Episode Transcript
[00:00:13] Speaker A: Welcome to Becoming Church, the podcast where we discuss how the message and movement of Jesus isn't just about becoming Christians, but about becoming the church. I'm your host, Kristin Mockler Young, and this episode is about your baggage. Not necessarily the things that you've done, but even more so the things that have been done to you that continue to affect. Affect your life. Today, my guest, Ike Miller, is a pastor with his wife, Sharon Miller, at Bright City Church in Durham, North Carolina. And he's also the author of the book Good Baggage, where he shows us how to take our negative experiences and use them to make our current relationships better. I'm so happy to introduce you to my friend, Ike Miller.
All right, Ike Miller, fellow pastor, fellow enneagram3friend. I'm so excited to have you with us today.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so awesome to be on here. Super excited to be a part of this. It's always fun. You're right. The Enneagram 3, like, connection. It's like we just. I just. We just get each other. So.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: Yes, it was. It was immediate. It was immediate. I mean, really, I've been in your house. We've had Chipotle together. It was almost a year ago. I can't believe it was that long ago.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: I mean, I was. This is. This is your episode, so we won't spend the whole thing talking about Sharon, although we will link up her episode.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: Too much. We have to talk about her all you want. She's.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: But Sharon and I became friends, and so that was how then you and I became friends.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: I love this.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. Well, I'm excited to be here. Excited for the conversation. Thanks for inviting me on.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm excited. All right, well, we're going to talk about your book Good Baggage in just a second. But let's start with a fun question just to kind of get people to get to know you a little bit, just to ease into it. Good baggage usually has a negative connotation or baggage in general. Right. So let's put a spin on it. And I want to know what is a must have item that you always have in your baggage when you travel?
[00:02:07] Speaker B: Yes. That's such a fun question. So this is kind of. I don't know if it's weird or not, but there's two things that I'm like, I gotta have these. One is contact solution. Like, I am terrified of being stuck in a hotel, and I don't have any contact solution. And so it's like, either I sleep with these in or I got to put them in water.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Okay. And that's bad for them. I don't wear contacts.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: That's bad for them. Like, they feel like pieces of glass the next day, putting them in your eye. And so, like, I need contact solution and a second set of contacts. Like, just like a set.
Because worst case, if I forget the solution, at least I can put in a fresh pear. So perfect.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: I was just going to ask you if that also was a backup item. And it is perfect.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: It is, absolutely. So that's always in my baggage.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Oh, I love it. Well, you've been traveling a lot lately. I know you and Sharon, you just went to Zion national park, and you spent the night in Vegas for your anniversary.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Yes. Yes.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Congratulations.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Which I had to kind of coerce Sharon into. She's just like, there is no redeeming value to Vegas. Like, why would we spend any time there? And I'm like, there's food, there's fountains. Like, there's some fun stuff there. We can do that without getting into the. All the Vegas stuff.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: She enjoyed herself.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: She did. She did. Yes. She would not admitted. But she did.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: She did.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: She.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: I think she half admitted it. Listen, it's not Disney. If you want to make your wife happy on a trip, you got to take her.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: Yes. Disney is the only choice.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: So funny. Yeah. Sharon and I actually, we text about church stuff, but the number one thing that she and I text about is what we're renting in our new lease that month.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: Like, in our clothing rental subscriptions.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: Yes. Yes.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: So she did text me that dress before she went. She was like, what do you think about this for Vegas?
[00:03:51] Speaker B: She looked amazing. She. It was great.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: She did.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: It was awesome.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Perfect. Well, if you could travel anywhere, where would you go?
[00:03:58] Speaker B: You know, honestly, one of the places that I would love to go, Sharon and I kind of spent a day here, like, the first year we were married. But I would love to go spend, like, a week on the Amalfi coast of Italy. That area is just incredibly beautiful and amazing. And, uh, it's got beaches, but it's also got these massive cliffs that you just. Oh, it's beautiful. So that's where I would love to go spend a week. And Sharon and I have talked about going and going back and just haven't figured out kind of how to make that happen with. With little kids yet. But that's where I go. Yeah.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Y'all are in a season of. How old are your three kids?
