Time Marches On

Traditions are peculiar. For example, think about some traditions that you like to see for your Birthday. Mine is coming up and I have to tell you, I struggle with a few different aspects of my Birthday. It makes me feel a little weird. I mean, I didn’t do anything. I was just born. We’re really just celebrating the marching of time. Well, we’ll talk about that today, You’re listening to Living the Freedom Life, this is episode 120 and today, awkwardly enough, we are talking about Time Marching On. 

Some people have an entire week where they celebrate their birthday. Some people have a cake, others throw a party. I know a guy who celebrates all month long during his so called Birthday month. To me, that’s excessive but to each their own. 

But to me, the tradition of birthday celebration it’s not a big deal.  The date of my birthday falls on Halloween. Now, I have to tell you, there is a lot that goes with that. 

I don’t think I ever heard my Grandad call me by my given name. He always called me “Spookem” or “Spook”. I loved it. It was important to me because he was the only one who called me that. It was “ours”. You know?

I remember when I was young, I would see people dressing up for Halloween, and I thought they were dressing up for my birthday. Now please, let’s remember, I was really young then.

There was a point in my life where I really struggled with my birthday falling on Halloween. what did it really mean that I was born on that day?  

Then, I didn’t know if fate controlled things, the Stars, Karma, or the universe; I just didn’t know.  So, I came to the conclusion that I was errantly evil because I was born on that day. It was awful, because I let it define who I was. But deep down, I knew that wasn’t accurate. 

Until one day, as they say, I met Jesus.  Now, it really wasn’t 1 day, but it was a series of events that led to a different awareness and eternal conclusion in my life. I realized there was meaning and a Creator,…and my Savior. He’d been there all along. And when I was able to realize that and experience it for myself, it changed everything. God wasn’t just a concept in an old book, he became real. 

And with that realness, came the awareness of my eternal life. We’re going to live for eternity. That’s something that’s hard to really wrap your head around. 

Now in the aspect of eternity, celebrating a birthday seems so…small now. Doesn’t it? 

It’s not that I’m against birthdays. And whenever someone’s birthday comes along, I want to celebrate them and their life. I want to celebrate with them.  I’m a very rich man when it comes to friends and I treasure those relationships. So, this isn’t an anti-birthday episode of this podcast.

I guess what I’m saying is, my birthday, to me, is growing less important. 

I suppose through the years, God is showing me that time is less important than the moment. 

2 Cor 4:18

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

You see, we are to build moments in our life that are meaningful.

We are to build friendships, so that we can share those moments with them. 

So I guess this birthday wish that I have, is a wish for you.

That you are able to tell those friends that you have in your life, how much they mean to you today, and every day. Build moments that are meaningful with them. Because Time Marches On.  but moments, they last forever.

Living the Freedom Life, this is Kyle.

Squirrel!

Have you ever been driving along, minding your own business, and saw a squirrel come out in the middle of the road? 

Why do you think there are so many squirrels that are flattened on our streets and highways?

Okay, besides the tires on vehicles. 

It’s not like they’re slow. They’re fast enough to get out of the way. 

Why do you think so many squirrels meet their demise?

It’s because of indecision.  They can see danger approaching, and they’re able to see all the options before them, but they can’t make a decision. 

You’re listening to Living the Freedom Life, this is episode 119 and today we’re talkin about Squirrel!

Don’t worry, There were no squirrels harmed during the research or production of this podcast.

But picture it, there you are taking a nice drive down some wooded backroad, listening to your FAVORITE podcast, and all of a sudden you see a squirrel dart into the road in front of you, right in your path. 

He doges left, then pauses, you know, they always stop. And you’re getting close. Then he jukes right, he goes back to the side, then he makes a run for it to the other side of the road. 

There’s so many squirrels that get run over because they can’t make a decision.

THAT’S what kills them!

Yes, today’s episode is to show you how important it is for us to just make a decision. 

You see, we are much like the squirrels. We see an opportunity coming, and we’re also able to see, sometimes at an alarming rate, all of our options at once and it overwhelms us. 

