[00:00:00] INTRODUCTION

Hello again. Dear listeners, have you ever noticed how sometimes we overthink what we need to do to reach the goal we want to reach, and that just keeps us paralyzed because we are overwhelmed? Well, that's what today's episode is about. You're going to hear me share from a recording that I made sometime back on why it is that we often kind of make things more difficult for ourselves and why we get stuck. 

Okay. It's, it's a little, it's a little bit subtle this episode, because I think a lot of times the dynamics that you will hear me describing happens... it kind of happens under the radar of our consciousness.

Most of the time we are not even aware when we are doing this. So I hope that listening to today's episode is going to give you something to ponder, something to think about. Maybe consider if you experienced something similar or what it might look like in your own life. 

So today's episode is going to be the last new episode for a while until mid-August, because I will be taking a break from creating new episodes to in order to work on preparing an online course actually. So you may have heard me talk, if you remember in early episodes about a course I teach called A Leader Spirituality. I've taught three runs of A Leader’s Spirituality live.

But I've discussed this with the Catholic Leadership Center in Singapore and the plan had always been at some point to make this offering something that's available on demand, right? So not one that I have to teach live that is limited to a specific time or day, but one that can be available once you purchase it, at your convenience. 

But in order to do that, I have to make some tweaks and some changes to the recordings of the course so that it is, you know, a better experience when you are actually doing it in your own time on demand. When I come back in August, I will have more information about this for you.

If any of you are interested, this cause is going to be very applicable for you. If you've wondered, you know, how do many of these themes that Ann talks about on the podcast, how does it apply to my real life, and especially in context in which I am a leader. In which I have to lead, whether in my family or at work in my community, you know, in any context, when I struggle to integrate what I think I need to do as a leader with where I am, interiorly as a person with the struggles that I have. 

In my own spiritual journey, for example, when all that comes together, what impact does it have on me? What do I need to bear in mind? What practical steps can I take so that I can, discern what to do or so that I can be more present to myself and to God? Even as this person in progress, right? How can I be present as I lead? 

So if that sounds like something that resonates with you that you're interested in, you may want to check some of my earlier episodes on leadership in this podcast, and also look out for the announcement in August when this new offering will be ready.

So without further ado, enjoy this episode. And as always, if you haven't already, please, please consider leaving a review. I love hearing your thoughts about this podcast, about maybe an episode that has touched you or how it has helped you and you sharing your thoughts can help someone else maybe stumble upon this podcast and it may help him or her.

Welcome to Becoming Me, your podcast companion and coach in your journey to a more integrated and authentic self. I am your host Ann Yeong, and I'm here to help you grow in self-discovery and wholeness. If you long to live a more authentic and integrated life and would like to hear honest insights about the rewards and challenges of this journey.

Then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me. 

[00:04:37] WHY DO WE GET STUCK?

Okay. I would like to discuss or explore this question of why is it that so many of us who sincerely, really desire to draw closer to Christ, to be more like Christ, seem to get really stuck between thinking beautiful thoughts, appreciating, you know, the beauty, the wonder of sanctity, of holiness. We can appreciate how important it is to become more like Christ, how important it is to draw closer to Christ.

But we are stuck. We're stuck at the level of thinking about it. We're stuck at the level of admiring other people that we think or we feel have gone further than us. Maybe like for example, the saints.

In our own lives, which we don't really want to look at too hard because we are afraid to see what's actually there. We can't seem to move very much. Now this is a very interesting phenomenon and it's very, very common. We don't even realize usually that we, that there's this, um, that there's this tension going on or there's this dichotomy going on.

Right. So give you an example. Many, many years ago when I was doing youth and young adult work, one of the leaders of the young adult communities, had grown a lot in his appreciation of the importance of prayer and the importance of turning to God and asking the Lord, “What is it that you want or what is it that you know you're inviting me?”

He was a leader of a, a ministry and a community, and he had learned that he needed to pause and pray and consult God, so to speak, right. Regarding matters of this ministry, how to lead them, what the members needed, et cetera. So there was real progress because before, before that, he wouldn't even pause and pray.

It was just a matter of this is ministry, this is for God. But you know, he just relied on his own strength, which is something that I think many of us do at work or in ministry, you know, in different areas of our life. But the point I wanted to make is, while he has made this progress at the same time, he was a young adult. 

I think he was nearing graduation at that time from university. And so the natural thing, you know, at that point in life, at that stage in life, would be to think about what's next, right? Like, what is the work, what job will I get? Or what's the next step? 

