The Tilted Halo
The Tilted Halo podcast has a refreshing and honest perspective on the challenges pastors face in their ministry and those involved in ministry as a whole. Hosted by Pastor Kathleen Panning, who has seen it all, this edgy show explores the idea that we all have a "tilted halo" - a recognition that we are not perfect and all make mistakes.
Through personal experiences, interviews with fellow pastors, leaders, and insights from scripture, this show offers advice and encouragement for those struggling with the weight of their imperfections. From burnout and rude awakenings to personal failures and shortcomings, The Tilted Halo provides a safe space for pastors to share their struggles and find support from a community of like-minded souls around the globe.
With a focus on authenticity, vulnerability, and humanity at large, this podcast challenges the notion that pastors must have it all together and invites listeners to embrace their humanity and lean into the grace of God. Whether you are a pastor or someone looking for a fresh perspective on life's challenges, The Tilted Halo is a must-listen in the search for hope, healing, and a renewed sense of purpose.
The Tilted Halo
EP 51: Redefining Success with Dr. Eva Kleczyk
Discover how Dr. Ewa Kleczyk, a leader in healthcare analytics, illuminates the hidden yet pervasive issue of imposter syndrome among women in ministry and leadership roles. A staggering 75% of women executives grapple with feeling like frauds despite their accomplishments, and Dr. Kleczyk explains the societal pressures and historical contexts that fuel this self-doubt. Listen as we explore the perfectionist, the first of the four types of imposter syndrome, and discuss the profound impact these feelings have on personal and professional growth.
We uncover the strength found in community and spirituality as powerful antidotes to imposter syndrome and mental health struggles. Dr. Kleczyk shares her experiences growing up in communist Poland, where the church was more than just a place of worship—it was a refuge and a source of unity. Today, similar support networks, including women's groups and spiritual communities, offer vital mentorship and resilience. We emphasize the importance of acknowledging struggles, practicing self-compassion, and building networks that lift each other.
Through the lens of self-compassion and gratitude, we delve into the empowerment of women. By reframing failures as opportunities for growth and recognizing our shared humanity, we can foster a mindset of hope and resilience. Dr. Klesik inspires us to invest in ourselves through community involvement, spirituality, and education. Embrace gratitude for both external and internal strengths, and connect with Dr. Kleczyk on Instagram for more insights on leadership and empowerment!
Welcome to the Tilted Halo. This is a new podcast and it's for anybody who's a woman in ministry. You might be a pastor like myself, a bishop, a priest, a rabbi, music minister, elder children's minister whatever your title is, you're absolutely in the right place, especially if you're someone who loves your ministry and you're doing it well and you're feeling pressure to sometimes be perfect and deep down inside, you know you're not, and how in the world to deal with that? And men, you're absolutely welcome here too, because this is about ministry and the same thing can happen to you. So you're all in the right place. Let's get started with the show. It is my honor and privilege to have a guest with me again today here on the Tilted Halo.
Speaker 1:Dr Eva Klesik is an esteemed leader in healthcare analytics, honored by the prestigious Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023. Currently, she's an executive at a prominent healthcare research organization and she plays a pivotal role in accelerating the dissemination of crucial insights in medicine and pharmaceuticals by enhancing data quality and research methods. With nearly two decades of experience, dr Klesik is a prominent figure in healthcare analytics and operations. She actively participates in renowned conferences, contributes to academic and industry journals and mentors aspiring analysts, particularly women, demonstrating her commitment to advancing gender diversity in the field. Her efforts have earned her recognition from esteemed organizations like the Healthcare Business Women Association and the Women Tech Network. Beyond her professional endeavors, dr Klesik dedicates her time to supporting cancer-related initiatives and educational programs, serving on various boards and establishing academic scholarships.
Speaker 1:Originally from Wrocław I'm not going to pronounce that correctly Wrocław Poland she holds a doctorate in economics from Virginia Tech and a master's degree from the University of Maine. Dr Klesik resides in Lansdale, pennsylvania, with her husband, where she continues to make significant contributions to the health care community and engaging in philanthropic endeavors. Dr Klesik was brought up Roman Catholic and continues to preserve her faith and spiritual upbringing in her adulthood. Passionate about equitable health care, dr Klesik frequently promotes justice and compassion on local and community podcasts, advocating for patient advocacy and comprehensive care that includes spiritual well-being. Her commitment to mentoring women in healthcare analytics is inspired by her spiritual beliefs and her mission to leave a lasting legacy and a better world for future generations. Dr Klesik, welcome to the.
