Stages of Maturing Faith: Insights From "The Critical Journey"

EPISODE 132 | STAGES OF MATURING FAITH: INSIGHTS FROM “THE CRITICAL JOURNEY”

[00:00:00] You're probably becoming concerned with the dissonance between what you know and what you can live and what you can experience you're beginning to be troubled by again, what you know to be true about the faith what you've learned to be true about the faith and the way you see it lived out in practice. Whether it's in your life or in your family or in the church, you begin to see all these discrepancies, you know? 

[00:00:22] INTRODUCTION
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.

[00:00:59] RESOURCE INTRODUCTION
Hello, hello. Okay, so, in my last sharing, I talked about my journey, my experience of growing from a more disembodied intellectual kind of faith to a more embodied experience of faith, right. And today, in today's video, I want to supplement that sharing with a resource that I actually only just got to know of.

[00:01:28] I think a couple of months ago, through a friend who was going through a two-year spiritual director training program. And this resource, this book, was one of the required readings. And she had shared it with me in, I think, in response to maybe a podcast episode that I did or something, something that I wrote, I can't remember.

[00:01:51] But she sent me this, this title of this book and mentioned how, you know, it resonated with her or what it reminded her of what I had talked about or written about.

[00:02:05] DISCOVERING "THE CRITICAL JOURNEY"
Anyway, I went to take a look at this resource and I was just - it's one of those resources, one of those resources that really blew my mind, or I wouldn't even say it's blew my mind.

[00:02:17] It's like it hit me at a place where everything just connected and clicked into place, okay. And this is often the way God works with me in particular. I'm not saying that's how it was with everyone, but with me, often He leads me through something experientially first, instead of having me read or learn about something, you know, in my head.

[00:02:43] Intellectually, I love reading. I mean, I love learning but I think for a long time in the education system that I grew up in, for sure, learning was very much textbook kind of learning, you know, learning concepts, learning theories. There wasn't much emphasis put on experiential learning, but I think I was really created for experiential learning.

[00:03:05] And I began to notice this only when I started my interior journey, I think more intentionally that when it comes to intellectual learning, like books and all that kind of thing, they come into my life. Somehow, they get dropped into my life at the point where I had experienced something and I had already kind of begun to connect the dots myself, but I didn't have an overarching language for what I had been going through.

[00:03:38] And then maybe a book comes into my life or I discover something. For example, this was what happened way back in, I think, 2009 or 2010 when it came to discernment. Okay, like Discernment of Spirits, the Ignatian Discernment of Spirits. No one actually taught me that. My spiritual director as well at the time wasn't exactly teaching me how to discern, how to practice Discernment of Spirits, but things were already happening in my life that was actually, I think, the Holy Spirit teaching me what it meant to make that discernment.

[00:04:11] And then books on Ignatian began to appear, you know, began to be connected to me. And when I read those books, it wasn't just theory because it gave me the language and the framework to understand what I had experienced, right? So, for me, I always emphasized the importance of putting something to action of experiencing it in action, because that's, I think, the only way we will really understand something beyond just an intellectual, conceptual grasp.

[00:04:41] That dimension is important, but it has to be connected with lived experience. I would say, you know, lived experience that's reflected upon actually contributes to a much more robust intellectual understanding, right? So, that's often how I learn. That's how the Holy Spirit leads me in my interior journey.

[00:05:05] STAGES OF FAITH DEVELOPMENT
So, the resource I want to share with you today that blew my mind, that really helped me tie things together is this book, okay. It's called The Critical Journey Stages in the Life of Faith by Janet O. Hagberg and I think it was Robert A. Guelich, right. So, this Critical Journey, it was actually written in 1982, which was another fact that really blew my mind because I'm like, this book is so old, but it's so current.

[00:05:34] When I read it, it's so informed. It's so trauma informed. I just want to say this book is, to me, it's not just trauma aware. It's very attuned to complex trauma survivors, even though that isn't explicitly in the language. Because back in 1982, perhaps that wasn't, you know, really talked about or understood yet. But the authors are so attuned to the interior workings of the journey of the interior journey.

[00:06:01] And speaking as a complex trauma survivor who is, you know, in recovery and healing, I felt very safe when I read this book, okay. So, as you can see, it's about the stages of the faith journey. And there are many, many versions, there are different versions and, you know, different stage theorists, whether it's about all kinds of development, right?

