Self-Esteem Culture, Therapy Culture, and the Case for Wholeness in Christ
Episode Notes
When insecurity takes over, most of us double down on self-improvement. But what if freedom doesn’t come from focusing more on yourself - but less?
In this powerful conversation, Dr. Alison and author of Free of Me and Gazing at God, Sharon Hodde Miller, discuss the promises and pitfalls of self-esteem culture - and why a bigger story of belovedness, stewardship, and connection sets us free. We talk about how self-preoccupation doesn’t improve self-esteem, why “just love yourself more” can reinforce the problem, and how beholding God (not abandoning yourself) recenters your life with humility and purpose.
In this episode, we cover:
- Why self-focus can erode your confidence and joy
- The difference between self-esteem and self-preoccupation
- What it means to de-center yourself without losing your worth
- How wounds can masquerade as pride or insecurity
- The freedom that comes from remembering: you are not the hero of the story
Get your hands on a copy of Sharon's books! You can find them here:
📚Free of Me: Why Life Is Better When It's Not about You
📚Gazing at God: A 40-Day Journey to Greater Freedom from Self
Here are some other episodes you might like :
Episode 99: I Shouldn’t Feel Like My Spirit is Broken
Episode 67: The Inextricable Link Between Faith & Emotional Healing with Cindy Gao
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
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While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.
© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.
Transcript
“Self-esteem culture” would be good in the title of this. . .
Sharon, I have admired your work for a long time. We've followed each other, you know, online. You're always posting really nuanced, thoughtful things. It's interesting because at face value, someone could look at our books and think we are coming at things from a different direction.
Right, your book, Free of Me, is all about kind of stop looking at yourself, look at God, gazing at God. Did I say that right? That's the other way. know, gazing at God, right? My book's the best of you. You know, it's all about you, right? Boundaries for your soul. Now, that's face value because that is not what either, I actually, as I look at your work and I look at my work, we're both after wholeness. We're after.
Sharon (01:04.798)
Mm hmm.
Sharon (01:10.766)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yep, that's the devotional. Mm-hmm.
Sharon (01:22.093)
Yeah.
Sharon (01:33.538)
Right. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Alison Cook (01:34.353)
health, right? And you're focusing on, in my mind, I think about, you know, the greats, know, Augustine, I always go back to Augustine and Calvin and whatever you think of their theology, the soul cannot be separated from God, God cannot be separated from the soul, the two go hand in hand. They're two sides of the same coin. And you're making sure we're staying connected to God. We're not trying to look at the self absent of God. And I'm saying, yes, 100 %
Sharon (01:50.284)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Sharon (01:57.048)
Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook (02:02.748)
And sometimes we have to look inward. We have to understand the contents of our own soul to heal and to understand what we're bringing to God. can't exile the self. We can't bypass the self in the work. Right? that was a long-winded way to say I'd love to just that I'm so excited about this conversation because I think we're so like-minded and there's so much that we're both trying to get at that's so important. And I want to just
Sharon (02:13.805)
100%. Mm-hmm. Yes.
Sharon (02:28.527)
Yeah. And I quote you a bunch of times in Gazing at God and I think that's what people will be surprised. It's a devotional about freedom from self. But the first two sections are about the self and about the goodness of the self. And so I drew on you heavily for those sections.
Alison Cook (02:41.828)
Yes!
Alison Cook (02:45.744)
100%. You are absolutely, I mean, there's just such a yin yang to the work that we're doing. Before we get into the deep end of all this stuff, I want to ask you personally, was there a moment or a season of your life where you realized that your faith was becoming too much about you that prompted you to write Free of Me, that prompted you to move in this direction?
Sharon (02:51.447)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (02:55.767)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (03:11.501)
Yes. So rewind to maybe 15 years ago. So that's a while ago now. At that time, I was in ministry. I was writing. I was speaking. I was doing a lot of the things I'm doing now still. And at the time, I found the work to be inherently meaningful. So I just I especially really love teaching the Bible. That is one of my favorite things that I do is just to teach the Bible.
