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For over 25 years Proverbs 31 Ministries' mission has been to intersect God's Word in the real, hard places we all struggle with. That's why we started this podcast. Every episode will feature a variety of teachings from president Lysa TerKeurst, staff members or friends of the ministry who can teach you something valuable from their vantage point. We hope that regardless of your age, background or stage of life, it's something you look forward to listening to each month!
Meredith Brock:
Hi, friends, thanks for joining us for another episode of The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast, where we share biblical Truth for any girl in any season. I am your host Meredith Brock, and I am here with my co-host, Kaley Olson.
Kaley Olson:
Well, hey, Meredith. I'm excited for our friends to get to hear our conversation today. Because we talk about burnout, which I think —
Meredith Brock:
It's real.
Kaley Olson:
It really, it is real. And I think that if you're listening to this and you saw the title of this show, you probably need help right now. Which is exactly what we're going to do today. We're going to have our friend, Bonnie Gray, on the show today. And we're going to talk about our tendency as women to have this “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” mentality and our tendency to just push through and keep going without stopping and where that eventually leads us. And she's going to share four ways that we can learn how to take care of ourselves practically today. I'm excited for you guys to hear that conversation, so let's head on in.
All right, everyone, let's welcome our new friend, Bonnie Gray, to the podcast. Welcome, Bonnie.
Bonnie Gray:
Oh, so happy to be here, Kaley and Meredith. Thank you for having me.
Kaley Olson:
Of course, Bonnie. You are joining us from close to Silicon Valley in California, so thank you for joining us from across the country. We're excited to have you here. Just for our listeners to know, Bonnie is an author, a podcaster, and one of the writers for our Encouragement for Today Devotions at Proverbs 31 Ministries. And today she is here to address something I'm confident that probably 99.9% of our listeners have [experienced] or will experience one day, and that is burnout. But I have to be honest here: One of the reasons I think women, and myself included, might get stuck in a season of burnout is because we've been told that any form of self-care can be unspiritual. And so, Bonnie, we're going to turn the mics over to you. And we can't wait to hear you share what you've learned from walking through your own seasons of burnout and how you can help our listeners get through theirs. So take it away, Bonnie.
Bonnie Gray:
Oh, thanks for having me. Even though we're on opposite sides of the coast, we're just united as women who love God. And one of the first things that was really hard for me as I was suffering through burnout is just wrestling with this whole question: Is it even spiritual to focus on taking care of myself or on self-care? It seems like a secular concept. And it even started from the very beginning as a little girl; I was just sharing with you before we started that I was born in a family where my mom was a 17-year-old bride. She was a mail-order bride from Hong Kong, and she met my father the day that he came from San Francisco, flew over to Hong Kong to marry my mom.
And so, my story began in a very unusual way; at least I thought it was kind of weird. I never really told anybody about what my family life was like. Once I stepped through the door to go to school, I was just wanting to be like all the other girls in my class. And so, I hid all the dysfunctional things that were happening at home, because my father left when I was 7 years old. And in our church, I was one of the very few families that came from what we might call a broken home. And it was just something that I just didn't want to talk about. At a very young age, I always felt like my faith was more focused on the mountaintop experiences in life. Wait until I am able to get a testimony. I've gone up to the mountaintop and went through the valleys, and then I would share my testimony.
But most of life is walking through the desert. Most of life is walking through the wilderness, and it's the journey really where God wants to meet us. But I never understood it. It wasn't until I became a mom myself when I felt like I finally made it through my difficult childhood. I felt like God had helped me overcome a lot of verbal abuse, emotional abuse, but I didn't know it affected me until I became a mom myself. And out of nowhere, I finally met somebody who was very loving. My husband is a very loving, kind person; his name is Eric. And I just had Josh and Caleb. I told myself: I'm going to start new now. It's too late for me. The childhood I didn't choose, that's in the past, and I just want to focus on a new family, new legacy of faith.
