Today's Heartlift with Janell
Sometimes the story we tell ourselves is not really true. Sometimes the story others tell about us is not really true. On "Today's Heartlift with Janell," Author, Trauma-informed, board-certified marriage and family specialist, and Professional Heartlifter, Janell Rardon, opens conversations about how emotional health and mental fitness effects absolutely every area of our lives. When we possess and practice healthy, strong, resilient emotional health practices, life is so much better. Read Janell's newest book, "Stronger Every Day: 9 Tools for an Emotionally Healthy You."
Today's Heartlift with Janell
275. Blooming into Authenticity: Embracing the Wallflower Within
This week, I sit down with Cally Logan, "The Wallflower that Bloomed: Finding Your Place at the Lunch Table of Life." Cally is a beacon of hope for embracing your unique place in the world. Cally's insights offer a fresh take on self-acceptance and the courage to challenge judgments that often keep us in the shadows. Together, we navigate the intertwining paths of faith and mental health, revealing how these critical elements influence our journey toward self-discovery and gratitude.
As my conversation with Cally continues, we celebrate the beauty of being true to yourself and the strength of vulnerability. Reflecting on Jesus's example of unconditional love for those on the fringes, we're reminded of the profound impact that embracing our authenticity can have on forming genuine connections. Cally's stories underscore the importance of sharing our true selves and experiences, asserting that our most authentic self is the most powerful testament to our faith and can lead to transformative relationships within the kingdom of God.
Learn more about Cally's books and story: CALLY
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A reading from the Wallflower that Bloomed, finding your Place at the Lunch Table of Life, by Callie Logan. Those of us who are wallflowers may feel that we adorn the walls and corners of rooms like decor, scarcely speaking, more than paintings collecting dust, but that is no indication of what we have within to share, to offer or to reflect upon. Growing up, many of us have been labeled by others, and perhaps by ourselves, as shy, quiet, awkward or just plain different. We are so easily categorized and placed away that we are often glossed over without any consideration of all our worth, for we are worth much more than a fixture on a wall. What if we took the stigma out of sitting at the lunch table of the outsiders? What if we stopped judging the loners and we began to look at those around us for who they truly are? For is it not the deeply innate desire of each person to be fully known, accepted and appreciated for the unique qualities that make them one of a kind? Furthermore, what if we did that for ourselves as well? Instead of resigning ourselves to an apathetic acceptance that we are destined for a life of solitude and judgment, we instead allowed ourselves to stand where we are, in the truth that we have been uniquely crafted by a divine hand for such a time as this. What if we stopped fearing the judgments of others and instead bloomed into who we were always meant to be the wallflower that bloomed?
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to today's Heart Lift with Janelle. It's May and the flowers are blooming, and today wallflowers are going to bloom as well. We welcome back to the show our special guest, callie Logan. Callie was with us on season 12, episodes eight and nine, where she spoke from her book Dear Future Husband and we talked about the power of longing. We all have longings, don't we? That word longing, we will revisit it again and again. But go back and listen to those two really great conversations that we had with Callie. I also wanted to direct you to the beautiful conversations we had with another friend of mine, lisa Betts, who calls herself quietly unconventional, and with Lisa we did talk about wallflowering, but coming at it from that angle of just being quietly unconventional and not being like everyone else, and so I love this conversation, particularly in this month of May where the whole entire world is putting an emphasis on mental health. Well, that is a huge part of what we're doing here. We're bridging faith and mental health and bringing to life a healthy sense of self, healthy behavior patterns and healthy communication skills. Those three beautiful qualities, virtues, principles, dynamics are what we stand on here. If we, as women, embody a healthy sense of who we are, what might happen in our spheres of influence? And Callie is here today to help us once again talk about our identity in Christ? And perhaps some of you identify with this definition.
