61. Why Writing Things Down Might Change Your Spiritual Life (Even If You Hate Journaling) ft. Lucas LeFevre

(soft music) Hello, my no matter what friends. Hey, before we dive in today, did you know that I send an email out every Monday morning? And I know right off the bat, that sounds horrible. Like I don't want another email in my inbox on Monday morning, but let me tell you why you might want it. All it has is a piece of scripture, a quote from a Christian author or thought leader, and then a question for you. And I write a little bit of commentary after each one. You can read it while you're waiting for your coffee to brew on Monday morning. And it's just designed to kind of help you kick start your week with intentionality. Thinking about the Lord, what he's doing in your life that week. Maybe if there are things that you need to surrender to him, but over 3,000 people get this email every Monday morning and every single week and more and more people are subscribing. And I just wanted to make sure that you knew about it. So you can go to hannaseamor.com and it will be at the top of that website. Or probably if you just Google search hannaseamor, it's called the weekly one. So search hannaseamor, the weekly one, and it'll pop up on my website actually. If you go to the weekly one tab, you can read a previous weekly one email. If you want to get a sample before you submit your email. But guess what? Submit your email, try it out. And if you don't like it, if you just can't stand one more email in your inbox, unsubscribe. It's also a podcast and you can listen to it. And it's more like a six minute guided reflection and prayer time with those three elements. So, okay, we got to move on to our guest today. Lucas LaFever is my guy, no matter what today. He does something called holy work journaling. And we are going to talk about how journaling literally changed his life and this led him on a path to create this product and this experience that other people engage in. We talk about this in the interview, but there are people who are in therapy and then also doing his holy work journaling and their therapist will comment that they've seen more growth and their client since starting holy work journaling than they have in like three years that they've been seeing them in their therapy room. So, it's wild. We talk about both science and the spiritual component behind journaling. And I admit right off the bat to him, he already knows this that I hate journaling. I hate it. And so I go into the conversation saying, Lucas convinced me to start journaling. So, let's see if he can convince you to start journaling. Well, Lucas, I am pumped to have you on no matter what. Okay, so we know we're talking about holy work journaling. I've already confessed that I am an anti-journalist. So we are going to dive into that. I am truly hoping like open to, I want you to convince me to start journaling tomorrow. So that's what we're headed. All right, great. And I know that your journey with journaling, of course, I mean, we all have origin stories, but you've got a pretty great origin story. So take us there. You didn't come out of the womb journaling. No, not at all. Yeah, I'd love to talk about it. And it's an honor to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk to you and jump into this. Yeah, I did not, you know, I'm a guy. I was a creative and I was in bands. And so I like to write songs and things like that early on. But I wouldn't consider myself a journal. You know, I'm like anybody else growing up where I had people that would give me a journal. And I had a few pages and then it would just, you know, fizzle off and all that kind of stuff. But for me, it was 2010. I was about 29 or 30 years old. And we had moved down here to Tennessee. I started working for Dave Ramsey as a designer around that time. And so we left everybody. We knew up in Illinois came down here. I started that job. And I had been married for eightish years, eight or nine years. We got married in 2001 to my wife, Mandy. And throughout that period, I would call myself, I would call myself a Christian, but I wasn't living like it. And I was kind of a, you know, I'd go to church on Sunday, but then I had my band and I had, you know, all this other stuff going on. And I was a very discontent person throughout the first parts of Mandy and I marriage together. And throughout college, before we got married, I had addictions and I just, you know, you can go into details on that if you'd like to. But it was just a discontented sort of normal looking life without purpose. And I thought the band was going to take off. And so I thought that was the thing that was going to save me. And I'm actually grateful it didn't take off because that would have been a nightmare. But 2010, we moved down here to Tennessee and we leave everybody we know. And I had not really dealt with any of those addictions. I hadn't really dealt with my thought patterns. I hadn't really dealt with any of those things. And we moved down here. I started working for Dave and it was great. And about a year in, I thought, you know, okay, we moved across the country. I got this great job. My wife's able to stay home. We got two kids. I just start feeling this discontentment thing again. And not that it entirely went away. It was just, you know, when you're in a big move situation, you know, everything's different. So it's like a year of, you know, crazy, craziness. And then everything sort of starts to calm down. And I just start to feel that discontent feeling again. I'm like, what is the problem? Like, yeah, is why am I never happy? Why, like, why am I not content? And I just start to get pretty frustrated with that. And I start to think, you know, the only constant in my life throughout this last 10 years is, you know, instead of looking back here, I start to go and must be Mandy. She must be the problem. I thought you were going to say the only constants meet. No, no. We love the look out. That would be the wise choice. And I eventually got there. But at the beginning, I was like, she was my high school sweetheart. We started passing notes in seventh grade. And I just started to have these thoughts that were ruminating like, you didn't know what you were doing. You got married to young. You didn't know any better blah, blah, blah, blah. That's why you're not happy. She's the problem. Yeah. And I didn't know, I didn't have a daily practice. I didn't have a, I wasn't going to counseling none of those things. So I'm just living with these thoughts going around and around in my head. And there was 2009. Are you all even in church in the season? Yeah, we're going on. Okay. So like you're here in some truth. You're here in some truth. Yeah. And I'm working at Ramsey and there's great stuff all around Ramsey. And, um, but it was like, I'm playing the game performing externally, you know, but internally, I'm like, I just, you know, and I start to blame her and I start to let those thoughts kind of go crazy. And, um, start to just let them play out like, uh, I don't even know what to say about that. Like I just kept thinking it's just because we got married too long and I married the wrong person and, and, and, and, and. And so I was out on a run in April of 2010. I know that because I didn't run that much, but I was training