And so, I was very happy after having my second little baby boy. But it was at that moment I started having panic attacks. And at that time I was a mom, later in my 30s; I got married later in life. And so, I was a Bible teacher in my church. I was training other people to study Scripture and even training the trainer. I felt like I finally arrived at a peaceful place, but I was so ashamed that I was having panic attacks and not wanting to get out of bed and unable to even fall asleep at night. And all I could think about were all these worries. I didn't even know how to turn them off, and I didn't know why. I secretly wanted to get it taken care of, meaning I went to the doctors, and it was actually even scarier when they told me all my blood tests and everything was fine. I was healthy.
It's almost like I wanted to find that there was something that was physically wrong with me. Because the thought of having to go see a therapist to figure out why I was having panic attacks, that was really scary for me. Some of the listeners right now, as we're hearing this podcast, I hope that this time that I share with you about burnout is just going to give you peace and reassure you that God wants you to take care of you. It's a season in life where maybe like me, your story may be different from mine, but we often focus on taking care of other people as godly women who want to love others, serve others, serve God. We don't realize that when we put our hearts to the side, it actually has a cost to our emotional well-being, our physical well-being, our social well-being and our spiritual well-being.
I didn't know this at all, because I didn't tell anybody — none of my friends, nobody at church. I was like, OK, I'm just going to try to figure this out. And that's another thing about burnout, is that, we just try to figure things out. We try to think our way through. But as you'll be encouraged to hear today, we need to nurture our way through to wellness with God. We don't just think about how we can move toward wellness. Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind" (Matthew 22:37, CEV). And so we're very good as godly women, to focus on right thinking; that's the mind. We also are good at being devoted to our families and serving God. That's from our heart. It's our devotion.
And yet for me, it's almost as if that part of the greatest commandment, to love God with my soul, it's almost like it didn't even exist. In Matthew 11:28-29, Jesus says, "Come to Me, [those] who are weary and [heavy] burdened, and I will give you rest [for your soul]" (NASB). It's interesting: Jesus doesn't call us to give us rest for our minds, or our heart, but our soul. So, soul care is this practice I had to start learning; it was very new for me, to practice letting God nourish and tend to our bodies and emotions the way God intended when He designed our nervous system and our well-being.
Soul care is tending to the garden of your soul, like soil nourishing seeds of flowers, so you can blossom into the woman God created you to be. Soul care originates from Jesus Himself, because He says in Matthew 11:28, we look at 29, it says, "For my yoke is easy and light; it's comfortable." That's the original Greek word, is comfortable. And He says, "And you will find rest for your souls."
So soul care is action. It's faith with feet on it. It's taking action to find rest. Many times I know for myself ... I felt so lonely and I felt so shameful. I mention the word “shameful,” because I would just pray, God, I'm praying; You know I love You. I'm reading Your word; I'm praying, but why are You not taking away this anxiety? Why are You not helping me, God? And it's just this lonely feeling. And Jesus just brought me to this passage and very gently said, "Bonnie, I am with you. But dear, beloved daughter, I need you to start learning to find rest. That means you need to trust Me enough that you're worth the rest."
And this is the first time in my life, I mentioned a little bit, Meredith and Kaley, that I grew up in a dysfunctional family culture. And that culture is that it's wrong to focus on how you feel. And so a lot of times as a little girl, when I was upset or things were stressing me out, I just kept it to myself. I don't want to complain. It's kind of that message I received. If you don't have anything helpful to say, you don't have anything that can help this family, things are already hard enough, just please, keep it to yourself. I took that message, and I just adopted it in my relationship with God. I want to serve God. I don't want to bug Him; I don't want to wear Him out. If I have a problem, maybe if it's something specific, I'll tell Him about it, ask Him for help. But I don't want to keep bugging Him.
And even my emotions, I didn't really look at this verse where Jesus says, "Come to me, weary and heavy laden," it's like bringing our negative emotions to Him. And that just seems so taboo. But yet here it is, God's Word. Jesus doesn't say, "Come to me cheerful, come to me helpful, come to me ready to serve." No, it's the complete opposite.
So, as I go through these four different areas of burnout, I want to also give you some tips. And these are just little teasers. You know, if you shop at Costco or even Trader Joe's, they always have these samples. I'm hoping that as I give you these little tips in these four areas of wellness, you can really start giving yourself permission through God's Word. And this conversation, you know what? How I feel is important to God, and it's His priority for me because this is my soul. He's the Shepherd of my soul.
