Why You NEED to Slow Down NOW - How Journaling Changed My Life

In this episode of It Starts With Attraction, Kimberly Beam Holmes welcomes guest Luke LeFevre for a candid conversation about the importance of slowing down in a fast-paced world. They share relatable stories about navigating marital struggles and feeling lost, highlighting how simple morning routines can foster mental clarity and spiritual growth.

The discussion delves into the benefits of journaling for processing life's challenges. Kimberly shares her personal experiences with these tools, emphasizing the role faith played as her guiding light. For those seeking guidance with journaling, Luke LeFevre discusses his Holy Work course – a six-week journey designed to connect participants deeper with themselves and God.

Key Takeaways (Because Everyone's Busy!)
- Embrace the pause: Slowing down opens the door to powerful insights!
- Your spiritual journey is unique: God's with you, even during the messy parts.
- Journaling + meditation = a powerful combination for mental and spiritual health
- Sometimes, small steps (like 10 minutes journaling) lead to life-changing breakthroughs

Get Luke's Guide to Journaling! 👀📝
https://bit.ly/3Uudh6g

Learn more about Holy Work: ✝️
http://holywork.com/

Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships

Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 500,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.

Website: www.itstartswithattraction.com

Thanks for listening!

Connect on Instagram: @kimberlybeamholmes

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

The pain of staying the same is so bad. I'm just going to go through the pain of a big change and I started thinking about the D word, divorce. I'm like, okay, I got to make a change. We have this first layer of crap that is just clogging up our minds and stopping us from getting to that deeper creativity, or God. The only difference between a wilderness and a culture is work. You have a unique pull in your life that is unlike anybody else's.

Speaker 2: 1:01

Slow down and listen to this episode. In today's episode, I am talking with Luke Lefevre. Luke used to be over the whole creative team at Ramsey Solutions. He's done amazing things in his career, but in the recent past couple of years he actually left that work to go and start what he felt like he was being pulled into to help people learn how to journal, listen to the pulls that are happening in their life, the things that God is maybe calling them to do, listen to those things and to move forward in faith.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Even if you aren't a Christian, I hope you listen to this episode. I know that you are going to get amazing takeaways from it, because Luke addresses this not just from the perspective of someone who is a Christ follower, but for any single person, no matter what your belief is. I believe what he talks about today is going to help you get through the mess and the muck that's currently distracting you in your life right now. Get to the core and the heart of what it is that you truly want to do and what your purpose is, and give you a plan to walk forward in it. Let's dive in to today's episode. Luke, what is it that you? What is the impact you are wanting to leave on the world right now.

Speaker 1: 2:23

I want people to slow down. I mean, if you just put it in one sentence, I want people to slow down and get quiet enough so they can actually hear and follow where God's pulling them. In simplest terms as I can Um, I think we're going so fast that we look at our phones and we jumped to the computer and then we watch a show, and then this thing's pulling at us and this thing's pulling at us, and then we're like why aren't I satisfied or why aren't I content, or any of these things? And Jesus is there and the Bible is there saying hey, be still and know that I'm God. I want people to slow down and still have a successful career, marriage, all of these things but I want them to slow down. So that's it. That sounds super simple. Yeah, marriage, all of these things, but I want them to slow down. So that's it.

Speaker 2: 3:17

That sounds super simple.

Speaker 1: 3:18

Yeah, not at all.

Speaker 2: 3:19

It's totally counter-cultural.

Speaker 1: 3:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:23

Even the thought of slowing down.

Speaker 1: 3:24

Yeah, in the, especially in like your world, where you're talking to thought leaders all the time and these people writing books and doing all this stuff. But I've been around a lot of them and a lot of them are exactly who they say. They are in the act that way. And then I've been around others who are like they don't practice what they preach and they, they say all this stuff but then they don't slow down. And the thought that has stuck with me for years is how can we be thought leaders If we never slow down enough to think like Jesus?

Speaker 1: 3:58

He did the sermon on the mound, all these people in crowds, and then he had to get away. He had to go away. So you do the big thing, but then you have to get away and you can't. Just, our culture is just so sprint all the time, sprint all the time, hit the goals and then don't stop to celebrate God forbid. You stop, celebrate and then go hit the next one and the next one and the next one, and all of a sudden you look up and you're like I don't have any vision for the future, I don't know what I really want, my marriage is in a weird place and I'm addicted to this, that and the other, and why aren't I happy what's going on?

Speaker 2: 4:27

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:27

So we could just get people to slow down, myself included, like I'm not like the guy who's got it perfectly figured out, but I am trying and I would like to bring people along with me.

Speaker 2: 4:40

How did you become passionate about this topic? Wanting people to slow down?

Speaker 1: 4:45

I think it's always been that way. I'm a nine on the Enneagram and so there's this funny quote that says nine, start off slow, but then they taper off. I mean it's kind of a joke. But like, how did I get passionate about it? I remember there's a story my wife had. Have you ever had these offers that someone will come to your house and present to you their water softener plan or whatever? And you get like a free T? Uh thing of dish detergent or something?

Speaker 1: 5:17

And I came home one time from work and uh, uh I this is not what caused me to be passionate about it, but it just proves the point and uh, we are doing what this guy was doing. So I come home and there's a guy in the in the um kitchen talking to Mandy about how awesome his water filter ration thing and he just keeps going and he says I'm only going to be here for like 15 minutes. Well, like an hour later we're still sitting there learning about this water and all these things. And I was like I'm getting annoyed and I'm like what are we doing? And I'm like, hey, I'm just going to stop you here, Just stop, Just stop. He's like well, you, what do you mean I'm like I'm not gonna buy the thing, I don't want to waste your time, just stop. And he was like he's like, well, um, hold on, like I'm gonna call my, I'm gonna call my, my boss, and I'm just gonna let him know that I, that I'm gonna leave, and he gets on the phone he's like yeah, um, no, they don't want this amazing deal. He was like still selling and I was like dude, I know nobody's on the other phone, Just stop, All right. Well, okay, yeah, he still doesn't want. Like he just kept going and people just like it's just a good metaphor for how we just keep pounding our heads on the table. And he just kept going and I had to just shock him out of it and be like hey, put the phone down. Like I know there's no one there, Just years.

