Okay, you guys, so tonight's lesson is people pleasing, or people pleasing no more.
I actually have it on a PowerPoint, and so there will be an opportunity for you guys
to take notes if you want, but you know me, whenever I do PowerPoint for y'all, I end
up giving you the PDF of it, so you don't have to scramble to take notes, but definitely
if you have a pen and paper, take notes.
Once I start sharing the screen, I see a lot less of you on the screen, and so I just want
to encourage you, if you have questions, I will try to keep an eye on the chat.
It's harder when I have the PowerPoint up, but I will definitely try to keep doing that,
and I'll periodically stop sharing the screen so I can see all of you and field questions,
but you might need some of the lists that are up on the screen, because I do want this
to be a night of impact.
Just so you guys know, as we cross over to this new way of doing paths this year, obviously
path one is really going to always be focused on something really personal or topical and
a two-parter.
It's always going to be a two-parter.
Phase two is always going to be geared towards something about your dating process, and then
path three is always geared if you are in a serious relationship, so obviously, if you
are in a serious relationship, one month, you're going to go to path three, and if you
guys break up, you would go back to path one or two, and that's just kind of how it works,
and so since it's a two-parter, I'm really going to focus this week about learning the
art of saying yes and no, but saying it healthy and enjoying that, and next time, the part
two of that in two weeks will be conflict resolution or confrontation, because a lot
of the reason why we have a hard time saying no is we're afraid of conflict, and we're
afraid of confrontation, and I feel like I touch on it for about five hot seconds in
the boundaries class, and I've always said I would love an entire session to be able
to talk about conflict resolution and confrontation, and now we're going to get that chance, so
that's kind of just a teaser for you all for the next time.
So I'm going to go ahead.
Actually, let me just pray this real quick.
Father God, I just thank you so much for an opportunity for us to be together tonight,
for us to talk about what does it mean to say yes and no from a healthy viewpoint.
Father God, may we just receive your love and identity.
God, Father God, we could say no a lot easier if we just remembered who we are in Christ,
and so just kind of download that to us tonight supernaturally, and we just lift up everybody
here tonight in the precious name of Jesus.
Amen.
Okay.
Let me go ahead and share my screen.
Okay.
View slide show.
All right.
So it is called People Pleaser No More, your last year single, and again, I really want
you guys to speak up and share as I do each slide what's really resonating with you,
which bullet points really are sticking for you, because this is probably not your first
rodeo talking about boundaries.
If you actually took path three with me, I did circles, which was really for three sessions,
and I really talked about healthy ways to have boundaries, which you can't have healthy
boundaries without learning the art of saying no sometimes, and so I promise this is all
new content too, but like me, obviously, I've been in therapy a very long time, and
I've been to retreats, I've given it to God, I've been through the heart work, and yet
I can still very easily fall back into the people pleaser personality.
It's just, as Paul would say, it's the thorn in my side, and so I will probably have to
face this until I go home to Jesus, and so this is the phrase that my pastor said to
me today when we were talking.
He's like, Renee, you keep picking back up performance-based acceptance, and you forget
that you need to rely on God-based acceptance.
The root of you not being able to say no, the root of you judging yourself is based
on this ability that you go about that.
It is about owning who we are, not what we do, so we cannot stop being a people pleaser
if we don't lay down our need to be performance-based for our level of acceptance.
We have to, have to, have to pick back up every single day if we must God-based acceptance.
We have to remember it is about God only cares about who we are.
He doesn't care about what you do, which is counterintuitive of the way our culture is,
you guys, because what is the first thing, if you have, hello, my name is, what is the
and people ask you after that, what do you do?
What do you do is the most common answer.
And, you know, we should not answer that with our job.
Like we could say, well, what do you do?
I don't know, I do a lot of things.
I read, I write, I run, I go work out, I paddleboard,
I play, you know, I hang out with my nieces and nephews.
There's a lot of great things that I do,
but we are a society that is so hung up
on titles and productivity.
And so this is like swimming upstream.
And, you know, I didn't even realize this,
but in the fish scene of The Chosen,
there's actually a fish that's going upstream
while all the other fish are going downstream.
And that's really, for us people pleasers,
that's really something that we're gonna have to do
is we are gonna have to go upstream.
We have to own that God cares about who we are,
not what we do.
I really want you to hang on to that.
Okay, so if you're like,
well, I don't even know what you're talking about, Renee,
what is really performance-based acceptance?
So we're gonna sit on this page a bit,
and I really wanna hear from you guys at all.
So here are some of the things that you know,
if you're like, I don't know,
I mean, you can print this page out
because the next page is gonna be grace-based acceptance.
And if you're like, I don't know where I am,
print these two pages out when I send them to you
and kind of feel like the emotions
that you're feeling in a day and go,
am I about to make this decision
because of this list or this list?
So if you are performance-based, you are always,
oh, yeah, okay.
I wanted to make sure I actually had the right list for you.
I kind of panicked there for a second.
Okay, so performance-based is always event-based.
You're always deciding your decision
and how you feel based on the current events.
Perfect example, I came out of the new year,
I came home from Connecticut,
and I had to do a weigh-in and pictures
and everything with my nutrition
and health coach that I'm working with.
And it was the first time in 12 weeks
I slaughtered myself in the report.
Like I'm normally like, happy-go-lucky, I'm doing great.
I'm at all cylinders.
And I just destroyed myself in this report.
I'm like, I don't like what I look like.
None of my numbers look good.
The scale, and here's the thing, you guys,
I went through the holidays and ate,
like I'm doing so well with my nutrition
that I was able to enjoy all the holiday food
and not gain any weight.
And yet I still slaughtered myself.
And so I literally made my coach cry
because it was the first time she ever heard me
like just destroy myself.
And my acceptance of who I am
and the temple of God that he's created
was all based on these events
that not at all with who he says I am.
And she's like, Renee, you're being mean to my friend.
That's what she said, you're being mean to my friend.
That's how she views me, I'm her friend.
Performance-based is very either or.
And you'll see the difference of what that is for.
You're gonna see what the difference is
when we look at the grace list.
So it's either or, it has to be this or that,
it's or that, this or that, there's no in between.