As I go through these four areas of wellness, I would love to just ask you to think about what area of wellness am I missing the most? What area am I missing the most? Many of us are moms, or we're caregivers for our parents. Some of us are in that empty-nester stage, and we're grandmas, or we're students, and we're so often focused on the other people. But right now with Jesus, with [inaudible] and His Word, we're just going to give ourselves permission to think about God's main priority is your soul, how you're doing. And at the end of our time together, I'm going to give you a really powerful soul-care technique that you can use in any situation to stop anxiety right away. To stop your body's stress response, to activate your body's God-designed rest-and-relaxation response.
Because as I sat there in the therapist's office and he told me, "Bonnie, did you know that emotional abuse, verbal abuse has the same impact as physical abuse?" I sat there silent, because I did not know that. I told him, "But I know God's Word. I pray; I have a loving husband." It's almost like I didn't want him to think anything was wrong with me, or judge my family. And yet he said, "Bonnie, did you know that a soldier doesn't experience anxiety and panic attacks when he's on the battlefield? When he's strong, he's helping others; he's being very, very resourceful. He only starts experiencing his anxiety when he comes home, when he's safe. That's when his body can express what he could not at the time he was being strong." All of us have been through the pandemic; all of us have been through trauma, whether it's capital-T Trauma or lowercase-t trauma. Meaning, things where you've had to put your feelings to the side, your well-being, because you needed to be strong for those you love.
But there is a time, there comes a time, that may be you right now, where your body's telling you: I need rest; I need rejuvenation. And I want to tell you that this is a journey of love and kindness that God wants to give us. It's not a place of shame. It's just like a beautiful flower. If you've ever gotten flowers at Trader Joe's, sometimes it's hard for me to decide. Do I spend the money on butter and bread, or should I get some flowers? And I forgot to water them, because I was busy cooking and washing the dishes, and they just end up on the counter. But they were wilted, the hydrangeas. I'm like, oh no, I actually bought them and now they're ruined? I quickly Googled, and I found out that if we put the stems in hot water, they'll rejuvenate.
So, let's just jump in. Let's start with four areas of wellness. I want you to take my soul-care quiz. It's at soulcarequiz.com, and you'll go through 21 different stressors. And you'll be able to see which area ... because sometimes we're so stressed out, we're in survival mode getting things done; we didn't even know we're stressed in these areas of wellness. Go to soulcarequiz.com; you'll be able to see the results of which area to confirm your maybe gut feeling. And it's connected to this new book that I'm so happy to be able to be here to share with you that goes through the 21 stressors. But we're going to hit four right now, because I want to leave you with some practical tips that helped me with burnout.
OK. First is emotional wellness. And I'm just curious, do you connect with anything that I've shared? Meaning, you easily neglect your own feelings, and if something goes wrong, whether it's in the lives of your kids, family, work, ministry or friends, do you feel that you're the one responsible to pick up the pieces and shoulder their burdens? If yes, you are like me and most women. Studies show that women experience burnout more than men. Why are we not surprised to hear that? But the studies and the numbers confirm it, because being overly responsible is one cause of emotional burnout. There's no room for us to process our negative emotions, because we're busy being shock absorbers for everybody else around us.
Here's a myth. We try to feel better by thinking our way out of stress, but the truth is, we have to nurture our way to relieve stress. Let me explain. I learned there are two types of anxiety. There's left-brain and right-brain anxiety. The left brain is where we problem-solve. That's the logic part of our brain, where we experience anxiety called “anxious apprehension.” That's when we hyperfocus, trying to solve some problem, and we worry too much. It results in overthinking about problems we encounter. Sometimes we beat ourselves up, right? Listen to the way we talk to ourselves. We would never talk that way to anybody around us. For me, I'll say things like, "Come on, Bonnie; suck it up. Just get over yourself. Just focus on getting it done." This is how I talk to myself. I never talk to anybody that way.
