Vulnerability | Shawn Bolz | Expression58

so I'm going to talk to you guys today about vulnerability and I'm excited about the subject because it's one of the the key kind of frames that God's putting this generation to have new language to understand what he intended all along and God Himself modeled vulnerability even how he first revealed himself he revealed himself as creator and I don't know how many of you are in a creative field right now just raise your hand when you first told your parents or somebody who is important to you that I'm gonna be a creator was that vulnerable or was that easy like knew you're in kindergarten it's easy but when you're like 24 going I think I'm switching majors I'm gonna be a singer your parents aren't usually like yes they're like what are you gonna do for your day job though what are you gonna do you know what I'm gonna do and so God himself first came as a creator and he revealed an identity that was for us to relate to him that was different than father or a bridegroom or these relationships for us to relate to him this was him relating to us saying I want to show you who I am and we had this picture of as he revealed himself as a creator he then created us in His image and one of the very first things that happened was Eve because she didn't have vulnerability with her her issue where she wanted to become like God when the serpent confused her she didn't have that connection in her relationship with that vulnerability because of shame and because of ego and all kinds of stuff to say to Adam or to say to God hey I'm feeling afraid right now I'm feeling I'm feeling disconnected I'm feeling like there's something inside of me that wants to explore this option I don't know what it is instead she's just made a very independent decision and it costs us a whole bunch that and then Adam of course made it with her and so there's this place of vulnerability that God modeled and then we saw breakdown of from the very first store of humanity so when you look at that it's really important because God has given us this amazing tool set called the vulnerable lifestyle as one of the key places of connection to him in the world around us that Christians should be one of the primary models of but unfortunately a lot of times were last in line to emotional intelligence and things like this because we there's a performance culture in the church at large we have over 2,000 denominations just in America there could even be more than that but there's over 2,000 and so what happens is a lot of the denominations if you're in a position you need to be a performer in that position and if you fail that position if you feel morality if you fail the community somehow they they literally want to regain that position back where they would want to regain the person back and so there's been a lack of vulnerability in a lot of cases because your failure or your your ability to share your weakness actually disqualifies you versus qualifies you but in the Bible we see over and over that the ones who are vulnerable are the ones that are the most heroic so we see this with David who did some of the worst things in the world and yet he was so vulnerable that God said this is a man after my own heart he's willing to open up his process to me every time and if you read Psalms somebody like Psalms Psalms is so great because you see this man there's like don't you love me anymore God you know like he says the things that he knows aren't true but he's processing his heart vulnerably to God this is how I feel or this is what's going on in my internal life even though I know it's not true I need to process this I need a place of connecting to you on this so I can change and God loves it so much that it's become one of the pivotal you know Old Testament kind of places that a lot of us land in when we're working through our heart process in their life so I had a period that about five years into building this church when I was a senior pastor and hone and Jen were so gracious they were leading the missions department that now Alex would lead you know totally different but what Alex is doing now yeah and a couple of our other leaders they all had an intervention with me because we were five years in but we didn't know what we wanted to become yet and I'd come to LA sing my vision is that your vision would come true that you guys would become who you're supposed to be so my vision wasn't like let's have a very strategic church that has this kind of motto and this kind of anthem my vision was like let's get a group of people together and see what forms when they have healthy identity and so hona and Jennifer and the team came to me one day and they they asked me we we need to hear more from you of what you want from us I said I want you to become who you're supposed to be like what do you want and they said no we need to know what you want and we need you to clarify some things to us but we were only five years in and the first two years was just I call it the magical years cuz just stuff just happened all kinds of good stuff happened and we weren't in control of it nor did we want to be and we would just meet and the worship would go on and no one preached or would show up in different ways and but after about two years we knew we were supposed to organize some stuff and I Suz you organize things if you don't directed it will direct itself not always the best so they were saying we need help to figure out how we want to direct this what is your vision and I start laughing I was like oh my gosh and so it took a place of vulnerability and me to connect to what is my vision and my assistance at the time I had assistant that was just leaving and the assistant was coming on there saying what do you want us to do give us more feedback give us more like how would you answer these emails how would you even like but I want you to be empowered I want you to do it and so what I realized is for me personally when I was first being introduced to the issue that I wasn't very vulnerable and a lot of areas it was because I was actually being passive in my leadership and I wasn't communicating what I really really really wanted in the core so by the time I finally they like pressed me so we want you to communicate your gut of God's like what do you want out of this and I told them and it was so defining what I wanted out of it that it actually created the vision that we kind of have now that Jen and hone have now formed into a fully formed vision but to really you know raise up people who have love creativity and justice have transformation mindset want to see the world change with their Christianity their values want to go after extreme issues of injustice want to see creativity and entrepreneurship all these kinds of themes that are just things do you say that are nice thing to say that became so defining because we had a lot of people who were with us not not like the majority but a small minority who were with us we're like oh we don't want any of that we just want a holy spirit party we actually don't want to do any of the things we're talking about we actually never want to go we don't even