Performance-based is very justice-driven.
You guys, I used to wear my justice hat
like a crown of honor.
I can be very justice-oriented.
I like to know what's fair, what's right.
And then of course, God humbles me.
And I think of the Bible verses
where it talks about the person who complained
because somebody worked all day
and got paid the same amount of money
as the person who only worked an hour.
And I'm always like,
well, but the other person did only work an hour.
That doesn't seem fair, because I'm justice-driven.
But justice-driven people
are very performance-based acceptance people.
If you are performance-based,
it means you have a harder time with forgiveness,
typically with yourself.
And you're like, I'm such a forgiving person.
I'm a people pleaser, I forgive everybody.
But I guess the question I would ask is,
do you forgive yourself?
Performance-based really does inhibit relationship growth.
If we are so fixated on our performance,
we can't help but impose that on other people.
And it will inhibit our ability to connect
and have healthy relationships with other people,
believe it or not.
So the irony is we say yes all the time
because we don't wanna ruin the relationship.
But actually at the end of the day,
and we're gonna discuss a little bit later,
why saying yes begrudgingly
actually hurts the relationship
more than if you just said no to begin with.
Again, because of the right of the justice thing,
it's all about what's right.
It's very right-wrong toggle, rights, rights, rights.
It's also good and bad judgment.
So one of the phrases that we try to get away from
in therapy land or when we talk to young kids.
It's, is that a good thing or is that a bad thing?
Good, bad, good, bad, right, wrong, right, wrong.
What we try to say are the words healthy and unhealthy
because who am I to say what's right
and who am I to say what's wrong?
Really only God can decide that.
But even among that, there are some scripture
that you and I might agree to disagree on.
We can look at a verse and I might go down one line
what that means and you might go down the other line.
So there's a lot of judgment that kind of goes
with that.
Believe it or not, the more we are performance-based,
the more we diminish our relationship with God.
And you might think, well, oh my gosh,
but I'm severing the Lord.
I'm saying yes to everybody at church.
The problem is if we're saying yes all the time
because we feel like we've got to earn God's love,
earn other people's love,
then we're actually not accepting Christ died for us
and that was enough.
We don't do good things for the Lord to earn his love.
We do it out of obedience and response
to the thing that he's already done to us,
but it's a very different intention.
God never wants us to say yes out of guilt
or shame or being pressured.
So that will actually hinder our relationship.
Performance-based, people never see a win-win solution.
They always see a win-lose situation.
Their person in Christ, they forget,
they're very self-esteem driven.
A person in Christ self, I think I typed that wrong.
I might have to fix that.
They don't see their selves in their person in Christ.
And so their self-esteem is really based
on how their own acting.
Oh my goodness, this is what happened.
Let's see.
Nope, see, I've got, you guys are gonna have to forgive me.
I cut and pasted this wrong.
There's two on here that are not correct.
The person in Christ drives self-esteem.
Those two and focus on joy, that would be grace.
So let me just explain that.
That's why that wasn't making sense.
Okay, so if I know who I am in Christ,
that's what drives my self-esteem.
I need to cut and paste that over onto the grace page
because that's where it's supposed to be.
Also grace acceptance focuses on joy,
which is non-circumstantial.
Okay, so I will make sure I move those
before I send this over to y'all.
Condemnation over mistake.
So it just means performance.
It's bad enough that we all make mistakes,
but a performance-based person
will condemn themselves over making mistakes.
And you guys, I saw my mom do this at Christmas time.
She made all of this food to bring over
for Christmas Eve at my brother's.
The one thing that she made
that wasn't like out of the park amazing
was her stuffed clams.
They just did not come out good this time.
The clams are really salty
and she didn't adjust fast enough
and they just weren't that good.
She beat up herself the entire night.
Like forget the fact that everything else
she brought was amazing.
She just beat herself up over this faulty clam thing.
And I'm like, mom, I hate that you can't feel happy
about what you did that went well.
Like you focused the whole night
on the one stupid appetizer that you made
that really nobody cared about in the end.
It was fine.
The other thing is if you are performance-based,
you believe your definition of performance
in person is actually the same.
So if you're performing well, you're a pretty great person.
If you're not performing well, you're not a great person.
You have very performance-driven self-esteem.
See, this is the correct list.
And so you focus on happiness.
So that's the difference between the grace one.
So up above where it says focuses on joy,
non-circumstantial, that's grace.
Focus on happiness, circumstance is our key.
So that's the problem.
We are defining our value based on
what is going on around us.
And a performance-based person, love is based on feelings.
And that's when you guys know we are not in a soulmate
or spirit mate relationship with somebody.
I remember the Navigators leaders that were discipling me
when I was in college,
they were the really the first ones in my entire life.
And this was 18, I was 18 years old
to tell me that love is not a feeling, love is a choice.
And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about.
Love is of course a feeling,
because of course I was feeling all the feels
with being in love at the time.
And eros, philia, and sojourn love
is definitely very feelings-based,
but agape love, the kind of love
that God wants us to have for one another
is not based on feelings.
So except for the two that should not be on the list,
I want you guys to kind of open up and share
if any one of these are standing out for you
that you're like, gosh, I really get stuck here.
So I can't see all of the hands.
So I'm just gonna let you unmute yourself
and join in and share with the audience.
perhaps somebody will just wait and come in after that.
So who would like to share a little bit
just based on this list?
I'd like a couple of you to share.
I'll start,
saying yes,
and then doing the critical comparison
and doing things begrudgingly.
I've actually worked on that all of quite a lot
last year and am in a really good place
with that right now.
So that really resonated with me,
but I'm happy to say I'm doing a lot better.
That's so good.
Thank you for sharing that.
I mean, I would say I'm definitely doing a lot better,
but you definitely have ones that you're like,
you kind of lean on and go back to.
Justin, how about you?
You're in my camera screen,
so it's hard for me to not call on you.
So I have one that really stood out to me
was performance-based acceptance.
That might be the overview,
but I came in a couple minutes late,
so I missed a little bit.
But what really stood out to me
is the need to be perfect at everything you do.
