Timing, Grace and Readiness in the Interior Journey

EPISODE 82 | TIMING, GRACE AND READINESS IN THE INTERIOR JOURNEY

Once I began to become more secure, I learned to have a secure attachment with myself, then all my relationships changed. Every single one of them had a more secure base in me. But I couldn't determine when that was going to happen.

I could only, on my part, be committed to do what I needed to do, what I could do. And then I had to wait. So, timing, it's very linked to grace, something that is not within our control.

[00:00:35] 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, then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me. 

[00:01:12] Hi! Hello and welcome to day seven of my 30-day IG challenge. So, today is day seven. I managed to go everyday live for seven days straight. Wow. Okay, so, I know I've had quite a few rather long Live videos. Believe me, I do not go into any of these videos. planning how long it's going to take. I just have some points that I want to be able to cover and I just try and speak for as long as I think is necessary to get the point across. 

[00:01:48] Okay, so, but today, today, I really am going to try to make it a little bit shorter because I actually have to get out of the house soon for another appointment. So, today I'm going to be talking about something a little bit less, I guess, intellectually heavy, but something that we all will have experienced.

[00:02:08] And I hope this is going to be a comforting message for those of you who keep wondering why you're not making more progress in the interior journey. Okay, so, my earlier videos from, day one to day six, I've been trying to highlight why it's so important to make the interior journey and what are some aspects to be aware of.

[00:02:29] And I mentioned before also, that when I share these principles, they are principles that I have experienced, gleaned, pondered, reflected upon, and refined for pretty much almost three decades, right? Because I think God just created me to be that kind of person that likes to ponder and reflect on experiences and to try and understand what's going on.

[00:02:50] So, here's one dimension of the interior journey that I've always struggled with, but which has been so liberating when I finally, finally get it, okay. And this is about timing, grace, and readiness. Okay, timing, grace, and readiness.

[00:03:11] So, recently, I shared, if you look at my IG feed, there is a video - it's not one of these Lives - about how when you finally make the connections, all the different dots - you connect all the dots in your life - it's really magical.

[00:03:25] Okay, when you finally see why you had to go one big circle and get that big picture of this is actually why I have the life that I have. This is why God made me this way. And now, I have a sense of what my mission is. It's an incredible feeling, right?

[00:03:43] THE TREASURE WITHIN
So, this client shared with me that it's taken her basically more than 20 years. Okay, like from the beginning of this arc of her journey. And I am very privileged to be here at kind of like the tail end of this particular arc of these 20 odd years to help her recognize, string together, like all these disparate dots to help her make the connections that she needed to make for her life to kind of make sense.

[00:04:10] Now, all the ingredients were there, right? She needed to go through everything for the last 20 odd years before she was ready this year, to journey with me, and for the resources that I have, for the help that I can offer for even these things to actually meet her need. It wouldn't have worked a year earlier. It probably wouldn't have worked two years earlier.

[00:04:34] In fact, when we had our last conversation, this client said she wants to go back and read The Alchemist, right? This novel, The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho. And it's because she said it's been so long since she read it, she said. But she remembers that the protagonist of the story, Santiago, seemed to have ended his whole quest and journey back where he started.

[00:04:57] And I said, yeah, it's actually my husband's favourite book. Because it is about that quest, that quest to find our heart's treasure, the quest to discover who we are. And in that story, he had to go through - Santiago had to go through so many different experiences of gain, of love, of loss, of heartbreak, of searching for, in some sense, what he's not sure he can ever really discover and then finding things he did not expect to find.

[00:05:25] And at the end of the journey, to discover that he had what he needed all along; it was back where he started, at home, where he was. In some sense, what he needed or what his treasure was, where he started. But if he had not gone on that entire journey, he would not have been able to recognize the treasure that he already had.

[00:05:47] And he would not - well, he's not the same person, right? The same person before the start of the journey and the person who has gone on that whole quest, is different.