for the Nashville half marathon that year. Sure. And so that's why that date sticks in my brain and I was out on a run. And I was just, I don't know what it was about this day, but I was just in a really down spot in running and I'm starting to play out. I can't do this anymore. I can't shove down these weird feelings I have. The only thoughts that I knew was like, maybe I should just do something else and I started to think, well, maybe I got to get a divorce. It started to just really play out in my brain. And on this run, I'm thinking, okay, what will happen to the kids? Will she move back to Illinois? Will I be able to stay in Tennessee? Well, you know, I'm just really playing this out. And I start crying because I'm like, that's a lot. And I'm tired of this feeling, but I have to do something. I was just at that point where you're like sick and tired of being sick and tired. So you got to just do something. The force was the thing that was on my brain. Mandy must be the problem. And as these thoughts are just like building, building, building, I'm running, I'm running, I'm crying. This is the weird part that I don't have an explanation for other than God. Out of nowhere, it's like something just sliced through all those thoughts. And it was the phrase, I mean, it's a cliche phrase because we all say it so much, but out of nowhere, it was like a punch in the face. Be still and know that I'm God. And it was like, I wasn't reading my Bible all the time. I wasn't. I grew up in church, but it wasn't Luke's, like Luke was not seeking God in his life. But this thought just came out of nowhere. And I sometimes describe it like it felt like a giant thumb on my whole body. I don't know why I describe it, but it just felt like that. And I even get little chills when I think about it. And that doesn't happen to me all the time. It never had happened before. But it was just this thought that sliced through those things. And I kept running and I finished my run. And I just the last bit of the run, I was just like, God was that you? Was this what other people experienced sometimes? Like it was just so different than what my brain had been doing. And as I got home, Mandy wasn't home. I walked through the door and I just thought, okay, if that was God, then that means he, there's something real here because I didn't invent what just happened. So if that's real, okay, maybe some of what's in the Bible must be true. I thought of that verse that was the truth. I'll set you free. And I didn't even know it was Jesus who said that or I, you know, I didn't know any. I just remember that phrase. And so I just had this, I call a little pole and I was like, I just need to write Mandy a letter and tell her everything. Wow. And just tell the truth. If I'm willing to risk getting a divorce, I might as well risk telling the truth of how I'm feeling. And so I sat at this little desk that we had in the house we were in at that point and I just sat down and I started writing and I told her everything. I like the doubts I was having, the about the addictions about stuff. I'm not going to say on a podcast about my childhood, like all of these things. I was just like, I'm tired of hiding. This is me. This is the truth. And something weird happened as I wrote those thoughts down as I saw them on the page. And I didn't even know this was happening at the time, but now looking back as I saw those thoughts on the page, I was just like, man, these thoughts are rough. I wonder if they're not true. Like it was thoughts I was having, but as I was writing them, I'm like, even though I'm having them, I wonder if these thoughts that I feel like are really, really, and really true. I wonder if they're not. And so I thought, okay, I just wrote it all out. And at the end, I wrote, I've been having all these thoughts. This is the truth of what I'm thinking and feeling. But I think a bunch of these thoughts are distorted and I'm willing to fight for our marriage if you are. And then she got home and I was like, I need to talk to you and I read her this letter. And at the end, I said that I'm willing to fight for this. If you are, I think what's going on up here is distorted. And so then we started going counseling. We started working through stuff. And thankfully, this is where she says the Holy Spirit speaks through her, where she said, yeah, I'm into fight versus versus just being angry and run it off, you know, totally. But the, how that ties to journaling is what happened over the next couple of weeks. That was just like, oh my gosh, telling Mandy the truth in these thoughts as I wrote them down, I thought was going to hurt our marriage and destroy it. But actually it started the healing process. I wonder if I started doing that with God. And so I just said, I got, I got nothing to offer you. I'm just going to get up a little early and I'm going to read, I don't even know what to read, but I'll read a chapter of the Bible. And I'm just going to start writing my honest thoughts about it and what I'm thinking and feeling. And so I started doing that. Got up a little early, read a chapter of the Bible. And like I said, I grew up in a little Christian school, a little Christian home, but I didn't even know before that that Matthew, Mark and Luke and John were the same story told by different authors. And so I, until I started reading it myself, you know. And so I wrote about that. Like, how come I didn't learn that? I just started being honest in these journals with God. And I did it a few times a week and then I did it every day of the week. And then all of a sudden, a year went by and two years went by and three years went by and five years went by before I, before I even said any of that story out loud to anyone except Mandy. I just was living and doing that every day. And I looked up five years later and Mandy and I were in the best place we'd ever been. We had paid off all of our debt. I had gotten a bunch of promotions at work. I was the healthiest mentally that I'd ever been. And people would come to me with problems. I was leading a team by then, which was a shock to me. I'm like, Hey, man, so get up tomorrow. And in a journal and just write out everything you're actually thinking and feeling. Don't edit yourself. Don't judge what you're writing. Just let it out. You can burn it afterwards if you don't, if you don't like it or you don't want anybody to find it. And they'd come back the next thing to be like, Hey, I did that thing. You said and really helped. And I'm like, actually, I know. And so I just sort of became more of the journaling guy around there around a Ramsey's company for a while. And because I was always talking about it after that five year period and it wasn't like a switch flipped, I just slowly would start bringing it up. And I never thought that I'd be the journaling guy, but it was just like, no, angelizing journaling. It changed my life. And really, I mean, the trick is, as I set aside time every day to seek God and talk to him. Yeah. Now, the science I've learned over the last 10 years is that if you just write out your thoughts on a piece of paper, it's labeling all of this random stuff in your brain and your brain then starts to make sense of it. And that's why you feel more clarity. But the scientific benefits and connecting with God each day transform