We have a tendency to do that in the ministry
where if we say even no to something that we wanna do,
but we can't fit it into our schedule,
it's just, we beat ourselves up over it.
And I had that today where I had an opportunity
to really learn something
that would have really impacted my life,
even though I have another chance later to learn it.
But I beat myself up over it for a couple hours
because I was like, I'm working those hours.
So it wasn't even within my control.
Yeah.
So I still beat myself up over it
because I want to do to,
I know I'm not perfect,
but I want to be perfect at everything I do.
And it's kind of, yeah.
Yeah.
Perfect.
And here's the hard part too,
Charles, thank you for sharing that.
Cause I think that we're so critical about ourselves
and we think we're more critical about ourselves
than other people,
but here's what I've really had to learn.
And really kind of make some amends.
When I ran my nonprofit for 18 years,
I thought I was only that critical on me.
And I really wasn't verbally that critical
to everybody else,
but they saw how much I beat myself up.
And so they didn't need for me to compare them to that.
They just knew if my standard was that high for myself,
they just assumed the standard was that high for them.
So even though I thought I was protecting them
from judgment, they felt it.
They said they felt it.
Like not all of them,
but some of them felt,
people that were like me, performance-based,
like the healthy people figured it out.
They knew what was going on
and their identity was in Christ
and they didn't care what I said.
Like they totally could handle it.
But the people pleasers, they could feel my energy.
And they were like,
ooh, she's not saying she's judging me,
but if she's judging herself that harshly,
she's probably judging me that harshly.
And I never knew that it was impacting them.
And so we think it's just impacting us.
And that's where it starts to inhibit
that relationship growth.
Because even though we don't think it's happening,
if you're up against somebody
who is also a people pleaser like you,
and just as equally critical,
they will subconsciously do the same thing,
even if we're not intending to.
That was good.
Yeah, very eye-opening, very open.
That was good, that was good.
Anybody else wanna pick one of these and lean into it?
Sure, I can do one.
Okay.
It's probably a combination of like self-critical
and condemnation over mistakes.
Something that can happen,
and I'm actually going in counseling over this,
like right now, as it's been around for years.
If I'm like playing, I'm a competitive chess player.
If I'm playing chess and I have a really good position
and I make an error,
we'll have tons of self-hatred
to the point where
I don't even wanna play something I enjoy.
It's as an act of self-protection,
because I feel so horrible.
I'm so angry at me.
The feeling is insurmountable.
The only thing that has helped me in this area so far
was congratulating my opponent.
Wow.
Not just a good game, but actually congratulating them,
like, oh, you did well in this.
You did this.
You fought pretty well.
You defended pretty well.
A good thing you saw that, or something like that.
I'm working on doing the same thing for me,
which is probably where I have most growth in this area,
but not fully.
Yeah.
But it really comes down to the kind of self-hatred
that I had in my past childhood,
and I didn't do X, Y, and Z.
And because I didn't do that, this happened.
And if I didn't make that mistake,
none of the events would have happened.
That's good.
That's so good.
It's interesting that you almost avoided
the thing you love to do, just to not do it badly.
So good.
What a good aha moment, you guys.
So good.
All right, I'm gonna keep going,
because we've got lots of good stuff.
And in each page, I want people to share,
because that's how we, all of us sharing with one another.
We're kind of having on our own
private 12-step meeting tonight.
Okay.
I'll go ahead and share.
Do you want me to go back?
Do you want me to go back to the other page we just left?
Oh, no, no.
I was just gonna comment on the condemning yourself,
making mistakes.
I find that I still give myself a really hard time,
but I think being in this program since I've been,
I've learned the importance of loving yourself,
because you keep, think about that verse that says,
you love your neighbor as yourself.
Yeah.
And so I have to keep reminding myself of that.
And I'm actually asking you to go one step further
than that, Karen.
I'm asking you to say, love yourself because God loves you.
Like loving myself isn't strong enough.
I have to tell you.
I will not succeed if all I do is love myself,
because I don't, I don't love myself enough.
But if I focus on who God says I am,
and I focus on the fact that God loves me,
it doesn't matter that I love me.
If I don't believe that God loves me,
then I can't love me.
So I have to go further back.
And so that's what we're trying to do.
So, but I'm so glad you brought that up
because I think that really taps into
where some people get stuck.
So I love that.
And we're going to put a pin in what you just said
and come back to that as we move along.
Okay.
Grace-based acceptance.
You guys, I don't know what, oh, it's process-based.
Clearly this is what happens when I type too fast,
because I don't even know what I meant
by the first bullet point.
I typed it from a sheet
because I didn't like how it was written.
So I was trying to type up the best stuff.
Okay.
I'm going to skip that one and go,
grace-based acceptance is both and.
So we see the both and.
It's not either or, it's both and.
Grace-based acceptance is forgiveness driven.
It is compassionate.
It precedes forgiveness.
So grace is how you get forgiveness.
You don't have forgiveness without grace.
Grace fuels relationship growth.
It actually creates intimacy into me-see.
Grace allows you to,
all about responsibility for myself, not others.
So when you are codependent,
you feel responsible to everybody.
You know, you feel responsible.
The only person you're responsible for,
especially as an adult, is yourself.
Grace-based acceptance accepts what is.
Grace-based acceptance is a commitment to positive change.
It means I'm not going to stay where I am.
You know, Justin was talking about doing some work on that.
And, you know, somebody else said
they've been doing work on it.
It means that I'm going to keep moving forward.
I'm not going to say, well, this is just the way I am.
I'm a people pleaser and I can't say no,
and I'm not going to change.
It's like, no crap, I'm going to change.
Our identity, the person is able to separate
their identity in Christ from their performance.
The person in Christ is, that's right,
it drives their self-esteem.
See, it's funny that I have this in here,
but I had it in the other place too.
Focus is on joy, non-circumstantial,
already mentioned that earlier.
Love is choice-driven.
So it's agape love, it's not feeling,
which is really why Jackie always talks about the fact
that for a soulmate experience,
she's always saying, if you don't feel connected,
if you don't feel attracted.
to them in the first or second date.
She really wants you to give them a second chance.
That's right here because how we treat people
is a choice at the front end as our feelings start to grow.