Now a squirrel has a tiny brain. No, I’m not saying you have a tiny brain. What I’m saying is that if a squirrel is able to see all his options and get overwhelmed, and you have much more mental horsepower than a squirrel, well. You see where I’m going with this? 

Our brain is magnificent. When we set our mind towards a goal, there is little that can stop us. 

There have been studies that show this. When someone is convinced and believes that they have been burned on their arm, by heat, even in a cold environment, the brain can produce burn marks on that arm. When they really didn’t get burned. But the brain was convinced of it. 

The brain is extremely powerful.

Sometimes it’s so powerful that it can cripple us. When are imagination works overtime, we can imagine and play out scenarios that haven’t even happened yet. To the point of freezing us from action. All the while, a car is headed right for us!

Look, today, my message is short. 

Make a decision. 

If you are “waiting on God”, I can tell you from experience, He’s not long winded. He’s not going to give you this long drawn out answer in novel form. He’s probably not building this great big sign in the sky for you to take action. He wants you to realize that you need to believe in your abilities just like He believes in your abilities. He put them there. He made you. 

Even if it’s wrong, even if you mess up, Make a decision and take action. I will guarantee you, you will learn from your experience, grow from it, and you will be a better person because of it.

Maybe you already know, deep down which way to go and He’s just waiting, the world is just waiting, one person just may be waiting for YOU to take action. 

WHo knows, the Kingdom of Heaven may be shown to someone because of you taking the initiative and making a decision to take action on something. 

This is almost verbatim of what someone told me about starting this podcast. Living the Freedom Life. I enjoy doing this, but then again, it challenges me. I don’t want to say the wrong things. I want to have something interesting to talk about. I want to offer something of value to our community. 

But here is what happens. 

When I engage my brain in this process, I begin to see all of the options. I paint scenarios. I have pretend conversations with myself and sometimes with the people I would like to have as a guest and I find them interesting. And then I see other things, like what if it’s boring? What if I DO say something wrong or I might sound like I fell off of a tractor in Tennessee. My mind, it works so fast sometimes that I freeze and I’m able to quickly justify to just not take action. 

Then, just as our friend the squirrel, I get plowed over and wonder what in the world just happened? 

So, let me encourage you today, if you have something that you’ve really been putting off, remember our flattened friend in the middle of the road. Please, let us learn something from him. 

Make a decision. 

Even if it’s wrong, it will benefit us. 

In the longer term, we just may find that something just might sneak up on us. We may be Living the Freedom Life before we know it. 

I’m going to go make some decisions and I hope that you are too. So until next week, Living the Freedom Life, this is Kyle.

My Critic

After doing 118 Episodes of this audio podcast, you learn a few things along the way. I mean, I’ve had an Audio career most of my life, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’ve learned mostly about myself. I mean, this podcast has taught me A LOT about how differently I write things and outline thoughts and how they actually come across to you, our listeners. 

Our main goal is to help people do exactly what the Title implies; We want to help people, we want to help you, Live the Freedom Life that God originally intended you to live. That’s it. That’s the bottom line. But I have to confess, there is a major hurdle that stands in my way and I want to get it out in the open today and share it with you. 

You’re listening to Living the Freedom Life, this is episode 118 and today we are talking about My Critic.

Now, I know some of you who are listening, you know me, personally. Some of you do a wonderful job at letting me know that I am loved. In addition to that, I’ll bet that when you heard about our topic today (we are talking today about My Critic), that you may have gotten a little defensive on my behalf. Well, count to 10 and cool down. Don’t let your imagination get away from you. Thank you, but let’s tap the brakes on that for a moment. 

You see, yeah, I’ve done and said some things that I shouldn’t have. I could have chosen to say them in a different way, used a different analogy or example to get a point across. I get it. Not everything we say here has a sugar coating on it. I’ve been informed that I have offended some people by just my accent. To me, I don’t have one, but apparently to others’, well, you get the point. 

We’ve talked about the phrase “You find what you focus on” and according to some conversations that we’ve had, well, let’s just say I have been chastened. And they found what they were apparently looking for. 

