How To Stop Living Everyone Else's Vision For Your Life with Micheal Felker

You know that thing you keep saying you're going to do? The conversation you keep avoiding. The vision you have for your life that you keep putting on hold because everyone else needs something from you first.

You might think it's balance... but it's not. It's fear.

In this episode, I sit down with Micheal Felker and we get into what actually keeps people stuck, and it's not what most people think. We talk about the difference between acute and chronic anxiety, why anxiety is contagious (and I tell a story from Kenya that proves it), and what self-differentiation really means when you're trying to lead your life without losing yourself to everyone else's expectations.

Micheal shares a story about a man on a bridge that will change how you think about the responsibility you're carrying for other people's lives. And we get honest about what it looks like when you care too much about what people think of you, and what it costs you.

If you've ever felt like you're doing more work for someone else's life than they are, this one's for you.

In this episode we cover: → How to identify what's really keeping you stuck → The difference between acute and chronic anxiety → Why anxiety spreads and how to stop carrying everyone else's → What self-differentiation is and why it matters for leaders, parents, and anyone trying to move forward → The "bridge" story that will make you rethink who you're holding on to → How to have the nerve to choose your own vision without disconnecting from the people you love

Today's Guest: Micheal Felker

Micheal Felker is passionate about helping people experience hope and transformation in the areas that matter most - faith, leadership, and marriage. He serves as a pastoral coach through his ministry Kicking at the Darkness and works with Marriage Helper, supporting individuals and couples who want to rebuild and strengthen their marriages. Micheal loves helping leaders find hope, grow in resilience, and lead with courage in every area of their lives.

I'm Dr. Kimberly Beam Holmes. After a decade transforming marriages at Marriage Helper, I've realized that the greatest tragedy isn't a failed relationship; it's the person who stays stuck and never experiences the fullness of all God intended.

The Way You Show Up is for the high-achiever who is tired of "fine."

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If you want to save your marriage, go to Marriage Helper. If you want to master yourself and lead your legacy, stay here.

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Transcript

Setting The Stage: Change And Anxiety

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Today I'm talking to my friend and peer, Michael Felker. We are going to be diving into a lot of different things, including how we as people can better handle change in our lives without pushing the people around us away by our anxiety or our fear or our anger. We're going to be talking about how we can better understand what's going on within us when life circumstances get crazy. And we're even going to delve into this topic of self-differentiation, which is a psychological term to encompass how we can stay a part of a system, whether that be a family or a group or a team, without losing ourself to it, and also without completely isolating ourselves from it. It's really going to help us understand how we can keep from letting other people's opinions of us and what they want us to do with our life completely run our lives. It's really interesting. I got a lot from it, and I believe that you will too. Let's dive in. Michael, I first of all always enjoy having conversations with you in general. So even more excited to do it for everyone else to kind of listen in on because I believe that I learned so much speaking with you, and I just know that the audience will as well. So thank you for being with me today, Michael.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Well, thank you for having me. I also enjoy having conversations with you. And I love this topic. I love anything that we talk about, helping people move forward, uh, get unstuck, and find some hope. So I'm excited.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Yeah, I, man, moving forward and getting unstuck. When you think about the people, I mean, and you've worked it as like in a in different coaching capacities in churches, with people, with marriages, like on the team at Marriage Helper. What do you think overarching? And I know I'm throwing this question at you uh blind. What do you think are the types of things that keep people stuck?

SPEAKER_00 1:58

That's that is a really great question. Um, I I think first of all, people get stuck uh when they when they get afraid. And when you get afraid, you get still. Um I can remember one night I was working as a security guard in a building. It was two in the morning, walk in the building, and all of a sudden the worst sound that you've ever imagined, and I just froze. I'd been trained to react, I'd been trained to help people, I'd help people in car accidents, and I just froze. And it was somebody in the building uh training or uh rehearsing with their bagpipes. So I didn't expect I didn't expect at two in the morning to hear bagpipes, but I froze, right? I didn't know what to do. And so I think fear keeps us stuck. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, uh, fear of it just not working out and getting disappointed again and again and again. And so fear would be one of the first factors. The other thing I think that gets people stuck is that they can't see the vision forward. They can't picture themselves where they want to be or the steps to get there. And so I would say those are the two big things: fear and uh a lack of vision.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

How does someone overcome fear? And specifically, there's there's challenges in their life, there's obstacles that they're facing.