And when we were having one of our conversations about this, and I asked him, “Well, have you asked God? Have you, you know, have you consulted him? Ask what thoughts he might have? He did create you.” And he just looked at me kind of like stunned, like, no. And he is like, huh, I never thought of asking him about my future, about my work, because I have all these, you know, my parents have expectations. I have expectations myself.

There are needs in the family. I think I'm expected to go out and work. You know, earn an income straightaway. I've chosen a course of study that's very practical, that should  make it easier for me to land a job, et cetera, et cetera. And he went on to talk about, you know, how he has been going about planning his future, his life.

And as he was going on, I asked him, you know, when he paused, do you see any dichotomy, you know, between how you're talking about planning of your life and the planning of your ministry, right? As a leader. And, and then he realized, oh yeah, I've learned that it's important to consult God, you know, regarding how I lead my ministry.

And, and that was a wonderful thing. And I asked him, so what's the difference between your ministry and your life? That when it comes to your life and your future, you don't even consider consulting God the same way or speaking to him about, and listening to what he has to say. So that particular day, he didn't have an answer and 

I think it was one of those moments when he realized there was a, a kind of, not exactly a contradiction, but there was a, there was kind of an inconsistency in his life. There's a lack of coherence, not due to, I would say it's not, it's not hypocrisy in the sense that it's not like he wanted to live a double life or anything like that.

This wasn't even a matter of, of, you know, of ethics or, or moral living. It was just, He had compartmentalized his life right between ministry and, you know, his school and, and basically his life and his future. And he hadn't let God into his whole life yet at that point. I mean, that was many years ago. He continues to grow in that.

We're still in touch, not as much now, but, given that he is also at this moment, discerning religious life - has entered religious life actually for some years, and still discerning. I'd say that he has been learning to entrust more and more of his whole life to hearing what God may have to say.

Now, I just wanna say, I am not suggesting at all that if we were to open our lives to God, that it would necessarily mean that we would heed a call to religious life or priesthood. It just means we are open to hearing what God is saying to us about our life, and there is a kind of trust that whatever invitation may be given to us and wherever that may lead from one moment to the next or from one year to the next, we can never assume just because something's happening right now, we often assume it will lead to a certain conclusion. That often doesn't happen with God.

It's just a matter of entrusting more and more of our life to him. Right? So, but why is it that so many of us struggle? So I just wanna propose one possibility. One thing that I have observed, and it is this: When we fall in love with the ideal, when we fall in love with a certain image of what holiness should look, what it means to follow Christ, how we imagine it should look like for us when we are maybe more mature as a disciple and as apostle, there's something that happens.

One, we think that thinking those thoughts or reading, for example, reading books on spirituality or theology or reading the life of the saints. That the more we understand and spend time appreciating the beauty of holiness in general, or sanctity in others, that that actually does something, to us in our own life.

[00:12:09] FEAR OF FAILING

It does in some sense. It's, it's a start. But that's where a lot of us get stuck. Right? Why? We become afraid to experience the dissonance between where we think that ideal is and where we actually are. So in a sense, we make things difficult for ourselves, right? Because the more we build up in our minds the beautiful image of what it should look like when we are close to God, the less likely it becomes for us to be willing to look at where we actually are, because the distance between where we are and where we want to be is too great. And we all, psychologically speaking, nobody likes to experience that kind of dissonance, okay? As in it's, it's just the way that human beings are built.

Furthermore, I suggest, while we are spending all this time building up in our minds how beautiful it should look, we fail to recognize that what we need is actually just to move forward, even if it's just a tiny little step. Even if the next step is still really messy and you know, really ugly and has nothing to shout about.

If we were to make one, one little messy step after another, you know, a thousand steps in, we would be closer to God rather than being stuck where we are right now, while thinking beautiful thoughts about what it should look like. Right. And here's the other thing. No one actually knows how it should look like for us, what holiness looks like for.

It's gonna have its own distinct taste, flavor. Right? And it may look very strange or not like holiness at all to someone else. When we get very caught up with ideals. And usually our ideals are influenced by, I guess, what we see in other people.

It distracts us from paying attention to how God is calling us to take the next step forward. And oftentimes why we are so stuck is actually because we are afraid. We are afraid that we are not going to make it. We are afraid that our belovedness, even by God, is dependent on our ability to grow in holiness.

Now, we may not think it consciously, we may know explicitly that God loves us unconditionally, but the head and the heart are different. Okay? And, and, and if you add in the nervous system and the body, another layer of the wholeness of ourself. We are not just our intellect, so it doesn't matter how convinced our intellect is or how well it grasps certain concepts about God or that God loves us.

