Spiritual Formation: An Initial Self Diagnostic

Sue and Eric discuss the need to intentionally examine how you are experiencing the world around you.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Hi, welcome to healing the city podcast. My name is Eric steepen. You hear a kind of vacuuming sound,

Speaker 2: 0:19

The outside blower blowing all the garbage that came from a micro burst and just knocked everything off the pine tree. Yeah, it is a mess out there. And with me is my beautiful wife, Susan Sipan and she's looking carefully at the volume to see how she pops up on me

Speaker 3: 0:40

Because Eric's volume tracker is always like five times as big as mine. So I can't tell if I just need to holler more or what, or maybe it all just comes out fine because when I listened to it, it sounds,

Speaker 2: 0:55

Oh, it does. Because we just fixed the volumes later in post-production

Speaker 3: 0:59

Post production. That just sounds awful, but I'm glad there's someone who does it. I'm glad it doesn't ruin your life. No, it's a terrible word.

Speaker 2: 1:12

Post-production yeah. It's also that you talk over the top of your mic and I talk into my mind,

Speaker 3: 1:18

I can do that, then it hits your nose. It's weird.

Speaker 2: 1:24

Well, it's good to see you. And, uh, we're gonna talk about how you come to, um, really understanding yourself and offering, uh, a problem per se, that, that you might want people to help you process.

Speaker 3: 1:43

Yeah. So this is specifically related to the hot seat model or the table of decision that we talk about on here from time to time

Speaker 2: 1:52

Kind of insider. So if you're not a villager, this is the process that we use to help people kind of understand how the gospel applies to different struggles in their life.

Speaker 3: 2:03

Yes. And I'm finding, figuring out what's happening in your life could be good in other situations too, like it's, you're sitting down to journal, like we've talked in a couple of podcasts about, uh, pro journaling processes that are helpful for sorting things out. Um, or if you're just answering the question, Hey, how's it going? You know, those are places where sometimes we're not aware of how it's going or what what's really been bugging us lately or whatever. Um, but, uh, we're also thinking in terms of, if you are with someone and you have an opportunity to go through the hot seat model, or if you're in a Pilgrim group or some other setting where you could process something, uh, how do you find that thing that you want to process?

Speaker 2: 2:51

And probably what we would say the difference between the spiritual formation podcast and maybe our soul care podcasts is that in our soul care podcast, we're actually dealing a lot more with neurobiology and these weird dealing more with processes that will help you engage the gospel. Not that your neurobiology understanding that it doesn't do that. In fact, we head towards that too in those, but it's just kind of taking a different perspective. Um, and this is really kind of closed in on some of the more, what we would call monastic practices of our community, the thing, the rhythms that we live in relationally relationally, and try that to, I do so to get started. Uh, I guess I will, do you want me to start? Okay. So one of the ways that I think it's best to begin this process is to break down your life a little bit. And, uh, so we have all of these, what I would call external, uh, things that we live in and experience life in. So for instance, there's a category in our life. That's environmental, how are we handling the environments that we live in? And when I mean by that is our physical environments. So if we live in a small home that, uh, and it's often messy, that might create a certain type of anxiety or create more heightened, um, kind of frustrations with things. Um, so that's just an environment has impact or if the way our houses painted, or if we now in COVID are living in a house with our kids all the time, and they're not going to school. And our husband is working from home or a wife is working from home. So we're always there all the time. That's an environmental stimulus it's so it's a good place to process. Well, how am I experiencing my environment? Um, so that's, that's one thing. Another one is our bodies themselves. Like physically, when I wake up, does my back hurt when I, you know, how does that impact me? Um, and what do I do? I, what's my self image. Do I think I'm fat? Do I think I'm skinny? Do I think I'm ugly? Do I think like what kind of identity statements based on my physicality do I have, um, so that's, that's another one. Um, you know, I think an overarching one, but it, but it can also just be a category is my spiritual life, like, do I have regular rhythms in my life? There are, I am spending time with God where I'm engaging my community spiritually, or I'm engaging God, or I'm praying if those aren't there. Why aren't they better what's happening? What is it about me? So these are just good spaces to begin the process of thinking through your own condition. How do I experience my environment? How do I experience my body? How do I, so it isn't experiencing question it and you have to begin to articulate, uh, what you think about those things and, and maybe even how you feel about when you're in them. So you have to put yourself there. Um, I think the interpersonal category is important is just analyzing every relationship that you have. So even if your parents live in another state, what's my relationship with my parents. Like when I reflect on my parents, how do I feel about things? If you're married? What, what kinds of, you know, how am I experiencing my spouse? What would I say is good? What would I say I struggle with, it's really just having a real honest analysis of the different areas of your life. So you've got your interpersonal, you get your environmental, you've got your spiritual, your emotions are a category. Like how often do you feel, quote, unquote, emotional? What places do you feel emotional about? What kinds of emotions do you tend to experience anger or fear, or are they primarily secondary? You know, my emotions like frustration or, um, irritability, or are they, do you tend to jump down to more primary ones like being afraid or, um, having anxiety, those kinds of things. So just just saying, this is who I am. These these analysis are really just a helpful way. Um, you know, the helpful way when it comes to journaling, it's a helpful way to thinking about when it comes to the hot seat is just to, to work on these categories. Um, I'm trying to think about the other categories that I tend to use in these, but those are good set to begin with, you know, and thinking about, um, so when you come to like in our community and you sit with a group of people and we're like, Hey, we're going to do hot seat. Does anybody have an issue? But normal response is, Oh, I don't have an issue. Right. Or I have an issue, right. It's either way. And if it's, I have an issue, it's like, do I really want to talk about that or not? But a lot of times it's like, how do I articulate my issue? Well, you can start, it's good to do this before you get to the group, but you can start by just analyzing your emotional experience over the week. What your relationship with your husband's been like, or wife didn't like that week or your kids,