What do you say to yourself when you're stressed, friend? What do you say to yourself? Well, the right brain is what we call the emotional part of our brain, the feeling part of our brain, where we experience panic, sadness, fear. It's called “anxious arousal.” This is where we become overwhelmed with emotions. Now, think about it. When I ask you how do you cope with stress? Do you lean on your left brain mostly like I did, and still do? It's automatic, the way we've been brought up. Or maybe you've adopted it through some difficult experience in your life, you want to just get through it. But the right brain, guess what? Studies show the right brain is how we lower that overthinking. The right brain is where we enjoy creative hobbies, where our auditory sense lights up enjoying music, or our visual sense like art. Or maybe our tactile sense, using your hands, like gardening, knitting, or playing an instrument.
What's the first thing we drop when we're stressed? It's the right-brain stuff. We think, oh my gosh, that's the first thing to go. When we get a long to-do list, we just throw out all the right-brain stuff. But it's the right brain that calms anxiety. Yes, it's the right brain. So what do you like to do with your hands? Research shows activities using your hands stops that negative rumination. It's called finding your flow. So don't beat yourself up when you're worrying too much, and you can't turn it off. Take an action that's calming for you, whatever that is that you like to do with your hands. The Bible says that we comfort others with the comfort we first receive ourselves (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). Notice that order. We receive the comfort from God first. It's like putting on our oxygen masks.
I recently flew to Austin to do an interview, and I haven't flown in a long time during the pandemic; I was really nervous. But oh, there it is. There's that same message: I'm putting on my oxygen mask first before I help other people around me. This is a great metaphor for our spiritual wellness, our physical wellness. We need to first receive the comfort; what's comforting to you? Next time you're stressed, ask yourself rather than trying to think your way out; OK, let me think. What would comfort me right now? What would that be? This gets into the second area of physical wellness.
Physical wellness, I actually didn't even know that I was so burned out until my hair started falling out. That same time when I told you that those panic attacks were happening, my hair was falling out. And it was so odd, because I felt like I was doing pretty well in terms of my physical wellness. But our body's last line of defense, when it comes to stress, it starts showing things like hives, migraines, eye twitching, insomnia, fibromyalgia worsening. These are just signal lights, just like the lights on a dashboard, that you need care. Again, not to feel embarrassed or ashamed of it. We would never get mad at the car if the dashboard started lighting up. We would say, oh, OK. I need to take the car in to get it taken care of. We are so much more important than a car. We're organic ... we're flowers ... we're trees. Scripture always talks about us as trees. God cares about you.
You know that feeling like it's selfish or unspiritual? It's really hard to get over those guilty feelings. And as a soul-care coach, that's one of the first things people tell me. "Well, Bonnie, it sounds so good, but I just feel guilty because it means somebody else is going to not get what I think that they need. If I say yes to me, it means that I have to say no to serving at the church, or maybe my son or daughter wants to do this other thing. But if I say no to that, my schedule's already packed, Bonnie." And so, I would turn to this passage. And it's when Jesus went to go help a little girl. Everybody thought she had passed away because there was no breath. She was not breathing. She was on her bed. And so many of us feel that way. We can hardly take a breath.
And that's why I named my new book Breathe. Because we can be so busy, and yet inside that inner self, our soul, we're not taking a breath. This little girl, Jesus came to sit next to her bed and gently hold her hand. And it's His loving touch that brought her back to life. Do you know the story that I'm talking about? This beautiful story where Jairus has come to ask Jesus to heal the little girl? And when He touched her, she came alive. And what's the first thing Jesus said to her? He said, "Give her something to eat." Oh my goodness. When we study scripture, we want to also see what it doesn't say. It doesn't say ... it's contrast, right? The technique of contrast. Scriptures doesn't say, Jesus said, "OK, go and serve the crowds outside. You know they've been waiting for you for a long time now; you should go and serve them." Jesus didn't say, "OK, get up and now go do the dishes. Get up now and go do your homework."
No, Jesus said, "Give her something to eat." Some of us really need to have that permission, that freedom. Don't skip eating; eat something that you love. Take the time. But as I study this, we're actually doing a Wellness Bible study right now, and it's actually a free gift I offer for buying the book Breathe. Because it's so important, this Bible study. We just study, and a lot of women actually said, "I relate to when Jesus put the crowds out. Because He only brought in Peter, James and John into that, I'll call it, inner room, where Jesus touched the little girl. And the scriptures say He had to put the crowds out.
