Hello and welcome to In the Rising Podcast. My name is Bettina Brown and I am your host and welcome you to the show. This show talks about living a life to your fullest. So that you can live without or as much without guilt and regret as much as possible. And every show. I start off by saying that I am not a licensed counselor, psychologist, therapist, but I am a healthcare professional who cares about the entire health of a person also.

He wants to figure out what makes us tick and what makes some of us go for it and risk things, and what makes others of us not, and how is it that some of us are risk takers in one season of life, and then kind of sit back on the sidelines in another. So, I decided to do this show today a little bit differently.

Normally I have. I don't know, a little bit of a sketch out, some mean points, some notes I want to talk about and reference material that supports what I say, and I will have some references out. But I wanted to just put a show out there today about. What's going on and what means what going on. It does not have to mean that you're listening to this on Cinco de Mayo, May 5th, 2020.

It can be at some other point in time, but sometimes what's going on is insecurity, not knowing what's gonna happen, thinking that we have more control of our, our surroundings than we really. Sometimes thinking we have more control over our behavior, what words we use, what thoughts we have than we really do.

And this week I had to pull out information that's kind of helped me in the past and I kept seeing. On my feed and through conversation, the same words coming up, you know, and one thing that kept popping up was the topic of anxiety, being anxious. And I am not typically an anxious person, but I've had that feeling of my thoughts just going a hundred miles an hour.

Going, going, going, what about A, what about option B? What about option? C, D E, F G. And, and if that doesn't happen, what about Z? And just feeling exhausted. Feeling really exhausted. Exhausted and blessed and grateful at the same time, yet going right back into the mind frame of, well, what, what, what's going to happen?

And the reality is we don't know from day to day what's going to happen. So in the process of another project, Because I may have way too many projects on my, on my, um, stove, I once was told I had a dream that, you know, there were. Octopi everywhere. And they were different colors and yellow and blue and it was a weird dream.

Like I don't dream about any sea, um, creatures. And I looked it up and it said, if you have dreams about um, being an octopus or having one nearby, it's cuz you have your hand on so many projects at the same time. And that's probably like my. Mantra, but that was going on this week and I decided to pull up a sermon that has really just, I feel stood the test of time, no matter when I listened to it.

And it's from Elevation Church, and the pastor is Steven Furtick and it was in his series called Savage Jesus. Now that might not be your topic and I, I understand that, but he said, “The entire point of Jesus being here on earth was not to provide comfort. It was to provide confrontation to what was going on at that time.”

That there were all these rules and rules and rules, thought about our overregulation, even our, our structure. Like we have to do this. We have to be at school this time. We have to like think about your day. And it's kind of like we impose our own. Rules, rules, rules. But the whole point was to upset that and get back to the purpose of what's really important.

Now, you may not be a Christian, you may not have any of those views at all, but the idea, the premise that there's so much going on and that's not healthy and we're not able to do things well then. We're not able to multitask, especially as a woman in this, in this era. You know, that's kind of our, our gold star, our badge of honors that you get to multitask.

And that's not true. That if you do one thing and do it well and then move on to the next one thing and do it well, you produce so much more and you don't feel as tired. Uh, that's where those books, like the Four-Hour Work Week comes. I struggled with that book. It didn't make much sense to me, but what I did get out of it was to not check my email all day long to make it a point of checking it at specific times, because when I do that, only I'm able to pay attention to it and focus on it.

instead of constant, the same way with, um, like Instagram. Have you ever noticed you'll go on Instagram or Facebook and there's no alert, and then you turn it off and suddenly it says, oh, there's an alert. Then you go back and there's nothing there. And that's on purpose. It's to kind of keep  all of us like a little drug addict like, Ooh, what, what, what's my alert going on?

What's happening? That's how our email is. And so, the entire point of. Soliloquy I just had was that we're focusing on so much that we're not doing those few important things very well. And why is that? And so this one particular sermon kind of stood out to me because I think it's relevant no matter what our beliefs are.

It's called Dysfunctional Comfort, and he talks about. How we have to step out of our comfort in order to step into our calling, and that always makes me pause and, and kind of gives me goosebumps because I definitely love my comfort zones. I love my comfort food and comfort food usually isn't, you know, carrots and celery.

It's not carrots and celery , it's always mashed potatoes and stuff kind of heavy and you know, fried this and fried that really delicious stuff too, you know. But comfort beds, like I don't want to get out of bed in the morning because it's so cozy and it's so warm, and I don't have to move. I don't have to do something and change.

and that's what a lot of staying in our comfort zone is, is of being afraid to change and being afraid to change usually relates to being afraid to fail. And I don't think that's a, a fear that we can ever really move away because the possibility of failure is always there. I think changing the perception of I'm afraid to fail, to, I embrace failure because that means I've done something and it means I've maybe learned something which will make my success even greater.

