don't wanna go anywhere unless you're coming with me. Right? And so it almost had me. Constantly seeking, seeking scripture, seeking direction, seeking. But I was seeking it outside of myself all the time, and it, it, it left me in a lot of doubt and a lot of actually not following the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Mm-hmm. Um, which, which took a toll. That took a toll on me because I'm not living in alignment with God's heart for me. I'm not doing the things that I feel so passionate about doing, um, because it's not getting validated. Um, and so what I had to eventually do is learn how to recognize that I don't need the outside validation. The spirit lives within me. The Holy spirit lives within me. And when I feel, um. That in me, alivening me towards something, um, that's expansive in that, you know, that's life, that's love. That's not fear, right? Um, is, is learning how to follow that in obedience, um, versus what somebody else says outside of me. But that, like an example would be, um, and this, this shows up in my business still all the time. This is constant work that I have to do. Um, like when I start to have too much space between clients or my caseload starts to get low, or I just kind of wake up kind of in a flat place and I just have too much time. I get into this place where I feel foggy and I start questioning and doubting, wait, what am I doing? And what is my why and what is my mission? And, and then I start going, wait, what am I doing chronic pain or am I doing, uh, um, helping people to step in their gifts? Like, what, what is it? And, and, and I'll get in this foggy place, right? And in that place. Everything in me starts to go, oh, I just want certainty. I just wanna know. I wanna know what to do. Somebody tell me what to do. Mm-hmm. I wanna go back and get a PT job where I have that schedule that tells me exactly what to do all day. Right? Like, yeah, that feels safe. And how to help somebody that feels easier. Right? And there's nothing wrong with having a healthy container of some structure. Right. There's, right. That's not a bad thing. It's like when we go to college, we want, the more, the more classes we're taking, the better we do. If we only have like two classes, we have too much free time. And then we're, you know, so again, healthy structure is good. But what I realized as I was journaling about it later, I was like, um, I had this little poem that I read that I'm gonna use with my group this week, and it just says something about, it kind of calls out that we're dust and you know, eventually dust. It comes back into the earth, but it, it turns and it says, but remember, you're also stardust. And as I'm reading that, and I'm, and it, you know, and it's just reminding us to sparkle a little as we're here and as soon as it names Stardust, just something in me just starts to like, aliven like an effervescence in me. And it's like somebody speaking my identity into me.

Daphne Boyd 22:24

Yeah.

Kate Bartley 22:24

I, I'm, I'm actually light. The essence of me is I'm created in, in my father's image. And that is light and it is love. Yeah. And so when you name that, like my, my whole being just settles, it was like, I'm stardust like, you know, and then I start to feel like I can feel myself connected to that and I can, I started to just let myself like move in that and let it like alive in me and then all of a sudden it didn't matter what I did that day, it didn't matter. Whether I unloaded the dishes, I washed the toilets, or I, I, I, I, everything felt amazing because I was doing it from my identity. Does that make sense?

Daphne Boyd 23:02

Mm-hmm.

Kate Bartley 23:02

And, and that is what, to me, that's what it looks like. If, if I clinging to certainty and I gotta go back into safety, that's, that's the false self. That's the self that needs structure, that's the self that needs certainty, right? Um, but when I'm able to reconnect with the truth of that, I am, I am actually a little sliver of light, of, of divine light that has been brought down to earth and it lives in a little human body. And when I connect with that, that's what moves me. That's what gets me excited. That's what restores my passion. And it gives me direction for the day. And as I start to follow the lead of that, I'm not passive. I'm productive, but I'm productive in a way that is grounded in joy, not not doing things to, um. Make sure I make enough money. It's not outcome dependent. Yeah. Does that make sense? I get Exactly. You better believe it's gonna be more productive and I'm gonna be more creative and I'm gonna create stuff that that affects the world. Um, so yeah, that's my example.

Daphne Boyd 24:04

I love, I love that. I love that. And, you know, and when we do see ourselves through God's eyes, it really, it's not that, it just changes our perspective. It changes, it changes our life. It changes how, like you said, how we move, how we are. Mm-hmm. How we, how we are. It

Kate Bartley 24:21

reminded me of that scripture in him. I live and move and have my being. I was like, and have my, that's what's happening in here right now.

Daphne Boyd 24:26

Exactly.

Kate Bartley 24:27

It feels like abiding.

