A Skill for Living with Demands: Grounding Podcast Episode

It’s when we’re walking into a conversation and hearing what other women are doing, it’s “I have to go do all those things.” Or when we’re scrolling our social media feeds, yes “These are all the areas I’m failing, so I need to do better.” Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. 

Excellent as always to have you along. I have Kathy Knochel and Katie Miller with me here today. And Matt. Thank you, both for being here. You know, I think every generation is unique and has challenges. I think sometimes we can maybe pretend that our generation has it harder than other generations. We should probably just not be so self-focused. Certainly, generations of the past had tremendous obstacles, things that would make us groan to think, “Oh, my word, how did they live life that way?” But if we didn’t speak about the uniqueness of our time we would probably not be serving our generation well, because we do face things, don’t we? 

And those things matter, and maybe there is uniqueness to speak to, and I would like that to be done here in this session. And I know you two women have that on your heart as you engage with ladies in this time and in this place. And I want to give you space to speak to that, and I know in your heart that grounding would be one of those matters that need attention. 

I want to press into that space a little bit. What do we mean by grounding, and what is it unique to our time, that makes things unsettled? Kathy? I just will say, as I’m interacting with women, whether it’s in the counseling room or just in my own peer groups or in different places, I feel like the topic that is talked about all the time is all of the demands that we have for our time. 

I feel like if anything, it just feels like we can get swept up in the current of our to-do list and demands and activities, and sometimes all good things, but things just get so busy. And I think this topic of grounding is really important because if we don’t take some time to purposely ground, look up, look out, see what’s going on, we’re just going to keep getting carried down current. And I think some of that makes sense, and I think we can probably address that. I think we know what they mean by grounding. I want to hear a little bit more about that before we go to your comment about demands. 

Yeah. That’s a word that carries a lot of weight. Are we demanding things? And where does that demand come from? Does that make sense? Yeah. Or is it self-demand? Yeah. Or what? Or other demands. In what ways are we being told, demanded to do things? 

And that is the key, Matt. Like, how much do I decide throughout my day? How can I ground myself with that? I just had a conversation with a young mom from a church, and one of her things was, “I have so many tabs open throughout the day so that to shut a tab or to be able to close something out is really hard because I can close a couple tabs out with a domestic task like laundry or cooking or whatnot for career or something, but then other tabs come open. 

And I think just to Kathy’s point, balancing those out and having those demands and thinking about that grounding piece of choosing and/or fighting potential demands that maybe could be optional is the key. I think the question is interesting too, is it self-demand or others’ demands? 

I think almost everybody wants to answer that question that it’s others’ demands on our time, our family’s time, my time. But sometimes I think the truth is that it is self-demand. It’s when we’re walking into a conversation and hearing what other women are doing, “I have to go do all those things.” 

Or when we’re scrolling our social media feeds. Yes, “These are all the areas I’m failing, so I need to do better.” Say more about that, Kathy, because that’s quite a key. That’s quite a statement. These are self-demand and not others’ demands. I think what happens when we are moving with life so fast, we don’t even get a chance to notice all the things that we’re collecting. 

Our schedules are so busy that we don’t have the time to walk away from something we’ve taken in or a conversation we’ve had and decide “Is this really something that matters to me? Is this really something I need to step into?” We don’t always pause to say, “Should I have said yes to that? Should I have said no?”  

So, I think what happens more than anything is it just collects over time and then all of a sudden, we find ourselves knee-deep in so many things that maybe aren’t right for us, but we’re doing it because that’s what it feels like we’re supposed to be doing. I do think specifically for women, in our amazing gender, I do think God made us relational and to connect. 

Males certainly too, but women love the emotion, love the processing, love the relational piece. And so, because of that, we are constantly relating and constantly taking in and constantly sorting and processing and wondering if she is this and I am not. All of those pieces a lot of intake happens, very little outtake potentially can happen. 

So, then maybe coach a little bit on that decision-making process. Should I not? And are there certain things that we ought to be thinking about? I do think about decisions, and I do think about time, and then that’s what I hear you say with decisions, I think time is definitely a piece of grounding in our hearts. 

How do I make decisions on a daily basis? Do I have that old adage of the object lessons in Sunday school where you’d have the rocks and then the pebbles, right? Everything has to go in the jar and if you put in the pebbles first, then there’s potentially no room for those big foundational rock pieces. 