like working with the homeless or going to the poor we don't like which is very defining like we do a lot of stuff and we you guys just got back from the missions and we do a lot of stuff for a small church so it's very intense I mean I'm on the board of several organizations like justice rising where you know we're we're building schools and war zones I've been on the ground and so as Jen and hona like in war zones and then you know dumps in these kinds of places so when people are saying oh that would never be part of my value system to support that or go I think it's noble but it's not what I want to do they laughed and I was like oh this is interesting because my vulnerability equals a line in the sand also in relationships for how people relate to us and to me and the whole thing so I went through a period where I had to learn how to to communicate we part of communicating what you need and what you want is vulnerability and I came from a zone of like I guess I thought people were gonna magically come up with the best-case scenario of what I needed wanted even my assistants who the main complaint I had for years was you don't tell me what you need or what no one says that anymore thank God especially my wife but I didn't want to I don't want to control anybody I didn't want everyone to become who they were and so I listened to around this time grenade Browns first talk the pre TED talk where she was talking to college and then about two years later she talked to on TED talks and brené Brown is one of the leading sociologists on and just therapist on the issue of connection and our generation and she talks about vulnerability because she realized her lack of vulnerability which actually causes us to not experience our full life if we're not vulnerable we can't be connected and so when she studied this out I started listening to her then I started to read different neurologists some former from UCLA then of course dr. Karen leave different ones who were talking about the issue of vulnerability and how we're wired for it and how we actually don't have as much going on up here when we don't when we're not vulnerable for ourselves or for the world around us so as I'm reading this I'm going oh my gosh on every level we're wired for this and yet especially in the church that's one of the places we hide from the most and if you're not vulnerable you don't experience the fullness of the joy of life and I love Bernie Browns just as a side note her recent Netflix special which is getting more hits than the majorities of comedy specials that are on there and it's the first time anyone's just got up and down like a TED talk but it's like a full hour on vulnerability in a connection which is amazing okay so if vulnerability is is a beautiful powerful relationship building tool what is it and this is what Bernie Brown says she says it's the ability to reflect on and express your emotions and feelings for the sake of closeness increasing connection and decreasing feelings of loneliness so there's the ability to relate to your own emotions and connect to them and then also communicate those to the people who are core the degree of your vulnerability is a degree of your love and connection so if you don't have one ability you're not actually as deep as you think you are the amount of love you can feel is contingent upon the amount you can be vulnerable and feel safe in that vulnerability this is true in your sexual life with your spouse or your partner this it's true I'll say spouse cuz we're Christians this is true and you're in your in your emotional life with your friends colleagues this is true and your spiritual life or the people who you're doing spiritual life with if you don't have that place of vulnerability the amount of love you have isn't this great and this is why we can see so many people who don't get deeply rooted in the community because they're not feeling a vulnerability there so they can be very functional for a couple years then go I've like the worst of over here but I'm gonna go to this church instead and that comes from a place of a lack of vulnerability lack of connection which we can take some personal responsibility for then burn a brown in her book the power of vulnerability which I'd encourage you to get you there's a lot of free resources you don't have to buy a book to get this though there's a lot of free resources online from even Brunei we associate vulnerability with emotions we want to avoid such as fear shame and uncertainty yet too often we lose sight of the fact that vulnerability is also the birthplace of joy belonging creativity authenticity and love it's also the birthplace of change so the two main opposites of vulnerability are fear and control now this is what's interesting is that God's given us the spirit of love that drives out fear the opposite spirit of fear Paul even says to Timothy God's giving you the spirit you know it's a spirit of sound mind discipline and self-control the opposite of the spirit of fear and then Jesus constantly rebuked those who were religious leaders who were controlling people so he was saying you who don't want to see heaven and you want to set it up for people who do he's basically saying you who are not connected to your own vulnerability and you don't actually want this kind of relationship you want a structural relationship not a connected relationship you actually control those people who do go after that connected relationships so we have Jesus rebuking and also establishing in this area and he came as the most vulnerable being in history because he was God and was one power of his nose hair he can make every bad thing go away but instead he came as a baby a human baby like the most vulnerable thing you could be as a human baby I met my daughter sturm 4 and 6 are still so vulnerable they can get hurt so easily like little things you know we were supposed to go on family vacation of my dad to 80th birthday party and they had some weird bites from some insects outside they both got into we're not sure what they were and turned into this big like all over their legs they were getting fevers and hardly was having some effects and they couldn't go and there's a so vulnerable at that age you just want to do everything you can like as a dad I would take all that from them I would just I would have it all on me instead because you just don't want them to have to suffer you know Jesus came in a world that's suffering and faced every temptation so that he can be vulnerable to it so he can understand and so that you can feel him his empathy and compassion in a real way not like just I have compassion but in a real way where he never asked us to experience anything that he hasn't already experienced first which is amazing so the problem is when we get into this kind of vulnerability is that you know a lot of times where were run over by the needs of others and we think that by catering to their needs that were being vulnerable but we're not being vulnerable ourselves or that we we were with people who over share their emotional exhibitionists where they'll tell you everything but there's no real connection or change