Speaker 1: 6:39

And I got out of school when, in 2001, got my first job uh, didn't have a great relationship with God at that point and, um, those first seven years were just me floating, I don't know. Mandy and I call it our sleepwalking years. We just felt like we were sleepwalking and I had a bunch of addictions I didn't deal with. Mandy and I were not close, we were super close, we'd been together forever, but we didn't have the marriage we have now and I. We did that from ages 21 to about 29.

Speaker 1: 7:30

So 29 comes, we moved down here to nashville. So 29 comes, we moved down here to Nashville and we leave everybody we know in Illinois and we were just kind of figuring it out. I had you have the starts with attraction stuff, so I'm sure you talk about pornography. Sometimes I had an addiction to that. That I call it this pesky thing and I couldn't shake it. To that that I I call it this pesky thing and I couldn't shake it. So it's 29 and move ever move away from everybody we know I get this new job and I'm like okay, I got a great job, we moved to Nashville, I'm going to be happy here, Like I'm going to, I'm going to be happier and just keep going through the motions, going through the motions, going through the motions.

Speaker 1: 8:14

And about six months in to this great job I worked over for Ramsey, great place and I'm like start to feel this discontentment that had been with me all through those first sleepwalking years. But I thought, oh, I'm going to run from it. I guess I didn't consciously think that, but we moved down here and I start to feel that same discontentment and I start thinking what is the problem? I've changed everything. What is the problem? And my mind starts going towards you know who's been with you this whole time? And instead of looking back at myself, I go oh Mandy, she must be the problem, my wife must be the problem. And I remember just letting that thought circulate for a few months, Like we just got married too young, I didn't know any better. Blah, blah, blah. And that just keeps going and it starts building to the point of where I'm like I think maybe I married the wrong person. I think maybe the only way to solve this problem like the pain of staying the same is so bad. I'm just going to go through the pain of a big change. And I started thinking about the D word, divorce. I'm like, okay, I gotta, I gotta make a change.

Speaker 1: 9:32

And I was out running prepping for the 2010 marathon and I was out running um prepping for the 2010 marathon. And as I'm running, I'm I'm just playing these thoughts all over my head and I'm overcome with emotion, Like, oh, what's going to happen? Is she going to move back to Rockford, where we're from? And all these thoughts and as I'm playing this out, as I'm really playing this out, and as I'm playing this out, as I'm really playing this out, I'm crying, I'm emotional, I feel what I can only describe as a giant thumb on my whole body. It's never happened since, never happened before, but it was like a smack me out of this thought process and I felt the words. I didn't hear them, but I just felt it Be still and know that I'm God.

Speaker 1: 10:18

And it shocked me out of that, that, that mental space I was in, because I didn't know what it was. It was, it was sort of out of nowhere. And so I finished my run and I get home and I was really like God, was that, you, Is, is, is this what some people talk about? Cause I had never experienced anything like that and it wasn't like clouds, clouds parting or anything like that, it was just. It was so different than where my head was at right at that second. And so I processed like for 24 hours, 48 hours. I didn't tell Mandy any of that stuff and I started thinking man, if that was God, that means he's real, Whoa, and there's probably scientists listening or whatever that. No, it's actually the chemicals of the blah, blah, blah. I don't know Whatever, it was real.

Speaker 2: 11:04

Well, Daniel Lieberman would say that God is real.

Speaker 1: 11:08

And he's a scientist Great.

Speaker 2: 11:09

And he is a scientist. He said he thinks the best scientists believe in God. I believe that same thing.

Speaker 1: 11:13

Yes, he said he thinks the best scientists believe in God. I believe that same thing. Yes, so anyways, be still to know that I'm God, just stuck with me. And then, oh, he's real. And I had this little nudge that was hey, you should just tell Mandy the truth about all this. And I was like, no, but I just had this nudge hey, just write her a letter and tell her everything. And so I did. I got out my computer and I started typing and I wrote this letter that just shined a light in all the dark corners of my brain and my soul and I said I even I told her about the doubts, I told her about everything. And I said but I think everything I'm thinking is distorted and off and I'm in to fight for this, if you are. And she says, she says it was the Holy Spirit who guided her to her response. Instead of screw you, I'm out of here, she said, okay, I'm into fight.

Speaker 1: 12:06

And that letter of me actually writing out what I actually thought and felt, right or wrong, led our relationship to get better, like those thoughts that are distorted started to be redeemed and transformed. And, um, so a couple of weeks or months, or I don't really know how long went by, but it's. My thoughts were, if I told Mandy the truth and our relationship got better, what if I started telling God the truth? And so I started writing? I said, god, I have nothing to offer you, but I'm going to get up early, I'm going to read one chapter of the Bible and I'm going to write what I actually think about it. I'm just going to write the truth, no filter, not worrying about what my pastor thinks or my dad or any of this stuff. I just started writing what I was actually thinking, and I did that for years A year, for two years, for three years, for four years.

Speaker 1: 12:57

I didn't tell anybody the story. I was just in a desperate place and Mandy and I's relationship started getting better. My relationship at work started getting better. I started to see some favor at work, where I set aside time to write out what was actually going on in my mind, was setting up me to figure out what I was thinking, before anybody else or any other influences could come. And then you know, you can go back it up all with scripture and science and all those things.