Now, a lot of people struggle, myself included, with boundaries. So you never would've known, oh my gosh, my physical wellness is related to boundaries. The whole burnout experience is related to boundaries, and it's so powerful to see Jesus put the crowd out. Who is the crowd for you that you need to draw a boundary, friend? For your wellness, that's going to be your first step. You need to draw a boundary to put the crowds out. I know many of you are like “aah!” ... but this is what Jesus did, in order to have that intimate experience of focusing on your wellness. Just with that little girl, just with that little girl.
This is just my takeaway from it. It's not the interpretation, but we all have different experiences of takeaways after we study scripture. I felt God ... Jesus was saying, "It's OK, little girl, don't worry about the crowd. Just focus on your wellness." And that's how God whispered to me as the scripture was being opened up. And many of you are feeling that it's time for you to draw a boundary. Maybe you needed to take care of something; it was a priority for a temporary season in your life, but God did not intend for you to hold that responsibility or role indefinitely.
The third area of wellness is social wellness. And this is really important, because many of us ... I didn't realize this because I was serving a lot, and I realized when I started having panic attacks and having a lot of these very painful things happen in my life that were being revisited to heal, I found I couldn't think of somebody that I would meet with to talk with. I met with a lot of people for coffee, but it was always about ministry. And I realized this is missing from my life. And it gets into this whole principle, I call it “the principle of three.” Jesus brought Peter, James and John into that inner place, healing the little girl. Jesus also brought them in Gethsemane, the most difficult night of His life.
And we are just passing through Easter, and we recall very closely that moment. Jesus often prayed alone; we know this. And yet the worst night of His life, Jesus said, "My heart is overwhelmed and deeply distressed"; He allowed His disciples to hear Him. Jesus Himself needed that connection as a human on the worst night of His life. So if Jesus Himself wanted to bring people to pray with Him, to be with Him, we need to allow and develop those kind of connections. I had to start at being a mom, starting from scratch. I need to learn more about what this kind of deep friendship is where I can confide in somebody, rather than just give. What does it mean to receive in friendship?
Some of us may be hearing this and realizing that's the first thing I let go once I get burned out or stressed. I haven't seen my friend in a long time; I haven't gone out to have dinner, or have Thai. How is it you like to spend your time with friends? Research shows that when we are able to talk about how we feel rather than just what we do ... sometimes we catch up with each other, but we often just talk about what we're doing but not how we're feeling. There's a UCLA study; I love this. Once God brought this on my path, it really freed me. Because it showed people in a study looking at images of negative emotions, like people feeling stressed or angry or sad, and their bodies were hooked up to biometrics, and their heart rate started rising, their blood pressure started rising, their pupils started dilating. They were stressed just looking at other people being stressed.
But when they had them look at the same images again, the only thing they asked them to do is to name the negative emotion. Guess what? Their bodies started relaxing, their heart rate went back to resting place. So naming our emotions is very important. God designed our bodies to release stress by not being alone, not by hiding our emotions but by naming them. And so our friends, trusted friends that we develop, can be that release for us. That's why ... the New Testament's full of “each other” verses: encourage each other; pray for one another.
OK. The last part, this is where I was telling you, this is my go-to really powerful soul-care technique you can use in any situation to stop anxiety right away. I learned that our body has a stress response: the fight, flight, freeze response. And this is when all the stress hormones, our body tension, all those body reactions ... And so, I learned that God created also a combating force, which is called a rest-and-relaxation response. And we activate it; we have the ability. A lot of times we might feel guilty, like, God, I'm praying. Why are You not helping me relax? And God's like, Oh, I created it in you, but you need to take action.
So this is very easy. It's called a breath prayer ... breath prayer. We inhale. We exhale. This is breath work. We've heard it in our secular society, very, very trendy, hot topic right now. But as believers, we have the source. There's over a thousand different references for breathe, or breath, in Scripture. God is the originator of breath work. So we want to breathe in God's Word; we can practice our breath, our breathing to help our bodies re-oxygenate and relax. But we also want to add a prayer. Today we're just going to practice this wherever you're at. We're going to inhale: I cast all my cares on You. We exhale: because You care for me. This is 1 Peter 5:7. We're going to do it three times. Inhale: I cast my cares on You. Exhale: because You care for me. And you just keep doing this breath prayer. And each exhale, you can name whatever's stressing you.