Oh, I’ve been corrected on the usage of scripture, I’ve used the wrong reference, misquoted a LOT of people, taken things out of context, put things into the wrong context, I’ve gotten too emotional, I’ve even cried when it wasn’t appropriate to share some things, I’ve violated privacy and I think I’ve plagiarized more than once. 

And these are things (believe it or not) that I face on a daily basis. I’m serious. These are comments that I hear more often than what is probably healthy. And that is why I’m sharing it with YOU today. Because how many of you know that when we bring things into the light, they lose their power of darkness over us? Right? 

This is a real struggle and I face it daily. 

However, on a side note, This is not, I repeat, this is NOT your cue to shower me with positive comments, or encouragement. There are plenty of you who do that and do it well. That’s not what I’m talking about. 

This is also not a call to beat up my critic either. That just broods anger and incites things that don’t need feeding. Don’t give it the energy. It’s not worth it. 

You see, I want to share this with you today, because This Critic is ruthless and needs to be stopped. It’s relentless, and just downright mean. I have to fight him every time I reflect on something I’ve done. Yeah, you’ve guessed it. That critic, is me. Well, it’s really not me, but it’s the enemy using my own logic against me. Trying to whisper the what if’s and the you should haves in my ear and then he just lets my own fallible logic take over. That’s when the damage is done. 

It gets out of hand quickly. And I wonder if it happens to you too. 

You see, I used to say this quite often. “I’m harder on me than you’ll ever be.” because I want to “be better”. That’s where it all starts. I want to improve. All of us have the yearning inside of us to hear “Well done, good and faithful”. Right? So, when I’m critical of myself, it comes from a place of betterment, not meanness. That’s why it’s a lie! That’s why we have to pay attention to the distortion. That’s why we have to, not just familiarize ourselves with the truth, but KNOW the truth. That’s when we find ourselves to be free.

But I’m still “Harder on me than you’ll ever be”. If you do this too, you know what I’m talking about. 

But something strange starts to happen when other people discover this about me, and they probably do it to you too. When they realize that I am my own worst critic, then they don’t want to “correct” me. They shy away from it. Mainly because they don’t want to be an accomplice to me being beat up, when I’m beating up myself. They don’t even want to witness it.

They feel as if they are “covering me with grace” by not correcting me or pointing out something. 

Now, I get that, but is it grace? Is it really grace by turning a blind eye when I’m over critical? Well, grace may already be there, but I’ve learned that when Grace is already there and you add grace to the grace that’s already there, it becomes a dis-grace. When you add grace to the grace already there, that is a dis-grace. In other words, you could be doing the opposite of what your intentions are by the lack of action, the lack of obedience when the Holy Spirit prompts you.

And that is wrong. Partial obedience is still disobedience.

We need correction. I need correction. We are made to experience community and sometimes that community isn’t always smiles and rainbows and sappy sweet. Sometimes it means that we correct one another. Just like it says in Prov 27:6 “Faithful are the wounds of a friend”. Yeah, what you may have to say to me may sting because no one really likes to be corrected. But done in the right way, it builds a stronger character and sharpens one another. If you correct me, well two things happen. You learn how to have a loving, honest, and real conversation about what is right and maybe what is wrong. And the other thing that happens is that I become more aware of myself and how I am perceived. I get to be closer and more honest with myself and with you. I gain so much more in those moments. 

We need to have an appropriate example of correction in our lives so we know what is appropriate when dealing with our own judgment towards ourselves. Most of us are mean to ourselves. The way we correct ourselves and downgrade our own thinking. I need you to step up, correct me when I’m wrong. So that the next time I face my inner Critic, I can appropriately have an healthy example of how a person is to be corrected. Not the same toxic, degrading language and self-deprivation that I usually face. I need you to correct me. I need a healthy example of what it means to be corrected in love, because when I do it, it’s not because I love me. Be bold. I know it’s scary to correct someone. It’s actually counter culture. Just make sure you are doing it with someone you love. I mean really love. And make sure you give them this same right for them to come to you. When we do that, just sit back and watch the friendship grow. 