And so decision-making on that point is I focused on a day-to-day basis on those foundational pieces of my life. Prioritization absolutely is a key for decisions, for discernment, I would say. And I also think about staying in the reality. A lot of us love to live in what we think is happening and what is maybe our ideal versus reality, and just keep those that are reality? 

How am I spending my time, right? All of us are given the same amount of time, 24 hours in a day, and just not charting it necessarily, but how do I spend my time? How or what do I create? What are foundational rocks to put in my jar? And then what are those pebbles that will fit in amongst the large rocks and the foundational pieces? 

Which I think is interesting because within that is the prioritization that you talked about, and I think that circles us back to the importance of grounding. We do need to take a minute to ground I think about grounding almost as dropping an anchor. If you’re in a boat and you drop an anchor, you’re still out in the middle of the lake. You’re still moving. The boat is still doing what it wants. You still feel the waves. Yes. Absolutely. You take the brunt of the wind. Yeah. You’re not tied up. It’s still a storm. You’re not completely protected but you’re within that anchor. You’re within that hold and that foundation. Yes. Yeah. That is a good example. But it gives you a minute to pause. There is a certain level of security here. We can just be out here, and then you can take a minute to make the decisions, to remember what the priorities are. 

Kathy, from a psychological standpoint, I think there is a difference in saying, “I do this thing because I feel pressured to do it,” or “I’m doing this thing because it’s important to me.” Okay? Yes. I’m just going to come up with an example, all right? That will hit, and hopefully people can change it. 

But I do pretty planter boxes in front of my house because my neighbors do it and it is an expectation in the neighborhood. Or I do planter boxes because I love flowers. And I love to do that thing. That’s a completely different reason, right? Speak to some examples like this. How do we think through these things? Because this is where it happens, isn’t it? Yes. And I think it’s interesting because it’s the exact same outcome or it’s the exact same job, but it’s a different mindset behind it. You’re doing it because you enjoy it. You are able to reap the benefits of it. 

You’re probably able to find some joy in it. You’re doing it because it’s the demand. You’re probably having a lot of unhelpful self-talk, a lot of frustration, and it’s probably one of those things that you’re doing at 10:30 at night when you’re already exhausted because you just have to get it done. Too many tabs open. 

Exactly. I hear motivation coming out there. Let’s say everybody does change from planter boxes to succulents or something without the pretty color. I don’t know what the example is there. But would you still be okay with planter boxes and color? And if they say, “Yes, and it brings me peace,” then the motivation is obviously that it gives them joy. 

It’s a bucket filler. It’s a healthy outlook. If they say nope, I’m switching to succulents,” that’s the thing, the motivation there is a little concerning and a little alarming. Okay you’re doing the planter boxes because everyone else in the subdivision is doing the planter boxes not because of your heart and your motivation that brings you peace. Katie and Kathy, I think examples are helpful. What are some of those things that become our taskmasters and where are they coming from that might sound like demands, going back to your earlier point? 

I would say I don’t like that this is true because I think we all already know this, but I definitely blame technology like social media for a lot of this. Certainly, it’s happening in our social circles, the demands and all of that. But I think that the problem with it is when we are online, we are scrolling so fast and there’s so much information coming in. I would say that the demands that I see pop up, whether in my circles or with women I’m working with, it can range from things like giving birth, what all the options are there and how to navigate that.  

And then what used to feel like a really easy option, now there’s like 10 options, and if I do it this way, what are these people going to think? Or if I go about it this way. I think about how you structure your home, how you decorate your home, if you do sourdough or use yeast when you’re making bread. Cleanliness of home. Yes. Okay, which is something we all like. Ah, yes, absolutely. But even with that there’s a gradient and an expectation in terms of is there never anything on the counter? Does anybody live here?  

Yeah, and so there are even those things that we all want, but the standard of these things I fear is out of reach. And I think what happens too is that it’s subtle, right? You look at one thing online, and then you notice somebody’s talking about it in your social circle, and it’s like you have not thought about it. You didn’t really latch onto the idea. But all of a sudden, because it’s repetitive and it keeps coming back again and again, your brain is like, “Should I be thinking about this?” Yes. And then you start wondering, and then you’re thinking about it, and then things around you start to feel just not right. My home maybe isn’t good enough, or my planter boxes aren’t in the right shape anymore, or… 

And then we just start to feel uncomfortable with how we’ve done life. And then back to the demands, it just keeps adding the things I should probably change or things I need to do differently. Something is discipling us. Something is forming us. Something is creating what we need, that sensational appetite. And social media cannot, for our generation, be dispelled. It is giving us rapidly, repeatedly, it’s figuring out algorithms for us. And to use it and steward it and ground it wisely in our lives is key, because repeated exposure to it will become my formation. I will become it.  