Daphne Boyd 24:28

I believe that life begins at conception. But, but beyond that, I believe that there's that purpose for us. Like we are unique, we're special that God ordained us. Right? Like that, the Bible said that he, before I formed you in the belly, I knew you and I ordained you. Right. So he, he had a purpose and a calling for us. And it's easy for me now. To look at that because I'm a parent and I see my children and what I want the most for my children. What? It's not suffering. And you work and you do this. Yeah. And you, you know, like I, my, I have dancers, my girls are dancer. I love seeing them dance on stage and be who they are or the, they're, they're very artistic also. So I have one that she just can draw anything. She can look at anything and draw it, you know, and I'm like, ah, this is amazing. And I feel like those are gifts and abilities and skills that. Don't serve any other purpose, right? Like this formal purpose other than to, to bring joy. Right. And if we look at the things that we enjoy, like as, as humans, right? We enjoy, we enjoy art, we enjoy, you know, paintings and music and all of these other things that we enjoy, um, but we don't give them credit like in our lives, you know? Yeah,

Kate Bartley 25:46

yeah.

Daphne Boyd 25:46

And I think about God and it's like, yes, he has a purpose and a calling for us. Yes. He wants us to, to live out his will for our lives. And it's our job really. And as a partnership with him to find that, to, to, to follow that, right. But at the same time, everything is not about work and service and, you know, and being in the ministry a lot of times it's just being, it's just living. It's just, you know, like you said with your daughter, you know, going down the sidewalk with the, with the, with her bicycle and just being free and open. Like, I feel like when God sees us do that. Like mm-hmm. In our lives.

Kate Bartley 26:24

Yeah.

Daphne Boyd 26:24

It makes him happy.

Kate Bartley 26:26

Absolutely.

Daphne Boyd 26:26

And we're happy and you know, and so yeah.

Kate Bartley 26:29

If we enjoy seeing our kids do that, we know that all of heaven is rejoicing at that.

Daphne Boyd 26:33

Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I, and, and so to bring that back to the 30 something mom and the 40 something mom and the 50 something mom and the, you know, and it's like, God, that's how God still wants to see you.

Kate Bartley 26:46

Mm-hmm.

Daphne Boyd 26:47

He still wants to see you enjoy that thing that you do, enjoy the gift that he gave you. Enjoy the, you know, to be a good steward of those things. Right. We'd sing that all the time, like

Kate Bartley 26:57

Yeah.

Steward Your Light

Daphne Boyd 26:58

In church when we're little, you know, this a light of mine,

Kate Bartley 27:01

obedience is not. To me, that's, that's obedience. Obedience to the light, obedience to tending our own light.

Daphne Boyd 27:08

Mm-hmm.

Kate Bartley 27:09

Um, you know, and that's a totally different take on obedience. It's stewardship. Right. You know, if you're feel, if we're feeling burned out and we don't have energy, we're, that's a call to steward our light. Um, to treat it as valuable commodity that it is. Because when, when, when we see our daughter dancing on that stage and bringing light to the audience, to you, um. That's a gift. It's it is. It's the,

Daphne Boyd 27:34

and it's just her being.

Grit_Grace Podcast_Kate Bartley Podcast Interview 02.23 27:36

Yeah.

Daphne Boyd 27:36

You know, it's just her being, the expression of her, like the movement of her body. The expression of you're just like, I love it. You know? It,

Kate Bartley 27:44

it reminds me, yeah, it reminds me of, I don't know if you watched any of the Olympics, um, but the ice skater that won the gold medal. I think her name's Aliso. And as I watched her skate, there was such a marked difference between her performance and the other skaters. Like the other skaters. You could see that they were their identity. Was dependent on the outcome. It was dependent on the judge's response, that's response. And, and they were tight, they were dancing tight. Um, and, and she was complete opposite. She had let go of all of that outcome, and she was dancing for the pure joy of it. And oh my gosh, it's just completely different. And if that's not being a light in the world, I don't know what is.

Daphne Boyd 28:26

Mm-hmm.

Seed Time, Harvest, and Seasons

Kate Bartley 28:26

To, to learn. Like she had learned to loosen the hold on ego and on outcomes and to just shine and to just dance. And, um, that's a great business lesson for us. Like, look at the outcome, you know? We think, oh my gosh, I can't trust that I need to keep doing all these things and keep showing up and keep writing all these new letters and doing all that. Yeah. And the more we do that, like you were, I think you were talking about it in your last podcast, sometimes we're just spinning, spinning our wheels.