[00:06:25] Moral development, cognitive development in psychology, you know, children's - just in general, like, you know, how we develop in stages. And even in the faith arena, there are different versions of, I mean, the different authors who have written about development of faith that happens kind of in stages. 

[00:06:44] And one very classic - you could say classic - stage kind of version of faith development or the faith journey would be St. Teresa of Avilas in the interior castle, which was written in the 16th century, right? But it comes from a more maybe you could say, you know, comes from a particular angle, a more mystical angle. More contemporary, in contemporary times, a lot of the stage theories take into consideration, I think maybe a bit of psychology, you know, they try to integrate psychology and spirituality and faith.

[00:07:20] So, a well-known name that many people study would be James Fowler's Stages of Faith. I don't actually have the book with me right now, it's on my bookshelf but that was the, that was the version of the Stages of Faith that I was more familiar with in the past until I read this book and I just want to say that I love The Critical Journey.

[00:07:40] I love this one in some ways, a lot more than even James Fowler's Stages of Faith because this is a book, like I mentioned, the word I used earlier was attuned. It didn't feel like it was just an academic exercise, you know, trying to help us understand the stages of faith, although it is also robust there.

[00:08:07] There are plenty of stories, including stories of the authors themselves as they experience the different stages. And there are also a lot of resources in the book beyond the description of the stages. There are resources for churches, for communities, for leaders to understand, you know, at each developmental stage of the critical journey, what is the kind of thing that is needed, what kind of questions people are asking what kind of resources people need.

[00:08:36] Okay, so that part, it's very pastoral, it's very practical. And I think I really love that part as well because doing the work that I do with my deep interest of not just the interior journey, but accompanying people in the interior journey and understanding of the different stages and how different each stage is in terms of the resources that is needed - I love that.

[00:09:02] I mean I've always really believed in that, if you have already listened to my earlier podcast episodes or any of my writings or my posts on Instagram ,you'll know that one of the phrases I like to use a lot is that there is no one size fits all. That's kind of like the educator in me. Okay, so, part of my background was also in philosophy of education.

[00:09:21] That is the area in which I almost got a PhD in - to understand, you know, human flourishing development and that really there is everyone is unique. And then not just everyone is unique. Growth happens in stages and at every stage. Sometimes something that's very different is needed. And if we don't take into consideration the unique needs of individuals, which is something that very often all kinds of mass education or mass formation cannot take that into consideration, right?

[00:09:53] They deliver one thing and no matter where you are, you have to kind of like meet the material, if there is some sense that you have to be able to learn in only that one way that is presented to you, it can be so frustrating, right? So, I really believe in the importance of our own attunement to ourselves, right?

[00:10:16] It takes time to develop because especially when we are complex trauma survivors, we're very out of touch with our own feelings, both the feelings in our body and emotion. We have a tendency to try and force ourselves to, into one size. Whatever that size is, even if it doesn't fit us. So, this resource was very helpful for me in particular, because it came at a time when I have just.

[00:10:44] I think was at the end of a very critical stage, okay. So, it's a critical journey. All the stages in some sense are critical but let me just flash a little diagram up here with you. So, if you're listening to this on the podcast you might want to pop over to the YouTube video on this so that you can actually see what's on the screen.

[00:11:04] I'm sharing an image of the six stages from this book, The Critical Journey. And before I go further, I just want to say, the authors also keep reiterating this, what's very important. Often when we think about stages and stage theories, we always think that a later stage is somehow, is better, right? It's better.

[00:11:25] And they really want to emphasize, really when we talk about developmental theory, including faith development, it doesn't make sense to say a stage is better. It's kind of like saying that, you know, a full-grown oak tree is better than when it was an acorn, you know, or something like that. It doesn't make sense.

[00:11:46] It's the same thing, organism, right? It's just at a different stage of development. It's like saying that a teenager is better than an infant or being an adult is better than a child. I mean, you know, like in any kind of objective, absolute sense, it doesn't make sense. We are where we are. I think the more important thing to bear in mind is if we are a living organism, there should be change and growth.

[00:12:13] So, it's not so much that being at a later stage is better than being at an early stage. I think what our concern would be, am I being stuck for too long at one stage? Am I finding that I can't grow, right? So, in any organism, if we are having issues growing, the way that we're supposed to, you know, to grow, let's say developmentally.

[00:12:38] So, for example, I mean, if a child has some kind of issue and they're not growing any taller at an age when they're supposed to actually still be growing exponentially in terms of their height. That might be an issue of concern. You probably want to bring the child for some medical consultation to see if there's anything impeding the growth, right?

