Divine Designed Life Podcast

Life and labels can pigeonhole us and it’s way too, way too easy for us to take on a category as an identity. Christ has a thought, and a dream of who we are, and when we allow ourselves to be labeled, it prevent us from being able to experience and express our identity in Him.

From Labels to Identity in Christ

Walk and talk with John Enslow

Well hey there! So I’ve learned something as I’ve passed through this earth and traveled all over the place and just made some discoveries. One of the discoveries I made was that life and labels pigeonhole us and that it’s way too, way too easy for us to take on a category as our identity. And that is tragic. It’s devastating because normally these categories, these labels, these even roles go counter to our actual identity in Christ. Christ has a thought, and a dream of who we are, and when we allow ourselves to be labeled, it prevent us from being able to experience and express our identity in Him.

so let me give you some examples. So say all your life you have been called stupid. You take that on as your identity. You hold that as truth and you become stupid. Christ didn’t make you stupid. You may not be an engineer. You may not be mathematical, but you have a beautifully set intelligence for your world, for your path, for your journey and your destiny. If I receive the destiny of the label, it could prevent me from actually living out my God-given identity. And that’s tragic. How about worthless. You’re worthless! That’s not what Christ says at all about me. He doesn’t say that I’m worthless at all. My worth and value is huge and ginormous. Just look at the price that He paid for my life. His own son, a spotless lamb was given, not because I’m worthless but because I have great value. A lot of these labels pigeonhole us and attempt to convince us that what we are being labeled how we are being labeled is the truth. It’s just not.

As humans we like to kind of hold others in, even ourselves, in to a category, into a label, into a role because it is easier. If I label you a certain way, it’s easier to control you, to second-guess you, to predict exactly what you’re gonna do. And if I receive a label then guess what I’m gonna do exactly what I’m being pigeonheld to.  In our world right now we have so many different labels, so many different categories, so many different identities, and their limiting. They’re not freeing, they’re not secure, they’re not growth, they’re confining. They just literally confine us to a limited and abbreviated existence and usually the existence is not what we’re supposed to be, who we’re supposed to be, and how we’re supposed to experience this world.

Think about the kid when he was growing up. They called him a faggot. If I limit myself to that label, I’m controlled by that. Why do we have to have specific labels? It’s not truth. Bastard there’s another one. You’re called bastard by a sibling or by others and you literally feel abandoned. You feel like a fatherless child. It’s not true. It’s just not true. I have a father and I have a dad and I’m not a bastard. Even I f I didn’t have the situation where I have a father and mother and they’re married… I’m not a bastard. That’s an Identity, that’s a role, that’s a label control and if I believe it, then I will limit myself in my existence.

So as I walk through this world I don’t want to adhere my existence and my identity to anyone given label… no label actually. I don’t wanna confine my life. I don’t want myself by someone’s opinion of me or someone’s judgment of me. If I had believed a lot of the labeling that I had as I was growing up, I would’ve been crushed. I would’ve not been able to write. I was told by children in school and teachers that I essentially was stupid and it was devastating to me. I had a hard time reading aloud and I had a hard time reading. I took that on. I took that on as an identity, that I was stupid. Those words may not have even been used against me, but they were implied, and I took them on truth.  And for years and years and years I just maintained a thought. I must be stupid because I can’t read as fast as others. While I had comprehension, I wasn’t a speed reader and a lot of children were able to read a lot faster. So I took on that and then years and years of someone pouring life into me, telling me that that wasn’t the truth, believing in my intellect, believing in my intelligence believing in my ability to communicate changed my world. Now I’m an author. I’ve got multiple books written and I have discovered that I am anything but stupid.  So I’m glad I no longer take that role as my identity.

So I challenged you to look into your life and see what roles, what labels, what categories have been, assigned to you that you’ve taken on, that you’ve received as your truth, as your identity, and then reflect that against what God says about you. Listen to Him, let Him speak to you. Let Him tell you who you are according to how He’s made you. I believe it’s gonna change your world. It’s gonna change everything about you.