Speaker 1: 13:33

I had no idea about any of those things. I was just like desperate, and so the act of slowing down and setting aside that time to actually think and pray and and uh, not have any external inputs, transformed my life and um that's. I want people to slow down and get that. Because if you just wake up because before when I first got my jobs, I'd wake up at seven, 15 to be at a job that was a half hour away and needed to be there by eight so you just get out of bed, take a shower quick, eat something, get in the car rush, and all of a sudden you're like why are I stressed? Why am I stressed today? So I just want people to really build in that habit of slowing down to see what's actually going on in their heads, in their hearts.

Speaker 2: 14:19

What is your morning routine look like?

Speaker 1: 14:22

Yeah, this is a. This is that question. Um, everybody likes the. You know this thing right now today. Uh, I got up at uh, I grumbly got up at five, 35 so that I could know that I would get out of bed at 545. And I went and worked out at six and I work out for an hour, then I come back. I usually get home at 715 and that's when I read and write until about eight, and then we have a little family time with my kids and Mandy and we have a journal time for them too.

Speaker 2: 14:57

Really.

Speaker 1: 14:57

Yeah, four days a week, and this sounds really structured. I'm not a structured person. Um, we and we don't hit it every day, but most of the time from eight to eight, 45, we have a family time where we journal for like five or 10 minutes. Everybody has their own little journal, and then we just say, hey, what'd you guys? Anything you want to share? And sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. And I have kids ranging from 10 to 17 now, and, um, so then I uh, after that I get into work and that kind of thing. Now, some days like, uh, if I have tomorrow's the journaling course, so that'll switch it, and that journaling course was from 6 30 AM to seven 30. So that'll switch it up a little bit. Um, but most days I try to do it like that.

Speaker 2: 15:39

So for you it's well. I don't want to put words in your mouth. Is it not as much about the morning routine or the routine throughout the day as much as it is just finding space and margin and putting these things, like journaling, at an importance level to where you need to get it done?

Speaker 1: 15:56

Yeah, I'm not perfect at it. I like to say that because people are like, oh, you're the journaling guy and I'm I'm like, yeah, they should see that I didn't do it yesterday. You know that kind of stuff, yeah, but I do it three, four times a week and um, um, it's more of a heart posture too. So if I don't get to it right in that seven, 15 to eight period, I will do it in the morning some other time. But most of the time it happens during that period, um, I like it to be in the mornings. A lot of people like the evening better. I just my I'm so tired that by the evening happens. I'm just like, whatever, but I've done it in the evenings, I've done it at lunch, I've done it whenever, and also when I'm super stressed, like if I'm just overwhelmed by everything.

Speaker 1: 16:44

You just get out a journal and just try writing nonstop for 10 minutes, don't lift your pen, don't worry about spelling, don't worry about grammar, and just write everything that's going on in your head for 10 minutes, and at the end of the 10 minutes you'll be like, oh okay, the world's not really going to end. You know it just does something, uh, in your head and at the end you invite God to be like I just say please be my guide and teacher. At the end, um, redeem the thoughts and things that need to be redeemed and transform the others. But this is where I'm at right now and it's just. It's been incredibly powerful, and now I'm reading the science of bind it. I've been studying that the last year. There's a Dr Pennebaker who has a book out there called opening up by writing it down. There's so much scientific studies that have been put into this kind of thing and I'm like, oh, I just did it Cause I, I, I just had to. And now I'm seeing, oh, there's lots of science behind it too.

Speaker 2: 17:40

Yeah, Any cool scientific stats you want to throw out for the listeners?

Speaker 1: 17:46

Yeah, if you have a I'm going to forget the numbers, but Pennebaker stuff If you have some traumatic things that have happened to you in your past, I think it's uh huberman calls these protocols like his thing is protocols. But pennebaker uh says if you have a traumatic thing that's happened to you, if you take four days and every day for four days, um, you spend 15 minutes writing non-stop, like I just suggested, don't worry about spelling, don't worry about grammar, and write about that thing that happened to you for 15 minutes on day one, do it again on day two, do it again on day three and do it again on day four. Just 15 minutes nonstop, don't stop, don't lift your pen. That you will start to make internal changes because your mind is starting to make sense of these stories and we're just like there's that phrase where we're sense-making creatures. We're always trying to make sense of things. But just four days. In Pennebaker's book he says that that helped more than like a year of therapy for some people and just doing that kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 18:58

Well, it's the premise of EMDR.

Speaker 1: 19:01

Yeah, I don't. I don't know much about EMDR.

Speaker 2: 19:04

I know some but, it's um, and I've done it. But, emdr, basically they put these things on you or you can do it audibly, and the idea is it does either sensations back and forth or noise back and forth to get your mind to start processing memories so that it can begin to make sense of things that have happened in your past. But EMDR, I mean there's a bit. You know it costs a lot of money, you have to find someone specialized, all the things, so but what it sounds like is this is a maybe not a complete alternative, but it's something that could be used.

Speaker 1: 19:37

Absolutely, If you I mean I have.

Speaker 1: 19:39

I mean I'll, I'll preach about it till the day I die, and I've seen it work for people. Like when I started talking about it, it wasn't because oh no, I'm going to start talking on podcast about this or anything, it was. I had friends or people around me that were going through a thing and I was just like, hey, you know what I've been doing. I've just been writing in the mornings. Just get up early and write it all out. Just write out the truth. Don't filter any of it. Write out the truth, Give it to God and say help me work through this. And they would come back the next day and be like I tried that thing. You said, you know, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 20:14

No, I don't know, whenever I do a quote, it always sounds very Southern, very redneck.

Speaker 2: 20:18

Southern. Yeah, it's where we are. It's probably because you're not from the South.

Speaker 1: 20:23

It is, it totally is, it absolutely is, but it sounds about right.