And so I love doing that. I loved doing it for God. But over the years, something inside of me started to shift. And the way that I've often explained it is scripture talks about faith as a race. That's a metaphor that scripture uses. And at some point, I started looking to the people running next to me and I started comparing myself to them. And then I started looking at the people who are a few paces ahead of me and needing
approval and acknowledgement and affirmation from them. And if I didn't compare well, or if I didn't get affirmation, I became really fragile, really insecure. It was no longer enough just to do a good job for the glory of God and the good of the church. I took all the joy out of my work. And so I became really insecure. And I remember there's this
this key moment one day where I had written something and it didn't get the reception I thought that it would. And I was just crying and my husband was holding me. And I said to him, you know, what is going on with me? I've become this really insecure person. How did I get here? And so I'm I'm a researcher. And so I started reading books about insecurity, blogs, articles. I also started just
searching scripture for what does it say about me and just affirming myself and remembering what is true, you know, what God thinks about me, how he loves me, his purpose for my life, all of that. So I do this for six months to a year, maybe. And at the end of it, realized it had not worked like it hadn't helped at all.
Sharon (05:31.429)
And I think a lot of people have this experience of experiencing insecurity, but not getting any traction in it, even though you're kind of like doing all the right things. And so I realized that whatever was causing the insecurity, this approach of just affirming myself was actually not touching that thing. And to make a really long story short, and this is what Free of Me is about this journey of discovering.
Alison Cook (05:50.288)
Mm.
Sharon (05:56.959)
is that there was something else that was causing my insecurity. And the way that I often describe it is that I see there being kind of two different causes of insecurity. One is the one that we're most familiar with, which is low self-esteem. And I would define that as seeing yourself in a way that is incorrect, like out of sync with how God sees you or what he declares about you to be true. And the answer to that absolutely is the truth of God's word and his unconditional love for you.
Alison Cook (06:18.328)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (06:26.166)
But what I realized through this journey is there is another cause of insecurity that I'd never even heard of, which was self preoccupation. That when you make yourself the center of the story, when you make something about you that's not about you, whether it's your marriage or your parenting or your job, or in my case, my ministry, it then turns that thing into a referendum on your value and on your worth. And when that thing is going well,
then you feel great. But as soon as that thing is not going well, then your confidence just falls through the floor. And so for me, I realized my self-esteem was actually fine. I was not struggling to believe God's love for me. was not struggling to believe any of those truths. That wasn't the issue. The issue is that I had taken something that was meant to be about God and I had made it about me.
Alison Cook (06:56.378)
Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook (07:22.629)
Hmm.
Sharon (07:23.018)
And it started to crush me as a result. And so that's that's what free of me is about. And one of the questions that I mentioned to you before we started recording that I've really been anxious to talk to you about is in free of me, I go into the self-esteem movement and where it originated, how we tend to blame millennials for being kind of the like trophy kid generation. But it
It actually traces its roots back to boomers, which was really interesting. But kind of the like central wisdom at the heart of it is if you just knew how special you were that this would like set you free. And so it's basically this alternative gospel. And I think that for me, what happened was I I approached my insecurity the way that that self-esteem culture
Alison Cook (08:23.311)
Mmm.
Sharon (08:23.532)
And I think the way the reason that what I also get into and free of me is that the self-esteem culture did not deliver on what it promised. And my the thing that I wanted to know is I kind of have a theory about why, but I'm I wanted to test it with you because you're you're an official expert.
Alison Cook (08:35.14)
Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook (08:42.669)
I want to hear. I love it. I love this stuff. Yeah, let's hear it. I love it.
Sharon (08:49.28)
So my theory about why the whole self-esteem movement ultimately failed, I mean, I think there's probably multiple reasons. But my theory about why it failed is I think that the self-esteem culture on the one hand was putting its finger on something really important. Coming out of generations where children are kind of like seen and not heard and we are taught.
not to engage hard emotions and we just bury it and we hide it like whatever it is. I think the self-esteem culture was a needed correction to that problem. Where I suspect it ultimately failed is that its purpose, its goal for our lives ultimately is just too small.
Alison Cook (09:24.665)
Yep. Yep.