There’s no denying that we are changed over time with repetition and ability to do extraordinary things or we change in a great deal of ways, right? And we ask ourselves, “How did I get to the point where I cared so much about this one thing?” Yep. That it has become my master. Like, where did that ever come from? Yeah. I used to not care about this. Yeah. Repetition over time will do that. Yeah. I think, too, accountability towards that is key when you think of habits.  

I know, of myself, left to my own vices, I potentially will not choose the most healthy, accountable things. And so, I feel like for females to take ownership of that, to continue to live in accountable relationships or live in reality, have close relationships where you are talking about this, you’re accountable to that, I think is key. And one of the things is our phone. We’ve mentioned social media. Our phone is an amazing device to form potentially bad habits, but it’s also a device that could potentially help us create good accountability and real metrics. I like that we’re pushing into the space of what we do about it. 

You mentioned reality. A close word to that is realistic. Kathy, I’m wondering if some of your conversations with people do center around realism, and do we have a good grasp of realism? Is that part of the answer here? Oh, so absolutely, and I think unfortunately we, as people, do not always do well in being able to get really close to reality because that can feel really uncomfortable. So, if we are super busy all the time or have a lot that we’re doing, there is a potential that slowing down and facing reality is really painful. And so how close we can get to reality is probably how well we are taking care of the way we’re thinking, how well we’re able to manage the distress and the feelings that we have, how much either has happened in the past or is going on currently. 

So, I 100% agree that in order to be able to navigate all these things we’re talking about, we have to be able to look at reality in the face and see what is actually happening versus what am I thinking or what did I tell myself versus what actually happened. But that can be incredibly hard to do. It can be. Kathy, it’s interesting that you said that it sounded to me like we have two things going on with reality. One is a reality that is elusive, that we may pine for which is not a reality. And then there is the reality that is staring us in the face that we don’t like. 

Okay. So, let’s go with the reality that we’re trying to escape. That sounds painful. Absolutely. So where do you go with that? So unfortunately, the answer is we actually have to get closer to it. We actually have to do what we’re talking about today, and we have to ground ourselves. We have to take a minute, and we have to connect with what’s happening, what we’re afraid of, what we’re hurt about, what we’re sad about, and actually getting closer to it so that we can process it, we can bring accountability into it, we can build habits to work with it, whatever it is. 

And we actually have to get closer, but again, as I said, I think unfortunately we’re filling our lives to do the opposite. And I think another piece, getting closer to it and thinking about reality is also the emotions and understanding the emotions and that emotions aren’t the truth, emotions being fickle, emotions changing. 

That is reality. And being able to sit with those emotions, whether they’re not healthy or good, and just focus on them. Okay, I’m sensing these emotions. This must be true and being able to discern through that and what that is. Yeah. And I think a good example of that, and this isn’t even necessarily like a super heavy thing that somebody might be trying to avoid, but so often we can have an interaction with somebody that feels uncomfortable, so there’s the emotion, right? This felt uncomfortable. So, then we tell ourselves a story. They are disappointed in me. They don’t like me. They think they’re better than me, whatever story we tell ourselves, and that cannot be grounded in reality because we really have no proof of that other than that emotion. 

God gave us emotions for a reason. They’re important, but if we make all of our decisions around those emotions, then we’re going to just be drifting out there versus being able to bring that situation to reality and say, “Do I actually have evidence that this person feels this way?” Yeah. “Why would they? Can I con- can I approach them and ask them questions? Can I just do the vulnerable thing and go engage with them anyway and see what the outcome is?” This is good. Okay. Facing this reality thing, I’m just going to give an example again, right? May hit, may not, but again, just illustrate this because I want you to respond to it and get to some of the finer details of what it looks like to face one’s reality, right? 

So, somebody might feel the pressure to live outside their means. Would be a good example. Absolutely. Like real life is this. It’s taking these types of trips and wearing these types of clothes When they have to come to the realization it’s like, “You know what? That is not in our budget.” That would be facing reality. 

