435. Following Your Heart Is Not the Answer. Here's What Actually Works.

What if you had a filter to help you make every decision, to help you know what the right choice was, the thing that was going to move you in the right direction with things that maybe normally would be confusing or just seem innocent, but now all of a sudden you have a clear question that you can ask in order to move you to the big picture vision that you know God is calling you to do. So we're going to be talking about today, I hope this equips you, I'm excited let's go. Something inside you knows there is supposed to be more than this, more than going through the motions, more than the patterns you keep repeating no matter how hard you try. Hey, you're not broken, there's a root beneath it all, and there's a path through it. Welcome to the Made Hole podcast where biblical wisdom and psychology meet to finally get you unstuck. Hi, I'm Brittany, a former therapist and someone who is sat in the same place you're sitting right now. You don't have to stay there, this is where you're made hole. The broken place has become beautiful and you finally come alive. Hey friends, so excited to dive in with you today. I really love what we're going to be talking about because it's a question that really popped in my heart, I don't know, over a year ago probably as I was starting to dream about Made Hole and thinking about all of, you know, everything I've been sharing with you, I know I've been talking very high level and so today I hope to get a little bit more practical with you and we're going to be getting more practical going forward as well so that you can really have some just tactical hand holds to guide you in this. But this question is something that I started not with the intention initially of sharing it with you but even just something that God put on my heart for myself to help me filter through my decisions, to help me go throughout my day and make sure that I was walking in intention instead of just letting life happen to me or instead of just allowing myself to make a choice based on what felt right because we can't always trust our feelings. Culture would tell us that our feelings are truth, our feelings, you know, follow your heart do what feels right but the Bible kind of says the opposite, going to Jeremiah 179. First King James Bible it says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it." English Standard Version says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick who can understand it." New International Version says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure who can understand it." So the Bible paints a very different picture of our hearts, right? Our heart is what leads to sin and so we cannot just trust what feels good, what feels right. And so when we're making little micro decisions and this goes for the big decisions as well but I think a lot of times the micro decisions we make in our life kind of go unnoticed, right? We spend a lot of time and prayer about the big decisions most of the time but it's all these little decisions that actually add up to where we currently are. Yes, the big decisions can pivot us one direction or another but it's the little decisions that add up to who we are today and how we show up and the person we're becoming and so these micro decisions have so much importance and so if we're just leaving these micro decisions to our whims and our feelings and we're making decisions based on that then we're going to end up in a place that we don't want to be. And so what I want to teach you today is what I kind of started alluding to in the last episode and teaching you just this very simple filter that you can begin to use for all of these micro decisions no matter how small and it's going to slowly lead you into the life that you want for yourself, okay? And so the filter that I'm going to teach you, first I'm going to start with what it's going to be and then I'm going to unpack for you more of how to use it and some steps that you need to do first to prepare to use it, okay? So the filter, very simple but every time you face a decision, big or small, you ask yourself is this whole living, okay? Is this whole living or you can say is this a whole choice, right? So made whole, right? We are made whole by God, but now we've got a work partner with God to make whole lives with him. And so we're using this made whole as a filter for our entire life. And so every time you face a decision, I want you to think of that question, is this whole living or is this a whole choice, okay? So I'm going to unpack more of that later on specifically about how we can apply that to certain things. But first before we begin, I believe that we need to begin with vision, vision is how we know where we want to head, you know, Bible talks about without vision, the people will perish, right? Vision tells us that it's like a map for where we want to go. It's that big picture vision. If we don't have a clear vision for where we want to head, then we're going to end up who knows where, right? You need to know the destination in order to get to where you want to go. And so what I want to begin to do with you today is help you really identify what that specific destination looks like for you. Now this part, it really is my favorite. I just love it. I'm going to unpack why. But it's really kind of fun. Now, I think all of us, or most of us, we know some of, we have a similar big picture vision, right? I