The outcome of a grace-based acceptance
is that we have an abundant life.
John 10, 10 says, I came to give you life
so that you would have it more abundantly.
So we cannot have an abundant life without grace.
Grace obviously promotes a relationship with God.
And I think that's why I like to focus on God
more than just loving myself
because we know scripture says that,
but it can go down that new age, hippy-dippy,
like it's very self-oriented.
I've got to fulfill my own needs.
I've got to love myself.
Yes, but we can't do that without God.
So we always have to remember that God is our anchor.
A grace-based acceptance
has the ability to live within ambiguity.
They can sit in the gray.
And it's interesting because I will say this,
some of you may or may not hate or love the Enneagram,
but I'm a type two on the Enneagram,
which surprises a lot of people,
but type two people who are typically codependents
and people pleasers,
we have no problem sitting in the gray.
Type ones and type eights have a harder time.
They are very black and white.
They make the lawyers,
they just see the world as very linear.
So I want somebody to,
I want a few folks to kind of speak up about,
gosh, I either want more of this,
or you know what, when I am operating in the healthy,
this is how I do it.
Like, yes, I am more compassionate.
I am able to accept what it is.
I don't feel responsible.
So when you are operating,
because I'm sure some of you are in your healthy moments,
but when you are operating in grace-based acceptance,
what's really popping out for you?
I'm gonna open the floor.
I can share a testimony.
Yeah.
Yeah, so I grew up in a really religious household,
and when I actually met God,
like the person as described in scripture
and understood grace,
that destroyed all the relationships that I had,
because they were all based on
me being responsible for everybody.
And when I let that go
and just said, that's God's job,
I get grace for myself and they can have their own grace,
that shifted my whole life
and like started a whole new life for me.
And that was really, really huge to understand for me
as the person that was responsible
for holding the whole family together
and always putting a happy face on everything
and taking care of everybody's needs
and all that performance.
Yeah.
I love it.
That's so good.
Sarah, I saw you raise your hand.
I'm so glad because I want you to share
because I know this is really resonating with you too.
So go for it, sister.
Yes, thank you.
So I should start by saying that I thought I was path two
and I logged onto the call.
I was on for about five or 10 minutes
and they were talking about how to present yourself
image wise and stuff.
And I was like, wait a minute.
And I had like a Holy Spirit prompting
and I'm on path one right now.
So I left a very hustle like corporate culture
in the past couple of years, completely burnout,
very performance driven, high pressured sales,
very public facing role.
And so when I see the performance based,
that was my identity.
And I was raised by a dad that had been in the army
and was like a corporate executive and grew up overseas
and everything was driven.
And so I've been wondering why God called me away
from my job a couple of years ago.
And I'm telling you, as you started, as this call started,
it hit me like a ton of bricks that,
because he wants me to find,
like to have a grace based acceptance.
And he has been working on that the past couple of years,
but there was literally no way it could have happened
without me stepping away from that
because I was completely immersed in it.
And even in a lot of the religious circles that I was in,
notice I said religious, it was very like,
look at me, look what I can do.
And I'm leading this group
and I'm doing this, that and the other.
And just stepping back from that has been,
I don't know, it's been amazing.
So I am growing in a grace-based acceptance,
but it certainly was not my,
it does not come naturally to me.
I am hard on others, I'm hard on myself.
And so I'm grateful that I'm growing in these areas,
but if you have been completely on one side,
it's taking a supernatural work to get me to the other side,
but I do see changes over the past two and a half years,
and I'm really grateful.
That's so good, Sarah.
And I will say this, the part,
because you and I have been out of our positions
for about the same amount of time,
and I think what was kind of a trigger for me
coming out of the new year,
I was at my home for two years
and I came home to Nashville,
and I kind of had this moment of,
what am I coming home to?
I've got nothing here.
I'm not the president of the company anymore.
I don't speak at all these churches.
I don't get TV interviews anymore.
I'm not getting asked to do this.
I'm just working for Jackie.
It's her show, and I'm just one of the posse,
helping her out while I'm going back to school
for seminary, and I'm like, I'm nobody, I'm nothing,
and that's kind of the spirit that I was going into,
and so it wasn't even,
so I kind of worked past the performance,
like, okay, I don't wanna be that person,
but I didn't realize until today
when I was talking to my pastor about it,
he was like, you're still God's child.
You're still God's amazing girl.
The fact that you get to do this with this ministry
while you're going back to school,
like, your identity is still who you are.
It's not what your title was.
It's not the prestige that you had,
so yes, you're not performing anymore,
but you're shaming yourself for not performing,
because I realized I had this other layer
of grace-based acceptance that God's working on,
which is, yeah, you're gonna learn
while you're doing your schooling
that I may not give you fancy titles.
I may not have you make the most amount of money,
because you need to get this in your head, Renee,
because if I'm gonna have you go into a marriage,
and if you take that performance-based acceptance
into a marriage, you're gonna be too hard on yourself
and too hard on your spouse,
so it just made me realize, like,
oh, I still have more to do here, more to do.
Anyways, any of this resonating with anybody else
that has not gotten a chance to share yet,
whether it's the performance list or this one,
is anyone like, oh, God, this is me,
I'm getting there, I'm not there at all, I'm almost there?
I actually have, I guess, a testimony I can say.
My last position that I lost in 2020
was very performance-driven,
and as you know, it was taken away from me by a friend,
but during the time that I lost my job,
I felt like I just wanted to be a manager
just because I can prove to her that I did it,
and it kind of was like a revenge, you know?
Like, you did this to me, and I'm gonna get the top job
so that I can prove to you,
and that's my revenge to you for what you did,
and honestly, the job that I'm doing now,
I had applied to that position,
but what I'm realizing now
is that God took me away from that,
and in the time that I was not working,
he was breaking me down.
He was not giving me the job that he knew I deserved
because I was too bitter, and I was too wanting revenge,
and so he broke me down to the point of humility
where I had to surrender and say,
God, it's your will, not mine,
and so now that I've done all the forgiveness
and everything, I'm put in the position now
that I really wanted, and I don't even feel proud
in terms of I don't feel cocky or anything.