What Keeps People Stuck: Fear And Vision

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Um, you know, maybe with today, in today's world, the economy, depending on who you listen to, going one way or another. But the right, a lot of people are struggling financially. So let's just say that there's people where they feel really challenged in the sense of like, I feel this need that I have to provide, but there's all of these obstacles that I keep running into and I'm scared, so I'm freezing. I'm scared because so I'm frozen and I'm like not going maybe after the thing I want to do. Maybe I want to change jobs. Maybe I want to like see um, like I see how things could be different, but there's just so much external pressure or fear that it's keeping me stuck. Uh, I don't even remember how I started that whole question, but like, how how can people begin to not let fear control the next thing they do?

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Right. Okay. So I would say then the first thing you need to do is name what is what you're afraid of. Name the anxiety. And so this conversation between you and I started because I had spoken at Vivo with uh the book A Failure of Nerve by Edwin Freeman. And he was a rabbi, he was a coach, a consultant, those type of things. And he uses the phrase anxiety as really just emotional processes that are swirling around us. And so being able to name those, name what's going on inside of you, and then also being able to name what's happening uh outside of you as well. And so if there is emotional forces, factors that are keeping you stuck, um, then it that's gonna create reactivity, right? So you're not gonna have the, if you're stuck and you've got all this anxiety coming at you, you're not gonna be able to respond well. You're just gonna react in the moment. Um, or paralysis uh or dysfunction, where you just almost maybe to the point where you said there that it's chronically keeping you from moving forward. That's something that you really need to address and and to uh to to name. And really there's there's two types of anxiety too. There's acute anxiety, and then there's chronic anxiety. And I've used this example before. Uh I have a light bar on my Jeep, and I like to listen to my music really loud, and I'm driving down the highway at more than the speed limit. Here in Texas, it's 75, so maybe some north of that. And all of a sudden, again, just a huge sound happens, and I look and my light bar is hanging on the side of the Jeep. It had flown off and was banging the side of the Jeep. So in that moment, acute anxiety, I have to address this immediately. So I'll pull over on the side of the road, put the light bar back, take a couple of breaths, go, move forward. Chronic anxiety is when you know that all these things are happening and you just don't address them over time and they compound over and over and over again. And I think that's really where the rubber meets the road. Can we address anxiety when it's in the moment, when it's actually happening, so that it doesn't turn over into chronic anxiety where bills begin to pile up, relationships begin to go to the wayside. You don't make those courageous steps to get a new job. You just allow the frustration and the pain and the anger and

Naming Anxiety: Acute vs Chronic

SPEAKER_00 6:40

all resentment build up for you in that. So you've got to address the anxiety, and it's better to address it on the front end than it is down on down the road.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Michael, as you say that, there's a part of me that's like, that makes so much sense because yes, like if if you don't do something about the anxiety, then it will just continue to manifest itself in your mind. And then there's this other part of me, which you know that I've struggled with anxiety years, like decades, decades. Um, and then there's part of me that's like, but some of my anxiety is un like un, I want to say unhinged, unlike it's not based in things that I that are maybe reality or based in things that I even have control over or like could address, right? How do you know when it's an anxiety that you should do something about versus something you need to let go of in some way, like replace the thought and not entertain it?

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah. Right. So I I would say again, as you for me, if I get into a depressive state, if if things are kind of, you know, melancholy or whatever, I can usually work my way to uh I'm sorry, I I I usually that's just it kind of comes over me. If it's an anxiety, if it's a a rumination, if it's a negative thought, if it's something that I'm constantly worrying about, if I take the time to name it, take a step back, I can work my way to where that's really coming from. And so um I I would say the the best thing that you can do is to take some of that, when that anxiety is coming on, try to address it immediately and begin to ask yourself, is this real? Um, ask yourself, where is this coming from? Um, ask yourself, is this something that I've dealt with before? And I know how to deal with this, and this just keeps popping up. Um, I really like Brent Brene Brown's question that she puts forth is what is the story I'm telling myself?