Speaker 2:Tilted Halo. Well, wonderful to be here. Thank you so much for having me, Kathleen.
Speaker 1:We met a couple of months before we're recording kind of experienced firsthand when I started in ministry and it's imposter syndrome women in ministry and women of leadership who are using their faith and commitment in their leadership, for whom this is probably equally a topic that they've had a little bit too much familiarity with, shall I say, part of our own life and growing up. There were no women in ministry who were models for me when I was starting and so it was kind of like who am I that I can be doing this? But even when there are other women who can be models for us, that can still be an issue. So what is you know? Give us a definition. What is imposter syndrome?
Speaker 2:to begin with, yes, thank you so much. This is an interesting topic and imposter syndrome is something that many of us suffer from. So what it is? It's a psychological pattern where an individual doubts their accomplishments and has persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud, and I think we all can see in our lives that sometimes we feel like, oh my goodness, aren't they going to find out that I'm not all of this?
Speaker 2:And especially this happens for women in male-dominated industries, like yourself being a minister, a female minister. Many women executives have this as well. Where they are coming in, they are the only female on the board or in the leadership group and just feeling very different. And it has been identified that 75% of women executives say that they feel imposter syndrome in their workplace, so that is a really staggering number, but it also tells us that we don't talk about imposter syndrome. However, it is something that we all are experiencing and I think we do have to talk about it, whether it's in faith, whether it's in family life or whether this is in our professional journey. It's something that we are all going to be struggling with and we need to identify how to deal with it and what do we do and how do we support ourselves in order to overcome it.
Speaker 1:You know, it's so interesting that it's that high of a number. Think that it's that high of a number even in this day and age where I was growing up, where you know, women's liberation and those kinds of things back in the 60s and 70s was so popular and it was like, oh, we're supposed to be free and done with all of this stuff.
Speaker 2:And here it is three quarters or more of us still have this Is there any research or things that you're aware of as to why women in particular have this issue? So I think this is there, is you know? First of all, there's a lot of research about imposter syndrome. It's just not very well publicized. Many new organizations are discussing this, but I think it goes back to the upbringing, where we all are coming from. So there are four types of imposter syndrome and I think this is important to walk through because anyone will identify with at least one of them, if not all of them, as we are talking about First of all, it we are talking about, and first of all, it's the perfectionist. How many of us want to do everything just right, everything has to be done particularly well and we don't take any failure as the markup at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to just piggyback on that. I mean, I felt the need to be seen as equal to my male counterparts. I had to be so much better than, and so the perfectionism. You know how dare I make a flub, because then I won't be seen as worthwhile at all.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that can be there very easily Very very easily, regardless of what we are going through, and so forth. The next one, I think is even more associated with women, is being the superwoman or superman, but in this case being a superwoman, feeling like we have to excel in every part of our professional life, our home life, our spiritual life, our community life, everywhere we have to come in and be at our best, and hopefully those women who are listening to us right now realize that it's not possible to be perfectionist and be the super woman every single day of our lives. Right, there are days where the only thing we can do is wake up and do the bare minimum, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:And that's okay.
Speaker 2:Sometimes the only thing we want to do is go to church or go to a place of service or worship and spiritually uplift ourselves. It's okay to do that and I think understanding that women especially are suffering from the superwoman type of imposter syndrome.
Speaker 2:I think that brings it in and I think this is probably the most common across women to feeling this, because we have to be good moms, we have to be good wives, we have to be good friends, we have to be good workers, and it just continuously brings us to the point where we feel overwhelmed. Many women feel overwhelmed, and especially during COVID era. I know we all passed COVID, but COVID opened up where many women experienced working eight hours at home, doing then schoolwork for their kids, taking care of their elderly parents, doing then schoolwork for their kids, taking care of their elderly parents. It was exhausting on many of them, but they felt like they had to do it all and really do it by themselves. The next two ones are really related to and they're often seen in the male-dominated arena, like yourself, being a female minister.
