Am I The Problem? Female Toxicity

The word "toxic" is thrown around SO often these days.

And it's usually directed toward other people in a mean-spirited, judgemental way.

In the interest of turning our reflection on ourselves instead of others, I thought today we'd talk about issues common to women...things that may make us, well, toxic.

Now I'm obviously not condemning or shaming us, but I do think it's important to turn our gaze on ourselves instead of others, while asking the Lord if there is anything hiding within us that we can offer to Him for purifying and healing. 

So in this episode...what happens when female strength goes wrong? I'd love to hear if any of this was convicting! Leave a comment below!

In This Episode:

0:00 Intro

2:08 When Feminine Strength Goes Too Far

3:22 Careless Words

8:01 Envy and Covetousness

11:31 Sloth/Hustle Ditches

15:08 Passive or Controlling

17:15 Selfishness

20:14 Pray This Psalm

Resources Mentioned:

An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140374493/

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Feminist to Feminine by Justice Kuehl: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1957616512/

Follow Justice on IG: https://www.instagram.com/justicehopekuehl/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We're gonna talk about when feminine strengths go too far, go unchecked, and become dysfunctional, and when we get a little bit toxic. Hey guys, welcome back to It All Her Mind. I'm Justice in Low Keel. We are back in my parents' studio. Because if you missed the last two episodes, we moved out of our house and moved into my parents' house for around a month. So pray for them. They're being very gracious to have us here with our three-year-old who is obsessed with dumping out his big bucket of Hot Wheels everywhere that he goes. So they're being very, very, very gracious. Um, all right, let's get into today's episode. Starting with what am I reading? Okay, to be honest, I'm not reading this right now, but it's just one of my favorites, and I gotta talk about it. And it is Louisa Mae Alcott's old-fashioned girl. And of course, I love this book. If you know me, you're like, duh, you're an old-fashioned girl. Well, this book is phenomenal. It is about uh a young girl who lives out in the country and she's brought to come live with her family in the city and with her cousins, and she is confronted by the difference in life and innocence levels in a young girl who is living in the country versus a young girl living in the city. So she has a cousin who's kind of like boy crazy and just very materialistic and living that whole life. And she comes from a world where girls grow up a lot slower, they're not boy crazy, they're reading more, and they're not super materialistic. And so she's just trying to like navigate coming of age and what it's like becoming a woman and trying to figure out like how much is okay for her to care about beauty and these things, and how much goes too far into materialism. And this book is a great segue into today's topic because we're gonna talk about when feminine strengths go too far, go unchecked, and become dysfunctional, and when we get a little bit toxic. Okay, and there are a lot of talk about toxic people online today. Everybody's toxic, and there are a lot of toxic people, so I'm not trying to like discredit like genuine cases of toxic people, but there also is like an overuse of this, and so I thought, well, while we're overusing the word toxic, what if we take that same critical eye that we're using towards others and we reflect back on ourselves and see are there areas where I am being toxic? Are there areas where I am being dysfunctional and where I could grow and some virtue? And I'm just gonna tell you, every single one of us will have something in this video. Like for sure, I'm not even remotely doing great on all of these. Um, and then some I am, and I'm like, yes, good. Growing, we're we're growing up. So uh yeah, I hope that this video challenges you and encourages you um to become a healthier, more virtuous woman of God, and of course, doing all of this with the Holy Spirit, not just on your own strength. One of the first things that we can struggle with as women, well, not one of the first things, but one of the first things I'm gonna talk about is careless words. And this could be gossip or nasty language or just like saying stuff that you just shouldn't be saying. That's more the one that I struggle with, okay. And all of us struggle with these things at different times. Um, but sometimes the reason we're gossiping is because we're putting off a confrontation that needs to happen. And most of us know this first, but for those of you who don't, Matthew 18 lays out how we should go about confronting other believers. And so if another believer has like genuinely done something there, like in sin against you, you should confront them. Instead of going and talking about it with your hairdresser or like bad mouthing this person, you should confront them and talk to them. And then if they still don't respond, bring another person with you. If they still don't respond, it just escalates from there. Okay, and there is a certain point where you do have to kind of almost go around town being like, hey, this person is unrepentant. This is what happened. But that doesn't happen until we've followed a certain protocol. Okay. So sometimes gossip is happening because we haven't followed this protocol. Sometimes it's happening because we are having unrealistic expectations on others. We are expecting them to behave like perfectly and not having grace on them. And so sometimes we're offended, but we actually need to just like it doesn't need to be confronted. And sometimes it's something inside of ourselves where we need to just forgive them or uh we need to grow in something. We might be offended about something that's not like actually offensive, but it's a sensitivity of ours, and we need to grow in it. Ephesians 4 29 says, Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you. That's a really convicting verse. Like, I think that hits everybody. That hits all of us. We are all some doing something on that list. And so just I think rereading those verses, taking it to the Holy Spirit and asking him to convict of areas where we are talking with bitterness, rage, anger, slander, all of those things, and asking him to help us grow. And sometimes a huge reason that we are being gossipy or talking with anger, harboring anger towards another person, is because we actually need to like work something through with that person, like I said before, about confrontation. We actually need to talk something through. And if that continues happening, like you're continuing to have this issue with a person, maybe you need to have boundaries with this person. Maybe you you