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

And so in those moments where you run into somebody at the grocery store, coworker, a friend, somebody, and that interaction doesn't go exactly how you thought it would. Maybe there was something a little weird. And so you begin to go, oh, they're mad at me. Yes, they're uh they're frustrated. Oh, I didn't I didn't say happy birthday to them. It was yesterday, I forgot. You know, so and then we start playing those stories in our mind, okay. Well, what's the story I'm telling myself? The story I'm telling myself is they're mad at me because of this. Well, how do you know that? Is that true? And really chase that down to okay, what what really is true or or what what do you know for certain? And then put aside what you don't know. You know, in in church work, I'll I'll tell you oftentimes people will come up in you and say, so-and-so is really upset with um the change that was made. Well, I just talked to so-and-so, and they didn't give me any in in uh idea that they were upset with me. So I'm gonna treat so-and-so because I don't know the, I don't know the whole story. Until so-and-so tells me, I'm going to react in the way that they're the energy that they're giving me. And so be that non-anxious presence when there might be some things swirling around.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Man, that can be, that can be hard. Uh Michael, you may, you may kill me for what I'm about to say. But I keep thinking, as we're talking about like anxiety, I keep thinking about when you and I were in Kenya last year. And and that's like my shirt, right? Tavasamu, smile, Swahili. Uh, when we were in Kenya and we went to into the Kybera slums and we went to go visit some widows. And there was a time you and I were sitting next to each other on a couch. Do you remember this? This is a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Oh, oh yeah, I remember it exactly.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Okay. And so you and I are sitting there, and y'all, like, I we can't, I don't know how we could accurately describe the the the living situations that these women live in, which just shows their strength and like the kind of the kind of people that they are. It's it is, you would never find anything like this anywhere in America. Um, and there was a sweet woman who brought us into her house, and we were sitting on her couch, and uh, it was like three of us on this tiny on this tiny couch, and I started getting really un, like my back started hurting because the couch was uneven, and so I was sitting weird and like I already have back issues. And so I kept moving around. And it wasn't until we got back to the place, but Michael was sitting right next to me, and he do you want to take the story from the Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Well, and not just that, you were you were shifting, and I thought, I thought what I had seen was a flea.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

And and uh, and so she starts shifting, and then Kimberly um abruptly gets up and walks, like stands up and walks towards the door. And so now I'm starting to itch, and I'm starting to think about what other things I might be taking back with us. And um, I am just trying to keep a straight face, but everything inside of me, just like what you talked about, these were automatic responses. They weren't things that I was making happen or whatever. Right. But as my mind continued to race, as the emotional uh processes began to boil like a cauldron, 100% right, I began to lose it. And so once we finally got outside, I said, Hey, what was that about?

Stories We Tell Ourselves

SPEAKER_00 12:20

It's part of the big thing. You were like, You were like, Oh, it's my bat. And so immediately then I'm like, oh, okay, that now start working back. I'm not, there are no, I didn't see any fleas. I just just begin to kind of work your way back with that. But once I knew part of the story, I was able to change my mindset. And that changed my mental state, my emotional state, my physical state, changed everything.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

And it was, and I just I remember it so well because when you said it to me, I felt like I physically understood what you experienced because that's happened to me not right then in that moment, but like in other situations where for me, I pick up on these things and I have written this story where it's like, this is what's happening, but I have missed like, but it's not, it's not what's happening when we can view it from another way. So I was just like, oh, I know how, like, I know how that feels. I know 100%. 100%. Um, I want Michael, one of the things when you did, like you, so you came and you did a Devo, our team does one every Tuesday, just for the listeners to know. And Michael presents pretty often because he's good and we want him to. So he so in the most recent one that he did um is when he started talking about this, like the need to be non-anxious, the need, uh like what is anxiety?

SPEAKER_00 13:44

And like he said before, anxiety is it is a pervasive emotional force in a system. And so it creates reactivity, it's paralyzed creates paralysis, and it can cause dysfunction.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

And it's contagious.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

So it's emotional processes. Oh, yeah, it's definitely contagious.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

Again, you're you're whatever was going on, that anxiety is you, you're back, standing up, boiled over into my anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

So let's but let's also be real. So talking about so talk about it being contagious. So then we get back that that night. And I remember like all of us at that point were kind of like, maybe we should shower. Um, and I remember getting in my shower, and all of a sudden I see these jumping small bugs all in my shower. And that was real. And I and I was like, now I'm just so aware, right? Like now that I'm aware that this other thing happened and that anxiety can be, and of course, I'm not blaming hyper awareness.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Well, like it creates this hyper-awareness. And so when we are anxious about certain things, we bring that home. We bring that into leadership, we bring it to church, we bring it to our teams, we bring it into our friendships. And it's hard to stay calm when everyone else around you is is anxious, which is why the flip side of that being the non-anxious presence is so important.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

The other thing I love that you talked about was there were these five characteristics of chronic anxiety. So reactivity, hurting, blaming, quick fix mentality, lack of leadership. Do you want to walk us through just quick examples of what each of those are or how they could show?

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Right, give me one.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Uh okay, hurting. Hurting.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

It's really twofold. One, it's when the anxiety is so uh acute or uh chronic in a system to where the leader or where somebody is trying to get everybody in circle the wagons, if you will. They're trying to get everybody on their own uh page. And so it can be manipulative in that you're wanting the whole team to move in your direction. And so you're you're pushing them in that way, or it could be those side conversations of where you're trying to find out who's on your side, who thinks the same way you are, who or who can you get on your side, who can you make anxious so that they can see you've got the solution, or you know, that you don't feel so alone anymore that I don't like this this change that's happening. And so you can begin to herd in that way.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Which is a type of, would you say that's a type of gossip?