Speaker 2:For me, being in a male-dominated industry within analytics, where I'm usually the only woman right or one of the few women at the table, so being an expert and then being a soloist. I think we all women also, when we want to be superwoman, we also want to be a soloist. We want to do everything because we like our table to be set a certain way. We want to be always recognized right. We always believe that everyone else, no one, will do the work the way we need to get done, and I think we all suffer from this, versus saying well, maybe that's not true, maybe I need someone else.
Speaker 2:And I think especially women, as they're going in their careers, are also not asking for the support they're not asking, realizing I cannot be a soloist, I will never be an expert in everything. How do I surround myself with people who can complement me right, who know, identify the blind sites, whether it's spiritual blind sites, whether it's our home life blind sites, professional blind sites? We all have them and I think we have to ask for help. That's one but two surround ourselves with individuals who can help us fill in some of those gaps that we have and ultimately release the pressure. Release the pressure from us and be able to breathe a little bit better, knowing that, yes, I may not be able to do everything. However, I have the network that can help me and really will support me in the arenas that I might not be the best.
Speaker 1:And that part in my experience for myself and with most clergy, male as well as female, that I know is really tough. There is a competition, if you will, that happens amongst pastors and kind of the subtle. You know, look at so-and-so, they're having trouble over there, you know, or you know that congregation is not thriving as well. So we want to be in competition so that we aren't like them and it's a subtle type of thing. But it also creates that silo, that solo thing that I got to do it all myself.
Speaker 1:And there's something, a tendency with the ministry called being the lone ranger, that whole idea I'm going to go out there and conquer everything, and you know. But for those who know the old TV show, the lone ranger, the lone ranger had a sidekick, had somebody there helping him along the way, and we often forget that. And there's the pressure from those who we work with sometimes that you know we hired, you, called you to do this, that you know why, why can't you do all of this, uh, type of attitude as well. That feeds into that um, so we kind of get it from within and outside of us so to have that part of the imposter syndrome, um, pushed on us validated in a way that is not helpful. No, no At all.
Speaker 2:It's not helpful, and I would say it's also especially from us being you and I, both being women also. Women inflict that very often on themselves, whether they like it or not.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Being in a professional role. There is only so many women that make to the top. Right, you are on the top in your arena. I'm hoping that I am reaching the top and you can see there's a very different way of how women are behaving and what we want to say. Always leave the latter behind or help someone else on the way. It is much more difficult. The soloist and the expert I worked so hard for it starts coming up, and I think to your point, you were talking about ministers being, or clergy being, competitive with each other. I think women are very competitive with each other in their own professions.
Speaker 2:And it's sometimes they are the bigger obstacle on someone else's pathway forward and we need to start talking about it.
Speaker 2:We need to talk about the insecurities that we all have and realizing that, while we all want to achieve everything, we all can do this, but when we support each other and realize that someone else might have a skill set that I will never be able to obtain or it's going to take me a long time to obtain, but together we are much greater than the separate parts of us, I think that makes a very different changes. The context and the understanding of what we can accomplish together.
Speaker 2:It is always that community and the partnership that can help us.
Speaker 1:And that's so interesting because traditional Christian faith, but also Jewish and what I know of Muslim, which is not all that much but the community is so important in most faith groups and so yet we cut ourselves off from that community and the potential for that, not only within our own little communities, our own local community and ministry, but how that can empower so many beyond us, a ripple effect, if you will.
Speaker 2:I would, I would, I would agree. Um, I think, um, growing up in poland, church was very important. I was growing up during the communist times, right, so we were. You know, church was only allowed on certain hours of the day and when you had to go to take the religion class, you were going to the, to the church, and this was all done. But it brought in people together and I think the support that the church was providing wasn't only spiritual. It was a place where everyone could gather and feel safe, regardless of where they were coming from, and so forth.
Speaker 2:The other place for me which to me, that always plays in and the church close by us. We have a Polish shrine here. What they provide is also the support for the people who might not have food right. Feed the hungry, bring them the food, help them. Um, for us, during the communist time, um, in the united states, the communities here would be, the churches would be gathering a lot of food and clothing and they'll be shipping them to the churches and we would be going in and receiving. I always remember coming back as a five-year-old with a pound of cheese on my arms that was delivered by one of the michigan churches to us, and it was it is it changes how we are doing this, but it also presents it that we are all that much better, that much more um successful if we all work together.
Speaker 2:Because even those little items like giving someone an advice or saying something kind to them, it changes how someone can feel and where they can go, ultimately go, and I think we never talk about it.