don't need to have a close friendship with this person. That also is not an excuse for unforgiveness. So when we put up boundaries in a friendship, like it's with forgiveness and grace. Like, hey, I we're unable to have like a healthy relationship, a healthy friendship. And so we're gonna just like take a step back, but I love you and I want the best for you. That kind of vibe, you know? James 5.5 says, likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. With the tongue, we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. This is so convicting, too. Are we allowing the fountain of our mouths that is a fountain of praise to God, to be something that is corrupted to speak curses and not not that even I mean, most of us are not literally cursing others, but you know, the equivalent of that, of just harsh, angry, um, unloving things towards others. That's really convicting. It says that this should not be. This is something that we should not be doing as believers. The next topic that we can struggle with as women is envy and covetousness. We're looking at somebody else's life and we're like, I want that. And usually, not always, but usually that comes along with a dislike of the person who has whatever it is. And that's really one of the major problems in my perspective with envy and covetousness, is that it cuts off our ability to love that person. And anything that's cutting off love is don't want that as Christians. We got we we're called to love. So it's a focus on what we don't have, and it's the belief that we have to compete for resources or for God's provision in our lives. There's no competition, by the way, for God's resources. He has more than enough. He can take five loaves and two fish and feed 5,000 people. So you looking at like, well, this person got an opportunity that I didn't get, and that opportunity only exists for one person. It does not matter. The Lord can make opportunities. Covetousness, envy cuts off our ability to love the person who we are envious and covetous of. And it also shuts off our ability to like trust that God is able to accomplish good things in our lives despite our circumstances. And it points to the fact that maybe we're having an expectation of like that God's blessing and his goodness has to look like earthly blessing and goodness instead of like spiritual things that he's doing in our life that are more valuable. And I will say from experience that you have no idea what another person is going through. Somebody might be financially in a position that you could never dream of and going through a battle that you would never wish on your worst enemy. You have no clue. You have no clue. Somebody could have the exact career that you want, and they are struggling with a battle that came along with that career that you would never be able to put up with or never want to put up with. And it's something that we've been praying for a miracle to have more children. And when I look at moms who have more children, I have to remind myself that I don't know what they're going through. It's not all sunshine and rainbows. And what the Lord has given to me is enough for what he expects of me. And I think that that place of contentedness is really, really important to combat envy. And something that helps you do that is gratitude. Just taking time to express gratitude for what you do have. Like if you are financially struggling, but your health is in a good place. Like, Lord, thank you for good health. Thank you that I can work hard. Um, if you are overwhelmed because you have so many children, it's like, Lord, thank you. Thank you that this is what I'm overwhelmed with. I'm overwhelmed with eternal souls that you've entrusted with me. For me, Lord, thank you that I get this quality time with our one son right now. That I'm having this amazing time of just treasuring every moment with him because I'm I'm undistracted. It's finding gratitude for whatever situation that you find yourself in. And there's always something that we can find to be grateful for. And again, that's also not to say pretend that you don't also have disappointment. Like God doesn't need us to pretend you can take that to him and that your disappointment is not too big for him. But part of helping your mind overcome that disappointment is gratitude. Okay, something that you might not think I would put in the same category of things that women struggle with, but it tends to be one or the other, is either like laziness, or you're like really have no expectations on yourself, or an inability to rest and addiction to like the hustle culture and accomplishment and all of that. I would also say that this is different than like I've had some friends tell me I'm really lazy, but they're like chronically ill and they're not lazy. And they I was like, Do you wake up every day and like want to accomplish things but you can't? And they're like, Yeah, like my body hurts too bad. I'm going, you're not lazy. You're you're you're sick. And there are also people who are like really ambitious, and being naturally ambitious also does not necessarily mean that you're gonna be addicted to hustle culture. So I just want to put those caveats there. But Matthew 11, Jesus says that his yoke is easy, his burden is light. I think that's an important place to start when we're talking about this, and then also remembering that God literally created Shabbat, he created the Sabbath, a whole day of rest. One seventh of the week is meant to be rest and worship and peace. And so what does that say about like God's expectations on us? He doesn't expect you to be hustling every single second of every day. And we have this in American culture, it's like it's not just like hustle culture. I can fall into this with learning. Like, I need to be learning constantly, I need to be doing something productive constantly. When actually, like our bodies and our minds and our spirits need rest, and it's okay to have rest. We also need to work hard. That's part of what helps us feel good about ourselves as humans. It's like working hard. That work might not look the same if you are chronically ill versus if you were not. So there's caveats on all of this. But sometimes what these issues can look like is too much socialization. You're you're doing too much, you're hanging out with friends constantly, you can't be alone or not enough. You're not making space for friendships, you're isolating, you're not connecting in community. Both of these are a problem. Shopping addictions, okay. This is all we can fall into as women. We're we're we're like, in order to feel like we're accomplishing things, we're shopping, we're trying to get a good deal. Like, there can be an addiction to that beyond what is like appropriate and good and prudent. Because obviously we want to be prudent. And the Proverbs 31 woman is working