345. THe Practice of Healthy Humility

Have you ever been asked, "What is your calling?" In Episode 344, Dr. Arianna Molloy, author of "Healthy Calling: From Toxic Burnout to Sustainable Work," shares her research and helps us answer that question from a beautiful place of understanding and maturity.

In this episode, we reframe calling as a living relationship with God, grounded in community and guided by humility, rest, and gratitude. I also unveil a new monthly format that helps us metabolize ideas, practice spiritual skills, and cultivate sustainable rhythms.

Drawing from Dr. Arianna's work on healthy calling, we unpack a practical triad for a sustainable life of purpose: dialogue with God that starts our mornings, interaction that turns trust into action, and maintenance that gently course‑corrects when we drift. We name the third key player—community—and show how burnout ripples outward, while healthy rhythms multiply good in every direction. Along the way, we get honest about enforced rest, health scares, and the sobering gift of learning to move from rest rather than toward it.

Humility anchors the conversation. Not self‑erasure, but clear awareness of strengths and weaknesses without fixation. Not hustle, but a lifestyle of learning and the courage to unplug. Gratitude then becomes humility in motion—remembering whose we are, who we are, and who is in charge. 

Visit Dr. Arianna Molloy's website: Learn More

Order Dr. Arianna's book: Healthy Calling

Watch Dr. Arianna: Meaningful Work; Should You Put Your Phone Down?; What it Means to Walk Humbly With God; More Than Just a Job

Chapters

• 0:07 Vision For Maternal Presence
• 1:09 Heartlift’s Purpose And Evolution
• 6:50 A New Four-Week Show Format
• 10:22 Health Wake-Up: Learning To Pace
• 13:27 Defining Calling: Caller, Called, Community
• 19:58 Relational Practices That Sustain Calling
• 26:44 Community’s Role In Burnout And Growth
• 30:34 Enforced Rest And Living From Rest
• 36:42 Healthy Humility: Three Criteria