Daphne Boyd 28:53

And I recently, um, I, I told a client. Just the other day.'cause she was doing all these things and I'm like, look, we create the framework, right? We are, we are good stewards of what God has given us. Either the business that he's given us or the skillset he's given you or the gift that he's given you. Your responsibility is to be a good steward of that. Mm-hmm. But, and that means, you know, plowing the field, planting the seed, getting everything in preparation. Yeah. Like doing the work. Like, and I think women are not afraid of doing the work. Most women that I know are not afraid of doing the work.

Kate Bartley 29:29

We just wanna make sure that our work is gonna lead to something and it's not.

Daphne Boyd 29:34

Right. And that's the thing, it's the fear of like, I can plant this field and plant this seed. And what if there's no harvest? Exactly. And that's the thing that I, that I started to say to, not only to myself, but to clients, um, recently is like we, we are not gonna be attached to the harvest. That is on God when we are partners with God, especially when you're a Christian and you're in business and you are trusting him, you know, and you are being a good steward. You are following his will for your life and you're being a good steward of the skillset and the gifts that he's given you. Mm-hmm. And you've done the work, you've plowed the field, you've planted the seed. That harvest is up to him, you know that that yield is up to him. And it could be, you know, great or small or whatever, but that will determine, you know, um, I think like you said, we need to not be attached to the outcome. Yeah. Like we need to say, okay, God, this is on you and we want so bad for every single seed that we plant in that row to pop up. I know.'cause I garden. And it's so frustrating when you put some plants there and that one doesn't do good, even though it got the same amount of light and water that the rest of them did. Right. It's very frustrating and we try to figure out why, but I think as women, we want to control that. Like every single one of you has to be fruitful. Every single one.

Kate Bartley 30:54

Mm-hmm.

Daphne Boyd 30:54

And God uses that analogy throughout scripture, through the old end, new Testament of the seed time and harvest. Right.

Kate Bartley 31:03

Yeah.

Daphne Boyd 31:03

And what I think that we don't hear a lot of times

Kate Bartley 31:06

contraction and expansion too. Like there's times when the plant's gonna do this, and there's times

Daphne Boyd 31:10

when dormant, and then there's seasons. I think part of that is recognizing the season that you're in. Mm-hmm. Because we're trying to plant in winter time, and that's not, yeah. You know, so we don't need to be doing that. But at the same time, this, it's not seed harvest. Bible says seed time and harvest, you know? Yeah. And what that harvest looks like or how much time is in between there. We don't, we can't pinpoint even, even as a gardener, I know I can plant something in March. And maybe I don't see a fruit until June, but maybe earlier. But may I, I can't say on this date. There's supposed to be this

Kate Bartley 31:47

and it's hard for us. That's what I mean by sitting in. It doesn't feel like peace in the midst of the process sometimes. So we go, uh, we, we wanna do the little short term. You know, me and women, women are really

Daphne Boyd 32:01

terrible.

Kate Bartley 32:01

We want the short term wins and we don't know how to play the long game.

Daphne Boyd 32:04

Exactly. Ex. And I think men are detached from some of that sometime. Not that they don't care'cause I, but I just feel like it's different for them. Mm-hmm. Um, and I feel like women, we want to control that outcome. And for us, it's really hard to say, right. For other women to say, Kate. Your garden is beautiful. Look at all of your leaves. Look at all of the flowers. Oh my God, you're, you don't have a weed in there. Like, it just looks like you tend to this every day. Right. They could say that about your business. They could say that about your life. They could say that about your ministry, and you're just like, yes, but where's the fruit? Right. Because that's all we see. That's all we care about, right?

Kate Bartley 32:39

Yeah.

Daphne Boyd 32:39

They're like, I am. I don't have a basket full of, you know, the harvest, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's all we are thinking and, and we're not seeing the fullness of it, and it's hard for us to even accept. Those compliments or those acknowledgements from other women or other, other people to say, oh my God, you have a amazing garden. You have all of this. Mm-hmm. Look at, look at what's grown here. And all we see is like, that's not enough fruit. That's either it hasn't come up yet or it's not enough. Right? Yeah. And we're attached to that, um, to that outcome. And so that's where I've just gotten to where I tell my clients and um, and I tell myself this, that that is on God. The harvest is dependent on God, and I have to be detached from, and that takes trust.