Okay. So where do you go with that? And again, this is an example that illustrates, hopefully, this larger point. I’m sure there’s a lot that goes into counseling in that space. What are some categories? So, I think at a high level, I think that’s a good example because we can just be practical about it. 

At one level, you have to do the acknowledgement of “There’s a problem here.” “We’re living outside our means.” And then you have to feel the emotion of fear, frustration, anger, anxiety, whatever emotion is there. Regret. Yes, regret. That’s a good one, yeah. So, acknowledge it. You have to feel the emotion. 

And a phrase that we use with kids a lot is “You have to name it to tame it.” Yeah. So be able to name the emotion there. And then I would say that actually is where the processing has to happen. How did we get to this point? So, you have to be vulnerable to yourself and/or your spouse or accountability person, whoever. 

How did we get to this point? What could I have done differently? What could you have done differently? What’s the solution? So, I think, I guess my brain there goes to it sounds like budgeting is going to have to happen, or it sounds like there’s going to have to be some even though we really want to do this, we can’t do this. That sounds like acceptance to me. Yeah. And then there has to be the working with it, right? There has to be the habit, small over time habits, whether that’s thinking changes of just because I want it doesn’t mean I need it. The list goes on. Yeah. The wants and the needs. 

Yeah. Or self-evaluation. Yeah. That I’ve evaluated myself on this measure of affluence. And maybe I need to do an evaluation on a different metric. There are just so many things that we’ve always done this way, or we just have made the assumptions along the way that we’re irreplaceable or the whole world will fall apart if we don’t, or our kids won’t do as well if we don’t do everything that we can to make them happy or whatever.  

Katie, I think you’ve already spoken to some important grounding things. Expand on any of those or introduce new ones. Yeah. This is going to sound like the Sunday school answer. How much time am I spending in the Word? What disciplines am I doing as far as prayer goes? What does confession look like when I know my heart’s not in a good spot? And do I have that close friend who I can trust and be vulnerable with? Can I get quiet? Can I quiet every noise? Can I close every tab? 

And can I get quiet to listen to the Spirit? No music, no podcast, no walking and exercising with, great intake. Again, great things, but potentially, can I just get quiet and listen for the Spirit and think through my thoughts, clear my head? I just I think that’s a key one, and it’s one that I have to purposely choose, and it’s the antithesis of the culture screaming “Keep tabs open, Katie, you’re successful if you keep doing this. You are accomplished if you do this.” And so it is a countercultural message that I feel like in the life of a believer, the life of us being sisters in Christ is so key. Can I get quiet? Can I listen? I think God can speak in the busy, but I think he speaks louder in the quiet, and I think that’s a good discipline and habit to encourage one another in. 

Another one I challenge myself with a little bit is in conversations I have. How much of my conversation is of a spiritual nature? Am I having spiritual conversations? Like, when have I used Bible words in a conversation recently? Maybe it’s not just Scripture, that would be great, but scriptural principles, things like holding up honesty, modesty, purity. 

What does that look like in a conversation? And so, just thinking through those. When’s the last time I had a conversation? Can I have a conversation, or do I just keep things at surface level? It’s easier. It’s not quite as hard. It’s not vulnerable, things like that. Yeah, that helps ground me in truth. It helps remind me of those foundational rocks in my jar.  

Katie, I 100% agree with you on getting quiet. I think that sentence of, “Can you shut the podcast off, and can you shut the music off?” And of course, shut social media off. I think that actually terrifies people. It does. And I would say I see that probably in the young adults I work with, maybe like college age just working. AirPods in your ears all the time, something always going. Yeah. You do not have time to sit down and discern. And then those in turn are back to that question of those are discipling you because they’re slowly changing your mindset on a topic. I know I had somebody tell me once, “I didn’t even know that I cared about this topic until I heard this podcast. Then I went down a rabbit trail, and I had to become an expert on this topic that did not change my life at all.” It is amazing when I just get quiet because it forces me, in my own heart, if I’m honest with myself to confess the ugliness of “I’m accomplished if I do this. I can control if I do this.”  

And it speaks to those really hard areas that I just need to get quiet. I need to listen. I need to hear and sense his spirit. I’m not there yet. I’m forming it because I’m a doer. I need to get things done on my to-do list on a day-to-day basis. And so, that is very hard, but maybe if I put it on my to-do list to get quiet, then I can check it off. So, it’s just beautiful. It has really begun to transform who I am and listening to the Spirit. All right. So, something you’ve mentioned now twice, which might be maybe an outgrowth of silence, is confession. You mentioned that twice. 