Speaker 1:A wallflower is someone who's so shy that they typically stand or sit alone rather than engaging with a larger group. If you tend to be introverted and a bit awkward at parties, you might describe yourself as a wallflower. Seemingly this has a negative connotation to it, but, as we know through the beautiful conversations we've had here on the podcast, it's just a different way of walking through the world. It might surprise you that I do feel like a wallflower at times. I know I seem pretty extroverted, but, as I've said before, I'm an ambivert. I'm an introvert who has learned very well how to play the extrovert. Be extroverted when I need to be, and actually, once you're filled with so much joy, aren't we all just extroverted? We can't wait to get it out.
Speaker 1:So welcome to the show, callie Logan. Callie, you're back to us with your brand new book, and I just want to know, first and foremost, how you're doing and how you've been on your journey since you came to us last, and then we're just going to dive into this new book the Wallflower that Bloomed, and this subtitle Finding your Place at the Lunch Table of Life is laden with meaning. I know it is. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's just so good.
Speaker 2:It's been a whirlwind. I feel so, so humbled, I mean. I think, that's the biggest word, it's just. I keep looking at it with so much gratitude. We had a great launch for Dear Future Husband and it was a whirlwind of a summer. We got to go on Propel Women and have a feature with wow, wow, 700.
Speaker 1:Club Interactive yes, and you were so good on that, so I'm gonna put all of these links just so everybody can catch up and be fed richly. Thank you by your words it's been wonderful.
Speaker 2:We had some speaking events, just all kinds of I mean it's been. It's been crazy and hectic and wonderful and lovely and just such an adventure and I'm I'm so grateful that the Lord he authored that I got to live out this adventure but it's been good. I got back from doing the speaking events and just a couple of days later ended up in conversation about I've got to pitch this book and this book has a unique story too.
Speaker 2:I'm so curious. I've had this title kind of in my heart for well over a decade. I was thriving one day and I just kind of had this little sweet hook come in my mind and it was the wallflower that blooms and I like that.
Speaker 1:I like it too. I like it a lot.
Speaker 2:I'm a very funny person in general, but I love the imagery that came with it and something in me said hold on to that and just hold on to it. Don't write a song on it, just hold it. So I've kind of kept it in in one of the little treasure boxes in my heart for a long time, and it was about a year ago. Right now I was in prayer and it's yeah, and the Lord just put on my heart hey, it's time if you want to write a book on that and I was elated.
Speaker 1:I was like awesome.
Speaker 2:I know what we're going to do with it now, and so sat down, started sketching out all the different ideas I had with the Lord and pretty much between then and August. So for then, like four months, just in my head and in my prayer time and in journal upon journal and random notes in my phone, just began to construct all the things that I felt like the Lord was authoring saying that needed to be for another pun, embedded in, you know, the flowerbed of this book. And so that's how it came and pitched it in August and then got to writing and got to do my favorite thing, which is just kind of mad scientists in the basement.
Speaker 2:Yes, right, right, right yes yes, and right away yes, right, right and right, yes, so it was done around um halloween, yeah, and then we we wrapped up the edits and so I am super excited to share this book with you guys and to share what I really feel like is the lord's heart for for his kids, and I'm just a very grateful vessel to get to uh type out. He authored it. I got to write, it is what I've been saying.
Speaker 1:I think that you're so gracious and generous in that, and humble for sure, it would definitely be one of the adjectives I would use to describe you. And it is, as I said before we came on, though, such a conundrum to me Because when I look at you and when you see Callie, you know we hear your heart, we know your spirit. You just don't seem like a wallflower, you just don't. When I picture in my mind, right, what that paints or has painted in historical, like movies and books and different things like that, a wallflower, what that paints. What are your thoughts on that? Are you trying to break that stereotype or Not necessarily.
Speaker 2:I think I'd add an adjective of blushy, because that's very kind to me. So I think blushing would definitely be an adjective blushing.
Speaker 1:I love it I love it so much.