[00:05:55] Give you another example. If you're familiar with Lord of the Rings, right? Whether it's the book or, I mean, the novels or the movies. I can give you the example of, you know, one of the Hobbits, right? Let's say Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit. The Bilbo Baggins that was in Bag End, right, in Hobbiton, before he went on all these adventures, in some very deep sense, is a different person from the one who had come home from all those journeys, right?

[00:06:30] And although, in some sense, the same person could only discover like who he really was, who he really is in making the journey. But in another sense, it wasn't something outside of the person that is discovered as a treasure. It's always something that is carried within the character, within the protagonist.

[00:06:53] PROTAGONISTS OF OUR OWN STORY
Now, you and I, we are all also protagonists in our own story, right? And sometimes, depending on which part of our life story we are in. Depending on which part of the journey we are in, it can really feel like nothing is happening. It can feel like we're just really stuck and everything's just really dark and we don't know how to take the next step. 

[00:07:17] Then there are other times, you know, at another point of our journey, where many things are happening. It suddenly feels like spring and a lot of growth is happening, a lot of healing is happening. And then those times, it's a completely different experience. And the thing about us is, I think we often - all we see is the current season that we're in and we kind of extrapolate and maybe fear or expect that the rest of the journey is going to feel like the current one.

[00:07:45] So, whether we are in a season of like, nothing is happening, everything is dry, I'm just stuck or, you know, oh, I'm growing really fast. And I think now I've gotten it, you know? And it's going to be like this for the rest of my life. You know, things are going to be amazing. You know, God is going to be always very communicative with me.

[00:08:04] And then we find a bit later on, oh no, we're back to another season of being stuck or, you know, of things being really dry. So, timing - timing is, in some sense, really, really everything. Okay, and timing both in terms of God's timing and our timing.

[00:08:23] There are these two dimensions, right? For someone who has a relationship with God or desires to grow a relationship with God, there are always these two dimensions. There is what we can do our part that we can try to respond, but there's also this big unknown, which is God's timing, God's intent, God's purpose.

[00:08:43] And because we can't see that other dimension, we can often feel really frustrated or disappointed. Or sometimes, even a bit hopeless. But what I have discovered is, when I don't have that security within myself and I feel like I don't know what I'm doing to the extent that I am building that secure attachment with God, I find I can slowly become more able to rest in the security that it's okay for me to wait.

[00:09:18] Okay, now, but this growth in becoming more secure, the process of the growth is, it feels very difficult. It feels uncomfortable. We often have to feel like we're pushed beyond our limit or right to the limit that we have. Okay, patience is often grown by suffering, right? Humility is often grown by experiences of failure and being maybe humiliated.

[00:09:43] The process of growth is often very uncomfortable in order for us to receive that thing that we pray for. So, God often answers our prayers, not in the way we would like perhaps. But sometimes, or a lot of times, I've found, when we are really struggling is actually when God in some hidden way, hidden from us is answering our prayer.

[00:10:07] Now, timing. I don't know if you've ever experienced this arc. Okay, so for me, I mentioned in my earlier story, I think the day two. Part of the pattern of my brokenness is that I'll get really attached to someone, right? A friend or you know, it could be anyone. But there's this pattern of getting really attached to someone, pouring my life, wanting to invest my energy to help someone. And then because of this tendency to be codependent, I'm very scared of losing that relationship. 

[00:10:36] Like, the more I invest in that particular friendship or relationship, the more afraid I am of losing that. And I can, over time, over different cycles of these patterns, over decades, I can predict what's going to happen. And it's almost like, you know you're about to crash.

[00:10:54] Like you're driving, you're losing control. You know you're going to crash. You know people are going to get hurt, but you can't stop it. And it's like, all you can do is watch it happen in slow motion, right. That's how I often felt.

[00:11:07] Because when this pattern has repeated several times in my life, I begin to be aware when I'm getting compulsive, when I can feel the fear of losing someone and I can practically see myself getting more - I don't know- like doing things to try and hang on to that friendship.

[00:11:26] And a part of me knows that in exactly doing those things is what is going to make it end. Like, I'm expediting the end of that relationship that I am actually going to - I'm fulfilling the prophecy and yet I'm helpless. Do you know what it's like to be in the grip of something being so trapped, right?

