In this poignant episode of our groundbreaking series, Uncovering Your Hidden Motives, Austin Conner, LPC, sits down with fellow pastor Addison Hawkins to explore where our inner critic comes from, what it’s trying to accomplish, and why its approach often does more harm than good.

You’ll discover how to distinguish the Holy Spirit’s conviction from the inner critic’s condemnation—an important distinction that can help you respond to your shortcomings with honesty and grace instead of shame and self-punishment.

You’ll also learn how to recognize the patterns of self-criticism in your own life, identify the situations that trigger that critical voice, and understand what it may be trying to protect you from. Finally, you’ll explore how past wounds and painful memories can shape the way you talk to yourself today, and how that critical voice can affect your relationships, priorities, and sense of worth.

They’ll leave you with several practical steps you can take, including journaling, reflection, and seeking help from a safe person who can hear your story as you follow the memories and emotions underneath that critical voice. Listen in to start untangling those old patterns and connecting with the truth that you are deeply loved by God.

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Highlights from this Conversation

Austin: Today we’re going to be examining the roots of self-criticism with a fellow pastor and friend of mine, Addison Hawkins. Welcome to the podcast! Addison, tell our listeners just a little bit about who you are and what your role is at The Crossing.

Addison: Thanks, Austin. I really appreciate being here. I’m a current director of Crossing 20s, which is our ministry to young adults at The Crossing in Columbia. I’ve been working at The Crossing for just over seven years total. Previously, my family and I lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I worked as a pastor and church planter.

Austin: I got to know you when we were in college and then we worked for the college ministry together. You went to seminary in St. Louis and then got some real-world experience.

Addison: I look back and think about all the incredible chances and opportunities I had to pastor different churches of different sizes and different demographics, inner city St. Louis, and then the suburbs of Grand Rapids. It really is fun to think about what God’s done and where he’s led us. I’ve learned a lot.

Along the way, I got married to my wonderful wife, Lynnette, and we have three kids, 11, 9, and 5. They’re a ton of fun. Of course, all these things are relevant because that’s where a lot of my inner self-critic comes from. I’m a recovering people pleaser.

Austin: Today we’re going to talk about our inner critic. Sometimes our inner critic is loud. Sometimes it’s quiet and more subtle. Some inner critics talk nonstop. And others come online only in certain situations and scenarios. This inner voice can get us stuck and tangled up in the present. It leaves us heavy and confused and insecure and paralyzed. Addison, what does your inner critic sound like?

Addison: I realize that the inner critic has been around a lot in my life. Remember how I said I’m a recovering people pleaser? My critical voice wants to condemn me. It tells me I’m not enough without other people’s approval. There are times I want to fit in. Other times I want to be noticed. I want to say things that impress. Or I want to hide. This manifests in every area of my life: sports, relationships, ministry, all the things.

Austin: I think everyone can relate to that. You’ve got certain moments and dynamics and events in your life where your inner critic comes along and tries to navigate it for you. The way to get untangled is sit down and assess and examine and dare I say, listen to that inner critic.

Today, what we’re going to do is we’re going to examine your inner critic in the present, and then we’re going to go back to the past to try and discern where and how your inner critic learned its tactics and got its voice.

Before we get to that, I want to ask you a pastoral question. How can somebody discern the difference between our problematic inner critic and God’s guidance and direction through our inner thought life?

Addison: That’s an incredible question and certainly something that I have wrestled with my entire life. I think what you’re talking about is the difference between how we discern what the Spirit is doing in our lives versus what the inner voice is yelling and screaming at us.

One of the Spirit’s roles in our life as a follower of Jesus is to convict us of our sin, to hold up that proverbial mirror and show us that we have a need for Jesus and to move us closer and closer to him. It’s not just to show us our sin and then tell us how bad we are. In fact, it’s to show us that we’re deeply loved despite the sin that we have.

The inner critic wants to do the opposite. It wants to condemn. It wants to move us further and further into hiding. It wants us to feel shame. And it wants us to say that we’re not enough.

Austin: We can see that going back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve felt ashamed and hid. Condemnation is the enemy’s native language. It’s not the Spirit’s language. When you feel condemned, that’s not the Spirit. Remember what is said in Romans 8:1, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Addison: Someone once put it like this: Conviction says, “You did wrong, come home.” The critic says, “You are wrong, stay away.”

Austin: That’s a great way to put it, really helpful and clear. Now let’s jump in and look at things like what your inner critic does; what it’s saying to you; times you might hear it; and the internal and external impact it has. As we talk about this, we’re not looking for “right” answers, we’re looking for “real” answers.

What Does Your Inner Critic Do?

Addison: I think the best way for me to process some of this is to think about what the inner critic has done in my own life and the way that it’s revealed itself and then make a couple of general statements that hopefully can be applicable to those listening.

I said I was a people pleaser. And so my inner critic rears its head as a chastising, performance-oriented voice that pushes me to change based shame, guilt, and feelings of not measuring up. It evaluates, it moves towards performance, it moves me to shame, to guilt, and to hiding.

Why does my inner critic do those things? It’s because the critic evaluates who I am. It judges my personhood. It’s primarily attacking me at my core of my identity. It’s a subtle but important difference to what we were talking about the way the Spirit moves in our lives.

What Is Your Inner Critic Saying to You?

Addison: The things the inner critic says change over time with different life situations, jobs, relationships. I definitely hear different things as a man, father, and husband, than my wife does.

In your 20s, the critic says you’re behind. You are in the midst of thinking about career, relationships, milestones. A lot of your life is lived online. You measure yourself against that curated highlight reel that we see all over social media. You’ve got the mental health vocabulary, but many still feel stuck right where they are.

Then you move into your 30s and 40s, which I’m bumping up against as a 39-year-old, and you feel like you should have it figured out by now. It shifts towards parenting and career trajectory, marriage and money. In your 50s and up, you start to look back and think about legacy, regret, and relevance.

Try to notice what your critic is commenting on right now. Because we’re talking about the present. The critic is saying something to you right now. Try and figure out what that is. If you’re a journaler, write down some of those thoughts. Go on a walk. Find a place where you can really reflect on what your critic might be saying to you in this season of your life.

When Is Your Inner Critic Talking to You?

Austin: This question might be a little trickier to answer. For me, I’ve noticed that I hear the inner critic when I’m surrounded by people whose opinions I really value and respect. It tells me, Don’t say anything stupid. Don’t look like an idiot.

Addison: The inner critic can show up during different stages, whether you’re dating, engaged, married, or just starting to think about the life ahead of you. For parents, you may start to beat yourself up as your kids get older and maybe walk away from their faith. If you know what kinds of things the inner critic can say at different stages of life, you can be somewhat prepared for it.

The voice of the inner critic may get louder when you are tired, stressed, about to take a risk, or in downtime when things are quiet—like when you’re awake at 4am.

When the Inner Critic Shows Up

• Under High Stress or Fatigue: When your mental and physical energy runs low, your brain’s threat defense system activates, and the critic steps in to scan for dangers or perceived failures.

• Before Taking Risks or Facing Change: When you step out of your comfort zone, try something new, or speak up, the voice often warns you that you are not good enough or that you will fail.

• In Social Comparisons: When scrolling through social media or looking at peers, the critic highlights your perceived shortcomings or tells you that others are more confident and successful.

• At Quiet Moments (Like Bedtime): When distractions fade and you finally try to rest, the lack of other sensory input lets unresolved thoughts, replayed conversations, and self-blame rise to the surface.

• Across Daily Roles: It frequently chimes in while you are working on the job, parenting, maintaining friendships, or evaluating your own performance.

Key Signs It Is Your Inner Critic

• It uses absolute words like “always” or “never”.

• It attacks who you are (”You are bad”) rather than what you did (”That went badly”).

• It sounds like an internalized echo of a parent, teacher, or authority figure from your past rather than your own supportive adult thoughts.

Why Is Your Inner Critic Operating this Way?

Addison: Our inner critic wants us to be deemed worthy, good enough. It’s got good intentions, but the way it’s trying to help us is problematic. Our inner critic wants us to have a passing grade, to be successful, to be seen as valuable and credible by the people around us.

But often the way it tries to help us meet those goals is by bullying us in the hopes that we might learn from our mistakes and be successful next time. Yet God wants us to take our self-perception from the Bible. So consider these biblical passages and the reality that they paint for us.

Genesis 3: 7-10 describes the response that Adam and Eve had to their sin. They hid and covered themselves. This is the original curated life. Hide and only present the good stuff. Yet God comes to us and speaks truth. He says, Don’t hide, come to me because you’re my child. I will be with you. You are loved. You are mine.

Paul talking in Galatians 1, says, “Am I now trying to persuade people or God, or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” And Matthew 11:28-30 is a wonderful passage with the contrast between those who are burdened and those who bear Jesus’s light yoke. Jesus says, “Come to me, all of you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

What Is the Impact of the Inner Critic?

Austin: Sometimes you don’t realize just how deeply this inner voice affects you. The more that you can start listening and paying attention and taking its misguided but well-intentioned motives seriously, the inner voice will start taking advice and feedback from you. Addison, tell us about the internal impacts and then I’ll talk more about the external impacts.

Addison: For me, I feel both guilt and shame. Guilt says I did something bad, and shame says I am bad. Remember, that message is coming at my personhood. I have to remember that the critic is specializing in shame. That’s what it wants me to feel. And it’s usually past wounds that cause me to feel this guilt and shame.

Because I’m afraid of other people seeing the real me, I present a false reality instead of living within the truth that I’m a glorious ruin, meaning like I’m bought with a price. I am a ruin in the sense that I have sin. I am broken. I am needy, but I’m glorious in the sense that God has said I am his. Usually we deal with these insecurities by trying to feel both smaller and bigger. Yet both are attempts to escape the critic’s verdict.

Austin: Many of these internal impacts bleed into our external world. For example, in materialism. We want to have the perfect house, perfect car. In order to achieve these goals, we sacrifice our time, money, and relationships. We don’t prioritize God and his word.

Whether you know it or not, your inner critic has a really good memory. It remembers all of the times that you didn’t perform, that you said the wrong thing. The inner critic is usually showing itself based on some sort of situation that happened in your past. It doesn’t forget. It doesn’t even age. You’re still a little kid, feeling embarrassed or inadequate or even unloved.

Getting to the bottom of this requires following two big breadcrumbs: the memories and the emotions. It may mean that you work with a therapist to go back to embarrassing moments, traumatic moments, and talk through them. Addison, where are you in this process?

Addison: I’m still figuring it out, but it started with me asking, “Why am I always faced with these same emotions in these moments?” I recognized a pattern in my life and I’m like, okay, wait, this isn’t right. I don’t need to feel this way because there’s an objective truth that I hear from Jesus, which is that I’m loved, I’m seen, and I’m cared for.

What I ended up doing was just picking back up the old pen and paper and journaling. One of the first things I do in the morning is reflect on the previous day. Whatever God is doing while I sleep is really helpful because I wake up the next morning with more clarity. The next thing I did was get help. Even though I’m a pastor, I needed to sit with someone who could hear my story and help in a loving way.

Austin: That’s fantastic advice. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Addison. For our listeners, stay tuned, but because next week we’re going to give you some tangible ways to manage the roots of self-criticism, and to calm your inner critic. See you then.

Perfectionism can leave you feeling like you’re never doing enough, never measuring up, and always chasing the next thing. But you don’t have to stay stuck in that cycle!

We’ve created a free download with six practical ways to manage the 6 P’s of perfectionism to help you recognize unhealthy patterns and start making changes.

Download your free guide and take a step toward a healthier, grace-filled way of living:

How To Manage The 6 Ps Of Perfectionism

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Want to dig deeper? Listen to our two-part conversation from Uncovering Your Hidden Motives: The Roots of Perfectionism and Managing the Weeds of Perfectionism. Together, these episodes explore where perfectionism comes from and how to loosen its grip on your life.

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In the second half of our conversation on perfectionism from our ongoing series, Uncovering Your Hidden Motives, John Tinnin, MFT, and Lynn Roush, LPC, explore specific ways to quiet your inner critic, let go of unrealistic expectations, and learn to live with imperfection without feeling like a failure. They’ll teach you helpful techniques to manage each “root” of perfectionism so that you can live a life grounded in freedom and grace.

Overcoming perfectionism also means looking at the emotions underneath the surface, like shame, fear, and anxiety. In addition, you’ll learn how to broaden your sense of self-worth beyond achievement, let safe people see the real you, and put limits on your productivity so that it doesn’t control you.

They’ll also share practical tools for challenging all-or-nothing thinking, setting limits on over-preparation, and testing the fears that keep you clinging to control. The goal isn’t to stop caring or striving for excellence. It’s to stop letting the need to be perfect run your life. But lasting freedom from perfectionism also involves addressing the deeper question that keeps you striving: Am I enough?

From a Christian perspective, the answer isn’t found in performing better, hiding your weaknesses, or working harder to earn acceptance. It’s found in the grace of Jesus, who offers you an identity that doesn’t depend on getting everything right. Join us as we explore what it looks like to receive that grace, embrace imperfections, and find freedom in being loved just as you are.

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Highlights from this Episode

Welcome back! Last week was Part 1 of perfectionism: the hidden roots that feed your perfectionism. Today is Part 2: how you can manage the weeds of perfectionism. Last week we named 6 P’s, the breeding ground where toxic perfectionism takes hold:

1. Parental Influence

2. Peer Pressure

3. Productivity

4. Performance

5. Power

6. Pride

In this episode we’re uncovering each root to give you specific, practical ways to move away from toxic unhealthy perfectionism and into freedom and grace.

The Emotional Charge Underneath It All

The Bible teaches that we are all born under judgment. There’s a deep awareness that we’re not perfect and a fear that we’re not enough. This is true even if you are not a follower of Jesus. It shows up every time you think, “I’m not rich enough....pretty enough...smart enough...strong enough...etc. Feeling ‘not enough’ is experienced through the emotion of shame.

When you approach perfectionism from a purely humanistic or godless point of view, the solution is evasive. You can name all the ways that shame shows up and the damage it causes, but there is no way to address it at the deepest level of your soul. Because just by being vulnerable, you do not have the power to undo the curse of shame.

The Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The source of our hope is that his response to our sin and failings was to send Jesus, who himself was perfect, and who gives us his perfect righteousness. That means that we can approach God with confidence, knowing that he sees Christ’s righteousness instead of our guilt and shame.

That truth leads us right into the weeds of perfectionism. As we go through each one, we’re not just going to offer techniques to manage them. We’ll also address the feelings underneath each one: shame, fear, anxiety, the ache of not being enough. That’s where the real work happens.

1. Parental Influence → A New Voice and a New Foundation

Last week we said the child who grows up performing for acceptance chases excellence, but it never brings fulfillment. The goal is to perform from acceptance. That takes two things: a new foundation and a new inner voice, and addressing your underlying emotion: a fear that love can be lost if you don’t do enough to earn it.

To hear a new voice, exercise self-compassion. Many of us still hear a critical parent’s voice in our heads. Self-compassion is learning to talk to yourself the way a good parent would. The next time you mess up, notice the perfectionist voice in your head. Instead of shaming or condemning yourself, consider, “What would a loving parent say to their child right now?” Say that to yourself instead.

To build a new foundation, broaden your self-worth. Draw a circle and divide it like a pie: how much of your sense of worth comes from achievement and performance? Then ask what else could contribute to your sense of self-worth? Relationships. Faith. Character. Being a good friend. The more pieces there are, the less any one failure can knock the whole thing over. If you are a Christian, the filling inside the pie is your identity as God’s son or daughter.

Psalm 103:13–14 illustrates this perfectly: “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.”

2. Peer Pressure → Letting Safe People See the Real You

Last week we talked about comparing “someone else’s highlight reel against your own behind-the-scenes footage.” The antidote to that is to flip it the other way by letting safe people see the real you. People can’t connect with the airbrushed highlight reel. They connect with a real person.

The emotion underneath this peer pressure is fear of rejection, and a deep longing to belong. James 5:16 shows the way out: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” Healing happens in community, not in hiding.

Try this as an antidote to hiding your imperfections: Think of one safe person, someone who’s shown they can handle the real you. Tell them one real imperfection you’d normally keep hidden. Then notice how they respond.

3. Productivity → Time Limits, Rest, and Letting Go of Over-Preparation

In order to evaluate your motives, you can ask yourself, “Am I doing this because I value it, or because I’m afraid of not being enough?” If you’re doing it because you value it, it can be life-giving, even when it’s hard. If you’re doing it to prove you’re enough, you’ll be exhausted, and eventually you’ll hit despair. The emotion you feel underneath is anxiety, and a fear that if you stop, you’ll be found out.

Practical tools:

• Set time limits. Give a task a fixed amount of time, and when it’s up, it’s done.

• Decide in advance what “done” looks like. Otherwise the finish line keeps moving.

• Drop one ‘checking’ behavior. The fifth reread of an email. The extra hour of over-preparing.

• Remember that ‘good enough’ is good enough. That phrase is so freeing!

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah sits under a tree; he is terrified and asks to die. What does God do? No lecture. He lets him sleep, sends an angel to touch him, and gives him food. Only after that does God speak in a gentle whisper. God’s response to a burned-out, frightened prophet was compassion and rest.

4. Performance → Challenging All-or-Nothing Thinking

The biggest obstacle here is all-or-nothing thinking: either it’s perfect, or it’s a failure. The emotion you feel underneath is the shame spike right after a mistake, that split second reaction that registers as “I’m an idiot, what’s wrong with me?”

Slow down that split-second reaction with two steps:

1. Notice the alarm in your body: the tight chest, the stomach drop, the heat in your face.

2. Name the feeling as precisely as you can. Not just “I feel terrible,” but “I’m embarrassed,” or “I’m disappointed.” Being specific gives you distance from the feeling.

In Psalm 42, the psalmist identifies his feelings: “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” And in Gethsemane, Jesus names his distress plainly to his friends: “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Matthew 26:38).

Challenge all-or-nothing thinking with the continuum. Picture a scale from 0 to 100. The perfectionist sees only two points: success is 100, and anything less is zero. Put your actual work on that scale. Maybe it’s a 75, or an 85. 80 isn’t zero.

Try this: The next time you finish something and feel it’s not good enough, give it a number from 0 to 100. Then ask, “Is this actually a zero?”

5. Power and Control → Testing Your Predictions

You may keep a tight grip on the “control” lever of your life because you believe that if you can stay in control, nothing bad can happen to you. The emotion underneath that is the fear of what will happen if you let go.

Here’s the problem with that control lever. Perfectionism runs on a simple predictive math equation: If I do everything right, then nothing bad will happen. But if I make a mistake, something terrible will happen. As long as you stay on this ‘high’ of control, you never actually know if this prediction will come true or not. Here’s an experiment you can do to test this prediction.

What a ‘prediction’ experiment looks like:

1. Name the prediction: “If I don’t bake a homemade cake for my kids’ birthday and do a store bought cake instead, the other parents will think I’m an incompetent mother.”

2. Then do the thing, on purpose. Go with the store-bought cake and have a simple party for your kid (not a Pinterest party).

3. Watch what actually happens. Do you get ejected from the friend group? Can your kid tell the difference? Did everyone still have a good time?

Most of the time, the feared negative outcome doesn’t happen. And when it doesn’t, your brain gets new data. And that’s how the control lever loses its power: you discover that it was never really holding things up.

Try this: Pick one small, low-stakes thing this week, and do it “good enough” on purpose. Write down what you were afraid would happen, and then what actually happened.

6. Pride → Receiving Grace and Embracing Weakness

The gospel of grace tells us you’re accepted before you perform, but perfectionism says, “No thank you—I’ll earn it myself.” And that response isn’t actual humility, even though it often sounds like it. The emotion underneath is the fear of being vulnerable and the natural resistance to needing help.

This last intervention isn’t a technique. Everything else we’ve talked about today is something you can do. This one is about learning to receive what can’t be earned.

The Apostle Paul had every reason to present a flawless image. Instead, in 2 Corinthians 12:9–10, he hears God say, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul’s response? “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses.” He went public with his imperfection and admitted his need for grace.

You may find it difficult to receive love and grace and forgiveness when you sin or make a mistake. Something to try is this: This week, when someone offers you help, or a compliment, or grace after a mistake, don’t deflect it or explain it away. Just say, “Thank you,” and let it land.

Living in Grace

We encourage you to pick from one of the P’s this week—perhaps the one that resonates most with you—and try the exercise or technique we shared. You may find, as we have, that you’re able to loosen your grip on control, receive grace, or utilize self-compassion to move closer to living from God’s approval, not for it.