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:07

As I've listened to the stories of thousands of women of all ages, in all kinds of stages through the years, I've kept their stories locked in the vault of my heart. I feel as if they've been walking around with me all through these years. They've bothered me, they've prodded me, and sometimes kept me up at night. Ultimately, they've increased my passion to reframe and reimagine the powerful positions of mother and matriarch within the family system. I'm a problem solver, so I set out to find a way to perhaps change the trajectory of this silent and sad scenario about a dynamic yet untapped source of potential and purpose, sitting in our homes and churches. It is time to come to the table, heartlifters, and unleash the power of maternal presence into the world. Welcome to Mothering for the Ages, our 2025 theme here on Today's Heartlift. I'm Janelle. I am your guide here on this heartlifting journey. I invite you to grab a pen, a journal, and a cup of something really delicious. May today's conversation give you clarity, courage, and a revived sense of camaraderie. You see, you're not on this journey alone. We are unified as heartlifters and committed to bringing change into the world. One heart at a time. Hello and welcome to today's Heartlift with Chanel. I'm Janelle, your guide for today's conversation. Today, it's you and me, Heartlifter. Last week, we had a rich, remarkable conversation with Dr. Ariana Malloy about healthy calling from toxic burnout to sustainable work. Ariana's book, Healthy Calling, is jam-packed. In truth, the authors that we have come visit us here, all of their books are jam-packed. And it's very difficult to keep a conversation to 45 minutes, which is my standard, because after that we can tend to get tired. And so it's just really difficult in one episode to bring out all the incredible, remarkable life lessons that these authors, thought leaders, conversationalists, illuminaries bring to us. And so I've been thinking about it for quite some time. Because when I started this podcast, it was just for my clients. Many, many moons ago, I had a private practice, the Heartlift Practice. And as I saw my clients, I realized that the seven days in between our sessions was a very long time. And at that time, podcasts were on the forefront. And I thought, wow, I can buy a mic. I can teach myself how to do this. And surprisingly, I did. And so I created teaching moments for my clients for the in-betweens of our sessions, realizing that they could listen to an episode once, twice, three times, and really gain leverage and move forward in their healing journey. That was my sole vision and purpose. As the podcast continued and grew, yes, that was still my primary purpose. But books and speakers and publicists were reaching out to have authors and luminaries and great thought leaders on the show. I took advantage of that, and slowly it has evolved still as a bridge between faith and mental health practices, because that is the core of who I am and what I do. And it has evolved into this think tank, this beautiful place for us to have really rich conversations with men and women from all over the world who are doing beautiful work and bringing great thoughts to us. So I thought, hmm, how can I do this better? I always want to be improving, you know our motto, always listening, always learning on cara and para. And to capture everything that an author puts in a book that they've worked on for two to three or even more years in a 45-minute conversation is just madness. I can't do it. As you can tell, I get super excited because I love to learn. And so I've thought about this dilemma because I hate to overwhelm you. That's not the purpose of this podcast. We serve as a bridge from faith to mental health. So we want to become mature in our faith and mature in our mental and emotional health. So I think I have come to a beautiful process. You can tell me if you agree. But here is what I have sketched out. It's not set in stone. Nothing in this podcast has ever been set in stone. But I have sketched out because I have been moving through a very crowded, blessed, overwhelmingly amazing queue of books and authors to have on the show. I'm coming to finally clear that out. Oh, it has been a process with all that life throws at us. And I can now start afresh with this new vision. We're going to continue with our amazing, remarkable conversations with thought leaders, thinkers, luminaries, researchers, scientists, all the above, and space it out a bit. Take a break. Something my precious heart has taught me through my journey of AFib and A-Flutter is to slow down and pace my life out a little bit better. Yeah. So in our four weeks, our monthly episodes, I'm thinking week one, we'll have a tremendous interview with someone and have a continuing remarkable conversation about their new book or project. And then the next week, which is this week, I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to create rich teaching moments from their thoughts because, as we say here as well, we stand on the shoulders of giants, don't we? We learn from remarkable people, remarkable conversations, remarkable thoughts. And then we need to learn to live them out. And I have seen in my own life going from one book to another book to another book to another book, I am not truly embodying the richness of the content of what we are hearing. So week two will be this amazing time to process, to embody, to metabolize, and to think about these great thoughts that we are hearing. Week three, I will develop a spiritual formation skill to add to our toolbox. We in this heartlifting community are curating an incredible emotional, mental, relational, physical, spiritual toolbox so that we can navigate life from this beautiful, healthy place. You know, healthy sense of self, healthy behavior patterns, and healthy communication skills. All of that leads us to spiritual maturity, which then fortifies us to live a eudaimonious, meaningful life in which we flow. We flow from a place of rich, rich resource. Week four, we will then all exhale. We'll just move into a quiet, meditative practice that I will create for you. Or maybe you'll create for us. Let's see how we can do this collectively as a community over on Heartlift Central, on Substack at Heartlift Central. Yes, that's our hub. That is where I want us to meet. We have a Facebook group, too, a very private Facebook group for today's Heartlift, but the greatest amount of time that I spend is on Substack, Heartlift Central. That's where I would love to hear from you. I want to hear your ideas, your thoughts, your comments will lead and guide how I move through this podcast. I develop this podcast with you in my mind. I sincerely, with all humility, because that's what we're going to talk about today, healthy humility, really wanted this to be an interactive, creative space for us to engage. I don't know how to do that in this world of uh digital uh communication, but I I can only do what I know, and that's over on Substack. It's a very creative place. I have tried others. It's easy to use. So if you have questions, please ask me. You can email me Janelle J-A-N-E-L-L at Janelle J-A-N-E-L-L Rarden. R-A-R-D-O-N.com. How does that sound? I want to know what you think about this process for the podcast in moving forward. Truly adhering to our commitment to bridging the gap between faith and mental health, continuing to develop our incredible triune of healthy sense of self, healthy behavior patterns, and healthy communication skills, because I believe from my core those when we possess those three beautiful practices in our life, we are going to live a spiritually mature, spiritually satisfying, meaningful, purposeful life individually and collectively. Because that, heartlifters, is how we are going to advance the kingdom of God. And that is the bottom line of what I'm doing and what I believe our community can do. I am so grateful to God for placing me in this season of enforced rest, bringing to me the clarity I was desperate for. I just didn't think it would come by means of a heart issue physically, but it has. A gift from the caller, capital C. So in our conversation with Dr. Malloy, Ariana, we began by her explaining what calling really means. And I am so grateful. She calls God, our Father, the caller with a capital C. Yes, God calls us. He calls us from the trees where we are hiding. He calls us when we are timid. He calls us when we have sinned. And guess what? He is waiting for us on the shores with food. And the only question he wants to know, heartlifter, is do you love me? That's our caller, capital C. And so when we operate in that freedom, everything else is aligned. But unfortunately, we get a lot of things that are happening in this very busy, chaotic world. And so she just says, I'm fascinated with the caller, and I am fascinated with how he calls us to work and how he calls us to live. She defines calling as the experience of feeling a deep compelling or pull toward a particular life pursuit or dedication. And she writes that one major mistake we make when thinking about calling is the assumption that calling primarily involves the self. Parentheses, my calling, I feel called, etc. Our callings are not just about us. Some people do consider the role of the caller, capital C as well, and this is an important step in the right direction. But the distinction that Ariana makes for us is that calling is inherently interactive. At the core, at the very center, the basic makeup of our calling is a relational heartbeat.