Speaker 2:But for me, you know I think of it often that God, god loves to use the ironic and the way that you know he will call the people that are the most unlikely. He called David, who was the shepherd boy, who was a teenager hanging out in the field to be king, and that seemed like the most unlikely person on earth to go defeat Goliath, this giant.
Speaker 2:Yes, everything else. Or? I'm reading this book on Joan of Arc. And who would have thought that the heroine of France would be a teenage girl? Who would have thought that the heroine of France would be a teenage girl?
Speaker 1:Who would have thought oh, I mean, you're such a history teacher and you're just like I always say, I want to be in your classes, but Joan of Arc right.
Speaker 2:I'm reading her biography by Mark Twain right now and it's so good and I just keep thinking about that and I have thought there's that verse about how he uses the unlikely. And I have thought that about myself so many times because in actuality, I am one of the quietest, most shy people you'd ever meet. It is solely and completely by the fueling of the Holy Spirit that I have any ability whatsoever to be outgoing. I love it Because I get to share about what I'm passionate about.
Speaker 1:Yes, that makes all the difference and that's what shines through you for sure.
Speaker 2:It's him in me, it's his life in me, because Callie is quiet and a little wallflower and the person who made me to be and I'm grateful when I get to come here and I get to, just I feel like this is a lunch for me. I don't feel like me standing up on a stage, but I feel like this is getting to share with you and to these listeners, and come to the table and just have a wonderful lunch to tell about the goodness of the Lord.
Speaker 2:And that's what I'm hoping this book will encourage people to do that. They will know that there is a seat right here at this lunch table for them.
Speaker 1:Everybody's welcome.
Speaker 2:They can share, they can eat, they can be the person that God made them to be, but there's already a seat waiting for them.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's warmed up and ready. I love that. Do you mind if I read a little something from your introduction? Please do, it's so good.
Speaker 1:Okay, those of us who are wallflowers may feel that we adorn the walls and corners of rooms like decor, scarcely speaking, more than paintings collecting dust. Come on, callie. Such a good sentence, and it's not finished yet. But that is no indication of what we have within to share, to offer or to reflect upon.
Speaker 1:Growing up, many of us have been labeled by others, and perhaps by ourselves, as shy, quiet, awkward or just plain different. We are so easily categorized and placed away that we are often glossed over without any consideration of all our worth. For we are much more than a fixture on a wall. What if we took the stigma out of sitting at the lunch table of the outsiders? What if we stopped judging the loners and we began to look at those around us for who they truly are? For it is not the deeply innate desire of each person to be fully known, accepted oh, excuse me, I read that wrong. For is it not the deeply innate desire of each person to be fully known, accepted and appreciated for the unique qualities that make them one of a kind. Furthermore, what if we did that for ourselves as well?
Speaker 1:Well, this just picks right up with the theme that God has just been weaving through the tapestry of this podcast's conversations over the last few months, season 15 particularly and I can just see how you reached out to me for such a time as this and I was like this book is right on time. It's just right on time. You're adding to the conversation we had with Paige White-Allen, author of he Knows your Name. Paige brought to us a conversation that God had with her in a wintering garden, a wintering rose garden. He wanted her to know specifically that her name is daughter, and I know that.
Speaker 1:I know that conversation was brought for such a time as this as well, and so for both of you to be coming at this time, I'm very sure the Holy Spirit has something to say for a very strong reason for his women. Yeah, because we are daughters. We're not wallflowers, we're not high achievers, we're not cheerleaders, we're not fill in the blank, we're not bookworms, we're not nerds, you know, we're not awkward, we're daughters. What made you write that one line particularly? What if we took the stigma out of sitting at the lunch table of the outsiders? What does the lunch table got to do with this?
Speaker 2:most all of us. Even if you were homeschooled, you had some sort of social environment as a teenager that's right was either wonderful or it wasn't, and I think even movies like Girls, where the most popular school, who has the most desired lunch table of all, finds herself at some point in time feeling like an outsider.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think every person on the planet, whether they're willing to admit it or not, has felt like at some point that they are the outsider, and I love how Jesus loves the outsiders.