For believers, our freedom from the fear of not ‘being enough’ and our freedom from the slavery of trying to be our own god is this: we are accepted as God’s sons and daughters just as we are—in all of our imperfections.

Maybe you set high standards for yourself, work hard, and want to do things well. There’s nothing wrong with that. But when falling short makes you feel like you’re a failure as a person, you may have crossed the line. And the tricky part is that perfectionism doesn’t always look unhealthy. Sometimes it looks like responsibility, excellence, hard work, or even faithfulness.

In this enlightening episode of our ongoing series, Uncovering Your Hidden Motives, John Tinnin, MFT, and Lynn Roush, LPC, are going to talk about how to recognize the difference between healthy striving and toxic perfectionism. You’ll learn why two people can have the exact same standards and yet have completely different experiences. They’ll also dig into six places perfectionism can take root: parental influence, peer pressure, productivity, performance, power, and pride.

Some of these may be obvious, but others can be surprisingly hard to spot because they can look like good things. Working hard, being responsible, pursuing excellence, wanting to make a difference, and even trying to become a better version of yourself can all become unhealthy when they’re driven by fear, shame, comparison, or the need to prove yourself.

And underneath all of this is a bigger question: What if you didn’t have to earn your worth? We live in a world where things don’t go according to plan, where we make mistakes, and where we simply cannot control every outcome. But the gospel gives us a different way to live. In this conversation, we’ll begin uncovering the roots of perfectionism and consider what it looks like to live from God’s acceptance rather than constantly trying to perform for it.

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Highlights from this Conversation

John: Before we get into today’s topic of perfectionism, let’s go over the outline that explains living in a sinful world. First, we have the Ideal. This is Eden: perfect, beautiful, and peaceful. For you, that may be the expectation that everything in your life should work out the way you want it to.

Then we have the Ordeal: sin enters Eden. That’s when life hits you with trials, traumas, and other struggles that cause you to feel shame and despair. Finally, we have the Real Deal: accepting that life isn’t perfect, but that God is with you through it.

Lynn: Thanks, John. One other thing that’s important to define before we start: research shows that there’s a difference between healthy perfectionism and toxic perfectionism.

John: There are two different constructs: ‘perfectionistic strivings,’ which is a drive toward personal achievement, and ‘perfectionistic concerns,’ which is the toxic ingredient behind negative outcomes like addiction and shame. The variable that separates the two is whether an unmet standard feels like you just happened to miss the target, or whether it’s a verdict on your worth as a person.

Lynn: That’s an important distinction because it means two people can have the exact same standard—the same GPA goal, same moral standards, same parenting goals—and one of them is thriving by fulfilling their goals while the other feels crushed by them. To understand this better, we’re going to look at 6 sources of perfectionism.

The 6 P’s: Parental Influence, Peer Pressure, Productivity, Performance, Power and Pride

1. Parental Influence. Toxic perfectionism rarely starts as a personality trait but as a lesson learned from your parents. It isn’t parental expectations alone that set you up for perfectionism, it’s parental criticism. Expectation says “I believe you can do this.” Criticism says, “Acceptance is based on your performance.”

A kid raised in the mindset of ‘performing from acceptance’ will work hard but not feel crushed if they face occasional failures. A kid raised in the mindset of ‘performing for acceptance’ chases excellence, but failures crush their spirit, and they are always trying to earn approval.

Lynn: We’ve both worked with clients who can relate to that parental influence. Things like “Dad’s a doctor, so we expect you to be a doctor”, or the “We have to look good to others in our community” mantle that kids wear, even when things at home are falling apart.

John: Yes, and here’s a biblical reflection that explains this. Colossians 3:21: “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” The word ‘discouraged’ carries the sense of losing heart, which is the long-term cost of a home where love feels conditional.

2. Peer Pressure. The second root has metastasized through our culture over the last fifteen years: it’s what researchers call ‘socially prescribed perfectionism’, which is the felt sense that other people’s approval of you depends on you being perfect with no room for error.

This type of perfectionism causes an enormous amount of damage. And what’s sadder, the standard you’re trying to meet isn’t even yours. It’s your perception of what it takes to belong to the crowd. You place your value as a person in someone else’s hands.

Social media didn’t invent this innate desire to be accepted by your peers, but it did monetize and exaggerate it. The hopeless part is that what is actually being compared is someone else’s highlight reel against your own behind-the-scenes footage, and no one wins.

Lynn: When our kids were little, I didn’t enjoy getting Christmas letters from families with perfect photos and a long list of each child’s accomplishments. So one year I told Shay, “I’m writing a Christmas letter and I am telling the truth!” I opened by saying that Emma wasn’t sleeping through the night, and we were all exhausted, that I was wearing the same clothes everyday because the laundry wasn’t being done, and there was crayon on the walls. I just wanted to be real! And people responded and said it made them feel normal!

John: I’m so glad you did that! Here is what Paul writes in Galatians 6:4-5: “Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.”

3. Productivity. This is the ‘p’ that gets celebrated the loudest, because it’s dressed up as virtue rather than named as a trap. Hustle culture, “rise and grind,” and side hustles stacked on full-time jobs. In this framework, you’re lazy if you rest. Nobody describes the person working sixty hours as overextended; they’re described as driven, committed, hard working, focused, etc.

What’s less obvious is that even ‘rest’ has been hijacked by the same thing. Cold plunges, bio-hacking, sleep scores, and meditation streaks all started as a way to give people a break from performance pressure. But now they’re one more thing to measure. The very tools meant to get us off the hamster wheel often end up being a new hamster wheel.

Lynn: I do love a productive day, and I definitely know the difference between a productive day and an unproductive day! But I think there is an unseen competition going on many times that drives us. And it may be “Yes, these are legitimate tasks on my plate that God has me responsible for, and I’m entrusted to do them well”.

But it may also be an over-functioning as the result of ‘perfectionistic concerns’ that have me running on a treadmill of productivity that serves to distract me from what’s most important: people and relationships. It’s hard to know the difference there and I think it requires ongoing evaluation.

John: Yes, I love this verse from Ecclesiastes 4:6: “Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.” The Preacher had already tested the hustle-culture premise to its limit—wealth, achievement, ceaseless labor—and called it “striving after wind,” effort that produces motion without producing peace.

4. Performance The fourth root shows up most visibly in the achievement ladder: resumes, credentials, degrees, titles, and political affiliations. Researchers describe it in terms of credential inflation.

Whether you’re a student in school or working for a small business or a multi-million dollar company, you are judged on your performance. That makes sense. We need to be competent in our jobs, and we should strive for excellence in what we do. But it can very quickly become a toxic place if we’re being pushed along by fear, shame and an unhealthy need for power.

5. Power (Control). The fifth root hides the best, because it looks like diligence, responsibility, conscientiousness. But it’s an attempt to control outcomes that were never fully controllable to begin with: how people perceive you, whether you get criticized, whether you get left out. The underlying logic says, If I can just be flawless enough, nothing bad can happen to me. For a child raised in a home where acceptance felt conditional, this is an understandable strategy.

John: The problem is that the strategy rarely stays a strategy—over time it hardens into an identity, and eventually into the only mechanism a person knows for feeling safe at all. Moving from an unhealthy form of control to a healthy one seems counterintuitive in the beginning. Loosening your grip doesn’t feel like growth; it feels like surrendering the one lever that’s ever actually worked, even when the cost of gripping it has taken a toll on you.

Proverbs 16:9 says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.” This verse provides a beautiful balance. We are called to plan within the realm of things we can control, and those are very limited in number. God, on the other hand, is in control of everything. If we don’t get this down we will forfeit a lot of peace and comfort that could be ours.

6. Pride. The last root is the one that may be the hardest for us to see, and we may resist it the most because perfectionism rarely feels prideful from the inside. In fact, perfectionism often feels like insecurity, anxiety, and relentless self-criticism. Underneath that is the desire we all have to be like God: powerful, perfect, and in control. But the gospel of grace says a person is accepted before they perform. Trying to earn approval ourselves isn’t actual humility.

John: It’s also encouraged by some of our social circles by being described as commitment, serving God, dedication to ministry, etc. All the while it could be an effort to gain approval outside of grace by producing character out of the power of the self.

Lynn: Really, John? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Just kidding. I’ve grown up around this and seen the effects of it firsthand!

John: Proverbs 16:18 says: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” This verse is usually read as a warning about arrogance in the obvious sense, but it also applies when we rely on self-sufficiency and ignore the reality that we are finite beings, incapable of perfection.

Lynn: We live ‘east of Eden’, so we will all make mistakes and fail sometimes. Our next episode is going to help us learn how to manage the weeds of our perfectionism and find a healthy way out of the perfection mindset.

In this helpful episode of our ongoing series, Uncovering Your Hidden Motives, Austin Conner, LPC, dives right into the weeds of control that may threaten to overtake you. He’ll explore what it means for you to become more flexible, practice humility, and make room for other people’s choices.

Rather than simply telling you to “let go”, Austin shares everyday examples of ways to be a good steward in four important areas: marriage, parenting, friendships, and work. He’ll explain how to share decisions, give others room to grow, and release responsibilities that you can’t—or shouldn’t—manage yourself. Then he’ll give you three practical steps for putting these ideas into practice.

Because changing your relationship with control isn’t natural or easy, this episode emphasizes the importance of inviting God into that process. Once you discover how trusting Jesus can help you face your fear and uncertainty, you’ll be able to take steps toward the freedom and faithfulness of a life lived in stewardship.

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Highlights from this Episode

Last week, we covered the roots of control, which we divided into two lands. The land of stewardship is the place of healthy control over the areas of life that God has given us to care for and watch over. The land of dictatorship is where we forget about God and decide that we want to be completely in control of every aspect of our lives, regardless of the impact it has on ourselves and others.

The million-dollar question that we’re going to answer today is how do we manage the weeds of control in our lives and move from dictatorship back to stewardship?

From Gripping to Growing

It turns out there are 3 things you can do to manage the weeds of control.

1. Have less fear and more trust. Think about riding on a roller coaster. On one hand, it can be terrifying to think about hurtling along a track a great speeds, but you know they’re going to put a restraint over you, and then it’s no longer terrifying, but exhilarating. In the same way, as followers of Jesus, the foundation of our trust is in him. In the midst of our fear, we need to be reminded again and again of the one who is in charge.

The Bible reminds us constantly that God created everything and controls everything. For example, Colossians 1:15-17 says, “For by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him, all things hold together.”

Because Jesus has you in his grip, you can be freed up to trust others. That doesn’t guarantee that you’re not going to get hurt. But Jesus will be with you in the ups and downs of life. Not everyone around you is trustworthy, but if you look to Jesus first and foremost for your protection and guidance, he will not let you go.

2. Have less familiarity and more flexibility. When you assume that you have to be in control because you’ve always done it that way and you’re not willing to budge or compromise, you’re rigid and brittle. And that’s not the healthiest way to live.

If skyscrapers and bridges are rigid and inflexible, they’re going to snap under the stress. However, engineers design them to be flexible and move with the kinetic energy that is inevitably going to be placed upon them. The same dynamics are at play here.

Be flexible and allow your spouse to choose the vacation spot. At work, say yes to the intern that’s going to do the presentation so they can get some practice rather than you doing it for the 800th time. Let your kid make cinnamon rolls on their own even if they mess up the kitchen—and don’t scold them afterwards.

3. Have less pride and more humility. Humility isn’t being a doormat. It doesn’t mean that you always do what someone else wants. It is a willingness to loosen your grip on the things you always feel like you have to control: things like family activities, who belongs in your circle of friends, the plans you make, and the way you spend your time.

Stewardship in Everyday Life

How do you know you’ve moved across the border from dictatorship back to stewardship? There are 4 areas to pay attention to.

1. Letting go of control in marriage. For example, let your spouse choose where to go on a date. Celebrate the hobbies that your spouse has, even if they’re different than yours. How about financially? You make decisions together rather than one person having 100% control. If you’re the spender in your marriage and your spouse asks you to rein in your spending, that means you actually honor that request and you stay within a certain budget.

2. Letting go of control in parenting. Start to pay attention to the talents and the gifts that your child has and encourage them in those things rather than telling them what to do. You’re going to step back and provide support when needed but allow them to make some of their own decisions. You’ll ask them how they feel rather than assuming or telling them.

3. Letting go of control in friendship. A healthy sign is that you’re not making an effort to keep one or two friends to yourself. Instead, you’re open to allowing new people to join the group. Or if a close friend steps away, you don’t harbor resentment. Maybe you have a conversation and address those dynamics with them. If it’s clear they’re not interested in the same level of friendship anymore, it means letting go and grieving rather than attempting payback or revenge.

4. Letting go of control at work. To be a good steward is not taking advantage of your company, but instead honoring their policies. You’re honest about taking sick days. You do the job that you’re assigned. You give credit to others when it’s due. Sometimes you may have off days, but by and large, you’re showing up and doing the job well, rather than going through the motions or “quiet quitting”.

Let Go and Let God

Last, I want to share 3 very practical and tangible next steps in order to manage these weeds of dictatorial control.

1. Ask for God’s help to move from dictatorship into stewardship. You cannot will your way into giving up control. The desire for control is rooted in the heart. In Mark 7:20-23, Jesus says, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, sexual immorality. theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.”

These sinful impulses are things we cannot change and manage on our own. We need help, and God will give it to us when we ask. In the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, chapter 11, verse 19, God says, “I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them.”

God is going to frustrate your stubborn desire for dictatorial control. Then he’s going to help you loosen your grip and change your heart.

2. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable. When a spaceship comes back into the Earth’s atmosphere, it has to catch on fire before it lands. That moment feels very unsettling for the astronauts. But it’s normal—even necessary. In the same way, a lot of the changes that you and I need to make are not going to feel good at the beginning. That’s not a sign that anything’s going wrong. In fact, it’s a sign that it’s working.

Maybe you start small. Send a text without rereading it. Order something without reading every review. Let someone else choose the movie or restaurant. Allow others to feel what they feel without trying to change their feelings. Let someone complete a task without trying to correct them. This may be uncomfortable at first, but the more you practice letting go, the easier it will be.

3. Finally, you actually have to give up control. It’s not enough to know about these two lands and not move from one to the other. One of my seminary professors stopped me in my tracks when he said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” We’re not used to hearing it said that way. This way of thinking is focused on the effort, not on the outcome. Maybe you’ll give up some control and it won’t go the way you thought it would. Maybe it will backfire. But you’re trying, and that’s important.

Lose Your Life—for His Sake

There’s one final verse that explains what is at stake here pretty explicitly and plainly. In Mark 8:35-36, Jesus says these words to his disciples and to a large crowd who was showing interest in following him: “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s sake will save it.” In these verses, the people who are ‘saving their lives’ are holding on to the good gifts God has given them as if they’re in charge. Jesus says these people are going to lose what they have.

However, there’s another group. Those who ‘lose their lives’ for Jesus’ sake and for the gospel’s sake are living in the land of stewardship. These people have loosened their grip, recognized that Jesus is the creator and king, and accepted that 100% of their lives are owned by him. In the end, the stewards will be rewarded.

This is the kind of life that Jesus is calling us to, because when this life of stewardship is lived out, it’s going to benefit you and the people around you. That is how God’s kingdom of love and justice and mercy is going to spread throughout the world. I hope and pray that this episode helps you continue to live in that land of stewardship that God has designed for you.

We all want some level of control in our lives, but there’s a difference between healthy control and the kind that leaves us—and the people around us—hurting. In this candid episode of Uncovering Your Hidden Motives, John Tinnin, MFT, and Austin Conner, LPC, dig down into the roots of control to explore what happens when healthy stewardship crosses the line into something more destructive.

We’ll explore the two lands of stewardship (good control) and dictatorship (bad control) and look at the ways you can move from one to the other in marriage, parenting, friendships, work, money, health, and even the way you use your time. You may be surprised at the ways your desire for control shows up in everyday life!

But recognizing controlling behavior is only part of the picture. We’ll also help you look beneath the behavior to understand why you reach for control in the first place. We’ll explore three hidden motives that can pull you toward control and shape the way you respond when life feels uncertain.

If you’re ready to uncover the weeds that may have taken root beneath the surface, this episode will help you recognize the difference between the things God has actually given you responsibility for and the things you were never meant to control.

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Highlights from this Conversation

Today we’re talking about the roots of control. Each of us can relate to this in one way or another because we all struggle with wanting to be in control. The best way to start our discussion is to define ‘good control’ and ‘bad control’. It’s really a tale of two lands: the land of stewardship and the land of dictatorship.

Stewardship is a type of control that is healthy and godly. The first example of this is given in Genesis 1: 26-28:

Then God said, let us make man in our own image after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

Dominion. Management. Control. God placed all the raw materials of creation under Adam and Eve’s stewardship. Stewardship recognizes that everything you have has been given to you by God and is ultimately under his control. The primary place where you have stewardship is over your internal life. The Bible calls that self-control, and it’s good. Your choices, preferences, decisions, emotions, actions, and thoughts. Your side of your relationship with others and with God.

But the story in the garden took a tragic turn. Adam and Eve left the land of stewardship and crossed the border into the land of dictatorship. They decided to disobey God under the illusion that it gave them control. Dictatorship leaves no room for God. It makes the assumption that anything and everything is under your control.

There are many things you have no control over. Things like other people and their choices, feelings, thoughts, actions, preferences, and decisions. There are circumstances like the weather, natural disasters, and disease. There’s politics, the economy, the stock market. There’s God, Satan, and the spirit world. But when you’re living in the land of dictatorship, you will try and control as much as you possibly can.

Moving from Control to Surrender

The Serenity Prayer really gets to the heart of the difference between these two lands: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” The entirety of your life is essentially spent crossing the border back and forth between the two.

Psalm 8:6 says, “God has given men and women dominion over the works of your hands, and you have put all things under their feet.” This command isn’t just for Adam and Eve. God created us to live in the land of stewardship, united under a common purpose, to further his kingdom and spread his love, justice, and mercy. At the same time, because we are sinners, we have the constant desire to cross over into the land of dictatorship and control everything in our path.

A huge perspective shift can occur if you start thinking about the impact of your words and actions on the people around you. That’s something you may rarely consider. So we’re going to look 5 different areas of life and identify the signs that you may be trying to exert control in that area.

The Roots of Control in Everyday Life

Marriage

It’s sadly not uncommon for one spouse to try and control the other through guilt, manipulation, and emotional, verbal, and even physical abuse. Areas of control include finances, job choice, chores, communication, sex, and access to family and friends.

If you are the spouse that is being controlled and isolated, you may start to feel self-blame and ultimately, depression and hopelessness. You may even develop physical symptoms of stress and lose your sense of personhood. And whether you stay married or not, you will hold on to feelings of self-blame and helplessness unless you work through them and restore healthy ownership over your life.

Parenting

What does it look like to live in the land of dictatorship in the area of parenting? When your kids are little, it’s easy enough—and often necessary—to control what they wear, what they eat, where they go. As they get older, it may be difficult to step back and let them make their own decisions. You may decide what sports they play, how they spend their time, what shows they watch, who their friends are.

Other ways to control them can include harsh punishments and dictatorial rules through an authoritarian style of parenting. They may respond with compliance, or they may rebel, or they may become sneaky. Any of these responses mean that they are not getting the chance to practice making good decisions because they’re not allowed to individuate and exercise the muscle of discernment. And it means they won’t have a safe, healthy, trusting relationship with you.

Friendship

This may be an area that doesn’t get much discussion over the idea of control. But control can work its way into a friendship. A friend might try and control you by being condescending or rude. Or they may try and isolate you from other friends, disrespect your boundaries, and attempt to manipulate you into doing what they want. Some conflict in friendship is normal, but if you find yourself on the receiving end of unrealistic expectations, the silent treatment, gossip, and disparaging comments, you may need to take a step back and set some healthy boundaries.

Work

What does it look like to try and exert control at work? You don’t ever take a day off. You become a workaholic. You constantly override other peoples’ decisions. You don’t ever delegate responsibilities. You use your power and influence to get ahead at the expense of others. And in the end, you’ll be burned out, sloppy, and even face physical effects like illness and exhaustion. Your co-workers may be resentful and bitter. There’s no way you can control 100% of your image at work. And accepting that can be very difficult. Conversely, your manager or coworkers may try and control you through gossip, intimidation, and manipulation. In this case, you need strong boundaries.