Speaker 3: 8:05

How are things going at work? I think is an important category

Speaker 2: 8:08

And work is a, is another category. It's funny. I don't think about it as much anymore that way, because everybody's work is merged in their home. Um, but yes, how do I experience my work in the sense of how do I experience it as, uh, do I feel fulfilled? Do I, am I looking to get out of it? Um, do I, how do I feel about the employees? Like, what's

Speaker 3: 8:32

Kind of like the relational, the

Speaker 2: 8:33

Relational components to those things. So you can begin to be, go ahead.

Speaker 3: 8:38

And I think also, uh, along those lines for people who are working as parents, like that's your primary vocation at the moment, um, that can be complicating because your work intertwines with your relationships, with your kids and your spouse and the people around you. And so I think it's important to be able to kind of separate that out a little bit and say, my vocation right now is, you know, I'm tending to this house, I'm taking care of these kids and training them. And, uh, how do I look at that as separate from the relationships themselves at some level and make decisions about it that are work-related decisions.

Speaker 2: 9:22

Yes. That's a good, a good point. Um, but yeah, so these are just like, when you think in these kinds of categories, it really, all it is, is I think what the challenge of the hot seat model is, and maybe the thing and the table of decision, this process that we go through, um, which by the way, I put links on our last talk. So you can go to our last doc and look at the links you can type in the hot seat, model, the villagers online at, in Google, you can type my name, Sue's name in the hot seat, or you'll find these things. They're all over the place on the internet. So that's not a problem. But when you do this process, it is kind of confronting you with the idea of being intentional and that you're not intentional when it comes to thinking about your life. But like it's saying, Hey, intentionality is important for this process to work. And for you actually to be a whole person, you have to think about these things. A lot of times we just, we, we want to avoid it because each one of these does have an experiential and emotional kind of component to it.

Speaker 3: 10:22

Yeah. And I think for some of us, uh, we tend to think about these things, but we just ruminate over them. So we're aware of the negative, hard things in our lives, but we're not really dealing with them, constructively others of us aren't even aware of them at all. Um, some of us need to look at the span of our lives and say, Hey, this thing over here is working really well. And I'm celebrating that intentionally. So I think there's both the positive and negative. When we're thinking about hot seat, we're looking at stuff that's not working right specifically, but I think it's good to give a shout out to, Hey, there's good stuff happening too.

Speaker 2: 11:00

Yeah. Well, I think environmentally, like this is say most of the time we spend our life trying to numb ourselves out to the reality that things are broken in every single area of our life. And Jesus tends to invite us into that brokenness. This initial analysis is not to get all the way through that. This initial analysis, like, think about your environment. Okay. Well, especially with COVID there, there's definitely a sense of that. You could, you know, people are actually remodeling a lot because they're finding that their environment is difficult for them to be in seeing the broken thing, wanting something different. Um, and so even that just saying, I am not experiencing my environment in its most optimum is a thing that you can process because you can then go through the hot seat and begin to talk about what, what is your core experience of your environment? What does it produce? And then begin to easily work through our process, because what happens in that process as you begin to figure out how you actually numb out to those things, that's what we're trying to get you. So one of the mechanism with which you use to avoid the feelings and experiences that you are confronted with on a daily basis. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 12:14