Speaker 2:He does how Jesus loves the outsiders he does, and so this book, particularly is to speak about that and to say you know, it's okay if you find yourself at the table. That's maybe not the most desired, that's maybe not the most popular, for whatever reason, that's not the sports one, that's not the cheerleader one or anything else. If you were at the lunch table, I think about when Jesus invited all those people over to Matthew's house.
Speaker 1:Yes, I just read that that's fun.
Speaker 2:And how you know there was such an outrage at that. Because why are you inviting all these people, Jesus? These are the people that, like no one, wants to have come sit at the table. You're inviting them over for a meal. What are you doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's what this book is for. It's for anybody who feels like they probably would have been one of those people in that crowd that he asked that night to dinner and to know that there's a seat there for them and Jesus wants them at his lunch table. Yes, and he wants to converse with them and Jesus wants them at his lunch table, yes, and he wants to converse with them all.
Speaker 1:He wants them all to know they're seen and heard and known and loved and they belong Right, totally. I see you. I see you. You are not invisible to me. I know your name.
Speaker 2:I know your name and I know who you really are. You're not what everyone else calls you, what everyone else says of you, the labels that everyone else has attached to you. I know who you really are, just like the woman at the well when he penetrates that deepest thing. And the reason she was so blown away is because she was so deeply known that it swept a heart stream that she was like whoa everything just stopped.
Speaker 1:Yes, how did he just read my entire history? How did he know that?
Speaker 2:Yes, and I want people to know that there is this person that God designed you to be, and he knows who that person is. He wants to help you to become that person fully, because I think you're going to like that person so much more than the person that everyone else says that you are.
Speaker 1:I really love that. I love you bringing that up because you write about why is offering our authentic self over the artificial self and I like that. You coined it artificial. I might've called it the false sense of self. That's very therapeutic or counseling, you know, but you're calling it for what it is it's artificial, it's not real. And now we have AI so we can truly look like anything we want to look like. So why is offering our authentic self over the artificial self so vital in the kingdom of God and in the world as Christ ambassadors? Why? Yeah, that's a huge question I want us to think about and attempt to give a response to. You've written this book, so I know you've spent time with that question.
Speaker 2:Well, real relationship comes from authenticity and it comes from vulnerability, and it comes from sharing who you actually are, because otherwise you have this quasi facade of a relationship that's really based on just superficial things.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you don't feel like you ever really get to know that person. And so when we are sharing in the kingdom and I think this is a big thing, that as the church, as the body of believers, as you know, as the big C church, as the body of believers.
Speaker 2:We need to really strive towards more inauthenticity, because it's easy to say, oh well, you know this was going on, and then you create this nice little package story that you share and then you keep going. But it's harder when you're struggling with something and you're saying, hey, you know like depression, hey, I'm really struggling right now, right in this moment, right two minutes before I walked in this door and probably when I walked out the door, I probably will be as well.
Speaker 2:But it's there that we can actually begin to help each other as brothers and sisters in Christ that we can start to encourage, and it's there that God wants to meet us too. He already knows what's actually going on behind the scenes, and I think it's validating to ourselves to say, hey, this is actually how I'm feeling, this is actually what I'm going through, and it's there that we reach people too, because, you know, jesus gave the great commission of sharing the good news with others. But a lot of times that comes from personal experience.
Speaker 2:I can tell you about my Jesus because I know him. That's correct. I'm going to share my real yeah, this is what I experienced.
Speaker 1:I say a hundred percent of the time. If it's authentic, it's going to come flowing out of you like the living water of the Samaritan woman who just had to run back and tell the whole community she was our first evangelist. She was like I can't keep this in. This is crazy, you know? Do you know what this man just did? Exactly and like you?