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Yeah. 11, 8 and 5. So we're getting there in the thick of it. Yes. Yes. It's. It's the thick of it. We're getting there, though. Everybody's out of diapers. Everybody is walking and potty trained and all that stuff. So we're getting closer, but, you know, maybe not quite.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: Yeah, everybody's in school now.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: Everybody's in school. Yes. Which is kind of crazy. Like, they're all going to be at one school for at least a year or one year, you know, and so that's kind of exciting. But, yeah, so that's awesome.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: Yeah. We finally started taking trips without our kids a couple of years ago. I think it's so amazing.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: It is, it is. And we have done trips without them, but it's kind of the, like, across the ocean kind of around the world kind of thing that's been a little more limited.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: It's a bigger deal. For sure. For sure. All right. So, Ike, you have a book coming out called Good Baggage, which I have right here in my hands that I.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: Don'T have in my hands.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: I know. How did I get mine before you? This doesn't make any sense.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Well, thank you for sending this. And it does. It comes out in a couple of days. People can still preorder for the next couple of days, and then it will be available everywhere.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: Very exciting. So this book is based on your childhood, but give us a little summary of what people can expect when they read it.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, I think a big part of me writing this book was beginning to realize that the experience I had as an adult child. Adult child of alcoholic. Was realizing I'm not the only person with that story, and that there are many people who grew up in a similar context, whether it was a parent who struggled with alcoholism or even just parents who were divorced, parents that were emotionally distant or emotionally immature, all kinds of abuse.
It could have even been a situation where you had a very sick sibling. And that led to kind of a. A preoccupation with caring for your sick sibling. And that's understandable. Like, there's no one to blame necessarily for that. And yet at the same time, that affected who you are and how you enter relationships now. And so as I began having conversations and realizing this wasn't just my experience, this was other people's experience, I realized there was immense freedom in naming our experience, uh, and then how we can have a redeeming perspective on that experience. And so that's really what I wanted to do in this book, was help people name their experience, identify some common threads of that, and then say okay. That's just not. It's not just the bad things that came out of that, but there's actually some good things in that. And so how do we discover that and leverage that now? So that's kind of what hopefully people can expect from the book. Wow.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: Okay. So it's a lot broader.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Than I realize now. Would you say that this talks to or speaks to.
I don't want to use the word trauma. Like childhood trauma or adulthood.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: With living adults or adult parents or both.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: So a lot of it's geared towards people who grew up in some sort of dysfunctional, extra difficult childhood. But at the same time, there's a lot in here that I talk about that I think applies to people who have experienced some kind of traumatic or dysfunctional relationship, whether that's as an adult, as a teenager.
And so, for example, I talk a lot about codependency in this, and if you've been married or in a relationship with someone with a substance use disorder, you have developed some element of codependency that affects your relationships. And so I think it's really helpful for that, too.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Well.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: And I love that you said, you know, sometimes it's a situation where nobody's to blame. Sometimes it is. Right. And then sometimes it's not.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: And being able to name those things. Like, it. I feel like I'm in a therapy session right now with you already. I'm like, this is gonna be. It's gonna be amazing. Actually, I can remember. I'm a big believer in therapy.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: I can remember multiple sessions where I was sitting there, and all of a sudden I was talking about something that I didn't even remember taking place. Or I'm like, where did that come from?
[00:08:54] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: You know, it brings stuff out of us. Did that happen to you when you were writing this book? Did anything surprising, like, pop up?
[00:09:01] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I. I think you begin there was both, you know, remembering experiences with a new vividness. But maybe more than that was.
I think we experience a tension whenever we're thinking about our childhood of, on the one hand, we, you know, maybe loved our parent and we want to honor that parent. And on the flip side, there's some things that they did that either we want to do differently as a parent or was we're just wrong and we feel the sense of either I love them or they did it wrong. But I can't acknowledge both. And I think we have to. We have to acknowledge both in order for us to be able to both work through our stuff, but as well be the kind of parent or father or husband, wife, whatever that we want to be. And so for me, some of it was being able to say, I loved my dad. I know that my dad loved me. And yet there was. There was a lot of things that he did that, if I'm really honest with myself, were abusive, were not acceptable. And so I think some of it was also just me reckoning with the things that I. That my father did that I probably didn't admit until a couple years ago were abusive.
And so I think that was part of it. Yeah.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Do you think that's where minimizing comes in? Like, I'm. I learned in therapy that I'm a minimizer, and I would say, oh, this is not that big of a deal. Or compared to somebody else, it's not that big of a deal. Do you think part of it is that wanting to protect the people that we loved?