Speaker 2:but imposter syndrome is coming in because people have insecurities and they don't think that, um, that others perceive them the way they would like to be perceived, and I think those insecurities are going in.
Speaker 2:So it's a. It's an interesting thing how we are doing, you know how this is all playing out, and especially for women, and I think having that discussion, open discussion, and recognizing what it can do we haven't talked about the impact of it but the mental health of that it's really significant, especially on women, and especially on women who at some point might have all of the four of the imposter syndromes at the same time. And trying to deal with that it is not an easy feast to do and it's not an easy task to overcome. So I think that partnership, that community, the faith, the is the spirituality, that's what can really help us ground and help us really start thinking about what it is we would have to be able to be open about this and to share those feelings of well, you know, no, I can't do it all To be a little bit vulnerable in saying where our limits are and reaching out.
Speaker 1:The power of a model like that for the other women in our ministry who we work with could be huge.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think there is nothing better than doing that and also giving the you know, as I'm thinking about how do you overcome it. I mean, spiritual life is extremely important, but it also can allow not only to ground but also normalize what imposter syndrome is. And normalize failure and I don't mean failure, that you know we're always going to be failing but changing the meaning of struggle, changing the meaning of today.
Speaker 2:I have a bad day, and do I have to be ostracized for it? Or do I just say I, you know? I say God, I'm today, it's gonna be the day that I'm gonna. It's okay for me to wake up and take a shower. That's gonna be the only thing I'm gonna do and I'm gonna pray for your you know, to you for the glory or for for your forgiveness for not doing anything else. But I think these are all of the aspects that we all have to be thinking about and talking. I mean, we don't talk about women who just had kids, who just gave birth, and the depression that they are going through or the loneliness they are feeling, right, and I think that goes in as well.
Speaker 2:We don't think about it as an imposter syndrome because that also has a lot of psychological and chemical components to this, but it does plays in because it feeds in on the same components, on the same basis of feeling included, feeling like I'm not the only one, I'm not alone, knowing that someone else is feeling this.
Speaker 2:Right, women always suffer from not knowing that someone else is going through the exact same thing that someone was able to get through. So, as I always many of these presentations that I do, it's about women executive to women executive and for the leadership component. But it's the piece of acknowledging, normalizing, changing the perspective, what a failure is and saying, because I'm not going to take a shower today, that doesn't mean that I failed. It means that today I need a break. Right, I need someone else to help me and having that women group or, you know, spiritual group that can really help, mentor and support in the very difficult times, that community that we were just discussing is extremely, extremely important. And raising the hand and again, we as women don't raise our hands very often because we are super women, right? We do it and um, if.
Speaker 2:if anything, what I would say is, at the point when we can at least pray for for your own strength to acknowledge to yourself that you are struggling, because I don't know how many women actually acknowledge that If you don't want to say it out loud at least acknowledge to yourself and have the compassion for yourself at that given moment.
Speaker 1:Right, and that was. I mean, there was a point in my ministry where acknowledging to myself that I was struggling was very difficult, but thankfully I got into a support group at that time. I was invited into one and even though I didn't share a lot at that time in that group, I've been in another one since then. Um, I've been in another one since then. Um, but it it just being there and hearing some of the struggles. And I was the only female in that support group. Uh, uh at that point.
Speaker 1:But, um, just being there and having a chance to hear what some of the others were going through and knowing that, oh well, I'm not so different from them after all, and you know, seeing that some of these male colleagues from a variety of different denominations had many of the same struggles and you know they had many, many more years of experience in ministry than I did, and yet they were still doing that or still experiencing some of those things.
Speaker 1:It really helped me at that point in time. And then the last group I was part of, very open, very well, I had somebody there who was kind of the facilitator for the group and everything, and it was men and women as well, but mostly women in that group, and it was so much more open and so much more to breathe and to be me and to share and I grew as a result of that and was able to bring a lot of that back into the congregation, especially because the congregation was going through a huge struggle at that point as well. A huge struggle at that point as well. So all of those things are so important to have those mentors to be a mentor. What other kinds of things can be helpful to deal with imposter syndrome?