You’re not required to take on the identities, the roles, the labels that someone put upon you. Those that somebody casts on you. We’re not required to do that and I don’t have to label myself. Sometimes we feel safer if we can label our self. “Oh well, I am just…whatever!” I’m no label! What I am is John Enslow. That’s what I am and I have an identity based on Christ’s idea of me and what He has for me and that’s my identity. That’s who I am. That’s my label. My label is not confined to anything, but what Christ says about me. I challenge you to go with that, to go with the identity that Christ has for you what He says about you, what He desires for you. It’s life-changing and it’s wondrous.  So I love you. I appreciate you. Thank you for listening and I look forward to sharing some more real soon.

Unveil the truth of who you are beyond the labels and roles the world has placed on you. In this journey of self-discovery, we’ll explore how to shed limiting identities and embrace your true self as defined by Christ. Break free from the confines of societal expectations and step into the fullness of your God-given identity.

The post From Labels to Identity in Christ – Episode #878 first appeared on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

The post From Labels to Identity in Christ – Episode #878 appeared first on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

Christ didn’t just come for one part of me, He came for me as a whole. He loves my body, He loves my soul, and He loves my spirit.

Healing is Holistic for Harmony – Recovery is for the Whole

Walk and talk with John Enslow

I just think many times we miss out on the completeness of what Christ paid for. Christ didn’t just come for one part of me, He came for me as a whole. He loves my body, He loves my soul, and He loves my spirit, and he wants the entirety of our being to be redeemed, attended to, ministered to and loved

Well hey there, so I have something that’s coming up over, and over, and over right now and I’m really trying to focus on it and I wanted to bring it to you today and just share with you when I’m discover. Often when we’re dealing with shame or sin or recovery I find that we try to triage or categorize in order to segregate and isolate the issue. So often in our trauma what we’ll do is, we’ll focus…hyper focus, on one particular area and will try to drill down on that. And what I’m finding is that is ineffective. Again as I’ve stated before, it’s fear based, it’s not faith based. And here’s another thing it’s not, it’s not love. When we have trauma we need love. We are needing love. And when we’re isolating, segregating, categorizing and containing our trauma and our trauma response, we’re losing the effect of any kind of healing.

So why is this? What I’ve discovered is that we are holistic. We are constantly looking for homeostasis and for harmony. And when we triage and we set aside a response that we’re having trauma, be it porn, be it alcoholism, be it food, be it sex…be whatever it is. Whatever we’re doing to contain that pain and that trauma we’re isolating ourselves from our own healing and from the Lord’s hand.

Love is the source of all healing. Love is where we gain healing and love is ultimately what heals us. So what is this look like? When you’re looking to gain homeostasis, when you’re trying to get harmony, you can’t focus on say the soul without dealing with the body, you can’t deal with the body without dealing with the spirit. You have to holistically deal with it.

In my own recovery, I have found that it is found in the multifaceted nature of myself; of my heart, of my body, of my spirit. You can’t just look at one aspect of your life and think that that’s gonna solve it all, because I’m not segregated in my being.  I’ve heard it described as a pie. And even though you have multiple slices out of the pie inside of the pie is all one. It’s just like the Holy Spirit, God (the Father) and Jesus. There are segregation in the Trinity. Segregation of activity, of function, of personality, but we only have one God. It’s one God and I only have one person. I am one person. And as I’ve sought recovery and I’ve sought growth and I’ve sought freedom. I realize that to gain harmony, to gain balance, I can’t focus singly on one aspect. I need both to deal with my body, I need to deal with my soul, and I need to deal with my spirit.

And often is Christians focus on some kind of spiritual aspect and we neglect and we forgo our body. Or we believe that it’s just psychobabble to deal with the soul. It’s just an incorrect way of looking at things and it’s an incorrect way of functioning, because I am a whole person. I am a body, I am a soul, and I am a spirit and I can’t focus on just one. I can’t neglect my body and think that my spirit and my soul gonna thrive. Now the order of progression: the spirit is on the top. The next is the soul and the bottom is the body. In preeminence the spirit is always gonna be the highest. It’s gonna be the most valuable but then is the soul. It’s my communion place. It’s my union place with Christ and with the Holy Spirit and then my body is directly underneath. But I can’t just focus on one aspect.