[00:10:36] Speaker B: I think that's a huge part of it. I think. I think that's very much part of it. I think there's also a sense of. Like you said, I didn't admit that what I experienced was abuse because when I heard what other people talked about as abuse or I saw it depicted on tv, it was nowhere near that. Like, it wasn't a daily experience. It wasn't a weekly experience even. But there were isolated incidents where, like, for example, one of the things that I had to be honest with myself about was I didn't experience, like, a daily kind of abuse kind of things, but there were times where my dad kicked me, and that's just not acceptable. Like, that is abuse. And so, no, I wasn't. I didn't go to school with bruises and that kind of thing. And yet what I experienced was abuse. And so I think some of it is also being able to say, I don't want to minimize somebody else's experience by saying mine was abuse. But we also don't have to compare in order for what I experienced to be abuse.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: So, yeah, and as kids, too, sometimes you don't know things are not normal until you experience something different.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: It's exactly right. And I think for those of us who grew up in some sort of dysfunctional context, we don't know what normal is. You know, we don't know that what we experienced wasn't normal. I mean, you know, when I heard about friends, you know, experiencing spankings and that kind of thing, like, I just assumed that's what I had. And that's just. We had the same experience when in reality, theirs may have been in a very controlled environment that was very, you know, intentional. And whereas mine was driven by emotion or alcohol or whatever it was. And they were very different experiences. But, you know, like you said, you don't know what normal is, right?
[00:12:18] Speaker A: So I know one of the things that you talk about in the book and you've mentioned in this conversation too, is that when you grow up in a dysfunctional family, you don't have that template, right, for what a healthy relationship looks like.
Like I said, I have. I have experienced your home and your household. I have been there with you and Sharon and your kids. And it is clear by the love and the grace I've been in your church community, you know, that you have figured it out somehow. So how did you learn what to do better or well without that model?
[00:12:52] Speaker B: So one of the things, you know, in this book, I talk about good baggage and one of pieces of good baggage, meaning one of the things that our childhood put in us, that we can leverage for our relationships now, is this fact that I think, at least for my father, I think one of the obstacles to healing for him was honestly pride of, like, not admitting that there's something wrong, not admitting that he needs help, not going and seeking out that help. And because I saw where that leads, that leads to, you know, a worsening, worsening of a disease. It leads to broken marriages and relationships. For me, there is that still that pride, ego piece. But I'm also like, I know where that goes when I allow that to win.
And so for me, so much of it has been saying, okay, if there's an impulse in me to protect my ego and to not seek out wise counsel, I know where that goes. And so I'm going to prioritize what do I need to do in order to have a healthy relationship. So all of that to say, it's not so much that I have been able to go and find out what is the right healthy relationship template, but it's more saying, okay, a, I didn't have a healthy context, so I'm not just going to instinctively know what that is, but also I need to be open to wise counsel. And so another thing that that then leads to is it says, well, do I want to seek wise counsel after I've messed up, or do I want to seek wise counsel in advance so as much as possible, I don't mess up?
And so the two things then is what good baggage gives us is it gives us a desire for healthy relationships over my pride, over my ego, and I Think it can drive us to be far more intentional about our relationships. And so for Sharon and I, we, at our first year of marriage, started seeing a marriage counselor. And we did that not because we had big problems, but because we didn't. Big problems.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: That's great.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: You know, you're not going to figure out what's a perfect relationship in advance, but you can invite people to speak into your life. And so that's been more. The process for me is being intentional about learning as we go and learning from our mistakes.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: And there's so much of it, too, is as a self awareness. Right. A recognition of, like you said, being able to recognize, I'm having this feeling or I'm having. I'm wanting to do this behavior. I have this tendency.
How do you. How did you move into that? How did you step into a self awareness where you could then recognize, I'm about to go into an unhealthy place?