Speaker 2: 20:26

That's amazing. Yeah, what about or maybe I should ask it this way you mentioned earlier, when your thoughts are distorted, it's a way to put them down and have them redeemed and transformed. But, for you and for me, there's a big part of that. That's like we're entrusting our thoughts to God and we're trusting he's going to redeem them. What about the people who don't have the same faith, or any faith? What does this process look like for them? What is it lacking, If anything? Um, I'll leave it there for now. Sure.

Speaker 1: 21:04

I think the benefits are there. I don't think I know the benefits are there if you believe in God or not, because he's real for one thing, and he is always working. Second is these exercises on like help you overcome your fear of saying the things that are true in your head and heart.

Speaker 1: 21:24

Julia Cameron is a. She wrote a book called the Artist's Way and her deal is called the Morning Pages. So what she does is she helps artists and screenwriters get unblocked by stopping the filter, removing the editor, and so when I'm journaling, what I thought was like God, I have nothing to give, but I'm just going to, I'm going to write what I'm actually thinking and feeling to you. Well, that's something she does for creatives to unlock their creativity. And so in her book she's like take every morning, just write three pages longhand, don't stop, don't filter, right about everything, whether it's your bills that are due, or or you got to paint the house, or whatever it is, just write it all out. Uh, because what it does is we have I call it the epidermis level level stuff. We have this first layer of crap that is just clogging up our minds and stopping us from getting to that deeper creativity, or god yeah this is an epidermis level and that is what writing just for 10 minutes will do.

Speaker 1: 22:33

You will work through, it'll start off and you'll be like this is the stupidest thing I've ever done. I don't like it. I listen to this podcast. They're telling me do this thing, and it's really dumb, and and, okay, I'm not supposed to stop. So now I'm writing about the purple wall. Well, the wall is purple. Hey, there's like it, just it like it's dumb stuff at the beginning. But then, about five minutes in, you're like well, the wall is purple, we're, we're defending our smartness, or whatever. And then pretty soon it's like ah man, I haven't talked to my, my dad, in a few days, or you know.

Speaker 1: 23:09

And all of a sudden you start writing about that and it inevitably, as I do these workshops, five minutes in, I'll start to hear sniffles, I'll start to hear crying, and it's because people are just you get through this epidermis crap and you move down to the next layer, which is the muscle layer, and that muscle layer is the cares of this world.

Speaker 1: 23:28

So it's the deeper things, the things that keep you up at night, and you start writing about those things and your brain starts to take all these overwhelming things and starts to make sense of them and starts to let you actually acknowledge what your heart is feeling. And that's where the next layer is. So it goes epidermis level is the first, then the muscle layer. You work through it a little harder and then you get to the heart layer where you're like man, what is it that I actually want out of life? And, wow, netflix doesn't matter as much as I thought it did. You know, you just start working through this heart stuff and then eventually I call the next layer the bone layer. And that's where we do some of that Pennebaker stuff, where we write for 15 minutes on some what I call bones that need to be reset. So there's beliefs, you have traumas you've gone through, and writing through those helps heal those things. And that's the bone layer.

Speaker 2: 24:29

It's really powerful.

Speaker 1: 24:30

Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2: 24:31

The heart what do I want out of life? So when you started doing this in 2010, 2011, you've been doing it for years and I mean you ended up making some shifts, some major shifts in your life, Was it based on journaling?

Speaker 1: 24:47

It absolutely was it was so, yeah, 2010, I started. I did it for five years. I mean, I've been doing it for 15 now, but I did it for five years before I started telling anybody that. And as you start working through this and connecting to God in a deeper way each day, or connecting with what you actually want, you ask about if you don't have a faith, what it does is it starts to just point out what it is you actually want. And 2015,. I started talking about this with people, not with a strategy to make a big change or anything, but over the next five years, from 2015 to 2020, I just started to have this blurry vision of what. What am I supposed to do with this? Is there, is there, what is this?

Speaker 1: 25:37

I work for Ramsey and we put out courses and we were doing lots of stuff. I was the chief creative officer there, so I started to figure out how to. I knew how to make stuff, but I wasn't thinking about leaving that place. I loved the job, I loved the place, but slowly, over time, as I talked about this journaling stuff, I also talked about something I call the pull, and as I got quiet and started connecting with God in a more real way, I started to really feel where he is pulling. And I would start to talk to the creative team about that. That's the team I led over there and I would talk to more creatives and they're like I know what you mean Like I have this pull to paint to to paint, or I have a pull to write songs or write books or whatever.

Speaker 1: 26:23

And when someone doesn't follow that thing, they get a lot of anxiety, they get a lot of, uh, depression because they're not actually expressing the thing that is inside of them. And once I started saying that stuff out loud, I'm like hey, you guys got to follow that poll. Yes, you have a full-time job right now and it's to write articles about Financial Peace University or here at Marriage Helper to write things about Marriage Helper. But then there's these other little things that you have to follow. And as I started talking about that, I was reading Exodus 31,. And in Exodus 31, it's when Moses if people are familiar with the Bible he's up on the mountain, he's getting the 10 commandments and he's getting all this stuff. He also gets a bunch of instructions for the tent of meeting, which is a Jewish thing, the Ark of the Covenant. People have heard of that and the Ark of the Covenant tent of meeting and the tabernacle. Well, he's getting all these instructions and it's like the most boring part of really like it's not.

Speaker 1: 27:27

It's not great, like don't go expecting this is going to be super great. But there's a line in there that says, after he gets all these instructions, god says to Moses. He says, see, I filled with the spirit a man named Bezalel. I filled him with wisdom and knowledge and every kind of craft to make. And then he listed a thousand things to make. And I read that and I'm like, yeah, okay, cool.

Speaker 1: 27:58

And then the commentary in the Bible I had underneath it says the first person the Bible mentions as being filled with the spirit is this guy, bezalel, a creative God had a bunch of stuff in his mind that he wanted to exist on the earth and he fills this guy with the spirit to make it. And I I'm thinking about the poll that I was talking about and I'm like, no, this is, this is like. God wants us to follow these things. He's trying to make stuff with us. He wants us to follow and go through all the hard things that happen when we do follow. He wants to create stuff with us.