Now let me set this up a little bit. I’ve been giving this one actually quite a bit of thought. A number of years ago, I went to Israel, and when you see the holy sites in Israel, it’s typically in a very large cathedral. And a staple artifact in a cathedral is the confessional box. And we’re Protestants, so we don’t think this way and that’s not a part of our normal practice, right? And so, I want you to hear me out on this. I’m not suggesting that necessarily is the way we need to do it. But what it did for me every time I was in and out of a church, as I passed that artifact, is I thought, “Am I being honest with myself?” 

It was a visual call to honesty. What am I fooling myself with? And so, confession of sin, yes, we have a long understanding of that. But I want to raise this matter of confession of “This is what I want. This is what I’m wanting. This is what I’m believing. This is what I’m thinking. This is the real reason why I’m doing this with my kids, or I’m expecting this out of my child, or the real reason why I’m running here and I’m running there. This is the real reason why I’m doing these chores in the house.” Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. That’s raw honesty to another level. 

Kathy, I would imagine that you see this in your office in ways that typically we don’t. What’s the remedy that comes? What’s the health that comes from that type of honesty? The word identity came up for me when you were saying all of that. It helps us to ground in who we are, or sometimes just being aware that all that is going on. 

If we pause and ask ourselves those questions, it should be able to help us start making better decisions so that we can think about who we want to become. I would say that when I’m able to have all of this out on the table with someone, and we’re able to realize I’m doing this for that reason, and we start to uncover that, then we start asking the question, “Okay, when you did that, is that who you want to become?” “Did that decision help inform who you’re working towards?” One thing I have found helpful in a practical sense to what your heart is there, Matt, is for myself and some other young girls that I’ve talked to, it’s really hard to say things out loud for the first time. It’s very hard to say things. 

I’ll ask them about scripture reading. “Fine. It’s good.” Myself, “Katie, yes, how are you doing?” It’s good.” “What are you reading in?” “Oh, I’m in the Old Testament minor prophets.” “Okay, great.” What I find is if they, if I, or others actually write down some of these things, these prayers, journal some of the confessional or Scriptures or whatnot, and then it’s almost like it goes from the heart to something, written, and then I can say it out loud. 

It’s amazing whether it’s a gratitude journal, that’s a positive spin on it, but then there’s also that piece of “Lord, I have been prideful over my time management. I totally know I am a doer, and I have to work on just finding grace to step aside and just give it to you.” It is amazing that. I think that’s a good example, right? That’s a good example of modeling it. I am prideful about my to-do list. This very thing. Yes. And to sit with that confession, that honesty, that this is why I do it. It has a lot of good outcomes. Yeah. And I could fool you by saying I do it for these outcomes, but it’s really for this reason. 

I just recently had a conversation with a good friend of mine and a sister in Christ, and I remember she challenged me on something, and I said to her, I’m like, “Oh, that’s the Katie Miller I want to be. It’s not the Katie Miller I am now.” And I said it, and I was like, “Oh, that really was hard.” 

Vulnerable. It was very vulnerable, and she just sat with it and loved me through it. But that was hard. That was really hard. I had not journaled that before. Yeah. But I had journaled the prayer of where I knew I was at with a specific struggle I had, and so that was just really finding value in voicing that to a person. 

Absolutely, because all of a sudden, I had it out, and it was a connector. It was speaking the gospel of repentance, and I need forgiveness, and this is really hard right now, and I need help and accountability through this. And sometimes after we’ve been able to acknowledge the truth underneath it, I think that there’s an aspect of grief that has to come up for us too. Look at all of the things that I have been doing in the last six months, two years, five years, because I was trying to manage the demands more than living in who Christ called me to be. Yeah. And as you mentioned before, who do you want to become? We’ve got lots of things we want to become and not all of them are possible. Oh, but they could be. We should mention that who are we supposed to be becoming in Christ? Yeah. Ultimately, yes. Thanks, Katie, Kathy, for this conversation. I think it has stirred all of us to think a little bit deeper about the motivational piece. 

Why am I doing the things that I’m doing? And then that discipleship piece, who am I becoming by the rhythms that I’m living, and how can those be offered to God? Yeah. God bless you each one for listening. I hope and pray this has been good for you.