[00:15:34] Speaker B: You know, that's one of the hardest parts, I think, of making this change is you start out, you know, with some awareness that the way that I handled that wasn't healthy. The thing that I just did, the way that I responded to my. My spouse, my child was not healthy. And so you feel that like, man, I'm repeating the same things that I saw. And you get down on yourself. You get discouraged. But, you know, hopefully you will say, okay, but I want to do this differently. I want to change it. And what's hard about that is the next time you may be halfway through responding in a very poor way and realize, oh, man, you're doing it again. I wasn't going to do this. And so we get discouraged rather than realizing, actually, you know what, that's progress, because at least this time I'm realizing it in the moment.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: Right? Right.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: You know, at least it was like after the fact. And so, you know, that's just the process is the next time you may realize it as you're getting ready to respond the wrong way. And then, you know, a year down the road, whatever it is, you realize, okay, I can feel the emotion rising in me. I can feel the way I want to respond in this rising in me, but I know that I want to do it differently. And so just beginning to do that work of saying, okay, I know that I want to respond differently. How do I want to respond? And then being able to begin to recognize, okay, I want to do this differently in the moment, okay, I can feel it coming on. How do I do this differently? It's such a process. And and not getting discouraged is such a big part of it. And recognizing, you know, one of the things that I share in the book is, on the one hand, did. Did my dad's alcoholism negatively affect our family? Did it impact me? Yes. At the same time, if my dad, even halfway through my childhood, would have done the work necessary to change, that would have dramatically changed the rest of my childhood. And so even if we have, you know, 10 year olds, 11 year olds, high schoolers, whatever it may be, changing now is better than not changing at all.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: Yeah. We always have the opportunity, the option, the potential to change. I think, too, Ike, you and I are very similar personality types, where I'm guessing that you tend to sit in shame.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Like, I do beat yourself up. And so there's definitely something to catching it in the moment. Right. And learning from your mistakes. I think we have to give ourselves freedom to fail.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: And recognize that we made a mistake, we handled that poorly, you know, in the moment. But how do you pull yourself out of. Because I can do it in the moment. And then I'm like, I walk away. I'm like, I did a good job. That was great. I fixed it. But then still, the next day or two days later, I'm still sitting in a shame of why I didn't do it. Even better, you know?
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:18:42] Speaker A: How do you come out of that?
[00:18:43] Speaker B: And then you were kind of like planning, how do I not let that happen next time? You know, and that kind of stuff, you know, So a good example of this is I've, you know, done a number of podcast conversations with, you know, people on the book now, but the f. One of the first ones I did, I came out of it. I was like, man, I feel like I so bombed that. Like, I feel so bad. I honestly, I offered to re record the episode because I feel like I bombed that so bad, you know, and they were super gracious and they were. And. And I think it went fine. But, yeah, for days after that, there was this part of me that was like, gosh, then that was bad, you know? Yeah.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:26] Speaker B: And I think what I've embraced is, on the one hand, did that feeling of failing was. Did that suck? Yes.
Could I have done that better? Yes. But at the same time, if I was not aware of that failure, if I was not able to look at that and say, I could have done that better, then that would not have driven me to then say, okay, what do I need to do next time that can help me do this better? Not from just a performance. Standpoint But I want to honor, say, the people that I'm going on their podcast. I want to honor the audience of the podcast community. And. And so it being able, instead of saying, man, how do I not fail next time? Instead saying, what does failing this time tell me about how to do this differently next time? And how do I learn from that versus beating myself up? And how do I never fail again? I do that with Team I, even to the point of I'm like, we need to fail at something so we can learn how to do them.
And so if we're constantly, like, safeguarding against failure, we're never going to learn the lessons that we need to learn. So that, for example, I. One of the questions I asked you before I came on here, tell me about your audience, because I want to be able to speak to your audience in particular, not just in general. So that was one of the things I learned.
[00:20:46] Speaker A: Well. And that's exactly. That's what I was just. I heard you say, too, like, perspective shift. Right. So instead of thinking about the task or the performance or whatever, think about the person that you're having conflict with or with your podcast example, our listeners. And how can we best serve and care for and love these people?
[00:21:04] Speaker B: Well, yeah.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: And honestly, if that's our motivation.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: No matter what mistakes or flubs we make along the way, it's still going to hit that to an extent.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: Yes, yes, exactly. And I mean, the fact of the matter is, and maybe this is an enneagram3 thing, but I think other people are thinking about me far more than they like, just being honest. You know, my therapist had to tell me. She was like, no offense, you're just not that important, you know, And I could go into a whole story on that, but it was freeing.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Yes. Well, that's because we are constantly thinking of ourselves and what other people think of ourselves, even though no one else is even.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: All right, so we mentioned you and Sharon have three kids.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: So I want to know, how did your childhood experience with your dad shape the parenting of your children now? For better or worse.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
Gosh. So start with for worse.