So I want to free you to correct me. Because when we do open those avenues for correction, we will find that there is now, much more room for us to . . . you guessed it. . . Live the Freedom Life. 

Until next week, Living the Freedom Life, this is Kyle. 

We Are the Champions My Friend

Episode 117

Everyone wants to be a champion. Whether you are competitive or not. Everyone wants to be a winner. You’re listening to Living the Freedom Life, this is episode 117 and today we are shouting from…well, wherever you are, that We Are the Champions My Friend.

Everyone wants to be a champion. Deep down, no one wants a participation trophy. and as I said earlier, it doesn’t matter if you’re competitive or not, everyone wants to be a winner. 

Everyone wants to conquer, not to dominate or anything like that, that’s not what I’m talkin about. Everyone wants victory in their life. 

Do you feel like you have victory in your life?  I mean, do you really?  It’s okay.  I don’t feel like I do.  but that doesn’t remove the fact that I want it, I want victory in my life. and quite frankly, Jesus does too. He wants us to become Victorious.  In fact, He banked his life on it. 

So, I ask you again, do you want victory in your life?  Do you want to be the person that Jesus had in mind when he was on the cross? Do you want to be the person that God originally created you to be? 

Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.  So now, the million-dollar question is, how? 

That’s the question. Because, I mean, let’s be honest here, anyone that claims they have victory in every area of their life, is either #1, really arrogant and religious, or #2, they definitely don’t have many areas of their life that they look at on a regular basis, or #3, they are gravely deceived about themselves. Yeah I know, all three of them really are the same thing, I just said it in three different ways. They are deceived. That’s the bottom line. the Bible says “ it is I who no longer live, the Christ who lives Within Me” Gal 2:20

So according to all this, I’m dead. A dead man can’t put forth the effort to be a champion. But according to this, there is a conqueror, more than a conqueror, that lives in me. and you. 

Listen, I know that every week when you listen to this podcast, you may not feel like a conqueror, you may not feel like you’re living your best life, you may not even feel like you’re going to be able to hold it together. But you’re still here. you’re still putting in the work. if you are a client of ours, you’re logging on to the website and looking at the session notes, you’ve written down certain things on Post-it notes and note pads and journals and you keep them by you to retrain the wiring that’s in our mind, you’re putting forth the work that it takes to rewire our way of thinking that old way of thinking is done, you are putting new skin in the game because you are a new creation. you may not feel like it today, you may not feel like it tomorrow, but you keep putting the work in, you keep investing, you don’t chicken out you write it out. You are one of the ones who gets up and you are in training, because that is our approach, you are sticking to the program that is designed for you, you keep pushing, even though it’s not perfect, you feel like you aren’t perfect but you keep pushing through that insecurity and the self talk In the times you let yourself down, you keep pushing through. 

That!!!!! That is being a champion. Being a champion isn’t standing behind a Podium and someone putting a medal around your neck or putting a trophy in your hand. being a champion is working with tears in your eyes, sweat on your eyebrows so much that it stings your eyes. Those are the times that you’re being a champion. Because very few others are willing to do that work.  It’s working no matter what conditions you have to do it in.  It’s late nights and early mornings. It takes courage to continually show up like you do. 

Being a champion, is so much more than being Victorious, It’s so much more than being a head of anyone, being a champion Is really being the person God created you to be. And once you learn that all you need to do is show up and be willing, you’re already the champion He created.

Because he definitely didn’t have anything less in mind when he created you. 

I am amazed at the people who call me coach. I’m amazed at the people who listen to this podcast every week. and I’m Amazed that you’re here, showing up, yeah, we get knocked down, but we get up once more. that’s living the freedom life. 

I’m not going to pretend that I know each and every one of you, but I can tell you that I’m so grateful for you today. You are a champion.  Living the Freedom Life, this is Kyle.