[00:12:59] So, it's more the health of the organism that we are concerned about. And well, when it comes to faith development, it's not so scientific, I would like to say. But it's just this general sense, you would know if you are interested in developing a relationship with Christ and with God, you would have a sense sometimes, that you're stuck in a rut, right?

[00:13:19] And you can't move from where you are. That's a good time to kind of seek advice or seek wisdom from spiritual directors or companions on the journey who may have gone through more than you. All right, so, back to this, the six stages. Okay, I'm going to just read out what the six stages are.

[00:13:39] Remember, the later stages do not indicate being better, but a greater maturation, okay? A greater maturation of faith.

[00:13:50] STAGE 1: RECOGNITION OF GOD
So, in this version of the stages, the stage one is the recognition of God. This is often when we begin to experience either the sense of awe, that God is real in our life. For example, when you have a conversion experience, oftentimes it's a great sense of awe.

[00:14:07] For some people, it comes through a sense of deep need for God and then the experience God in that. It's the stage where we often revisit. So, another thing about this stage, about stage theories, is once you have passed a stage, let's say you're at stage 3 for example, you will often also experience the earlier stages that you already have experienced, okay?

[00:14:27] We don't just remain forever in one stage, but we tend to have a home stage where, like, that's the bulk of where we are, it's the home base for us, right? But as a rule, generally, when you have developed into later stages, you will often still experience the earlier stages as well, different facets of it.

[00:14:49] So, stage one, the essence of that is kind of like the sense of awe, how good God is, how great God is, how real He is, and that, oh my gosh, He loves me. So, that's the gist of Stage 1. I'm giving you very, very rough strokes because I actually want to focus on a particular part of this journey. But so that's kind of Stage 1, alright?

[00:15:09] STAGE 2: LIFE OF DISCIPLESHIP
And Stage 2 is called the Life of Discipleship. So, if Stage 1 is when people begin to experience that God is real and that God loves them and they're awed by that, that's Stage 2. You know, the next stage would be I want to learn everything I can about what it means to be in relationship with God in in community for you know in the community that I belong to. So, it depends on maybe what religious tradition you are in or maybe even if you're not in a religious tradition sometimes, you know, there could be a certain community through which you experience God and you experience this sense of identity.

[00:15:50] Okay, so, stage two is the life of discipleship or apprenticeship. And at stage two things are usually very straightforward. There is a very strong sense of certainty. You seek a strong sense of certainty and clarity that is appropriate for stage two. You know, so, very clear teachings are very important. Having teachers and leaders and guides that, you know, tell you what's what, in no uncertain terms, inspire you with confidence.

[00:16:19] This is such an important stage when you're in when in the life of faith, I want to say. I'm saying this, emphasizing this a bit more because most of my content now is actually addressing the experience and concerns of people, not in stage two, but at a later stage, okay. And sometimes it may give the impression that wanting clarity and, you know, having sense of great certitude about what is true and what is false or, you know, who is God and what we're supposed to be doing as disciples. It may sound sometimes, in the rest of my content, that I'm saying that's, you know, that's not enough or there are inadequacies there and that we need to move beyond that.

[00:17:00] And that's true if you have moved beyond stage two, okay. But for many people, I just want to say, this is a very, very rich stage of learning; of learning what is already as well established generally, you could say, passed down in the faith. And having too many different voices can be confusing and not conducive for someone who is in stage two, who is still developing that apprenticeship.

[00:17:27] Okay, wanting to know what it means, in a sense to be a disciple at the beginning, okay. At the beginning, okay.

[00:17:34] STAGE 3: THE PRODUCTIVE LIFE
So, then, Stage three, and when we move into stage three, what's different between stage three and stage two is that stage two is still more a stage where we're receiving and we're learning, we're apprenticing, right?

[00:17:46] Stage three is where the emphasis is now more on stepping up and serving and perhaps leading. People who are in stage three of this critical journey, according to this book, the energy is focused on, you know, advancing the kingdom of God, for example, in ministry and mission. They are exploring their charisms, their gifts.

[00:18:08] They really, really want to be productive for God. They want to achieve for God's kingdom and they can be very productive and very accomplished for God's kingdom. This is the time or the stage when you see people being very productive, very generative in, in a sense of like doing many, many things and having a lot of energy.

[00:18:26] But there is also a tendency in stage three to burn out because in stage three, a lot of that drive to achieve and be productive is still very based on our human efforts, okay. And so, if you look at stage two and stage three, they can be stages where God is very present through our learning and through our service and our wanting to work for God.