Etcetera

We’re decided to create one more category—an etcetera bucket. Money is one thing we’ll put in this bucket. It can be very tempting to try and gain control by making money your god. Having money can mean power and freedom. It gives you more choices and more opportunities. You could be extremely unprincipled, but if you have money, people will flock to you. This is one of the reasons that Jesus says the love of money is the root of all evil. The way to combat this is to give sacrificially.

Exercise, fitness, and the pursuit of health is good and right. It can be done as a way to steward your physical body, but only to a point. It can take on the form of unhealthy dictatorship if you pursue health, fitness and appearance above all else. What is your motive? Why do you exercise? Is it done to maintain the health of the body that God has given you? Or are you doing it to maintain a certain image and impress people? It’s important to be honest with yourself.

Another area where you might cross over into dictatorship is when it comes to personal time. God gave us the Sabbath and told us to rest. He recognizes that the self has to be cared for. And we’re free to choose how we do that. But putting a greater value on your own personal time than being productive with the gifts God has given you or fulfilling the responsibilities of the role he has called you to means you’ve crossed over.

Now that we’ve given you some signs that you might live in the land of dictatorship, we need to discuss the underlying reasons. There are 3 main reasons that you may try and be in control. When you can understand the reasons why, then you can honestly bring them to God and take steps towards managing them.

The Motives Beneath the Surface

First, you may stay in control because of fear and uncertainty. There’s a part of you that worries what life would look like if you gave up control of your circumstances. In one sense, this is understandable, because the fear of the unknown can be very scary. Staying in control is a coping mechanism against feeling surprised or caught off guard.

You may fear vulnerability, consequences, and facing your own limitations. Control becomes a way of trying to prevent those feelings rather than confront them and understand them and learn how to manage them. And oftentimes anger will be the go-to when someone threatens your control. Anger is an appealing emotion because it feels powerful. But it can be destructive if not handled properly.

Second, you may choose control is because it’s familiar. Like the saying goes, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” Humans gravitate towards familiarity, even if it’s hurtful. For example, the Israelites wanted to go back into slavery in Egypt after God rescued them. Why? Because the future was uncertain, and they wanted to go back to what they knew. Sometimes prisoners, after being released, will commit a crime so they can go back to prison where things are familiar and predictable.

One way that may subtly show up in your life is when you are trying to keep old patterns of behavior. If you’ve never known anything different, it may feel weird and wrong to do things in a new way. For example, if you’ve always had a tight grip on the finances in your family, letting your spouse have a say might be scary for you.

Third, you may move from the land of stewardship to the land of dictatorship because of pride. Simply put, it’s about the love of power. God shows mercy to us in our multiple miseries, and many of them are because of sins done to us. But all of us also engage in plain old unrepentant acts of willful rebellion. I want to do what I want to do because I want to do it.

You sometimes want God out of the picture so that you can feel like you are in control. C.S. Lewis said, “When things are going well...I’m just fine to not hear from God.” And of course, multiple things can be true. You can resort to controlling behaviors because you’re fearful and because they’re familiar, but that does not exclude the fact that you also want to control things because you want to.

Psalm 10:4 captures this sentiment perfectly. It says, “In his pride, the wicked man does not seek him. In all his thoughts, there was no room for God”. That sums up life in the land of dictatorship. Another great illustration of this is Smeagol from Lord of the Rings: “My precioussss.” Nothing was going to get between him and the One Ring.

Of the three reasons that you cross the border, your pride is the most serious and does the most damage to the people and world around you. And it does the most damage to your own heart and soul.

Pride will keep you from even being willing or able to consider whether or not you’re trying to control things around you. It’s a major blind spot. And because of that, your prideful, sinful heart is the reason that Jesus came into the world. He took the full extent of just punishment and wrath that your pride earned for you.

When a Good Gift Becomes an Idol

Control in and of itself is not a problem. It’s actually a good thing that God intended to give to his people, but under the form of stewardship. Stewards recognize that they’re watching over and caring for something that was given to them and in the end, isn’t theirs to keep. But thanks to sin, we take that good gift, divorce it from the giver, and morph into dictators.

Control can be an easy sin to hide, which is why we’re taking time to reflect on it. If you have trouble seeing it in your life, a good starting point is to ask yourself, “Which land am I living in? How close to the border am I? Where and when do I cross over from stewardship into dictatorship? If I stepped back from trying to control someone or something, what would that cost me?”

You might be wondering just how to root out the weeds of control. Stay tuned for next week when we cover that in detail.

In our last episode, we looked at how the fears you carry from the past can shape your reactions and decisions in the present. But understanding where fear comes from is the first part of the story. In the second half of our two-part conversation on fear from our new series, Uncovering Your Hidden Motives, Lynn Roush, LPC, and Austin Conner, PLPC, want to help you move into managing your fears rather than being controlled by them.

As therapists, we’ve spent a lot of time reading, studying, working with clients, and doing our own internal work around emotional regulation. We’ve discovered that a tangible, experiential sense of safety can help calm your nervous system and give you the space you need to respond rather than simply react. Helpful strategies for finding safety include noticing and naming what’s happening in your body, breathing, grounding, and responding to the scared parts of yourself with compassion.

We’ll also talk about what to do after the fearful moment has passed: how to explore where your fear came from, develop a plan for future situations, find safety in relationships, and draw on the promises and wisdom of Scripture. We’ll even discuss therapeutic tools and the role of medication in managing overwhelming anxiety.

Most importantly, we’ll end where we always want to end—with Jesus. As you continue to take an honest look at your hidden motivations, he invites you to come with all your burdens, fears, and anxieties, and find rest in him.

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Highlights from this Conversation

We’ve just started a new series called Uncovering Your Hidden Motives to explore the deeper heart issues that may be unconsciously driving your actions and decisions. In the last episode, we explained the roots of fear—the hidden causes of fear and the reactions and decisions that result.

Today’s episode is going to be insightful and practical as we discuss how to manage the weeds of fear in your life. We know that the worries and fears of life are endless, but here are just a few things that we thought of that you might be going through right now and can relate to:

• Sending your child off to college

• Working a stressful job

• Health issues for you or a family member

• Taking care of aging parents

• Financial uncertainties

• Marriage or relationship issues

While these may be things you’re dealing with in the present, as we learned in the last episode, fears from the past can intensify your present reactions. We want to help you manage these very real fears, because we think that a regulated nervous system is the best gift that you can give yourself and the people around you.

Even though we often think of fear as negative, if you never experienced fear, you’d be extremely vulnerable to threats. So our end goal is to manage fear, not eliminate it. As therapists, we’ve done a lot of reading, studying, and work with clients to help them regulate their emotions. But we’ve also worked on ourselves. We’re real people with real feelings!

We’ve concluded that there’s one thing that needs to happen in order for us to manage our fears. It almost seems too simple. But the target to aim for can be summarized in one word: safety. Regardless of any fear management strategies you may learn, if you don’t have a felt sense of safety, everything else will crumble.

Because it sounds so simple but it’s true, we’ll restate it: The best and most effective way to manage your fear is to have a tangible, experiential sense of safety.

It could be the moment you get off your feet after a long day of work; going on a much-anticipated vacation; sitting on a porch watching the sunrise over the mountains; working on a hobby or project that fulfils you creatively; or chatting with a small group of friends. Those experiences can bring a felt sense of safety.

From Awareness to Action

The most powerful and effective experiences of safety are when others are around. They’re relational. So the million-dollar question that everybody’s asking is: how do you actually find safety?

We’re going to divide the steps to safety into two categories:

1. Assessment. This is something you do in the moment when you’re having the actual experience of fear.

2. Action. What you do after the fearful moment is over and things have settled down.

Let’s start with ‘in the moment’ stuff. The first thing you have to do is assess. In other words, you just notice. You’ve got to notice that you’re actually experiencing fear. We ended our last episode by talking about the importance of acknowledging this fact. Usually, your body is going to be the first indicator of fear.

That’s because the experience of fear hits you bottom to top, left to right. It might mean cold or clammy hands, upset stomach, racing heart, panic in your chest, or hyperventilating. In this assessment phase, you can just say, “Hello, fear. Hi there.” Say it with compassion and curiosity, not judgment.

Panicky feelings are meant to be noticed. These intense emotions are connected to a part of you that has its own thoughts and beliefs about itself and the world. So before you try and shut your feelings down, take notice that your anxiety, the fearful part of you, has come online. It may sound strange, but naming it makes it easier to manage.

The next thing you can do as you assess is to put your experience on a scale of 1 to 10. How fearful are you? Are you at an 8 out of 10 or a 3 out of 10? The number you’re at will help you figure out what to do next. Finding the number will get easier the more you do it, but start by using those physical signs of fear as a barometer.

After you’ve assessed, there are three actions you can take. They need to be in this order. You may not be able to do this perfectly the first time, but with practice, these steps are going to get easier and more natural.

1. First, you need to breathe. The reason you need to breathe is because it’s going to slow down your anxious reaction by engaging the parasympathetic nervous system. If you’re in a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response, slow deep breathing is going to get you unstuck and moving again.

Deep breaths push your diaphragm out, which pushes against your adrenal glands. The adrenal glands are pumping adrenaline and cortisol into your body. But when those adrenal glands feel slow, consistent pressure, they turn off. That helps your thinking brain come back online again.

2. Second, after you breathe, visualize the scared part of yourself. That will look different for everyone. One person might see themselves as a little kid with the covers pulled up over their head. Another person might picture themselves hiding. Once you can visualize that, ask your scared part, “What are you scared about? What are you afraid might happen?” Then your calmer self can tell your scared part, “Can you trust me that we’re going to take care of this and get back to safety?”

This step may sound a little strange—awkward, even. But we tell clients, “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.” One resource we often suggest to clients is a book called Altogether You by Jenna Riemersma. When they use it, the light bulb goes on and they are able to do this kind of internal work.

3. Third and finally, you need to decide in the moment, in the real embodied world, whether you’re going to stay or whether you’re going to go. You might be in a situation where you have to stay and you’re just going to have to endure the fear for a while until you can go. You’ve just got to wait out the storm. But if you can leave, you may decide that leaving is the best thing you can do in the moment.

Choosing to stay or leave is related to fears you experience in the present moment. If you experience fears that are related to the past, bring yourself back to the present by using the Grounding 5-4-3-2-1 method. Look around and name five things that you see, four things that you tangibly feel, three things that you hear, two things you smell, and one thing you can taste.

4 Ways to Find Safety

1. Speak your fear out loud to someone. That can be a trusted friend, spouse, therapist, or your small group. That helps the scared part of you know that you’re not alone, that your emotions and feelings are valid, and that it’s going to be okay. You can also journal about your feelings. It won’t necessarily solve the situations you’re dealing with, but it can help you have clarity about your motivations and understand your present connection to past pain.

Ask yourself, “Why was I so fearful? What came up? What is this connected to? Was there a time before the age of 18 that I felt this way?” Asking these questions and sharing the answers will bring insight and help you feel heard and validated.

2. Develop a plan of action. You can rehearse. Ask yourself, “What can I do differently the next time I’m in that situation?” Talk with somebody who can help you script out some if-then scenarios. When you feel a little bit more prepared, it might not keep the fear from rising, but you will be able to manage it better.

3. Visualization. Close your eyes and think of yourself in a calm, quiet moment. Imagine a person that brings you a feeling of safety. If you like, you can picture Jesus. As you do that exercise, think of the verses in Philippians 4:6-7, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

Your circumstances may shift. Fears will rise and fall. Anxieties will come and go. But what’s the one thing that remains constant? The love of God. The truths and the promises of God. Paul tells us that as we dwell on these things, the peace of God will be with us.

4. Listen for God’s wisdom from the Scriptures. Here are some verses we find very comforting:

• Psalm 139:16, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me.”

• Isaiah 41:10, “Fear not, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

• Psalm 27:1, “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?”

We’re going to wrap up by talking about some different therapeutic methods of managing anxiety, starting with medications. There are three things to keep in mind regarding medications:

• First, meds can keep you afloat, but they’re not going to teach you how to swim. A medication like Lexapro or Zoloft can be really effective in managing overwhelming anxiety. However, that doesn’t address the underlying problems that are causing the anxiety. Internal work (often with the help of a therapist) is where those issues are addressed and resolved.

• Second, meds should be used to return you from a state of abnormalcy to a state of normalcy. But using medication to take you from a state of normalcy to abnormalcy is not healthy and appropriate. That’s how addiction begins.

• Lastly, meds should be prescribed by and supervised by a doctor that sees you regularly for check-ins.

If you’ve done internal work, sought therapy, and used medication, but still find that fear is part of your daily life, you can try EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). EMDR is a great tool for addressing PTSD. Likewise, brain spotting uses your visual field to access stress in your body and then creates a corrective experience that calms your nervous system. Progressive muscle relaxation and meditating on God’s word are two more things that can help.

Finding Rest in Jesus

You can’t build a calm regulation system alone. And you don’t have to. Jesus says in Matthew 11: 28-30, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus doesn’t tell you to figure out all of your fears and then come to him. He says to come as you are, heavy laden, burdened, fearful, and he will give you rest. He’s not impatient with your fears, but he’s present with you. Every tool that we’ve talked about today is meant to lead you into the presence of people who love you well and ultimately into the presence of God, who is your lasting refuge and ultimate source of safety.

Recommended Resources

Roots of Fear - Lynn & Austin explain what fear is and how it affects you in the first half of our 2-part conversation on fear

How Does EMDR Help You Heal from Trauma? - Austin sits down with Dr. Mark Pfuetze for a closer look at what EMDR is and how it works

All Together You: Experiencing Personal and Spiritual Transformation with Internal Family Systems Therapy by Jenna Riemersma - practical, life-affirming steps to experience wholeness and healing

Fear is one of the most basic and powerful human emotions, but it can be surprisingly difficult to understand—especially when it shows up as anger, avoidance, control, anxiety, perfectionism, or even shame. In this first episode of our new series, Uncovering Your Hidden Motives, Lynn Roush, LPC, and Austin Conner, PLPC, go beneath the surface to explore where fear comes from and why it can have such a powerful influence on the way we live.

Fear isn’t simply a lack of faith or something you should be able to “think your way out of.” It’s an automatic alarm system designed to protect you when you perceive a threat. Sometimes your body can respond to something happening today as though you’re still living in an experience from years ago. Understanding that connection can bring compassion to reactions that you may have previously judged or felt ashamed of.

In this conversation, we’ll explain what happens in your brain and body when fear takes over, including the instinctive responses to fight, flee, freeze, or fawn. We’ll explore how fear can shape the way you relate to other people and the ways you try to find safety and control. And because this is With You in the Weeds, we won’t stop with the psychology. We’ll also turn to Scripture to ask what God says about our fears—and what it means to bring those fears into his presence rather than facing them alone.

As we begin Uncovering Your Hidden Motives, our hope is that you’ll become more curious about what’s happening beneath your reactions instead of simply judging yourself for them. Let God meet you in the places where you feel afraid, and begin to experience something deeper than simply managing your fears: the security of being held by a loving God.

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Highlights from this Conversation

Welcome to our new series, Uncovering Your Hidden Motives. This series takes a deep dive (literally!) on the thought patterns, responses, and behaviors that most of us have but often don’t acknowledge. When you’re able to understand the hidden parts of yourself, you’re empowered to make changes that bring you peace, emotional stability, and healthier relationships.

With this insight into how God designed you and designed relationships to work, you can effectively and confidently love and serve and bless others around you. Ephesians 2:10 captures this perfectly: “We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

Proverbs 20:5 says, “The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.” The visual of deep waters is a good picture for what’s going on inside of us. Most of what drives us isn’t actually sitting on the surface. It’s underneath. It takes time, intention, and often the help of others for us to see what’s really going on beneath the surface.

We’re going to tackle each topic in two parts. First, there will be an episode looking at the “roots” of the topic, and then the next episode will be how to manage the “weeds” of the topic. We find that people often start the process of looking at their hidden motives when they come for counseling, so this is information that we often share with our clients and should be helpful for you as well.

Understanding Your Alarm System

Fear is multidimensional and has emotional, relational, and spiritual threads, so let’s start with some definitions. One biblical definition of fear is found in Proverbs 1:7: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.” The Bible encourages us to fear the Lord—to have reverence and awe before him—because he is holy, sovereign, powerful, and all-knowing, and we are finite, dependent, and accountable to him.

That kind of fear is different from the emotion of fear that we experience when we have an automatic, involuntary, protective physiological response to a threat in our environment. For today’s purposes, we’re going to define fear as your body and mind’s automatic alarm system. It’s a feeling paired with a physical reaction that gets triggered the moment you perceive a threat, whether that threat is happening right now or is anticipated.

Stated another way, fear is a basic primary emotion that arises in response to a perceived threat, and that triggers a physiological and behavioral response oriented towards self-protection and survival. When your nervous system responds with something on the spectrum between worry to mild anxiety, to a full-blown panic attack or terror, that is not a moral category. It is just biological.

How Fear Takes Root

There are two ways fear takes root in our lives: nature and nurture. Nature is related to inborn and inherent factors, and nurture is related to external and environmental factors. If we start with nature, fear is a natural experience that arises whenever we face some sort of threat. It’s natural because we have the systems built into our bodies to experience that.

Once Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptation of the serpent, a Pandora’s box of threats were unleashed into creation. Now there’s sin and death. There are evil people who want to dominate, control, and hurt others. But it’s not just other people out there. We’ve all got the seeds of sin in our hearts and our lives. Genesis 6:5 says, “God saw human wickedness on the earth and that every thought and intention of the human heart was only evil all the time.”

We can divide ‘nurture’ fears into capital-T threats and lowercase-t threats. Capital-T threats evoke fear in pretty much everybody—like the fear of being robbed or getting into a car crash. But lowercase-t threats are subjective; they’re usually not a threat to our lives. These can include fear of spiders, mice, public speaking, heights, and crowds. These are often learned by observing other people’s reactions to things around us or having unsettling experiences that threaten our sense of control.

Other learned fears can include things that are less visible than spiders or mice but in a way, even more scary. For example, in childhood you may feel scared when someone in your family is angry. You may feel like you’ve done something wrong or someone is upset with you. And even after you grow up and have your own family, you may still feel viscerally afraid if you think someone is angry with you.

There’s a therapeutic framework that we utilize in our counseling that helps us access this visceral experience. It’s called IFS, which stands for Internal Family Systems. It was identified by a family therapist named Dick Schwartz. IFS recognizes different brain states that get established at an early age, often around painful or threatening memories. Those brain states contain their own set of thoughts, feelings, memories, bodily sensations, and beliefs about the world.

These different brain states are called parts. You might have a scared part or an angry part, or an anxious part or a protective part. When you feel scared that someone is angry with you, your brain is accessing the younger part of you that had experiences of feeling overwhelmed or overpowered. Your brain doesn’t recognize the difference between the present and the past. The past literally is present. The better you understand these parts, the more healing can happen for you in areas of hurt or trauma.

When Fear Takes the Wheel

What’s happening in your brain and body when you experience fear? It helps to know what’s happening because you can manage it better and recover more quickly. Thanks to neurological brain science and fMRI brain scans, we know a lot about the ways fear affects the brain and body.

The vagus nerve is connected to the base of your brain stem, and it travels down the center of your body cavity and extends into our arms and legs. This nerve is like a ladder with three rungs on top of it. At the very top is the ventral nerve. And when you’re here, things are calm.

Unfortunately, you don’t always stay in this calm place. You experience threats that evoke fear. The part of the brain that scans your environment for threats is called the thalamus. When it senses a threat, it starts the process that sends you down to the next rung on the vagus nerve to the sympathetic nerve.

When the sympathetic nerve is activated, there are two options: fight or flight. Fight is going towards the threat and try to solve it or neutralize it. Flight is running the other way to get some distance. The thalamus sends a message down to your adrenal glands, which start pumping adrenaline and cortisol into our system.

Your heart starts beating a lot faster. Blood from your arms and legs starts heading to your core. Your prefrontal cortex, which is the part of your brain that’s responsible for conscious and explicit thought, analysis, and cognition, goes offline. And it does this because the ‘thinking’ part of your brain is not moving fast enough to deal with the threat.

Think about it like this. If you’ve got a bus bearing down on you, you’ve got to move quickly. You can’t stop and think about what to do. That’s why trying to force yourself to think logically and rationally doesn’t help overcome the immediate visceral experience of fear. (In the next episode, we’ll talk about how to get your prefrontal cortex back online!)