For worse in the fact that, unfortunately, in the moments as parents where we need to think the clearest, we need to be the most emotionally and mentally present, are also the moments where it's hardest to be mentally and emotional. Emotionally present. And so what happens as a result of that is we default to what we saw, what we experienced. You know, and so if I am caught up in a moment where I'm frustrated And I just want my kids to, to listen and behave and do what I ask them to do. I'm not thinking on the level of like, okay, long term, what's going to be best for my kid, how do I connect with them on a, you know, strong emotional level where I see them. I'm like, I just want you to do what I've said. Right?
[00:22:53] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: And so you default to elevating volume. Like, you know, if I can be louder than you, you're going to do what I ask. If I can threaten you enough, you'll do what I ask, you know, whatever it is.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: So for the, for worse, you know, we default to what we saw. And so that has been one of the bigger challenges that's come out of my childhood is the things that I default to were not necessarily healthy parenting.
At the same time, I think one of the greatest gifts, the good baggage from my childhood and what brings to my parenting is that intentionality. If I know that what I saw wasn't always healthy and I know that what I'm going to default to is those things, I'm going to be a lot more likely to seek out wise counsel to be intentional about developing my parenting. Because what I default to as normal is not healthy. Whereas I think what we can do when we grew up in, you know, a normal environment, we didn't have some of the dysfunction of an outright dysfunctional family is we can take for granted that what we experienced was right.
And in reality it may not be, or maybe we just aren't as intentional about our parenting and, and therefore we don't grow in our parenting as much because we're just doing what we saw that was okay. And so it's really forced me to be very intentional about my parenting, about prioritizing my relationship with my kids, those kinds of things.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: And intentionality outside of those attention filled moments as well too, you know, so that when we do mess up, because none of us are perfect parents, we've got the balance of all of the other good, you know, to help them hang on to.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. That having built the relational capital for those moments is really big.
[00:24:51] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Is there anything in particular that you can think of, like when you do feel like you need to make a repair with one of your kids, what is, what's something that you, that you do?
[00:25:03] Speaker B: So one of the things that I really want to teach my kids, that I have had to learn and I try to teach my staff and anyone in our church is being aware of what's going on in their internal world, like what on an emotional level is motivating your action?
Because if we don't know what that is, then we're either going to just treat symptoms or we're going to blame the wrong person or we're going to blame a situation and then we find ourselves right there again because we haven't dealt with the deep down issue. And so one of the things that I try to do with my kids is I try to communicate on an. Like these were the emotions that I was feeling when I responded this way. So that a, they know it wasn't directly because of their actions, it wasn't because of what they said, because they didn't respond to me fast enough. But to be able to get down and to narrate, you know, here, here's the story of what happened. I was both trying to write an email and watch you guys at the same time and I couldn't focus on my email and you kept asking me and I was trying to do both and I got frustrated and I got really upset and I should have been focused on being present with you because that's what I'm supposed to be doing in this time. And I didn't. And I got really mad. And so I want to apologize, I didn't do that well. And so narrating the experience, but also highlighting their experience of that. And I know that that scared you, I know that that made you worried that you had done something wrong, that you had messed up. And then being able to say, you know what, next time if I'm supposed to be present with you, I'm going to focus on being present with you. And so kind of narrating the experience, highlighting their perspective and sharing what's going on on a deeper level for me, because one of the things that as kids, and I say this all the time because I think it's so helpful, is as kids we live with this sort of omnipotence that if I did this and they responded this way, they responded this way because I did this full stop. We don't realize, oh, they were trying to do two things at one time. Maybe they were under the influence of a lot of stress or even some substance. And so the kids internalized that as I did that bad or I, I'm.
[00:27:37] Speaker A: Bad, I caused this.
[00:27:38] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And so how do we relieve them of that has been a big part of it for me.
[00:27:43] Speaker A: Yeah, that's something too. Our kids can handle it. I mean, my girls are 8 and 10, so they're close to your Kids age, and there are so many days where I just flat out am like, hey, I just came home. I was in meetings all day. My brain is done. I have zero patients left. Or I have, like, 1%. I am frustrated. It is not your fault, but I can't right now. I need you to give me 10 minutes. Like, I want to hear about school. And I try to affirm them, too. Yeah, I want to know about school. I want to see your Barbie's new dress. I want to know about this dance that you just made up, like, whatever it is. But if you will give me 10 minutes to just, like, sit in my closet and not have to hear anybody, then I can be there and it's not you. But just know, like, this is the mental space that I'm in, you know, and they receive that. They understand that.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Well. And using those as even teaching moments, you know, as humans, we need time to process what's going on in our internal world before going into the next thing. Because we'll end up responding to the next person based on how the last person might feel.