A lot of us talk about how great something felt after not doing something well, you know, really struggling. Getting a tutor that, you know, making, passing that class where you struggled means so much more than the one that you could breeze on.  So, some of the struggle was equivalent to some of the, the beauty, and in this whole dysfunctional comfort, pastor Feick also mentioned comfort friends.

The friends that are good to you, the people that are good to you, but they're not good for. and everyone was quiet. And even when I first heard it, I was like, “Ooh,” . And I think it was because I hit close to home that there were people all along in my life. And you know what? If I'll be honest, sometimes maybe I was that comfort friend, that one that was good to someone, but I wasn't good for them.

Sometimes I wondered even have I ever parented that? Have I been so good to my son that I have not been good for him? I haven't allowed him those opportunities to plant his own roots. You know, they don't, they don't grow deep because someone built a bigger hole for you. They grow deep because you have to push through the soil and then they're solid.

And even if you get chopped off, you still have the potential to grow. I know that because I have dogs who have eaten through my plants. The dogs have lived, um, by the grace, but my plants, I just watered them because I was like, well, you know, I might as well. And sure enough, something green came out that like, I was so excited that it had the opportunity and the drive to live again.

And so it went out of its comfort zone. It was complet. Uncomfortable having being eaten just this way. I was uncomfortable when I felt in life that life had chewed me up and just thrown me to the side. Or like a washcloth that you just kind of make soy wet and you don't even have the, the kindness to ring it out before you throw it to the side, just like a wet washcloth boom on the wall and then just sliding down.

I felt that way. My hearts felt that way. My mind has felt that.

That was uncomfortable, but through those experiences I grew. And so having to go through something that's uncomfortable is also very scary. And. We see things, you know, I've, I've read it, you know, fear, the different acronyms is face everything and rise or fear everything. And, and, and, and that's really nice.

And it, it's a good, it's a good thing to read and it's a good thing to believe. But then there are those moments when, when your fear is real, you, you are legitimately. and you're scared because you're, you're not sure how to get out of this comfort zone or you're not in your comfort zone, and that door to get back in that comfort zone is shut.

So where can you actually learn, learn and grow from that? So that was one of the best sermons because he just talked about. how we are also designed to comfort one another.

And we are, according to him, you know, that we are designed to comfort one another. And in my belief, God is designed to comfort us, but it never says anywhere that we are to comfort ourselves. And perhaps when we are really. And we are looking for friendships, relationships, online drugs, alcohol, ways to busy ourselves.

That's definitely one I've been very well known for. Just busy, busy, busy, busy. Now we are trying to comfort ourselves. From something that we are really to experience the discomfort of so that we can walk out of that comfort and really into our calling of our life and our purpose and our joy and experience true happiness With that.

What about if all of this stuff that's comfortable does not bring us anywhere?

how much comfort is that? One day when you get to look back at your life and, and you don't get any second chances, you don't get to go to school anymore. You don't get to buy that car you've always wanted. You don't get to write to person a letter because they're not there to read it. We're now uncomfortable and we have to live with that.

being uncomfortable is more a part of life than being comfortable is. And I have to say that that struck a chord with me, particularly this week in many different if, if you look at the Wheel of Life in many different aspects. I was uncomfortable getting out there doing a podcast. I was uncom. Change in jobs.

I was uncomfortable with some of the way I interact with people. I was uncomfortable starting a project, uh, where I didn't know if I would succeed or not. I was uncomfortable. But I have to say in all of those instances, I grew a little bit because I stepped out of that comfort. And I think that's what we can all learn from one.

Is be there for one another. When you see someone is in that uncomfortable place, and sometimes that uncomfortable place is really just broken, right? Those falling on the floor, crying in the bathroom, bloody nose happening, you're just so done. Like that's uncomfortable, but that's maybe that period of growth.

Maybe you can provide comfort for. And maybe being more aware of who's providing comfort for you. And if that's never the case, are those one of those comfort friends, the ones that are good to you, but not good for you?

I would encourage anyone to listen to that sermon and, and regardless of what your beliefs are, you know, I think we can always learn and grow even if we don't adopt something. There's some nugget of wisdom in there because when we learn about things in life, we definitely become more intelligent. But when we learn about ourselves, we learn to be wise.

And there is wisdom in every experience and in every podcast that you get to listen to, that I listen to. And in every experience that we have, there's a, a little nugget of wisdom in there somewhere. So that was my little story today. Thank you all for listening, and I appreciate your time and let's just keep building one another.