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Oh, yeah, it's very much a gossip. In in church world, we call it like the parking lot conversations. It's the meeting after the meeting where everybody goes out to the parking lot and talks to their constituents or the people that they uh connect with. Um in families, right? A spouse can pull the kids aside and speak poorly about the other uh or what what's happening with the other spouse, what they're doing. Uh did you see what dad's doing that or whatever? So um we can see that in in in families as well. It is a form of gossip.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Yeah. And you know, the thing that I I loved when you brought this up. And the thing that I guess it kind of signaled or reminded me of um is it allows, well, let me let me say it this way that several, several years ago, probably six years ago, that was there was someone who was in a leadership position at um at Marriage Helper. And they would hold their team meetings, but then after the team meeting, they would entertain one-on-one phone calls of people who didn't agree with certain things that happened in the meeting. And so, of course, what happened was they never dealt with anything head-on as a group. And so then there were like these silos of conversation. People like it just wasn't healthy. It was, it was super unhealthy, and you they never got to the core of an issue as a team. It prevented them to be like a cohesive,

Anxiety Is Contagious: Kenya Anecdote

SPEAKER_01 17:45

strong team that was able to really handle difficult situations. There was just too much drama, there was too much drama in all of it. And that was a form of hurting, whether it be from the person who was leading those meetings going to people and saying, like, what did you think about this? What did you think about that, or the people on the team coming to the leader and having those side conversations. And so what it makes me think of is when that happens, you really like drastically inhibit the ability for that function, that system, that family, that team, that friend group, whatever it is, that church, to actually ever be strong. Because if you can't address conflict with each other together and work through it and ultimately get through to the other side of that, not because you all agree, but because at least you've like fought through that storm and you got to the other side, you're never gonna be able to endure the fight that comes from the outside in, which you're inevitably gonna have in whatever kind of system it is.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Right. Lynciani in the five dysfunctions of leadership, the first dysfunction is a lack of trust. And beyond that, the next dysfunction is a lack of conflict. Because if you can't trust one another, if you can't speak freely with one another, if you're afraid that your teammate or your spouse or uh your leader is out to get you, or uh you can't trust them with your full thoughts, right? You can't be vulnerable and real. We're not talking about like emotionally dumping on people, but especially in the workplace. But if you can't do that, then you're never gonna be able to have good conflict. You're never gonna be able to work through even the smallest issue if you have no trust. And that hurting, those type of things break trust because you're ultimately triangulating between, you know, as a leader, instead of having Joe talk to Susie, right? You're talking to Susie, you're talking to Joe, and they're never resolving their issues. And so you're carrying that, you're carrying the anxiety that the two of them have brought to you. You know, the the the don't these are not my clowns, right? This is not this is not my circus, this is not my clowns. You've never allowed them to deal with their clowns. You're you're you're acting like a an overarching helicopter parent that you're just trying to keep the peace and it's not keeping the peace.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Okay. I love that we've landed here. So here's here's here's what happens, right? And I want to hear your I want to hear your thoughts about this. And we could we can think about this in terms of a leader with two people on their team or a parent with two kids, okay? Because both both situations happen. So you have two people, they aren't getting along. As a leader, as a mom, as a dad, whatever, the ideal situation is okay, you two figure this out. Like you need to figure this out amongst yourselves. But there will inevitably come a point where one of them will say, but you're the leader. You're the one who's supposed to do something about this. You're at what point do you step in as a leader, as a mom, as a dad? And at what point do you just continue to force the two of them to work it out so that you won't always have to be the one to come in and help them work it out?

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Yeah. Wow. Um, man. So, and of course, some of that comes with maturity, your own maturity. That's the the name of the book is a failure of nerve. And what fill what Friedman is saying is problems within organizations, within families are often the result of a leader not having enough nerve to do the right thing. And so that's why you've got to work through your own maturity, deal with your own anxiety. And so I, you know, I for for most of my life, I think I have been a bit of a um oh, the path of least resistance, right? I I want to uh I did a conflict resolution uh uh masterwork, some classes with that, and I it came back with comparom that my leadership stopped. Of dealing with conflict is compromise. And at first I was like, ugh, that's gross of compromise. But then I realized, okay, I'm putting a moral judgment on that. And so for me, compromise is really that path of least resistance. How can we get these people to work together? And so you have to acknowledge that there is a time when to step in, but you're not holding hand holding. What can you do to teach them how to work together? It's not the old meme

Five Signs Of Chronic Anxiety

SPEAKER_00 22:30

where you've got two kids fighting and the parent put them in one t-shirt together and this is my get-along shirt. Um it's not that, but it may be that you have to step in and mediate a compromise between them, that you've got to walk both of them through. It also may be to at the very beginning to recognize um somebody's coming to you about somebody else, just nipping it in the bud immediately. Have you talked to that person about this?