my life. And I'm just like, it's not terribly complicated. It's just we don't do it. It's like working out. Yeah. It's just a workout for your brain, you know? So that's the short story long, long story short. Yeah. Yeah. Like thinking back to the beginning of your story as I was listening, I just thought, you know, man, most often when we find ourselves in season of discontentment or, um, that's the best. I mean, there can be brokenness and loss and hurt and grief and pain because of other things going on. But when it's like everything, there's nothing major happening and we're unhappy. It's really easy to expect our external situation to be what's going to make us happy or not make us happy. And so it's like, well, if I just got the, if the band just works out, that's going to give me my purpose. If I get the job and we start having kids, once those things, you know, it's it's always the, well, once this happens, then I'm going to be good. And I think so much of maturity is realizing an awareness, it's realizing it kind of doesn't matter what's going on around me. Yeah. My self worth, my purpose, my value, my outlook on life really is an internal issue. Like anything could be happening externally. Um, and that's great. So I love this because when I think about the habit of journaling, that's a, well, that's a technically an external practice. It's a very internal process. Yeah. Um, why do you think, you know, I hear you saying I wrote down just literally whatever I was thinking, just telling God, whatever. Okay. So two questions. One, how is that different from prayer or is it? And two, why do you think we're so scared or hesitant to write down everything that we could ever be thinking or feeling specifically like to God or, you know, in a handwritten conversation to God when he already knows it all. Right. Well, the first question you said is how is it different than prayer? I don't necessarily think it is. Yeah. I do, and I don't have data on this. But I do think our prayers are, I have yet to find very many people who are actually sitting there for 10 or 15 minutes and actually praying. Totally. So I know I didn't, it'd be like, Oh, God, help me through this. You know, a little under the breath prayer or had it give me wisdom or I need some money or you know, whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. So what this does is if you choose to act like it's a prayer and some people just journal out their thoughts and it's not necessarily prayer in my practice and my own life, mine are prayers. And it's just me talking to God. Yeah. So I don't think it's different. I just think this gives you a practice to slow your brain down and write out what you're actually thinking and want to pray about versus. It's one thing, especially for a new Christian to have a conversation like this with another person like you and I are kind of bouncing back and forth and you ask a question and I respond and we're really into this. If there's a new believer who's really like, I don't even know if I believe in God or any of these things, it feels like a one way conversation. And then you get distracted by the dog barking or somebody walking by or your phone buzzing. And what the journaling does is it gives you a thing to focus on. And you can just be right there and be like, God, I don't know what I'm doing today and I feel really anxious about XYZ. Yeah. You're actually writing it versus for me anyway, when I'm praying, I'm like, God, you know, I really need your help here and I'm trying to seek you and then, okay, what was I thinking about? You know, and it ends up being like a sentence or two and really fragmented and the journaling gives you a focused thing to do. I've just found that to be extremely helpful for myself and many others. The second part of the question that you asked was, why are people afraid to put those thoughts on paper? Shame. You know, we think it and we have a lot of thoughts in our brain and if I write that down, it makes it seem more real. And to your statement about, well, God knows it already. I know, but if I don't actually say it out loud, it feels like it's just a thought still hidden in the dark a little bit. Is there some science about like when we actually write something down and we see it with our eyes, like we relate to that differently than when it's just rattling up here? There's there's two things. The first one, there's a doctor James Pennebaker who wrote a book called Opening Up by writing it down. In the 80s, he did a ton of research on what he calls expressive writing and tons of research on it. And when you write down your honest thoughts and feelings and you ask your editor is what he calls it to leave you alone for a while. So meaning like, all right, I'm gonna write this, but geez, I shouldn't say that out loud. And for my say, it's like something about your parents or a hurt you've had in the past or some kind of trauma. When you write those things down, and his protocol is for 15 minutes, for four days in a row. Like if you have a traumatic experience that you feel like is just constantly holding you back. Go write about that for four days in a row, for 15 minutes without stopping and do not edit yourself. - Okay. - The people who did that in his tests had no joke like 50% less doctor visits, better emotional health, they healed. There's even some weird studies out there about people who did that with cuts on their bodies. Those cuts healed faster. It's weird. - Whoa. - Yeah. I haven't, I didn't, I haven't deep studied those, but I have deep studied the traumatic one and the 50% drop in doctor visits. And it's all documented in his book, opening up by writing it down. So that's the science behind that. There is some other studies on what happens when you, like we think as a human, we think in pictures and blips and feelings and a song lyric and I'm hungry and whatever. It's not like you think, okay, now I'm sitting here and I am hungry and now I'm going to write the story about being hungry. Your brain is just, is firing in a lot of different ways, a lot of different times. - Yeah. - When you write that down, if I just sat down here and wrote, all right, it's 12.57 pm, I'm talking with Hannah Seymour. I am not that hungry, I ate my lunch earlier. If I just said exactly what was going on, what I was anxious about, what I was worried about for the rest of the day, what happens is your brain starts to create neuro pathways that start to create some kind of story, some kind of narrative. You're forcing your brain to make a story because when you write it down, you're going from left to right. When we read a book, we're going from left to right. When we watch a movie, it's from beginning to end. Writing down all those thoughts starts to give your brain a narrative to follow and start to help you make meaning and make sense of it. - Yeah, in the crazy way. - It kind of reminds me, I read some stuff about when you're helping kids fall asleep. I've got an eight, six, and four year old, and all of them at different times. Just want me or Tyler and my husband to sit beside them in bed and just stay with them until they're having a hard time winding down. I read about how, so the first one was just helping them, like you're near reading it, and they can fill in if they want, but kind of just telling