going on so there's all these problems with a false kind of there's a codependent vulnerability where it comes from we do everything together but there's really no separation between you and me those kinds of emotional problems that come along with a lot of vulnerability which causes us as Christians to psych ourselves out and say I won't be that and so we overreact and we say I won't be that meaning I'm not going to share that level of my heart I have a couple on Instagram who sometimes share things I mean the depth of their pain and their their problems on Instagram and it's such an emotional expiration exhibitionism but I love them so much so I watch it and I'm like oh oh that's painful for all the strangers who are seeing this who've never known your process and their first process is like the abuse you've gone through and the sexual problems are having a marriage right now and you're sharing it as Christians online going how did you guys ever feel this way and I'm like stop it that's not vulnerability that's you that's cry for help I can answer it Paul was being vulnerable in 2nd Corinthians 12 9 to 10 when he said but to me my graces God said my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in your weakness he said therefore I'm going to boast more gladly about my weaknesses of the power of Christ may rest upon me for the sake of Christ and I'm content with weakness insults hardship persecutions and calamity when I'm weak then he is strong what he's saying is that I've learned how to be connected to him in the midst of my weaknesses that I know his strength manifests so I'm not trying to hide them I'm not trying to minimize them I'm not trying to pretend they don't exist have you ever been a part of a Christian brand or a group and you say something or like your that confession on your mouth it's like so wrong like I remember saying I was sick right before I preached at a certain church in a very a word of faith type Church and I love where the faith movement but this was like extreme and the guy said hey I see your nose is running you're sneezing a lot are you healed in the name of Jesus and I go no I'm sick I got a cold but I feel good enough to preach he's like you can't get up there unless you're healed in the name of Jesus because I wasn't allowed to present myself as someone who might be sick because Jesus did so much on the cross that if I look sick then I'm gonna make him look bad or something I don't know but I just I looked at and I thought this is what's wrong with us is that we're not okay with the fact that I am a human vessel and things happened to me and in the midst of that God can be made glorious and beautiful and so it's important for us to see that vulnerability is being known and the enemies of vulnerability or fear perfectionism and lack of worthiness vulnerabilities being honest about your process and invites your relationships into your process to help you so one of the worst parts of it when you're not vulnerable is you don't you don't actually include people and in the only way that we grow socially we know the brain is a social organ in our body and it's only developed by relationships to others did you know that so your brain is only developed in your connections to others and I've talked a lot about this you can listen to my power of connection talk from a few months ago and and when you understand this then you realize that if I'm making decisions and I'm not including you in the depth of who I am then I'm gonna make those decisions without the full effect impact and joy of what they would have been if they were grounded and the we and so the mean and we were never made to be independent creatures and I think of my life when we were first dating and Sri was frustrated one point because she was giving advice about something in the church I was doing and we had already built out like we had a little sub team to try and figure out this particular area and we'd tried everything to make this thing advance and it was really obvious to see the weakness of it so she one day said hey that areas week I'm like sting out yeah it is and she's like you should do this and this and this I go we've tried that in that and that it's nice of you to inject yourself in our process but you don't know what we're doing so don't talk to me about this nice boyfriend and she's a feasibility and a manager a feasibility person and a manager and those kinds of things so she's like hey I was being kind by offering an opinion because I'm doing life with you and it's something that I it's actually a helpful comment nothing that I said was wasn't agonistic but because of your place of pain and in managing the situation that's not been working well you projected as if I was attacking something I'm actually here to be an asset and a help to and if I can't talk to you about normal things where you can if you're not to be vulnerable then if we can't do life on this level we're not to be able to do life on like a family level so I need you to decide you want to do life with me or not and I said no you Jezebel don't be kidding I said this is a kind of woman a man like me needs to marry right now buy a ring let's do this interestingly enough you know of course I've resolved that with her and I said I do want to do life with you and it doesn't matter that she doesn't have didn't have the time had the same experiences me and the church so I was pastoring and she was coming in which is a really hard position for and she wasn't trying to be a savior to anything I was doing she was just giving an opinion and it was very balanced and normal and I wasn't very balanced to normal in it so I realized there was part of me that's protecting self protecting when I'm building from her and I'm and I had to learn how to overcome that so we could actually have that vulnerability and part of that was I had never had a partner like a true ministry partner I mean hona is a great partner and then own agenda gather a great partner but I mean at that it's different you're married right so when I got married and almost since someone's coming to be the mom with me but she's never actually passed through the church I was like I'm kind of afraid of you right now and I had to learn how to give my power away I had to learn how to to hear and listen intently and I had to learn to not be insecure about sharing that power and a lot of people who are alpha or a types or business leaders or managers or whatever had that same kind of problems they don't share their fragmented they're one person at home one person that worked one person at church because they've never learned how to do life with somebody and be connected to vulnerability so I said because it could help some of you but later on I remember at one point she was going through a really hard time because her dad was actively dying we were first getting married and it was really interesting because she said you know I'm so sorry you have to go through this with me because one of the most it was probably the most miserable time in her life and I I felt the whole time it was such a privilege to be able to go through it with her because one day my