Speaker 2:said, we live in a world where there's artificial intelligence, where there's ai that can generate anything we want, but the human spirit can spot the difference we know the. We know what's phony, we know what's fake and we know what's authentic and what's true. And people are so desperately craving truth and a world where everything is pretend and make-believe. We're so desperately craving truth. So how much more can we bring to the table as his ambassadors than we actually just bring the authentic and not the artificial?
Speaker 1:Would this be safe to say? That at some point in your life you have felt like this outsider at a lunch table? Or I mean, is this coming from a real journey of your own?
Speaker 2:Entirely.
Speaker 2:Okay very much so I actually I chose stylistically this isn't a memoir at all with the book, but I chose stylistically to begin the book with a very painted scene of just an everyday experience of me as a teenager, at 15, 16 years old in the lunchroom and I chose to do that because I wanted to come at it in a way that I wasn't talking to people and kind of coming up with all of this textbook type stuff. That's sounding good and it's like, okay, well, that sounds all good and fine, but what have you actually ever experienced?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know you've experienced it. I read it already. You know so, of course, but can you put me in that, that embodied state, I guess, of that 15, 16 year old?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was certainly not what you would call popular. I started as a little kid to make friends. It just seemed like making friends was something that I didn't quite know how to do. It's not that I didn't desire to, I didn't have some temper to blow up on people, but I was quiet and I was shy and it seemed like some of the things I had interest in other people didn't quite share in the same interest, and that was okay, but it just was hard. And then when I got to high school, I became the punchline to a lot of jokes. I became the target of a lot of bullying.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, yeah I was a lot of soul wounds that took a long time and I think, if I'm being very honest and transparent, please be still working on, still working on healing those things.
Speaker 2:I'm still taking those things that people have said to me, even past high school. Yes, you know things that were said to me in the past couple of years and I'm identifying why the words hurt so bad. Yes, they do years and I'm identifying why do the words hurt so bad and how can I reframe them. Because, although we think back to our high school selves, that doesn't really end when you leave high school. You find that people are still people and it happens, and it happens in friends and it happens in all these different places that you will feel that outsider and and I talk about that there are things where I talk about hanging out with this one friend and her boyfriend, uh, after work one Friday night, and how he just I was super quiet and shy because I didn't know him very well, but he made me feel very awkward for that.
Speaker 2:I went and I sat in the car and I just automatically started beating myself up and I said why can't you just be outgoing, why can't you be like everyone else and be normal and I heard the voice of God say that it was okay that I was quiet, because he made me to be and I don't need to change to make other people like me. And I felt like the woman in that. I felt like whoa, you hit me in a place and and it made me realize that it's okay if everyone doesn't like me, because what matters most is that God is pleased with me and then I like me.
Speaker 1:Yes, I have no doubt in my mind that you were in his school. You know you've been in his school. He's been training and rearing you and leading you and guiding you, and I mean all of that is keen training in following the Holy Spirit. Right to have that sense of pruning.
Speaker 1:A lot, of, a lot of you write about that I know. I definitely wanted to ask you and I mentioned this before we got started this one question why is it important oh boy, this is a lean in for all of us, I think. Why is it important to rehabilitate the bully in the mirror? You have such a command of language, which I love, because selecting that word rehabilitate as much as so I know I need to keep rehabilitating the bully that I look in the mirror every day. Like you said, it doesn't go away. We have a negativity bias in our brain, so our brain sticks to the negative it loves, it makes it work hard. How do we do this? Where can we begin today?
Speaker 2:I think one of the first places we have to realize the bully is not this, just very flat character. A lot of times we want to just even the word bully you. Probably the first person you probably think of is Biff, from Back to the Future, because that was the first person I thought of.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so true.