Speaker 1: 28:25

And so I started talking about that. And so I'm talking about journaling and I'm talking about this poll and just basically trying to get a creative team inspired to do good work, you know, inspired to do good work, you know? And, uh, so that's that's where it started to go, like where, where am I being pulled? And, um, I started to just get a blurry vision of maybe it's a book one day about creativity and leadership and God, and you know, it was super blurry. But then, over the course of the next years, there were a few different things in addition to the pull and these practices of journaling that I've been talking about, and I can tell you about those here in a second too, if you want me to keep going.

Speaker 2: 29:07

Keep going. I am entrenched in the story.

Speaker 1: 29:10

Okay. So it started with the practices of journaling, then it started about following this pull. Well, inevitably, what happens when you start to follow where God is pulling you? You will hit war. So God is pulling you this way. Meanwhile, when you wake up and start following that pole, so does an enemy, and he's like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, and he grabs this end of that rope and he starts pulling this way and there's war.

Speaker 1: 29:38

And the war is, I've found to be three things it's fear, it's voices in your head from the past or present, and it's resistance uh, just general laziness, or uh, addiction or whatever is going to creep up its head and it's going to cause you to doubt this thing you're being pulled towards and it could be a hundred million different things and you start to follow that this pull towards destroying that thing you're supposed to follow will be one of the hardest battles you ever fight Like. The enemy is not there to just have you stub your toe. This resistance isn't there just to have you stub your toe. It's there to just have you stub your toe. This resistance isn't there just to have you stub your toe. It's there to destroy you.

Speaker 1: 30:22

And I just started to realize, oh there's this, this war, war happening, like once I started to follow and do this journaling stuff, the amount of health stuff that happened to me now that I look back at it, um, was insane. My face started swelling up, like there's these pictures I could show you that are just like my bottom lip. It looks like Will Smith and Hitch and all this kind of stuff. Now you could you know there's probably had to do with allergies, but I was really trying to seek where God was guiding and a bunch of stuff happened to help me doubt that it's not a coincidence.

Speaker 1: 30:55

Right, and so that is the war. And so then I started talking about the war. Like guys, if you start to follow this thing you're going to hit war. And there's a Steven Pressfield book called the War of Art which is just incredible. Just go read it. It's an easy read. As you go through following this thing, you're being pulled towards, and so I started talking about that. And once you decide and know that there's going to be war, you can expect those things. So, um, I I left the job I had there at Ramsey about a year and a half ago to follow and start talking about this stuff a little bit more.

Speaker 1: 31:31

Well, immediately, small things will happen. Your water heater is going to go out. That definitely guaranteed happened within the first month. I think our heater went out to that first month. But then some really big things happened.

Speaker 1: 31:45

My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer A few months later. I went from a very high paying job where I stable healthcare Blue Cross, blue Shield for 20 years, never hardly used it. We leave, four months later she's diagnosed with breast cancer and I just feel like God's like, do you trust me? Are you going to follow this poll? Okay, you know, and that there was, I mean I could list that was the most intense and there are some that are almost equally as intense that have happened over this last year and a half. You can call it coincidence, you can call it whatever, but that is war and it's not trying to just get me to be like, oh okay, it's trying to get me to stop talking about this and give up and do something else and that's what will happen. And those are really big things. But if you feel a little nudge to man, I just haven't connected with my daughter in a while and I'd love to just take her out for lunch.

Speaker 1: 32:45

I'm not going to text her. Yeah, she's probably busy, you know, or whatever it is. If you have an older daughter or something and so you don't, that's the war. Or if you're like man, I really need to start working on my marriage and we need to do something. Well, tonight your spouse is in a little bit of a mood. You're like I'm not going to bring it up and there might be some wisdom there and wait till tomorrow, but there's going to be something that is going to try to stop you, make you not do this thing. If you're trying to make yourself better at your job and dig in and really do the hard work to get better, some kind of resistance, some kind of war is going to happen to push against it. And so I started talking about all that stuff and as that happened, there was things that just you're like. Well, so what do I got to do? You know the war is happening. I got to show up anyways and I'm going to do the hard thing.

Speaker 1: 33:38

Well then, that brings you to the wilderness, where you just got to show up for the next, however long it could be months working on your marriage.

Speaker 1: 33:47

It could be, uh, months writing a book. It could be years following a dream, Um, but that wilderness really is just the work that it takes to get there. There's a great quote I'm blanking on who said it, but he goes the only difference between a wilderness and a culture is work, because it starts off as a forest or a jungle and somebody got out of machete and they just start making a path, and somebody puts down gravel and somebody makes a road, and then somebody makes a building, and there's just a bunch of work getting from the pull to your purpose at the end. And that's the wilderness. And it feels like you're not on a path and you feel lost. But if you just keep showing up, seeking this God, feeling these things and doing the work you feel pulled to do over time and it could be your whole life you will get through it and you'll start to see where that purpose is.

Speaker 1: 34:40

So I started talking about that stuff you know, and um, then eventually you do have to make some decisions, and that's what came after. The wilderness is am I going to really follow this and am I going to tell my wife the truth? Am I gonna? I call these thresholds. There'll be little threshold moments where you have to have a really hard conversation or you have to quit a job. I going to tell my wife the truth. Am I going to? I call these thresholds. There'll be little threshold moments where you have to have a really hard conversation or you have to quit a job or you have to start a job.

Speaker 1: 35:04

I don't know what it is for everybody, but I call them thresholds where you cross over the threshold of a door into something else, or another definition of threshold is like where water isn't boiling and you turn it up to the degrees and that threshold where it goes from not boiling to boiling.