think all of us want to feel good. I think all of us want to be close to God, or most of us, and then maybe that's part of why you're here. You're curious about God. You're wanting to understand what that looks like. Most of us want, you know, quote unquote, happy life. We want to be healthy. And so we can all identify with a similar theme there, but what we're going to do right now is we're going to make that really specific for you. Because what happens if the vision is too vague is that we aren't excited about it. Or it feels more like this proof that we're not there yet. And that we can't be there because we just messed up in this way or we're doing this wrong. So what we're going to do today is make this vision very specific for you. And it's going to become this guiding picture that will help you make the decisions that you want to be making on a daily basis, okay? So what we're going to do to develop this picture, and I really encourage you to spend some time here. And what I mean by time is first and foremost, I'm going to give you a set of questions and I encourage you to write those down. And truly spend a few hours journaling about these. I know that sounds silly. You're on a podcast. You're like, let me just give me like a quick win, let's just get going. And that's fine too. But if you really want to make this something that you use on a daily basis, then you're going to need to spend some more time here. And in fact, you know, a few hours is a great start, but really this is something that's going to develop over time as well. I know the big picture vision that God's given me has taken years, decades maybe to develop and really hone and really even there's some books and I'll share more about the books that have impacted me, but some books that have really painted very clearly what this vision can look like and helped me kind of expand this vision and you know, really stretch it beyond something that I could have done on my own. And so this isn't just like a one and done kind of thing. It is a working document that you'll use for the rest of your life, but I do encourage you right now to, as I'm sharing this with you, take some time. In fact, I just want to go and do this right now because it sounds amazing. I love this kind of stuff. And set aside a couple hours or even if it's 20 minutes, like set aside a certain amount of time to really sit in this, okay? But what I want you to do is I want you to first just get this picture of what whole living would look like for you, okay? So that's what you'd like to put at the top of your page. What does whole living look like for me? Okay. And then we're talking about wholeness. Remember, body, mind and spirit being restored to a place of wholeness. That's what we're talking about. So what would it look like if your life, you included in that, but your whole life was in that place of restoration, of wholeness, of well-being, body, mind and spirit. What would it look like? Okay. So that's what the question we're asking ourselves. What would whole living look like for you? And here's where it gets fun is you got to get really specific with it. I've done similar exercises in the past and in fact, in the preparation for the academy you have an exercise like this, but I've done like perfect day exercises where you write down just exactly what your perfect day would look like. And you know, we're never going to reach full perfection on this side of heaven, but it just helps you to viscerally feel what you desire with God shaping those desires and where you're trying to go. And so I can still like feel when I think about that exercise I did and then you just write down, you know, the whole day what it would look like and feel like and I still can put myself after doing that exercise years ago and now I have read it every year, at least once a year, but I can put myself in that feeling, imagining that day to this day, like just on my own without reading it. I can remember I can picture it. And so that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get all of your senses engaged in order to make this place that we're heading real. To make it feel so real. And so the first thing that I want you to do is go through the five senses, okay? So what would whole living look like for you? And I can give you some examples as we go. But what would it look like for you? you. So with your eyes, what would you be seeing? Okay. And I'll give you some examples with each one. Okay. So looking, you can look at maybe it means that your family is at the dinner table and you see that with your eyes. Maybe it's that you are wearing something you feel good in. Like it doesn't have to just be like these big, holy moments. It can be also the little things in our life that affect us because how we look, how we show up, what we're wearing, it affects our mood, it affects how we show up to people. And so when we look at this big picture of vision of whole living, I'm not just saying how much you're reading your Bible. That needs to be on there for sure, but it's not just that. It affects every single facet of our lives. Okay. Like I remember when I wrote in this perfect day exercise that I did. I remember talking about the lighting fixtures in my home and that they all want all the lighting fixtures just to be ones that just make me feel so alive and good. And because that's something that matters to me and maybe you don't care about light fixtures, you, if you don't already