them about their day. It's letting their brain relive their day, and then you're like, "And then you fell asleep." And that literally helps their brain just kind of, it's like, "Oh, we just wrote that story." And now it's, yep. And then similar, but different, I was reading something about how, teaching your kids empathy, and empathy and resilience, but telling them stories about times where you had to overcome something, there was an obstacle in your day, complication, a conflict, whatever, and you are kind of telling them that story, and they're just getting to imagine through you, like, "Oh, that's how mom dealt with that," and that just through that storytelling, their brain kind of learns like, "Oh, the next time something like that happens to me, I could respond like that," or mom said she responded in a way that she regrets. Like, it's interesting how storytelling, but to your point, our brains have been designed to have these neuropathways, and so we can do things that kind of shape and mold. I want to talk a little bit more science, and then I want to jump into the spiritual, this is so my wheelhouse. I recently wrote a book called Everyday Spiritual Habits, and I took the Science of Habit Formation, and then applied it to the practice of seven different spiritual disciplines, but I kind of had this moment, when I was in seminary, I was, of course, reading these spiritual formation texts and spiritual discipline texts, and then in my personal life, I was geeking out over habit formation books, and rethinking through different, like, not spiritual areas in my life, like fitness, nutrition, and then was like, wait a second. These Mary so well together, why are we not talking about this? And I do feel like journaling is kind of like a very easy example of both of those things. Like, we've got a lot of science about what journaling can do for you, but journaling is included in several spiritual discipline books. Jesus didn't journal to my knowledge, so then they're like, I like to use a more limited, like let's use disciplines we see in the Bible, but I don't care. If it's all into the Lord, it's all holy, right? So anything can be a faith habit or a spiritual habit. I think I've read from you somewhere that your brain, or maybe you just said this earlier, your brain doesn't sort beliefs into true and false. And I guess you kind of alluded to that in your story. Like, you realized, wait a second, I'm writing down a bunch of things that, it makes me think of the Brunei Brown, the story I'm telling myself is. It's not necessarily that it's-- - It's true. - It's a reality, but this is the story I'm telling myself. So how does journaling, if we don't sort things into true and false, then how does journaling help us? - Yeah, good question. The simplest way that I say this all the time, and it drives my kids crazy, is because I say your brain does what you tell it. It's as simple as that. So if you tell it, we're pretty anxious about the future, your brain's like, oh, okay. So we're gonna find some ways to be anxious about the future. Your brain doesn't really care what you think. What it's trying to do is keep you safe, and then-- - And alive. - And alive. And so if you think something new, it's like, whoa, that feels new, I don't wanna do that. That's why we have anxious thoughts about trying something new, or going to the gym for the first time. You're like, ooh, I feel a lot of resistance to that, or whatever. And so your brain's like, oh, this is new and uncomfortable. I don't like it. My job is to keep you safe. So your brain does what you tell it. So if you keep telling it one thing, it's gonna believe those things. If you keep telling it another thing, it's gonna believe those things. It doesn't really care. Like a muscle. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So if I work out my arms great, they're gonna get stronger. If I don't, they're not. They don't have really an opinion about whether you do or don't. So that's part one. How does journaling help you define what's true or not? It's not only about the unedited thoughts that you throw out. So the practice that I lead people through are, we wanna calm our nervous system so that our heart and soul has a place to let us know what it's really thinking and where we need some help. So if I was with you guiding you through a half hour session, we would start with a little 30 to 45 second little meditation, which is just, I know, Christian sometimes getting comfortable with that word, but it's not. It's like, hey, you were created for a purpose and we're gonna close your eyes and we just wanna let the tension go out of your shoulders. And so we spend about 30 to 45 seconds there. And then we just say, now we're gonna sit in silence for a minute. And we do. We sit in silence for a minute. And we just say, I'm here. And if your brain starts to go off, just bring it back to your breathing and just say, I'm here again. Then after that, we spend two minutes writing four things you're grateful for from the last 24 hours. Okay. Not just, hey, name some things you're grateful for. Now from the last 24 hours, what were four moments you're grateful for? And it just starts to help you slow down and be like, oh man, my daughter got these new squishy toys she loves and she just kept hitting them with me yesterday, kept hitting me with them yesterday. And she was having such a good time and I was acting like it hurt really bad. And man, I was just grateful for that. And so we just write three or four of those moments down. - Yeah. - Then 10 minutes of that unedited journaling, we're just gonna write everything out. I don't care what it is. I'm not gonna judge it. You don't have to show me. We can burn it afterwards. You don't have to show anybody. What you're doing is you're giving all of those thoughts a place to go. And do you have a beginning prompt for that? 'Cause I would imagine sitting, and I've done lots of free right exercises as a writer. But sometimes it's hard, especially I had to go to therapy in my 20s, just to learn how to identify my feelings. So the idea of just write whatever you want, whatever's in your brain for 10 minutes. I'd be like, I don't know. That's probably what I'd start with. I don't know what's in my brain. I don't know what I'm thinking or feeling. - That's it. - I mean, that's where you would start right there. - Okay, okay. - I don't know what's in my brain. Luke's telling me to do this. And I think it's kind of stupid. And I'm never like, "During the Earth Place." And I don't really know if I believe him. Is this actually helping? I'd rather be doing something else. Get it out. - Lit, okay, literally. - Do whatever comes out. - Whatever's like, because that's what the key is there is to recognize what you are actually thinking. Because that is what you're thinking. And most of the time, we edit that. Well, Luke might be sad if he knew that I was really thinking that I don't care. Right. I don't care. Like, right. You just got to get it out. Yeah. So in about five or six minutes in, you get through the, what I call, that's the epidermis layer, the skin layer stuff. And eventually you're like, well, I'm writing. And what was that thing my husband said to me yesterday? I'm kind of, that was kind of annoying. Hmm. So about five or six minutes, not every