Kate Bartley 33:28

That's the,

Daphne Boyd 33:29

and all he us to do is be a good steward. The rest really is up to him anyways.

Kate Bartley 33:33

Yeah.

Daphne Boyd 33:33

Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Kate Bartley 33:35

Yeah. And, you know, and that, again, that comes back to the work that I do, which is working with the fears that are arising in as we're trying to trust because they're gonna be there. And it's, it's, you know, we know it, we know what it looks like to walk in faith and to sit in trust and to, to, to release outcomes. And, um, but it isn't easy.

Business as a Healing Path

Daphne Boyd 33:55

It's not easy. So in conclusion, um, as we wind this down, what would be the thing that you, you feel like is the, is the most important message that women right now need to hear? Um, concerning everything we just talked about?

Kate Bartley 34:12

I want them to know and understand that, just because we're talking about this as if, as if it's easy as it's not, you and I both know that, we have to wrestle with our own fears and anxieties and all that stuff that arises. Um, it's a journey. Um, but that journey is part of our, our own healing work. And, and there's no better place to do that than when we're trying to build a business. We're gonna bump into all that stuff, aren't we? Um, and so it's just an opportunity to. Yeah, to come into contact with, okay, what's making it so hard for me to, to trust and let go of that outcome? What's the fear? What's the risk? What am I feeling inside of me? What am I worried? It's like sitting down, inviting that fear up next to us on our, on our lap and, and listening and, and so we get to do all of the spiritual formation and, and work, um, by coming into relationship with ourselves, with our emotions, with what's happening in our body as we're doing this work. I think being a business owner, is one of the best pathways to, to our own homeless work and to, being the light in the world that, that God's inviting us to be. And so, no, it's not easy. It's a lot of really challenging, work, and, and we're not ahead of any of the listeners. It's, it's a process and there's seasons where, uh, I feel, incredibly grateful for the work I get to do for the freedom to have my own business, um, the support of my husband. And there are seasons where I wanna run back into doing whatever's gonna make me feel like I'm a better mom and a better, you know, partner with my husband and I'm doing more for people because, uh, you know, all of that, that crap comes up. Yeah. But so just, I, I guess I want her to know wherever she is in the journey and whatever's happening today, she's human and it's all part of that process, that growing process. There's seasons where we feel drought and we feel, dry and we feel barren, and, we question everything we're doing. And there are seasons where we, finally find the security and the safety to let ourselves hibernate for a little bit, to let ourselves come into a period of restoration so something can come alive in us again. Wherever she is is okay. And it comes and goes and we finally get to a place where there's fruit and then a storm comes and here we go again. Or we, or we try to uplevel into a new, or the season

Daphne Boyd 36:37

changes,

Kate Bartley 36:38

you know? Yeah. And it's just, I think like coming into acceptance of the, the living cycle of all things. Mm-hmm. Instead of seeing it as a linear thing

Daphne Boyd 36:49

Right.

Kate Bartley 36:50

Is probably the best thing we can do.

Daphne Boyd 36:52

Yeah.

Kate Bartley 36:53

Um, to, to be with the humanity of that, and that that's, that's normal.

Daphne Boyd 36:59

Yeah. And there's freedom. There's freedom on the other side of that, there's peace and joy and all of that. The fruits of the spirit right? Mm-hmm. Are on the other side of, of that, you know. Yeah. So, and I think that's ultimately like what we want and what women are looking for is peace and joy and gentleness and, you know, and meekness and thankfulness and all of that. We were, we're looking for those.

Kate Bartley 37:27

Mm-hmm.

Practical Self-Attunement Tool

Daphne Boyd 37:27

But, we're trying so hard to bring them to fruition. Right. Yeah. Instead of allowing, yeah, allowing that, allowing ourselves to, to walk in that a lot

Kate Bartley 37:38

of times. Yeah. And that, that leads me to the last thing that I would say is, when you're feeling a lack of peace, when you're feeling like, oh God, if I could just have peace or just have joy right now, um, instead of trying to move towards finding peace, it's, that's the opportunity to, we have to create internal peace first. And then flow out of that and act out of that. And so if that means I'm, I'm gonna just pause and I'm gonna look at your plant behind you and just kind of, or open my window and, and wait until, uh, God reflects his love through the trees and the birds and, and restores my sense of peace in my body. Um, that, that's the invitation every time to create that internal peace and safety within our bodies before we ever take action in our businesses and in our, and, and that's why we need space.