Speaker 2:So there are many different things. There are clearly a lot of psychological, behavioral type of techniques that can be done and I would say is I would always advise women and men who are struggling with any anxiety, any mental health issues, always reach out to the professionals and take it. Imposter syndrome might be something that is showing up, but there might be some other things. Sometimes some of us need a little bit more help. So I always encourage that. But for women especially, I would say is celebrate achievements. Uh, women, don't celebrate.
Speaker 2:women don't celebrate Um, and we don't support each other. We almost become jealous of each other's um success. So change that. When uh um celebrate the little things, celebrate and clap for all of all of the women in your network. Recognize them, be kind to them.
Speaker 2:Because, regardless of what they are doing, they are putting themselves out there. They are doing something that is different. Help, support each other. That imposter syndrome is going to slowly become not as visible to others, right, because we're going to feel much more empowered to do what we need to do. We also need to build self-confidence, self-esteem, and, again, women.
Speaker 2:Very often women struggle with self-esteem. If you think about it, being a woman these days, it's not that easy, right? You have to, you know, be a good mother, be a professional, take care of your parents, be a good wife, look good, right. Behave appropriately. It's a.
Speaker 2:If you think about the stresses that women are feeling right now, it is really the self-esteem at many different levels can be impacted and the imposter syndrome might be coming in because I don't look the way I would like or I don't. You know, I'm not perceived by someone that I'm a good mother, or my parents don't think I'm a good daughter, whatever that might be. There are so many different things. So I would say, yes, self-talk and self-positive affirmation.
Speaker 2:Stand in front of that mirror and every day, say something positive to yourself, because someone said I was watching a podcast or listening to a podcast and someone said, if you talk very positively to yourself, it becomes ingrained in your head, right? If you say, oh my goodness, I look good today, or I feel good, or I'm going to wake up and I'm going to do this, it starts becoming you. And the more you do that, the more your mind changes. Mind is like a sponge, and one of the podcasts that I was listening to it said that even the unconscious thoughts that might be negative are impacting how, ultimately, we are behaving, and that's something that we, as women, should do and try to force ourselves to speak kindly to yourself.
Speaker 2:Say something good. The second thing is we, as women, are very compassionate to everyone but ourselves. We love we. You know. We say we're going to take care of our kids, we're going to take care of our husband. When our parents are ailing, we are there as the caregivers.
Speaker 2:And these are. I mean, we all do that because we love the family members we have or we love supporting others, and support that's a. That's a normal feeling. But if you ask many women, are they compassionate for themselves? They will say no, they're so much more distant and strict and they believe that again that perfectionism is coming, the superwoman coming in. So be kind to yourself. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes just taking a shower it's good enough for the day, and I think if we have that mentality of it's okay. Treat yourself with kindness, the same kindness that you are giving your family, your neighbors, your co-workers. Give yourself the same. Treat yourself the same way as you're not treating others.
Speaker 1:And the final I can add one thing in there. There's the old saying that's in some form in basically every religion love your neighbor as yourself, and it's the as yourself part of that that I never heard growing up. You know it was love your neighbor love your neighbor, great.
Speaker 1:But when we don't love ourselves, like you're talking about with that, we can't really love the neighbor. We can't really love the neighbor. And so it's being kind to ourself, giving ourselves the same grace, the same, you know, pass if you will at times, but the same lack of judgment, judgmentalism that we would give somebody else, we need to give that to ourselves, and we have the scriptural grounding for that.
Speaker 2:It's not just, you know, a nice thing we're called to do that we are, but most of us, especially women, we don't do that. We don't do that because we were always raised to put someone else ahead of us, right. First right so it's a….
Speaker 1:Being a martyr? Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:And you know I come… Coming from Poland. There is a… Polish women were called…. You know there is a famous saying that… Mother Poland, or Polish mother, however you want to say it, but it talks about the mother who can do everything right, the superwoman. So that's, that's a statue, one of the one of the cities in Poland, and and that was always that how we were viewing right. This is the, this is what you should be, and I think that is that is what we women, especially, are being raised with, and and the lack of compassion for for ourselves comes from that as well.
Speaker 2:But I love what you said love your neighbors like you would love yourself, and we have to work on the love yourself first, otherwise it's not going to be feasible to be, or even or not even doable, you are not coming.
Speaker 2:Authentic becoming. You know you are not authentic if you don't give yourself the same grace as everyone else. And I would say it's always develop those skills, because whether you're going to be a, whether you are immersed in faith, whether you're immersed in your professional life, or even when you are volunteering in a community, this always requires some kind of development some kind of learning of a skill, some kind of educational component.