[00:18:53] But the interior experience of people in stage two and three is still taking a backseat, in a sense that there is still not a lot of awareness of what's going on inside when we're in stage two and three there's some inkling but the drive, the majority of the energy is focused on either just learning what is true, what is right and feeling certain about where I belong or serving and leading and getting others to kind of like get with the program, okay. 

[00:19:26] So, if you're in stage three, you'll be working with a lot of people in stage two. You tend to be leading people in stage two or creating programs for people in stage two. You're trying to rally people who are in stage two so people in stage two and three that's in the context that I grew up in as a, you know, as a practicing Catholic.

[00:19:43] People in stage two and three tend to be very active in the parishes or in church communities and that's what is appropriate and right for that, those stages. I just want to say, you know, usually people who are in stage one, they're not meant to be that active yet. Okay, it's still all very new what they need is to be welcomed and to be ministered to and to be slowly at some point, you know, led into stage two.

[00:20:10] But Stage 1 is the sense of the awareness of God, right? Recognition of God. Stage discipleship, or at least the initial phase of life of discipleship. Stage 3 is the productive life, working for God and being very productive for God. Now, those are the first three stages, right? Kind of like the first half. When people start getting into stage 4, is when things get really hard in a different way.

[00:20:41] All right, I'll share with you that when I was in stage three, and that was the time when I was serving in full time ministry in a parish, although there were many challenges and, you know, there were many challenges, but in my spiritual life, like I was going on up and up. I had never prayed more or been more immersed in the life, the sacramental life of the church.

[00:21:06] I had regular spiritual direction. It was during that period of time that I did the 19th annotation of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius. It was, I never felt closer to God. And I felt pretty good about how disciplined I was. Sorry, I'm kind of like smiling as you can hear me say this because back then I remember, I specifically remember thinking, oh my gosh, I have never been this consistent in my spiritual life before.

[00:21:37] Like when I think back to all the years prior when there were a lot of stops and starts, right? But I had never gone this many years, like seriously this many years, with regular prayer time, adoration time, masses, you know, even weekday masses and all of that.

[00:21:57] And I have to say, I felt pretty good about myself. And I thought, and I remember thinking, oh, I wonder what, what's going to happen next. You know, because it almost feels like I'm nearing the top of a mountain. You know, so, I'm tight with God.

[00:22:13] STAGE 4: THE JOURNEY INWARD
Yeah, so, then, well, the answer to that question, when God answered the question was stage four, stage four is called the journey inward.

[00:22:24] Okay, and so, think about a stage three is being productive. It's a productive life. Stage four is when God begins to turn our gaze inward to our interior lives. So, when we really talk about the interior journey, all the ways that I talk about the interior integration journey is really what happens in stage four.

[00:22:49] Okay, and stage four onwards - and I have a hunch after I read this book I had an aha moment that the content that I'm creating these days, right now, you know, about having a more authentic faith, about integration, integrating our emotional healing with our faith - all the stuff I talk about healing from complex trauma because this is actually what God wants and how our wounds our psychological emotional wounds from our families of origin and our caregivers, how those things impact our experience of faith of God. How Recognizing, for example, that the same toxic dysfunctional dynamics that we have in our families of origin also exist in our faith communities and in our churches.

[00:23:39] All that stuff, these are not relevant to people who are in the first three stages of the journey. When I was in stage two or three, I think all that stuff would have just flown past my head. I was not really interested. Sometimes, if I heard these things or read about these things, I would even feel a little suspicious. Honestly, like how's that got what does that got to do with our faith?

[00:24:02] You know, what does the church actually say about this and in a very black and white? I wanted, you know, very certain kind of mindset when I was in stage two and three. But when you go into stage four, that's when all these questions start coming up because we turn inwards and we recognize that faith is not so straightforward that even though I may have become a lot more formed, intellectually formed about my faith. And even though I have done a lot, it seems to advance God's kingdom. But suddenly when I enter stage four, I realize how empty a lot of these things are because there is no solid grounding inside me yet.

[00:24:46] And that is why the work of Stage 4 and the experience of Stage 4 is so destabilizing because that's when God begins to undo us and undo a lot of the things that we had learned and learned well in stage two and stage three. In stage four or going to stage four is a process of becoming undone. And a lot of you, I really believe that those of you who actually resonate with the kinds of things I'm sharing, there's a high chance you're probably meandering entering into stage four or it could be well in stage four. 