Daphne Boyd 38:25

What's one exercise so that we leave listeners with like an actionable step because I'm very action oriented. Yeah. This conversation. Well, and, and so it was like, what, what can I do or what can, can a woman do that says, you know, like, I am feeling. Yeah. All of this turmoil or fear or, yeah. Um, uncertainty or anxiety about, about a situation or about this place in my life or about the season I'm walking in, what, what can I physically do? Right? Yeah. Because we're talking about also the body. Well, what can I physically do to help, help that?

Kate Bartley 39:01

Yeah. So, so the one thing that I was just suggesting, sometimes that can be an entry point. Like I might just, when I notice myself, you know, with that activation and that stress, in my body, I'm just, I just. Tune into it in the same way I would go in and tune into my child in their crib. Um, what do you need? You know, we just gotta come into contact with our own needs again.

Daphne Boyd 39:23

Yeah.

Kate Bartley 39:24

Um, what do you need? What would help you feel a little safer right now? Yeah. A little more peace. Maybe I need to put a blanket around me. Maybe I need to turn on music. Maybe I need to open up my Evernote and I need to scream into the page for a second.

Daphne Boyd 39:39

Yeah.

Kate Bartley 39:39

That, that is a way to mobilize the activation energy out of our bodies and that can work really helpful. And we can see in black and white on the page. Um, that, that's one of my favorite tools. Um, I do a little bit more body stuff than I used to, but I think that's a great starting point. I'm feeling this and I am sick and tired of this. And to get all of that out and then to notice what's happening in your body afterwards, it's just like a. Expression and just checking back in with our needs. Mm-hmm. Did that help? What else do you need? Like it's, it's attuning to ourselves in the same way we would attune to our children. That that's, that's what I would recommend. And, and, and wait until that stress moves through your body and you come back into a place where you feel an exhale. Again, set aside business for a minute. It's the same way if, if, if many of your listeners are homeschool moms, we know that the tending of the spirit of the child matters more than the academics. Um, and we have to set it aside for a little bit. We have to set aside our business to be with what's present in us.

Daphne Boyd 40:38

Mm-hmm.

Kate Bartley 40:39

And make con connection. It's like, it's like sitting on the bed next to your child and just being a source of safety and a listening ear as they vent through their frustrations or whatever, and just being a presence. Um, and so we've gotta learn how to do that for ourselves and for each other. That would be the tool that I would use. Just like the daily breast exam. You gotta do it.

Daphne Boyd 41:01

Yeah.

Kate Bartley 41:01

Do the work and see it as productive because it is the most productive thing you will do. And you'll start experiencing those shifts faster and faster.

Daphne Boyd 41:10

Wow. Well, thank you Kate, for joining me today on the podcast. And Kate's written the book, the Good Girl Rx. You can find it on her website or on, Amazon, right?

Kate Bartley 41:21

Yeah. Anywhere books are sold.

Daphne Boyd 41:22

Yeah. Anywhere books are sold. You can, you can find The Good Girl Rx. It's a great book. I have to take the, I had to take it slowly when I was reading it because I just was feeling so much as I read each chapter and I was like, wait, I gotta think about this book. It

Kate Bartley 41:37

is, it is something to move slowly.

Daphne Boyd 41:38

It's very meaty. Yeah. You didn't write like a little, you know, milk book. You wrote like a meat book.

Kate Bartley 41:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take your

Daphne Boyd 41:46

time with it. And, um, especially when you've lived this. So a lot of it has to be, like you said, you have to start connecting with your body in that way and be like. Wow. I, I didn't realize they did that. Or I see instances now where I did that and like analyze that and what happened afterwards and all that. Mm-hmm. I kind of had to do that with the Yeah. The first part of your book. Um, but I love the stories in there, um, and I love your honesty mm-hmm. And your just authenticity throughout the book. So thank you so much for sharing that with the world and for being on the podcast and sharing that with us today. Thank you so much.

Kate Bartley 42:22

My pleasure. Enjoyed talking.

42:27

Thanks for spending this time with me on the Grit and Grace Podcast. If this episode resonated with you, I'd love for you to follow the show and share it with another woman who needs it. You can find resources, episodes, and lots more, and Daphne Boyd.com. Until next time, walk with grit and grace.