288. Safe Spaces for Spiritual and Emotional Growth

Discover how early attachment relationships shape our entire lives and learn how to foster emotional and spiritual well-being:

• You'll gain deep insights from Todd W. Hall and M. Elizabeth Lewis Hall's "Relational Spirituality" as we explore the concept of attachment filters and their unconscious influence on our perceptions and interactions. 
  
  
• In the second part of the episode, we delve into one of my book projects, which offers nine transformative moves to help you break free from overwhelm, embody a sense of security, and live a life filled with joy and contentment. We'll highlight Liz Bell Young's newest book, "Let There Be Havens," and discuss the need for creating safe, nurturing spaces that allow us to thrive. 
  
  
• Finally, we connect personally as I seek your feedback on the podcast's future topics and remind you to take care of your emotional well-being. Join me in moving away from overproduction towards a balanced and fulfilling life.

Chapters

• 0:00 Three Seasons Summary and Survey
• 12:12 Unleashing Maternal Influence
• 29:37 Engaging With Heartlifter Community

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome to today's Heart Lift with Janelle. I'm Janelle, your heart lifting guide for today's conversation and for your heart lifting journey. You can learn all about what it means to become a heart lifter in my book Overcoming Hurtful Words, and then learn nine heart lifting tools in Stronger Every Day. Start there or go back to the very beginning of the podcast, to the first episodes, where I explain to you what a heartlift is, what a heartlifter is and what the heartlift method is. Today I'm taking a big inhale and a big exhale and say what do you, dear heartlifters, want to hear on the upcoming conversations here on today's Heart Lift? I have so many planned already, but before we begin that journey, I just want to hear from you. I'm calling this the three seasons summary and survey. So I will have a survey for you and I will also just ask you to hop over to either Heart Lift Central over on Substack that's just at Heart Lift Central or over on Instagram at Janelle Rairdon, and you can just leave me a DM or leave a comment and just tell me. This is what I want to know more about. Janelle, here on this podcast and in my work, we talk specifically strategically and in my work. We talk specifically, strategically, intentionally, about three areas of our life. I think they are the three most important areas A healthy sense of self, that is your ego, your identity, that is who you are on the inside and how it comes out on the outside. And healthy behavior patterns. And finally, healthy communication skills. This mighty trio, I believe when we practice, all the things we're learning and studying here and talking about on this podcast and in everything that I do will lead us to a spiritually authentic, powerful, fulfilling, meaningful life, in that order. I lived my life for many decades being completely emotionally unintelligent. It wasn't taught in my system, my church system, and it is breaking through now. But I sincerely, with all of my heart, because I have learned the hard way, we need to be emotionally and mentally healthy. That will lead us to relational health, familial health, communal health and ultimately to a beautiful spiritual health in which we have a vibrant relationship with Jesus. I follow the ways and teachings of Jesus. If you're new here, you might call that the Judeo-Christian worldview. I love me some Jesus and I love learning about His Father, god and the Counselor of the Holy Spirit. It's called the Holy Trinity. So I'm giving you two options today that I'm working on. They are book projects, but I thought why not sample them out here on the podcast? So one of them. I'm going to read this beautiful quote before I drumroll tell you what the first project is.

Speaker 1: 3:59

This is from a book I'm reading this summer Relational Spirituality by Todd W Hall with M Elizabeth Lewis Hall a psychological, theological paradigm for transformation. Ooh, is it good. Well, they write this, and this chapter's all about attachment filters, how relationships shape our capacity to love. They write. There are certain relationships in our lives that shape us far more than others. Maybe just close your eyes for a minute. This is me, not the book.

Speaker 1: 4:35

What relationships are shaping your life right now? These attachment relationships with caregivers form our very sense of self. Before we can speak for good or ill. We remember how these important people in our lives feel about us, not in words, but in our emotions, bodies and images, in our implicit relational way of knowing. In fact, we remember all of our relational experiences from early infancy in implicit memory, and these memories shape us without our conscious awareness. How does this happen? Over time, experiences in our attachment relationships that are similar in terms of their subjective sense of meaning get chunked together and function as attachment filters, referred to as internal working models in attachment theory. Referred to as internal working models in attachment theory, attachment filters are the implicit relational schemas or expectancy models we develop in infancy by the end of our first year, as we discussed in chapter three of this book. As the brain continuously looks for patterns in our experiences, the meaning it tags to our experiences gets run through these relational filters. Now, right now this is me, not the book I have a little bit over a one-month-old grandson, peter, who just came to us in July, and I have an eight-month baby granddaughter, who came to us back in December, and as I watch them with their mothers and their fathers, I can see this happening. Okay, todd Hall continues. In other words, our attachment filters bias or shape how we experience relationships. Automatically and without our even knowing it, experiences with emotionally significant people are etched in our souls and become filters that shape how we feel about ourselves, god and others and how we determine the meaning of events in our lives.