Sharon (09:40.799)
I think it's it has essentially told us that the thing that will set you free is this kind of self actualization that as long as you you yourself are whole and you love yourself and accept yourself that that that is you will have arrived. And I think that for Christians, we can agree with.
the goodness of affirming the self. And this is where what you write on and what I write on in Gazing at God absolutely overlap is that yes, yourself is good. Yourself is a reflection of the image of God in a unique way that nobody else reflects. And also that is not the end point of your life.
that it doesn't all just end there. It's not all going to that place, but instead you your healing is one step into this much larger purpose of loving God and loving others. And so my theory has been that part of the reason the self-esteem movement failed is it handed people a purpose that was too small for their souls and ultimately created its own sickness as a result.
And so what I need from you is to tell me if I have been misleading people all this time or if there's some validity to my theory.
Alison Cook (11:03.618)
I think that's backed up by a lot of research we're seeing as well as just the truth. I agree with you and how I think about it as a clinician, as a psychologist is I'm focusing on the psyche, which is the self in my work. But if I ever get out of balance in focusing on that too much,
Sharon (11:09.782)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (11:23.03)
Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook (11:31.894)
out of connection with God or out of connection with community and others, we have a problem. And you could say the same thing, know, part of my draw to the field is almost the opposite of yours. I knew, I felt, I knew so much about God, I knew nothing about myself and I needed to go through a significant period of time of focusing on the self, not as an end, but as a means to deeper healing.
Sharon (11:59.318)
Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook (12:01.355)
never away from God or out of partnership with others, but because there were wounds that needed attention. But I do think, I think you could almost, with everything you said, we could almost replace therapy culture with self-esteem culture, right? In that overcorrection of hyper focusing on the individual, and hyper focusing on the self, and hyper focusing on self-esteem as the end game.
Sharon (12:16.47)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sharon (12:22.924)
Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook (12:31.427)
That's to me exactly what you're saying. That's the issue. There's a piece of it that's important, but it's only a piece of the larger whole. So I couldn't agree with you more. And that's why I love how your work starts there with honoring the self. And I love because you're in ministry and because you're a pastor, I want more pastors to have that holistic. And I think more pastors are getting that. And that's one of the things I think therapy has, I always say I was just at a,
Sharon (12:31.519)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Sharon (12:35.98)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.
Alison Cook (13:01.199)
conference and they're like, you know, it was a bunch of us more in this, you know, psychiatry, psychology, therapy space. And they were saying, what does this have to do for the church? And I was like, gosh, I'd love to see more, not churches becoming therapists, but more of this holistic understanding of the soul in churches, because you, what can happen on what I've seen happen is people replace communal embodied togetherness with others and with God, with therapy.
Sharon (13:18.956)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (13:26.465)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (13:31.212)
Mmm, mhm.
Alison Cook (13:32.056)
And that's that hyper individualistic, it's kind of a riff on what you're saying, right? It creates that hyper individualistic, I get all my needs met here, but I'm not really kind of knocking up against other people and figuring out my purpose in the larger whole. That's not actually true self-esteem. If we want to take it right back there, that's not actually true sense of my belovedness of God, even as I honor and celebrate the belovedness in each and every one of these other people.
Sharon (13:36.032)
Yeah.
Sharon (13:41.611)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (13:49.845)
Right.
Sharon (13:54.124)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (14:01.259)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's a huge validation coming from you and I will continue to repeat that theory elsewhere now that I have your blessing.
Alison Cook (14:02.287)
So I agree with you. Yeah.
Yeah.
Alison Cook (14:12.161)
Yeah, I love how you're saying that. And I love, Sharon, how your work comes out of your own journey of recognizing, and let me see if I'm hearing you correctly, recognizing that this self-focus was leading nowhere good to kind of eroding your sense of worth and your self-esteem and that therefore a solution that focused on more self-focus, right? Just love yourself more.
Sharon (14:26.058)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (14:30.656)
Mm-hm.
Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.
Sharon (14:40.021)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Alison Cook (14:42.241)
was not the correct solution.
Sharon (14:44.167)
Exactly. It was reinforcing the problem instead of correcting it. Yeah. And part of what really helped me to even see this is, you know, I shared with you that initially I went to scripture asking, what does it say about me? But when I realized that that wasn't helping me specifically and again, there is a place for that. I want to be really clear that that for some people, if
Alison Cook (14:47.875)
Yeah, that make-
Alison Cook (15:03.503)
Mm.