time you get to a deeper something and you just start writing about it, wherever it goes. And you do that for 10 minutes. Do not lift your pen. Do not worry about spelling or grammar. Ask your editor to leave you alone. You can burn it afterwards. After the 10 minutes, then I give a little prompt. So today's prompt, let's see, was we've been spending some time recognizing signals, the places where your body, your emotions in your spirit have been trying to get your attention. So today's, so that was like the intro. And then today's prompt was there's rarely a single moment when stress takes over your life. It usually builds slowly. One more responsibility, one more person to manage, one more thing to say yes to when your body is screaming no. And before long, you're so used to carrying the weight that you forget it's even there. You stop noticing headaches. You stop noticing tight chest and the dread that comes on Sundays, your body has been keeping score. Today is about slowing down long enough to read what it's been writing. So consider the physical, emotional and spiritual signal that has been loudest in your life recently. Today, right about when you think that started and what was going on in your life. And so if I would have just started with that question or that statement, you're like, I don't, I don't know hungry or my foot hurts or whatever. But after writing for 10 minutes and four things you're grateful for and in minute of silence, you're ready to write honestly about that prompt. Yeah. Yeah. So, but then I don't give another 10 minutes. I just give two. Then you just, man, it really started. I guess that my tightness and my chest started when so and so said X and I'm worried about this thing. That was just like two weeks ago. And so you just write about it. And then after that, I put up, I use chip Dodd's eight core feelings as the base. And we put up these eight core feelings, anger, shame, hurt, fear, guilt, glad, lonely. And I, I even put some descriptors up there to help people identify which ones might be today. And so it's just the practice of, okay, what am I feeling today? Well, I'm angry about this and I'm feeling lonely about this or I'm feeling really glad about this. And I just give them two minutes just to acknowledge the feelings. And then at the very end, we say, okay, God, in light of everything, I just wrote, what do you want to say to me? And then we sit in silence for two minutes and you just listen. And if you kind of hear something or a lyric comes in your head, I just encourage people to believe it's God and write it down. Well, that's to that might just be me. Yeah, maybe or it might be God. Yeah. Yeah. But if you do this for a month, you'll start to be able to discern the difference between those two. Yeah. And so deciphering between what's true and false and not true, you start as you go through that process to start to recognize what is the editor, which is the, I call it the editor. It's the person that says, you're not good enough. You're not smart enough. You're failing. You're miserable. Okay. That's not true. We might have some things we need to work on, but you're not a horrible person. And so at the very, very end, I then say, okay, based off of what you wrote, the feelings you acknowledged, the thoughts you noticed in your listening, what's one action step you can take today or wait. You need to let go of based off this writing. And a lot of times it's, well, I need to stop worrying about the blah, blah, blah, or man, I need to get my bills done for this month. You know, it's like, yeah, yeah, very tactical things, but the weight and the overwhelm of all that stuff has released and you can see and be more clear. So as you knew that over and over and over again, you start to notice what is the editor, what thoughts are actually helping you or hurting you? And what are we going to do to change those things? What action can you take? Yeah. So I was kind of laughing and not in like a laugh at way, but I'm looking at your website and I'm reading these testimonials and of people being like, I've seen more growth and change in my life doing this than I ever did going to therapy weekly. Or people even saying like, my therapist said she's changing me because of this. And I'm laughing because I'm like, yeah, of course, because I, you know, I'm thinking about all this science of habit formation stuff that I've got rattling around my brain. I'm like, yeah, if you do something consistently every single day for 10 minutes, the compound growth on that in life, like trajectory change is a massive versus going to therapy for an hour once a week. I, the seasons that I've gone to therapy, I don't think I ever went once a week. I mean, once every two weeks at most because it was so much, that 60 minutes was so much work for me. And like I needed more than six days to process those are the seasons where I mean, I had a therapist that was always like, you have to write every single day one. I don't care if it's one, one thing or 100 things, but like that is the only way you're going to process this on a daily basis before you come back to me. And um, but like I was still, I mean, I think so often we think of journaling. It's just like, dear diary, this is what I did today. Or even when it is a confession, like I have a confession seems so intense. I just mean, you're just laying it all out there. It is, it's whatever's coming to mind, Lord, this is where I am. And um, still, I don't know where I'm going with this. My question for you now is obviously you call this holy work. And as I said before, people do consider journaling a spiritual discipline. So what's your, you know, what's your argument for that? Lucas, like, why would you say this, this is holy work? Why, why would you? Why would you? I'll just the, I'll just the therapist thing first. Um, what I think this does. And I am a huge proponent of therapy and counseling and psychiatry. Um, what this does is it, is therapy adjacent and, um, supplemental. So many people have reached out and said, well, my therapist says I need a journal, but I don't know where to start. And I'm like, all right, well, let's start here, you know, and what happens when you go to therapy on Tuesday and then you, uh, say you just go on with your life on Wednesday or Thursday, you've got like this little mouse running over here on the wheel. Like, hey, we talked about that thing. And you do process stuff in the background and even your subconscious, of course. But if you spent 12 minutes and just wrote down man, when my counselor, my therapist and I were talking about X, it really dug up this. And I don't know how I feel about that. And I think I'm kind of upset about so and so because they did your brain starts to go, Oh, we're going to create some meaning. We're going to solve some things and I don't need to rehash all the stuff we talked about already, but that's what happens. And so this really does accelerate therapy. Um, it makes it go faster. And I don't even know if that's the right words to use, but it does accelerate the effectiveness of it. Um, so why is it called holy work? Yeah. It's not about the journaling. You're like, this is a journal, but it's not about the journaling. This is about peace and purpose. And a lot of times people do not know what they want. And they don't