Often we find …I just had a chiropractic appointment and my chiropractor talked about this very thing. You can come to me and you can say I’m looking to deal with supplements and I have something wrong with my stomach and I can’t deal with this. But if you look at that and you say, “OK, let me just deal with this supplement that you’re missing and everything will go away.” Well that’s not how our bodies work, that’s how our being works. Yes, I’m gonna focus on bringing the healing of my body through proper nutrition, through supplements, through exercise, but there may be something from my soul that’s affecting my body. We’re tiered. We have multiple levels of us and all of them have to be dealt with, all of them have to be sought after from the Holy Spirit. What’s going on here? Why do I have this physical malady? What is behind it? What’s behind it and why am I suffering from this?

So I think that this is a huge key because we can become so legalistic and dogmatic about one aspect and forgo and neglect the others. It just doesn’t work. It can’t work. It’s not supposed to work. Just like we were creating in God image; there’s a Father in Heaven, He had a Son that brought wholeness and healing to us all and He left His Holy Spirit here to walk us through this process of living life and experiencing Him. I can’t focus on one aspect, He is all those things and same with me. I can’t just focus on one aspect. I can’t just focus on the sick area my soul. I can’t just focus on this one area of my body. I have to incorporate all of myself because I am, holistically, I am a complete being with multi facets and all of them in order to get balanced, in order to get homeostasis, I have to attend all of them. They’re all connected. They’re all linked. If there’s a problem in one area, then there’s probably gonna be a problem in the other areas. If I’m soul sick, my body is gonna keep that score and it’s gonna reflect that sickness. And my spirit is also going to lack, is going to falter because I’m not building it up. I’m not attending it.

You can’t be completely focused on the body. I know people who are focused solely on the body. Building the body up with supplements, eating correctly, doing exercise, working out, building muscle but soul is vanquished…it’s hungry. And then I know other people who have dealt with their soul and they were constantly looking for how they can heal in their soul and that their soul is sick, that they have OCD or they have some kind of neurosis. Well, I can’t just look at that one thing. I can focus on it…absolutely. I can focus on where is the trauma? Where is the source of the pain? Where is the source of the disconnect? Both my body and my spirit have to be involved and have to be engaged, because I heal as a total package, I don’t heal as a slice.

So as you’re dealing with shame, often that soul sickness of shame manifest in the body and all of a sudden your spirit man is weak. Your spirit man is not being attended to. And you’re fixated on the trauma, on the shame and the end result is you go nowhere? You have to be willing participate, you have to be willing to work holistically on the person to bring any real change and any real healing.

I love this because it’s the most loving thing I can do, is treat myself on every level: my body, my soul, and my spirit. Treat myself with love. All parts are welcome, all parts are attended to and the end result, when you bring your entire being forward to the Lord, He’s able to heal you, bring wholeness to you. I just think many times we miss out on the completeness of what Christ paid for. Christ didn’t just come for one part of me, He came for me as a whole. He loves my body, He loves my soul, and He loves my spirit, and he wants the entirety of our being to be redeemed, attended to, ministered to and loved.

Really when I focus on one aspect of my person, I’m missing bringing those other parts to Him for wholeness and healing. I have no interest in doing that. I have every interest to bring myself as a whole to Him for complete wholeness, complete healing, and complete redemption. Yes, it’s true that my body will go away and I will get a new body in eternity. But my body is here to carry my spirit and my soul, and let me interact with God‘s world. To see His beauty, to feel His creation, to smell His fragrance. I have all the senses that God created so that I can engage Him and engage my world. I have to address my body in my healing, and my soul. My soul is my choice, my decision, my free-will. It’s my emotions, I t’s my thoughts, it’s everything about me that makes me, me. I have to focus on the redemption of my soul. And my spirit, my renewed new man is beautiful. And I have to feed my spirit. I have to connect with the Holy Spirit with my spirit. And as I engage all of myself, all of my being in my relationship with God, seeking His holiness and healing over my entire being, that when I’m truly redeemed, I’m truly set free and I come into wholeness.

So I want to thank you for listening. I want to thank you for letting me express this and letting me share with you because I am excited. I’m excited about what this mean. What this actually means in the life of us all. It’s not new age to seek the body and soul and spirit as a total picture of my life. No, I’m not letting my body run the ship. I’m not letting my soul be the deciding factor of truth. No, my spirit is the one who’s communing but God’s interested in my body, He made it. God’s interested in my soul, He gave it to me. And as I engage Him and my world and my life with Him, I will see His glory. I will see Him and I will know Him in a deeper way. He wants to touch my body, He wants to touch my soul, and He wants to touch my spirit. He wants me to be completely touched and to experience complete wholeness with Him. So I love you, I appreciate you, thank you for listening and let’s see where this all goes.