Cows Don’t Give Milk

My Granddad was a dairyman. That means that he had a huge farm and he milked cows for a living. These big tanker trucks would come on a daily basis and collect the raw milk from the stainless steel tanks he had and they would process it so that you could soak your Tony TigTiger flak for the morning Breakfast. He taught me a lot. He had little one liners that he would say that, over the years, have proven to me of what gems they are. I want to share one with you today. 

You’re listening to Living the Freedom Life, this is episode 116 and today I’m sharing with you the fact that Cows Don’t Give Milk.

Have you ever heard the statement “It works if you work it”? Here is another one, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”. Well, how about this one, “Cows don’t give milk”. You see, all three of those can mean the same thing. The last one means a lot to me because of my Granddad sharing it with me while I was little, while we were in his Milk Barn. 

I have learned this; The key to freedom, success and happiness is this: “Cows don’t give milk.” 

People think that cows GIVE milk. That it’s automatic and free: We approach so many things in life that if “I wish, I ask…..then, I obtain.” 

We look at everything in life through this lens more and more. Especially in Christianity. We’ll talk about that in a minute.

Back to my example…

The cows don’t give milk, you have to milk them. You have to get up at 4 in the morning, go to the field, call them up, walk through the corral full of manure, risk getting kicked, trampled, multiple times, haul the hay and feed inside and put it in the troughs, yes, there may be automatic milkers but you still have to put them on, maintain them, clean them for storage and clean the glass pipes the milk is pumped through to the stainless steel tanks. 

You have to clean the entire barn, because, well, cows aren’t exactly the most clean of animals. Milk is white, it needs to be clean and pure. There are state inspections and federal regulations. Oh and besides, you are feeding them the best feed available for their milk production, so it’s not cheap. Maintaining their health and records. Not to mention bookkeeping, forecasting and herd management (that’s a big one). OH, and by the way, you’re not just doing this once a day, you have milk twice…every day. That means no holidays. It’s a lot of constant work. And I’m just hitting the highlights. 

The reason I’m telling you this is because you have to do the work yourself. Even though there may be some things that are automatic, and to the outsider, just because one thing is called “automatic” that doesn’t negate the hundred other things going on in the background that have to get done. But you have to be the one doing the work. No one is going to do it for you. That brood cow doesn’t “give” you anything. Life doesn’t give you anything. You have to work for it. 

We overlook this in so many areas of life. 

I’m surprised at how many people take this approach to Coaching and Mental Health. Some people think that we just fix people. No. We come alongside our clients and show them, train them, and provide them safe pathways to do the work for themselves. This way, they know how to do it when they are no longer our clients. They can go…you guessed it, Live the Freedom Life.

Look, This applies to everything in life.  

I’ll say it again. I have learned this; The key to freedom, success and happiness is realizing that: “Cows don’t give milk.”

Now, don’t go off context here. I am not saying that we have to work for our salvation. This is what the entire book of Galatians addresses. That work is done for us through the Cross of Jesus Christ. He has already paid for our sin, He died on that cross and He rose out of the grave to conquer death. We cannot work our way to Heaven. Even if we had a tower to get there. That is not what I’m saying here. 

But we are responsible for receiving healing and accepting Him. We are responsible for carrying our cross. We are responsible for sacrificing ourselves, dying to our own desires. We are responsible for choosing to (well, first) study to show ourselves approved, to find out what Jesus did and how He lived His life, and we are responsible for choosing to follow His example. That’s what the term “working out your salvation” means. That’s the process of sanctification. 

It takes work to get up and have some relationship building time with God. It takes applying yourself to not react, to stop in the middle of your emotions and it takes sacrificing you wanting to blast your reaction to the person in front of you. And it takes sacrificing time to remove yourself from a situation. 

Yes, there are some automatic things that God has done for you, like I described in my Grandad’s automatic milkers. But those automatic milkers are a part of the work that my Grandad wasn’t responsible for. That was up to the technology of the milker manufacturer, to make it automatic. My grandad had the responsibility of all the other work that needed to be done. He made the daily sacrifices it took to get you your milk for breakfast. 