[00:28:51] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: And so being able to say, hey, this is a part of our work as humans. And being healthy is processing our internal worlds. Yeah.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: That's modeling the communication. We want them to see if we teach it, but they never see what it's supposed to look like.
[00:29:03] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:29:04] Speaker A: Not actually going to sink in.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And for people to know, you know, like you said, nobody is a perfect parent. We're all going to get things wrong at times.
[00:29:12] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: One of the most helpful things for me was learning that even more important than getting it right every time was doing the work to repair and. And how that not only would lead to greater emotional intimacy in your relationships with your children, but it also models for them, like, here's how you repair a relationship. Here's how you make this better. Here's how you take responsibility for things. Here's how you work, you know, towards healing and resolution was just really freeing. To be able to say, okay, yeah, even when I realized in the middle of it, I'm doing what my parent did, like, I can come back and we can repair that. And that's really freeing.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: I think it takes some humility to. To step away from the hierarchy of, like, parent and child. And you do this because I'm telling you to. Obviously, there's always going to be a bit of that dynamic. Right, Obviously. But I think it's when we're able to look at our kids as humans and see, you know, the imago DEI in them, just as the same as we would look at, you know, a pastor or a leader or somebody that we respect.
It just changes the way that you want to communicate to them.
[00:30:24] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and I think with parenting, I think one of the things we maybe I'll say I have taken for granted is the fact that just like any other power differential in relationship, whoever is, quote, lower in that power differential doesn't have to be reminded that they are lower in that power differential. And yet a lot of times as parents, we feel this impulse of, I need to remind them who is in power here. And not realizing that actually can work against us a lot of times versus being a parent who can say, hey, I messed that up.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: And how that actually makes things better, not worse. You know, I mean, you know this as a pastor, right? Like, for us to go in and remind our people, hey, I'm your pastor, in case you forgot that.
[00:31:18] Speaker A: Can you imagine?
[00:31:19] Speaker B: Right. Like, that's not going to help anything. And I think similar thing with us as parents.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: So, okay, that's actually a perfect segue into my next question for you because not only are you a dad, not only are you a husband, you are a pastor at Bright City. And that brings so many relationships. And if I'm being honest, the relationships in my church, the relationships of ministry, are both my favorite and the hardest thing about ministry.
So how do you keep from slipping into the sabotaging cycles that you talk about in your book with so many relationships to juggle?
[00:31:59] Speaker B: Yeah. So just to recap for people real quick, the sab. The cycle of sabotage that I talk about in the book is this idea of codependency, which is basically a loss of identity. I don't know who I am apart from who I am to other people, which leads to approval seeking or people pleasing. I get my value entirely from other people's approval. And so I perform constantly. When we can't keep up that approval seeking, we will move into deception. How do I keep up the appearance that I am meeting your expectations of me when I'm really not? And then what we really need instead of, you know, approval seeking and deception is boundaries. But because we don't know who we are, we don't know how to respect ourselves, we fall right back into the codependency and depending on other people to define us. So that's the cycle of sabotage. And in ministry, the way that. That I began to discover that is one I just became exhausted with trying to make sure everybody was happy with me all the time in particular during COVID when that was impossible, because no matter what decision you made about masking, about meeting in person, about conversations around race, somebody was going to be unhappy.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: And they were going to let you know.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: Yes. And so I realized that I was finding, like, my approval. My. How I felt about myself was directly tied to how my people felt about me as a pastor. And I was trying to control everybody's feelings about me and their emotions and their reactions with my words and actions. In other words, I had become codependent with my whole church.
[00:33:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And you can't do that. You can't be that. And so all of that, to say a huge part of how I don't fall into that now is doing exactly what we said a few minutes ago, which is I have to take time between meetings and before meetings to process what's going on in my internal world. So if I've got a conversation coming up with somebody that's going to be kind of an intense conversation, I will sit down and I'll start out, and I'll just say, hey, I'll write it out. Why do I feel anxious about this meeting?