Speaker 2:We have to invest in this because that's also part of developing yourself, investing in yourselves. We don't talk about investment in ourselves, but we should, and I think spirituality is an investment in ourselves. Education, whatever that might be, volunteering, is an investment. Being part of a being a good family member, contributing family member, is an investment. I think there's so many different investments and in order to be whole, we have to think about the entire spectrum of ourselves and realize that one day we're going to be better in one of them, these different aspects and sometimes we will not be good in any of them, but that's okay. Today is what it is. Tomorrow we can correct it right. We can be better tomorrow.
Speaker 2:And I was at a conference a little bit long last year and someone said that, especially for women, that when we have a hard day, we almost give up and we are so devastated and it's okay for us to cry. I think you know also, as god was. You had the discussion with with god what's going on. Why am I feeling today the way I'm feeling? But also wake up the next day and say the sun is up, the sun just risen. I can also now try to be better, I can try to do, and give yourself the kindness of saying I can do it, I am, I'm good and and just move forward, because I think we don't think about that. That. Allow yourself to grieve we all have places where we are grieving but also think about what, how you can that the next day. It's an opportunity to correct or have a. Whatever you want to do, it's a. It's a blank space. It's a blank. Correct or have a. Whatever you want to do, it's a. It's a blank space. It's a blank sheet.
Speaker 2:You can do whatever you want to do with that, with the next day, nothing is going to be held against you.
Speaker 1:You are going forward with the next day, the next morning yeah, yeah, there's so many things within um, the faith context, that um be shared. You know talking about how this all fits in with within Christian faith in particular, but it because that's my context, that's why why I say that. But you know the whole idea from the Apostle Paul that we are all sinned and we have all fall short of the glory of God, which allows us to recognize that we don't have to be perfect, because we can't be, and but it also allows us to understand that you know there's God's grace there and we can grow in the midst of that and sharing and being there for other people. And you know it's okay. It's okay we do the best we can each day, knowing what we have and what we can give. Absolutely yeah. And I just realized I have to plug in my computer.
Speaker 1:No worries, as I've been down here for a moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I don't lose the power, okay, but all of that is you know, I was talking with someone else recently that to remember that every single day, in every single situation, based on what we see and what we understand at that moment, we really try to do the best we can.
Speaker 1:That moment we really try to do the best we can. And when we say I didn't do it well enough, I failed, whatever, that's always in retrospect, that's a judgment, looking back on something and to recognize that. Okay, maybe, looking back on it, I see some other information, I understand things a little differently. And now the next time or tomorrow when I talk to this person, I can change that. The past is, it's gone and yet we can always move forward from there instead of feeling trapped by that. That is correct. That failure is not fatal, unless we keep that as the definition for the rest of the future keep that as the definition for the rest of the future, and I think that's why reframing what failure is is very important and changing the definition of it and saying it's learning right, it's learning on.
Speaker 2:Yes, it didn't go the way I want it. I can pray on it I can cry on it.
Speaker 2:I can do whatever I need to do to digest what just happened. Take the lessons. Take the lessons and the next day you have the opportunity to change your direction, change your journey. It's in your hand. It's in your hand If you hear these different stories of individuals who went to prison or who came from nothing, who came from families where there was abuse or a drug abuse or whatever other circumstances, and you see where they ended up at the end. You are, you know it's the will that they had of changing the cycle, understanding the environment and what was happening to them or where they were placed and being able to move forward and really understanding what it takes for them and having the willpower to change their circumstance.
Speaker 2:And I think if this was easy, right if we all would be angels here walking on this planet. But none of us are. We are none of us are and I think but that's what is the. We all have different experiences and I think we learn from each other. We all have very different perspective.
Speaker 2:Some of us come in from different countries, some from different religions, but there is one uniform thing If you are open and if you are willing to understand another human being, you can move forward. You can understand yourself better. Being a, you can move forward, you can understand yourself better. And you can that that imposter syndrome can ultimately slowly be diminished because your time, your mind frame, is changing. You are reframing your concept. You're in framing what a right, what a failure, is right, I mean, it's a, it's, it's there is, unless there isn't really that many things that are extreme failures. There are things that happen to us, but if you take the appropriate message from it and take the learnings, the next day might be that much better and you can have a very different trajectory from that point on. And and I think that's what we all should be praying and thinking about and and finding solace in the fact that today might not have been the best but tomorrow might be actually a much better day, and hope and believe in that.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I've found that helps me reframe some of the challenges, the pains, the failures, if you will, is gratitude.