parents were gonna die and what I was learning from her and how she was responding and how I was able to love her and pray for her it was teaching me about grief it was teaching me about loss because I'd never experienced this kind of loss before I've experienced friends dying and stuff but it was different her dad you know and so when he you see I said don't don't be apologetic for me going into this with you because one day I'll go through this and part of the vulnerability of you going through the worst period of your life with me is that I get to be with you at your worst and your best and it will help me to be strong to be vulnerable with you and my worst time it'll condition my heart to open my heart to you the right way when I need to and she's like oh I never thought of that and right before we got married she had a freakout time it was like just made a state I just bought her wedding ring and uh and she said I don't wanna get married for a long time maybe two or three years but I just bought it and had it in my hand that day and my pocket was trying to find out what I was gonna propose and she's telling me she never wants to get married basically or like four years from now I don't like oh my gosh what am I gonna do and I'm like calling hona and calling different friends like I just couldn't figure out what to do it so I said you know I'm gonna call her sister who is my biggest advocate so to this day and I called her and I said you have to help me I'm hurting inside because your sister made these statements and I just bought you cannot tell her this and I know if sisters tell each other everything so you better not violate this but I just bought the wedding ring and I want to propose soon and I need your help and she starts laughing and she goes Shawn she wants to marry you with all her heart she will say yes the moment you show her the ring she's just going through a lot of pain right now and that pain is managing itself by self-protection and she goes you know instead a number of other things and I remember just being a willing to open my heart to her family member and saying I need to be vulnerable to you I meant Amma scariest part of this relationship where I I'm getting these signals and these signals at the same time and I don't know how to read them but you're a family over who the woman I love more than I do help and not only did she help me but she laughed at me and a month later we were engaged and she took way too long to wanna get married this her dress had to be designed it was great Jesus in Matthew 23 37 says Jerusalem Jerusalem you who kill the prophets and stone those who sent you how I have often longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you were not willing and when you look at this in the context of what God's saying the religious her say 50% of Christians in America don't go to church and the majority that's because they don't feel connected relationally and so when you look at Jesus saying I've longed to gather you together in nurture it's the nurture God who said I'm going to nurture you and vulnerability nurtures relationship it's a nurturing device Matthew 26 29 through 42 he says and going a little further he fell on his face and prayed my father if it's possible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I was you will so we see this beautifully we see this amazing vulnerability and even when the disciples come to him that same verse and he goes will you come pray with me they're like really tired right now but he was being vulnerable like to the point where I need my friends he always modeled this he never modeled like I am so strong no problem going the cross no big deal he was human it was gonna be a lot of suffering a lot of humiliation a lot of shame and I don't know that he hadn't even understood yet the full implication spiritually that all sin all cursing was gonna be on him but just the natural process period he was saying if there's any other way father please take this and then reached out to his friends for help as a model that there's so much there's so much power and vulnerability Barnea Brown also said not being vulnerable as often related to shame we can see this in the scriptures that Jesus had had been tempted to let shame sink in but he didn't allow it hebrews 12:2 says for the joy set before him he endured the cross which is so powerful because even in the midst of him reaching out for vulnerability his friends weren't there for but the father said I understand Jesus you need me in this moment let me show you the joy said before you as your father let me show this to you so I love that you know for us when when we understand that joy as far as bringing this again Brene brown but i think the joy of the Lord's Our Strength right this is a scripture and joy is one of the motions that Americans trying to avoid the mouse did you know that according to research and it's because we're afraid I've experienced experiencing and fullness or of getting a lack of so we we become nominal and lukewarm and so she was explaining Bernie Brown was explaining how she was gonna go meet Oprah and it was her dream come true because who what therapist ever gets to go meet Oprah like she did a TED talk and she's going to see Oprah and Oprah is like her favorite person so she's like on the plane so we were going Oprah but she loves Oprah so she's on the plane she's about together and instead of going I couldn't meet a hero of mine and spend time with her and she wants to talk to me about my expertise instead of doing that she was on the plane going the planes probably gonna fail that's I'm probably died before I get there or she's gonna cancel by the time I get there I may get off the plane she's gonna cancel she's not she doesn't really want to meet me and she was psyching herself out and in doing so wasn't being vulnerable to the fact that she really wanted this and enjoying the fact that I get to give me Oprah this is so exciting because that was it was too painful to risk and might get cancelled or fail and because she was afraid of that failure moment or that failure syndrome she just lived in mediocrity in that moment of should have been intense joy and so she realized by the time she was that with Oprah she was playing it cool and therefore did not experience the emotion of joy she should have the first time and this is all the way into her research all the way into therapy the whole thing I was thinking about this for some of my TV projects I'm doing right now like I'm doing a TV project and I was completely like anti Christian television for a long time and then TV and I've been on a lot in the old days and it wasn't that fun so when they asked me to do a show for him based on my translating God book I was like this is not the TV show I'd want to do if I did a TV show and I wouldn't want to be in Christian television so when I first started doing it but there's something inside of me that was really excited like this is really fun my book is gonna turn into a TV show that's gonna help literally millions of people can act to God's voice and they're really saying behind me I'm putting a lot of money and time