Alison Cook (15:13.22)
Yes.
Sharon (15:13.533)
If you had a lie spoken over you as a child or some wound that is shaping you and keeping you in bondage to shame or whatever it is that the truth of God's word is is really important and is bondage breaking. And so I want to be really clear about that. But when I reapproach scripture and ask a different question, which was when people in the Bible who had insecurities brought those insecurities to God.
What did God actually say to them? That was really illuminating because I looked at people like Moses and Jeremiah and Gideon and Moses is a really great example of someone that God appointed for this calling and he pushes back and says, actually, I don't think I am the person for this job. I don't speak well. We don't know if he had a speech impediment of some sort. We don't know what the reason is, but he thinks
Alison Cook (15:44.751)
Hmm.
Sharon (16:12.765)
He is not equipped for this. There's something flawed about him that he's bringing a sense of inadequacy to God. And I think if Moses were my friend and he came to me, what I would say to him is, actually, Moses, you are the best person for this job. you just strictly resume speaking because he was raised in the palace. He was groomed to be a leader. Like if anyone in Israel, really just on paper.
is probably the best person for this job. But that isn't what God says to Moses. Instead, God says to him, Moses, who gave human beings their mouths? Was it not I, the Lord? And I really love in her book, Women of the Word, Jen Wilkin, she describes this interaction as God changing the subject off of Moses's inability and onto God's ability.
And I think that's such a great just in a nutshell of what it is we are often craving when we feel our limitations, when we feel overwhelmed, when we feel inadequate for the task before us, is we have centered ourselves in a way that is making the burden heavier than it needs to be because we think we're the hero of the story. We think it rises and falls on us. And we need to be reminded that
No, in fact, God is the hero of the story. You are not the center of it. It does not rise and fall on your shoulders. And that is a much freer way to live. And so that was really that was also just really honestly liberating for me personally, not just in the instance that I described, but that's something that I have carried with me. We planted a church about seven years ago and it is so easy to think.
this thing rises and falls on mine and my husband's shoulders. And when we feel that way or if people leave the church, know, whatever it is, and I start to feel just crushed by the weight of that, I remember, wait a second, A, this church does not rise and fall on my shoulders. I'm not the hero. I'm not the savior of this church. But also my job is not to win people to me.
Alison Cook (18:08.047)
Hmm.
Alison Cook (18:24.943)
Hmm.
Sharon (18:32.35)
But that's not what my job is. My job is to point people to Jesus and I can succeed at that whether they go to my church or if they leave my church. I can still succeed at that. And that has just taken such a weight off of my shoulders when I remember I am not the center of this story.
Alison Cook (18:32.578)
Mm.
Alison Cook (18:49.199)
Mm.
Alison Cook (18:56.783)
Gosh, there's so much in what you're saying. It, it's such a paradox. What I hear you saying is when you when you don't center yourself, it's actually freeing. Like the whole it's not about you. It's actually not about me. It's about a larger story. It doesn't diminish your sense of worth or your value or your self esteem. It actually makes you feel lighter.
Sharon (19:25.63)
Mm-hmm. Yes. And it's because the reason it doesn't diminish you is because when you center yourself, you are actually forgetting who you are, which is you are not God. And so to de-center yourself is not to diminish you. It is to be restored to who you actually are, which is a human with limitations.
Alison Cook (19:25.935)
And freer?
Sharon (19:52.691)
And that is not a diminishment at all. That is just reality. And so that's why it's not a diminishment.
Alison Cook (19:59.6)
So it's so interesting because I'm imagining someone listening who has felt, has never felt centered.
Sharon (20:12.471)
Mm, mm-hmm.
Alison Cook (20:15.651)
And well, let me, I'm gonna delete that before I go there. Everything you're saying I think applies in so many settings. So first of all, as a parent, how freeing is it when we have those moments of realizing this is not all on me? I cannot be the perfect parent. I cannot be omniscient. I cannot be all knowing. I am not God. Thank goodness God actually cares about these.
Sharon (20:31.625)
Right.
Sharon (20:35.625)
Yeah.
Sharon (20:41.554)
Yeah. And that your your children already have a perfect parent and it's not you.