I haven't even, like, broadcast it to a lot of people
because I'm operating in a different mindset,
not in a mindset of I want to prove to you,
but more in a mindset of I'm grateful
for where God has put me now,
and so even at my company,
everyone is so compassionate and humble,
and if I had had that performance-driven mindset
that I had before, I wouldn't have been very.
I'm fruitful at this new company. So, I mean, that's a testimony for me, and I feel like
I can feel happy of where I am, not in terms of I wanted to prove someone else wrong, but
I'm just grateful to God for where I am. And it's just, it's a happy, it's a happy feeling.
I don't know if I'm explaining it correctly.
No, you're doing great. That's awesome. That's so good.
The feeling of humility instead of being proud, it's just, it's a total difference. I'm just
grateful.
I love that so much. I love that so much. It's funny that you use that as an example.
So I go to a Bible study, a life group, typically on Tuesday nights, although I feel like I've
not been able to go a lot lately teaching here, but it's at Mike and Kate Battistelli.
And if you may know the name, it's Francesca Battistelli's parents, who's a Christian artist.
And Kate actually used to be on Broadway. She actually was with Yul Brynner in The King
and I, like she was on Broadway, like doing great things. And she had this like vision
for her career. And it really kind of, God made her lay it down. And, and now Frannie,
her daughter gets to do this ministry and almost live out. And so Kate has always said,
I think I would have not, if I stayed in theater and had became more and more famous, I would
have done it for all of the wrong reasons. Kind of like what you were just saying, Rachelle,
I would have done it to get the glory, to get the attention. And God just had to, you
know, he humbled me and stripped it from me, but he blessed my daughter with it because,
you know, she's used it for the kingdom and really don't care. She lives on a farm and
don't care about any of the adulations. So thank you. That was a great comparison. And
Justin, I love what you said in the chat, how there's only four followers of Christ
of the 12 disciples that wrote a book of the Bible. And so we always look at Marthew, Mark,
Luke, and John, and we forget about the other eight. So what a great, what a great model
that sometimes, or, you know, the last will become first and the first will become last.
All right. I'm going to let Tammy go and then I'm going to keep going.
Okay. Well, I'm on the performance phase, definitely.
Did you want to say more about that?
Oh, I can't see it on screen right now.
All right. Let me back it up for you. There you go.
Okay. Yeah. Like every one of these, every one of these, I've always had a strong sense
of justice. Like when something wasn't fair, I get really upset about it, whether it's
to me or someone else is not fair. It makes me really mad. That's just part of my temperament
anyway, to see God's justice and things, but you try to do it in your flesh, you know,
you get angry and everything, and that's not good. But yeah, critical comparison. Yeah.
Um, um, what else? I can't read that one. All about rights. Yeah.
Yeah. Good, bad judgment. Judgment has an extra E in the middle of there. It's not supposed to have.
Oh, you can't be doing. Oh, it does. Look at that. See, that's what happens.
I promise I will spell check it before I, and I will double check everything before I send it off
to you. Um, relationship with God when lose all or nothing. Yeah.
Like this is our society. Like, you know, it's in depending on what area you live in. Like I
live in a very wealthy area and like, it is so competitive. It's so cray cray. And so, yeah,
good stuff. All right. We're going to keep going. Cause I've got a few more good slides to share
with y'all. Okay. So, and we're going to like, I'm going to the last slide, believe it or not,
it's helping you when to say yes. And when to say no, I'm just kind of leading up to it
because believe it or not, it all starts from our identity in Christ. We can't stop being a
people pleaser. If we don't get away from performance space and move into grace space
now to move in grace based acceptance, here's what we're going to have to let go of.
And this is the author's unknown for this. So the other two pages, um, I gave credit to my pastor
who wrote the list and this, the author is unknown for this. So, and I'm going to let some folks
share what's like, which is like, Oh, see, look, there's another typo. Um, to let go does not mean
to stop caring. It means I cannot do it for somebody else to let go is not to enable, but
to allow learning from natural consequences. There's a parent on here that needs to hear that
one to let go is to emit powerlessness, which means the outcome is.
It's not in my hands, but it's in God's hands.
To let go is to not try to change or blame another person,
but it's to make the most of myself.
To let go is to not care for, but to care about.
To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.
To let go is not to judge,
but to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to be in the middle
arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others to affect destiny.
Oh, that's me.
To let go is not to be protective,
it's to permit another to face reality.
To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live in the present
and plan for the future.
To let go is to fear less and love more.
I'm gonna let as many of you,
because I feel like this is such a strong statement piece
before we do the last slide.
I really want as many of you as possible
to pick one of these that you're like,
I need to make that my mantra.
Like the one that really jumped out for me
was to let go and not be in the middle
arranging all the outcomes,
but allow others to affect their own destiny.
So feel free to come off the mic and share.
To let go is not to enable,
but to allow learning from natural consequences.
To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live in the present
and plan for the future.
To let go is to admit powerlessness,
which means that outcome is not in my hands, but God's.
To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.
To let go is to not care, but to care about,
I'm sorry, to not care for, but to care about.
To let go is to fear less and love more.
To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live in the present
and plan for the future.
To let go is to not fix, but to be supportive.
To let go is to admit powerlessness,
which means the outcome is not in my hands, but God's.
I'm letting everybody go
because I think there's something
really powerful happening here.
So I really want everyone to pick one.
To let go does not mean to stop caring.
It means I cannot do it for someone else.
To let go is to admit powerlessness,
which means the outcome is not in my hands, but God's.
To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live in the present
and plan for the future.
To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live in the present
and plan for the future.
To let go is to fear less and love more.
To let go is not to judge,
but to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is to admit powerlessness,
which means the outcome is not in my hands, but in God's.
To let go is to not regret the past,
but to grow and live in the present
and plan for the future.
To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.
To let go is to fear less and love more.
To let go is to not be in the middle,
arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others to affect their own destinies.
To let go is not to regret the past, but to grow and live.
the past, but to grow and live in the present and plan for the future.
To let go is not to regret the past, but to grow and live in the present and plan for the future.
To let go is to not be protective. It's to permit another to face reality.
To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.
To let go is not to regret the past, but to grow and live in the present and plan for the future.