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

And then saying, I won't entertain any of conversations until you tell me that you've talked to them. Like just that's that's the mature thing to do. That's the leadership thing to do. That's what the Bible tells us to do, right? Go to that person first.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Yeah, 100%. And you know, it's it's sometimes hard. Like when people come to me and say things like that, and I'm like, have you gone to talk to that person? It's holding that line. You need to go talk to that person. Because part of me, like the internal part of me is like, oh, I don't want them to think I don't care or that I'm pushing them away. But there's a way to do it in such a way where it's like, I hear you, but I know the best way that this is gonna be handled is by you talking directly to that person.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Um, and like holding that line.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Well, you I mean, you mentioned those some of those emotional processes, right? You want you want the person that's coming to you. You you're worried that they're going to um think you don't care, or you're gonna say, oh, they they don't think that this uh my boss doesn't think this is a big enough deal, or they blew me off, or and then you start making store, what are they gonna tell other people? And those are those emotional processes that we've got to as leaders address immediately and then model that for our people and then step in when we have to.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Yeah, I love that. I think this goes right in line with the the next thing I wanted to be sure to speak with you about, which is yes, so when a person, I mean, I'll just I'll just say it for me. When I allow myself to care, uh, I'm gonna say it how it's gonna come out, and then we'll fix it. When I allow myself to care more about what the people in the system are gonna think of me, whether that be work, whether that be friends, whether it be whatever home, um, then the right thing to do, that's where lines begin to get blurry. Or um, like in even further, we can keep going. Like when those people I feel like now have expectations of me. And now I'm trying to meet their expectations instead of having my own vision, my own way of going. This is where, this is where things can get kind of nasty. I think this is where burnout can happen to a person individually. But when you talked about this, you talked about it being self-differentiation. So, what is self-differentiation?

SPEAKER_00 25:22

All right. So, self-differentiation is the ability to divine, to define one's own individual goals and values while staying connected to others in a meaningful way. So it means being your own person, but not to the extent that you're some stoic monk up in the mountains that you just don't care about the people that are just so anxious about life. If you know who you are, you know your mission and your goals, your purpose, and then you can accept the that other people have different agendas, that other people have different goals, that other people uh are maybe getting in the way of their own selves and their own goals. And so it's really being a your own person while still being connected. And I think the best example that we see of this is Jesus Christ. Um, when you think about the crowds that are coming to him, right? The crowds are just pressing in. I'm a big fan of Jesus Christ superstar, and there there is a scene where everybody is just crushing in on Jesus, and the music just makes it all that much more, you know, gives you the willies as it's just crushing in. The crowds are coming in on Jesus, and what does he do? He says, We're gonna leave ministry from here and we're gonna go someplace else. Or he gets up and goes up to the mountaintop, is praying, communing with the Father. The disciples say, Jesus, everybody's looking for you. Great, we're gonna go do this. Or I'm gonna go to the other, you know, I'll meet y'all on the other side of the lake. No, everybody was trying to tell Jesus what who he was, what his mission was supposed to be. Everybody else was telling him what he needed to do and when he needed to do it. And Jesus was self-differentiation, self-differentiated. He knew who he was, he knew what his mission is, and he didn't allow any of those other emotional

Herding, Gossip, And Broken Trust

SPEAKER_00 27:10

processes or people or systems to get in the way of that. So just be like Jesus. When the storms are going, go when the storms are when the storms are around you, just go take a nap.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

You know, there's a lot of wisdom in that, but uh, you know, it's so true. And then the uh rebellious isn't the right word, but the like questioning, I guess questioner, the questioner part of me is like, but he's also God's son and it knew he was so sure of exactly what his mission was, right? And so thinking about people, I know this has happened to me, maybe it happened to you growing up. Like your parents had an opinion of what they wanted you to do, what they wanted who they who they wanted you to be, what kind of career they wanted you to have. Um, like visions, friends have that, like people say things. And so, how can someone discern, like, so I want to get more into self-differentiation specifically in a minute, but the first part of this was that you know you can be your own person, you can be steady and steadfast without being isolated from the people around you, but also without being consumed by the people around you. So where does discernment come in to this? Where does like uh you get what I'm trying to ask? Like I could also be super selfish and stubborn and have like this really steadfast opinion of what I should do and what I in the person I want to be, but I could be a complete jerk. You know what I mean? So how do I know? And so maybe I should listen to some people. I guess I'm still not being consumed by them, but help me help me process this.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