Alison Cook (20:45.931)
Yeah. Yeah, and my job is to do the best I can and point them, but it doesn't diminish my role. And I think intuitively as parents that we feel that freedom. I'm thinking about vocationally. I think that's a tricky one. Vocationally. And I'm curious about your thoughts on this. We need to feel a sense of place in the world that our lives matter.
Sharon (20:53.183)
Right.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sharon (21:01.172)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (21:11.252)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook (21:13.763)
that our work matters to me, it's one of the biggest toxins that social media has brought is there's just this ability to compare yourself to people you never should have been comparing yourself to, right? It takes away some of the dignity of just my place in my local embodied world. there is that, there's that delicate tension that we're holding, right? So I'm thinking of you as a minister, I get what you're saying.
Sharon (21:26.568)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sharon (21:32.328)
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Sharon (21:39.444)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook (21:44.182)
My job matters. Like what I'm doing in this community really matters. There's a sense of healthy pride and dignity in this work. And also paradoxically, it's not about me.
Sharon (21:46.142)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (21:53.118)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.
Yeah, so that is actually why I wrote Gazing at God. So I wrote Free of Me and I wouldn't necessarily change anything about that book. But after I released it, I started to notice that, especially in pastoring our church, oftentimes when people were struggling with self-focus, self-preoccupation, it wasn't
Alison Cook (22:03.993)
Good.
Sharon (22:29.394)
because of pride or vanity. Very often it was because of a wound. There was a wound there. And the metaphor that I've often used is of like a physical wound. If I were to walk outside my office and trip on the curb and turn my ankle over, I would give all my attention to that ankle. I would go to the doctor. I would ice it or heat it or whatever they say to do. would take ibuprofen. I would wear a brace.
Alison Cook (22:36.622)
Yeah.
Sharon (22:58.866)
It would change the way that I walked. know, everything would be about this ankle because it was hurting me and that is really healthy. Your pain demands your attention and that's really healthy. Right. And so I think there's that's a great way of understanding that our souls are that way, that very often what is pulling our attention inward is often pain. And so to say to people,
Alison Cook (23:08.719)
Yes, not selfish. Yeah.
Sharon (23:28.052)
there is freedom and focusing on God and focusing on living, know, loving God and loving others without addressing the fact that the thing that is pulling your attention back inward could be a wound of some sort. It felt like there's kind of a missing step. And so part of what I wanted to do with gazing at God was to name, like give attention to what is happening in your interior world so that you can better understand it because
Alison Cook (23:41.027)
Mm.
Sharon (23:57.266)
Another piece of this and you have done, this is why I think we connect so well is you've done a great job of identifying the ways that self-denial, which is a Christian teaching, we get it from Jesus himself, but the ways that self-denial has been poorly, badly taught in ways that are either unbiblical or theologically problematic where
We are saying self denial, but what we really mean is self rejection or self abandonment or self neglect. And so between those two things, I felt it was really important to start with that interior work that our self esteem culture, therapy culture, whatever you want to call it is is equipping its resourcing people well to pay attention to what's actually going inside myself. And then to also.
start with a biblical affirmation of the self, that the self bears the image of God in some unique and important way to equip people with an understanding of stewardship, that self-neglect is actually bad stewardship because God has put things in you that not only glorify him but are for the good of your community.
And so for us to neglect whatever God has put in this goes back to your question about vocation to neglect what God has put in you is actually bad stewardship. And so all that to say the reason that matters in this conversation about self forgetfulness and self denial is if we can start with an affirmation of who you are in Christ, who, God made you to be what
Alison Cook (25:31.437)
Yeah.
Sharon (25:48.402)
that does is it keeps us from running to these other things, to our vocation, to our role as parents, to affirm this thing that we lack. We don't lack it in Christ. And so it gives us this healthier relationship with those things that we tend to over identify with to make up for what is actually missing inside of us.
Alison Cook (26:10.607)
That's great. That's well stated. instead of, it's not a false binary of I look to God and so don't care about this. It actually puts it in proper relationship when you behold God. I want to touch on gazing at God because I love this behold idea and beholding God is very different than what many of us have understood and I think that's part of where
Sharon (26:19.825)
Right. Mm-hmm. 100%.