There’s one last rung in this vagus nerve that people often go to when they’re facing a threat, and that’s the dorsal nerve. This is system shutdown. When people are here, the two options are freeze or fawn. When you freeze, you tense up and even dissociate. Fawn is when you play along, appease, stay with the crowd. If you speak up or protest, there’s a sense that you’ll receive unwanted attention.

All of these responses to threats aren’t right or wrong. They’re natural, biological responses. It’s how your body was designed to respond. Knowing that helps take the shame away from these automatic reactions when they occur. But it is your responsibility to understand what to do with these responses.

When Your Body Feels “Unsafe”

Let’s say you had a very difficult relationship with your parent growing up. Maybe your parent was hypercritical. Maybe they struggled with an addiction. Maybe they abandoned you at some point in your life. As an adult, you leave every interaction with them feeling crushed, exhausted, or wanting to run away. When that parent wants to spend time with you, or maybe needs something from you, you avoid them.

But then you feel self-contempt for wanting to avoid your parent. You feel like a bad person, a bad Christian. But the physiological reaction of defensiveness or self-protection is an automatic nervous system reaction that your body has encoded from learning that your parent isn’t safe.

When you feel angry with yourself for avoiding them, you’re trying to override what your body is telling you. Once you understand the underlying mechanism, you can have compassion for yourself.

Underlying fear drives behavior in many other areas of life, like overprotective parenting, substance abuse, or numbing out with screen time. God designed you to need reciprocal, safe interactions with people close to you in order to feel safe. If you have interactions that make you feel unsafe, your nervous system automatically shifts into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Until you understand where the behavior comes from, you can’t address it.

What Does the Bible Say About Fear?

We have to let God speak explicitly on this topic of fear. He’s the one who created us, the one that’s with us, and the one who’s leading and guiding us, and so he gets the final say. So whatever he says, we need to make sure that we’re orienting our lives to his truth. So what does God have to say about fear? Well, it turns out a lot.

There’s an often-cited passage in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid.” Jesus is talking about our relationship with God the Father, specifically, the visceral experience of fear. That doesn’t contradict Proverbs 1, because in this context, Jesus is talking about fearing demonic powers and authorities. We shouldn’t fear them. Compared to them, God is the one to fear.

Jesus is not telling us to neutralize or manage our fears, he’s telling us where to go when we fear. God wants us to come to him with our fears. Fear has the capacity to send us running or paralyze us. Yet when we fear in the presence of God, God allows us to endure the fear and manage the fear and trust the fear to him in the middle of it.

Another helpful passage is Romans 5:3-5. These verses describe the outcome of trusting God in the middle of our fear. The Apostle Paul says, “We rejoice in our sufferings, because suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Our last reference is 1 John 4:18. It says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” Essentially, this is a verse on attachment. If you’re securely loved and attached to a safe person, your fear will subside. That is neurologically true. Safe and secure attachment buffers us from the unpredictable and often scary moments of living in a fallen world.

But who among us has ever experienced perfect love on this earth?

While perfect love isn’t found on earth, as children of God, we are promised safety in his arms. Not in the sense that we won’t experience trials. We do. But our pain doesn’t go unnoticed. The injustices that we experience will eventually be made right, and we are promised safe passage into the arms of God when we leave this world. So this is an act of continually entrusting ourselves to God as our Heavenly Father, our loving Creator, to tend to the care of our souls and carry us safely home.

Facing Fear with Faith

Here are two specific things to do when you’re fearful. The first one is to recognize and acknowledge that you are afraid. It’s not going to solve everything, but it’s going to solve that internal battle that arises in your mind and your heart when you try to minimize or ignore or shove down the experience.

The second thing to do is to ask God to help you and give you what you need in this situation to survive, to take the next step. God hears every single thought that you have had before you even think it, so you don’t need to hide or feel ashamed to come to him. He wants to meet you in your moment of need.

In the same way, instead of isolating or trying to manage things on your own, ask for help from a friend or family member. Reach out to somebody in your small group or a ministry leader or a counselor.

Stay with us for the next episode on how to manage the weeds of fear in your life because there are concrete, practical, and even surprising ways that you can learn to manage your fear effectively and rewire your brain to be less fearful.

Every profession has its own mountain to climb. Whether you’re a trauma nurse, teacher, coach, business professional, stay-at-home parent, student, or serving in another role, you know what it feels like to carry responsibility that matters.

That’s where our inspiring series, Performing Under Pressure, comes in. Listen in as we interview people of different professions about the pressures they face and how to handle them. We talk honestly about the pressures that come with high-stress careers, navigating job stress in healthy ways, and how faith in Jesus influences leadership and service.

These conversations aren’t just for people in those professions. They’re an invitation to better understand the burdens others carry, and to live out Galatians 6:2 by “bearing one another’s burdens”.

The climb won’t always be easy, but you don’t have to do it alone.

Performing Under Pressure: Inside the Trauma Bay

What does it take to stay calm when someone else’s life is in on the line? That’s something our first guest, ER nurse Caroline Vandervoort, has to deal with on a daily basis. In this enlightening conversation with Austin Conner, PLPC, Caroline shares what it’s like to work in the trauma bay, care for patients on the hardest day of their lives, receive criticism without becoming cynical, and battle compassion fatigue by relying on God’s strength.

Whether you work in healthcare or not, we think you’ll see yourself in Caroline’s story. Because ultimately, this episode isn’t just about emergency medicine. It’s about remaining compassionate under pressure, pursuing excellence without losing your soul, and discovering that Jesus is present even in trauma and chaos.

Listen: Inside the Trauma Bay

Read: Inside the Trauma Bay

Performing Under Pressure: In a War Zone

What keeps someone steady when every decision could mean the difference between life and death? In this gripping episode, Shay Roush, M.Div., sits down with Vince Bentinganan, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former Commander of Bravo Company, 110th Engineer Battalion, to hear about the realities of searching for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in a hostile environment with brutal physical, mental, and spiritual conditions.

As they reflect on their 20-year friendship, Vince shares openly about the stress of combat, the weight of leadership, and the spiritual disciplines that kept him grounded during deployment. It turns out that prayer, godly friendships, connection, and encouragement are helpful even in one of the most dangerous environments imaginable.

Listen: In a War Zone

Read: In a War Zone

Performing Under Pressure: Pushing the Limits of Medicine

Listen in as Austin sits down with Dr. Brandon Huffman, a gastrointestinal oncologist and clinical researcher, to explore the intersection of extraordinary scientific progress and profound human suffering. Brandon shares how his Christian faith enables him to face suffering honestly without losing hope, even when healing doesn’t come in the way he or his patients desperately want.

Whether you work in medicine, care for people in another high-pressure profession, or simply wonder how to remain faithful when you’re confronted with problems you can’t fix, this conversation offers a thoughtful and deeply human perspective on calling, compassion, and the hope that endures even in the face of death.

Listen: Pushing the Limits

Read: Pushing the Limits

Performing Under Pressure: Teaching with a Purpose

In this eye-opening episode, Austin sits down with elementary school teacher Lexie Darrough to talk about what it’s really like to stand at the front of a classroom. Their conversation explores teacher burnout, the challenge of caring for both the hearts and minds of the students, the partnership between parents and educators, and the freedom of knowing that God loves every child even more than we do.

Whether you’re a teacher, a parent, or simply someone who wants to better understand the people shaping the next generation, Lexie’s wisdom offers encouragement for anyone trying to faithfully serve others under pressure.

Listen: Teaching with a Purpose

Read: Teaching with a Purpose

Performing Under Pressure: The Myth of Work-Life Balance

In this episode, hosts John Tinnin, MFT, and Lynn Roush, LPC, sit down with David and Molly Cover, a couple who found themselves navigating multiple job losses, major career transitions, the discovery of ADHD, and the anxiety and grief that came with all of it.

Listen in as David and Molly share honestly about what happened when their plans collided with a reality they couldn’t control, and how the pressure affected their marriage, their parenting, their identities, and their faith. As they turned to God, counseling, and their community for support, they learned to navigate their anxieties rather than be controlled by them.

Listen: Myth of Work-Life Balance

Read: Myth of Work-Life Balance

Performing Under Pressure: Doing Business with Integrity

In this eye-opening episode, Austin sits down with Clint Guier, an executive leader who has spent more than two decades with the same company. Clint’s journey from a farm kid in small-town Missouri to an executive vice president offers a window into the everyday realities of leadership: making decisions that affect hundreds of people, knowing when to delegate, and learning from the people who have gone before him.

But this conversation goes beyond strategies for succeeding in the business world. Clint reflects honestly on the ways pressure has shaped him over the years, including the temptation to seek approval, the cost of carrying stress alone, and the impact that unprocessed pressure can have on the people closest to us.

Listen: Doing Business with Integrity

Read: Doing Business with Integrity

Performing Under Pressure: It’s Kinda Chic to Be You

In this spirited episode, Lynn sits down with Ella Swindle, a senior setter for the University of Texas Longhorns volleyball team who helped lead her team to an NCAA National Championship as a freshman. As a setter, Ella calls the plays, directs the offense, and has to reset quickly after every point. But some of the most significant pressure she’s faced hasn’t come from the volleyball court at all.

For Ella, college athletics has become a place where questions of performance, identity, expectations, and faith collide. She opens up about the internal voices that tell her she’s not enough, and the hard work of learning to distinguish truth from lies. Along the way, she has discovered the importance of silence, stepping away from social media, and becoming her own biggest cheerleader.

Listen: It's Kinda Chic to Be Your

Read: It's Kinda Chic to Be You

Performing Under Pressure: The Voice of the Tigers

In this stunning conclusion to our series, Shay sits down with none other than the Voice of the Tigers, Mike Kelly, to talk about his remarkable career behind the microphone. For more than three decades, Mike has stepped into high-pressure moments to give listeners a clear picture of the plays unfolding in front of him.

Along the way, he has called more than 1,000 Mizzou basketball broadcasts and hundreds of consecutive football games, earning the respect of fans and fellow broadcasters. He talks candidly with Shay about not having all the answers, being kind to himself when he makes a mistake, and the importance of having people who will stay beside you when life gets hard.

Listen: The Voice of the Tigers

Read: The Voice of the Tigers

In this stunning conclusion to our Performing Under Pressure series, Shay Roush, M.Div., sits down with none other than the Voice of the Tigers, Mike Kelly, to talk about his remarkable career behind the microphone. For more than three decades, Mike has stepped gracefully into high-pressure moments to give listeners a clear picture of the plays unfolding in front of him.

Along the way, he has called more than 1,000 Mizzou basketball broadcasts and hundreds of consecutive football games, earning the respect of fans and fellow broadcasters. He talks candidly with Shay about not having all the answers, being kind to himself when he makes a mistake, and the importance of having people who will stay beside you when life gets hard.

His story also reveals the people and relationships behind a remarkable career—from mentors who opened doors and taught him the craft to coaches, players, families, and friends. You might be surprised that behind the polished calls, Mike still gets a little nervous before a game. But he believes that nervous energy is evidence that you care deeply about the opportunity in front of you.

Throughout this series, we’ve heard from real people who handle pressure not by avoiding hard moments, but learning how to move through them. Whatever your calling, your challenges, or the pressures you carry, we hope these stories encourage you to use the gifts you’ve been given and become the person you’re capable of becoming. In the end, your legacy isn’t about professional accomplishments, awards, and acclaim—it’s about the way you love God and the people around you.

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Highlights from this Interview

Shay: Hi everyone, I have a special guest with me today. If you’ve followed Mizzou sports at all over the last three decades, you know this voice. Mike Kelly is the radio play-by-play announcer for Mizzou football and basketball. As the Voice of the Tigers, he’s had over 1,000 broadcasts and not missed a single game since 1994.

He’s won Missouri Sportscaster of the Year seven times. He’s in the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. Too many achievements to mention. Mike, welcome to the podcast. It’s an honor to have you here.

Mike: Thank you so much for having me. Just to clarify, I’ve done over 1,000 broadcasts with Mizzou basketball, and missed a game or two, but not missed any with football.

Shay: Well, then, even AI can make mistakes. Do you know how many football games that is?

Mike: 396. Lord willing, if I can make it to the Mississippi State game, that would be 400 consecutive games.

Shay: We got to know each other when I was the Mizzou chaplain. I think that you are one of the best sports broadcasters out there. My wife would say the same. Last year, we were driving somewhere and listening to you. Lynn is not really a sports fan, but after listening to you call a game, she said that you are really good at what you do. And Lynn’s dad is Erwin Lutzer, a well-known pastor and teacher, so she definitely knows great speaking.

Mike: That’s very kind. Sometimes people come up and tell me that they turn down the TV volume and listen to the radio broadcast while they’re watching. It’s very humbling that people find my work acceptable.

Shay: Let me start off by asking, what makes a good sports broadcaster?

Mike: In radio, you have to always remember that it’s incumbent upon the broadcaster to paint the picture. You’ve got an open, clear palette. And for the listener, no matter where they might be, you’re painting a picture for their imagination to see what is going on on the field or on the court, while they’re doing whatever task they might be doing.

I think the other important thing is the ability to call the play. That was a piece of advice that Jack Buck gave me before I called my first game at Mizzou. I always refer to him as Mr. Buck because of the profound amount of respect that I have for him. Mr. Buck said, “Call the play.”

Shay: What does that mean?

Mike: It means that you don’t know who’s listening. You may think because you’re calling Missouri games that most of the listening audience are Missouri fans, but there also might be the other team’s fans or neutral fans. Call the play with an equal amount of description, inflection, and enthusiasm for whatever the play might be, whether it’s in Missouri’s favor or the other team’s favor.

He would also say, “I don’t care what you think about the referee. You’re not one. I don’t care what you think about the coaches. You’re not one. You’re a broadcaster. So call the play.”

Shay: That’s really good. How do you have enthusiasm for both teams if you lean to one side?

Mike: You make sure to give justice to every play that happens in front of you. Since radio is a medium of imagination, you paint a picture for the listener. Something I tell young broadcasters is, you need to have your own unique style. And not get caught up in your notes. Even though you may have facts to share, you can lose the pace of the game if you focus on your notes.

Shay: Your broadcasting career goes back many years. You started by calling women’s volleyball games, is that right?

Mike: I had been at the University of Illinois in Champaign after graduating from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. After one opportunity didn’t work out, I was hired by Jim Manley, the father of one of my good friends. He was the program director at WDWS and also the morning host.

The 1985 Illinois women’s volleyball team won about 20 consecutive matches to begin the season. It was apparent that they were going to the NCAA tournament. The powers that be at the radio station made the decision that we were going to broadcast the NCAA tournament matches. They asked me to call the games, and I said, I’m in.

Shay: How do you learn to call volleyball?

Mike: Mike Hebert, a legendary figure in Illinois volleyball history, was the head coach at the time. His assistant was a gentleman named Don Harden. I went over to the old Kenny Gym on the Illinois campus where they used to play their matches in practice, and sat on the baseline during practice for several days in a row. Don would call out exactly what was taking place on the court. This is a serve, a pass, set, spike, dig, pass, block, cover, set. You learn the terminology, but you also learn the flow of the game.

Volleyball is a really unique sport in that it never yearns for excitement—there’s always movement. That was a really good foundation for me as a young broadcaster. It taught me pacing. It taught me how to selectively edit in my mind based on the flow of the match.

Shay: You ended up at KMOX, which is the flagship radio station in St. Louis for Cardinal games. How did that come about?

Mike: I auditioned for the position in April of 1988. I had maybe a little bit of an edge on some of those that were interested in that position because for two years prior to that, I was a correspondent for KMOX on the University of Illinois Sports. Anytime something happened with one of the games, I would send them “voicers”, little snippets they could play on the air, as well as sound bites from coaches and players.

After the audition, I went home. But I didn’t hear anything. I had a mentor named Jim Holder that I had met when the Chicago Bears were practicing down in Champaign. I asked Jim, “How do I get this job at KMOX?” He told me I needed to get to the legendary Robert Highland, who was the general manager of KMOX and senior vice president of CBS. Jim warned me that I’d need to call Robert before 6 am, because that’s when Robert went to mass.

So I decided to call Robert every Friday at 4:30 am. I’d ask if I got the job and hear, “We’re still looking.” But eventually the phone rang at 4:30 and I knew I had the job. It was an amazing opportunity; I had the chance to work with and learn from Jack Buck, Bob Costas, Bob Hardy, and Bill Wilkerson. Just absolute legends.

Shay: That is so awesome. Let me ask you, which one is more challenging to call, football or basketball?

Mike: They each have their challenges. With football, you have 22 bodies on the field at the same time—11 on offense, 11 on defense—and there’s a large number of different things that could take place during one snap of the ball. With basketball, the pace of the game creates a challenge.

Shay: Are there two or three games that are highlights in your mind where you did a great job with calls? Or times where you made a mistake?

Mike: Anytime someone asks me after a game, “How’d the call go?”, my answer has always been, “I hope I did it justice.” That’s the way I’ve always tried to approach it.

There have been times when I’ve been upset with myself about missing a call. I remember the Cotton Bowl that Missouri most recently played in against Ohio State. We’re at the opposite end of the field, corner of the end zone, and Mizzou throws a touchdown pass to Luther Burden. From my vantage point, I thought it was intercepted. No, he caught it. I could get upset with myself, but there’s no perfect broadcast.

One of my most embarrassing moments was as a PA announcer for the Cardinals. There was a clip that would go on your belt and you would engage the button for the microphone and announce the batter. One time, the button was still engaged, and I leaned into the microphone and yawned as loud as someone possibly can. It billowed through Busch Stadium to the point where the umpire called timeout and ripped off his mask and turned around and looked up. I literally dove under a table.

Shay: That’s hilarious! Part of the charm of what you do is being able to develop relationships with a variety of different people and see those people thrive in their positions throughout the course of time.

Mike: When you’re doing the play-by-play, you’re also developing relationships with coaches and families. Whenever the leadership changes, it impacts a lot of people. I give credit to the late Larry Smith for putting Missouri in a position to go to back-to-back bowl games in ‘97 and ‘98. And then Gary Pinkel came in and provided consistency. And now Coach Drinkwitz has given Missouri fans an opportunity to dream of things that they’ve never thought possible.

Shay: It’s incredible the number of people you’ve encountered that have had positions with either the football team or the basketball team.

Mike: Every conversation is a networking opportunity, right? I tell that to young people all the time. I’ve been very blessed that my network has grown through the years because of the relationships I’ve been able to develop.

Shay: Do you get nervous before you call a game? Basketball or football?

Mike: Both. I was nervous before I sat down here today with you. If you don’t feel some nervous energy before a game, stop, quit, walk away. Because that nervous energy is the manifestation of excitement for your job and for the opportunity to perform your craft.

Shay: Let me switch gears just a little bit with you, Mike. We’ve talked about your job and everything that you do professionally. But what keeps you grounded in life?

Mike: Shout out to my wife, Laurie. We will celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary coming up on August 20th. Looking forward to that. And we have three wonderful daughters. They’re a blessing.

I’ve always tried to be humble. When you first get into this business, it’s easy to think that you’re here because of your immense talent. And that’s not it at all. God has blessed you and given you an opportunity to use your talents. None of this happens without God’s master plan.

I read a book once by Gale Sayers, legendary running back for the Chicago Bears, about how God should be your number one, family’s two, and you are third. That was the name of his book, “I Am Third.” Am I a sinner? 100%. Do I pray for grace and for mercy every day? Yes. Am I extremely blessed? No question about it.

Shay: Our men’s group that meets Thursdays for lunch has been a great support for me, and I think it has for you too. Texting each other when we need prayer, encouraging each other.

Mike: Absolutely. I’ve learned how to accept that I don’t have all the answers. And there are times that I need someone to help me from a counseling standpoint. I’ve been able to lean on that over the last couple of years. And I think that’s been a very healthy, nurturing.

Shay: I think men get in trouble when they isolate themselves from relationships. You may get some of that from your wife or your kids, but we need other men in our lives to grow and to sharpen one another, to bounce things off. Sometimes just to emote, and know that that person’s still going to love you and care for you and stick by you in the hard times.

Let me ask a final question here. Someday, when you’re old and gray, what do you want your legacy to be?

Mike: Well, I’ll never have gray hair, but I think this is a great question. I would want people to say that he was a good husband, a good father. That he showed up to work enthusiastically to do his job consistently, and he was accountable along the way.

Shay: There’s a writer who talks about your résumé virtues versus your eulogy virtues. Everybody has their résumé virtues. That’s what they’re going to read off at your funeral: “He was a broadcaster and won these awards”. But your eulogy virtues are the things that people are going to get up and say about you at your funeral. Was he kind to people? Did he love people? That’s what people remember.