And I'll respond and I'll say, because I'm afraid of it not going well. Why am I afraid of it not going well? But. Well, because I'm afraid that they're going to get really angry with me. Well, why am I afraid of them getting angry with me? Well, because if I. If they're angry with me about this, then it says that I'm not good at my job. And if I'm not good at my job, where does my value come from? And so I'm able to say I'm anxious about this meeting because my value is tied up in how this person feels about me. Well, if that's the case, is my value really tied to how this meeting goes? No. Yeah, it's not. And so I can step back from that, and I can say, okay, you know what? Regardless of how this meeting goes, that doesn't change my value as a child of God, as someone who's called to ministry, as someone called to lead my people. And so I can go into this meeting and I can have boundaries, I can receive whatever they have to say, but I don't have to apologize for things that I didn't do. I don't have to be defensive of myself for things that, you know, they don't understand.
And if it doesn't go well, I can still leave this meeting as a human being who knows that he's loved by God. And so, so much of it is that work of being able to understand what is going on in my internal world so that I don't fall into, ok, what do I have to say to make this person happy? How do I keep this person content? What are they expecting of me, and how do I meet those expectations? Because all of that drives us into unhealthy relational patterns.
[00:35:44] Speaker A: Yeah, well. And you really just gave people a strategy, too, of like, ask the next question, which I do this with my kids, but I forget to do this to myself. Yeah, ask the next question. I'll tell my daughter she has anxiety. And so I'm always like, okay, you got your worst case scenario. Follow it through. Let's see it all the way through.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: So what if that happens? And then what if that happens? And then what if that happens? And then by the time she gets there, she's like, oh, I can handle this.
[00:36:09] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. Yeah. One of my phrases that I've adopted now is the only thing that's the end of the world is the end of the world.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: Like, oh, yeah. That puts that in perspective.
[00:36:20] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: Well.
[00:36:22] Speaker A: And I think sometimes too, unfortunately for me. What? It's not so much the current meetings and conversations. I feel like I can handle those. Well, it's the grief of the past relationships that catch me by surprise. It's, you know, running into somebody who used to be part of our church. It's running into somebody who used to believe in me. It's running into somebody who I used to have a relationship with and now don't for whatever reason. Those are the ones that catch me off guard. And before I can even get to a place where I can sit with God and go, hey, please remind me of my value and my calling in you. I have to let myself sit in the feelings. Like, I have to let myself sit there and feel the grief again and be mad that I'm sad about it again.
[00:37:08] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, and I think it's really helpful in those moments not to just sit in it, but to put some language to it.
You know, Sharon and I have this conversation a lot around, like, processing those kinds of griefs. And, you know, when Sharon and I were talking through it, I think she put it on this idea of I just have high expectations for people and when they don't meet that expectation and, you know, it's really hard, and so I just need to have lower expectations, you know, that. But the truth is, you know, when we went down a few layers, there was more going on than that. And, and so for us to put language to.
Well, it's not just that I'm feeling that, but here's why I'm feeling that allows you to then begin healing and saying, okay, this is why I feel this way. And it's not just this jumble of emotions, but I can actually name that. And, and, and, and what that does is, allows us to quantify it. You know, it's kind of like when you've got a big bunch of, like, towels that just came out of the dryer, Right. And you've. It's like this huge pile of towels, and it's like, everywhere. But then you fold them and they're like, okay, it's a stack. This is the stack of towels I had.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: I can see the individual things.
[00:38:28] Speaker B: Yes, you can see the individual things. You can quantify them. You can put them on a shelf nice and neatly. And I think it's the same thing with our emotional world. We've got to take some time because otherwise we'll just be constantly overwhelmed by the jumble of things under the surface.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: We gotta do that emotional laundry.
[00:38:42] Speaker B: That's right. There you go. There you go. Fold your emotional laundry.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: I like it. I like it.
All right, so a lot of this book was based on your family of origin, but what about people who are listening and find themselves in a dysfunctional relationship right now?
[00:38:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: What can they do if they, you know, whether it's they still have living parents or maybe it's people outside their family, like you said, it could be a substance use issue, it could be an illness.
What can they do practically if they find themselves in the middle of a tough relationship?