know where God is pulling them. It's the way I say it. And this holy work is actually a path that I started to see with creative people because I was the, I was the chief creative officer at Ramsey. I'm a creative person. And I would see this pattern with so many people, business leaders, um, and creatives where they would start to want to do something. You probably felt it starting this podcast or writing the book. You get a little pull. Okay. I'm going to kind of want to do that. But then the next thing that would happen is you hit a war. So I feel the pull to start this podcast or maybe it's to adopt a baby or start a business. I don't know what it is or just to move forward after a death of a loved one or something like that immediately. You're going to hit a war. Uh, it's fear in your, in your head, it's voices in your head. It's general resistance, like Stephen Pressfield calls it. Um, you just hit those things. Then if you can fight through the war and you define those things and you work through that war, you then hit what I call the wilderness, which is just the work you have to do. You've got to clean up some old messes. You've got to learn some new things. You have to take action. You have to be patient. A lot of people don't ever do those things. And so then they stay stuck. But that is the path. If you follow God pulling on you, you fight through the war, you do the work of the wilderness, you will eventually find some level of peace and purpose. Oh, that's what I want to do. That's where God is pulling me. But if you never slow down enough to actually figure out what's going on up here and what's going on in your soul, you'll just be sleepwalking. It's what I was doing before I told Mendy the truth. I was just sleepwalking through life. Like, okay, this is the next thing I'm going to do. And I kind of want the band to take off. And I mean, that's when we had all our debt. It's how people wander into debt because we're just sleepwalking. And if you can build that practice of slowing down each day and getting what's in your head out on a page, so your heart and soul and mind can start to make sense of it, you will start to see where God is pulling you. And then you got to go through the holy work of following it. And so that's why I call it holy work because it's about peace and purpose ultimately. Let me read you something here. This is, I won't say her name because it's somebody in my the holy work community, but she just posted this yesterday. And she put a picture of her journals. And she said, I started journaling on my own last April, 2025. Life was so stressful then. I was a full-time caregiver to a friend with dementia and things got really intense. And it was no longer safe for him to live with us. And in the mountains, because they lived out in the mountains. And I'm a mom of teenagers. And I stopped journaling for a few months. I was in survival mode. On July 11th, I stumbled upon holy work and started a free trial of these emails I was sending out. When I finished that, I took this class, Luke offered, so on and so forth. And then I couldn't afford the monthly fee. It's not that expensive for anybody listening. I continued by myself every morning. Wait cheaper than than regular therapy. But here's the powerful part. I told a friend about it. And she started doing it. We would discuss it together. We didn't have access to the daily prompts. So we started using chat GPT, but they were terrible. And so on and so forth. So today she wrote this stuff yesterday. So she's been doing this kind of thing for six months. Today I started my fourth journal. When I looked back at that first one, I was so depressed, numb, lonely, overwhelmed, and terribly sad. I had lost health gains I'd previously had previously had and was in a dark place of discouragement. I know I know Luke jokes about burning what we write sometimes. And I get it. But reading my old journals is like seeing old prayers and where God answered them. They're my way of recounting his faithfulness, seeing his guidance in my life. I still have a lot of growing and changing to do, but I've become so many of the things I was writing about and hoping to be. She's become those things. So many dreams, wishes and hopes have become my reality. The rhythms of my life now reflect who I want to be. And I have new dreams and goals brewing that I want to grow in. I have hope I can live them out if I continue this practice and self-reflection along with the actual steps of courage to change. So here's to this new notebook. And of me telling me myself, look how far you have come. Thanks God. So it's not about journaling. I could care less about journaling. I want that for people. I want her to know and say so many of the things I wanted to be I am now. And journaling is just a tool to unlock it. It's just a tool. So that's why I think it's holy work. It's a tool that forces you to slow down. Yeah. Probably be in solitude. Yeah. Shut off your phone. Yeah, even like being in a, if you're journaling in a way that it's prayerful, yeah. Okay, we're running out of time, which I'm not about. But let me, let me at least ask you to find a question. So because here are my hangups. Like I have seen so much of the science. I'm like, I know, I know. I mean, even when I wrote my chapter on gratitude, there's so much science just about writing four things down. But the naming it is good. And so for me, I'm like, it's good enough. But writing it down is better. Writing think you notes has like profound impacts on your life. Not just in like gratitude, like back to the less doctors, but I mean, it's, it's wild. If you hand right one thing, you know, a week, what it will do to your entire life. Anyway, this is all science. And this is where I just love God, our incredibly intelligent designer, scripture, all these things that's like science is proving all of the stuff that we that scripture tells us is wisdom. And anyway, okay, here are my hangups number one. I up or physically writing things with a pen on paper. I hate it. I think my handwriting is so gross and so messy, I can barely read it when I go back. I think my brain is just working faster than my hand. I don't know. I hate handwriting. So I know you're going to tell me it has to be on pen and paper, right? None of these stories where people clickity clacking on their computers. So do I have to hand out about this? Why? Why? You don't have to. Okay. That was unexpected. Okay. You don't have to. How about you take out your notes app tomorrow? Okay. Okay. And you go for a 10 minute walk. Okay. And you put the voice recorder on not the voice recorder, but the notes app where you can talk in it. It transcribe the words. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you. So not the voice recorder. I want it to transcribe your words. And you go for a walk and you just say, all right, good morning, God. I'm here. I'm just going to start talking to you about what happened yesterday. And I'm going to go for this walk and Luke says I don't have to be handwritten and an eternal side. I'm just going to talk to you this way. And so here's what's going on. And I'm kind of worried about this and bubble and just do that for 10 minutes. And then at the end, but don't stop and don't edit yourself. Yeah. And try that for a week. Okay. You will start to have some of the same effects. If you have a hang up now, I'm not going to convince you if you just hate writing. To do this, you're just going to have that hang up. It is better if you slow down and write in a journal. But I don't want that to be an issue for you. What I want is for you to set aside the 30 minutes and put some silence into your life and then do the four things you're grateful for. And then unedit yourself for 10 minutes. Like that's part of the key. And then acknowledge your feelings in some sort of system where it's like, okay, no, I'm going to put language to these feelings. I am feeling anger. So writing is better long term. But something is better than nothing. And so it's not just the 10 minutes. It's the mix of all of these things together. And when you acknowledge your feelings and you write down, I'm feeling angry. I mean, that's the science of effect labeling and stuff like that has had a massive impact on people too. So that's what I would suggest if you just hate writing. I would challenge you that I bet you hating your handwriting is not the only thing you beat up about yourself. So as you write and you just say, I don't care what my damn handwriting looks like, I'm just going to write unfiltered. I don't care if I can't read it in the future. I'm just going to do this because I want to get over the fact that I judge my handwriting or whatever it is. Had a guy come to me the other day that said, I can't journal. I have tons of those moleskin journals. They're brand new sitting on my shelf. I cannot bring myself to mess it up. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That's obviously more of an issue than just that moleskin journal. So we have to lead him into it to allow things to be imperfect in his life. Yeah. So that's the first part. So what's the next thing up? That's good. I like that. And I will say just to on for the record. It's not that I don't, it's not that I look at my handwriting and feel bad about myself or anything. It's just like I just, I think the process of it, I don't know, I just don't enjoy it. But I also know that there's so much science behind the importance of pin to paper. And I mean, like so much is happening even as holding physical books versus reading digitally. Anyway, that's not what we're talking about right now. You enjoy working out. Yeah, I love working out. Did you always? Once I found what I wanted, like once I found the right thing for me, I would say yes. Now there are days that I don't want to, but because it becomes such a habit, yeah, I do it. It's the same with this. Yeah. So at the beginning, somebody goes to work out. They hate it. It hurts them. Like this sucks. Like I'm not enjoying it while I'm in pain and killed over. Right. I don't feel good. But I'm always happy I did afterwards. Yeah. Okay. And then so I hear you, you're like ultimate desire for people. Is there doing this for 30 minutes a day? You're starting really with the 10 minute, you know, initial goal. But I'm going to push back and say, what can I do in two minutes? Because the science of habit formation talks about really to create a sticky habit. Some BJ Fox says it needs to be 30 seconds or less. James Clear will say like two minutes or less. You know, so I like that. Like what can we, and that's what I talk a lot about in my book is like, okay, we won a vibrant prayer life. But like what can you do in two minutes today? Don't let's not worry about. And because again, that compounds over time. So, yeah. Lucas, what can I do that is meaningful. If I just start my baby seed habits is what I call them in my book. If my seed habit is two minutes of journaling tomorrow morning, what's my assignment and is two minutes enough? - I think if you do two minutes, you'll feel like it's not enough. So, I would love you to do two minutes. Just do two minutes, unedited journaling tomorrow. Set a timer on your phone, put two minutes and just start writing. All right, I'm gonna do this because Luke told me to do it and I think it's dumb and I don't wanna do it. And you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, do that, but the key is do not judge anything you write. For two minutes, give yourself permission to just ask your editor to leave you alone. And I'm just gonna write and I'm gonna tell the truth of what I'm thinking and feeling. I don't really care what comes out. And then do it again the next day. - Is there like a takeaway question? I'm sorry, I free write for two minutes. Is there like a takeaway question that I just said, like, or just, that's it. I just brained up and walked. - At the beginning, it's just the brain dump. Don't over complicate it. You could ask yourself after you write for the two minutes. - Okay. - What do I notice about that writing? - Mm-hmm. - Mm-hmm. - Well, was I really honest? Did I actually say what I was thinking? Like just spend a second, take a step back and just be like, all right, what do I notice about this writing? And do that and then do it for a week. Because the day five, you won't be writing, oh, I think this is dumb and Luke told me to do it. - Yeah, it would be true. - It would be true, that. - Well, I already wrote about that. So by day five, you'll be like, I don't know what you'll be writing about, but take a second. At the end, look at it. What do I notice about this writing? Or if you just don't, if you're like, I don't wanna just free write, start the two minutes with, today I'm feeling and then go for two minutes. - This feels very adjacent. I think it was St. Ignatius. I'm like 99% sure that's right. But he had like a five step, you know, I mean, it gets a five step to prayer. Yeah, but one of the things was kind of identifying, thinking back over the last 24 hours, what were my dominant or prominent emotions? And then, and this is what I really appreciate, 'cause like, that's good. So we need to name our feelings. Like I said, I had to go to therapy in my 20s to like learn how to do that. (laughs) It's important. But to then go, okay, Lord, what do you have to say about that? Or how, Ignatius I think even just says like, kind of observe how those feelings relate to your relationship with God. Like are they pulling you towards Him? Are they pulling you away from Him? Well, you know, anyway. - Yeah, he calls it consolation and desolation. So if you, like there's this whole practice of Ignatian discernment is what it's called. And so, all right, when I think about what should I do if I'm making a big decision? All right, when I think about that over the course of time, does that bring me feelings of peace, of life, of love, of joy? Or does it bring me some feelings of, man, this is gonna be terrible. And does it bring darkness and shame and shrinking down? So that's different. I'm not saying, well, he's not saying, if it's hard, I shouldn't do it. That's not it. It's like, okay, if I do this hard thing for the next year, will that bring peace, love, joy, expansion, hope? Or if I do that thing for the next year, am I shrinking, am I pulling back? Am I squashing? And that's desolation. And those two things help you discern, you know, different directions in your life. - Yeah, I love that. - Yeah. And I think you say something you say a lot, is just the practice of this brings clarity, right? It's like we see it, we're processing it