care, I don't know that you should, but there are things you care about and maybe things that I don't care about. And so what are those things for you, right? So visually, what do you see? Maybe it's a light fixtures, maybe it's sitting at a table together, maybe it's something you're wearing, maybe it is an organized home, right? And that it's not chaotic. Maybe it is sitting outside and reading your Bible every day and you can see yourself doing that. So what would it look like? Okay. Maybe it's just seeing yourself as a peaceful mom and seeing yourself be gentle and kind and patient and creative and, and how you're discipling your children, right? What does it look like? I want you just to picture it. The looking like that one can go on for a long time. Some of the other senses might take, might have a little bit less inspiration, but spend a lot of time on what would it look like? Next question. And I have, I have probably 12 questions here for you. So just know that there's more coming. There's, there's a lot to kind of help you imagine different things and each question will hopefully help you think about it from a different angle. And the next one, what would it feel like? So what, what would it feel like? What would it feel like internally? Maybe it's like peace inside of you and that you're not feeling stretched in all directions and feeling like you're getting swept into chaos, but you're just, you're just at ease, right? You're just at peace. Maybe feeling is also just even like how the, the floors feel on your feet. Maybe you want some new carpet or some hardwood floors or maybe it's how the comfort on your bed feels as you, as you get tucked into bed and how that feels on your body, right? And again, so many different things are maybe it's, it's your marriage and how, how it feels when you embrace your husband and you want that embrace to feel, feel beautiful and powerful and full of emotion and maybe right now it feels stiff and there's resentment and it's not what you imagined it being. So what, what can you imagine it feeling like, okay? Next question. And by the way, I encourage you to, if you can, pause this episode as, as I'm going through these. This is kind of how we, in the academy, if you ever decide to join the made whole academy, is I, I have you pause, I give you worksheets and I, I talk you through each question and then I have you pause it in between so that you kind of freshly can remember the, the question, the example. So I would encourage you to do this podcast the same way if you have the capacity in this moment form. If not, get some inspiration and you can do it later in a big deal. Okay, next one. What would it smell like? That sounds so silly, but all of our senses affect our well-being and so what would it smell like? Maybe right now your house smells like poopy diapers or trash or maybe it just is stuffy, right? And so what would it smell like? Would it have some essential oils? Would it smell like fresh air? What would that look like? Maybe you're praying for children and so maybe it would smell like a new baby. Maybe it would smell like a puppy because you want a puppy, right? Like what are, what are all these things? And again, this isn't just for right now. This can be either like a year into the future or more like five years into the future. And when we pick a timeline, it doesn't mean that all of that's going to happen any year or five years, but it more is just to help us imagine something within, you know, this isn't like forever in the future. We can imagine like what would our life look like if everything went well in this season, right? Not when our kids are grown up, if you have kids, not when we're retired, right? But like in this season, what would a whole living look like? And so that's why I say one to five years. Okay, so smell like I'm sure you can imagine some other things. Maybe you want to move to an area where you're more out in the boonies and you get some more fresh air or maybe you want to start a farm into your smell and some cow poop, right? Like I don't know what would that look like for you? Or maybe I just imagine like maybe your car is just chaos and so there's always weird smells. Okay, that's maybe me sometimes, but maybe your vision is that you're going to get organized and kind of on top of things and so that the car won't smell like that anymore. Okay, taste what? What it tastes like? So maybe this means that you've been dreaming about cooking and really enjoying, you know, making things from scratch and I want you to imagine what would it taste like? Maybe it's that you want to sit down with Jesus every morning and you're going to have some delicious coffee and so you're imagining what that coffee would taste like as you're reading God's word and talking to him and experiencing His presence, right? Yeah, it could be a lot of things and then I'm going to leave it there. What would it sound like? So think of the sounds in your house. Maybe there's a lot of yelling. Maybe you're going to imagine that it's going to sound like peace or worship music or speaking kindly to each other. Maybe it is that you're going to curate a playlist that just gets you excited. I know I'm like not the biggest music person, which I know everyone just always like judges me for that. But there are songs that do like me up and my husband made me this amazing playlist that like just it just makes me so happy and so I sometimes forget how much music does affect