If our hearts, our bodies are not convinced, if it doesn't feel safe. If we don't feel safe, then we are afraid to budge. We are afraid to move because we are afraid to fail. And to have to be confronted by the reality that we are not holy. Okay? I mean, again, that is with a certain concept of what holiness looks like.

[00:15:50] STAYING BUSY TO AVOID GOD

And so what happens is we distract ourselves from this fear of discovering that we are not worthy, not holy, by thinking more beautiful thoughts about what the ideal should look like from maybe getting very busy, serving in ministries, doing things - quote, unquote - for God, or for God's kingdom, but not wanting to look at ourselves or not wanting to be open to the transformation that God wants to work in us.

So we, we get busy to run away from God instead of running towards God. And that's very ironic because holiness doesn't come from doing anything for God. Holiness comes from God's transformation of us; letting God close to us, letting God change us. That is what we want – holiness - and yet we run from it because we're afraid.

So we dive into activism, becoming very busy in all kinds of ministry and service, or delving more into studies, getting involved in debates online or in person about the importance of our faith or about the traditions of our faith and the theological discussions, et cetera, et cetera. Or we could get very enamoured with different ways of praying and prayer and retreats and spirituality.

And it's possible that we just get kind of like addicted, you know, to, to the high of being in retreat or to the high of kind of being away from the, the pains and the struggles of our life. Because when we can go away on retreat for a while, we can kind of leave the world behind, right? And by doing all these things that are very good, right?

Whether it's service in the kingdom, whether it's learning, studying, reading, understanding more about our faith, whether it's about praying, being with God, going on, retreat, all these wonderful, beautiful things that are meant to be aids, right? They're meant to help us grow closer to God. They become obstacles instead. 

All because we are actually too afraid to really move. This happens, especially for, I think those of us who believe we need to be perfect and that we are afraid that anything short of perfection will disappoint God, that we'll let him down. That we let ourselves down. And maybe there are voices not just in our head.

Maybe there are actually people in our lives that remind us that we need to be good and we need to be holy, or else we fall short. And ironically, that's what keeps us stuck where we are. So what can we do? Well, there is no short answer to this, but this is exactly why my journey has led me towards what I call interior integration.

The integration of my understanding and, and my heart and understanding of even my past, my trauma. Not just understanding, but the healing of my past from wounds and trauma because all these things, they work together to create our capacity to give and receive love.

I cannot keep running. That's all I know. If I desire God and I desire to grow closer to God, and ultimately the only direction I can run is towards him, and if I am too afraid to run, he runs to me and I need to be able to let him run to me and not run away from him. But of course, I found that even in those times when I run away from him, he's gentle and he's patient and sometimes, you know, it's like I run away from him in spite of my heart's desire to be with him.

And God in his grace usually does something to make me stop running and, and let me pause just long enough to let him catch up with me. Now, this is the realm of grace of contemplation. It goes deeper than knowing. It goes deeper than doing. It's really at the core of our being and without, without getting there, without being with God and it's something that is, it takes time to build… 

Without learning to stop running away from God, we will always be stuck, and so that's what I invite you to consider. Maybe just this time, today, in what ways might you be running away from God? Can you stop? Is there something you can do to just stop running away from him or is it too scary to stop running away from him?

Is there some small step you can take? Is there someone you can ask to help you not get busier and more distracted, but to help you just hold yourself where you are and discover that God is holding you too. So we won't be stuck forever, as long as we really desire to grow closer to God. My prayer for you is that, God gives you some grace, some revelation as to how he's coming to you and how you can stop running away from him.

[00:21:35] 3 WAYS TO STAY CONNECTED DURING BREAK

So that's today's episode. I hope it gave you something to feel, something to ponder and something to hold onto. It is an episode that well is relatively short, but it kind of goes into the heart of things, you know, like I said earlier, into a level of consciousness that maybe we are usually not very in touch with.

And thank you for going there with me. I love the feedback that I get from some of you who either leave reviews or reach out to me and something that really spoke to my heart recently is when a listener shared how sometimes when she listens to my podcast, she feels very, really encouraged and you know, and moved because she knows that she's not alone in what she's experiencing. 

But sometimes she says she feels like she really needs to slow down, and even in terms of the consumption of maybe particular episodes, because it can be rather overwhelming to realize that, wow, there's just so much going on. There's just so much ground to cover. There's still so much that, you know, so much healing that needs to take place.

And I really love how honest that that comment or that feedback was because that's exactly how it feels like to be on this interior journey, right? Even in this journey that we make into ourselves, coming home to ourselves, becoming more at home with God.

There are moments, times when the journey itself feels very empowering, very hopeful, very liberating. And there are times when the journey can feel very daunting. In fact, I think a lot of times it can feel very daunting. It can feel very discouraging. Yet there's always hope, right? There's always hope.