That is the secret to Living the Freedom Life, the cow does not give milk. You milk her or you don’t get milk. What I am saying is that you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to do the work, and it’s not done in a day. It’s a part of life.

In fact we are just trying to get out of the result of what happened in the Garden of Eden. Remember? After the fall, God said “Adam, where are you?” He knew. Adam went into the blame game. “This woman You gave to me…” Right? 

Well, you know the result of what happened. He caused Adam to work the soil and Eve to toil in childbirth. In other words, because of the separation from God that we caused by our sin, it will take work to get back there again. Now, a part of that is the work that Jesus has already done. We discussed that. But there is also a part of that work where we are responsible for it. 

But life is not a matter of wishing or wanting, it’s a matter of working. So remember – “Cows don’t give milk. You have to work for it”

Home

When I say the word “Home”, what do you think of? What comes to mind when you are thinking of that place you call Home? You see there are a few different types of this place called Home. It can be a place in your past, and you definitely have a present home. I’d like to talk more about this with you today. You’re listening to Living the Freedom Life, this is Episode 115 and today we are talking about Home.

If you want to write a good country song, write it about Home. There are hundreds of them. 

If you want a good rock song, write about Home and being on the road touring. It seems like every good rock band has their version of how empty glamour is without Home.

Rap? . . . well, it was a term of endearment when you got called somebody’s homie.

I’ll bet that even screamo (you know the music that sounds like the Cookie Monster is the lead vocalist?) even screamo music probably has songs about Home. 

Come to think of it, there’s even a Home button on your phone and computer!

What comes to mind when you think about Home? I mean, really, honestly. Without installing any religious filter or giving a Miss America answer. What is the first real thought when you think of Home?

Home is supposed to be where you are centered. Where it’s supposed to be a safe place. A place where you can be yourself when the world demands only your best. It’s supposed to be your sanctuary, a place of refuge.

I know that if you’ve lived long enough to know what Home is, they aren’t always good memories of Home. Life happens at Home. Sometimes, life is messy. And when people are themselves, things can get selfish, arrogant, and just ugly. We need to remember that we are human and sometimes that human factor can just erode away the sanctity of Home.  

Home can also have good memories attached to it.

We have to choose how we remember. We have a choice. All through the Bible we see examples of being determined enough and choosing to believe. Because this shapes how we feel, how we feel shapes the way we think, and how we think shapes how we interact with the world around us. 

It’s a cycle. It takes time to see it. And it takes practice. You can become an outside observer of your own thoughts and see this cycle unfold in any situation. We use this with a lot of our clients. 

How we remember an event in our lives, shapes how we feel. 

How we feel, shapes the way we think, and how we think, shapes and influences our actions. And how many of you know that our actions or, how we interact with the world determines how we perceive our abilities. And our abilities, or how we believe we are able to do things, . . .there really is a lot to this that I just can’t fit into our time together today. Maybe we can discuss it more at another time. Maybe we can do something with another episode.

But how we think of Home, how we choose to remember Home, not just remembering Home, but how we see our current Home, no matter if it’s a cardboard box or a palace, Home is where the Heart is. I guess the question is, where is your heart?

That’s a good question, where is your heart? Because it puts us in check. It makes us pause and assess the condition of our heart, or to put it another way, How’s your spirit? 

We need a place to access those deep places of our spirit. That is what Home speaks to…the deep places in our spirit. The things that God uses to heal, forgive, empower, and continue in a new and victorious way. 

If you are struggling today with unforgiveness, or hurt in any way, God wants to heal that. And it may just depend on how we see Home. Spend some time today in that place you call Home. Whether its in the past or in your present, spend some time there today. Invite Him into that place and see what happens. 

We are out of time today but I want to invite you to visit our website. Look around. You just may discover ways to Live the Freedom Life. Until next week, Living the Freedom Life, this is Kyle

Gabby Romano Week 2

Last week our guest was Gabby Romano and after we ran out of time, we began to talk about some things that I want to share with you. So please join in on the conversation. You’re listening to Living the Freedom Life, this is Episode 114 and today, we are digging deeper into Boundaries.