my mood and can like really lift me when I need some energy or bring me obviously worship music, bring me to, you know, the throne room of God and a new way if I need to just worship and so what it sound like, okay? All right, so those are your senses. I want you to explore that and then we're going to go to another set of questions. So now I want you to think about what differences would happen. Maybe some of that came out in the senses, but maybe this will also evoke some other ideas for you. So what would be different? So just you can start with that question. What would be different in general? I'm going to get more specific with you in a second, but what would be different? What comes to mind? What would look different if you were living in this whole life that God called you to? Spend some time just thinking whatever comes to mind, write it down, okay? Next question. How would you be different? So let's get specific about you. I think this one is a little bit easier to answer. There's probably a long list of things that each of us want to be different about us. And so I want you to think about what, how would you look different? I know on my perfect day exercise, I talked about like wanting to figure out a skincare routine that actually worked. And over the past years, I finally found an amazing esthetician and I have an amazing skincare routine. And so, you know, things like that, again, it doesn't have to be all spiritual. All of these things impact us, okay? Would you show up more intentionally and getting back to people? Would you be present with people and not be on your phone? Would you be, you know, reciting God's word to people? Because it's, it's, you've memorized scripture and it's now written on your heart. And you can, when someone's feeling discouraged, you can say, Hey, don't forget what God says. And I'm praying for you. Would you be different in that? You would easily just go and pray for people when they need prayer and that you wouldn't shy away from that. It'd be that you show up differently in your marriage and that you're now just filled with grace and kindness and you're you're viewing your husband from a positive lens, right? So all of these things, I want you just to think about all of it. Some more questions about what would be different. How would your home be different? Okay, so this can be both like aesthetically, you know, the decor. This can be just how it feels right? Is it declutter? Does it flow nicely like the furniture and all of that? Is it clean? But this can also be like, how, how do people experience your home when they come in? What would they experience? Is it peaceful and is everyone in unity and working together or is it chaos and disunity? Right? Okay. So how would your home be different? Explore that. How would your family be different? How would, you know, you interact differently? How would you spend time differently? What would whole living look like for your family? Whatever that means for you in the season, if you have a husband and kids, what would it look like for you guys if maybe you're talking about your roommates or the people that are closest to your friendships? Maybe you're talking about your family of origin and what would it look like to to spend quality time with your parents and maybe siblings and in a way that's life giving. So would that look different if you were living from a whole place? Next one, your relationships, what would be different about those? And when I say relationships, I mean your relationship with God, your marriage, your kids, your friends, your family, your co-workers, right? Like go through all of the categories and really think about what would be different? Okay? How would you spend your time differently? How would you spend your money differently? Okay? So I want you just to think about, and I'm sure that is like just a small drop of the questions we could ask, but I hope that gets you started with imagining this, okay? And I just want you to remember kind of that picture that I painted in the very beginning about what made Holes all about. And you know, culture would have us be fast paced all the time, but living a whole life slows us down and to live intentionally. And culture would pull us into shallow living and shallow relationships and all these shallow things, but whole living would pull us into depth and deep connection and authenticity, right? If swept away by culture, we might just do things based on what's in front of us and just go with the flow and pick up our phone, only feel like it and do things based on feelings, but whole living looks like intentional living. It's setting a high standard for our life and how we go about it and using each minute with intentionality, okay? So just to remember kind of the two pictures of what we're fighting to. towards. Okay, so that is kind of how to get started with that vision. And I want you again to really sit with this because it's going to be something you're going to need to return to again and again. So you need to get to a place where you can visually feel it, viscerally feel it. You could visually picture it. You can smell it, right? You can put yourself in that circumstance of what whole living looks like in this season, because this is going to be something you return to. And so if you want up to you kind of explore all of those things, you can kind of write it all out and maybe a similar, perfect day exercise where you're going through one day or you