I just want to say I appreciate your friendship. I’ve seen you involved in so many things over the years and it’s people like you that make our community such a great place to live. Thank you for being on our podcast!

Mike: Thanks for the invitation. Love you. I’ve enjoyed it!

In this spirited episode of Performing Under Pressure, Lynn Roush, LPC, sits down with Ella Swindle, a senior setter for the University of Texas Longhorns volleyball team who helped lead her team to an NCAA National Championship as a freshman. As a setter, Ella occupies one of the most demanding positions on the court: she calls the plays, directs the offense, and has to reset quickly after every point. But some of the most significant pressure she’s faced hasn’t come from the volleyball court at all.

For Ella, college athletics has become a place where questions of performance, identity, expectations, and faith collide. She opens up about the internal voices that tell her she’s not enough, and the hard work of learning to distinguish truth from lies. Along the way, she has discovered the importance of finding solitude, stepping away from social media, and becoming her own biggest cheerleader.

At the heart of Ella’s story is a growing confidence that her identity isn’t ultimately determined by a scoreboard, a coach, a career, or other people’s expectations. As she looks beyond volleyball towards her future, she’s beginning to define success not simply by what she achieves, but by the kind of person she becomes. In a world constantly telling us who we should be, Ella has discovered something freeing: it’s kinda chic to be you.

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Highlights from this Interview

Lynn: I’m excited to talk with our special guest, Ella Swindle, about how she finds it ‘kinda chic’ to be herself while navigating high-pressure college athletics and the weight of others’ expectations. Ella, welcome! You’re coming to us from Austin, right?

Ella: Thank you so much. Yes, I am in Austin, Texas, starting preseason and getting things going.

Lynn: You grew up here in Columbia, Missouri and played volleyball with my daughter Emma in high school.

Ella: Back in the glory days! I think about those times a lot.

Lynn: I’ve enjoyed watching you pursue your passion and seeing where you are now. Tell us about your status as a college athlete and what you’re majoring in.

Ella: I’m a senior at the University of Texas, but I technically have another year of eligibility. They just passed the five-for-five rule. So that’s on the plate if I want it. Other than that, I have no idea what the future has in store for me. I’m an advertising major, which I think is so fun. I’ll graduate in December.

Lynn: Take me back to growing up in a family where athletics were important. How did you know that volleyball was your passion?

Ella: I didn’t think about volleyball until middle school when my sister Claire was playing and I would pepper with her in the driveway. I thought it was so much fun to play with your friends on a team, because up until then I had been a swimmer and a tennis player. So playing on a team sparked my love for volleyball. I also happen to be pretty good at it.

Lynn: The position of setter is such a critical, high-pressure position on the court. How did you end up in that spot? Explain to us a little bit about the role of setter on a volleyball team.

Ella: The setter is essentially the quarterback. You’re calling all the plays, you’re running the offense, you’re making sure that everyone knows what they’re doing every single play. You have to be steady on the court and reset very quickly so that you only have fifteen seconds between each play. You get to be creative, which is how my brain works.

Lynn: I would imagine it’s taken you a while from where you started to where you are now to understand the rhythm and read the other team. Is that a skill that comes from lot of practice over time?

Ella: I didn’t realize how intricate my role is until I got to college. In high school, you’re out there playing and not thinking much about what the other team is doing. What I do now is have a lot of energy and control the direction of the ball. So there are a bunch of variables that play into being a setter.

Lynn: What would you say is your best day as a volleyball player? And what is your worst?

Ella: If you have a great practice, you can walk out of the gym feeling good. If I’m good in my head, and we win the game, that’s a good day. Bad days can happen whenever you’re not in a great mental headspace. My hard days are whenever you’re fighting for yourself a lot. They’re not necessarily physical, but mental.

Lynn: Are there voices in your head that say positive things or negative things to you? What’s the difference? How do you know which messages are true?

Ella: That’s something that I actually talk about with my team a lot. The other week we were having Bible study talking about how to discern God’s voice versus the devil. It’s easy to hear a bunch of lies disguised as truth. I’ve had to learn how to discern what is true about me and what is not true about me. A huge part of the growth that I’ve experienced here is learning how to be my biggest cheerleader.

Lynn: Could you identify one of the lies that you’ve had to combat with truth?

Ella: There are two. One, I’m not enough, and two, I’m just not a good volleyball player. Those are two lies that I’ve heard over and over again. I have to walk into the gym each morning and sort through things in my brain. Starting out as a freshman setter and winning a national championship, that’s as high as you can get. It was an incredible blessing. And it also set the tone that anything less than that is not enough.

But I’ve learned that I’m enough because God has placed me here. I’ve been told to leave. I’ve chosen to stay. I firmly believe that I’m supposed to be here. I’ve seen so many blessings come out of it. I know the truth about myself because I’ve done some deep work to discover what God says about me.

Lynn: So being able to go back to your core identity as I’m a child of God, I’m loved, I’ve been placed here for a purpose, on purpose. I can imagine that you have coaches, friends, family, fans, the media, all these voices around you telling you what you should do. What does it look like for you to be able to step away, pray, and spend time with God?

Ella: Something that I try to do is to create some silence for myself, because you go to the gym, you’re surrounded by twenty other girls and your coaches, it’s loud, there’s whistles, and then you leave. And I live with other girls, which is amazing, but you’re always surrounded by noise and you’re with other people all the time. I need my alone time to recharge.

This is the first time in my life I’ve been sure of who I am and what is important to me because I’ve gotten to actually get to know myself. That comes from asking yourself some really deep, difficult questions. Spending time alone and getting off of social media.

Lynn: As a therapist, I’ve worked with a lot of college students, and I see that between 18 and 22, essentially the college years, there is so much identity formation happening at a rapid pace. Can you point to a specific moment in time when you realized, it’s kinda chic to just be me?

Ella: My sophomore year defined me and changed me a lot as a human. Now I’m going through another process of self-discovery. It’s just pushed me more and more to seek God. Volleyball has been a great path for me to pursue a lot of dreams and for great things to come to my life.

All of those moments have led me closer to Jesus and made me who I am today. Even though I am going through another trial right now, I wouldn’t take myself out of it because I’ve seen from past experience that it can only lead me to a greater place.

Lynn: You’re so young to have discovered the truths of life. Your Aunt Gayla was a very, very good friend of mine. And she modeled to us and to everyone else that at the end of the day, if your life is not built on God, then you’ve built your life on sinking sand because eventually we will all lose our health, we will lose our looks, we will lose our professions and careers.

Because you and Gayla were close and she has left such a lasting legacy for all of us, I want to ask you, when you’re 70 and you’re looking back on your life, what do you want your legacy to be?

Ella: I love this question for so many reasons. I want to be remembered as someone who never took herself out of it and remained under trial, and always fought for good.

Something that I learned from Aunt Gayla was to fight for yourself because God believes in you. There’s a quote that says, “Don’t give up, because someone went to heaven believing in you.” I hold that so close to my heart because my my entire volleyball career here at Texas has been such a reminder of how good and powerful God is.

My Aunt Gayla went to heaven believing in me. It makes me emotional because if I could sit down with her right now and tell her everything that’s happened and how I’ve responded to it, I know that she would be so proud of me. The last conversation I had with Gayla was in a coffee shop in Colorado and I was in that exact spot again this past year. I sat there and remembered our last conversation.

It was a ‘God moment’. She looked at me while we were the middle of talking about something completely different. She was like, “I don’t know why, but I have this powerful vision of you as a person and I’m going to be praying over Ella the person. This world wants you to be a great volleyball player, but I want you to be the person that God has created you to be.”

Lynn: When you define winning as being a person of integrity and walking with Jesus and leaving a legacy of being who God created you to be, that flips everything upside down because that has nothing to do with what you do on the volleyball court. That’s who you are and that’s something that can never be taken away from you, no matter what happens.

Ella: Psalm 139 talks about God creating and knowing you exactly as you are. You’re beautiful in his image. Whenever I go through a trial, he knew about it all along. That gives me hope under pressure. God is there and is with me. What a blessing.

Lynn: It’s great that you can cling to those promises of God that he’s in control, that he loves us, that he has a purpose, that he has a plan at such a young age. A lot of people don’t learn those things until later in life. Maybe for you there’s been something about being in this pressure cooker at such a young age that has accelerated the process of learning about yourself and finding your identity in Christ.

I have so enjoyed talking to you, Ella. This has been such an inspiring conversation. I hope our listeners take away the narrative that it’s ‘kinda chic to be you’ because you can’t be anyone else no matter how hard you try! Thank you so much for being generous with your time and I hope to see you in Columbia sometime soon.

Ella: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been so great.

While it’s tempting to think you’ve got it made once you reach the top, the most effective leaders never stop growing. They continue to seek out wise mentors, invest in supportive communities, and bring their struggles into the light rather than trying to manage everything on their own.

In this eye-opening episode of Performing Under Pressure, Austin Conner, PLPC, sits down with Clint Guier, an executive leader who has spent more than two decades with the same company. Clint’s journey from a farm kid in small-town Missouri to the executive vice president of a rapidly growing organization offers a window into the everyday realities of leadership: making decisions that affect hundreds of people, navigating growth and risk, knowing when to delegate, and learning from the people who have gone before him.

But this conversation goes beyond strategies for succeeding in the business world. Clint reflects honestly on the ways pressure has shaped him over the years, including the temptation to seek approval, the cost of carrying stress alone, and the impact that unprocessed pressure can have on the people closest to us.

At the heart of Clint’s approach is a shift in perspective: from performing for approval to recognizing that his work is an opportunity to steward what God has given him and serve others well. Whether you’re leading a company, building a career, or simply trying to navigate the pressures of work and family, this conversation offers an encouraging look at what it can mean to pursue excellence without making life all about yourself.

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Highlights from this Interview

Austin: Today we’re going to enter the realm of the business world. To help me do that is our guest for this episode, Clint Guier. Throughout this episode, we’re going to hear about the specific pressures that Clint faces, but also speak to the broader pressures that everybody in the business world faces.

Clint and his wife, Jen, have been around The Crossing for almost 20 years, which is crazy, because I’ve never met them until now! Clint is a humble, a steady, and faithful presence wherever he finds himself. He works hard. He doesn’t complain. And he believes how you go about your business, and in life in general, is just as important as what you accomplish.

Clint, thanks so much for being with me today in the studio. Tell our listeners a little bit about who’s in your family, how you guys got involved in The Crossing, and then we’ll talk about your job.

Clint: Thanks for having me. My wife and I started dating back in 2005, and were looking for a church to attend together. She had some colleagues that were attending The Crossing, so we tried it, and after that first sermon we knew we were home, and we’ve been attending ever since. We got engaged that Valentine’s Day of 2007 and then got married August of the same year. We had three kids in three years, and now they are 13, 14, and 16 years old.

Austin: Wow, and you survived! Tell us about your job and what that looks like for you.

Clint: I’ve spent my entire career at a company called Senior Benefit Services. I’m the executive vice president, so I basically touch everything that happens there on a daily basis. We’re a Medicare brokerage. Our slogan is, “We make Medicare easy.” Medicare is a government entitlement program for people 65 and older or people with disabilities, and it can be confusing. We help our customers navigate those waters every year.

Austin: How did you find yourself this role?

Clint: I’m a farm boy. Grew up in a small town called Sweet Springs, Missouri. I was ready to get out of town and move on to bigger and better things. So I went to Mizzou, majoring in agriculture. The summer after my sophomore year, I interned as a crop scout in Watsika, Illinois, in the middle of nowhere. I was wandering around in corn and soybean fields all summer looking for problems with pests and weeds and reporting back to the farmers. I realized that was not my life’s calling.

The next summer, I was looking for some sales experience. I had a fraternity brother that was working for Senior Benefit Services at that time. I’d given him a hard time for being in the insurance business but then came groveling to him for an internship that summer. After that internship, I knew without a doubt that’s what I wanted to do after I graduated from Mizzou.

Austin: Can you describe your trajectory at the company?

Clint: Everybody in our company starts at internships or entry-level positions and works their way up. So I’ve done about everything there is to do. I started as an intern, became a sales agent, and moved into management while growing my client base. I started recruiting people and building teams. Now, 23 years later, I’m running that division of the company.

Austin: Were you asked to come to the management side or did you have to advocate for yourself and say, hey, I would like this opportunity?

Clint: The two gentlemen that were running the company were mentors of mine as well. They would meet with us at least quarterly one-on-one and we were having lunch one day and they wanted to know what I thought my future looked like with the company. I told them that I saw the impact they were having and wanted to do what they were doing. They both were very supportive and excited for me. A theme throughout my career is having great mentors to encourage me.

Austin: What tasks at your job are common to other businesses you’ve seen? And what are ones that are pretty unique to your role?

Clint: We’re a sales and marketing organization, and we’ve got customer service and HR and all the things. You’ve got to market and generate leads and provide amazing customer service and those things are very common to other businesses.

What’s unique with what I’m doing is partnering with other companies, starting in 2021, acquiring small agencies and books of business. Managing that kind of risk is something that I never imagined myself doing, but it’s allowed us to double the size of the company in the last five years.

Austin: You mentioned that some of the new tasks you’re doing aren’t in your wheelhouse and aren’t normal for you. Have you figured out at what point you say, “This is not in my wheelhouse, so I’m going to delegate that and give that to somebody who is,” versus, “This is on my plate and I need to get better”?

Clint: I figured out early on that just because you think you’re the best at doing something doesn’t mean you’re the one who should be doing it. If you have to be in control of everything, you’re going to limit your company’s growth. We have such a depth of amazing leaders within our company, which makes delegation easy and allows me to focus on other areas of the company where I can have a greater impact.

Austin: I imagine a lot of people listening are thinking, “Well, that’d be great to have amazing leaders and bosses and mentors that I trust. But that’s not true of my business.” If you didn’t have mentors to rely on, how would you navigate that?

Clint: If you don’t have those people in your sphere, you can find them. You can find inspiration from people in the past through good books. Then you model that within your organization. Or you can move on to another organization that’s in line with your values.

Austin: Have there been any helpful books that you would recommend?

Clint: My all-time favorite book on leadership is Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It’s about the political genius of Abraham Lincoln, and there are so many amazing lessons, including his ability to forgive and not hold grudges against people who were trying to harm him. I’ve seen through my personal walk with Christ the grace that’s been extended to me, and extending that grace to others goes a long way.

Austin: I think you got that right. Let me ask a little bit of a different question, and it’s explicit in our series title. Where do you feel the most pressure to perform in your job right now?

Clint: The word “perform” is an interesting one. If I’m being transparent, I’ve been performing most of my life. I was the youngest of three siblings. I performed to get attention. Move into middle school and high school, and then you’re performing for your peers. Take that into college. For me, that meant joining a fraternity, performing there, trying to fit in, trying to be liked and admired by others.

I certainly performed for Jen to get her to say yes when I asked her to marry me. And then you move into the business world. And then with social media thrown into that, sometimes you find yourself performing for people you don’t even know.

When you realize that your true calling is to serve God, you can transition from performing to becoming a steward of the gifts he’s given you. The decisions that I make and how I conduct myself out there in the marketplace potentially impacts all of our 150 employees and the 44,000-plus customers that we serve.

That’s a healthy pressure there because I realize it’s not about me. It’s not about getting others’ approval. It’s about positively impacting all the people who are counting on me to make good decisions.

Austin: How has pressure taken a toll on you, and how have you learned to manage it?

Clint: Early on, I wouldn’t talk about it. I would internalize it, compartmentalize it. You’re going home to a new wife, a new marriage. You’re trying to navigate that with all the challenges of work. Then you throw three kids in three years on top of that. You’re going into chaos when you get home from a long day.

I would lean into alcohol, lean into really destructive behaviors. My stress would manifest itself in anger directed at all the wrong people because I didn’t have a great outlet for that. By the grace of God, through The Crossing, I joined a men’s group in 2008. That’s been amazing for me. And Jen and I joined a small group in 2009.

The Crossing counseling ministry has been a major blessing to me. I meet with your fellow counselor, John, on a regular basis. Seeking wise counsel and bringing my struggles to God has helped me so much. Thankfully, I’ve had people in my life who have encouraged me to bring those potentially destructive things out into the light.

Austin: I really appreciate you being honest. A lot of us can relate to facing pressures at work that your family doesn’t quite understand. I can’t always be 100% present when I’m home even when my kids want ‘dad’. So I can relate to what you’re saying. Our listeners who are in the business world and have kids can too.

Clint: John gave me a helpful analogy to understand how my anger can affect Jen. He’s like, “It’s just whoever gets in the crosshairs.” It’s not that the individual in the crosshairs has done anything wrong. Many times, it’s the ones that we love the most and we’re closest with that get the brunt of our anger.

Austin: That’s good to remember. What has it looked like to incorporate your faith and Jesus into your job?

Clint: I’m very blessed to be a part of an organization where our founder was a Christian. We pray before the meal at company events, and I rarely hear any pushback from that. I want to share my faith to others through how I carry myself. I often use Scripture because when God presents it to me in a way that’s blatantly obvious, I’m inclined to share that, whether it’s in a meeting or in a one-on-one conversation.

Austin: That’s good. Sounds like you’ve been blessed to have a Christian founder. Any advice for somebody who is not in a supportive environment?

Clint: Pray for those people in your organization. We serve an amazing God who can do miraculous things. When people behave in a hostile way, it means they’re hurting. The only way to impact that person for Christ is if they know you and trust you. That’s hard to do if they’re ornery or downright mean. But through prayer and over time, it’s remarkable what God can do in people’s lives.

Austin: I’m convicted and I want to do that more for myself. You mentioned that you’re just now starting to accrue a little bit of wisdom. What’s the best piece of advice you have been given?

Clint: One of my mentors told me early on, “Clint, never take financial advice from somebody who’s not doing as well as you financially.” I’ve extended that into every area of life. Never take marital advice from somebody whose marriage isn’t doing as well as yours. Parenting advice, etc. There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there. So be discerning with who you listen to.

The other one is to put gossip to death. I’ve made mistakes acting off second- or third-hand information. As a leader, you have the power to hurt people if you make decisions from misinformation. Unfortunately, I’ve hurt people. I’ve had to apologize. They say knowledge is power, but it’s the application of knowledge that’s actually power. Try not to make the same mistakes twice.

Austin: Let’s pretend you are the old, wise sage; maybe your hair’s a little gray or almost white. Any perspective or advice you would give to someone right now who is just starting out in the business world?

Clint: Something I find myself saying a lot is “Comparison is the thief of joy”. It’s so easy now to compare yourself to others, and I am guilty of it. You jump on LinkedIn and it looks like everybody is killing it out there, right? I’m not as good as these people. That’s the enemy robbing your joy.

Lean into the gifts that God has given you to serve other people. Make it about them and not you, and you’re going to find yourself in a much better position in life. If you can do your job in a way that is others-focused and not you-focused, you’ll have better results.

Austin: Are there any particular scriptures that have been helpful for you? If you’re in the business world, it seems like it would be great to just have one verse as a foundation to stand on.

Clint: Early on in my career, one of the agents I was working with was a Christian and in his email signature, he put John 3:30: “He must increase while I must decrease.” It’s so beautifully simple. It’s not about me. It’s about God. We’ve got limited time on this earth to serve others and glorify him. The less we can make it about ourselves and the more we can make it about God, the better outcome we’re going to get.

Austin: That’s so helpful! My last question for you. Anything else you’d like to share that we didn’t get to?

Clint: I’d like to encourage anybody listening to realize that you’re not alone. The work I’ve done on myself through your ministry has been so helpful. John told me that everybody should be in a counseling, and I agree with that. Seek help, look at your life, and peel back the layers of your onion.

Austin: Clint, thank you so much for being here. I’m encouraged. I’m confident that people listening are encouraged as well. Listeners, we hope that you come back for more episodes in our Performing Under Pressure series.

A career takes an unexpected turn. A job disappears. A diagnosis changes the way you understand yourself. And the carefully constructed picture of work, family, and the future begins to unravel, exposing that work-life balance doesn’t actually exist.

In this episode of Performing Under Pressure, hosts John Tinnin, MFT, and Lynn Roush, LPC, sit down with David and Molly Cover, a couple who found themselves navigating multiple job losses, major career transitions, the discovery of ADHD, and the anxiety and grief that came with all of it.