I think you used a good word there. There's a difference in staying connected to those people and being consumed by them, or in your own pursuit of your vision, consuming them. So I like that word consume in that. So yeah, I think which if you're if you are dead set and and heading towards your vision and not listening to anybody, yeah, you're gonna be a jerk, but that's not gonna keep you connected to the other people. So it's being able to say, okay, that is your opinion. Maybe it's being able to say, I I take that criticism or I take that instruction direction, I take that for what it's worth. And if it if it serves me, then uh I need to be able to have be humbly hum uh have enough humility to listen to what they're saying, whether it's criticism or whether it's like I said, instruction, direction. Um, or and so it's it's being staying connected. And so, yeah, not being a jerk, not being, like I said, a monk where you're just cut off from everybody. Um, you know, not again again, to your point, Jesus did know he was the son of God and he knew everything, but he didn't lord that over.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

He stayed connected with those people. He may have said, I can't heal at this time, I can't do exactly what you're asking me to do right now. You may not understand what you're saying. How many of us, how many of us have listened to people who have given us some sort of an opinion about our lives? Their lives aren't their lives aren't put together.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

And so you just take that with us. Well, I appreciate that. One day you'll be able to maybe see a perspective that you don't right now, that type of thing.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Yeah. That's really good. You you told this story in Devo that I think really put into, I think it made this concept of self-differentiation very real and understandable.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

So it's from another Friedman book called Uh Freedman's Fables. And there are two of these fables that I absolutely love. And I I shared one of them, my my favorite one, which is called The Bridge. And it's about a man who, for his entire life, has tried to figure out who he is and what he wants to do out of life, right? What is his purpose? And then he discovers it and he realizes he has to act on that now. He has to begin moving forward towards that, and he has to take a journey to get there, but it has to happen now. He can't put it off any longer. And so he sets out on this journey. And as he gets to this bridge on the other side of the bridge, there's somebody else walking towards him. And this person has a rope tied around their waist. And as our friend, as our hero, is going across the bridge, this man meets him, hands him the uh end of the rope, and says, Now don't forget to hold on tight. And the man with the rope jumps off the side of the bridge. And so it

When Leaders Should Step In

SPEAKER_00 31:45

leaves our hero holding on to this man on the side of the bridge. There's a raging river down below, and this man has to decide what is he going to do? This he doesn't know this person. It's a stranger. He's got a journey to take. He's on the way of trying to uh to become his best self, to become the best version of himself that he wants to be. And the man at the end of the rope just says, I'm your responsibility now. And the man holding the rope is, I don't even know you. How can you be my responsibility? And the man at dangling at the end of the rope is just hanging there. And he expects our hero to take care of him, to make sure that he doesn't fall. And so our man begins to negotiate with him, says, Hey, I can pull you back up. And the man says, I have no interest in being pulled uh or helping to pull myself up. It's all on you. You're I'm your responsibility. And so the man's trying to figure out what is he gonna do. And ultimately he says, he decides to say to the man at the end of the rope, look, I can't take responsibility for your life. I can only take responsibility for mine. You can only take responsibility for you. So I'm gonna give you one last chance. If you want to, if you want to take responsibility, if for me to continue in this relationship that we have right now, you're gonna have to help begin pull yourself up. And if you don't, then I'm gonna give your life, your responsibility for your life back to you. And he doesn't feel the man do anything at the end of the rope. And ultimately our hero, our friend lets go of the rope. And that's the end of the parable, end of the story. And so you have to begin to think, who are you in this, in this parable? Uh are you the man that somebody has given responsibility of their life over to you, right? Whether it is an adult child that is living in your house and has been for way too long? Is it somebody at work that is not pulling their own weight and you swoop in and save them every single time because of the emotional processes that are going on? Is it a spouse that you keep making excuses for? Um, and sometimes when I've talked to people who may be dealing with recovery or dealing with some people that, you know, Kimberly, that just can't get out of their own way, is is it your is it you that's also on the other side? Is it that version of you that you don't want to be anymore, that one that keeps you stuck and keeps you from hanging, uh keeps you from moving forward, is that the person that you need to let the rope go? So it there's a that's what I love about parables. You can hear them and you can read them in different ways, see yourself in different parts. Um, but that's why I think they're so powerful.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Why was that one your favorite?