Yes. And I think, uh, what's significant with the hot seat itself is a lot of times if we are in a setting where there's room for it. Um, and it's, uh, there's an opportunity to, uh, have that experience. Um, our tendency is to want to find something that's good enough for the hot seat, right? You know, you want a big enough problem or something that makes sense to you as an issue. But sometimes it's the little stuff that's really the most effective. And I've been part of hot seats that were just this, you know, Hey, this weird thing happened today with strangers. You know, like I, it wasn't, it's not my normal, it's not a normal pattern. It was just something weird that happened. Um, I got cut off in traffic and I was so mad. I couldn't get over it. That kind of thing, um, is actually a really good hot seat. It doesn't look like a big life issue. Um, but it often connects to deeper things and wider things that are actually in play in other areas of our lives. So I think the little weird stuff is great and the big stuff that we're just wrestling with on a daily basis. That's good too.

Speaker 2: 13:35

Yeah. I, I that's, that's the beauty of all of it. Uh, and I, I think, um, well I was thinking while you were talking that, uh, every because life, cause we talk about life being an event, everything, every moment of your life is an event and that's what we're looking for. So there are tons of events, right? Good and bad. Um, but I was thinking about the reason that we would look at our environment and our spirituality and our emotions and our relationships in our work sphere and all that is because each one bears burdens and, and Matthew 11, right. Uh, tells me 2030 through 30 explains to us that we're to bring our burdens to God and to give them to him and his yoke and his burden is light. Like, and that is what we're learning is this exchange that we're carrying huge burdens into our workplaces, into our homes, into, um, our relationships and the relationships themselves, the work themselves, these become these burdens. Jesus invites us to hand them to him so we can look at them because part of having them lighten this to look at them and have him say, here's the perspective that you need to have. Here's my, which is so much lighter. And so that's what this whole process is. So, so understanding that every event that is negative brings a burden that you add to your shoulders. Um, you just, for a practical sense, went through, you, led your group through a exercise that I thought was really interesting, um, and might be helpful for people to do.

Speaker 3: 15:18

This was in a Pilgrim group years ago, probably at least five years ago.

Speaker 2: 15:23

And we should do it more.

Speaker 3: 15:26

And I've kind of had a hard time re accessing this exercise, but it was really helpful at the time. Um, and it's basically, uh, it's really simple. You just have everybody grab a piece of paper and draw a spokes out of a center point. So straight lines on the page, uh, coming from a center point on the page and, uh, give a title to each line. So pick maybe six categories, um, in life, like work relationship with spouse relationship with kids relationship with, you know,

Speaker 2: 16:04

Right. So you could, you could do this Boken a whole different way. You could do it like relationship and then have all your different relationships.

Speaker 3: 16:11

Right. It could just be work relationships, um, spousal

Speaker 2: 16:16

Relationships. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 16:18

I, yeah. Kind of depends on how those things are breaking down. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:21

However, right. However, the leader decides to break it down, you can do this book thing,

Speaker 3: 16:26

Uh, but picking different categories, uh, church, it could be my spiritual life, my physical life, different, just different categories. Uh, that seemed to kind of span the, uh, these parts of life that people are in and experiencing. And then have everybody, uh, pick a point on the line, like where is that for me? You know, um, am I feeling really good about work, then pick a spot at the top of the line toward the outside, uh, work is so bad and horrible things are happening. There would get a Mark closer to the center of the wheel of spokes. And, um, do that for each line. My relationship with this person is, you know, where, where am I feeling like I'm, I am, we are on that line. How is my relationship with my environment going? Or, um, whatever the different spokes and, uh, just Mark a spot on each line and then connect the lines. So you kind of see what the circle of your life is looking like, is it a circle? Is it a Starburst? You know, are some parts of your life just like off the charts. Good. And other parts are so bad that they didn't even make it on the page. Um, and then in the spots that are on the lower side of the line that aren't doing so well, pick a, an event or two and say, well, this really characterizes what's been happening in this spot. Like I keep having these arguments with my boss. That would be something on the work line. Um, and then that's an easy thing to throw into a hot seat conversation. And you don't even have to know where it's going to go. You just say, Hey, I have something I've been getting into all these arguments with my boss at work, and then the group can help you, you know, shake out, okay, what is a good, but it's an event that really characterizes that and then go from there. Um, or yeah,

Speaker 2: 18:31

Which is a big deal for us in that we, we really, the question that we like asking is what is an event that characterizes it because a lot of times w you know, we, we generalize about how we're experiencing things, but for us to move through those things, we have to give actual events that demonstrate the experience. And then you can kind of process through what Jesus is telling you, where the enemy is talking to you, what kind of emotions you're having, what kind of lies you believe and how to apply the gospel to that.