Listen in as David and Molly share honestly about what happened when their plans collided with a reality they couldn’t control, and how the pressure affected their marriage, their parenting, their identities, and their faith. As they turned to God, counseling, and their community for support, they learned to navigate their anxieties rather than be controlled by them.

But this isn’t a story about having everything figured out. It’s a story about being disoriented, surrendering the illusion of control, and learning to reorient around what matters most. If you find yourself losing balance and going in a direction you didn’t expect, God may be redirecting your destination and giving you the gift of learning to rely on him.

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Highlights from this Interview

John: Today we’re going to talk with some collision experts. But it’s not what you might think. We’re tackling the colliding worlds of work and family life. You’ve heard the phrase work-life balance, and we’re going to suggest today that that is a bit of a myth.

Lynn and I are in the studio today with David and Molly Cover. David is president of the Senior Company, and Molly is a full-time working professional in digital relations. Molly, why don’t you give us a quick picture of what your work looks like day-to-day.

Molly: I work full-time here at The Crossing as co-director of our digital team. I manage a team of 12 people that involves a lot of one-on-one meetings and meetings with other teams. At home, we have four active, busy boys, ages 14, 12, 10, and 7. I am in the office as full-time as I can be. I work at home a little bit in the summer just to spend time with our kids.

David: It’s been exciting having this summer, all four kids at home, no childcare other than a dog kind of barking at us. Figuring out how to live life in the chaos.

John: David, you are president of a company. Can you tell me what this looks like for you?

David: The Senior Company does in-home care for seniors. We want to be a trusted care partner. Navigating aging is really hard, whether you’re the child trying to care for your parents or you have your spouse needing care. We want to keep everyone safe, seen, and supported with in-home care.

I’ve just started doing it; I think I’m about four months in at the time of recording this. It’s not a space I ever thought I’d be in, but the impact this company has on people’s lives is stunning. I’m privileged to be a part of it.

John: We’re going to frame this episode in three sections. The first one is how you thought life was going to go. We call that orientation. The second phase is disorientation. That’s what happens when you hit a wall and things don’t go according to plan. The third one is reorienting yourself to what matters most in life.

Lynn: David and Molly, I’ve known both of you guys for a long time. It’s fun to see you together, grown up, raising a family. I’m excited about today’s conversation because listeners are going to hear not how you’ve got it all figured out, but how you’re still thick in the weeds of figuring things out.

Take us back three or four years ago to the orientation stage. What was happening in your life at that time and what were your plans for the future?

Molly: Three or four years ago, David was working full-time. From when our first son was born, I had been staying home but also working part-time. Back then, I was increasing my hours with the plan to get the four kids in school. I still had one at home. Once he was in school, I planned to ease my way back into work and figure out what worked for our family. I felt like I had the flexibility to do that with David’s work and the way we had structured our lives.

Three years ago, I got the opportunity to go from part-time to full-time at The Crossing. My boss at the time was very gracious, but he said, if you want this job, I need you full-time in the office. You’ll need to figure out what that looks like for your family. That was a big turning point for us.

Our lives went from normal American dream-y, dad works full-time, mom’s staying home, kids are in school, to now we need to restructure our lives and figure out what it looks like for both of us to work full-time. I had the illusion that if I continued to make the right choices, I could control the outcome.

Lynn: What about you, David? Tell us about where you were at in your career.

David: I’d had an opportunity to move from full-time ministry into the workplace outside of the church. It was exciting, because I had the potential to make more money than I ever had in ministry. We had bought a dream home in a dream neighborhood here in town. I got a new car that I just love. But then things started to go off the rails.

John: What happened that caused it to stop working so well?

David: When I left full-time ministry, I joined a start-up. Right after I started, the CEO who hired me was fired. They found another role for me in the company. But that launched a period of instability. I felt like I couldn’t find my lane, I couldn’t find clarity on how to use my gifts. I had imposter syndrome. There was pressure to go to work, maintain my salary.

Around that time I was approached about working for a nonprofit, and I didn’t have to think much about it; I jumped right in because I had been struggling with sleepless nights and insecurities. I told Molly she needed to work full-time. We were making decisions from a place of anxiety.

During this time one of our sons was struggling. After he was diagnosed with ADHD, while talking to his doctor, I realized that I have it too. After that conversation, I just laid on the ground. I felt broken because I couldn’t make the new job work and the way I viewed myself was changing.

Lynn: You guys had reached the ‘wall’; the tearing of the fabric of what you thought you had known. That’s a place of surrender and humility. That must’ve felt really like an undoing.

Molly: I had to wrestle with believing that God is good, but that doesn’t mean giving me the things I want or need; he has something better that will look different. I remember us sitting in our living room counting our losses in this season. It felt really heavy. I had to ask, What do I ultimately believe?

Lynn: How did it affect your marriage?

Molly: As hard as that season was, it made us have to communicate on a different level that we never had to before. There was a blessing to that because it could have just been a season where we both withdraw completely. But because we were so isolated, we clung to each other.

David: Because of the pressure I experienced navigating what was next, and learning about my brain, I found myself withdrawing and even dissociating. The kids would be playing around me and I was not paying any attention. It took effort to connect. For men, you lose a job, then you lose your identity, and then you lose community. There’s a lot of shame.

Lynn: What was the impact on your kids during this time?

Molly: We definitely saw the effects of anxiety on our home. We talked with them about it so that they knew what was happening. But my anxiety really came up when the house got messy and chores weren’t done. In fact we’re still repairing from the stress of that season.

David: The story keeps going. I changed jobs and a little over a year after that my department in the nonprofit was laid off. I was back to square one. I started to wonder if God was punishing me for leaving ministry. The whole experience exposed the illusion of control that I thought that I had.

Lynn: The disorienting ‘wall’ comes to everyone differently. For one person, it can be that divorce they don’t want. For another it can be a cancer diagnosis.

John: The gift that God brings in those times, as painful as it is, is showing us our hearts and how much we need to collapse upon him. And I think you guys got to that point.

Lynn: David, the second go-around for you in the job transition, you both decided you wanted to do it differently. How did that look?

Molly: When David found out they were eliminating his position, he said, “We’re not doing the anxiety spiral. We’re not collapsing. We’re not doing that to our kids. We’re not doing that to our marriage.” The biggest difference was reaching out to friends almost immediately. It was still stressful. But people showed up in our lives in that season. And it made all the difference.

David: If there is any advice I’m going to give, it is to run toward community. If you’re walking through something right now and you think you need to handle it alone, that’s probably not true.

John: As you get older and you see friendships come and go, you learn that friendships come in chapters and seasons. We like to think that every friendship is going to be stable. But friendships shift. If someone helps you through one season of life, and then they’re not part of your life, look for others who can be with you.

Lynn: Moving into the third piece of all of this, now you have to reorient to your new reality. What does that look like?

David: I can see how God was working through times I thought were failures, times I thought, okay, God’s putting a hole in our boat and ripping our sails. Well, he was trying to reorient our destination because we were chasing worldly things. I am healthier now spiritually, mentally, and physically. I can navigate my anxieties instead of being driven by them.

Molly: We learned to sit with grief in a new way and we were forced to grow in a way that we wouldn’t have on our own. The life I was living was not making me grow. I’ve learned so much more about God. I’ve grown personally. Our marriage is stronger and better for it. We have a whole new vocabulary in our marriage because of counseling. Not that we have everything figured out!

David: When I’m on empty, I want to withdraw. Sometimes that’s healthy dissociation where I just need a minute. Sometimes it’s not. I’m going to go find a screen or whatever. When Molly’s on empty, she wants to move close and connect. And so we’re just moving away from each other. We have to work to find each other.

John: It’s so cool to see you guys grow and mature through that process. You’ve weathered the storms, not just by hunkering down, but by doing the hard work. It’s going to pay off in dividends.

Lynn: To wrap up our conversation, which I’ve loved, I want to ask each of you: When you’re old and looking back at your life, what do you hope is true?

Molly: I would hope at the end of my life that I will be faithful where God has put me. Whether that’s at work, at home, friendships, in marriage, at my church.

David: I long for significance. Years ago, I would have said that I want to be famous for doing great things for God. But now I want people to see that I walked faithfully through hard times as God’s son.

John: Oh, that’s wonderful. Every Christian has to make that identity shift. That’s our destiny. Proverbs 27:1 says, “Don’t boast about tomorrow because you don’t know what a day may bring forth.” You guys have given us a good picture of learning to live in the present day.

David: I’ve been in a men’s group with you, John, for the last almost two years. The permission you give for people to slow down and be human-sized and to be seen as having weaknesses and still be loved and known has been transformative for me. Thank you for your ministry with this podcast!

What you might not remember is everything happening behind the scenes for that teacher: the stress of classroom management, difficult decisions, competing demands, and quiet sacrifices that made learning seem effortless.

In this revealing episode of our Performing Under Pressure series, Austin Conner, PLPC, sits down with elementary school teacher Lexie Darrough to talk about what it’s really like to stand at the front of a classroom. Their conversation explores teacher burnout, the challenge of caring for both the hearts and minds of the students, the partnership between parents and educators, and the surprising freedom that comes from remembering that God loves every child even more than we do.

Today’s teachers are educators, counselors, mediators, encouragers, detectives, performers, and safe people for children whose lives outside the classroom may be anything but stable. They carry the pressure of helping every student succeed while navigating changing expectations, endless assessments, and the reality that no two children walk through the classroom door with the same needs.

Whether you’re a teacher, a parent, or simply someone who wants to better understand the people shaping the next generation, Lexie’s wisdom offers encouragement for anyone trying to faithfully serve others under pressure.

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Highlights from this Interview

Austin: Today we’re going to hear about the pressures that teachers face, particularly elementary school teachers. My guest is Lexie Darrough. I’ve known Lexie for over 10 years now, first as a college student when she was dating her now-husband Connor. They have four kids. Lexie, welcome to the podcast!

Lexie: Thanks for having me on. Such a delight. I was giggling when you asked me to be on it to begin with because I do not feel equipped, but I know that God will help me able to share some wisdom from the teaching profession that can apply to everyday life.

Austin: We’re going to cover all sorts of questions today about the pressures you face as a teacher. But start by telling us what your current professional roles are and how you ended up there?

Lexie: I knew I wanted to be a teacher from the very beginning because I am a very good boss, as all my little cousins would say growing up. Teaching has always been on my radar. I did a lot of tutoring in high school and realized I love elementary school and love to see the light go off in kids’ brains when they understand a new concept.

I got my bachelor’s at Mizzou and then I got my master’s the year after that at Mizzou all in one year, in an accelerated program. So my first year teaching, I was also getting my master’s, and I had mentors and I had help and I had structure and I was able to use my classroom as way to do research.

I taught at a Title I school here in Columbia for three years. There was a very high population of low income school students. There are lots of social, behavioral, and academic needs there. It was very difficult but also a great experience.

Then I had my first child, Hudson, and decided I wanted to be home. I enjoyed staying home with him until he was about six months, and I realized that I wanted to continue to teach. So for the next eight years, I was a mentor for up-and-coming teachers. That was great because I got to help people who were becoming teachers to get the skills and tools they needed.

This past November I got the itch to go back in the classroom full time. I missed the camaraderie and feeling alive in front of kids. I ended up taking a part-time position at a local private school teaching English to sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, which I have never done before. I was able to do that this past semester while also juggling my roles at the university.

Now, I’ve taken a position teaching third grade this upcoming school year. I am so excited for it. I feel fueled when I’m up in front of a class and able to deliver lessons and see the light bulb moment go off and to be able to celebrate with them. A lot of people would probably feel drained being around kids all day and instead I feel more alive.

Austin: Any crazy teaching stories?

Lexie: You never know what you’re going to get every day and you have to have that laughable ability to just go with the flow when things go crazy. I had a kid that got ticked off enough that he climbed into the ceiling rafters and he was up there for probably 30 minutes living his best life while I had to figure out how to get him down.

Austin: So as a teacher, you are the everything. You are the private investigator. You are the counselor. You are the janitor. You are sometimes the mom or the dad.

Lexie: We don’t know what students have been through when they walk into our classroom. We need to be a calm, cool, safe space for them.

Austin: What kinds of pressures do you face?

Lexie: One challenge is understanding the curriculum, but also understanding the multiple ways that learning needs to be graded and assessed throughout the year. There’s a big push right now for more data, but also we realize that if we’re just assessing and taking data from students all day, we’re losing teaching time, which is the most important part.

Teachers are pulled in multiple directions to do what their principals, schools, and district needs, but I want to be sure to care for the hearts of the students in my classroom.

Austin: What are the effects of all that pressure?

Lexie: It leads to so much burnout. It leads to teachers saying, I’m not equipped for this. My mantra has always been that every child deserves the very best education, which is a great concept but at the same time I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself to always give them my very best.

Being a parent has changed my mindset about children. I love my kids unconditionally. But my unconditional love is still not perfect. But God as our heavenly father loves us perfectly, and he loves every single kid in my classroom deeply and intentionally. I can release some control and let go of some of the pressure, knowing that God has them and is loving them where they are.

Austin: How does your faith inform your role as a teacher?

Lexie: Walking in prayer has been huge for me. I often pray, God, empty me of me and what I want and what I desire and fill me up with you. Fill me up with your words. Fill me up with whatever I’m supposed to say and do for these kids every day. And that’s been really, really special.

In Colossians 3:23 it says, “Work heartily for the Lord and not for man. And your reward is going to be in heaven.” There’s so many things that teachers have to do every single day. But those things are noticed by God and they will be rewarded. I know that God sees me and he sees my work and it will be rewarded eternally, even if I don’t see the seeds growing that I’m sowing right now.

Austin: What are some of the roles you have as a teacher?

Lexie: We have to be a kid watcher. We have to observe them and see what they know and don’t know so that we can go address the misconceptions they have about their curriculum or see what they’re struggling to understand and make sure to help them.

Teaching has changed a lot. Back in the day, the teacher sat at the front of the room at their desk and the kids did their workbooks but teaching is so active now. You have to be engaging. You are competing against screens constantly. You have to be theatrical in order to keep the engagement and the fun going. Kids are not going to learn if they don’t love what they’re learning or love the way that you’re presenting it.

Austin: What’s the best thing parents can do for teachers?

Lexie: Be supportive. Yes, of course, gift cards, coffee, things like that are wonderful. But being a supportive parent, having my back and appreciating that we are in your child’s life together is the best thing you can do.

Offer your kids support at home; make sure that you are talking through things that are happening at school, whether that be emotional struggles, friendships, peer pressure, all of the things. I would just ask for parents to be present and love their kids well and to be in prayer with their teacher as we’re trying to figure out what these kids need and how we can love them well.

Austin: Can you speak a little bit about the culture of a school?

Lexie: All schools are different. Some struggle just to have the supplies the teachers need to do their job. When you walk into the door of a school, you get a specific feeling. I don’t know if it’s instinct, but you can tell if it’s a school where you can relax and feel at home, or if the school is in survival mode and doing the best they can. If administration is nowhere to be found.

One thing that has helped me was to realize that most of the things that I was in control of were just the things that were in my classroom. I had to remind myself that I was here for the students and didn’t need to worry. It helps to have other teachers that you can collaborate with and have each other’s backs.

Austin: Are you ever able to share your faith in the classroom?

Lexie: A lot of ministering and showing Jesus isn’t through words, especially in school districts. But we have a great opportunity to show Jesus through our actions every single day. We can extend grace, we can show patience when we are frustrated.

I abide in God and stay in step with his spirit, listening to what he wants me to do. We know students are bringing their very best every single day to our classroom and I’m thankful for that. Jesus has transformed my words even if I’m not saying his name. People notice something different about me and often ask me about it.

Austin: That’s amazing, Lexie! Would you mind praying to close?

Lexie: I would love to. Heavenly Father, we thank you for today. Help us to not grow weary of doing good, but be reminded that the good we’re doing is going to be rewarded by you. I pray that our listeners, especially teachers, would look to you and release some of that pressure we feel into your hands, knowing that it’s all for your glory. Remind us that we’re not working to be noticed by others but we are working for your kingdom.

Give the people listening words of wisdom, that you would be pour out your goodness to them and they would be able to be able to see the goodness of you through their actions and words and want to follow you. God, we thank you for this time. We thank you for this podcast. I pray that you would use it for your glory. In all your beautiful and holy name, I pray. Amen.

Austin: Thank you so much for being here today.

We won’t have to sit across from a patient and tell them that we have exhausted even the most advanced treatments modern medicine can provide. But there are doctors who face the realities of life and death every day.

In this profound episode of our new series, Performing Under Pressure, Austin Conner, PLPC, sits down with his longtime friend, Dr. Brandon Huffman, a gastrointestinal oncologist and clinical researcher, to explore what it’s like to live at the intersection of extraordinary scientific progress and profound human suffering.

Together they look beyond the white coat and into the unseen pressures physicians carry: the expectations they place on themselves, the limits of medicine, and the emotional cost of walking with patients through the hardest moments of their lives. Throughout the conversation, Brandon shares how his Christian faith enables him to face suffering honestly without losing hope, even when healing doesn’t come in the way he or his patients desperately want.

Whether you work in medicine, care for people in another high-pressure profession, or simply wonder how to remain faithful when you’re confronted with problems you can’t fix, this conversation offers a thoughtful and deeply human perspective on calling, compassion, and the hope that endures even in the face of death.

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Highlights from this Interview

Austin: Today I have the privilege of interviewing my good friend, Dr. Brandon Huffman. We did our undergrad work at Mizzou way back in the day; he knew me when I was a baby Christian. Welcome! Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.

Brandon: Thanks for having me. I grew up in a small town in northwest Missouri, went to Mizzou for undergrad and met my wife, Chelsey, while we were there. We’ve been married since 2009 and had a son, Oliver, in 2015.

Austin: How did your interest in medicine originate?

Brandon: Funny, I actually did not think I was going to become a doctor. I would have never told you 20 years ago that this is where I would be in this moment. I grew up on a farm and the only school I applied to was the University of Missouri. There wasn’t really anyone in my family who had gone to any school beyond high school. I didn’t really understand what the next steps might look like.

So I went to Mizzou studying agricultural education. I quickly realized that was not the content for me. I actually had a bit of a crisis moment. One winter break, I was like, Dad, I think I’m going to drop out. I don’t want to do this. He said, well, why don’t you stick with it? Then in the spring semester, I had this biology course that really changed the trajectory of where I was going. I realized that I love science. I changed my major to biochemistry.

After I got my bachelor’s in biochemistry I didn’t get into medical school right away; I took the medical entrance exam three times. I went to Mizzou School of Medicine and graduated in 2015. After residency at Mayo Clinic, I became a medical oncologist. I treat patients who have gastrointestinal cancers like pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer, and liver cancer, among other GI cancers.

Once I finished my chief year, we moved to Boston where I was a medical oncology fellow at one of the Harvard Medical School programs and am now on faculty there as a GI oncologist. I’ve officially been a doctor since 2015, but I finished my training in 2023 and that’s when I began practicing independently. So it’s not a quick career path.

Austin: Were there maybe one or two moments that stand out in your training?

Brandon: Professionally, everything I’ve achieved has been because of the people around me. I couldn’t have done any of it on my own. My wife, Chelsey, has been my rock. She’s encouraged me, refined me, and shaped so much of who I am. I’m incredibly grateful we met in undergrad and have walked through this entire journey together.

Austin: Where did you feel the pressure to perform most throughout your training?

Brandon: Being a physician is really about stepping into someone else’s life. People tell you vulnerable things they’ve never told anyone else. That’s an incredible privilege because they’re inviting you in when something has gone wrong.

Medicine begins with the understanding that the human body was designed to function a certain way. Our job is to figure out what went wrong, why it happened, and what we can do to help restore it. That’s the art of healing.

During residency, the pressure came from wanting to do that well. I wanted to ask every important question the first time, but inevitably I’d have to return to a patient’s bedside and say, “We didn’t talk about this—can I ask you a few more questions?” Fortunately, most people were incredibly gracious. Those conversations helped us understand what was happening and develop the best plan we could.

Austin: So the greatest pressure comes in trying to bring healing. Is that right?

Brandon: When I walk with someone through a cancer diagnosis, I’m entering one of the hardest, most vulnerable seasons of their life. There’s an expectation that I’ll provide physical healing. From a scientific perspective, my job is to understand how cancer has disrupted God’s original design and determine how we can intervene.

What’s humbling is that I can’t heal most people. That’s probably the hardest part of my job and the greatest pressure I carry.

Austin: Say more about that. How have you learned to navigate that pressure?