Alison Cook (26:40.083)
that misalignment arises, right? It's sort of a bifurcation. I'm either thinking about God or I'm thinking about myself. What have you found in your own life and as you've worked through gazing at God with others about this idea of beholding God? Talk to us a little bit about that.
Sharon (26:48.787)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (26:55.899)
Hmm. One story in scripture that I think captures what it is I'm trying to communicate with gazing at God is the story of Peter walking on water. So we have this famous story in the Gospels where Jesus is in the waves. There's a storm. Peter has the courage to get out of the boat, unlike the rest of the disciples. I think he's not commended enough for that. He gets out of the boat.
he starts walking towards Jesus, but then he lowers his gaze onto the waves. And as soon as that is where his focus is, he begins to sink. But as soon as he locks eyes again with Jesus, he realizes that he is secure. And I think that that story is
A metaphor for many things, I think it's a metaphor for what it is we're doing whenever we worship is we are adjusting our gaze and remembering what really defines our reality. What really defines our security is not the storm kind of happening around us. It's Jesus. But it's also just a metaphor for the power of our attention that very often what we give our attention to is going to influence our
interior worlds, it's going to influence our direction, it influences a lot. And so this isn't about neglecting the self. It's really self forgetfulness is the freedom from being preoccupied by the self. Like I can't help but run everything through the filter of self, not because the self is bad or because the self doesn't matter, but because the self cannot ultimately be
Alison Cook (28:32.943)
Yeah.
Sharon (28:43.165)
the foundation of our security. It has to come from something outside of ourselves and that is Jesus. But that's how those two things fit together.
Alison Cook (28:52.781)
Yeah, I love that. And in that passage, he still has work to do. He's still part of it. Sometimes I like the idea of partnering with God. That's that alignment. When we're with God, everything just is more aligned. We're still doing our part. There's still meaning and purpose. And again, that healthy sense of, know, I'm in this. I'm in this. I'm part of this. But it doesn't end and rise with me.
Sharon (29:01.523)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (29:11.71)
Right?
Sharon (29:17.807)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Exactly.
Alison Cook (29:22.223)
I love that. How has do you have a what's your time like? know we chatted for a while. So are you do you have a hard stop?
Sharon (29:30.057)
I'm free until 1 30 my time. It's 12 45. So I've got about 45 minutes left.
Alison Cook (29:34.957)
Okay, so you have a little bit of time.
What would you say to someone who's listening, who feels fragmented? Maybe they feel they want to honor God, but they can't sense God's presence and they're sort of just in that mode of trying to hold themselves together, right? What first step or what really, what's a simple step someone could take
Sharon (29:52.617)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (30:02.279)
Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook (30:09.773)
that isn't that kind of self. I love how there's all these words. want to, don't want to say, let me say that again. What's a step they could take that isn't that sort of dishonoring of self, but is moving toward that gaze of God. What's a practical step that you do in your own life to reorient that maybe isn't always like, I just suddenly feel God, right? But that is a
Sharon (30:22.44)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (30:33.319)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (30:37.692)
Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook (30:38.744)
I'm taking a step toward God in a very practical, tangible way.
Sharon (30:43.592)
So one just very early step, this is early in gazing at God as well. And this is going to feel probably a little bit distant from that step towards God. But I think it's actually really important is I talk about noticing your scripts.
Alison Cook (31:03.247)
Mm.
Sharon (31:03.472)
noticing the language that you're using. One thing that I learned in my research that I'm sure you already know, but there's a number of studies around people who are experiencing depression tend to use more me centered language. And I thought that was so interesting. And for me, when I'm noticing a lot of I language, a lot of me, a lot of mine, when I'm kind of in these spirals of
Alison Cook (31:19.3)
Yeah.
Sharon (31:32.465)
Why didn't they text me back? Why didn't they invite me? Why did they treat me that way? Are they mad at me? That's a kind of a yellow flag for me that I'm not OK. Like this is actually a symptom that something is something deeper is going on and to kind of step back from that spiral that I was in the middle of.
Alison Cook (31:47.663)
Mmm.
Alison Cook (31:55.395)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Sharon (31:57.959)
And so that has been a really helpful practice. then another practice for me. And this is this one takes a little bit more nuance depending on the situation. And so I want to be really, really careful. And you might even be able to help me nuance this a little bit. But I have stopped fighting my insecurity and treating it like a threat and that I need to if I feel insecure.