To let go is not to be in the middle, arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others to affect their own destinies.
To let go is to admit powerless, which means the outcome is not in my hands, but God's.
So good, you guys. So good. I'm just so proud of you guys for doing that. Proud of me for doing
that. I think this is such a God moment. Did you need to go? Somebody else needs to go?
I see you've unmuted, so I want to make sure you get a chance to go.
Sheffield, you are unmuted. Did you need to be unmuted?
Oh, sorry.
Sorry about that.
Do you want to go or did you already go?
You mean reading one? Yes.
Yeah, go ahead.
I read to let go is to not care for, but to care about.
Great. Okay. Awesome. All right. You guys, I just, I think that's so powerful. I'm just so glad
because like I've done so many boundary teachings for everybody and I just finished the circle
series and I just didn't want to spend an hour telling you to say no, to say no. I just love
that God planted this content and I personally am struggling with it this week. And I'm just
struggling with it this week. And so I think that that was just a special gift for all of us.
Okay. We're going to go to the next slide, which is really, it took me 48 minutes to get you guys
here. So this is where we're going to finish up. Boundaries. Here are five ways to say yes or no.
Okay. So, and actually there's two more slides. You have five options when you're going to say
yes or no to something. And there are two of them that are the healthy answers. You ask me,
it feels good for me. And I say, yes, that's a good yes. You ask me, it doesn't feel good for me.
I say yes, but I resent it. You may not know that I resent it. Three, you ask me,
it does not feel good for me. So I say no, and I feel okay about it. So you guys,
number one and number three, that's what we're aiming for. Four, you ask me, it doesn't feel
good for me. I say no, and I feel guilty. Old stick, tape, start playing. And the other person
may not know that you feel guilty. If you sit in your codependency and you've not been taught
healthy boundaries, you're going to sit in the camp of two and four, that should say two and
four. So one and three are the ones that we want to go for. We want to be able to say yes,
when it feels good for you. And we feel good about that decision. If it doesn't feel good,
we need to learn how to say no and feel okay to say no. Here is number five. So here's the five,
and this is where we get to live in the gray. So remember how five is, I mean, this personality
with grace means we get to live in the gray, meaning the answer is not always one or the other,
yes, no, right, wrong. There's room to explore another option. You ask me, it doesn't feel good
for me, but out of love and concern for you, I say yes and don't resent it. The key with this one is
this must be temporary. If not, you go back to number two and you start to resent it, or you go
to number three, sorry, number four. And so I did that twice. I will fix that before I send it out
to you guys.
So here's a good example of number five.
I have to learn to have really good boundaries with,
I'm gonna actually mute you, darling.
Okay.
Okay, so I have really tough,
I have really strict boundaries with my sisters.
I can tend to be a pushover with her.
Like I come off like a really strong person
and that may shock you, but in my family system,
I'm actually the people pleaser,
codependent in the middle of wanting everybody to be happy,
that whole middle person.
And so I can be a pushover, especially with my sister.
But when, and so I have to learn
to stand up to myself with her
and learn to say yes and no appropriately.
Sometimes when I'm on vacation with her
or with family for four days,
and I know my trip is very short,
I will sometimes say yes to her
because it is a temporary yes.
It actually will keep me safer.
It keeps the family safer
and it makes her actually easier to be around.
So for a very short amount of time,
I will let Michelle win every decision
because it just keeps peace with the family.
We all enjoy our time better.
I feel safer.
I can do that for a very short amount of time.
So sometimes when you're with family or you're at work,
you're gonna be willing to say a temporary yes
because it's just the safer thing to do.
What would make it unsafe
is I begin to let that go on and on and on.
Another good example that I like to use for this
because the person that actually taught me this page
out of the Murray Method,
the therapist is Anne Marie Sears.
As you guys know, I live in Nashville
and I actually used to speak at the church
that just had the shooting last year
at Covenant Presbyterian Church.
And it was a church very near and dear to me.
I knew a lot of the teachers.
I knew the people that died.
And so one of the therapists, Anne Marie,
she was called into Covenant
because of the tragedy at the school.
She was expected and asked, well, she was asked.
She was asked to provide therapy
way beyond her typical schedule and hours
for the first few weeks.
She was willing to give a temporary yes,
which means it hindered her ability in her own practice.
She had to say no to her family more,
but she was willing to do it
for a very finite amount of time
because of the tragedy at the school.
So that's an example.
So you can say yes sometimes
because you love somebody, not out of guilt.
I would argue in a marriage,
we're gonna have to learn how to do this a lot.
Sometimes you will say yes to your spouse
out of love and concern and not out of shame,
guilt, condemnation, manipulation.
The thing is it must be temporary.
So how do you decide when it's a yes and when it's a no?
So we're gonna take a look at this next page,
and then I want some feedback and questions.
So when I say yes, and when I say no,
the first thing you have to ask yourself
is do you even wanna do it?
Do you even wanna do it?
Like, believe it or not,
that gets to be the first question you ask.
Okay, I might wanna do it.
Will I enjoy it?
Do I have time for it?
And do I have the resources for it?
So you guys remember this.
I talked about time and capacity management
in one of the past sessions.
Our time and our capacity is like a pie.
We only have 24 hours in a day.
If you are saying yes to this thing,
it might mean that you're gonna have to say no
to something else.
And is that no gonna be something you care about
and what are gonna be the consequences of that?
Is it appropriate for me to even be doing this?
This is a perfect question for those of us
on the other page of letting go
when we said that we swoop in to save the day
because we don't want the balls to drop.
We don't want bad things to happen to our children.
We don't want them to worry about the ramifications.
That one is a particularly important question to ask.
Is it appropriate for me to do?
Am I coming in to rescue and save and fix?
Is it the right?
Yes.
And what might I have to say no to in order to say yes?
Remember, you only have 24 hours in a day
and you have only so much energy to give.
And I believe that this, yes it is.
Okay, so we're gonna go back
and I wanna open the floor for questions and comments
either about this slide or the next slide
because I'm hoping with everything
that you just came through,
now you're looking at this going,
and honestly, you guys,
I actually have this printed up on my refrigerator,
this list right here,
because, and here's the other thing you need to do,
and I probably should have put this.