more, you know, journaling as a tool that's just helping you be intentional and intentionally consider what's going on in your life, what's going on in your head and your heart. I think we spend so much time thinking back to the beginning of this conversation, thinking about external circumstances. And what we wish we could change or we're plotting how to strategically change that. And I think there's so much more ability for growth or even just joy and hope and peace if we spent way more time thinking internally. The last thing I want to say, as someone who is a student of scripture and a teacher of the Bible, and I mean, I want to devote my life to studying scripture and helping other people understand it. And Howard Hendrix, who is with the Lord now, but he laid a ton of foundational work on helping layman learn how to study scripture. And one of my favorite quotes that he writes is, you know, the Bible wasn't written to satisfy your curiosity but to transform you more and more into Christlikeness. But something that he wrote that surprised me when I first read it was this idea of, you know, we study the scriptures to learn more about God and that knowledge of God leads us into a greater love of God. But we also do learn about ourselves when we read the scripture and it's important that we are doing the work outside of just Bible study to understand who we are, who God has made us to be knowing what we think and we feel because that impacts our ability, really to allow God's transformative work in our hearts, you know, like the more I understand what I'm feeling, what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling when I open the scriptures, it kind of, for lack of a better word, I think gives a Holy Spirit greater access in my life because I have the awareness. Do you know what I mean? And so I don't know, all of this is say, it's like, I'm drinking your Kool-Aid. I just, it's that, you know, and it's not one more thing that one more thing to add to the morning. So, I don't know, maybe I'll try it. Like, we'll guess for two minutes. Yeah, try it for two minutes. The other thing is, this is a healthy practice to start. You as a very intentional person already, it seems, and I don't know you that well. You might have already a place to reflect and to pray. You might not need this. I don't want this to be yet another thing. I want this to be for the people who, I want this for the people who are stuck, who are restless, who are mentally overwhelmed, who are emotionally numb, and they don't know what to do. This is a practice you can add to your life that will help that calm your nervous system down, calm your brain down, so that you can actually get to some level of clarity, to figure out where you want to go. So, I want people to learn to slow down, so they can figure out where God is pulling and where they want to go. For people who already have a good habit of that, I don't want you to have another thing. Yeah. I want people to figure out something when life isn't working for them, and they are stuck, restless, overwhelmed, here's a place to start. Yeah, that's good. Well, for our friends listening, if you are thinking, "I'm gonna try this." I want you guys to DM Lucas and/or me and tell us that you're gonna try it. You also just need to go follow Lucas on Instagram. I'm telling you just from like a content creation standpoint, this guy is, it's worth studying. Okay, well, I don't think so. Truly, like, no, I'm so serious. You, your stuff is so fun and engaging and interesting, but educational and insightful. And anyway, you're a good follow. So we should no matter what, they should just go follow you on Instagram. But I want to hear from you guys who are thinking, "I'm gonna try this practice." And let's see what the Lord does. I mean, as you said, I'm like, yeah, it's just one of many tools that we have at our disposal. But I think we can all use more tools. And sometimes we use this tool over that tool, but then a difference, he's in a life, we'll need that one over this one. And my husband Tyler is definitely one of those guys that was at Ramsey when you've been like, you need to journal starting tomorrow. And he has, and there's been seasons of his life where he is, you know, avid about his 10 minutes in the morning. And I can tell the difference. And then there's seasons where he's like, yeah, I haven't journaled in a while. And I think that's okay too. You know, again, it's like using different tools when you need them. - Lucas, thank you for your time for coming on no matter what, for this work. I, and I know that it's important. And I know that folks are finding so much clarity and contentment and growth and peace through all of it. So I appreciate you. - I'm honored to be here. It's so fun to talk to you about this. And if your listeners do follow me on Instagram, send me a DM that just says the word method. And I'll send you this 10 minute guide that I have available that can help walk you through it. - I mean, if they listen to this whole podcast, I think they got a great starting point. But if they want a little guide. - But yeah, to just have it right there. - Yeah. - I love that. - I'm my DM, you know, folks. All right. (laughing) - What do you guys think? I'm so curious to hear from you after you listen to this episode. Are you going to start journaling? If you want to learn more, go to HolyWork.com. The other thing that we need to talk about is my book Everyday Spiritual Habits. A few things. One, if you have bought and read the book and you loved it, would you please go to Amazon and/or Goodreads and leave a review? This helps so much. It just helps the algorithm and I would just deeply appreciate you if you did that. Number two, some people are starting to plan book clubs or small groups over the summer or even for the fall and they're going to be going through everyday spiritual habits. If this is you and you want to do this, first of all, I have a small group discussion guide to help with that if you want to do it weekly. But you could even just tell ten of your friends, read this book and in six weeks, we're going to meet one time and talk about it. But I am starting to do Zoom calls with some book clubs who have read the book and it is so fun. I would love to do that. If you decide to lead a small group through everyday spiritual habits or you just do a meet one time book club type of deal, I would love to hop on a Zoom call and chat with you and your friends about the book, what you thought, how it impacted you. And the last thing that I need to tell you is I'm also starting to book speaking engagements at churches. I am officially going to be at mom comm in September if you're going to be there. But if you are a part of a women's ministry team at your church, I would love the opportunity to come and serve your women and talk about everyday spiritual habits, about abiding with Christ and the soil that he's planted you in. So hit me up is what I'm saying. You can find me, hannesseamor.com. I think there's a contact form or just email me hello at hannesseamor.com. I'll get it. I love you guys. Thank you for being here. Don't forget what we talked about at the top, the weekly one, if that sounds like an email or another podcast that you might want to get into. So until then, I'll see you guys next week.