Speaker 2:Easy with him because he doesn't change. He's just this flat character who is mean and nasty and awful. And so when we hear that it's even looking at it first, I think you have to identify that sometimes you're your own bully and that person staring back at you in the mirror and that's probably one of the hardest things to look at, because you don't want to admit that and you don't want to admit that that person, that mean you is talking to, is really just the collection of lies from the enemy yep of things that you have said, that you've had other people.
Speaker 2:You've heard them say about people, or you've heard them say about you and it's this frankenstein kind of monster. That is, just all these horrible negative attributes that you've heard swirling around that go on Instagram and they say this is bad.
Speaker 2:You, you open, you know, you turn on the TV. They say this is bad, that one comment that was made to you when you were seven, the thing that your aunt said to you when you were nine, all of those swirling things, and then it becomes this manifested bully that's staring right at you and with that bully and saying, yeah, you are all these things and you're worthless.
Speaker 1:Worthless that's the bottom line.
Speaker 2:It is and we have to look at that and first identify one that's a lie and two it doesn't have to stay that way. So the bully today said I'm worthless. What does God say? And then you have to take it even further than that, because then you have to start believing what?
Speaker 1:God says you do, because your brain has to believe what you're saying about yourself. It has to this is proven or it's going to bounce off. I might not start with I am worthy, because my brain might not believe that right. But I can just start with I know God believes I'm worthy. I know God right, his truth, his word, because it doesn't ever return void and it doesn't lie to us. He's not a man that he can lie. He doesn't lie to us. So if he calls me daughter, he's not lying.
Speaker 2:Exactly and I think about too. Sometimes I will ask the Lord please bring a memory to mind of a time where you made me feel really worthy, god, or you made me feel really beautiful, or all these different things, or I experienced that with you. It's a common experience that I had alongside the Lord, and every time I do that he'll bring back a memory, because we are told and you see it so much throughout Scripture to remember the goodness of the Lord and remember the things yes.
Speaker 2:And so remind your own soul of the goodness of the Lord and then praise him for that, thank you. That was such a cool time that day, when I was 17 and I got that new outfit and looked in the mirror for the first time ever. I actually felt really pretty and that was a joy because I saw what you see in me, god, and I'm struggling to do that today. Could you help me? Because you helped me that day and I felt it that day.
Speaker 1:And today.
Speaker 2:I'm not believing it and it's a hard day, but could you help me to do that and thank you for that day that I have a memory that I get back to that. I did experience that with you and perhaps sometimes you don't have a memory and there hasn't been Exactly.
Speaker 2:Then it's inviting him. God, could you help me, in my own self-worth today, to experience that, because I do believe that's a thing you have for me. I've seen you do it in other people, I've heard about it and I want to experience that with you, not just for me, not a selfish desire to say, but God, I want to have that holy experience and memory with you and I can remind myself on another day of that experience where I can share that with someone else. And that will be testimony of your goodness Lord.
Speaker 1:I love that. So just in case you didn't quite notice heartlifters, you just had a meditative exercise unfold before you through Callie and.
Speaker 2:I didn't even know that was that, was that that's that was that I was sitting here going.
Speaker 1:I think this is so beautiful that we can just we're going to put some beautiful music behind it, like we do here, and it's going to be a place within this conversation you can return to and listen to 500 times with headphones in. I always like to say, because it makes a difference in a quiet space where you can just listen to Callie's words pour over you and invite the Holy Spirit the third active part of the Trinity, part of the Trinity to speak to you, just like it did in the car with Callie when she was young and still are, when God said I made you quiet, yeah. So to counter that, callie, one of those moments in my life was I made you loud Because I'm really loud. I love that. I'm an ambivert. I've heard ambivert, is that how you say it now? Yes, I definitely am very, very introverted, but have learned. I think extroversion was a learned quality for me on stage and when I first started getting applause for twirling two batons in fourth grade, the talent show. So I think once I got that approval, the applause, all that, so I mean God might say something like I made you quiet it. He might say I made you loud and I love your loud, crazy presence. I love how excited you get.