and energy into it that's so exciting but there's another part of me going yeah but it's stupid cuz it's Christian television and I don't want to be the poster boy for a prophetic stuff and I'm going through that kind of stuff and I remember telling a tree I am going through these two emotions just including somebody in it I'm going through these two emotions and I wanna I'm gonna be excited about this is this worth being excited about and she's like yes why why do you think it might not be worth being excited about I'm like that's Christian television and I'm like she's like it's not gold thrown Christian television there's no like weird you know here or anything you have to have you gonna be you and she's like you gotta be you you're gonna be a reform where you gonna be you and I'm like that's true she's like why are you having a problem getting excited about this I'm like I don't know and then I realized I was afraid to get excited because what if it was just another little Christian TV project that wasn't a big deal or whatever and then there's arrogance in that there's pride in that you know and that false humility there's pride and so I was like oh I got to deal with some stuff because I won't enter into the joy if I'm not vulnerable to the experience I think of our team like you know making the make way CD and I mean literally our church is less than eight hundred adults right there's more today than normal but there's you know we have we have a great community around us but most people who make a top 10 chart on iTunes would be people who have elevation behind them or both will be high damage Jesus culture behind where Hillsong behind them and those are churches that have literally a worldwide movement following a millions of people online a month and they have twenty or thousand more people a month of their church - Beth was ten and Jesus Culture is like six or seven or whatever but I mean elevation church and in Hillsong these groups they have marketing money and power in a reputation and then there's us and I've had lots of friends in the last couple of years launched our church CD and it was a great great CDs but didn't ever touch anything like even with marketing plans the whole thing so I was like going I don't know how he's gonna do because I feel like when I hear our worship team it feels like we should be the say diem of ten thousand people worshiping every Sunday but that I'm not sure if I'm just sentimental but I just feel that way because every worship there's so many worship leaders it's like we have too many worship leaders it's kind of sick and and so when the CDs coming out I was wat I went to the CD release party before it came out and I was with our worship team and they were just excited and they were giddy and they were they weren't afraid to be giddy they weren't afraid to be excited they were saying well you know what we just built we don't know what it's gonna be but we're excited and we love this and we want to see what will happen well people receive it we're what go it's our first effort what's gonna be and I love that it wasn't a fearful like I don't know if it's not I mean we did it at the church I can't sound that good no one was saying that I was a little worried doing it here Dan I don't know how you pulled that off at the team because I was like we're gonna make a CD in here and nice try but it worked but I love their vulnerability to the process of potential success of just saying we believe we have a sound that God's given us and songs he's given us for the body of Christ not just for us not just for expression fatigue body Christ but all the body of Christ and that's the beginning and like it's proof in the last three days it's been in the top 10 charts I mean number three the day it came out that's crazy for Christian world to have with it with not 30,000 a month and marketing I mean it's crazy like God is doing something but a lot of times we're told to be quiet about it or to be you know like don't be too excited because if we're excited there's pride no no God wants us to glory in him inside of us that's our talents our gifts our personality our identity he wants us it's the opposite of narcissism narcissism as being in love with yourself glory and God is being in love of God in yourself how you glorify God is you're actually excited about how you're growing and changing and you're like I see you here god this is not my result this is your result and that's part of being truly vulnerable one of the main ways that we we get into vulnerability is we have to learn emotional intelligence and this is something that thank God we have all kinds of reach scissors there's emotional intelligence - you can take online there's books there's but one of the main books I like is by Dan Goleman on emotional intelligence is called that and here's what it's defined as it's a skill and perceiving understanding and managing emotions and feelings the ability to understand the way people feel and react to your skill to make good judgments to avoid or solve problems also the capacity to be aware of control and express someone's emotions your owns emotions I'm going to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically so this is the emotional intelligence is basically like your your stomach metabolism for your emotions so we know if we eat a lot of bad food or our body does not metabolize well right like things happen in your body when you start to put bad stuff in bad stuff comes out and if we don't know our body like wheat we now know you could take a test online for $600 and find out what your even sensitive to some of your sensitive in your stomach's gluten gluten is real and tolerance is real it's not just a game that a lot of people we thought were playing it's actually a real thing including my daughter is gluten intolerant I'm intolerant to tomatoes and tomato sauce I feel really careful eating it so there's sensitivities we can take a test and it gives you like the list of a hundred things are sensitive to or or allergic to and then you can live a better quality of life because you don't eat things that mess you up right well emotional intelligence is your metabolism for your relational life so if you don't have emotional intelligence or if you have ego or if you have and you're not aware of it or if you have depression or insecurity and you're not aware of it you're not self-aware at all then your your your emotions can't metabolize and your spirit can't metabolize and you won't be vulnerable to the world around you because you'll be in survival mode victim mode whatever mode but you won't be in the right mode for relationships around you and you won't be able to gauge whether this is a sharing potential time or if it's gonna if you're gonna over share under share or if this is gonna be a time where you know and I used to deal with this a lot with when I worked at shelters we used to work at homeless shelters in Kansas City and Atlanta in different places and when someone came to a shelter no matter how amazing they were they were in survival mode right you're in a shelter in survival mode your your finances have failed you there