Alison Cook (32:23.887)
And that I need to.
Sharon (32:27.546)
I need to kind of puff myself up or make myself big or not do whatever I can to not feel humiliated in this moment. But I've really learned to receive when I experience insecurity to get kind of curious about it and ask what information does this have that I need to hear? Because if I'm feeling insecure, it probably means I'm not standing on something secure.
What am I standing on that is shaking right now? And that's really important information for me to have to know that I've actually rooted my identity, my value, my worth, whatever it is on something that shakes. And how can I name that and then do the work of rooting my identity on Jesus instead? And so that's how that really honestly has
Alison Cook (33:17.935)
Mm.
Sharon (33:23.256)
very little to do with whether or not I feel God in any given moment, but it is work that has been really powerful and meaningful to me.
Alison Cook (33:27.279)
Mmm.
Alison Cook (33:34.314)
Yeah, I love those steps because it does bring that curiosity piece about your own soul, which again, we think about David, you why are you downcast? my soul, right? There's that sense of noticing not in a fixation way. How do I fix it? How do I not feel this way? Which isn't good psychology and also not doesn't take us, but it's that more spiritual practice way of, I noticed this.
Sharon (33:46.152)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (33:51.751)
Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook (34:02.551)
in partnership with God. And also what you're saying, Sharon, I love it's right. That's right out of, you know, boundaries for your soul, right? Getting curious about the part of you, not trying to make it go away, not trying to fix it with a false, you know, you're doing great, which, you know, parts of us that's not just noticing. And what's that about? And where did I start to maybe care more about what this other person thinks of me than
Sharon (34:04.476)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (34:13.116)
Mm hmm. Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Sharon (34:27.718)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Alison Cook (34:30.989)
You know, so I think that's a beautiful reframe and I love the practicality of those steps. How have you, how's your own journey with God? You know, right now as you're kind of, I know when we write these books, right? It's often very much in our, in our own space, right? How has your own journey with God been shaped?
Sharon (34:52.262)
Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook (34:57.379)
by this work? What do you notice in your own soul as you, you you talked about where you started? Is it easier for you now? Is it more intuitive for you now? What do you notice about your own practice of gazing at God?
Sharon (34:57.564)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Sharon (35:06.098)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (35:11.976)
It definitely is easier. Like it comes faster. It's not that I don't struggle with insecurity anymore, but I have I have tools to process it and kind of understand it and where to sort of place it. And so that has been really helpful. I have been really helped by no longer fighting opportunities for humility. And when you plant a church,
Alison Cook (35:14.031)
Mm.
Sharon (35:40.936)
There are so many opportunities for humility. You know, I really cannot I could not have written a better book to shepherd my soul through the journey of planting a church because so much goes wrong. So much is out of your control when you plant a church. It's primarily volunteer led. And so if someone drops the ball, it looks bad on you as the leader. You look incompetent and obviously you're not going to just throw this person under the bus. And so you just have to kind of take it.
Alison Cook (35:50.745)
Wow.
Yeah.
Alison Cook (36:02.937)
Yeah.
Sharon (36:09.721)
But I recognize now those opportunities that are embarrassing or humiliating are for me a very needed course correction of remembering what are we doing here? Like I said earlier, I'm not winning people to me. That's not the point of the church. And so if they think I'm not a very good leader,
Alison Cook (36:23.555)
Big picture.
Sharon (36:32.955)
That's actually okay, as long as they still love Jesus and are growing in their relationship with him. What they think of me doesn't really matter. And I look so often to the example of Paul and Philippians where he's writing from prison, he's facing imminent death. And yet this is the most joyful of any of his letters. And then you have this moment where other Christians, these rival Christians,
are competing with him, are preaching the gospel for the wrong reason, are sort of delighting in his imprisonment. I mean, talk about church hurt. Like I would become so bitter, so cynical about Christianity if I was treated that way. And for him to say instead, you know what? It was never about me. I didn't do any of this for me to win people to me. And so
Alison Cook (37:12.429)
Yeah, good.