[00:25:20] Because you're probably becoming concerned with the dissonance between what you know and what you can live and what you can experience you're beginning to be troubled by again, what you know to be true about the faith what you've learned to be true about the faith and the way you see it lived out in practice. Whether it's in your life or in your family or in the church, you begin to see all these discrepancies, you know? 

[00:25:43] But most importantly, it's not even really about what's happening with other people. Anything that may be happening in relationships with others that's troubling you, you help to shed light for you that you're not quite okay. All right, so, that's what it means by the journey inwards. 

[00:26:01] Now, in any of these stages, I mean, many of us, we have opportunity to move to the next stage and we don't always do. And I think that needs to be accepted with so much compassion. A lot of times God knocks on the door of our hearts more than once, sometimes many times before we answer, like, and enter into the next stage.

[00:26:19] Okay, so, I knew stage four is the stage of doubt, whether it is doubting about who God is, doubting God's love, doubting our relationship with God, or doubting the church, doubting what we've learned in the past about what it means to be Christian or Catholic It could take many different forms, okay, of doubts and questioning and that's good and that's normal. 

[00:26:44] I know it feels anything but good. Okay, and I want to say that for people who are well formed in stage two and stage three in some sense, you could say the better forms you are in stage two and stage three, the more devastating stage four can feel. Okay, and especially if your identity has a lot to do with who you are, let's say, you know with God's good faith, which was the case for me. I didn't realize until I was way in stage four and actually beyond just stage four, at the hardest point of this journey, which is called the wall.

[00:27:20] Okay, but it's actually part of stage four. It's only when I was really wrestling with God and with myself and with healing, the very human wounds in my life with my family of origin, it was only then - how should I say - that I realized well, how much of my self-worth was predicated by being a really well formed, very pious or very orthodox and, you know, Catholic person, right?

[00:27:53] I didn't know how much of that was my persona, what was my persona and how much pride I took about that. And not just pride, but how important that persona was for my sense of safety. For me, I hid behind that persona so that I had a sense of strong and strong sense of who I was. And I could feel that I was okay with God and that I was okay with, you know, the church.

[00:28:20] And because in my upbringing, in the context that I had, knowing about the faith and being able to practice it well and explain it and all that. Well, it gave me a sense that I was respected, that I was affirmed, that I was approved of and affirmed, especially by those in authority over me, whether it's my parents or, you know, priests or teachers or et cetera, et cetera.

[00:28:44] So, stage four is when we begin to experience being undone. If you look at this diagram, you will see that between stage 4 and 5, there is The Wall. There's a word that is wall - like W-A-L-L. And I just want to say if you decide to get this book, which I'm not saying you have to. But if you do, I think the part of the book that is the most valuable is stage four and the wall. That’s what I don't really see in other literature or other books about the stages. They don't go into so much detail about the experience of the wall. And the wall is really quite literally, it feels like a wall, okay, that you can't get through.

[00:29:26] And usually it can go through years. So, for me, I was in stage four, wow, I think about six, seven years at least - or seven, eight years. And there were different times during those six, seven, eight years where, I think it was a lot more extreme, the experience was a lot more intense and I believe that was my experience of the wall.

[00:29:47] Now, at the wall, right, which again, is so important to bear in mind that most people do not accept the invitation to try and get through the wall on the first time. And many people actually just decide to go back into earlier stages because it's more - I don't know - more tolerable. Okay, and I just want to say, if that's happening to you, or you know that you've done this, it is not a sign of weakness, there's nothing to be ashamed about, it just is. And I say this with so much compassion, because if you have experienced what it's like to be in Stage 4 and The Wall, it really can feel like it demands every ounce of courage you have to even consider to continue going forward.

[00:30:38] Because there'll be times when there were times when I felt like telling God, you're crazy, how can it be possible that I can do this? You know, it seems like it's beyond my strength and it can feel crushing. The wall can feel crushing. So, stage 4 and the wall, when people go through this, this is when you feel really alone.

[00:31:02] This is also when you will realize that the old things that helped you, the old resources that helped you in stage 2 and 3. In stages 2 and 3, they don't help you anymore. In fact, they can hinder you. They confuse you when you're in stage four because now you need to ask questions that bring you beyond what you had learned in stage 2 and 3, beyond the certainties of stage 2 and 3 because you are entering into your inner space. And you're actually entering into the mystery of God that is never so clearly black and white or in neat boxes or categories. Okay, so, that's when you go into stage four and into the wall.