Speaker 1: 35:20

Eventually that has to happen and something needs to change. And so those are all the things I started to talk about over the years that I think, if you follow that pole, you do these practices, you fight through the war, you work through the wilderness, you make those hard decisions in the thresholds, you are on a path to doing your holy work, like what God is trying to create through you. That is holy work and it doesn't mean only your vocation, your work, your job. It could be your marriage, it could be your relationship with your kids, it could be writing a book, it could be any of these things. But when you follow that pole, you will go through these phases and you will come out the other side eventually and you'll start it all over again in some other way. But that is the path to doing what God put you on the planet to do.

Speaker 2: 36:12

What about for the person listening? Who's? Saying I don't know my purpose and all of this sounds great, but how do I even start with like I don't even know the pull?

Speaker 1: 36:26

Yeah, I didn't know my purpose when this started either. This isn't about knowing it and trying to get to a specific place. This is about following those little nudges you have right now. So that person who's saying I don't know what my purpose is I bet over the last 24 hours they had a little. Oh, I should. I should smile at the cash register person at the restaurant. Like it starts really small, just listening to those little things. Listening to those little things and then building in that practice of journaling, like we're talking about, where you can quiet down everything else so you can start to feel and hear where you're being pulled, and it will start with text my dad, you know, I don't, it's, it's very small things. I don't know what it would be for everybody, but it's not. You're not going to know your purpose until you start following in smaller ways.

Speaker 2: 37:20

Do you think that those nudges are the Holy spirit?

Speaker 1: 37:22

I do, but I think they come for everybody and whether they acknowledge that or not, um, some others might call it coincidence or the universe or something is is the words people use now, but I think I think we all have, whether you believe in God or not, you have, you're walking down the street and if you, if you really acknowledge what you're feeling, oh, I'm going to smile at that person. Or you go into a restaurant and this, this waitress or this waiter needs, needs me to just be nice to them today. You know, I I don't know what it is, I think we all get those. Yeah, so I don't have science behind that one, but I believe it, it's just humans being good to humans.

Speaker 1: 38:09

you know, and there are people like yes, there is evil out there, and there are people who are just have some circuits that are broken and there's evil, but most people are are good and trying to bring out good in others.

Speaker 2: 38:22

I think I agree with that. So one of the other things that comes to my mind as I, as I think about this and the beauty of the journaling and the slowing down and maybe the disconnecting in several ways from social media and things like that, is because a lot of people, like myself included even we see other people and their success and it's and it's like, oh, how can I mimic that? Or how can I we try and kind of catch up with others instead of really assessing and thinking and prayerfully considering what is it God wants me to do? Not, how can I win?

Speaker 1: 39:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody said to me the other day, cause I uh, financially, this is the stupidest decision I've ever made in my entire life. You know to go after this, but somebody goes well, they said uh, you're supposed to be faithful, not necessarily successful.

Speaker 2: 39:21

Right.

Speaker 1: 39:22

And I I I don't know if I like all that, but uh, um, the comparison thing is is is really hard, but you have a unique. You have a unique pull on your life that is unlike anybody else's. Right. And it's not about getting famous. Right Like. Purpose is not about fame, right Like. We're just in this culture right now, where people can do something on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, and become famous. That is not what this is about. Yeah, famous with quotes on it, famous with quotes on it. This is about you connecting with the creator of the entire universe and his special purpose he has for you, which might just be for your family.

Speaker 1: 40:12

Yeah, my, both my dad and my wife's dad became believers and when they were in their early 20s and both of them had dads who were very abusive or just left and they both said we're not going to be like them they felt this pull. They wouldn't have called it that at the time, but they felt a pull that I'm not going to be like that. And both of those men have transformed both of our families imperfectly they're not perfect, but if they wouldn't have listened to that, our lives would be so much different. Yeah, like, that was their purpose. They're still living. One of them passed away this last year, but his before he passed he was like my faith and my family is what has kept me going my faith and my family. He would just say it over and over again and his dad left when he was like 2020, I think it was, and that was his model and he chose something different and that is so much more important than becoming TikTok famous or some bullshit like that.

Speaker 1: 41:33

You can bleep that if you want, but it's like I'm just like when you feel that pull to connect with your kids and you don't do it and you zone out and stare at your phone or something. Instead, that's the enemy winning, that's the war winning Like. This is not about becoming famous, writing a book or any of that crap. This is about becoming who God made you to be as he wove you together in your mother's womb. Becoming who God made you to be as he wove you together in your mother's womb, and that that could be being the most incredible dad to the kids you have, or the most incredible husband or wife or coworker or friend, whatever.

Speaker 1: 42:07

That is Um one of the people who was so inspiring to me when I first started talking about this. She went through one of the first things I talked about and she was like Luke I, I'm really happy with my job, job, I don't know why I'm in this course or doing this thing, and by the end she goes. I feel like my holy work is to finally become a mother, get into that world and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1: 42:40

And she felt like that was the holy work she was being pulled to do, like she's not wanting to be famous and so, uh, I hope that answers your question About, uh, what you were thinking about.

Speaker 2: 42:50

Do you think people can have more than one? Oh yes.

Speaker 1: 42:54

Yeah, I think it starts as those small things like texting someone and just listening to that. When I left the job, I had to start following this and my wife got cancer. I was like I need to figure out how to make income. And as I prayed and as I journaled about that, I just felt like God was saying calm down, your holy work right now is to be with your wife and to go to every one of those appointments with her. Like that's the most holy work you can be doing right now. Yeah, but what about my book and what about this thing? And he was like go to the chemo appointment with your wife and like that's, like that's what this is, and then the next thing will come, and the next thing will come. I think we have small ones that are happening over the course of weeks and months and year, and then we have some that happen over the course of decades and your whole life.