was really quality people who would show up at a shelter as a family they were great people there's people who were drug addicts and people who are there because they put themselves there and there was other people who were victimized by life for real like there's some really women who were battered by their husband's stuff that they never expected to happen in that moment that when they came there you're there to help them if you cross the line said that woman's pretty I don't care that she has three kids I'll raise them let's go for it she's not gonna be the right place to reciprocate any romantic feelings because she's in survival trying to get off the streets if you have emotional we're gonna suit and also if you understood your job you would never violate that it's surprising how many people violated that I watched people who would you know have boyfriends and girlfriends in the shelter all the time it happened very regularly for people who worked in shelter life and it was just weird to me because I'm like how do you cross that line it means you don't have awareness because the moment you're you know you know trauma bond with somebody there's a moment you don't have the right kind of relationship and that's what would happen is we were trauma bond the person would share with them they would share back if you understood and known and then they had to take care of the person and their kids who were in a shelter and didn't have a normal life when they were supposed to be helping them to get back in a normal life very intense so vulnerability a lot of times if you don't have emotional intelligence you can find yourself in bad relationships or in in over exposing yourself thinking it's vulnerability or and not reading the signals people are sending to you because you're not self aware of how you're putting yourself out there so I say that because if we're gonna learn how to be vulnerable we have to have emotional intelligence so you can identify your feelings instead of react with anger or other disconnecting emotions that's how you know that's one of the signs of emotional intelligence another one often anger is really about other another deeper feeling it feels safer because you do not have to be vulnerable but it's more destructive you feel comfortable inviting your feelings to communicate their message to you and understand why the feelings showed up what it did so that's one of the signs of emotional intelligence I feel comfortable okay my feelings are communicating something to me I'm feeling uncomfortable I'm feeling social anxiety right now I want to run out of this building I'm not sure why I don't want to talk to me afterwards why am I feeling that I'm aware of that what where's this coming from oh the last four times I was in a social setting like this I had all the wrong people I didn't get a connecting my friends I was connecting there who wanted to connect to me that I didn't want to connect to and so therefore I feel social anxiety I can take control that I don't have to just I can put boundaries up instead of just serve it right so like good emotional intelligence makes you make better decisions another one is you can brainstorm how to decrease negative feelings through a connection and communication so you're feeling really bad towards somebody maybe it's your child maybe it's your best friend I feel really bad I know one time hone and Jen came to me they're like we feel weird right now so what do you feel weird we haven't talked in three months we had it was a longest time we had gone our friendship because we've all been busy but we didn't know have we've not been choosing each other because it's just a weird fluke season or is there something going on because I have negative feelings now that I'm feeling like you might feel about me and I need to know I'm not gonna lie I'm doing pre-conflict so if there's a conflict I have will have it but what's going on like no I'm great it really is that busy they're like we are - we're great it really is that busy but let's make better choices I agree let's do it because we went out of a weekly routine and all of sudden three months I'm not seeing each other right and so like we had to make it so so emotional intelligence helps you to stop for emotional health and say something's off or the potential of something's off so I'm gonna I'm gonna check it out you also a sign of emotional intelligence as you can choose how to respond and you don't you're not reactionary if you find yourself yeah are you in traffic jerk you pulled over in front of me bah you know road rage is a real thing if you find yourself reactionary all the time that's a sign of low emotional intelligence I'm not being mean That's not me I'm not the psychologist thank God I was not rebuking you if you felt heavy right then that was not me but you know if you find yourself and if someone's talking to you you have to have an answer to prove everything to them that's a sign of low emotional intelligence somebody who's not reactionary but can actually go okay what am I feeling right now what am i experiencing what am i feeling my spirit and my emotions and how I mean you can feel - once you're a Christian for long enough you can feel when you're being led by that core place of spirit I want it's just emotional reaction you can feel the difference really well but as you're growing sometimes you can't feel the difference you're like I'm violently angry a trump or an Obama or whoever the Clintons now because everything else you know if it just comes out of you and you're reactionary it's probably not hi emotional intelligence but if you can go okay I can make it better choice God you put people in offices I can come an agreement for why they're an offense for why you put in there but I'm also offended at with what they're doing right now in different ways and I'm gonna I can manage my offense though it doesn't manage me that's very important you do not self-sabotage that's the sign of emotional intelligence how many of you had a friend who self sabotages a lot I went to a friend of mine we went to an award show with him and he wanted an award in a certain entertainment category and we're sitting next to him the whole time he's like I know I'm not gonna win this I'm not gonna there's no way I'm gonna way there's so many talented people gets me go I'm so sick of your low self-esteem stop it you wouldn't have been elected or award you know like or one of the people if it wasn't if you didn't have talent is like honey oh but it's I think it's a fluke so then we we go to the experience he wins and he didn't have a speech prepared because he didn't think he was gonna win so he get sometimes like oh I'd like to think so he's sabotaging himself right because he he'd never thought he would ever win I'd like to thank my friends and my hidden thing his wife he forgot about her she totally understood he gets down as like that was miserable I owe you one your first major award and it was miserable because you weren't present with a fact that it might happen that God actually has anointed you for this and that you're gifted there's like oh my gosh so he self-sabotage and