Speaker 1: 7:19

Attachment relationships are relationships in which a child looks to a caregiver to provide lean in here a haven of safety in times of distress and a secure base from which to explore the world. Attachment relationships also continue throughout adulthood also continue throughout adulthood. These two functions work together in a mutually reinforcing way, creating a virtuous cycle of security. For example, emotional attunement and comfort when a child is distressed builds a haven of safety. She experiences increased safety, comfort and relief from distress and learns through such repeated experiences that she we could say he, she can count on her mother or other attachment figures to provide that if she encounters distress. The presence of this haven of safety, in combination with encouragement to explore, creates a secure base for the child to venture forth into the world. Her mother encourages exploration and is available for support when needed. Okay, here's the other side of the coin. However, the secure base could not exist without the haven of safety. See how they're, in one hand and the other Haven of safety in one hand and then that beautiful encouragement to explore in the other hand. However, the secure base could not exist without the haven of safety, the experience of being comforted when distressed. Part of what gives the child the feeling of safety to explore is the implicit Okay, remember that implicit knowledge is. We're not conscious, we're getting that. We're subconsciously soaking in this implicit memory and knowledge that a mother will be there to comfort us if we become distressed, or a father. The mother is typically primary and the maternal spirit is primary. We can see, then, that the two major functions of a secure attachment relationship work hand in hand. So that leads me to our first possible choice to talk over the next few weeks in our conversations that will move us through, here at least in North America, into the fall and into the winter.

Speaker 1: 10:05

Well, the first is a project I'm working on called Moving Day Leaving the land of over, leaving the land of overwhelm and heading straight to the land of overjoy. Moving Day. I write is it time for a move? Now? Just think, in your life I'm sure we've all moved. We have all moved. We've all packed boxes. Right now we are renovating our kitchen. Our house is controlled chaos. There is stuff absolutely everywhere. Things are covered with dust from. You know all the work being done the countertops. Countertop comes tomorrow and then they'll start the tile and the plumbers come. There have been electricians, there has been a tear out, there's been a gutting, there's been a cabinet man, a lot going on. And on top of that, okay, like I said, we had a grandson born. We have a grandbaby girl coming to us very, very soon, at the end of September or around the 22nd my husband is retiring. We sold our family business of 36 years and Rob and I celebrated our 40th. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Rob and I celebrated our 40th. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Speaker 1: 11:28

I have semi-retired, pretty much fully retired from my therapy practice of 13 years and will be focusing my time, attention, strategies, everything towards writing, authoring, teaching here on the podcast, and towards my nonprofit. So at the beginning of this I synopsisize I don't think that's a word the book, moving Day, the project Is it time for a move? Is there somewhere in your life you feel there's a movement happening? You're either moving away from something or moving towards something, or maybe you're just moving to the side to take a break and figure things out. I write, I am a mover and a shaker, literally.

Speaker 1: 12:12

When I began twirling a baton at age four, I knew I was born to move. Since then, my capacity for moving has taken multiple forms, moving the hearts of children and teens. As a literature and writing teacher, I've been an elementary teacher. I teach online college now. I have taught every age level at some point or the other. So I move hearts with teaching. I trained thousands in various dance forms as a dance studio owner and teacher, and behind the scenes of that, I helped, I talked, I listened to music. So many hearts of mamas and daddies. That's the key, the golden thread. But for the last 13 years I've been helping families move from feeble emotion and relational health in my private coaching practice. So this book project is a direct result of decades of movement, decades.

Speaker 1: 13:12

Each step led me to create this book project dedicated to the overwhelmed person, exhausted by the societal pressure to perform, produce and pretend. It's time for a change and I'm here to introduce this concept. It's moving day, so I have nine new moves to teach us. Goodbye overwhelmed Hello, I am settled. Goodbye overachieving Hello, I am enough. Goodbye overcaring Hello, I am seen. Goodbye overcompensating Hello, I am secure. Goodbye overfunctioning Hello, I am centered. Goodbye overlooked Hello, I am here. Goodbye overanalyze Hello, I'm good. Hello, I'm good. Goodbye overbearing Hello, I am aware. And goodbye overemotional Hello, I am embodied.