Speaker 1:Names the failures, if you will is gratitude Even in the midst of those times when things go totally haywire and seem like, you know, it's all going wrong, that there's always things to find to be grateful for. And, yes, sometimes we got to look pretty hard, but to do that, to be intentional, about looking for the things to be grateful for and that goes back to the part that you talked about about being kind to ourselves as well and to be grateful for things within us. To be grateful for things within us, sometimes it's the things we didn't say or things we didn't do that we can be really grateful for, that urge to say something that we bit our tongue and didn't, which would have made it far worse. So, you know, anything like that can be something to be grateful for, something to be grateful for, and that gives us permission and understanding to see some of the successes that are there too, some of the things to give us credit for, and the good things that were there in the midst of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. And I think this is part of growing, right, this is part of growing for all of us and I think if we take these lessons, that's always good. But sometimes, when we say certain things, that's a part of the learning as well. We know how it made us feel or we know how it made someone else feel, and if we are truly compassionate, not only to ourselves but others, then we will know that we made someone else feel diminished, we made them feel like they are non-existent, and if we feel and we allow ourselves to feel and recognize that, we will know that we will not do something forward. So I always say this it's a. We're all going to make errors, right. We're all going to make mistakes, but they're not failures, they are just. We all trip, right. There will be pebble on the road, we're all going to trip and we're going to fall down. Maybe we scratch ourselves a little bit more, it's going to be more blood, maybe we even need stitches, but it's a learning because next time, hopefully, we take those learnings and we move forward.
Speaker 2:And especially about imposter syndrome the moment you start realizing what is holding you back, why you are not recognizing it and you start thinking about it, that it all starts with you, that very often, people don't have that perspective or that perception about you. Right, it's all in our heads. It's all in our heads. I think they start changing and I really love the fact you know talking to having that supportive network, regardless what this needs to be, where you realize that you are not the only one, because most people don't think about many people. Very often, right, we are so self-observed. Very often we only think about ourselves. And then when you go and meet people, you realize that, oh my goodness, hey, no one thought about it, about me and, by the way, the person that I thought is so confident. They are suffering from exactly the same thing that I am and I was putting them on a pedestal and all of a sudden, you realize that we all are just human. We all have good and bad days and we can only do what we can do.
Speaker 1:Right, right, I think we could continue this conversation for quite a while, dr Klesik, but I want to honor your time and everything here, too, shared with some eight points on it about imposter syndrome that will be available somewhere somehow along with this podcast some link for that, so and, if not, on the podcast platforms, on my YouTube channel with this, where this is posted. So thank you so very, very much. This has been a very enlightening and hopefully empowering conversation for women who listen to this. So I truly, truly appreciate your time and your expertise and your insights, sharing this with me and with all of the listeners and watchers of this. All of the listeners and watchers of this. So how can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more or follow your?
Speaker 2:work and things like that Sure. So first of all, thank you so much for having me here. It was a wonderful opportunity to be here and talk about a very important topic that many women of faith and many professional women and women in general are faced every single day. For anyone who would like to reach out to me, who would like to learn a little bit more of what I do and some of the leadership work that I do, please feel free to find me on Instagram it's Dr Eva Kleczek, as my name is spelled over there, and you can find me and send the invite request request and I would love to connect with you and then you can communicate with me through Instagram. So thank you so much for the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you. Thank you very, very much, and to all of the listeners, thank you for being here today. Come back for another episode of the Tilted Halo at some point in time. So God's peace and blessings to you, dr Klazek, and to all of the Tilted Halo at some point in time. So God's peace and blessings to you, dr Klesik, and to all of the people today. So take care. Bye-bye. You have been listening to Tilted Halo with me, kathleen Panning. What did you think about this episode? I'd really like to hear from you. Leave me some comments. Be sure to like, subscribe and share this episode and catch another upcoming episode. For more conversation on ministry life, mindset and a whole lot more. Go to wwwtiltedhalohelpcom, where I've got a resource guide and other resources waiting for you, and be sure to say hi to me, kathleen Panning, on LinkedIn. See you on the next episode.