Speaker 3: 19:08

And that will apply to a lot of the other events that are happening in that space. Yes. You know, one argument with the boss will generalize to the other ones. Um, you know, what you discover about what you're believing and how you're engaging. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:25

Yeah. And so, I mean, that's, that's really how you go about it. I mean, I usually would encourage, I love that exercise. I think we should make it part of the village, you know, teaching people how to get there. And even just as an exercise that you're doing on a regular basis and putting groups. But I also think, you know, just on a personal level, if you're not at a Pilton group, that's a good exercise, but it'll also maybe journaling, you know, just put on the, in your journal environment and then begin to just talk about how you experience your home and maybe go room by room and talk about how you experience your house. Or, and you can bring in like the noise of your kids, the, the presence of people, the ways that the walls are done, the cleanliness or not cleanliness your backyard, like you can begin to have just that many, you go like, Oh, wow. Like I really enjoy where I'm at. Or Whoa, like, this is actually a hard place for me to be every day. And so this is partly why I'm feeling depressed or not able to really articulate how I'm doing, and then you can begin that process. So I think journaling about these different spots help you to begin to think about them. And there is something, you know, from the neuro biological sense of plan, you write down things, your brain is doing something, there's something that happens between the word and the brain, and that is that's actually helpful and healing to you. Um, so I think, do you have any else things to say about this? You've got more stuff to throw into the mix here.

Speaker 3: 20:59

Well, the other piece of this, that's not actually about finding a particular events or, you know, difficult things to talk through with somebody or write about, uh, maybe it has to do with, with just being willing to jump into that place. And, um, and let people offer that to you. And I don't know if that fits in this, um, in this particular podcast or not, but I feel like that's another piece of it is another reason that I wouldn't, uh, take the opportunity to be hot seated, uh, is it's just, I feel like I, you know, there could be a range of reasons for that with, with different people. Uh, like for me, it might be, I don't like to inconvenience other people and I might have something that I know I really need to process with somebody, but I don't really feel like I'm more their time or the inconvenience that it's going to be for them to ask me good questions and listened to me and value me in that way. But I think there are other, maybe other reasons that come up for people. Well,

Speaker 2: 22:10

Well, I think underneath what you're saying, and it's probably the truth for all of us, is that any kind of healing requires vulnerability, any kind of vulnerability, um, means that we might be misunderstood and, and not taken seriously or, or cast off. And so, you know, it does all, everything always goes back to that moment when Adam and Eve were caught, um, with, uh, in their sin and, and with the realization of their nakedness and it no longer was without shame, right. Um, because of their disobedience. And so we all have to go through that to find healing. And it's really uncomfortable because yes, it's a metaphor, but it feels basically like you have taken all your clothes off and you're going to sit with a bunch of people who have their clothes on and have to talk. That's just, just to have a normal conversation is that's terrifying. Right. So I think that's the, that's what people are experiencing. They articulate it differently. Like you articulate, not wanting to inconvenience people, that kind of thing. Um, for me, it's often not thinking about I'm going to be understood or be able to communicate the way I actually feel. And so I'll be misunderstood. Um, or people will say I feel a certain way, um, because they heard me say it, but that's not really how I felt. So it's vulnerable being misunderstood. So yeah, I think we all have different reasons for it, or it just produces so much anxiety. I mean, hot seating wise don't want to be hot. Seated is process.

Speaker 3: 23:49

As we talk about this, I just think all that would be a good conversation to have either just individually with friends. Like, you know, here's, I've realized that I don't talk to you about these things for these reasons, um, or in a small group kind of context, to kind of hash that out, process it and have it on the table. Cause it probably is different for different people, but maybe stems from that same vulnerability piece. Yeah,

Speaker 2: 24:18

Definitely. I actually think this is a good spot to end. I think this is very good, very helpful. Even to me, as we've been talking, which I love about this is that it, ideas start popping back into my head and I get excited about what God has done and taught us. So I'm excited to continue this conversation and I love doing it with you. Yeah. All right. Thanks guys. For listening to us, have a good day.

Speaker 1: 24:54

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