Sharon (37:31.056)
If as long as people are still coming to Jesus, I'm I'm good with that. That is actually still a success. And we have it's such a portrait of freedom because on the one hand, he is in chains, but his interior, his soul is so, so free. And I look to that a lot. And it is it's such a source of comfort for me, because as a leader, you constantly disappoint people, especially.
Alison Cook (37:51.119)
Hmm.
Sharon (37:58.768)
Back when we were leading in 2020, I mean, it was impossible. There was no way to please everyone. And so to remember at the end of the day, I'm not winning people to myself. That was something that fundamentally sustained me during that season.
Alison Cook (38:11.193)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (38:15.275)
It's powerful and that therefore then I can go on because I understand this isn't ultimately about me. This is, it's such a beautiful paradox. It's such a beautiful paradox. It's what then allows us to do the work. And it's that upside down sort of beauty of, think what following Jesus is all about, right? It's that, and I love it. I think of Adam Grant always talks about
Sharon (38:28.356)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Sharon (38:37.083)
Mm-hmm.
Alison Cook (38:42.979)
I love that used the word humility. You humility is actually rooted in confidence. Like we have humility when we have a sense of the gifts that we bring. Again, it's that paradox, right? And I love that's what you're saying. You're not saying this sort of false, you know, we hear this, right? This fault, it's not about me, it's only about God. And it's like, I'm always like, well, it's a little about, you know, it's a little about us in that sense that we are bringing the gifts that we have.
Sharon (38:53.063)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Alison Cook (39:11.423)
and God is using them, but it's always in that healthy alignment, right? That healthy alignment, and it's so freeing and sustainable, and I see in your face, I mean, I can't imagine it's easy to lead right now in our world. And if it was all about your own accolades, it would be excruciating, but when you can keep your eyes on that larger focus, you can run the race.
Sharon (39:25.041)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (39:32.017)
Right.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, because absolutely just.
As an example of the noticing my scripts, like this is a this is a season of leadership because of everything that's happening in our nation. This is a season of leadership where it is really tempting for me to spiral saying things like how could they misunderstand me? Don't they know me? Don't they know my commitment to Jesus or how rigorously I study scripture or how devoted I am to be
Alison Cook (39:58.67)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sharon (40:10.888)
being theologically integrated, like all of these things that I want to say, how can they still think this about me or why did they hear me saying it that way? And when I find myself just running through these scripts of wanting to defend myself, because that's really what it is, is I want to defend myself to stop and say, this is why you feel like garbage right now. Because you're running it through this filter.
Alison Cook (40:35.108)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sharon (40:39.674)
that there is no life there. It's not going to set you free. And so to remember, OK, are have I been a faithful witness to Jesus? Are they still good with Jesus? And sometimes that also means asking the question, do I even if I'm mostly right, is there anything that I need to apologize for so that they can still have confidence in?
Alison Cook (40:39.822)
Yeah. There's no life there. Yeah.
Alison Cook (41:03.482)
Hmm.
Sharon (41:09.434)
the church capital C, know, church leaders generally, even even if they're not good with me, I still want them to be connected to Jesus and his community. And so that also means a lot of like dying to self of like wanting to defend myself and my reputation in their eyes. But it's the better way.
Alison Cook (41:11.162)
Mm. Mm.
Alison Cook (41:20.398)
Yeah.
Alison Cook (41:26.457)
Yeah.
Yeah. that's, that's incredible. I let my readers know where to find your work and find all the things you're working on because I just, my, my, let my listeners know where they can find your work and all the things you're working on. Cause I just, I just think we need more people like you, Sharon. I love what you're doing.
Sharon (41:49.584)
Thank you so much. am pretty active on Instagram, Sharon H Miller, and then my books, Free of Me, which Free of Me re-released this year with a new cover that's on Amazon and Engaging at God, which just released in August, are both on Amazon.
Alison Cook (42:05.87)
And I just want to say to my listeners, these are resources, as you've heard in this conversation, that are going to integrate. You're going to find that integrated piece. You're not going to go into these feeling like I've got to set myself at the door. We get to bring ourself into this work. And I just love that you're doing that. And I think it's so powerful and so beautiful. So thank you for sharing the benefit of your wisdom with us.
Sharon (42:14.81)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon (42:30.852)
That means a lot coming from you, so thank you.