And here, and I will add it to the PowerPoint on this page.
I sometimes, if I know I say yes too much,
my first answer when people ask me to do something,
I always say, I'm going to check my commitments
and get back to, is tomorrow good enough?
Is next week good enough?
I ask when they need an answer by.
So I don't immediately say yes.
Even if I wanna say yes, even if I'm dying to say yes.
If I have a habit of saying yes too fast,
I always say, let me check my other commitments.
I will get back to you.
When do you need to know by?
They say.
So I always give myself the time and the bandwidth
to ask these questions, these questions right here,
and ask these questions right here.
I need to play that out in my head.
Now, the more I practice this,
the less time I need to make a decision.
Obviously, the bigger the yes,
the more time you may need to decide,
especially if there are other people in your life
that you're gonna have to say no to.
So I will say this, the best way you can escape
giving a yes that you will feel crappy about later
is you don't say yes or no in the moment.
You say, I need to check my other commitments.
When do you need an answer by?
Now, here's the thing, you guys,
when you say no, no is a complete answer.
Remember, if you remember the boundaries class I taught,
the phrase I taught you is,
children explain, adults make statements.
Children explain, adults make statements.
So if you go back to that person and you say no,
you just say, thank you so much for asking me.
Thank you so much for considering for this.
Unfortunately, right now, my answer has to be no.
I really appreciate you asking.
Why?
You know what, my answer is no.
And you do not offer any explanations.
You don't need to make excuses.
You don't need to over analyze it
and you don't need to lie either, you guys.
I just don't lie, just don't lie.
Okay, so now I want to open the floor.
I have a question.
Yes.
So one of the things I run into for me is,
if there isn't even an option for this,
is I don't want to do it.
I'm going to be resentful.
And the only reason why I'm doing it
is because the Bible said for me to do it.
Can you give me a good example?
Interesting one, so I'd like to unpack
that a little bit more.
There are passages in the Bible to where it says
that if you don't honor your family,
if you don't take care of your family,
you're worse than a non-believer.
And I actually have difficulty with my mom.
I love my mom.
She's a great person.
Just every time I talk to her, for some reason,
all the energy from me gets sucked out within minutes.
And it's something I don't know how to fix
and I don't know how to change.
All right, I've got a perfect solution for you.
Perfect solution for you.
You get to love her from a distance.
So if you did not take Path 3 in the fall,
look for the first two sessions, the one on,
I think it was November 28th and December 11th.
I actually unpack where people in your life
should be in your circles.
And your mom needs to move out.
And it's not going to make any sense right now,
but you need to be able to love your mother
further out in your responsibility from her.
So you can't keep her in your inner circle.
So it actually is okay.
God does not say, for you to honor your mother
does not mean you need to say yes to her
every single time.
That is not scriptural.
You can love her healthy.
Like you're never supposed to say yes to her
at your own expense.
Like there is something about dying to self,
I mean, you know, for the kingdom,
but if it's an unhealthy and unsafe relationship,
you do not need to say yes all the time.
And believe it or not, you can actually say no.
And that can be a very loving thing.
Would you, Justin, would you say that God says no
to you sometimes?
Oh, a lot more than I care to say.
Okay, so he says no to you.
Do you think he loves you?
Yeah.
Okay, so he loves you even when he says no to you.
Yes.
So you can love your mom, even if it's a no.
Even if it's a, I can't come visit you.
Even if it's, I need to take a step back.
Even if it's mom, I can only visit you if we're in public.
There was a season where I only could love my dad in public.
public with my friends around because then he was on his best behavior and he was so
fun to be around. I couldn't do alone visits for a while with him and that actually saved
our relationship and I'm so glad that before he passed away, I was actually in a much more
healed and hold place with him. But Justin, I still had boundaries with my dad. I visit
my dad would stay over at my sister's when he came to town because my sister was married
with a husband. It was not safe for me to let my dad stay at my place and that was a
boundary I put up because my place would make him being alone with me too much. And so I
found that I could honor him because it says, honor your father and your mother. I was able
to honor him better by putting boundaries up with how I behaved with him, where I behaved
with him and what I, in the, in the conversations I was willing to entertain and not entertain
with him. And so if you watch those two sessions, I kind of go into like putting people out
in their circles and it's this, it's just this form of how do you love people at different
places of safety and security for you. So I'm just going to, I'm going to invite you
to go watch those episodes that are in your guides, but also really just really lean into
how God may allow you to love her differently. All right. Thank you for the advice. You bet.
And it's just, I'm just tossing it out there for you to try and consider, but I know it's
not easy. Great. That was great. Anybody else, a question thought that was perfect. That's
exactly what I want this time. Rachel, I have a question. You said it's, you should say
no without giving an explanation. What if you have a friend who is very critical and
demands an explanation? Like why, what, how do you navigate that? What's the wording?
That's really great. And here's the thing, because here's the thing you can give a statement,
a statement is different than an explanation. So you can just say, your answer is, I would
love to say, yes, I just don't have the capacity right now. That's your answer. You're saying
no, and you're given a reason. The difference is she's pushing you to explain your reason.
And you just need to say, Betty, I'm just giving her a name. Betty, we're really good
friends. And if you honor the friendship, then you need to respect my no as much as
you respect my yeses. This conversation's over. If you respect my friendship, then you
have to know that I didn't say no easily. And so you just like, it's like, you know
what I'm saying? And, and next time, if you come back to this path in two weeks, we're
going to talk about confrontation and conflict resolution. So I think that we'll dig a little
deeper when someone tries to push your button there. So we'll hit that a little bit more.
Teresa.
Thank you.
On this page, could you go into a little more detail and explain what you mean by, it doesn't
feel good for me? Do you mean, emotionally, it makes me, it makes me upset, or I really
don't want to do it?
