Breaking Bread Podcast

Aren't options great? So much to choose! Yet Kathy Knochel brings a surprising twist to the bliss of options. In this episode of Breaking Bread, she will help us see the shadow of options and the surprising value that comes by way of commitment.

Commitment frees us in two ways. It frees us from and it frees us to.

• It frees us from options which frees us to focus.
• It frees us from distractions which frees us to invest.
• It frees us from paralysis which frees us to purpose.

Attention is currency. It has purchasing power. No one needs to explain this to Facebook, Instagram and Snap Chat of course. But for those of us who spend our attention a little here and a little there, we may be surprised to discover attention is not just petty cash. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Arlan Miller and Matt Kaufmann connect the dots between what we pay attention to and who we become.

Wonderfully, hope grows large. God intends to use our attention to grow us into the likeness of Christ.

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 2 Cor 3:18

Marital distress happens. Pain will occur. And when it does, our attachment styles will kick into full gear. Soon we will be behaving according to a script that was written a long time ago. However, these powerful scripts can be rewritten. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kaleb Beyer explains what attachment styles are, how they are written, how they can be rewritten and the difference it makes in the marriage relationship.

Four Attachment Styles:

1. Secure Attachment – when distress occurs, pain shared in relationship and soothed through the relationship. This attachment style is healthy.

The Past: Often a secure attachment is constructed when caretakers have not dismissed emotions from children nor have they catastrophized matters.

1. Avoiding Attachment – when distress occurs, the avoider turns down its volume by moving away from relationship and does not seek soothing for the distress from spouse. This attachment style is unhealthy.

The Past: When in distress, a child seeks soothing from caretaker but does not find it. The caretaker is not present, or is overwhelmed. The child learns independence and internalizes the struggle.

1. Pleaser Attachment – when distress occurs, the pleaser turns up its volume and pursues the relationship in an anxious and hypervigilant way. Distress is only soothed when the spouse is pleased. This attachment style is unhealthy.

The Past: When a child was in distress, it intensified distress in caretaker. Child learned that they were responsible for the pain in others.

1. Vacillator/chaotic attachment – when distress occurs, responses are very unpredictable. Matters can be exaggerated or underappreciated. This attachment style is unhealthy.

The Past: When distress occurred in childhood, confusion played out. Addiction or abuse may have been present.

When distress in your relationship turns unhealthy, seek to do the following.

1. Recognize what happens internally when you are distressed. Do you pursue? Avoid? Vacillate?
2. Seek to make space for the distress you feel and slowing down the automatic script.
3. Understand your spouse engages with distress according to an attachment style also.
4. Seek to share with your spouse the automatic script that plays out when you are in distress and acknowledge how this can be unhelpful for your spouse. Express your desire to learn a new and nonreactive way to relate to your spouse that soothes distress through relationship.
5. Accept that this process of rewriting scripts takes time.

Resources:

One easy and quick way to identify your attachment style is to take the following quiz – The Love Style Quiz. This quiz takes about 15 – 20 minutes to complete and is designed to help you discover your primary attachment style.

How We Love: Discover Your Love Style, Enhance Your Marriage Authors: Milan & Kay Yerkovich This book seeks to show how early life experiences create an underlying blueprint that shapes your beliefs, behavior, and expectations in your marriage. The authors identify four styles or blueprints and provide principles to help you break free of negative patterns and enhance intimacy.

I should know by now that yelling seldom works. Moreover, it most often works against me. Fortunately, we don't have to be screamers. On this episode of Breaking Bread, Brian Sutter explains how an introspective person makes gains on his/her anger.

• Emotions respond to an impetus and fuel a response.
• While some emotions fuel a deactivation of our system, anger activates our system.
• The impetus' that provoke anger and the response it fuels are often constructed from our past experience with the emotion.
• Gains can be made in controlling our anger. They will require slowing down and being introspective.
  • Notice your triggers. What situations provoke anger in you?
    • Examples: words or phrases, facial expressions, kids, spouse, authority
  • Notice your body. What sensations occur before anger sets in?
    • Examples: shortened breathing, heat flash
  • Notice what is beneath the surface. Anger is a secondary emotion. It responds to deeper emotions.
    • Examples: shame, hurt, insecurity, loss, etc.
  • Notice what your anger is attaching itself to.
    • Example: Do you think you are angry at your child when you are actually angry at yourself?
  • Notice the degree to which you personalize comments and situations. Do you exaggerate negative feedback?
    • Example: When challenged, do you leap to the erroneous conclusion that you are not liked?
  • Notice the thoughts you think to yourself after the impetus and before your anger. Anger will play on these thoughts. Are they true?
    • Example: When your child makes a poor choice, do you think "he will never turn out!" This erroneous thought will not properly inform your emotions.

Solomon the wise said, "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty." Those of us who have lost the battle of self-control know just how mighty "the slow to anger" are. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Brian Sutter helps us understand the emotion of anger. He explains its purpose, how it works and how to live wisely in your own experience so that you might be slow to anger.