Speaker 1: 14:27

Okay, so does that sound interesting to you? Does it make you go? I want to read that book. I need to work on my overcompensating, or maybe you're going? What does that even mean? Well, I've been talking about it a little bit. What about overfunctioning? Are you an overfunctioner, hyperfunctioner? Are you an overanalyzer? Overbearing, overwhelmed? Are you overachieving? Are you an overwarrier? Ann Landers once wrote some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then to do it. Okay, is it time for a move? Do you like moving day? Does that tickle your fancy? Does that make you think, wow, I really do need to put some study in about moving.

Speaker 1: 15:22

The second project drumroll please is a project on matriarchs and the power of a matriarch and maternal influence. I have some working titles, but the gist is unleashing the power of maternal influence into the world, because maternal influence is real influence and, if I can say, in 13 years of just having a private practice, but even beyond that, all the years of teaching, I mean decades. Now I'm in my seventh decade, so I'm getting there I have noticed a decline in that thing we call secure attachment. Children who are secure, safe, that means they know they're seen, they know they're heard, they know they're going to be cared for, they're loved, they belong and they are building confidence because of that secure base to go out into the world and find their gifts and talents and emerge into the world to be a helper in some form or fashion. So I've had the privilege and I cannot wait to bring to you this extraordinary woman, liz Bell Young, who her recent book is Let there Be Havens. Let there Be Havens.

Speaker 1: 16:53

I am obsessed with this book and this title and Invitation to Gentle Hospitality. I'm obsessed with everything Her photography. It is a coffee table book but it is powerful. So in the very beginning of the book she writes this I believe we need to mother this world back into light, to lift one another out of the darker edges and back into this gift song of existence, one by one.

Speaker 1: 17:29

Because if we aren't nourished, we wilt and fight for scraps. Okay, I just add here I do not want anyone in my life to fight for scraps. We all have an inherent, god-breathed birthright for secure attachment. She continues because if we aren't nourished, we wilt and fight for scraps. If we aren't held and guided and steadied, we eventually crumble. If we don't have safe spaces to release our burdens and share our brilliant dreams, we turn to things that were never meant to hold them. We turn to things that were never meant to hold them, we turn to things that were never meant to hold them. I want you to just be ruminating on that. We need people, places and experiences that bring us home, feed our hopes, rock us to sleep, then wish us well in the morning as we go back into the world and find others who need what we were just given.

Speaker 1: 18:47

Some of us have never experienced havens for ourselves, but we long for them. Maybe we want our lives to be different, gentler, more at peace, more genuinely connected to others, but haven't figured out how to get there. Well, this is where we make the declaration it's moving day. I want to move out of the land where I don't feel safe, which for me these days, heartlifters is overproducing, over-scrolling, over-hyper about social media and platform building over, comparing, over, just over, over, over over. I want to be out of the land of over and I want to move into the land of over joy, which brings peace and ease and contentment. She continues we can all get there. We can all get there. None of us is disqualified from this effort or starting too late. That's good news. None of us has fallen too far off the path to be able to step back in. Okay, here we are. You have what it takes to take care of others. You have what it takes to take care of others. You are worth being taken care of yourself. That has been my summer mission to believe and declare that I'm worth taking care of myself. That might not be hard for you, but it has been extremely difficult for me Because I've been over living in the land of over. We live in a culture of over the top.

Speaker 1: 20:55

That day in school she writes after I had admitted to my class what I wanted to become, because she said she wanted to become a mother. That's in the beginning of this book. Let there Be Havens, and you will hear her story. She was in the Art Institute of Chicago early 20s and a professor said what do you really want to do with this training? And she just took a deep, deep breath for confidence and said I want to be a mother. Well, can you imagine how that's received? I mean, the Art Institute of Chicago is where Disney went, so this is a training bed of brilliant, creative individuals. After she wrote that and admitted it, the professor of the class left her a note. She scrawled it on top of one of my short stories but stapled over it. So I had to pry off the metal to see In that tiny space. She wrote I want to be a mother too. This is her professor.

Speaker 1: 21:54

I wonder if at some point we all wander into the same place, longing to shelter and be sheltered, to love and be loved, to make havens and live inside them. I believe so. So your other choice of direction is to talk about unleashing this power of maternal influence, which is real influence, into the world. I write this about the book project Modern Day Matriarchs ancient wisdom for unleashing the power of maternal influence. I write it is my earnest attempt, perhaps even my swan song, to unleash the power of maternal influence by educating, equipping and empowering women particularly mothers and grandmothers, but not not exclusive to those roles to rise up and take their rightful place as modern-day matriarchs. When we, as women possess and practice a healthy sense of self, healthy behavior patterns and healthy communication skills, spiritual maturity blooms and everyone in our spheres of influence flourish. So within this book project I have 13 women that I admire, and then I have this in a volume three hope like I want to have three volumes. I could go into 12 volumes because there's so many women that I admire, but I ask these women to come to the table in the book and have a conversation with us. So there's a lot of creative license.