I mean, it could be any one of those, Teresa. It could be, you don't have the time, you
don't have the capacity, you don't have the money, you don't feel safe. It could be any
reason why you wouldn't want to do it in your gut. I would say, in your knower, in your
gut, you want to do it. That's when you say yes. In your gut, like sometimes if you ever
wanted to say no to something and you're not even sure you know why you want to say no,
like you just know it's no. Like it doesn't feel like, and I feel like that's the Holy
Spirit in us. Like the more we get in tune of the Holy Spirit, if the Holy Spirit asks
me to do something, even if it's uncomfortable, I say yes. So you guys, thank you for asking
that Teresa, because it feels good for me. Isn't like this woo woo selfish thing. It
feels good for me. Really lean into the Holy Spirit because sometimes the Holy Spirit will
prompt us to operate out of our discomfort, which is go pray for somebody, go speak up,
go serve, go help, go do the uncomfortable thing. And so I would say maybe how I might
rephrase this is if it feels good for me and the Holy Spirit confirms yes, then I say yes.
If it doesn't feel good for me and the Holy Spirit is stretching me, maybe I still say
yes, but if it doesn't feel good for me and the Holy Spirit is screaming red flag, red
flag, red flag, that's when it's the.
No. Does that help?
That does. Thank you.
You bet. I'm glad you asked, though, because that's good.
And what I might even do is before I hand you guys the printout, I'll put that in the parentheses.
So it's kind of there for somebody who gets us in the playback.
Charles.
OK, so I don't know if mine is kissed in this session or the next one you said you're going to have, but five years, it's more like insight.
I mean. So five years ago, my sister was living with me.
I. Yeah, long story, but she begged me to house her dog.
OK, so after she asked me for two weeks straight and me continually saying no.
And I'm sorry to leave out that, but I eventually reluctantly agreed just to get her to stop asking me because it was just so annoying to me at the time.
And she ended up fixing things with her husband and stuff.
And she moved out and her dog stayed at my house.
Yeah, he's still here.
He is still here.
What do I do?
How long has it been, Charles?
Oh, about five years.
My dog.
He's your dog.
Now I'm attached.
I love it.
OK, so that's a perfect example of it's not number five.
Right, because you ask me and it doesn't feel good for me.
But out of love and concern, I say, yes, you didn't do it out of love and concern.
You did it out of guilt and resentment.
You were definitely sitting in the number two spot.
Family will do that, y'all.
Family will manipulate the crap out of us.
And golly, I hate when family does that.
And family will do it better than nobody else.
Anybody that's known you long enough, they know what your triggers are.
I will say this, if you're ever in a healthy place and you're worried that your sister might ever manipulate you like that again,
it wouldn't be a bad thing whenever you're like in a good space with her to say,
hey, would you be open to a conversation with me?
Would you be open to a conversation with me?
There's just something that happened.
And I really never unpacked it with you.
And I'd love to talk about it with you.
And you can just say, you know, when you asked me about the dog, just say, you know, I realize I felt like you were really trying to manipulate and guilt me into saying yes.
And obviously it's my dog now and it's worked out.
But I'm going to really ask if you ever ask me a favor again and I say no, I really need you to start respecting my no.
Do you think you could do that the next time that would happen?
I need to know that you will respect my boundaries and that when I say no, I've made a thoughtful decision.
Like, do you know what I'm saying?
Like, it might be good for you to here's where it might be good.
It might be good for you to practice that on somebody like your sister, because she might get pissed at you for a little bit.
But she's your sister because sooner or later, somewhere in your life again, and it may be in the woman that you marry, she might try to do that to you.
And if you don't exercise that muscle of saying no and sitting with the tension of them being disappointed in you, it might be hard for you to do.
And then you're going to start to resent your wife.
And that's the thing, you guys, saying no comes with a cost.
Saying no means that we're going to disappoint them.
We might piss them off.
We might upset them.
We might hurt them.
Remember the letting go thing was the letting go, meaning I think one of the letting go ones was that they have to face the consequences, right?
We have to let people face their own consequences.
So sometimes we say yes, because we're afraid of the consequences.
So there are consequences to saying yes and no.
The difference is if we say yes and we resent it, the consequence hits us.
If we say no and feel guilty, it still hits us.
But if we say no healthy, the consequence may fall on them.
And that's OK.
Sometimes it needs to.
Sometimes it means you need to hurt someone's feelings to not cause harm later.
And that's a phrase I use in the boundaries class all the time.
Sometimes you have to hurt someone's feelings to not cause harm later.
Which is why we don't ghost people, right?
If we have a few dates with somebody, we do the hard thing and we say, I'm sorry, you were amazing.
I just don't want to pursue this any further.
Do you hurt their feelings in the moment?
Yes.
Do you think that you cause more harm if you just ghost them or string them along?
Absolutely.
So that's why we kind of try to do that stuff early and we try to practice that often.
Guys, these are great examples.
Thank you so much.
Like, I feel like you guys are covering.
I think so many good things here.
My gosh, that was so funny.
Okay.
All right.
I'm gonna take the screen off
just cause I wanna see your gorgeous faces.
I'm really, really so proud of you guys
for showing up tonight.
I was just curious at how many were gonna show up.
I'm like, everyone's gonna go to the dating one.
I'm actually glad Jackie,
I think Jackie's doing the dating one tonight
cause I don't know if I had anything new
and good to say about putting your best face forward.
And she's like, oh, you're our boundaries girl
and you're the people pleaser of the crowd.
I'm gonna make you do that.
And I'm like, so true.
So clearly I needed to teach it tonight
cause I needed to read my own mail tonight.
So I'm so glad.
Any other questions or thoughts
before I have us close out in prayer?
I don't like to force us to keep going if we don't need to.
I feel like this is a good session.
I promise I will fix all my typos and my booboos
and then I will turn it into a PDF
and tomorrow Cheryl will upload it.
And it'll be when she uploads the replay,
it'll be somewhere right next to it.
Paul, are you still on?
Are you still on Paul?
Paul, would you be willing to close us out in prayer?
Sure, absolutely.
Thanks.
All right, Father, we just thank you for this time together
hearing these words.
I pray that you would, by your spirit,
help us to process that and learn
and receive from you what we need
and then just give ourselves what you have for us
in terms of that self care and healthier boundaries.
We ask for wisdom.
Thank you for Renee.
We bless her and her sharing her heart
and her experiences and stories.
And thank you for what you're doing in our lives.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.