[00:39:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So there's. There honestly is a lot in there for people who find themselves in the midst of a tough relationship right now. And there's a lot of reasons for that. The cycle of sabotage, for example, I think plays out in our relationships regardless of what our childhood was like, because we've all experienced rejection. We've all experienced broken trust, disloyalty. We've all experienced some level of dysfunction in a relationship that has affected how we enter other relationships. And so that piece, I think, plays out for all of us. But I do get into in this book how, you know, for example, a lot of us give loyalty to the wrong relationships. Yes. And that's for a lot of reasons. It can be a sense of, well, yeah, I know this relationship isn't healthy, but it's better than the unknown.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: Or I get. If I get out of this relationship what if I get into one that's even worse? You know, and so I talk about that in one chapter about, you know, are you giving loyalty to the right people? You know, for someone who maybe finds themself? I have a chapter on healthy romance and dating and marriage. And in there I talk about, like, if you find yourself consistently dating the same wrong kind of person, you know, here's some things to think about. Here's why we find ourselves in these relationships consistently, and here's how we can go about this differently. So there's a lot in there that. That does speak to kind of current relationships as well, for sure.
[00:40:49] Speaker A: Awesome. Yeah. You have all section on relational intelligence, too. I'm like, oh, this is brilliant.
We need this.
[00:40:57] Speaker B: Yes. One of my favorite sections, honestly, is I talk about being a hopeless romantic, and then, like, the signs of a hopeless romantic versus a hopeful romantic, I talk about in there. And it's. It's so funny because the honest truth is I share list of things. But it's so me, like, yeah, you know, you. You fall hard, fast. You know, you become super preoccupied with this relationship and close out all your friends, you red flags, like, you know, all things, and I'm like, guilty man, you know, but hopefully those lists help us name things that are going on and how we learn from them for future relationships. So.
[00:41:37] Speaker A: Yeah, And I would encourage people, too, to, like, I think I'm a hopeless romantic when it comes to new people. Like, even in our church, I fall hard and fast for everyone.
[00:41:46] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:41:48] Speaker A: Which sets me up for failure later.
[00:41:50] Speaker B: You know, but that's great. That's a good point for sure.
[00:41:54] Speaker A: All right, Ike. Well, the hope in your story is that we can use our past experiences to thrive. And so I want to know. I know this is going to be a hard question for an enneagram3, but I want to know what your favorite current quality is of yourself that's been an outcome of your past.
[00:42:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
So one of the things, honestly, I'm just thinking through the intentionality piece is a big one.
But honestly, the biggest thing, and I try to tell people this a lot, is I had a conversation with a friend just recently where he is expecting their first child. And he's talking about how, like, he doesn't want to be a bad father. You know, he wants to do differently from his own father. And I honestly, I love getting to say and encourage a friend like that. Hey, I just want you to know the fact that you're even thinking about that is huge.
The fact that you even care about that is huge. And I think because of what I experienced, you know, I both have that perspective of I want to do things differently, but also can say that in itself is a first step.
And so that desire to do things differently than I saw, I love that it gives me a lot of freedom to be able, you know, when it comes to leadership of my team, even to say, I don't have to do this how I've seen everybody else do it, even if it's how everybody else does it.
[00:43:33] Speaker A: Right.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: I can do this differently if I'm intentional, if I'm thoughtful, if I'm careful. And so just that. That freedom, that willingness, that ability to say, I want to do this differently. I want to do this better, and I can learn.
[00:43:44] Speaker A: Yeah, well. And you're able. Yeah. Just to be an encouragement to people and a model and saying, hey, this is. This actually works.
[00:43:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I've seen this happen.
[00:43:54] Speaker B: Yep. Absolutely.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: Well, friend, I'm gonna. We're gonna link up the book and your mini podcast series that goes with the book. We'll link that all up. Listen, if y'all are in the Durham area, anywhere in driving distance of the Durham area, if I was, I would be there every Sunday.
Check out Bright City. Ike and Sharon are some of my absolute favorite pastors. You guys care for your people, and you are so wise in your teaching, and so I just want to encourage you to keep doing what you're doing.
[00:44:24] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, we love you guys, too. We're so grateful for you guys and cheering you guys on and grateful for your encouragement and just awesome, awesome folks. So thanks for having me be a part of this conversation.
[00:44:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it's been awesome.
As long as there are people in our lives, relationships will be tricky. So I'm grateful for resources like Good baggage that help us to do the best we can with the people we love. Use the links below to get Ike's book or dive deeper with his podcast miniseries. You can also work on folding that emotional laundry with the resources tab of the Mosaic Church website. Until next time, keep becoming church to the people around.