it was out of a place of insecurity but I mean some of you can relate to that in just your normal relationships like you call somebody up that you really want to spend time with and you're like they're not gonna they're not gonna spend time with you text him no we text we don't call him we texted oh hey want to hang out and we're like that person's gonna wanna hang out with me I had a person in today who's like hey I'd love to see you sometime soon this is an amazing person I'd love to because oh I thought you were too important he has like 5 million people on his Instagram I'm like I'm too important like you have a life that I don't have I'm like I'm busy but you're like super busy or 350 days of you're busy and I'm like why are you doing this to yourself well we just I really admire you and I'm like you're being weird it's gonna make me want to run if you don't change your attitude fast you know I will say that Oh No okay I have a few minutes so we all know this is that when they've done all these surveys these tests whether it's Christian non-christian doesn't matter that vulnerability feels scary and overwhelming it's supposed to like the more you get used to it with certain people the better it gets but there's gonna be that moment again maybe it's you know when a therapist talks to some married couple and they say okay let's talk about your sexual journey and the person gets like freaked out like oh don't talk about that well how are you doing that I think we're good are you good I'm good are you good how do you communicate about sexual stuff I don't know I don't we just do things you know like if there's no conversation and there's no connection and so it feels you you can tell that won't really feel scary in certain areas but when you feel that that capacity for fear or that anxiety it's actually that that fear and anxiety is taking the place of what could be glory and joyous and so just know if you feel a little bit like I want to connect to this but I don't know how to and it scares me you're probably not the greatest joy once you do and it's good to know that because maybe it's maybe you're angry about something and you want to talk to your spouse but you're a conflict avoider but if you would just be vulnerable and say I'm hurting right now in our marriage in this area I don't know how to talk to and I'm scared to talk to you you actually will that the level of rebuilding you'll do from that and the potential for what your marriage can become because you've done that is so much far greater than the risk that it's worth it it's worth taking that risk it's one of the keys that God gave us you know to understand what his love is for us because he was so vulnerable that he came to us he's created us to be with him not just we're the only religion that God created a counterpart not a subservient person but a counterpart who's like I'm gonna come live in you and I know you're messy and I don't care like I love you I'm gonna share space with you while you're still have a sin and carnal nature I will enter into your life how many when you were first say I've stopped all more immorality instantly I'm gonna say where's the liars here and he chose to live in that space with you have you ever had someone who loved you why they knew your weakness and you're like how do they love me even though they see this part of me and God modelled that he loves vulnerability that he wants you to understand that he's not afraid of your weakness and he can even be seen as powerful in your weakness our vulnerability with the people closest to us can save us from self-destruction I think one of the reasons why we have so much suicide and such depression rate is because we're used to doing life alone we're doing it through social media not through direct connection we're doing it through liking each other not through loving each other and it's really important that we get there so in just closing this I just want you to think about you know how to increase your vulnerability and the first one is emotional vulnerability it's the easiest one to increase for people I guess in church and just talking to people saying this is how I'm feeling right now this is what I feel I need this is what I feel I'm upset about and Dupre conflict and that means that when you feel upset with somebody you stop in that moment go this is so weird but I just got really affected by what you just said versus I have to go to coffee with you next Tuesday three days later go to confer to talk to what would happen which is such a bad conflict model because then everyone feels like they're in trouble but just to stop in the moment be vulnerable hey I'm running Serena and we've been learning to do this for a long time and it's so beautiful when she'll say because it's not heavy when she goes ooh what you just said ah that hurt me like that were you being sarcastic or we serious I was being sarcastic okay it's just me then okay no big deal or no I actually have less passive-aggressive I'm so sorry that was really yucky that I don't like to be passive-aggressive we forgive me and I'll try and change here's what I here's what I'm going through versus I resent you ten years later right so ask you can you can even ask someone if you if you're learning this you know like ask your parent when have you felt the most loved by me that's one of the most vulnerable questions you can ask someone and it's it's usually a beautiful question because they might say oh you know what when you did my surprise party for my birthday or when you came here and served us when your dad was sick or whatever it was if you ask your parent when did you feel the most love for me if they go uh you might have some problem where they might not have a high EQ either or I either so don't be too Trump has that's someone who has a little bit better one intellectual one of the ways you can increase your intellectual vulnerability is learning how you think your thoughts so talking to someone saying I don't expect you to know my thoughts so I want to share my thoughts with you is it okay if we have a different kind of talk when have you felt muffs understood or known by me is a question you'd ask somebody when is the last time like I could ask you that one when did you feel this week the most understood by me and she would probably say when I was in her garden the other day because she's a gardener now like hardcore I when I was going what you're doing here is amazing I love your process your creativity how your minds working she would say that's the time she felt most understood I would say a different very different kind of time so physical vulnerability worked for his loving your own body happily sharing your body despite feelings of imperfection you may have be physically affectionate ways other than sex so if this is mostly for married people but it's you know like learning to love yourself and saying I'm okay and asking the person you're in relationship with if you're if you're married what did you feel the most physically connected to me you know and it may not be sex it could be when you were holding each other whatever you could ask your kids out what