[00:11:50] That even when you've become aware that you are in a trap or in a prison, you can't extricate yourself from it. I've been there and I know that a lot of you, many of you actually, have also been there. How it looks like, feels like - the specific kind of circumstances could be different. But that's what our wounds do to us. And that's what will keep happening if we don't integrate, if we don't heal.

[00:12:15] Now, here's the thing, even when I began to be aware and I started actively asking God to help me, like, heal me, I don't want this, I don't want to be like this. I learned that I do experience that God answers that prayer, not by immediately, like, you know, not like snapping His fingers and then now, oh, I don't have that insecurity anymore. And, oh, I'm capable of a really healthy, emotionally mature and healthy friendship with people I can love without being possessive. I can love without fear that I will lose the people that I love. If only, I mean, right? 

[00:12:49] I mean, we all kind of wish like if only it could be immediate. But no. And there was a time - I'm thinking now of a specific friendship that I was really putting into prayer. I was really praying a lot about because I was so afraid that I would lose this friendship, another friendship. And I was reaching the point when - so, initially I was asking God, please fix this, fix me, help me, and fix this friendship so that I wouldn't lose it. And then eventually it came to the point of the interior suffering in me that the - and there's so much, there's so much suffering, right?

[00:13:28] The - I don't know how to describe the kind of feeling where you are going to be abandoned. So, now I know this; that the magnitude of the emotions that I had. And this was back when I was already in my early thirties. So, I'm an adult, right? But now, I understand that the magnitude of how overwhelming those emotions felt was because it's still like a child.

[00:13:52] I mean, that part of me never learned how to regulate my emotions or to feel safe with anyone. So, it really felt like the panic of a very young child about to be abandoned, so, fearful that she'll be abandoned again. So, I actually have a very early memory. I was three or four, about four years old, when someone that was important to me, not a family member, but someone who was a huge part of my life and I was close to, left suddenly.

[00:14:21] I mean, there were so called "good reasons". But I mean, how would a four-year-old understand, right? And she had promised that she'll come back and she never did. And no one, I mean, I was just told later on, like, oh, you know, she couldn't come back to Singapore and all that, but that freaked me out.

[00:14:41] I felt like someone that I love that I trusted could make a promise to me and, and it could be broken. And there was no explanation, no accountability. So, I think that did something to me about being afraid of losing another person that I love. It didn't help that my primary relationships, my caregivers were also not one that were also not secure. So, I developed a rather ambivalent and very anxious kind of attachment style.

[00:15:15] So, back to when I was in my thirties - I couldn't, I didn't know why I felt that way. But it was so excruciating to feel that fear again, that I was about to be abandoned. I remembered that I had to wait in that discomfort.

[00:15:31] I had an image of really, quite literally, being in chains and in prison, knowing, trusting, and actually believing that Christ will come and set me free. But that he wasn't coming at the day and the time that I wanted because I want it right now. You know, I want it, like release me right now. Get me out of this pain right now.

[00:15:55] But He didn’t. I had to wait, you know? But it did happen. Now, I can't remember when that happened, when that release happened. But it has continued to happen because this is a process, it's not a one-off thing. And it wasn't just about that specific relationship. It's never about that specific friendship or relationship that I was very hung up about.

[00:16:18] It is the wound in me, right? The fear of abandonment in me. And once I began to become more secure, I learned to have a secure attachment with myself, then all my relationships changed. Every single one of them had a more secure base in me. But I couldn't determine when that was going to happen.

[00:16:40] I could only, on my part, be committed to do what I needed to do, what I could do. And then I had to wait. So, timing, it's very linked to grace, something that is not within our control.

[00:16:58] WAVE OF GRACE
You know how, I'm not a surfer. I don't know why I often think of analogies that I actually have no ability to do, but okay. So, but from what I understand about surfing, the surfers try and catch waves, right? When there are no waves, they can't surf. No matter how skilled a surfer they are, when there are no waves, they can't surf and they need to be skilled at being able to anticipate the waves that will come and then how to ride that wave. 