can categorize it. Whatever, whatever helps you most, you can even paint it or draw it if you're artistic or even craft a piece of music that emanates that picture that you have. Maybe write a poem, like get creative with this because this is something the stronger the vision is, the stronger the pull will be towards that vision. I'm going to tell you in a minute how you're going to use that vision, okay? But you're going to just spend some time creating this, honing this, feeding this vision. Again, this is a working document that you're going to, I want you from now on to just keep making the vision come more and more alive. And I just want to share as well just a few books that have kind of helped me, like I was sharing before, really kind of expand my vision into something beyond what I could have just created on my own, because I think when we don't have a lot of experiences or knowledge or see how other people do things, it limits what we think is possible. And so we just go based on what we've seen or what we know, which is limited. And so these, I'm just going to list, there's so many books that really I'm sure in different ways have shaped my vision. But these for what kind of came to mind when I thought specifically about the vision that I had. And so first of all, the ruthless elimination of hurry, this is what I've shared about a lot on the podcast. This is by John Mark Comer, but this just really helped me just to see life from a different lens and really helps you go slower and think about how to intentionally live. It helps you have a better relationship with your phone, even thinking about how to spend your money in a more intentional way, how to spend your time in a way that's meaningful and powerful. And it's so good. In fact, it makes me want to read it again. But that one was really helpful. Take back your family is another one I've talked about a lot on here. This is by Jeffers and Beth Kee. And this, if you have kids in marriage, this really helps paint a different kind of picture of what we can create beyond just what culture would tell us family is or probably what we most of us have seen family is. And this really helped me expand this idea of what family can be and how it can look. I don't know about you ever feel this way if you have kids. Like the idea of family didn't always excite me. Like I love my kids and I always wanted them and I still want them. But like work felt like oh, work is where you get to be creative. Work is where you get to, you know, really dream. But this book actually helped me get creative and dream for my family and get me excited about it. And so if you struggle in that area, highly, highly, highly recommend that. Okay. Holy Huga. I don't have the author in front of me. I think it's like Erickson something like that. But that one is really great to help you imagine like how to use your home as a place that people can experience Jesus and host and create this home that's just inviting in a way that not necessarily aesthetically inviting, but inviting in a way that people can experience the love of Jesus through your home. And that really helped me expand a vision that I'm still honestly working on, but that the kind of home that I want to have for people to enter. And then another one, this might sound silly, but declutter like a mother. This is Ali Kazaza. And this one has helped me so much to get rid of all this stuff that I don't need and create a home that is peaceful. And, you know, clutter increases are cortisol research shows. And so these, again, these little things matter. That's why it's like whole living, right? It's all of us body, mind, spirit, right? We're not just talking deep prayers and going to church. Yes, that's necessary. Yes, we're going to talk about that because a lot of you aren't doing that. And that will change your life. But all of our decisions, all of the ways we live impacts us. And so we've got to look at each of the little facets to see how we can live these whole lives. And if we neglect any area, it impacts us because we are whole beings. We don't just get to separate our body from our spirit. Anything that happens to our body impacts our spirit and vice versa. And so we've got to make sure that we are looking at all of the layers that happen in our life to make sure that we are moving in the direction that God's calling us to, right? If our homes, if our homes are super cluttered and crazy, it's going to increase the cortisol in our body. And we're going to be more stressed. And we're going to have less capacity for what God's called us to. We're going to be able to find things less. We're going to not feel fully at peace at home. We're going to not be able to dream as big because we're just feeling bound up in just the physical clutter in our homes. And so these things matter. And that's what made whole is all about is looking at all of the layers. This is what I'm calling you into. We're going to look at all of the later layers. Now I want to encourage you. So we're going to have to go in the next episode to help you kind of unpack more of how to use this question, how to really apply this question to all these little nitty gritty moments. But I want to encourage you that as we create this vision, this vision is not to make you feel bad about yourself. This vision is not to shame you for where you're at. It's not to make you feel guilty for what you're not doing. It's not to overwhelm you by any stretch of the