unknown: 16:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 16:24

Unlike a hobby, which might be just for ourselves, a calling necessarily involves the one who calls us. So it is an interactive response with the caller. Yet there's still a primary element missing. Over the years, as I've interviewed and observed people who operate in their calling, the data reveals something important and often overlooked. Lean in here. There is a third key player. Community. Calling is pro social. An essential part of our calling includes those affected by calling and those who influence our ability to actually do our calling. Therefore, the three C's of calling includes the caller, God, the called, you and me, and the community, professional and personal relationships. Understanding this is crucial in knowing how to move forward in a healthy calling. Calling and burnout do not simply impact the self, they impact our relationship with God and our relationship with others. The interdependent relationships existing in calling point to what calling truly encompasses within the Christian tradition. Our sense of calling influences and is influenced by our community. She continues, it's not that we shouldn't think about the personal component of calling. It's more about knowing how the individual and collective are connected. Calling is integrated, it helps unify. It's comprehensive, it impacts every part of what Paul talks about in First Corinthians twelve, when he actually uses the body as a metaphor for the Christian body and community of people. So calling's integrative, it helps unify, it's comprehensive, it impacts every part, and it's personal, it's experienced differently. How we live out our calling is not a one size fits all, nor lean in again, is there a hierarchy of better or holier callings? Recognizing this means learning how to work together, to honor each other's calling as a holy mandate. A healthy relationship with the caller and with our community is vital in maintaining a healthy calling.

unknown: 19:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 19:34

Regardless of how others may talk about it, calling isn't a tool. It isn't a static, unmoving, unchanging thing. Calling is all about dynamic relationships. Like any relationship, our callings may develop or even change over time. Consider the first relational connection in a calling, the caller and the called. That's you and your relationship with God, Heartlifter. Until we understand that a relationship between the caller and the called is indeed an ongoing relationship, we either run the risk of trying to be in the driver's seat or we're passively waiting for the car to move. Every healthy relationship involves three things. Are you ready? Ariana shares our triune here. Dialogue, which is listening and sharing, interaction, doing life together, and maintenance, paying attention when we get off track. Calling as a back and forth process with the caller, capital C, does not simply involve a caller. It is defined by interactions with the caller. As we read in First Thessalonians 5 24, the one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. What will he do? He will help us learn the rhythms of a holy life. And how will he do this? By teaching us, instructing us, guiding us, interacting with us. Interactions include listening and responding. It means we don't take any relationship for granted. It means we actively protect and care for our relationship with the caller more than the actual thing we feel called to do. Living a holy life, a surrendered life to the Savior does not mean we have to ignore what lights us up inside, what gives us a deep sense of satisfaction. It means we hold it with an open hand rather than a closed fist. It means we offer our passions and dreams to the Creator, following his direction, trusting he will use us in a known intimate way, in the way he has designed us. Yes, there will be sacrifice and calling, but sacrifice for what and to whom? For the glory of God, to the Redeemer, sacrifice to the Savior is always hard and always worth it. Our calling must never be confused with the caller. Let me repeat that. Our calling, little C, must never be confused with the caller, big C. Let's repeat that again so it really takes root. Our calling, little C, must never be confused with the caller, capital C. We should never place more priority on the gift than the giver. We might nod to this with our head knowledge, but it's often much harder to keep in order. Remember, as I write in Stronger Every Day, the longest journey is from our head knowledge to our heartfelt sense. Ariana continues, it's too easy to start fitting God into our schedules rather than orienting our days around time with Him. I feel this especially as a parent, she writes, each day seems like a tight matrix puzzle. On the occasion when I have space, my tendency is to want to fill it.