Speaker 1: 23:36

And I just I want to talk to Deborah, the mother to Israel, because in her song in Judges 6 and 7, she says I arose a mother to Israel. So when I read that and I started writing about her, I said to myself Janelle, janelle arose a mother to who? Who is God calling me to exercise maternal influence over at this time in history? I don't know about you, but we have an imbalance of patriarchs over matriarchs, when I feel the power should be beautifully blended. We work together, we compliment each other, we fortify each other, we empower each other, we encourage each other, we support each other. That is how my marriage has gotten to be a 40-year marriage. I'm so grateful my husband has supported me and we have supported one another. So first we're going to talk to Deborah, mother to Israel.

Speaker 1: 24:51

I want to talk to Harriet Tubman. If you haven't watched the movie Harriet, I highly recommend it. She was the Moses of her people. I want to talk to Lucy Maud Montgomery, one of my creative inspirations, who wrote Anne of Green Gables and so many others. I want to talk to Amy Amma Carmichael of Donover Fellowship, my hero in the faith, who went to India, and we would know her because we have it written that she went to India. She used tea bags to dye her skin brown, she put on a sari and she went and rescued children that were in the temple to be used for sexual slavery. I want to talk to Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I want to talk to Lilius Trotter of Northern Algiers.

Speaker 1: 25:42

These women are my heroes and I want to introduce them to you, and I want us to learn from them how to receive beauty, how to engage as a maternal presence, how to celebrate little inner victories, how to find imaginative hope, how to hear after God's voice. Like Harriet, I want us to learn about helping others thrive. With Anna Jarvis, the founder of Mother's Day. What a story that is. I want to talk about Mary McLeod Bethune oh, one of my educator heroes. Oh, build a better world with her, with education. Susanna Wesley, mary Ward oh, there's so many. And then I have some fictional matriarchs that I want to introduce to you Agatha and Greta from the women talking movie. They moved my life. I want to talk to Mary Mitchell, slessor and Yonko Tabii, I think T-A-B-E-I, mother of mountaineering, they're just a full range of women who exerted maternal influence in a powerful way.

Speaker 1: 26:45

I think I was sparked, very much sparked to put this down on paper when I listened to two news stories about two young men, young who were school shooters, and in both of those cases if not all of the cases of that kind of scenario I heard the news reporters say they are estranged from their mother. They have been estranged, they had an estranged relationship with their mother. They have been estranged. They had an estranged relationship with their mother. Father wasn't really identified as much. Well, that just it just piqued me, it made me go yeah, there you go, there you go. I don't have any major studies to prove that, although many, many studies have been executed, and I will draw from those studies.

Speaker 1: 27:43

And I believe, for such a time as this, in the world, in our country, in our communities and, most importantly, in our homes, maternal influence is the real influence and if we don't get that right, if we don't call women to rise up, whether they have birthed a child or not, rise up as Deborah did in Judges 6, to be a mother to the community she had been called to, we're called to do that. So you have two choices. They do intermix, they do mingle and, you never know, it might end up all being in one book, but I just want us to move forward into a fuller, more meaningful, healthier life spirit, soul and body. I have missed you, heartlifter, but I have been doing my own work. As I said somewhere in one of my writings this summer, I did not intend to take a break from the podcast, but the podcast had already predetermined it needed a break. I needed a break, we needed a break, and so in that break, a lot has happened and uh, but a lot has taken place in that beautiful botanical gardens I've been talking to you about so much. I've just been trying to exhale, inhale, find a state of equilibrium and, most importantly, seek the God that I know and love for his next direction in my life personally, which does affect you, I think.

Speaker 1: 29:37

So I want to hear from you. I need your voice. Do you want this podcast to keep going? Is there a subject matter that's like? Janelle, please talk about this. Janelle, please write about this, or maybe, dear Heartlifter, I have a question for you. Ask me a question. That's over on Substack at Heartlift Central, the link to leave me a question is there you can see the Dear Heartlifter logo. You can always email me, janelle, at JanelleRairdon attending to, and be sure, be sure. First and foremost, do your heart work, take care of you, put on your oxygen mask, do something that makes you have a beautiful state of exhale and brings you joy. Do some joy building. And second, be sure to subscribe to this podcast and to Heart Lift Central. I want to move together and move forward with you. Okay, can't wait to hear from you and I can't wait to get started on all of these new conversations.