Speaker 1:So just take a moment. I want you to pause here. I think this is so beautiful. Sit with this subject matter and ask God what he thinks about you as his daughter. Let's keep this going. What are some very practical and tactical ways to bloom? Right now, the daffodils in my front yard are just bursting and they make me so happy and I just love the rhythm of going out and cutting them and getting the sap on my fingers and bringing them in and they just bring sunshine into this beautiful home. So what are some practical ways that we can begin to bloom?
Speaker 2:And perhaps that you mentioned your home because that's one of them. Okay, that's one of the ways that I mentioned it, because, you know, I think a lot of people think, oh well, like if I wanted my environment, my living space, to be the way I'd want it, I'd have to call NHGTV and be on a reality show. And the truth is you don't, you don't, you don't. There are so many ways to actually make your corner of the universe and your house, your apartment, whatever it may be lovely and reflective of what's on the inside. And I actually go through and I talk about that in the book that there are practical ways that you can do it on the cheap. Creative and I think that's one of the best parts is, if you have a low budget, you get to be so creative, and if you have a big budget, good for you Exactly.
Speaker 1:I think it all boils down to the same thing, though what brings? I mean I am all into joy building right now in my life. I mean, this huge article in 2023 that I read on joy building changed my life. It just changed my life. I was like I had no idea what it meant to be a joy builder and how incredible that is. And so what just makes you smile? What makes you so happy? Even if you had a gazillion dollars if I did, if I possessed it, I'd love it, because I could give away so much money I would still plant daffodils in my wherever and bring them in and put them on my table this time of year, because it's usually raining and dreary.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I mean what? Yeah, it's a beautiful thing that you can do, and I talk about also doing that in your closet. It's a lot of fun to do that too, and I talk about Talk to me. As women especially, we get into this idea. Well, I need to dress my age, and I don't like that Because I think that is such. I think that is something we need to put aside and instead dress for your approach.
Speaker 1:I just said it. Yesterday I took a jacket back and I said I just don't think it's my age. That's so funny. And the lady put it on, that was in the store and she goes oh yeah, because she's my age. And she goes, nah, but it's a signature piece. I mean it's so fun. And I was like, oh, I should probably get it. But anyway, that's so funny. You're always so right on.
Speaker 2:I think we need to dress for our approach, because I know that mean well, I mean it in the way when I turned 30, uh, I definitely felt like kind of this new place of, oh well, I should probably, I should probably just go capsule wardrobe and start just only wearing solids and stop having fun with clothes.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, you're 30. I'm 31 now, almost 36. Ali Logan, come on, look, you're 30. I'm 31, now Almost 36. Allie Logan, come on, look at the back of my sweatshirt.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to show you. We'll edit that part out, right?
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:I like that. Oh, it's so fun. Okay, party in the back. I definitely stopped myself and I thought that's no fun. No, it is not because you're darling. Why am I going to stop having fun with clothes? And so instead I asked what do I want people if I had never met me? If somebody, a stranger, walks up, what do I want them to think about me? Just from an aesthetic standpoint?
Speaker 2:First and foremost and what do I want for what's inside to convey outside, and so I think that's your approach. How do you want to approach another person, and so perhaps you want to dress in a way that you are dressing vibrantly and excited, or maybe you do want to dress in a way that like wow, that girl, she is class.
Speaker 1:You know things like that yes, spending on the approach.
Speaker 2:A whole closet overhaul and I kind of walk through what that looks like and again, you don't have to go call, you know, Stacey London or anyone else.
Speaker 1:Or Nordstrom Rack the stylist. No, exactly no.
Speaker 2:And you can do that, and it's amazing again to get creative and you can do it on a budget as well. So those are two very things you know outwardly that I talk about. And then I also talk about a lot inward, practical, tactical, and I talk about what are some things that you have perhaps been carrying for a very long time, that it's time to unearth them, to dig them up and to heal and to not just accept and say, well, this is just part of me now. No, but like, let's, let's open it up, let's, let's take that band-aid off, however old that band-aid is, let's let the wound air. And I, I offer a journey of sometimes you do have to have that pity party, because then you can say you had it, that's right stay there no, ma'am.