[00:17:24] Grace is kind of like that. We can't act without grace, even no matter how much we want to. Sometimes we can try and work very, very hard, but when we're not given the grace to do so yet, we can often get ourselves into greater messes, right? Because it's like we're trying to save ourselves purely from our own strength and we can't.

[00:17:46] There is our part, our willingness, and learning what is it that we need to do. And then being willing to do what we need to do. That is so important because I think for many people that's also missing and we're still struggling to learn what is it that I need to do and how can I become more willing to do what I need to do?

[00:18:04] But even when we become really willing to do what we need to do, we have to wait for that wave to come. Without the wave, we can't surf. And that wave is grace.

[00:18:15] So, a big part of the interior journey is recognizing grace and learning how to lean into grace. This is not something that we can easily learn on our own and that's why support and mentors and like good and wise spiritual directors can be very helpful in helping us to recognize how grace appears in our life, and how to catch that wave of grace when it comes.

[00:18:41] READINESS
Okay, so, timing, grace, and the last point I wanted to talk about today is readiness. Of course, readiness is linked to timing and grace. God often uses time to make us ready. Have you ever noticed how, although we hate the suffering that we have to go through, although we really, really hate sometimes like in many aspects of our life, but yet, how little action we actually really take that will help us? You know, most of our energy is in just coping or running away from the pain.

[00:19:17] And that's normal - normal, as in like, that's what really happens to most of us, especially when we've picked these patterns up as a kid, right? It was adaptive when we were younger to learn how to numb ourselves from the pain, to distract ourselves from the pain. But as we get older and we understand that we can be free or we can be freer than we are now.

[00:19:39] But in order to be free, there are actions that we need to take. Why is it that so few of us actually take action? Why is it that we still continue with our maladaptive coping mechanisms? Well, there are many factors. Okay, I'm not even talking about complex trauma yet and how that can really impact our agency.

[00:20:02] That's one of the factors, but even with that, even taking into consideration all the ways in which we may be trapped and we may be unfree, okay. Because we really are unfree. There is a readiness that continues to build slowly within us. Sometimes, it requires us to hit some version of rock bottom. I can say that if you haven't yet taken the actions that you know would help you, it may be that you're still able to tolerate the pain that you're in.

[00:20:34] I haven't seen anyone who is desperate enough, who finally is fed up with the state of their life, not take action. In fact, the client that I was talking about earlier in this video, she shared with me that, you know, four years ago, she was in another posting in her career. And she thought at that time that that was like rock bottom.

[00:20:58] She said, actually, now she realizes it wasn't like, you know, the more recent time it was a rock bottom. Right. But back then she says it was really bad. But there were enough positive things that kind of made her feel like, yeah, I can hang on. And so, she just tried to use all the usual skills and ability and coping mechanisms that she had in the past to try and make things better.

[00:21:19] But then when she entered a current posting, eventually she said this was rock bottom and she was ready to give up, right? She was ready to just leave her career and quit her job. Something about the last couple of years made her willing to look where she didn't look before, to attend classes that she never attended before, to really seek help, right.

[00:21:42] And so, she was sharing with me that she was talking to a couple of her good friends and sharing that she's been going for coaching, and they thought, wow, but that's like a heavy investment to make. Really just for coaching, right? She told me that - she said that then now she realized four years ago, she probably would think like that. Because the issue and the problem wasn't urgent enough for her. It didn't feel urgent and important enough for her to go all in.

[00:22:11] But in the last couple of years, she found herself really looking and researching for different possible solutions. She wanted to understand her problem and she wanted to try and find out what possible - what solutions were. And as she picked up clues along the way - so, one of the clues she picked up was A Leader's Spirituality, which was a course that I taught online.

[00:22:34] And she said that when she went for that course, one thing that she realized was the issue that she had was not about leadership. She was struggling in her position as a leader at work, but she realized that it was something deeper about her core, about her identity.