SPEAKER_00 34:31

I think because when I when I discovered Freedmen, I was in my 20s in ministry. And I had my biggest frustration sometimes is having to handhold the people that you shouldn't have to handhold. It's the people that have been in church work or leadership for 20-something years and they've not really moved forward. And sometimes they can be the victim, sometimes they can be the one that is holding the entire system back or organization back because it's we want things like it used to be, and they can't let go of that type of thing. And so I realized maybe maybe not so dramatic that I'm gonna throw them off a bridge, right? But the idea that I maybe I'm pulling and pulling and pulling, they're not budging. I'm tired of pulling, right? I I have to take responsibility for myself. And so, in some ways, when I found Freeman, when I found this fable, I was at a point where I was realizing I need to let go of a lot of ropes. Um, I'm the I'm the one pulling and things aren't uh or I'm I'm concerned, I'm more concerned about my end of the rope, that's not even my rope, than they are.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Yeah. That's what I loved about it. It it was it's such a clear clear, I'm gonna use the word clear, it's such a clear picture of this self-differentiation concept of am I trying to do more work for another person than they are willing to do for themselves? Or am I trying to do more work for a system or for a team or for whatever, like, or for a family? Am I trying

Self‑Differentiation Defined

SPEAKER_01 36:10

to so much that it is engrossing my like everything? I'm giving everything I have for it, but I am missing my purpose in life along the way. Or and it's not just about the things that are gonna make me happy, but like the things that maybe I am called to focus on and to do, but I've become engrossed into this and to try and make to make this other person or system work. Yeah. This one's hard for people.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Yeah. Well, you used engrossed. I think there's also a word like enmeshed. We can get so enmeshed in that. Um and and again, I to your point, forget who we really are. Um I uh I would say for me, in if we go back to ministry, uh preaching is a tool in my tool belt. But I wanted to develop leaders and disciples, develop mature Christians, that type of thing. So I used preaching, but that wasn't my identity. And so if I spent so much time, you know, if somebody told me, hey, Michael, you know, I you could do a 60-hour course on preaching, maybe, maybe I would take it, maybe it would move the needle a little further. Um, but I'm gonna do better when I'm focusing more on leadership development, my own emotional capacity, my own mental uh resilience. That's how I'm gonna help people by doing that. And so you can get so caught up in other people's opinions of what you need to be doing and and who you need to be in a particular role. Um, but you've got to discern, take time to have that sense of who you really are. What are your beliefs, your values? What what are you what do you put on this earth to do? Um, I think it was Steve Jobs used the the term go make a dent in the world. What's your dent look like? It's it's shaped like you, and it's shaped by your goals and values and tools and resources.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

And have the nerve to do it.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

Have the nerve to do it.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

That shook me when you said it a minute ago. The the failures that happen in systems are because of someone, like the leader of it their their failure to do the right or the hard thing. And sometimes that system is us, like our own life and future. A lot of people will tell us what to do or what they want us to do or their expectations of us. Uh, but are we gonna have the self-differentiation to choose ours while also being able to hold that tension, to stay connected to the other person. Now, in the fable, they dropped the rope.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Right, right. I don't, you know, they didn't necessarily but in in what he did is he said, I'm going to give my your life back over to you. I'm not responsible for you. You have to take responsibility for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Yeah. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

Super powerful. And that's hard. That's hard because we don't want people to hurt themselves. We want people to to succeed. And sometimes they're their own worst enemies. They aren't, they aren't willing to do anything. And we're we're only going to be able to pull them so far. And the more we focused on them, the less we can focus on the other people that are actually wanting help, leaning into help, change, maturity, all of that. Right. That that person can take all of our energy and then burn us out.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

I heard a statistic one time people pastors leave churches because of six people. I've seen that, I've seen that play out. I don't know if that's a true stat, but I've seen it so because because of, and and it could be for anything, right? It could be that that person that constantly needs help and constantly needs benevolence and is unwilling to change their behavior, unwilling to get a job, unwilling to move forward. And that can burn somebody out.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Yeah. Constantly negative.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

Constantly negative people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

I think, yeah, I can see, I can see that one being one of the big ones. I mean, the thing is, I could I believe it. It could be a church of probably 12,000 people and six people could drive, could drive a pastor away if it's the if it's the right or the you know the wrong six people in this case. Yeah. Michael, what is a final piece of wisdom that you would want to leave the audience with around this topic?