unknown: 23:55

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00: 23:56

She writes that she made a morning agreement with herself that she would not look at her phone at the start of each day until she said hello to God. I just love this. When I wake up in the morning, I typically do play my phone, but I play a beautiful devotional that I love. And I just cuddle in and I take some time with a slow morning to listen to that devotional. And then when I pull back the covers and put my feet on the floor, I Janelle just say, Hello, God. Good morning. Let's do this. She continues, My morning, hello with the caller, capital C might be a quick prayer, a moment of silence, a brief reflection on scripture, or a short devotional. Like I just said, I do an audio devotional that I love, and I can put that in the show notes for you. It doesn't have to be long. Here's the key, but it does need to be intentional. It needs to be the orienting move in a day full of moving pieces. It is a choice to focus on my relationship with the caller before anything else. She writes, relationship involves choice. We choose to lean in and grow closer with the other person or not. Living out a healthy calling involves mindful and attentive engagement. It prioritizes listening to the caller and taking action. When trust between the caller and the called is developed, which this will be developed in our time spent with the caller, not knowing the next step doesn't have to feel so overwhelming. Not knowing doesn't have to be a sign of failure. Not knowing is actually part of the process. Yes. A calling includes an ongoing attentiveness to what the caller may be telling us and where he might be leading us. This relational trust is not simply cognitive in your head or emotional trust. It is a complete surrender of the self with the assumption the caller knows us and cares for us. Another key step in honoring the relational core of calling is recognizing how our calling impacts and is impacted by our community. This is why when we experience calling burnout, it doesn't negatively influence only us. It can harm those we love, work with, and serve alongside. And the inverse is also true. Those we love, work with, and serve alongside play a mighty role in our experience of calling. I can share here that these words that Ariana is writing about and speaking of have really hit home in this season of enforced rest that I find myself in. Enforced rest being E-N-F-O-R-C-E-D, a time when God sees our lives, which he does, and we know he knows best. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, his ways are higher. He is so much wiser than we are. He obviously saw in my life some things that needed to be addressed, and in his mercy and in his goodness, he led me through this heart issue up to now three months, three months of a period, a season of really understanding rest. Oh, I've written about it, I've taught about it, I've read a million books about it, but this experiential movement I'm going through is teaching me more. Is just teaching me more than I could have ever, ever imagined. And one of the most significant learnings of this time has been that I need to move forward in my life from a place of rest, not just a season of rest, a place of rest. And that is from a place deep inside of me. And sometimes, Heartlifter, that takes an enforcement of God. Uh it takes a situation, sadly, a hard place, a crucible, a dark night of the soul. A time when we fully grasp the seriousness of it, the sobriety of it. And I think this matter of my heart not being in rhythm has really sobered me in a way like nothing else in my life has. And thankfully, I have many tools in place that are helping me recognize it and be aware, right? We talk about that, uh, the beauty of awareness being the very first step in any of our healing journeys. We we have to be keenly attuned to our own life and take care of this heart. That we talk about from Proverbs 423 above all else, guard your heart. Well, I was doing all of these things, but I still wasn't listening to or noticing some serious warning signs. And when I did get to the place where I recognized them, I had started making changes, but well, there was just still work to do. And I am so grateful that God, in his gracious mercy and his love towards me, uh, he has brought great teachers into this time of enforced rest. And Ariana is one of them. So I'll close with just an attempt to summarize parts of the book in which she brings out healthy humility. As I said in my conversation with Ariana, I really have never brought this issue of humility to the table here. But we will be talking more and more about healthy humility because she has really enlightened the need in our modern culture and just in our following Jesus journey for humility. She has three core criteria for humility. First is that a humble person knows the strengths that they have. They're aware, there's that awareness of their weaknesses as well. But they're not distracted by either one. Now just take that in for a minute. So a humble person, a humble leader, a humble mother, a humble friend, a humble follower knows their strengths and weaknesses. You know them. And how? Because you are spending time, you're making a morning agreement to spend time with the caller. And in that relational interchange, that interdependent, beautiful relationship between yourself and the caller, you are hearing, noticing how he's moving in your life. So those strengths and weaknesses, we don't focus on either of them. We're not distracted by them. We just move in them and we're aware of our weaknesses. That's the first criteria. We know our strengths, we know what we're good at. I think this is so critical. I'm not sure we would have ever associated that with humility because I think for many, many, many, many decades we've had a very wrong understanding of humility. And yet Micah 6.8 tells us that there are three things that we need as the follower of Jesus, as a believer in his ways and his words, and one of them is humility to walk humbly before God. And Paul, of course, talks so much about it, and of course, Jesus so much about it. She speaks of Jim Collins' book, Good to Great, and Patrick Lanconi's work on ideal team players all possessing humility. Humility is at the top of what makes a good employee. We don't want someone on our team who doesn't know what they're good at. That's incompetence. That's not humility.