imagination. This vision is to give you life and give you hope. This hope that things can be different. This hope that it doesn't just stop with where you're at. There's more to come. And so I want you as you craft this vision to not get swept up into the practical yet. The practical will come. The practical is going to come daily little by little. I'm going to teach you how to do the filter for each of your decisions. And then it can do some bigger overhauls eventually. But first, we just need to have the vision of where we're running. It doesn't mean it's going to happen overnight. Absolutely it will not happen overnight. That's impossible. This is not for tomorrow. This is for a year from now to five years from now. And honestly, I'm going to tell you it's not going to be a year from now either. Some of the things will, if you keep working towards this. But when I say a year to five years from now, it's just to help you make sure that you're imagining this for this season and not another season. In reality, it's probably going to take more than a year and maybe even more than five years for all of the things to happen. And I can tell you after doing this perfect day exercise, I've seen the things start to unfold year by year. And I can see us moving towards that. But there's still some things from my perfect day exercise that I wrote five years ago that still have not come to pass. But I can see us moving in that direction. And so this is not a goal list. This is very different than a goal. We're not getting practical and saying this is my next step. This is just to have that vision in you. And once you have this solid, this is going to be something that you are going to use in order to help draw you towards the right decision. Because when we're faced with a small decision, it feels like it's not a big deal, right? It's not a big deal if we just scroll for a little bit. And it might not be, we'll get more into that in the next episode. But if every time we feel like scrolling, we just say yes to it, that ends up being a big deal, right? That ends up wasting our time really impacting our mind because often that scrolling leads to more anxiety, inadequacy, et cetera. It gets us off track. And so if we, instead of in that moment, can imagine where we actually want to head and we can viscerally feel that, then all of a sudden the choice becomes more clear. Okay, do I want to scroll right now? Or do I want to work towards this big picture vision I have of a life where I'm not bound by my phone of a life filled with peace, of a life filled with connection. And I know that every little decision I make either gets me closer to that vision or takes me down the road of fragmentation away from that vision. So what do I want to do in this moment? And so that vision that we've tried to craft today is going to help you to keep on track to make the right decision so that minute after minute, decision after decision day after day, you're going to be headed in the direction that you want to be. Okay, this is going to be somewhere you need to be able to go on your mind. It needs to feel exciting and comforting all at once. And so I want you just to develop this as much as you can. Okay, in the next episode I'm going to teach you how to use that filter, that question that we have is this whole living how we're going to use that question for each little decision. Let me just pray for you. God, I just thank you, Lord, that you've given us minds, Lord, that that can be creative and come up with ideas about the future and visions God. And I just pray, Lord, that for every woman that's listening, God, that that you, God, even if she has an amazing life, God, you would give her a vision even bigger, even greater God, because you bring us from glory to glory, God, with you, there's always more God, maybe not more possessions always, maybe not more fame or more, you know, whatever we think we need more of, but there's more of your goodness. There's more potential. There's more possibility. There's more hope. There's more freedom, God, and so we just pray that you would help each one of us, God, to seek clearly where you're calling us, God, as she sits down and answer these questions, I pray you would just speak to her, God, and just put your perfect vision in her heart, Lord, and that she would just be able to run towards the direction that you have for her, God. We just thank you, God, for just the beauty of this life that you've given us, God, we love you, and we praise you, and Jesus name we pray. Amen. Love you. Hey, friend, I hope that God used today's episode to speak to you or encourage you in some way, and if he did, don't leave it just with you. There is someone else in your life that needs to hear the encouragement that you heard today, so be sure to share it. And maybe you're still feeling stuck and you're realizing that you're in the same place day after day and nothing is changing and you need to take it a step deeper. If that's you, then the unstuck workshop is your next step. You can finish the whole thing in a day and begin getting unstuck. You can find out all the details at madeholdpath.com. Lastly, if the show has meant something to you, I can't tell you how helpful it is for me if you leave a review. I am deeply encouraged and it also helps other women find the hope and tools that you found. I'm so very grateful for your friend. I can't say it enough and I can't wait to see all that God has in store for you. [MUSIC]