Speaker 1:24, 48 hours, if that long, and that's like that's what I talk about too okay how do you heal that with the holy spirit?
Speaker 2:how do you heal that with the lord? So how do you heal that with the Lord? So you're not just doing it all on your own, and I talk about that. And then what are you going to do onward? How are you going to? When something reminiscent of that comes forward, how are you going to take that forward? And so that's another thing that we go through in a practical, tactical way. And then, lastly, looking at the wonderful things that God has given you and your metaphorical knapsack that are unique to you, and so there is an in-depth look at maybe you're empathetic, or maybe you're just sympathetic, or we go into imagination and then spiritual gifting.
Speaker 2:Maybe there are spiritual gifts that you're not even aware that God has entrusted you with and I love using that word entrusted even aware that God has entrusted you with and I love using that word entrusted, not just given, but entrusted you with. And so, thinking about it from the talent standpoint of if he gave you five talents of imagination, are you going to just bury that under the dirt? Or are you going to use that and multiply it and bless it and have fruit come from that? Is it going to be life giving, not just to you but to those around you, maybe to your kids, things like that.
Speaker 2:So those are some really practical tactical ways to be able to bloom and I really want to inspire people that I think you're going to end up really liking who you are. You become the person God made you to be. I think you're going to like that so much more than this artificial person that you've constructed over all these years to win the approval of others.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of my favorite Irish poets, david White, always says God always says get to know the stranger that is yourself. Yes, I like that. So when you are really truly coming home because we have spent all right you're in your fourth decade, I'm in my seventh decade We've had a lot of projections on us. We've had like we've already said a lot of words spoken over us that perhaps have not been healing. They've been negative. Our negativity bias has got a sticky board up in the brain and so we have to take those stickies off one by one, right, and when that's happening to us, it's as if you've got to get to know a stranger, and I know that that is so true in my own story. And I think that's what you're telling us with this work that you're putting out and giving us now, that it's time for us all to bloom in such beautiful ways. Unexpected ways, beautiful ways, unexpected ways. And I do agree with you 1000% that person that's going to look back at us in the mirror now, instead of the bully, we're going to love her so much because I've lived long enough to be there. I'm not totally there, but I mean I was a dancer my whole life, so I was surrounded by mirrors my whole entire life and for the first time, it's like when I look at my aging body or my aging skin or whatever, yeah, it's like gosh, you are aging, get a grip, you know, because I don't feel that mentally or emotionally, I just feel it physically. But I really do like who God has made me to be. And I'm just starting to get that, and I think that's when we come into our sense of power in God's kingdom and in the world, because, you know, we're in this world. We're not of it, but we're in it. Callie, thank you, thank you so much more. And so you're just going to have to get Callie's book.
Speaker 1:But while we were talking, I was trying to stay so focused but I had just this vision in my head of just lunch tables, right, and my table in my kitchen, not my dining table, which we hardly ever use, but my breakfast. You know, lunch table. Heartlifters invite friends, invite strangers, I don't know. Invite the unlikely into your home with this book and sit and have lunch together, or breakfast, but lunch is the theme. So have some healing around your lunch table. Have some healing around your lunch table, and churches maybe do the same. Have some healing around your lunch table and churches maybe do the same, community groups do the same. Let's have luncheons, I love it, and have Callie there to share her beautiful story. Thank you, callie.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much Heartlifter, ralph Waldo Emerson, once said To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. I pray that you find some quiet space in a sacred place and revisit that meditation that Callie offered us, and spend some time just letting God whisper in your ear who he sees you to be, because you know what it's really beautiful. It's really beautiful Until next time.