unknown: 33:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 33:36

Such a great distinction, I said in that interview, and I'm saying it again. She writes, I think, especially as women, sometimes we don't know how to receive it. I'm not entirely sure why we've been socialized that way. But we as women of God need to know our strengths and our weaknesses and move in them and be aware of our weaknesses so that we can course correct, right? Not condemn, not judge ourselves, but apply self-compassion and awareness and attunement, all these beautiful skills we have in our toolbox and move forward. So the first part of humility, she says, is to know your strengths, know your weaknesses. You're not thinking about either one of those things, you're not distracted by them. The second thing is to possess a lifestyle of learning, which means you are not threatened that you don't know everything. You possess an intellectual curiosity, a relational curiosity to know and to do and to be more. And third, this is the hard one, she writes. To unplug, to say, I'm gonna take a moment, I'm gonna pause, and to know that things are not going to fall apart. I think someone really needs to hear this today.

unknown: 35:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 35:11

Because in that third part of humility, we remember who's in charge, right? We remember the caller, the capital C. And we remember our place in all of this as the called little C. We are not God. And guess what? Even God rested. Even God walked away. Didn't He? And at the end of our conversation with Ariana, she said that gratitude is humility in action. Gratitude is one hundred percent a virtue, humility is a virtue, gratitude is humility in action. She said, I like to think of it another way. Gratitude is knowing whose you are and who you are and who's in charge. It is the thing that will turn the lights on in our life when we have a thankful heart, a grateful heart, our face is lifted up rather than curled inward. And so I close here. I thought it would be fun to do one of the beautiful assignments that she has in her guiding questions. So I turned to page 120 in Healthy Calling. She writes, in the third attribute of humility, making rest a routine, we see the value of slowing down and taking a breath. Developing a routine time of Sabbath is key to this. What kind of rhythms do you currently have in place? How are they impacting your life? What's one rhythm you'd like to start? And how can you begin this process in the coming week? So, of course, I thought a lot about this one over the last 11 weeks when my heart was out of rhythm. I was doing pharmaceutical interventions to see if the medicines would help my heart find its natural sinus rhythm, as they call it, normal sinus rhythm, but it did not go back into rhythm. So I had to have what they call a cardioversion, which is a procedure where they shock your heart back to its rhythm. And I am so grateful for the team of brilliant healthcare workers, nurses, anesthesiologists, all the folks, and my doctor. When I came out of anesthesia, they were like, one shock in your back. And it was so thrilling. So I thought this would be a very timely exercise for us to do. And I will be checking over at HeartLives Central with you on Substack and in our private Facebook group. What's one rhythm you'd like to start, and how can you begin this process in the coming week? Cannot wait to hear what you have to say. I'm gonna close with the orienting prayer Ariana wrote at the end of this chapter, page 120. Lord Jesus, thank you for being the best teacher. Thank you for wanting me to learn. Thank you for being patient with me as I keep learning. Please forgive me for any area of my life where I have been trying to take control or idolize success over growth. I want to walk with you. I want to learn the rhythms of your grace. Savior, help me know how to approach the strengths and skills you've given me in a healthy way. Show me what it means to keep learning in this season. I want to rest in you. Protect me from distraction as I seek to rest. Yes, God, protect me from distraction as I seek to rest. Show me, teach me, guide me, lead me how to rest well in you. You are my caller, and my calling is yours to do with what you will. I surrender to you.

unknown: 39:59

Amen.

SPEAKER_00: 40:02

Thanks for listening today, Heartlifter. Be sure to hop over to Substack at Heartlift Central, Instagram at JanelleRarden, and if you would be so kind, make a tax-deductible donation to keep this podcast ad-free and spreading its influence all over the world. You can make that donation on my website, JanelleRarden.com, Heartlift International. Everything you need to know is right there. Remember, Heartlifter, you have value, worth, and dignity.