Brandon: Patients entrust their lives to me. That’s a heavy responsibility. I go back to the science, the research, and the clinical trials that have shown what helps people live longer. My job is to slow the cancer’s growth and give people as much life as possible. But I only have so many tools in my toolbox.

Eventually, I reach the point where I have to tell someone, “I don’t have any other treatments.” That’s incredibly humbling because I know I can’t give them what they’re hoping for.

Austin: How have you learned to handle those moments?

Brandon: Honestly, I don’t handle that pressure very well. When someone comes to my clinic, they hope for a miracle. They hope for a cure. Sometimes I have to tell them we’re not even close to that. I want to do more, but I can’t.

At the same time, it reminds me that I’m not God. I have God-given abilities, and I’ll do everything I can. Some patients will live longer because of the treatments we offer. A few will even be cured. But many won’t. The only guarantee I can give is that, at some point, the cancer will end their life. That’s incredibly difficult.

One thing my training has taught me is the art of communication; that is, how to share hard news and understand what people value most. Patients tell me what they’re hoping for, what matters to them, and it’s my job to set aside my own emotions, enter into their world, and walk with them honestly.

Austin: You’re on the front lines of suffering and death. How has your faith in Jesus sustained you in that work?

Brandon: My faith is foundational to who I am. If I didn’t believe God had called me to this profession and these people, I wouldn’t be doing it. Honestly, I don’t know that I could witness this much pain and suffering without the greater hope of renewal.

Medicine teaches that there’s a normal way the body is designed to function and studies what happens when that design breaks down. Through the lens of Scripture, that makes perfect sense to me. I believe there is an intentional design—a world spoken into existence by God. Even at the cellular level, there’s an incredible order to how things are meant to work.

Cancer reminds me every day that we live in a fallen world. Something has gone wrong. Even scientists who don’t believe in God recognize that disease is the result of normal processes breaking down. As a Christian, the Fall provides the most coherent explanation for what I see.

Austin: Let me ask a more specific question. What has your work taught you about death and suffering? And on the other side of that, what has it taught you about life and hope?

Brandon: As an oncologist, I walk with people through death and dying. Our culture tends to avoid death. We don’t talk about it, and often we let someone else care for our dying loved ones. I’ve noticed that people tend to value the same things in the end. They want joy. They want relief from suffering. Also, everyone longs for connection, especially as life comes to a close.

I care for patients from every imaginable belief system. Some have a deep faith in God. Others find meaning only in family, and many fall somewhere in between. When I have the opportunity, I like to understand what they believe and what matters most to them.

Another important part of my job is helping people decide how much suffering they’re willing to endure. I often ask, “What are you willing to go through to live another day?” Everyone’s threshold is different. My role is to understand what matters most to each person and guide them through those decisions.

Austin: That brings me to another part of your work. You haven’t mentioned this yet, but you’re doing significant research. What’s it like balancing patient care with research?

Brandon: I spend a couple days each week seeing patients. The rest of my time is devoted to research, primarily designing and running clinical trials for pancreatic cancer and other GI cancers. The goal is to test therapies that will become the next standard of care. I never imagined getting to do this when I started my training.

Austin: I imagine it can be easy to tie your identity to your publications, promotions, or recognition. Have you seen that temptation?

Brandon: Absolutely. Our culture measures people by performance, and medicine is no different. Research productivity affects promotions, compensation, and opportunities. That can feed your pride. You start thinking, I did this. I’m changing medicine. But that’s simply not true.

When I was in medical school, I looked up to many of the people I now work alongside. I assumed they were brilliant people changing the world on their own. But every meaningful advance comes from teams of people working together. That’s humbling, but it’s also freeing. I get to rely on my colleagues, and they rely on me.

Austin: What advice would you give someone who’s in medical school, or just considering medicine?

Brandon: I’d encourage people to follow where they feel most called. Someone once told me to notice what I naturally spend my time reading because it often points toward what you’re called to do. During medical school, I was drawn to the journal articles describing practice-changing discoveries, and now I work in that area.

Austin: What do you want people to know about doctors?

Brandon: My answer is shaped by some of my own experiences as a patient and as a family member.

While I was in medical school, my mother-in-law developed cancer. I spent about a month helping care for her in the hospital, and ultimately she died from that cancer. That experience taught me what it’s like to be on the other side of medicine—to live with uncertainty and unanswered questions.

Later, Chelsey and I discovered we were unable to conceive naturally. We walked through infertility, a lot of prayer, and then IVF. We’re incredibly grateful for our son, Oliver. When Oliver was born, he had significant medical complications. He spent months in the hospital and underwent a life-changing surgery after we moved to Boston. Over the years, he’s had more than a dozen surgeries.

Those experiences changed me. Knowing medicine is one thing. Sitting beside the hospital bed as a husband and father is something entirely different. I experienced the medical jargon, the uncertainty, and the emotions from the patient’s side, and that profoundly shaped the kind of doctor I’ve become.

When people ask what I hope patients understand about doctors, I’d say this: every physician is human. Everyone appreciates the surgeon who comes in during the middle of the night to perform an emergency operation. But we don’t often think about what that person may have left behind—a spouse, children, or difficult circumstances at home—to care for someone else.

Austin: As we wrap up, is there one final thought you’d like to leave with our listeners?

Brandon: I think one of the greatest lessons has come from watching people live well—and even die well. There’s one patient I’ll never forget. This may be difficult for some people to hear, but conversations about the end of life are a regular part of my work.

I cared for a man in his fifties whose cancer had spread throughout his body. He’d been through multiple rounds of treatment, but eventually the cancer became resistant to everything we had. I asked him and his wife to come in. I told them, “We’ve run out of treatments. I think it’s time for hospice.”

Then I said the hardest words a doctor can say: “I wish I had more to offer you, but I don’t.” He didn’t respond with anger or even much emotion. His wife had the opposite reaction. She began sobbing, standing, and pacing the room. The husband pulled himself out of the wheelchair, walked a few feet toward his wife, wrapped his arms around her, and said, “It’s going to be okay. Remember, I have Jesus. This isn’t the end.”

I had to look away because I was choking up. To someone who doesn’t know Jesus, those words might not make much sense. But in that moment, they captured everything I believe. This man was dying, but his hope wasn’t. He knew that one day Christ would make him new. It was still a heartbreaking moment, but there was also a sense of hope. I’ll never forget it.

Austin: That’s such a powerful picture. As you were talking, I kept thinking of Jesus’ words: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” I’m not sure we could end on a better note than that. Brandon, thank you so much for being with us. Would you close our time in prayer?

Brandon: I’d be honored.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your goodness and love. Thank you for the stories you’ve allowed me to be part of. I pray those stories would always point to you and bring you glory. Lord, I pray this conversation has encouraged those who are listening. Help us hold fast to the promises you’ve given us, faithfully serve the people you’ve placed in our lives, and live with the hope that only you provide.

We pray all of this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Austin: Amen. Brandon, thanks so much for being with us.

Most of us will never command soldiers through a war zone or spend our days searching for hidden roadside bombs. But we all know what it feels like to carry responsibilities that seem heavier than we can bear. Whether you’re leading a family through a crisis, making difficult decisions at work, or simply trying to stay faithful in a stressful season, pressure has a way of revealing where you place your trust.

In this gripping episode of our new series, Performing Under Pressure, Shay Roush, M.Div., sits down with Vince Bentinganan, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former Commander of Bravo Company, 110th Engineer Battalion, to hear about the realities of searching for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) during Operation Iraqi Freedom, in a hostile environment with brutal physical, mental, and spiritual conditions.

As they reflect on their 20-year friendship, Vince shares openly about the stress of combat, the weight of leadership, and the spiritual disciplines that kept him grounded during deployment. It turns out that things like prayer, godly friendships, connection, and encouragement are helpful even in one of the most dangerous environments imaginable.

Whether you’re navigating a season of overwhelming responsibility or simply wondering how to remain steady when life feels scary or uncertain, Vince’s story of faith under fire offers timeless wisdom and abundant hope.

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Highlights from this Interview

Shay: We’re interviewing people in high-stress professions to learn how they manage stress and what they discover about themselves in the process. Today I have the opportunity to interview a good friend of mine, Vince Bentinganan.

Vince: Thank you for having me. It’s an honor to be here. When you asked me six weeks ago while we were in Greece, I was both nervous and excited, and I still am! We’re recording this on the heels of celebrating America’s 250th birthday, and at the same time, I’m now 20 years removed from my deployment to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Shay: We’re so glad to have you. Today you work for the American Red Cross and travel around the country when disasters strike. But we first met in 2002, when The Crossing was still a church plant meeting at a local high school.

You introduced yourself and told me you were heading to Iraq. You asked if we could email each other while you were deployed. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, but I wanted to support someone going off to war. That’s how our friendship began. Tell us what led you to join the National Guard and eventually serve in Iraq.

Vince: After my freshman year at the University of Missouri, I wasn’t doing well. I was hanging out with my buddies and making poor decisions. My best friend, John—who later retired as an Army helicopter pilot and lieutenant colonel—pulled me aside and said, “You need to get back on track. Join the Army National Guard and go to basic training.” I enlisted that same day, went to basic training that summer, and served for 29 years.

Shay: I’m thankful your friend stepped in and gave you that direction. How long had you been in the National Guard before deploying?

Vince: I enlisted in 1990 and deployed in 2005, so I’d already served 15 years. The first ten years were as an enlisted soldier, and the next nineteen were as an officer. I eventually retired as a lieutenant colonel, but during my deployment I was an Army captain.

When I asked you to pray for me, I was leaving my wife, Amy, and our two young boys back at home. Grant was almost five, and Evan was three and a half. We wanted Amy and the boys to find a church home and have a strong community around them while I was gone.

Shay: So Iraq was your first experience in a war zone. What was your role there?

Vince: I was an Army captain and combat engineer officer, commanding Bravo Company, 110th Engineer Battalion. I had 127 soldiers under my command, and they were the best group of soldiers I’ve ever served with. It was the pinnacle of my military career.

Our primary mission was route clearance—finding IEDs before U.S. and coalition forces or Iraqi civilians encountered them. We also provided convoy security across Iraq, from the south all the way north to Mosul, helping protect military supply runs and supporting Iraqi law enforcement. The conditions were brutal. Temperatures reached 110 to 120 degrees. We carried about 35 pounds of gear, ammunition, body armor, and water, riding in vehicles with no air conditioning.

Our route clearance missions were slow and deliberate. We’d move about five miles an hour, scanning for anything that looked out of place, like a patch of dirt that hadn’t been there before, or trash covering part of the road. If we found a suspected IED, we’d establish security and call in the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team to safely destroy it.

Shay: I remember reading your emails while sitting in my comfortable office in Columbia, Missouri, and thinking, Vince, we are living in two completely different worlds. You were leading the soldiers finding these roadside bombs. What did that responsibility look like?

Vince: I commanded four platoons, each led by a lieutenant and platoon sergeant. I truly believe I had the best group of leaders in Iraq. They led from the front, they were courageous, and they made my job much easier. Our missions ran around the clock. Whether it was two in the afternoon or two in the morning, we had three or four route clearance missions happening every day.

In addition, we had another mission called route sanitation. Iraq’s main supply routes were covered with trash and debris, creating places where roadside bombs could be hidden. One of my platoons operated up-armored bulldozers, graders, and scrapers to clear the shoulders and medians while the rest of us provided security. Those two missions worked hand in hand, and at the time we were one of the few companies in Iraq doing that type of work.

Shay: How often would you actually find IEDs? And were there times when your company came under direct fire?

Vince: During our 360 days on the ground, the three route clearance companies in our battalion cleared more than 950 roadside bombs. At the time, that was remarkable. Other battalions, brigades, and divisions relied heavily on the 110th Engineer Battalion because we provided safe passage for infantry units, logistics convoys, and so many other critical missions throughout Iraq.

Shay: Were there times when tragedy struck?

Vince: Several soldiers in my company suffered minor injuries, but God kept his hand on us. I can’t explain why other companies lost soldiers while Bravo Company did not.

Shay: That’s incredible. As we’ve been interviewing people for this series, everyone experiences stress in their profession. But I’m not sure I could interview someone who carried more pressure than you did. And as I look at you, I can see this still isn’t easy to talk about. Thank you for being willing to share. So let me ask you, how did you get through the stress?

Vince: There was a level of stress that I simply don’t experience today, even working for the American Red Cross. Over the course of that year, we experienced close to four dozen IED strikes on vehicles. I witnessed several of them firsthand. Sometimes my soldiers were in those vehicles. One time my own vehicle was hit.

The radio traffic would erupt into chaos. Insurgents often followed the explosion with small-arms fire, and our gunners would return fire from the turrets. It was incredibly chaotic. I think it all comes back to our training. We learned to remain calm, trust our training, and follow protocol.

Shay: How did you process all of this? Were there chaplains there with you? Were there people you could talk to when you came back to camp to help deal with the stress?

Vince: It’s incredibly important for men to have other men of faith to talk to. I had two men at the time. One was my boss, Colonel Mitch Passini. He was a man of faith, and we’d have daily conversations about our mission, how things were going, and the welfare of our soldiers. He loved and cared for soldiers, and he was a great example for the four company commanders he led, including me.

Then there was Chaplain Philip Pringle. I was 35 at the time, and he was in his mid-50s, so about my age now. He was like a father figure to me during my time in Iraq. He and I spent a lot of time talking through what was going on in my soldiers’ lives back home, because that affected their mental state. We wanted soldiers going on missions with clear minds.

Once we left the safety of the base, the younger soldiers were rocking out to AC/DC and Metallica, getting psyched up for the mission. But once we got onto the main supply route looking for IEDs, the music went off. In my mind, I prayed a lot during those missions, and that was one of the biggest things that relieved my stress. When we got back to base, it was about taking care of yourself. I was reading, praying, working out when I could, and trying to eat as healthy as I could.

And honestly, Shay, communicating with you was extremely helpful. Knowing that Amy and the boys were plugged into The Crossing brought comfort. You emailed me, sent care packages, and encouraged me. I still remember the email where you said, “We live in two different worlds.” I remember thinking, That’s exactly right. I saved all those emails. I haven’t looked at them in years, but they meant a great deal to me. They were really the beginning of the friendship we’ve had now for over 20 years.

Shay: It’s been a gift to watch our friendship grow. You’ve led a small group at our church, you’ve been in my men’s group for years, and you and Amy have been an encouragement to Lynn and me.

As I listen to you, I’m realizing there was another level of leadership you were carrying. Families were grieving, parents were dying, children were sick. You were helping your men navigate all of that while leading them through combat.

Vince: Looking back, I tried to stay within my role as the company commander. Spiritually, I wanted to encourage my soldiers, but I also wanted to let the chaplain fulfill his role. Late in the deployment, after I’d helped many soldiers through Red Cross notifications, I received one of my own. My father was dying. My commander, Colonel Passini, gave me ten days of leave so I could come home for my dad’s funeral. I was grateful I could be there with my family before returning to Iraq.

Shay: Just to summarize what got you through the stress. You mentioned prayer, talking to godly men, relationships in general, exercise, eating well, and your faith. My guess is, your view of God became incredibly important during that time.

Vince: It absolutely did. When you and I first met, Shay, and you prayed for me before I deployed, that’s exactly what you told me—that God was sovereign over my life. It was really the first time I’d heard that phrase. That truth has stayed with me. It’s shaped how I handle stress today. I’m certainly not perfect at it, but those lessons have carried into every season of life.

Shay: They really have. After you retired from the National Guard, you worked as a loan officer in a very demanding role. Today you’re with the American Red Cross, responding to disasters around the country. It seems like you’re still relying on many of those same lessons you learned in Iraq.

Let me ask you one final question. Someday, when you’re old and gray and you look back on your life, what do you hope your legacy will be?

Vince: That’s a great, thought-provoking question. I’m glad you sent it to me ahead of time because it gave me time to pray and reflect. The verse that comes to mind is 2 Timothy 4:7: “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.” That sums up the legacy I’d like to leave: having God-centered relationships, believing the truth of Christ, and helping others do the same.

Shay: Vince, thank you for your service to our country, but even more, thank you for your friendship over the last 20 years. And thank you for sharing your story with us.

Vince: Thank you, Shay, for giving me this opportunity. What means the most to me is that this isn’t just my story, it gives me the opportunity to tell the story of my soldiers. That’s really how I viewed this interview from the moment you asked me to do it. I appreciate your friendship. I love you, man.

Shay: I love you too. Guys don’t say that enough to each other!

Some job stress is obvious: a trauma surgeon racing against the clock; a firefighter responding to an emergency; a CEO making decisions that affect hundreds of employees. Other job stress is harder to see but just as real: a teacher trying to reach a struggling student; a parent caring for young children; an employee trying to do good work while navigating high expectations. That’s why we’re launching our brand-new series, Performing Under Pressure.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll sit down with people from a variety of professions to discuss the unique pressures they face, how they manage stress, and the ways their faith in Jesus shapes their work. If it’s a career that’s similar to yours, you’ll feel encouraged to keep going. If not, you’ll gain understanding and insight into the different pressures people face. As it says in Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

Our first guest is Caroline Vandervoort, an emergency room nurse at University Hospital in Columbia, Missouri. In this enlightening conversation with Austin Conner, PLPC, Caroline shares what it’s like to work in the trauma bay, care for patients on the hardest day of their lives, receive criticism without becoming cynical, and battle compassion fatigue by relying on God’s strength.

Whether you work in healthcare or not, we think you’ll see yourself in Caroline’s story. Because ultimately, this episode isn’t just about emergency medicine. It’s about remaining compassionate under pressure, pursuing excellence without losing your soul, and discovering that Jesus is present even in trauma and chaos.

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Highlights from this Interview

Austin: Today I have the privilege of interviewing Caroline Vandervoort. Caroline is an ER nurse at University Hospital in Columbia, MO.

I first met Caroline in my final year of directing The Crossing’s college ministry. She was a freshman who agreed to join a book study through an insanely long New Testament Commentary, and she held her own! I was immediately impressed by her desire to learn and grow. I moved on to grad school and began counseling, but I always saw her around—most recently at the DMV of all places!

When we met up to plan this episode, I was stunned speechless, not only at hearing about what she goes through in her job on a week-to-week basis, but how she handles it and the mature perspective she brings to her job.

Caroline, say hello to our audience and tell them a little bit about yourself. What is your current role and how did you end up there?

Caroline: I’m excited to be here. Thank you for inviting me! I am from St. Louis originally and attended Brentwood High School. It’s a small high school; there were only about 55 kids in my grade. After I graduated high school, I came to Mizzou and graduated December of 2021. I started my career as a nurse straight off in the ER, which I didn’t think I was going to do.

But the Lord directed me to that path. I thought I was going to do labor and delivery or pediatrics. That was kind of more my speed. It turns out that I have a heart for the variety and the chaos and the level of critical care you get with the ER.

Austin: Tell us more about how you ended up there.

Caroline: When I was in college, I was working as a tech on the family medicine floor, and then I went to the float pool for a few years after that. And then my last semester, we did a practicum where we spend 180 hours in one unit. I had put my preference for the ICU and then put ER second, but I was just praying through wherever the Lord had me. I ended up in the ER for that whole semester, and I loved it so much.

There are many challenges: starting IVs, intubating people, seeing seizure activity even if that’s not what the patient came in for—they suddenly start seizing and you’re thrust right into it and have to run and get the Ativan and all the things.

There are times when you have to wrangle really combative, violent patients that are brought in by law enforcement. You’re putting restraints on people and just trying to survive as a young nurse. It feels like major imposter syndrome, like all this weight and burden on me right away to be able to have all these skills and take care of these patients that I don’t really know how to.

Austin: What have been some of the upsides of being an ER nurse?

Caroline: One of the upsides has been all the interpersonal skills that I’ve learned in terms of interacting and meeting people where they are and with what they need. Being everything to all people. It can be hard, but I think that has blessed me in all areas of my life.

It’s amazing the diversity and different socioeconomic statuses and the kinds of people that you see. I felt like I lived in a bubble for so long with people my age and my socioeconomic status. In the ER, my eyes were opened to the wide array of people that live here and the various struggles they have. You’re meeting them at the most vulnerable place and one of the hardest days of their life sometimes.

Austin: Can you share some of the specific pressures of being an ER nurse?

Caroline: I think a lot of people probably don’t realize how many things can be on a nurse’s to-do list at any given moment. Especially when you’re caring for four or five patients at a time, people are constantly moving in and out. You’re discharging patients, getting new ones, sending off labs, starting IVs, giving medications, charting assessments, and handling all these other tasks.