The church is God's family. To participate in church, is to participate in "together." What if "together" is difficult for you? In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kristen Schwind and Ron Messner give voice to the introvert in church. They highlight both the weaknesses and the strengths our personalities pose in how we experience the "together" aspect of church.

Who is an introvert?

• A person who finds solitude as life-giving and human interaction as life-expending.

Who is an extrovert?

• A person who finds human interaction as life-giving and solitude as life-expending.

How can introversion in the church be challenging?

• Fellowship can be difficult.
• By being reserved, individuals can be misjudged as aloof or uncaring.
• By being reserved, individuals can be passed over for duties.
• By not being always present, individuals can be misjudged as uncommitted.

How can we walk in an understanding way towards the introvert in church?

• Be a safe person to talk to.
• Use their gift of listening and employ them in discipleship opportunities.
• Learn from their ability to find life in solitude.
• Provide structure in social settings. Corporate worship, small group Bible studies, committee work and various church duties are excellent examples of this.

What encouragement is there for the introvert?

• Be careful not to fall into isolation.
• Challenge yourself to step out and engage the community of the church.
• Make full use of the structured social events such as worship, teaching and more.

The church is God's family. To participate in church, is to participate in "together." What if "together" is difficult for you? In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kristen Schwind and Ron Messner give voice to the introvert in church. They highlight both the weaknesses and the strengths our personalities pose in how we experience the "together" aspect of church.

Who is an introvert?

• A person who finds solitude as life-giving and human interaction as life-expending.

Who is an extrovert?

• A person who finds human interaction as life-giving and solitude as life-expending.

How can introversion in the church be challenging?

• Fellowship can be difficult.
• By being reserved, individuals can be misjudged as aloof or uncaring.
• By being reserved, individuals can be passed over for duties.
• By not being always present, individuals can be misjudged as uncommitted.

How can we walk in an understanding way towards the introvert in church?

• Be a safe person to talk to.
• Use their gift of listening and employ them in discipleship opportunities.
• Learn from their ability to find life in solitude.
• Provide structure in social settings. Corporate worship, small group Bible studies, committee work and various church duties are excellent examples of this.

What encouragement is there for the introvert?

• Be careful not to fall into isolation.
• Challenge yourself to step out and engage the community of the church.
• Make full use of the structured social events such as worship, teaching and more.

The communication process is hard enough with just words. Add emotion to the mix and sometimes we might as well be speaking a foreign language. This is because the present moment meaning we attribute to emotions has been constructed in the past. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kaleb Beyer untangles the knot spousal communication can find itself in because we are not decoding the emotions in the room correctly.

• There are six basic emotions common to all people: happiness, sadness, surprise, shame, anger and fear.
• Each of these emotions has a lot of shades. For example, anger spans from irritation to rage with many experiences in between.
• The meaning we make out of emotions is not common among all people. For example, anger for one person means something different to another.
• The meaning we make out of emotions was constructed in past experiences. For example, how a person did or did not experience soothing when anger arose in their past largely formed up the meaning they attribute to anger today.
• In marriage relationships, emotional messages can get mixed and can set off an unhealthy cycle of communication. Each one "hearing" the incorrect meaning from the other.
• Emotions teach us about ourselves. Slowing down and noticing the cues that trigger emotions and the meaning we construct is very instructive.
• By understanding our emotional experience and that of our spouse, we can better interact in an understanding way.

Identify formation follows a simple path: Exploration to Commitment. Exploration must precede commitment. Commitment must precede a settled identity. Yet, taking the path is not necessarily easy. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Ted Witzig Jr. explains some of the finer points along the journey to belonging, purpose and worth.

Identity answers the question, who I am and who I am not. An answer that is multi-faceted -both objective and subjective. Sometimes obvious and other times obscure. And to make it trickier, it shifts over time. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Ted Witzig Jr helps us understand the nature of identity formation and how we can better steward this area of our life.

Show notes:

Identity is:

• The sense of self - who I am and who I am not.

Aspects that make up identity:

• Demographics: age, sex, address
• Relationships: child, father, mother, husband, wife
• Roles: job, family, volunteer
• Values: likes, dislikes, religion, beliefs, loyalties
• Experiences: health, hobbies, accomplishments, ownership
• Personalities: gifts, character traits, talents

Events that unsettle identity:

• Development
• Loss
• Transition
• Role shifts
• Experiences
• Belief shifts

Process for forming identity:

• From exploration: trying, investigating, experiencing, researching
• To commitment: being settled, resolved and grounded

Troubles in forming identity:

• Moving to commitment without exploration.
  • This person's sense of self appears settled. But it is not their own. They have adopted another's identity. Crisis in life will likely cause distress.
• Remaining in exploration and not moving to commitment.
  • This person is restless, always searching without resolve.
• Not exploring and not committing.
  • This person is unaware of their need for identity formation.

Identity brings about:

• A sense of belonging, grounding, purpose, priority and worth.

The most important identity:

• A Christ-centered identity, being a child of God, is the identity from which all other identities rest. This identity offers stability when all others may ebb and flow.