And during those difficult times, we can look back at how far we've come with God's grace. That's where keeping records like a journal can help. Having someone that we regularly share and check in with regarding the interior journey can help. 

Sometimes having someone else remind us when we are feeling discouraged about how far we've come or reminding us of the graces that we've already received on this journey, that can be what we need, you know, to get like a boost in the arm to keep on going or to feel that it's okay to take a breather to just chill and rest a while because this interior work, this healing journey, it's really not about slogging all the time and it's really not ultimately about the effort that we put in, right?

The work is important. It doesn't, you know, progress cannot happen without our participation, but it is not about our striving. And so just as important as the effort we put in that may feel like, like real work other times where the work so to speak is learning, to just be learning, to just take in what is being poured into us, to rest and to relish and enjoy.

You know, so I hope you enjoy yourselves, especially during this break. This break where no new episodes for this podcast will be dropping for the next month plus, or next couple of months. And before I end off today, I just want to suggest three ways that you can keep in touch with, with my message or with the work that I put out there with the content that I put out there.

If that's what you want, right? If you would like some consistency and you feel like a couple of months without new episodes to listen to, it seems like a long time. One is, well, if you're, if you're new to this podcast and you haven't listened to the backlog yet, there are now including this episode, 75 episodes on my podcast.

And you can slowly go back and check out some of the episodes that you may not have listened to. Right? The first 10 episodes or so are really, I deliberately started recording more, kinda like fundamental principles in the first 10 episodes. If you go back to the first 10 episodes, you can always be reminded of what are some of the core principles of the interior journey?

What are the things that I need to, you know, keep before me, right? Things like living on the inside out, like the importance of slowing down, of having white spaces in our life, of solitude. All these things are they are part and parcel of every season of our interior journey, right? Of learning to be compassionate with ourselves, curious and courageous in, in making this journey.

So if you want, kind of like a refresher or so of what are the, you know, principles behind the interior journey? You can go back to the first 10 episodes. And then usually every season has kind of an episode arc. I've covered seasons where I talk a little bit more about leadership or about inner child healing, for example.

Uh, the one that we just, we are just at the end of now, the focus was more on the scripts in our life and, and why that's an important part that we need to pay attention to when we are trying to figure out who God created us to be and what our personal calling and mission might be. Right? So check out the backlog or listen, you know, listen to catch up on episodes you may not have heard yet or maybe revisit favourite episodes.

That's one way of staying in touch. Secondly, if you are not already subscribed to my newsletter, that's called Begin Again, you can consider subscribing. There's a link in the show notes. So about once a month, I send out a reflection to my newsletter subscribers. So that's a written reflection, usually based on my own current journey, right?

So there are, there are similarities with what I share on the podcast, but they're usually more current and they're in the written form and in my newsletter usually I also share highlights from the content that I've put out, across different platforms and also any news about any new offers that I may be putting out, like, you know, when I open registration for my coaching program. 

And sometimes I also share resources, like external resources that I found helpful in the journey. Maybe some events that are happening locally or some other, some book or some resource that I think could bless you on your journey. And thirdly, you can find me on Instagram.

I'm on both Instagram and Facebook, but I, I really am a little bit more active, actually quite a bit more active on Instagram and particularly on my @animann account. Okay, so I have two Instagram accounts. One is the Becoming Me Podcast @becomingmepodcast account, and that really is for posting trailers, quotes, you know, specific to the podcast, right?

It's just for this podcast, but in my other Instagram account, which is @animann. I share deeper reflections on the integration journey on the interior journey. If you want to delve more deeply into the issues around, growing in freedom, specifically in the context of a relationship with God or in terms of, um, you know, clarifying who you are also, you know, in terms of your identity in Christ and God, you will probably enjoy the content that I put out on @animann. 

So I'm going to also provide you with a link to that account in the show notes for today's episode. Okay? So that's a way that you can continue to be in touch with me. I will continue to be posting some content and reflections on my Instagram as well as in my newsletter. So I look forward to connecting with you on those other platforms. Or if not, then I look forward to being back in your ear via this podcast in August.

I wish you well. Take care and God bless.

[00:29:53] CONCLUSION

Thank you for listening to Becoming Me where new episodes drop every first and third Wednesdays off the month. Remember, the most important thing about making this journey is to keep taking steps in the right direction. No matter how small those steps might be, and no matter where you might be in your life right now, it is always possible to begin the world would be a poorer place without you becoming more fully alive.

Don't forget to visit my website@becomingmepodcast.com and to subscribe to my newsletter as well as to this podcast until the next episode. Happy becoming.