And then you’re also the person everyone comes to. You’re the middleman for everything. The doctors are talking to you, the radiologists are talking to you, the charge nurse is asking questions, and family members need updates. You have to know the big picture of what’s going on with each patient, but also all the details. If someone needs a blood transfusion or another treatment, you need to know exactly how much, where it’s going, and why.

You might have three different doctors asking you questions, and then after all that, you have to make sure everything gets done correctly. And that’s just one patient. Then you have three or four more patients you’re responsible for...and suddenly five more come through the door.

Austin: What part of your job has the most pressure?

Caroline: The trauma bay, where there is the most stress and the details really matter. Trauma surgeons will yell at you if you do something one second too late. There’s a strict protocol: the head nurse delegates the care; the float nurse takes blood pressure and establishes IV access…there are so many bodies, so much happening at once.

Austin: That’s a lot! How have you learned to manage or handle that pressure?

Caroline: The more you do it, the easier it gets. You have to go through discomfort to gain your confidence. In the beginning I would be able to rally—I would meet a friend for drinks and spend time with the church community. But the chronic stress of work made me feel like I needed to collapse and not talk to anyone. Now, on my days off, I recharge with exercise, clean eating, good sleep, and spending time in the Word.

Austin: How do you handle all the hardships and trauma that you encounter?

Caroline: I don’t want to be flippant and hardened and cold to peoples’ pain and situations. Some patients belittle me and that hits me to the core. If they said I was incompetent, this would stay with me and affect the rest of my day. Instead, I remind myself: “I am secure in who I am. I know I’m a great nurse. I know that I do a great job.” I pray for people when I’m tempted to lash back out at them.

I was having such a bad morning, and when I went to a patient’s room, she belittled my ability and character. I left the room crying. But then went back in there and killed her with kindness. I stood up for myself but did it with a tone of kindness and it diffused the situation. She apologized and was repentant.

I had a patient a few months ago who left against medical advice. He had a look of disdain and disgust and spoke horribly to me. Then I had another patient who was difficult. I was pulled in many directions and started to have compassion fatigue. I went to a supply closet and started crying to God. “Why would you give me this today? I can’t deal with this.” I wasn’t feeling the presence of the Lord.

All of these feelings won’t kill me. But I had to process them. I reached out to small group leader. She reminded me it’s ok to sit with all of these feelings. That gave me a lot of hope and shifted my perspective. I shared this experience with my community group as well. Now when I’m in that closet crying, I picture Jesus saying, “That is my daughter fighting for me in the kingdom.” Anything that causes me to look more like Jesus I will gladly bear.

Austin: Where and how has your faith informed your role as a nurse?

Caroline: Sometimes it seems like the work we’re doing is pointless; it feels like a band-aid on a bullet wound; the problems are so complex and I’m working in a system where we slap on quick fixes on things sometimes.

I tell myself I’ll do my job with excellence and integrity even when it’s easy to cut corners. If no one else sees me cut corners, Jesus would. I’m working for the Lord, and that informs the integrity of my actions. I try to do things with excellence, but that’s easily overlooked. It would be nice to be recognized more, but mostly I want my patients to feel blessed that I’m their nurse. Even if my boss doesn’t get it, Jesus is pleased.

Austin: What have you learned about Jesus in your role? Where and how have you seen him ministering to you?

Caroline: If you have eyes to see and are aware of his presence, he’ll give you opportunities to be his hands and feet. Who he places before you is so intentional. There are no accidents. There is something to be learned from every situation and you can always bring glory to God. I frequently ask God, “What do you have for me today? Help me to see opportunities and open doors.”

Austin: That’s amazing. Caroline, thank you so much for being on today!

But sometimes real life follows you to the beach.

The struggles, disappointments, and anxieties of life don’t disappear just because you’re on vacation. And what you need most isn’t another escape—it’s wisdom, perspective, and hope for the life you’re actually living.

That’s the thought behind our summer series, Beach Reads for Real Life. Listen in as our hosts share a book that has shaped the way they think about faith, mental health, relationships, suffering, finances, and spiritual growth.

These aren’t just books to help you pass the time. They’re books that can help you navigate real life with greater wisdom, deeper faith, and renewed hope. What will you add to your summer reading list?

Beach Read: “When God Seems Distant”

What if the problem isn’t that God has left you, but that he’s leading you somewhere you never expected to go?

If you’ve ever had the unsettling feeling that God is far away, you’ll want to hear John Tinnin, MFT, share about the book When God Seems Distant: Surprising Ways God Deepens Our Faith and Draws Us Near by & John Coe. It turns out that God often does some of his deepest work in seasons of uncertainty, silence, and longing—times when we can’t rely on feelings and are invited to trust him in new ways.

For anyone who has ever wondered why God feels far away, this book offers both comfort and a different way of understanding the journey.

Listen: When God Seems Distant

Read: When God Seems Distant

Beach Read: “When the Body Says No”

Have you ever wondered if your body knows something that your mind hasn’t caught up to yet?

In this thoughtful episode, Lynn Roush, LPC, explores a fascinating and sometimes controversial question posed by the book When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress by Gabor Maté. What happens when the need to be loved, accepted, or needed becomes so important that we lose touch with our own limits?

Listen in as Lynn examines where Maté’s insights are helpful, where they may fall short, and how the gospel speaks to our deepest need for love, connection, and healing. You’ll discover that when your life is in God’s hands, you are free to be honest about your wounds because your worth is already secure in Christ.

Listen: When the Body Says No

Read: When the Body Says No

Beach Read: “The Next Conversation”

Most of us don’t wake up intending to say the wrong thing, yet we’ve all replayed conversations in our heads, wishing we’d responded with more wisdom, more clarity, or fewer words. Healthy communication is a skill we all need to practice, because even one conversation can strengthen a relationship or start to unravel it.

That’s why Austin Conner, PLPC, chose The Next Conversation: Argue Less and Talk More by Jefferson Fisher. Rather than offering vague advice to “communicate better,” Fisher gives practical tools you can start using immediately. Drawing from his experience as a trial lawyer, he shows how communication skills can dramatically improve our communication and relationships.

Listen: The Next Conversation

Read: The Next Conversation

Beach Read: “The Psychology of Money”

Many of us spend our lives chasing “just a little more”, assuming that the next raise, investment, or financial milestone will finally bring contentment. Yet some people with modest incomes build lasting wealth, while others who earn millions end up anxious and always wanting more. What makes the difference?

In this stirring conclusion to our series, Shay Roush, M.Div., takes a look at The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. As Shay explains three principles from Housel’s book, you’ll discover that your relationship with money isn’t just about dollars and cents. It’s about contentment instead of comparison, freedom instead of appearance, and faithfulness instead of instant results.

Listen: The Psychology of Money

Read: The Psychology of Money

Many of us spend our lives chasing “just a little more”, assuming that the next raise, investment, or financial milestone will finally bring contentment. Yet some people with modest incomes build lasting wealth, while others who earn millions end up anxious and always wanting more. Maybe the problem isn’t our finances at all. Maybe it’s our hearts.

In this stirring conclusion to our Beach Reads for Real Life series, Shay Roush, M.Div., takes a look at The Psychology of Money by . Despite its title, it’s not really a book about budgeting, investing, or financial formulas. It’s about human behavior.

Housel explores why our emotions, habits, fears, and desires often matter more than financial knowledge itself. His observations are insightful on their own, but they become even more powerful when viewed through the lens of Scripture. Again and again, his money lessons reveal themselves to be discipleship lessons.

As Shay explains three principles from Housel’s book, you’ll discover that your relationship with money is rarely just about dollars and cents. It’s about contentment instead of comparison, freedom instead of appearance, and faithfulness instead of instant results. Ultimately, money is not only a reflection of what you believe about God, but an invitation to trust him to provide.

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Highlights from this Episode

As we conclude our Beach Reads summer series, I want to share a book I read on vacation a couple of years ago that’s stayed with me ever since. It still shows up in airport bookstores because it’s been on the bestseller list for years. It’s called The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel, and I highly recommend it.

Now, money might not be what you expect from WYITW. We usually talk about anxiety, grief, marriage, trauma, and emotions. But here’s the thing: Jesus talked about money constantly; more than heaven, more than hell, more than almost anything else. There are parables about talents, the rich fool and his barns, the widow giving her last two coins. If money mattered enough for Jesus to keep coming back to it, it’s worth spending a few minutes talking about too.

The book isn’t really about finance. There’s almost no math. It’s a book about behavior: why smart people do dumb things with money, why people who never made six figures become wealthy, and why people who make millions sometimes end up broke. Housel’s basic argument is that doing well with money has far less to do with what you know than with how you behave.

As I read it, I kept thinking, These aren’t just finance principles, they’re discipleship principles.

I want to walk you through three of the biggest ideas in the book, hold them up against Scripture, and see what they can teach us about our souls. Because our relationship with money is rarely just about money. It’s about fear, identity, power, control, and whether or not we trust God.

Why Enough Never Feels Like Enough

The first big idea is the principle of having enough.

Housel tells the story of hedge fund manager Rajat Gupta. Here’s a man who had already made millions. Yet because it still wasn’t enough, he illegally traded on insider information trying to make even more, and he went to prison. That’s because the hardest financial skill is to stop moving the goalposts.

Modern capitalism is built to make us feel like we never have enough. Advertising constantly tells us we need the next thing. Once we reach one financial goal, we immediately create another. We compare ourselves to someone with more, take unnecessary risks, and often end up worse off than when we started.

If you’re a Christian, none of this is new. Solomon, one of the wealthiest people who ever lived, wrote in Ecclesiastes, “Whoever loves money never has enough.” The problem isn’t having money; it’s loving money. Three thousand years before a hedge fund manager went to prison, Solomon had already diagnosed the disease.

Where I’d push a little further than Housel is in asking why we never have enough. He’s a finance writer, not a theologian, but Scripture answers that question. We were created for Eden, for a world without scarcity, fear, or comparison. Now we live east of Eden. The ache for ‘enough’ that never gets satisfied by our bank account is ultimately an ache for God. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they find rest in him.” I think our wallets are restless for the same reason.

Paul gives us the antidote in 1 Timothy: “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” You brought nothing into the world, and you can take nothing out of it. True contentment isn’t a financial number; it’s a posture of the heart. It’s something you can learn whether you have much or little.

So here’s the question: What’s your number? What amount do you think would finally make you feel secure? And if you reached that number tomorrow, would you actually stop moving the goalposts? Or have you asked your bank account to make you feel safe and secure? Can you get to the place where you say, “I don’t have to keep running on the treadmill of comparison because my life is built on Christ”?

The Freedom Money Can’t Buy

The second big idea is the difference between being rich and being wealthy.

Being rich, Housel says, is visible. It’s income, spending, the nice car, the big house, the vacations you post online. Wealth is invisible. It’s the money you didn’t spend. It’s the gap between what you earn and what you spend. That gap gives you options, freedom, and margin.

Many people who look rich are simply good at spending. The people who are actually financially free often look completely ordinary. Housel tells the story of Ronald Read, a janitor who quietly accumulated about $8 million by living simply and investing patiently. Nobody knew until he died. Housel contrasts that with people making seven figures who still file for bankruptcy because their spending always rises to match their income.

I think this is one of the most spiritually insightful ideas in the book: There’s a difference between looking blessed and actually being free. You can have the house, the car, and the lifestyle and still be financially enslaved and terrified that one bad month will bring everything crashing down. Or you can live an ordinary-looking life with tremendous freedom because you’ve built margin instead of image.

It reminds me of Jesus’ parable of the rich fool in Luke 12. His crops produced so much that he built bigger barns to store everything. Then he said, “Soul, take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” And God said, “You fool. This very night your soul is required of you.” The fool was visibly rich, but he wasn’t wealthy in any way that mattered. Everything he valued was stored in barns that couldn’t follow him into eternity.

I think many of us are still building bigger barns. But the size of the barn was never the point. The question is who you’re becoming while you build it. Are you creating margin? Freedom? Generosity? Or are you simply building a bigger container for your fear because you’ve placed your hope in money instead of Christ?

How Lasting Change Really Happens

The third principle is compounding.

Housel spends a lot of time explaining that small, consistent actions repeated over a long period produce extraordinary results. Warren Buffett accumulated most of his wealth after age 65, not because he suddenly became smarter, but because he’d been compounding faithfully for decades.

I think this may be the most spiritually useful idea in the entire book. We all want breakthroughs. We want a miracle. We want instant transformation. But God usually works through compounding. Small, faithful, ordinary obedience repeated over years doesn’t look impressive in the moment. Then one day you look back and barely recognize the person you used to be.

Paul writes in Galatians, “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” That’s compounding. The maturity you’re praying for, the marriage you’re hoping for, the freedom from old patterns you keep confessing. It usually isn’t one lightning bolt. It’s a thousand faithful Tuesdays that don’t seem to be accomplishing much until suddenly they have.

The Heart Behind Your Money

So let me leave you with three simple takeaways.

1. Name your enough. Decide what ‘enough’ actually looks like so you recognize when the goalposts start moving again.

2. Ask whether you’re building wealth or just looking rich. Pay attention to the gap between what comes in and what goes out. That’s where freedom lives.

3. Trust the compounding. Whatever small, faithful thing you’re doing right now, don’t quit because it doesn’t look impressive yet. It’s doing more than you can see.

Underneath all three of these principles is the most important point: Your money is one of the most honest mirrors of what you actually believe about God. Not what you say you believe, but whether you really believe he’s trustworthy. Whether ‘enough’ is possible this side of heaven.

God often uses money to reveal where we still don’t trust him and to invite us into the contentment Paul describes. Not because we’ve finally reached our ‘number’, but because we’ve finally learned to rest in Jesus.

Recommended Resource

The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

Most of us don’t wake up intending to say the wrong thing, yet we’ve all replayed conversations in our heads, wishing we’d responded with more wisdom, more clarity, or fewer words. Healthy communication is a skill we all need to practice.

That’s why Austin Conner, PLPC, chose The Next Conversation: Argue Less and Talk More by Jefferson Fisher as his Beach Read for Real Life. Rather than offering vague advice to “communicate better,” Fisher gives practical tools you can start using immediately. Drawing from his experience as a trial lawyer, he shows how communication skills can dramatically change the outcome of our conversations and improve our relationships.

Listen in as Austin explores the timeless wisdom behind Fisher’s ideas through the lens of Scripture. You’ll discover that for Christians, communication isn’t just a personality trait or a professional skill; it’s part of being a disciple. Every conversation becomes an opportunity to pursue peace, practice ‘good works’, and reflect the character of Christ to the people around you.

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Highlights from this Episode

For many of us, summer means taking some time to relax—maybe going to the mountains, maybe to the beach, or just sitting on the porch with a good book.

Today, the book I’m going to recommend for your summer downtime is a called The Next Conversation: Argue Less and Talk More by Jefferson Fisher. This book is worth reading because it clearly and practically connects the dots on how to communicate with others in many scenarios that we all experience, including conflict in the workplace and in relationships.

Jefferson Fisher is a lawyer who rose to prominence after he created a 47-second video on Facebook called “How to Argue like a Lawyer Part 1”. He posted the video and went to bed. He woke up, went to work, and then checked it that night. The views were in the millions.

He realized people were eager to communicate more clearly. But what was missing was the practicalities of how to actually do that. Perhaps you are in the same boat. You know the importance of engaging in healthy, adult conversation with your friends and family. If you’ve got kids, part of your role as a parent is to help them communicate appropriately, with kindness.

Where you might struggle is in the practical aspect of communicating with kindness and wisdom. But it’s worth putting some work into, because our words matter. They can take root in our hearts and minds and have a ripple effect on those around us.

Win Less, Connect More

Fisher has a lot of great, actionable advice in his book, including principles, skills, practices, and strategies. It might seem a bit overwhelming, but stick with me as we go through this together, because it will all come together in the end.

In order to communicate more effectively, Fisher has 3 principles to follow:

1: Never win an argument

This one might take you by surprise, because you’ve always assumed that winning an argument is a good thing. But Fisher says that when you win a point, you often lose the relationship, respect, or trust of the other person. Instead, he advocates for shifting the goal to understanding, by finding common ground, validating the other person, and de-escalating the conversation.

2: Start thinking about the next conversation

When you think about the next conversation, all sorts of pressures lift:

• You don’t HAVE to say everything

• You don’t HAVE to say everything perfectly

• You don’t HAVE to let your initial response be your final response

Instead, when you assume there will be a next conversation, you can be more present with the other person. You have a better ability to listen and summarize what the person is saying, rather than half-listening to them while you formulate your next response.

3: Connection over transmission

Transmission is simply saying something without regard for the other party. It’s a one-way street. But connection keeps the other person(s) in mind. Connection is a pretty broad term, but Fisher narrows it down and defines it as “a word for understanding and acknowledgement.” And you have to have both to have true connection.

If you understand but don’t acknowledge that to the other person, you’re not connecting with them. If you acknowledge what the other person is saying but don’t understand it, you’re not connecting with them. Instead, you should acknowledge and seek to understand; keep in mind, this doesn’t mean you have to agree.

Three Skills that Change Conversations

1. Learn to control yourself. People are going to say things that make you feel angry, frustrated, sad, anxious, annoyed, and hurt. When that happens, you go into fight or flight mode, and your thinking brain goes offline.

To mitigate this, Fisher explains the importance of making your first word your breath. Take a deep breath in and a deep breath out. He says, “When you’re triggered you’re either going to speed up or lock up. But those initial two seconds get your breathing back under control.”

2. Say things with confidence. There are 2 ways to do this: use your assertive voice and manage difficult people well.

How do you use your assertive voice? Fisher offers 3 simple practices that can make a surprisingly big difference.

• Remember that every word matters. Instead of saying, “I just wanted to touch base on the outline,” simply say, “I wanted to touch base on the outline.” Instead of, “I’m sort of wondering if I should ask the team,” say, “I’ll ask the team.” Extra qualifiers like just, sort of, and maybe weaken your message. Saying things directly doesn’t make you rude; it makes you clear.

• Prove your assertiveness to yourself. One of Fisher’s best suggestions is to state your next step out loud and then follow through. Say, “I’m moving forward from this conversation.” “I’m setting a reminder.” Every time you do what you said you were going to do, you strengthen your own sense of agency.

• Express your needs unapologetically. In counseling, I’ve found this to be one of the hardest skills for people to develop, but it’s also one of the most transformative. Practice beginning sentences with, “I need.” “I need a moment.” “I need to speak with you.” “I need your help.” Those words may feel uncomfortable at first, but they’re healthy.

You also need to know what to do when someone crosses the line by insulting you, belittling you, or behaving disrespectfully. These 4 strategies will help you handle it well:

• Deflect or ignore it. Don’t give the other person a dopamine hit by reacting.

• Give it a long pause. Allow their words to echo back to them.

• Slowly repeat their words. Make sure they hear what they just said.

• Ask a question of outcome. This type of question seeks to highlight and project the reaction that they tried to elicit. For example, “Did you want that to hurt?” or “Did you want that to embarrass me?” These questions will help the difficult person see the foolishness of their statements so they can make changes and even apologize.

3. Say it to connect. Throughout the book, Fisher reminds us that great conversations begin with great listening. Most of us listen to respond. Instead, he encourages us to listen to learn by reflecting back what we heard: “So you felt overlooked when that decision was made. Did I get that right?”

Another recurring theme is the importance of validating emotions without immediately judging or correcting them. A phrase like, “I can see why that would be frustrating,” communicates empathy and helps people feel heard. Fisher also recommends expressing your own perspective with statements like, “I felt... when... because...” so you can be honest without attacking the other person.

Finally, Fisher emphasizes that connection is shaped not only by what we say, but by how and where we say it. Because meaningful conversations depend on presence, he recommends having important discussions face-to-face whenever possible.

Communication as Discipleship

In Matthew 5:9, Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Practicing the strategies, habits, and principles in this book can be a tangible way you can “be a peacemaker.” Rather than stir up strife, or continue a conflict, make peace with those around you.

In Ephesians 2:10, Paul says, “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand for us to do.” Communicating with wisdom and intentionality can be a form of ‘good works’ that God wants you to do.

When you learn how to communicate calmly, clearly, and with kindness, you are being a peacemaker and practicing good works. You are cooperating with the ways God is at work in the world around you. So as you lay on a beach, a couch, or a porch this summer, consider picking up The Next Conversation: Argue Less and Talk More.

Recommended Resource

The Next Conversation: Argue Less and Talk More by Jefferson Fisher