kind of physical affection do you like that I give to you I've asked my four and six-year-old that and they have answers my four-year-old says I love him we wrestle and snuggle wrestle and I would like for you to do that with me every day so now I go is it snuggle wrestle time it she's a guest please dim please that tickle she's being physically vulnerable oh that's really precious you know to do that I've had to learn from my children I've learned how to say more to them I need a hug right now you guys I need out of it as a parent sometimes you need the hug you're like you don't need the hug but I need to hug like I'll be like come over here and I don't want to be your baby because we play a game where I threw my baby and I'm like no I'm just need a hug like okay and here's spiritual vulnerability this is what I believe God is saying this is what my faith is in I'm accepting your spirituality even if I can't change it but I want to fully share as much as I can of it when when have you felt the most spiritually connected to me asking someone who's really important to you about that that's a spiritually vulnerable question whenever we spiritually connected the most and that one might be a hard boy because you might look at one of your friends that you're here at church with and go have you felt spiritually connected to me and they go no we've never prayed together we don't worship together we don't take communion together we don't go out on walks and talk about our God journey together I actually don't feel spiritually connected to you and so I'm so afraid of that but in hearing someone even if they say the opposite of what you want to hear that helps you to go oh I do want to do those things they like to take walks and talk about their God journey I'm gonna do that or next time there's a communion I'm gonna grab two of my friends and say let's go deep in this moment let's not let's not let it be symbolism let's go deeper next time there's a prayer ministry time where mark or somebody comes up and says okay we're gonna pray for each other for this like really pray for each other if you're in a small group that are starting back up soon then you look at people around and go I'm gonna not just invest 10 weeks I'm gonna actually go on a spiritual journey of trying to be spiritually vulnerable with these people so these are things you could practice to just develop some vulnerability that you probably have already done some measure up but I'm encouraging you that if this is our superpower as humanity to be vulnerable so that we could actually experience the joy the fullness of life then how can we learn to encourage ourselves to go even deeper and this kind of language I was in a group of senior leaders who are all over 60 and we were talking about this subject with three of us who were under 50 and somewhere in their 30s and we were talking about this and we're so excited and they go that sounds exhausting to talk about that kind of stuff and I said well the reality is if we're not vulnerable then we can't actually connect to the people we want to connect to the way God wants us to connect to so what sounds exhausting well they have to communicate all that you want and your feelings and have to hear from them and I realized a lot of the way we've done Church is you know like your pastor sometimes have 30 meetings they have to have so don't have any means they want to have right so like the it's just true and so a lot of people when they hear these subjects they just hear work they don't hear this is actually a grace or a blessing if I practice this I become better I become more I've become more connected to joy not less connected so if I can do this with my wife it's not like oh we already have a date I know I have to go connect about our hearts too but what do you do on your date I'm I don't know but if you actually look at and go this is a - I'm bringing into my date life I'm not I'm not just making a new time I'm actually bringing this into my family I'm bringing this in I'm gonna be the most vulnerable I can be because there is a disconnect when it feels like just a big taskmaster is up in heaven going now you have to do this - that's not what God's saying he's saying I'm inviting you to be connected in your heart and your emotions in a way that will cause you to feel like the world around you is serving you and helping you and also that I'm with you and a lot of us feel alone because we've not practiced vulnerability so we are alone so much is Stan vulnerability you can do it I promise and if you're doing it already there's new levels full of it and you'll know when you're doing it wrong because it'll just feel like over sharing or the person's not connecting or you'll know when they're not at a place to receive it and so you can have the right boundary up so you don't have expectations that they can't meet and that's really important so I want you to put your hand in your heart and I suppose you'd ask Holy Spirit to show you on a scale from 1 to 10 10 being super vulnerable and 1 being not very vulnerable where you're at and there's no shame or condemnation in this so if you feel like if you look above 1 just be real like I don't feel like I'm very good at this because we're gonna ask Holy Spirit to help us and if you're like at a nine we're gonna ask for a 10 if you're at a 6 we're gonna ask for a 9 you know we're gonna ask God to multiply and give us opportunities to grow in this Holy Spirit show us would you show us a step we can take towards being truly vulnerable with the people were closest to God Lord heal our heart when we're trying to be vulnerable it didn't connect heal those miss connect points so that we don't have those as our frame of reference Jesus if this is what you've asked us to be in wired us for show us how this is our super power show us how to open our heart show us how to open our affections if we're married how to open our bodies Lord I pray that you would show us how to open our spirit - connection God if we've been modeled the opposite I pray even this week that you would come in Holy Spirit speak in a voice that's opposite of what we've heard from our parents and other leaders other people our business managers whatever that she would speak opposite of whatever we've been modeled if it's negative we trust you to lead us so we give you this process code and we ask you to show us how to be vulnerable and connect in you just ask God to talk to you a whole bunch it's gonna be really good and I pray that even as you go out this this today that whoever you go out and see today or have lunch or dinner with or whatever I pray that there would be moments of vulnerability moments of connection moments of beauty because you chose to open yourself up in a way that he designed you for in Jesus name Amen [Music] [Music]

Channel: Expression 58

Views: 15,774

Rating: 4.8488665 out of 5

Keywords: shawn bolz, bolz, cherie bolz, expression 58, expression58, e58, church, los angeles church, revival, jen toledo, jennifer toledo, jona toledo, bolz ministries

Id: lzZEgKdfL80

Length: 49min 10sec (2950 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 26 2019