hard, okay, and she's getting good deals, but it goes to another level where it's like an addiction to that or almost like idolatrous worship of like, I've got to do this, I've got to get a good deal, I've got to like go shop. Another thing is a need for perfection that could be in how we keep our homes, that could be in our relationships, that could be in our appearance, having this unrealistic, perfectionistic need to look a certain way. Um, we don't want, we don't want that. But it could also be the opposite, where you're like, I'm not gonna put any effort into myself, I'm not gonna take care of myself at all. Neither of these extremes are good. We don't want to fall into peace as women. All of these things highlight a need for inner peace, an inner peace that comes only through the Holy Spirit, through the Lord, as a gift from him. And that inner peace is our anchor and has to be our anchor instead of controlling everything, instead of watching shows constantly, or reading constantly, or shopping constantly, or constantly having friends, or constantly isolating, or whatever it is. It's gotta be that inner peace that comes from the Lord. Another thing that we can fall into, and there's two extremes here too, is being passive towards life or being overly controlling towards life. So being passive towards life can be like, well, yeah, I want these things. Um, you know, I want to have a family someday, I wanna, whatever. And you have some goal that you want to do, but you're literally doing nothing about it now and just expecting that somehow gonna work itself out. In the reverse, you can have like such a like overly structured idea of what you want your future to look like that you're not open to the good things that God might actually bring your way. So a good balance that I think you could bring to this area of your life is looking, where do I want to be in five years from now? Not just by yourself, though, taking it to the Lord, or if you're married, do this with your husband and just asking the Holy Spirit to help you, where do I want to be in five years from now? Now, not just we everybody does this with their career, but career is like one little tiny part of life, and especially for women, that's not always gonna be like the major defining part of life, especially if you want to have children, um, is going, what kind of woman do I want to be in five years from now? I want to be a woman who's on her phone less. I want to be a woman who is doing uh more like acts of service and love for my friends. I want to be a mom of more children. I want to run my home better, like whatever your goals are, and then reverse engineering and going, what does that mean I do today? How can I be intentional about how I'm living today to accomplish those things? So again, if you are a young woman, maybe you're finishing high school, you're finishing college or early 20s, and you want to be married, what are you doing to get to that goal? And you want to have children, what are you doing to prepare yourself to be a mom? If you want to be a stay-at-home wife, what skills are you growing in yourself that are gonna make that a valuable asset to your family to where it's worth it for you to be staying at home as a wife or as a mother? What's what skills and assets are you gonna bring to the table to bring value to your future family? Those are some of the things that I would start thinking about. The last major thing that we're gonna talk about that we can struggle with as women is selfishness. Okay. Of course, this is a healing problem, but there's, you know, there's ways as women that we specifically struggle with selfishness. Philippians 2, 3 through 4 says, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. So the world tells us as women to protect our peace and to like at all costs put yourself first. You know, you've got to reach your career goals, you've got to whatever, all these things. Again, there can be a healthy iteration of those things, but there can be an unhealthy iteration where we become so individualistic, we become so self-centered and so focused on our goals and what we're doing that we are not participating in our community. We're not being a friend, we're not being um a good family member, we're not showing up for our our family, whether that's your cousins or your siblings or your parents or whoever it is that you need to show up for, your kids. Our lives are not meant to be lived for ourselves as Christians. And Jesus modeled this so well, he modeled servant leadership. In um Philippians 2, 5 through 8 in your relationship with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. That's our standard. The God of the universe came and humbled himself to such a level that he constrained his omnipotence, his omnipresence, his he constrained all of himself into the body of a human being. And then modeled servant leadership where he loved and he served. Okay, he also modeled having boundaries. So he withdrew to pray, he would have alone time, he would go out in nature, you know, he would do things to take care of himself. But he knew that the energy he had to give was not about himself. It wasn't about building his self-interest, it was about building what the father was speaking to him and loving the people in front of him. And so when we know our mission that the Lord has given to us, which for all of us is going to be love, but then there's gonna be like a specific thing, you know, that you're called to, especially as a family, we're able to serve in that role. And that's really what ultimately is the solution to the selfishness, is that such a love for the person that God has called you to serve that the sacrifice doesn't even feel like sacrifice, it just feels natural. In closing, I'm gonna read a psalm that I want to encourage you to just pray to the Lord and ask him to search your heart, your mind, and to convict you in any of these areas that you need convicting in and to help empower you to grow. And I also want to encourage you not to try to do this on your own strength. But whatever he highlights to you, maybe it's gossip, maybe it's laziness, maybe it's hustle culture, take it, write it down, maybe put on a sticky note in your bathroom or something like that. And every morning, take it to him and just be like, Lord, I am weak, but in my weakness you are strong. In my weakness, you are my strength. Be strong in me in this area today and help me. And he will give you the strength to do it outside of your own abilities. So the Psalm is Psalm 139, 23 through 24. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. So that's what I pray for you today. I pray for myself. I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. Comment down below what you thought, share with somebody if it was a blessing to you, and I'll see you again next time for with all her mind.