And this is so quick; I share this with my kids. They're teenagers now: 13 and 17 in Silicon Valley. It's a very, very high-stress environment. Even the school they go to, it's been investigated by the CDC for high rates of suicide here in Silicon Valley. So I teach this breath prayer to my kids as well. And there's 21 different breath prayers that are in my new book. And these are things that we practice in my family. And it's practical. It's nothing woo woo, but it's really practical. It's God's promises. And so, they do it right before they take a test, and it helps to relax our bodies as well as their spirit.
So, friend, out of these four areas we just talked about — emotional wellness, physical wellness, spiritual wellness and social wellness — which area are you missing the most? Our heavenly Father, our Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit is touching that area in you. It's a place of need, and it's a place where God wants to meet us. And it is beautiful, intimate soul care. I am so excited. I want to continue to encourage you, friend. I want to be that friend that can encourage you. I want to invite you to pick up a copy of my new book, Breathe. It's a journey of 10 years of healing where I said, OK, let's distill it down to 21 stressors and solutions. Because research shows that 21 days is how long it takes to break those old patterns of thinking. And when we add an action to it, that's how our brain rewires itself and our spirit can be made new.
So pick up my book, Breathe: 21 Days to Stress Less and Transform Chaos to Calm. This is not a book of ideas. This is literally the top 21 ways that help me calm my nervous system, renew my mind with God's Word, and nurture myself. Because we need that encouragement. It's not something we often hear. And I want to also invite you to connect with me, if you would like to have soul-care coaching. I needed friends along the journey, people that are little ahead of me on the journey that helped me. I wouldn't have been able to be here without their help. And so, it's my passion to also come alongside women to help those who are on this journey of healing as well. And lastly, come visit me at soulcarequiz.com. You take that quiz, and it'll help you to be more aware. And there's a Soul-Care School. And remember, you get that free Wellness Bible study as you make that preorder. All of that is available to you, from my heart to yours. Thank you so much for this opportunity to share this message, this ministry. I'm very grateful.
Meredith Brock:
Bonnie, thank you so much. I can't wait to shimmy over and do this quiz, soul-care quiz. This sounds wonderful. But before I do that, I actually have a question for you —
Bonnie Gray:
I love questions.
Meredith Brock:
This is something that I've kind of wrestled with. I am a ... lot of what you said resonates with me. I feel like a lot of people who grow up in difficult circumstances develop this personality that's like, I'm just going to pull myself up by the bootstraps, push through it, personalities. And in some regards, that serves us well, because it gives us a little bit more tenacity than a lot of people. And we've been stretched probably further than a lot of people because we had to ... as children, we had to create a little bit more resiliency as a child. And so, help me understand the difference between what you're referring to as burnout and maybe just a season of being stretched. Because we do need to be stretched in order to grow. And so help me discern, how do I know if I've entered into a season of burnout and really need to make some changes? Or how do I know if maybe the Lord is just saying, It's time to grow a little bit, Meredith, and I'm stretching you in order for you to grow?
Bonnie Gray:
Yeah. I think that Jesus when He said ... it's a great question, because this is important that we do ... there are times where we have to carry the cross. We're on our way to hard things, and God wants us to use our faith to push through. And that is one area of expressing our faith, is pushing through and overcoming and surviving. But that is not all the season of life. Jesus says Himself that we are to find rest. And so, what are the indications of burnout for me? It’s our physical wellness. My hair started falling out. Our bodies will tell us when we've hit burnout; that's one indication. And so, there are many different symptoms of that. We talked about insomnia; we talked about fibromyalgia; we talked about hives. Physical ... our bodies letting us know we've pushed past the limit of our bodies.
The second area we talked about is emotional wellness, and that's when we just are struggling with a lot of negative emotion that is overwhelming us. This is more hidden. Especially those of us who did grow up through hard times, or you've been through a hard season; a lot of women talked about feeling numb. So we can get a lot done, but a lot of women are feeling numb, and they've lost their joy. That's the emotional wellness. Some people might be more aware of that, like OK, you know what? I'm not happy. And so, a lot of times we ignore that, and we shame ourselves. But God is saying, no, comfort is important. Comfort others with the comfort you first receive yourself. And God values our tears. Scripture says, God keeps our tears in a bottle. He records each moment in His book, so we're not to skip over it.