[00:31:44] And when you're in this stage, this is when there's a lot of, I think, one-on-one journeying that needs to happen. You need people who are experienced and wise at helping people through this season or this stage of development. And it will be hard to find people like that because in the book - and that's another thing I love about the book, I think it's so spot on.

[00:32:06] The authors are so spot on. They say generally, especially for those of us who are very plugged in with the institutional church or the organizational church in stage 2 and 3, you'll find that the churches generally, people who are active in stage two and three, including our leaders and including our clergy, they don't really know how to help people who are in stage four.

[00:32:31] And so, what happens is usually people in stage four, they need to seek help beyond. Like usually, the parishes or the groups and ministries and communities that they were in when they were in stages two and three, they may need to look for spirituality centres, you know, seasoned, experienced spiritual directors that really work on guiding people in the interior life, right?

[00:32:52] So, the interior dimension of the life. This is also the stage where therapy and counselling becomes helpful because in stages one to three, our experience of our journey of faith, it's not integrated yet in stage four. And especially at the wall, crises in our life force us to recognize that in order to move forward, we need to integrate.

[00:33:17] We need to integrate our spiritual as well as our psychological, emotional dimensions of our humanity. That's the only way to be able to keep moving into a more mature love for God and for the world, right? That we need to be integrated within ourselves. So, this is why if you feel that you're out of place, if you feel that maybe you need to leave the community that you've been part of for so many years at this point in your journey because being around them all the time actually holds you back.

[00:33:51] You're not crazy. You're not crazy. There's a high chance that intuition is actually the Holy Spirit prompting you that you need something different now, okay? This is a phase in the journey, stage four, and the wall where the emphasis is working out on the integrity of your relationship.

[00:34:09] It's really vertical in the sense of it's you and God. Okay, so, in the stage before, you probably had put a lot of emphasis on serving others and doing God's work without paying attention to how inside you, there's a lack of integrity and authenticity in your relationship with God. So, in stage four It's kind of like the sense of the need to withdraw from many people who go through stage four to be less active externally and to put our energy into healing and integration and working on this integrity, okay, in our relationship with God.

[00:34:50] And I just want to say it's not so simple, it's never so simple, but if we persist and we remain okay with God, with how He's tussling and wrestling with us and if we manage to make it through the wall in stage four, we emerge in stage five.

[00:35:06] STAGE 5: THE JOURNEY OUTWARD
And you see stage five here is called the journey outward. And the journey outward is exactly that. After that deep intense stage and season where we are wrestling with the integrity of our relationship with God, with who we are.

[00:35:21] This is where, you know, let's say, as a complex trauma survivor, we are hashing out, developing a more, a more securely attached relationship with God and with ourselves. We are changing during stage four, the way we relate to people from one that's very defensive and, you know, hiding behind a persona that has served us well to emerging as our true self.

[00:35:44] Right, all that is the work of stage four and the wall and if we make it through the wall, we emerge into stage five this journey outward. So, we're coming out again into the horizontal, right? So, it's not just but this time the vertical dimension of our faith our relationship with God is in a much firmer, grounded place than it was before.

[00:36:07] We come out as knowing our true selves, grounded, freer to be who we are, less afraid, less compulsed much more aware of our shadows, much more able to practice boundaries, much more able to love authentically. Like we are able to tell when we are doing something out of compulsion and we're able to regulate much better and show up as our true selves.

[00:36:32] When we enter stage five, we enter another season of service, but it's very, very different from stage three because stage three, the emphasis is on productivity, right, on how much we're doing for God and how much we can do for God. Stage five, the way we serve, the way we work It flows from that inner life that we have been developing and strengthening in stage four.

[00:36:58] It's very, very different. We are not so hung up about success. It can still bug us, but you know, we're just not as hung up as before as about as with success or achievement. We are more surrendered compared to before. And we are also big at stage five, usually a lot more clearer about where we are called in terms of a personal vocation, right?

[00:37:25] Yeah. So, that's kind of like going to stage five. I'm not going to say very much about stage five or stage six because I'm not at stage six. In fact, I'd say if I were to hazard a guess for myself, I think I've only recently broken through the wall finally and began to, you know, maybe break into stage five a little, right. Like the last few years of my journey, I recognize now, was deep in the throes of stage four and the wall. And then a bit of stage five and then I’m coming out more into stage five and less of the wall perhaps. I said, I hazard a guess, right?