Speaker 2: 43:51

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:52

And we won't know like we'll look up when we are on our deathbed and about to pass me like, oh huh, that's what that was about, you know. Or maybe we won't find out and afterwards we'll figure it out. There's definitely multiples.

Speaker 2: 44:09

The one that keeps coming to my mind, that I have seen play out in my life, was our pull to adopt, which, for me, started when I was six years old. So there was definitely a pull that came out of nowhere. No one in my family had adopted, um, especially from India, and I had a pull to India for no reason Right, and my listeners have heard me talk about this a lot.

Speaker 2: 44:33

But then when we finally uh, you know, I got married and from the from the first date we talked about, one day I'm adopted, like I had just gotten back from India on our first date, and so I said, one day we're adopting or I'm adopting. So if you're not, cool with that.

Speaker 1: 44:49

Like there's, no, it's not going to work out.

Speaker 2: 44:50

And he is like cool, so we just always, always knew. So then, finally, when he got out of the army and we began the process, the war, yeah. Oh. So then, finally, when he got out of the army and we began the process, the war, yeah, oh, my, tell me about it. Gosh, and then the wilderness of the waiting. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:06

How long was that process?

Speaker 2: 45:07

So only two years.

Speaker 1: 45:09

Okay.

Speaker 2: 45:10

The worst, the worst, most grueling two years of my life.

Speaker 2: 45:17

Like, yes, like, with the pulling of of the rope, just marriage stuff that came up and anxiety, panic attacks for me, uh, health issues, all the things, um, and then the waiting of the wilderness and then even the threshold, like I remember when we got matched with our kids and I had some, some family members who were like are you sure that you want to?

Speaker 2: 45:40

Like what if there's something wrong with them? And I knew in that moment this wasn't their decision and this was a threshold to step over. And then brought them home and saw the goodness of God in so many ways. And so I believe that when, when we can and it's still playing out, of course, but I believe like having something like that to look back on as the testament of what God did with that pull gives more faith. And I remember asking, like, before we brought them home, I was like God has just done so much in this season. Like I want, I want something to remember this season by. And some people were like, oh, put, like make a cross and put it up on your wall or whatever, and it wasn't until the kids came home.

Speaker 1: 46:28

I was like they're mine they're my sign like yeah, they are the constant reminder.

Speaker 2: 46:32

Yeah, like them here is the constant reminder, and I thought so strongly that I would never doubt God again. Right, I was like what he has done.

Speaker 1: 46:45

Until a week later, right.

Speaker 2: 46:47

And then the next big thing happened. I'm like, oh God, but can you do this? When I had literally seen him do? I say to this day, I truly believe it would have been easier for God to move a mountain than to bring our family together. But he did it and so, logically, I know he can do it again.

Speaker 1: 47:05

When I say logically, you know what I mean, Like there's a part of me that's like he's done it and I know he can.

Speaker 2: 47:10

But then there's all these emotions, and so, man, like I think that's another beauty of this, of seeing how God works it from start to finish and trusting that he'll do it again with other things. It's being faith, I mean what? But what is it? What's the key? Just being faithful to the, to the pulse.

Speaker 1: 47:26

Yeah, just showing up and and listening, and it's not easy. I don't think it. I don't think it's meant to be easy. I mean, it's why the, the ancient books of the Bible have the story of the Israelites and we think, how could they be so stupid to build a golden calf Right, what seems like 10 seconds after they got out of Pharaoh's slavery? And we're like those dummies, god, how am I going to pay my power bill, you know like, or whatever it is. And it's why those stories have been written. And it's not about how you feel today. And it's not about how you feel today. It's about sticking with him, letting him guide and over the course of time, you will see how he's been faithful and pulling you towards what he wants to create in you, through you and with you.

Speaker 2: 48:15

That's part of the being still to know. Yeah, be still and know so that we can think back.

Speaker 1: 48:22

I am God, and that is a beautiful thing about the journaling, too is this was an outcome that I didn't expect, but I'll go back through and read them now. Yeah, I don't do it that often because some it's just freehand junk, but other times you're like man, I was so worried about X junk, but other times you're like man, I was so worried about X and huh, I can't believe I was so worried about that, you know. And the journaling is like a uh. Well, I heard this story about shepherds back in the day. They use their staffs to Mark. When God showed up for them, when a lion came and they got through it, they would make these marks to tell the stories in the staff. Well, we don't have staffs now. No, we have journals.

Speaker 2: 49:09

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 49:10

Another way that looked at it is the journal is the altar we set all of this stuff on. So journaling isn't God, an altar isn't God, but the journal is a place where you give all your cares to him, and that's looking at it as the staff and the altar has been a powerful thing for me.

Speaker 2: 49:32

What kind of journal do you use?

Speaker 1: 49:34

Right now. They're nothing fancy, it's just this one I got from Walmart for $4.95. There you go. But my friend gave me this Lockbee journal cover and it's this cloth thing that I'm going to get Lockbee to pay me to sponsor or to talk about someday. But it holds your pen and it buckles on the top and it's really cool. But it's just a regular journal.

Speaker 1: 49:57

That's the stuff that people overthink and oh, I need to get my my permit journal and right, I'm gonna do this, and then it's gonna sit on my desk and I'm never gonna use it yeah and that's why I started doing the the course, because there's a lot of journals out there but there's not a lot of training on it and um no, I can imagine that people have questions of like do I use prompts?

Speaker 1: 50:33

where do I start? What do you do? How do you help them in the course? And just talking about journaling, we're actually going through the exercises together. So we incorporate silence into this training and then we incorporate two minutes of writing nonstop and then we talk about it, and then we incorporate 10 minutes and then we work through the poll.