The third area is social wellness. A lot of us are withdrawing. Maybe at one point, we loved being with people, but now we find, gosh, I don't even want to be around people that much. I'd rather just be home, and I'm fine being alone. This is another indication that our burnout has hit us, and we realize we're more isolated than we have been and withdrawing.
And then the next area is spiritually we just feel, we know God loves us, we're grateful, we practice gratefulness, and yet we just feel far from God. And so, we want to feel close to Him. Some women talk to me about that: "I'm doing everything right. I'm reading Scripture; I'm praying, but I just don't feel close to God anymore." A lot of times we do want to say we don't want to follow our emotions, let it control us, but God did not design our life to be indefinitely in that place of numbness. He wants us to have the fruit of the spirits: peace, joy, love, patience, gentleness, kindness, self-control, all those fruits. If those fruits are diminishing, it's not a time to condemn ourselves. It's saying, oh wow, a tree produces fruit because it's nourished. It needs water; it needs fertilization. We can be stretched, but we still need that soul care.
Kaley Olson:
Yeah, I agree, Bonnie. I think one of the things ... Meredith, I'm grateful that you brought up the difference between being stretched and feeling burnout and the dialogue we've been able to have about that. Because one of the things that came to my mind was something we talk about here at Proverbs. I think Lysa started talking about it maybe with it's not supposed to be this way. And it's the line that we believe God won't give me more than I can handle. And as women, I think that ... well, first of all, that's a lie. The Bible never says God will not give you more than you can handle. Because I think that when He does, that's us being stretched. But it's how we lean into those seasons of being stretched.
But I think when we do believe the lie that, oh, I'm going to be comfortable. God will never give me more than I can handle, or He's put in me everything that I need to be able to conquer this season. There's almost this victor mentality that we have, before we've even gone through something, to come on the other side and get the victory. But I think that's where we can sit in shame. Because we think, oh, I'm supposed to have what I need, or I was made to be the mother of these children. I'm supposed to know how to do this.
Meredith Brock:
You're supposed to be so strong.
Kaley Olson:
Yeah, I'm supposed to be so strong. And so there's this shame, Jim Cress on Therapy & Theology refers to it as self-hatred at my expense. I think the enemy wants us to live there, whether we're in seasons of being stretched, or whether we're in seasons of being burnt out. And, Bonnie, that's why I'm grateful that you came on the show today to tell us practical ways to be able to handle burnout. Because I think the worst thing for women to do, after leaving this podcast, is believe that there's no way out of this. Because that's right where the enemy wants you. As a woman, you're nurturing the people you're in relationship with. If you're a mom, you're nurturing your children, you're nurturing your husband, or you're nurturing your coworkers. And he wants you to stay stuck in a season of not being able to do that. And that's not where we want to leave you today. We want you to take away these practical tips from Bonnie and some other resources we're going to share about. So, Bonnie, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Bonnie Gray:
Thank you. You guys are so wise, so insightful.
Meredith Brock:
Thank you very much. And if you are finding yourself in a season where you're like, yep, Bonnie just described me: I'm not sleeping at night, my hair is thinning, I'm getting migraines all the time; we really want to encourage you ... pick up her book, Breathe. I think it will be so helpful for you. Go over, take that quiz. But also if you want to check out, we have another resource here at Proverbs 31 that we would love for you to take a look at. We'll link it in our show notes, and it's called Overlooked, Overwhelmed and Over It: Five Devotions for the Girl Who Feels Tempted To Quit. You can read this for the next five days, while you're waiting for Bonnie's book to arrive in your mailbox. Right, Kaley?
Kaley Olson:
Yeah. That's creative, Meredith. Look at you just thinking of a creative —
Meredith Brock:
Solutions, right now.
Kaley Olson:
Transitions ... I know, look at that. Solutions to help you when you need it right now. Well, friends, that is all for today. At Proverbs 31 Ministries, we believe when you know the Truth and live the Truth, it changes everything.