[00:38:03] So, one of the principles of any stage theory is usually we cannot understand anyone or like the stages that are maybe more than one stage ahead of us. We just can't. It's just so we cannot imagine what it's like. So, until you have been there yourself, I think it's very it's kind of like guessing, you know, conceptualizing about what it might be like. But from what I can understand, in any of these stage theories, at least conceptually, you understand, it's usually like the stage six. Okay, here's stage six.

[00:38:30] STAGE 6: LIFE OF LOVE
It's called Life of Love. That is, you can imagine what we would as a Catholic, I'll say the life of the saints, okay? When they are living so surrenderedly, they are living lives that are so incredibly fruitful, supernaturally fruitful, on a regular basis. When they are living in such a way that incredible, like huge sacrifices, what we see as huge sacrifices, they do it easily because it doesn't feel like a sacrifice to them.

[00:39:01] We're talking about stage six people, okay? And that is very, very, very different from us trying to act like that because we believe that's how Jesus acted and that's how we're supposed to act. Again, we cannot force ourselves into a later, a more advanced stage or a more mature stage.

[00:39:21] Okay, we cannot make ourselves into stage six people whose lives are just, you know, embodying love and charisms and God's peace and goodness. We cannot even aspire to that. I mean, we can hope we can. We can, in a sense, you know, we can look at that and go like, oh, you know, that's what I was created for, to believe I were to mature fully, right, into the full stature of who I am. That could that could be who I could be. But I don't know what it exactly looks like because I am different from any other saint. You know, if I look at Saints, for example, or any other person, I am unique.

[00:39:57] And what I would look like as a fruitful, flourishing human being that embodies God's presence in the world, nobody knows what that looks like yet. Not even me, right? So, we shouldn't get too hung up about how stage six should look like for us. And we really shouldn't be hung up at all about being at any other stage apart from where we are in the here and now.

[00:40:24] If you want to learn a bit more about the stages, I just really suggest that you get the book. And the author, Janet, also has a website and I will share the link. I will share the link on the show notes to whether it's on the YouTube video or my podcast show notes. I'll share the link. But if you're very interested, I would say just you know, consider getting the book because the authors go a lot more into each of the stages than I have kind of given a survey on. 

[00:40:52] But I just want to say that when I was in stage two and three, and I was learning like the book knowledge of what it looks like to be a mature Christian disciple so it was a bit like I was in stage two or three and thinking I should act like stage six people, you know, like the saints. And this huge gap between where I was and where I think they were, it was just so discouraging, you know? Those times when I did see the gap, interestingly, it's only when I was suffering that I could experience the gap.

[00:41:23] Otherwise, when I was doing well, I tended to think that I was a really good disciple, you know, I know I feel a little bit embarrassing that now, but it's true. It's true, right? When you are in stage two and three, and you feel like you're really getting your act together about what it means to be Christian or Catholic and what the saints were like and what the church teaches and you are learning theology and then you're leading and you're teaching like I was.

[00:41:46] I think it's not that difficult to get into that sense that, oh, I'm in a good place. But when crisis hits, when there were difficult relationships that happened, when I feel misunderstood because I feel like somebody misunderstood me or imputed some negative motivation in me and I felt defensive and betrayed and misunderstood.

[00:42:09] And when I bring that into prayer, it's over time when that happened that I began to recognize, oh my gosh, there are a lot of things inside me that I had no idea was going on. And what's inside me matters - matters more than what I think I can do for God. You know, it matters more than what I can accomplish as a disciple.

[00:42:28] All this stuff about mission and serving it at some point, I just got disgusted with my own lack of authenticity, right? Again, I'm describing how it feels. I'm not saying that inauthenticity is a moral failure because for most of us, I would say, our inauthenticity comes from our wounds. We've learned to survive by being someone that we're not.

[00:42:53] We've learned to play a game, you know, to win us, to win us support and affirmation, to find a group that we feel safe in, that we belong with, you know. And in the midst of that, we lose touch with our true self. So, the beautiful thing about this interior journey and the way that this book talks about the journey is that it acknowledges that all that, all of that is kind of like part of the journey, you know, including the seasons of certainty, certitude, and need to know exactly, you know, who I am and what it means to be a believer.

[00:43:30] And sometimes, when you're an earlier stage thinking that people in the later stages I was definitely there, okay, I'll raise my hand and say I was definitely there. I was so hung up about orthodoxy and about what is right and wrong, true or false, in a very black and white manner. I was deeply suspicious of any author, any spiritual teacher, that didn't give that clear sense of black and white certitude about what was true and, you know, what was not.