Speaker 1: 50:51

Well, we start with the epidermis layer, we learn how to do that regularly and we do that every session. Then, throughout the week, on your own, you get a daily prompt that walks you through that too, and so I mean, you put in what you, you get out what you put in. And so people who are really going for it every day and doing that writing, they're seeing the biggest results, but they do get a prompt then too. So it's 10 minutes of just that epidermis get it all out writing, and then a five minutes on this prompt that has to do with what we talked about. And then we meet again the next week and we work through the muscle layer and then the heart layer and then the bone layer, and then the pole and the war, the wilderness, and we do that for six weeks.

Speaker 2: 51:34

For six weeks. That's cool.

Speaker 1: 51:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 51:37

We'll. We'll definitely have the links to the show notes to your website and everything. What would be your takeaway that you would want people to leave with and feel empowered that they can begin to do something to make their life better?

Speaker 1: 51:53

Yeah, today, if you've been listening this far, you've, you're doing real good. But I would say, if you're in your car or you're you're on your way home, when you get home, just take 10 minutes and go into a front room. Or if you don't, go into a closet, if that's all you have, just shut the door and sit there, put a timer on your phone for one minute and just sit in the quiet and your brain's going to start firing and you've got to make dinner and you've got to do all these things. Just let it all happen and just come back to your breathing Just for one minute and you let your brain go and then just be like, all right, no, I'm breathing, I'm breathing. Just be in the quiet. Notice the sounds around you. Notice your kids in the other room or your dog knocking on the door, whatever. Notice the birds outside. Just be in the quiet for one minute and notice everything that's around you.

Speaker 1: 52:59

Then take your journal, take a pen and just write nonstop for 10 minutes. Just start writing. Say whatever's going on in your head. I'm hearing the birds or I'm hearing the kids outside, and they told me to just start writing. So I'm just starting to write and I don't really know what to write about and I think this is stupid and I smell bacon or like whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 53:14

Just start writing and write for 10 minutes. Don't worry about spelling, don't worry about grammar and let it go where it goes. And, most importantly, do not judge anything you write, which is the hardest part, because you'll automatically start critiquing and saying, oh, this is weird. And don't worry about that, just keep writing, don't lift your pen, don't worry about spelling or grammar for 10 minutes and you will start to feel about five minutes through. It will start to go to a deeper place of what you're actually thinking about and caring about, and then at the end just say I don't know what just happened, but God, I give this to you.

Speaker 1: 53:54

Please be my guide and teacher and let it go. And if it's something you don't want anybody else to read, shred it and burn it or whatever. It's less about what exactly you're writing and more about you acknowledging what's actually going on in your head and heart. That is the most important thing, and so that's what people could do. They could do that today, you could do that right now. Do that and then, if you want to join the course, I'm starting another one soon. So you can go to holy workcom and I have a holy work discovery guide there. You can put your email in there and get that for free.

Speaker 2: 54:31

So he goes through the seven steps or the seven parts of what holy work is and how it unfolds. You know, I was sitting here thinking back to. It was probably nine months ago when I was sitting here thinking back to it was probably nine months ago when I first learned about holy work and you were telling me about it and telling me about the pull and and different things and I was in such a different place in my life then that I heard about the pull and things and I guess I was just so like ingrained into my current day to day and job that I was like I can't entertain a pool Like there's no way Was that at the coffee shop.

Speaker 1: 55:06

It was at the coffee shop, yeah.

Speaker 2: 55:08

And and so I kind of heard it and I was like, oh, I love it, like it sounds super cool, but I didn't think it was for me. And now I mean, I've been working with you for a couple of months now, um, or actually probably just a month, but uh, like, even just hearing this again, I'm like, oh, I'm in such a different headspace right now that this hits in a different way than it did then.

Speaker 1: 55:33

So my encouragement, even to the listeners, is save this and listen to it again in like six or nine months your life may be way different and there might be a part of it where you're like, oh, now I'm in the wilderness, like, and it's going to hit different at that, at that point, Sure, and if it, if it is like I am not, I can't slow down Um, I work out, I do CrossFit and I know there's a joke If you do CrossFit, you got to talk about CrossFit and all that stuff. But there's this phrase that is choose rest before rest chooses you. And so people who are like I can't do that and blah, blah, blah and that's BS and all that, okay, but choose rest before rest chooses you. That's all I'll say.

Speaker 2: 56:20

I love that, Luke. This was amazing.

Speaker 1: 56:23

It's fun.

Speaker 2: 56:23

Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 56:24

Yeah, it's an honor to be here. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2: 56:27

Here is my key takeaway from this episode with Luke Lefevre, who is over holy work at creative leader coachingcom. You can find out more about him and what he's doing. If you go to creative leader coachingcom, you'll be able to download his free guide of holy work, where it talks about the seven steps that we talked about today, and it'll be an encouragement and a stepping stone for you to really start journaling so that you can move forward on those pulls where God is pulling you and begin to make changes in your life to be more fulfilled that will lead you to your God-given purpose. My key takeaway for you is journal. Luke spelled it out beautifully at the very end Take 10 minutes, get in a quiet place.

Speaker 2: 57:14

Even if you don't have a journal yet, don't let that stop you. Get a piece of paper and a crayon if you have to, even if that's all you have. Find that place in your house, in your car, at your place of work. Spend a couple of minutes in silence. Just spend 10 minutes writing down whatever is on your heart and then try and do it again tomorrow, and maybe you try and do it again the third day and the fourth day and the fifth day and allow this to become a rhythm of your life that helps you to put all of your distorted thoughts on paper so that they can be fleshed out, that you can have clarity, that you can have redemption, that you can have purpose on what you're supposed to do next, moving forward.

Speaker 2: 57:59

I hope you loved today's episode as much as I did. Share it with a friend. This is a great episode to share with someone who may be feeling stuck in their life. Share it with a family member, or maybe this is something that you need to work on yourself. I believe that that's true for every single one of us, as always. If you could leave a review and make sure you're following the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribing to the YouTube channel, it helps us to reach even more people. Until next week, stay strong.