SPEAKER_00 40:30

I would encourage you to do the hard work to discover who you are and who who you're put on this earth to be. And then I would take some time to understand what are those pressure points or anxious emotional processes that keep you from um staying to that mission, staying to the mission of who you are or what it is that you're working towards, so that you can identify them and you can begin to recognize them when they happen. Uh for me, I hate those um type of uh the

Discernment Without Becoming A Jerk

SPEAKER_00 41:05

emotional things of and Kimberly, you and I've talked about this too. Hey, can we have a meeting tomorrow? And nobody tells you what the meeting's about. Or yeah, yeah. I always ask um, so now I've learned that that's a trigger for me. And so I always ask, yeah, is there anything I can prepare for? Is there anything that I need to bring with me? And so that that stops that anxiety from spiraling out of control in the moment and asking them, you know, for you know, context or some things like that. So identifying what are those emotional processes that you keep um participating in that are keeping you stuck, keeping you fearful, keeping you from moving forward, and then develop a plan, figure out a plan for how to overcome those.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Man, I love it. And you're such the real deal too, Michael. You're always learning, investing in bettering yourself, telling us about like something you've learned, something you've read, something you've done. You are just always, like you said before, like increasing your emotional capacity as a leader. I think you do a brilliant job at that, which is why you're trusted and called on to like to invest in other leaders and speak to people and things like that, because you do the hard work.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

I appreciate that. Thank you. Because I didn't do the hard work for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

You I learned my lesson. You learned your lesson. Well, you do it now. Loved talking to you, Michael. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

Thank you for the opportunity, Kimberly.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Okay, y'all. So there are things that get us stuck when we are afraid, when we are venturing into the unknown, when we are scared of failure. And when we are scared, when we are stuck, that anxiety can lead us to do things that just ultimately aren't healthy and ultimately don't help make us happy long term. We can end up making other people in our lives anxious. We can try and get them on our side so they see things our way and it just perpetuates this anxious cycle. The bottom line is how can we better increase our emotional capacity because ultimately that's going to change the way we show up and we are gonna show up as a non-anxious presence. I remember when I was going through my MFT program, marriage and family therapy program back in my master's days. And one of the first things that they taught us as budding marriage and family therapists was be the non-anxious presence. In fact, that was kind of the only thing I remember taking into my first counseling sessions that I would run with people and with couples. Be the non-anxious presence. That's like the big thing that they just wanted us to remember. Therefore, it must be important. Be the non anxious presence. Don't allow your emotions to consume you. Be able to process them and show up in a way that allows other people. People to be and feel safe. My other key takeaway, the second one of my three, is when he said that failures of systems, failures of businesses, failures of families, and many times failures of relationships. Many times it's because one person in it didn't have the nerve to do the right or the hard thing. Man, I think back to so many times in my life, even friendships from my past, that I got frustrated with that person, but I didn't know how to talk to them about it. I didn't have the nerve. I didn't have maybe the courage or the bravery to say some things that maybe would have been hard, but ultimately could have possibly saved the friendship or saved the relationship. I think about it in many areas of my life. And so I would encourage you to think: is there anywhere in your life where you have a failure of nerve? You just are avoiding the hard conversation. You're avoiding telling the person how they've been making you feel. You're avoiding speaking up when you know something is going on that shouldn't be happening. It's a failure of nerve. What would it look like if you did the right thing, the hard thing, and how would that change the future of what's going to happen? Finally, I love the fable that Michael told us about. I've seen myself as the person holding the rope and as the person on the rope, maybe even sometimes as the rope itself, trying to be that between two people. Where did you see yourself? Because I know you did. I shared this same fable in a class that I taught, and every person pretty much said, Oh my gosh, I see myself in that. Maybe you see yourself as the person who's been depending on everyone else, blaming everyone else. Maybe you've been stuck in a victim mindset. What does it look like for you to start pulling yourself up the rope and showing the people in your life that you are appreciative of how they've been holding it for you? And what does it look like if you're the one holding the rope and there's someone or something in your life that you

The Bridge Fable: Responsibility

SPEAKER_01 46:15

feel like is just taking advantage of you? Maybe you're enabling that behavior because you're just continuing to hold the rope and letting your life pass you by while someone else isn't actually doing anything that's gonna lead them to come back up. What are you allowing time to pass for? Now, I do have to say this. I shared this fable with my husband when Michael told us about it the first time. And I was processing with him how it was resonating with me at that moment. And my husband said, and in that moment, I said, like in as I was processing it, I said right now, in this instance, I see myself as the person holding the rope. But this other thing or person being the one on the end of the rope, and I just feel like I'm ready to let go. And my husband said, Kimberly, but what if the person on the end of the rope wants to come up, but they're just really unhealthy and they're really out of shape and they're trying, but it's slow. You don't want to let go of the rope too soon. If the person on the other end is trying their best to start coming back up, I can't answer these things for you. More than anything, I think it's a good thing for you to think about and think through as you think through your life right now, how you're being impacted, and the way that you're showing up. Until next week. Remember to stay strong.