[00:43:57] But that was a reflection of where I was developmentally, not just intellectually, but in terms of, you know, my emotional maturity and my integration. And now, ironically, sometimes, people who have known me for these many years also laugh with together with me. Now I think I’ve become somebody that other people in stage two and three sometimes may be, you know, a little cautious about, a little suspicious about because I may come across as being too - I don't know - too free, you know? Not unambiguous enough, right?

[00:44:28] And that's fine. I just want to say it's so important for me to remember as well, I'm not for everyone. Me at this particular stage is not for everyone. When I was in stage two and three, I was a particular way and I was very effective at a particular kind of task and I was really good with some things and I really was blind to many of the things and I caused a lot of harm and hurt without even knowing that I did or how I did it because I was not aware of my shadows. And now that I'm, you know a little bit more - okay, I'm going to say a little bit, I think I'm a lot more integrated. 

[00:45:01] Although I still have a long way to go for healing and integration, I am a lot more aware now. Everything feels very different. The people that I can serve are very different. I really am no longer very useful for people in stage 2 or even stage 3.

[00:45:16] But where I am now, I think it can be very helpful for people who are struggling in stage four and the wall, okay? So, one of the ways that this book has been helpful for me is also clarifying for me my vocation or at least at the point where I am now. And I know why I am so drawn to talking about these things, because when I entered stage four, and actually really, for a very long time when I was in stage four, it was just so hard to find people who understood what I was going through.

[00:45:46] It was just so difficult to even get resources, find resources that made me feel seen and understood. And I guess I just hope that I can become, I am, you know, becoming maybe one of these resources for people who are struggling in stage four, for whom all the previous stages, certitude and clarity are just not so clear anymore.

[00:46:06] You know, and you know that there's something more, but you don't quite know what it is. And I'm not saying I have any answers. I'm not saying that I can help you in any way, in the sense of helping you progress through your stages faster. That's never the point of the interior journey. I can only help, or I can only hope that I help by making you feel seen in your struggles.

[00:46:30] Making you feel a bit more understood that somebody can describe maybe what it's like to be where you are. And that can help because it makes it a little bit easier to remain where we are, to abide in God where we are. You know, because this journey, it's so paradoxical. There is this sense where when we become more free, we realize that we actually have agency.

[00:46:58] There are many choices that we can make that. We used to think we had no choice in. But you know, it's actually our trauma and our fear that keeps us locked and trapped in the sense that we have no choice, we have no freedom. But we do. We do have agency, we do have choice, we can move, we can make decisions, we can draw boundaries.

[00:47:20] But it's hard, it's difficult, because we need to grow in that sense of freedom, agency in freedom through healing. So, we have agency, but at the same time, we actually do not have control over our journey. We do not have control over our lives. We don't have control over what crisis we may be experiencing, you know, and that's so hard.

[00:47:44] And we make it harder for ourselves when we try to control our journey and we try to dictate how we are moving. That's the irony, okay. The more we try to control the journey the less likely it is that we will actually grow And so it's a matter of letting go of control. And then, even so even acknowledging that we can't let go of control is part of the journey and is part of growth, right.

[00:48:10] It's exactly where you are is that you can't let go of control.

[00:48:13] FINAL THOUGHTS
Then that's where you are and that's where God is meeting you right now So, anyway, that's the resource I wanted to talk about today. The critical journey. The stages of faith. And I hope that kind of listening to me describe the stages gave you a little bit of a sense of where you might be or where you have left and where you're going.

[00:48:34] And I only hope that it gives you some sense of being seen the way I did. I felt seen when I was reading the book. I felt it helped me to understand what I had been going through for the last many years, you know, and it was a deep sense of relief to know that somebody else has. Being able to articulate that I mean way back in 1982.

[00:48:54] I really wish that this was a resource that was better known especially for people who are working in the areas of accompaniment and spiritual direction or formation. But, well, I've shared it with you now, and I hope that you will find it encouraging and helpful. Thank you for listening or watching this sharing until the next time bye!

[00:49:24] CONCLUSION
Thank you for listening to Becoming Me. 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, 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.

If you like what you hear on this podcast, would like to receive a monthly written reflection from me as well as be updated on my latest content and offers, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter Begin Again. You can find the link to do that in the show notes. Until the next episode, happy becoming!