[00:22:49] And it took her, still, since taking that course, I think about another year before she decided that she wanted to work with me, like for me to coach her. She looked for other solutions too. She looked for other coaching solutions, leadership solutions personal coaching solutions, but now she had the lens of "I need something that addresses my core. I need something that helps me to understand who I am". Not just how to do things better. Not just how to be more skilled or be more confident. Not just how to, let's say, resolve conflict better or lead or manage people better - because these are all still external.

[00:23:24] Right, and she had understood that there are these layers of life. And that all these things about skills and technicality - you know, technical skills were dealing with the outside layer. Maybe at most they may teach her to connect with the inner layer of her own emotions better, her own thoughts better.

[00:23:43] But she has become aware. There's a hunger that's arisen in her that she needs to know who she is at the core. And so that combined with just being at rock bottom, propelled her to really take action.

[00:23:59] So, she is a great example. I mean, for me that she is probably one - I mean, all of my - okay, everybody's really busy in Singapore.

[00:24:07] We're all very busy. We're all very pressed for time. They're all very compressed. And she is as well, and I think she's one of the ones who was also in the worst situation because she was struggling to wake up every morning to go to work. And work was eating up even her weekends, and then she still had church duties as responsibilities.

[00:24:28] But somehow with all that, she could find and make time and make space for this journey. She was very honest with me. She said at first when she saw the program that I offered, she said, Oh, that's quite a lot of sessions. Like, I don't think I have time, right. But when she became ready, all she needed to do was take it one day at a time.

[00:24:52] That's all. That is what we all do, right? When we are ready, we don't worry so much about how we're going to accomplish the journey, how we're going to make that journey. We're just ready to just begin. When we are hungry enough or in the sense, like, you know, when we're desperate enough, we will just step forward.

[00:25:12] My husband is another example where he likes to share that at the lowest point of his career, and as someone who at that point in time - you know, prayer was not something that featured really largely in his life. He was waking up at like 4 a. m. every day to pray. Why? Because he said without doing that - without doing that, he didn't have the connection with himself and with God to even be able to show up for work.

[00:25:41] TIMING, GRACE & READINESS
Timing, grace, and readiness. And it's not just a one-off thing. Sometimes, I feel that we can't choose how grace approaches us. We can't choose the timing in which we're ready. But we can be open, we can choose to be open to ask for that grace, to recognize grace, to ask for the grace to reach - how should I say - to desire to be ready enough without giving conditions in a sense.

[00:26:16] As long as we're still giving conditions, like if we're giving God conditions or we're saying like, you know an example, I said - I don't like the way I am in this particular friendship. Lord, can you help me? But my condition is don't let me lose this friendship. That's still a condition, right? I wanted to hang on and keep that friendship.

[00:26:33] That means I'm still not ready. I'm only ready when I drop all conditions and I tell the Lord, okay, I need help. I don't know how You're going to help me. I don't know how it's going to come, but I've no longer have any conditions. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes, even if it means losing another friendship that I right now think I cannot imagine myself being able to bear, I am ready to ask You to do whatever you need to do for me to get better, to get more whole. That's readiness, right? That's readiness.

[00:27:08] So, I hope that's something for you to consider and to ponder. Timing, grace, and readiness. How aware are you of these components in your interior journey? Are you struggling with any of them?

[00:27:25] And if you are, I just invite you to be aware and to maybe ask for that grace to be open to grace, to be able to wait for the right timing to come and for the grace to become ready, even if readiness feels like - I almost want to say an expletive now - even if readiness often feels like crap, okay, to reach a point where you no longer ask or give any conditions to God or in order to change.

[00:28:01] When you say, I will try anything, I will do anything to become more whole, to heal and to become more integrated; that is readiness. That is readiness. And I pray and hope that that point will come for you soon. Because as horrible as the experience may feel like, that is the start of liberation.

[00:28:24] All the good, amazing things of liberation, of growing in authenticity and wholeness comes after that point. Okay, and then it's something that we renew, of course, over time to continue to be ready, continue to wait and continue to be open and respond to grace. So, take care. I hope you enjoyed today's sharing, and I will come back and talk to you tomorrow.

[00:28:49] 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, 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.

If you like what you hear on this podcast and 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!