Exploring the holistic nature of healing through Christ. Discover how addressing your body, soul, and spirit together leads to true harmony and redemption.

The post Healing is Holistic for Harmony – Episode #877 first appeared on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

The post Healing is Holistic for Harmony – Episode #877 appeared first on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

Transform your life by embracing the power of your YES in boundaries rather than a fear-driving NO.

Maintaining Boundaries in Fear

Walk and talk with John Enslow

When we were managing our boundaries with “NO!,” with legalism, with laws, with policing … it’s fear based.

Hey in my last video I was talking about boundaries and I was talking about the power of our YES in boundaries. And today I’m thinking further about that and just looking at that and I’m saying, “Why, why is the power of yes the power of my boundaries and the power of my life and the power to overcome shame?” What I’ve realized is that, when we are managing our boundaries with no, with legalism, with laws, with policing … its fear and fear based is not faith-based and it is destructive, it is life sucking rather than life-giving. So what I’m seeing is that I have incredible power with my yes. I have incredible power to say yes and my no will follow absolutely follow, but it’s not based on fear. It’s not fear centric.

Fear literally crushes, fear isolates, fear diminishes life and light. And the difference between being fear based and faith-based is huge in the power of our choices and our boundaries. And so if you think about it if you’re walking through your world, and you’re looking constantly suspecting and looking and anticipating what dark thing could come around, what dark thing could happen, you’re not enjoying life, you’re not experiencing life, you’re not focused on Christ because you’re so afraid. Boundaries are not huge walls, built against the world to keep you safe and keep you from being hurt. It is literally boundaries are directing conduits so that you can experience life in faith and joy. That you can express and experience your world and have the adventure of life.

So I am discovering a whole bunch of stuff. I’m exploring boundaries in coaching and I am seeing power. I am seeing amazing power happen. I’m seeing amazing life transformation happening. Because one of the things that it’s doing is it’s opening your world and opening your heart so that you can experience an express what life is for you. What life is in God‘s will, and in God‘s choices, and based on your choice.

I know that a lot of people had their choices removed and taken from them as they fought in childhood and teenage years and even young adult years…even older years, we fought to maintain our choices. We fought to maintain our boundaries and they were violated. They were notified they were discounted and we were run over. And so all of a sudden you don’t have the power of your yes because you don’t feel like your yes or no, essentially your choice has no power and that’s just not true.

God gave you free-will. God gave you free-will to literally choose what your life is gonna look like. And you follow Christ in that and you follow the Lord and how He wants to and what He wants to do in your life and follow His will and follow His Spirit and then you engage in actual living…actual life. But it’s the power of Yes. It’s always been the power of Yes. Your yes is hugely powerful for your boundaries for your life experience and for your safety. I want to thank you for listening and I will be back real soon.

The transformative power of setting boundaries with a faith-based “yes” rather than a fear-driven “no.” Embracing positivity and free will, guided by God’s will, can lead to a more fulfilling and adventurous life, overcoming the isolating effects of fear-based boundaries.

The post Not Maintaining Boundaries in Fear – Episode #876 first appeared on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

The post Not Maintaining Boundaries in Fear – Episode #876 appeared first on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

Unlock your world with the power of YES: Embracing boundaries to overcome shame and live fully! Boundaries can actually open your world.

The Power of Yes in Boundaries

Walk and talk with John Enslow

Boundaries actually open your world. They don’t have to close your world off, they can open your world up.

Hey, so in working with shame, I’m discovering something, that boundaries and shame are directly linked. And how I’m seeing that is that, when we don’t have established boundaries our shame can be compounded. And some of our shame might be the shame that someone else placed upon us through acts or deeds or whatever and we weren’t able to say “NO!” We were young, we were children, we were whatever and we weren’t able to say “NO!” and establish that boundary and we feel like our boundaries, our limits, our world is not a safe place and this created even more shame. And so what I’m seeing is that in working with shame you also have to work with boundaries. And establishing those boundaries… it’s beautiful because all of a sudden, now you can possibly say NO where you have never been able to say NO. And you don’t have to do it in a violent way, you can do it in an honoring way, a respectful way, you can do it in a way that promotes your own health, your own safety.

Because the purpose of boundaries is not to shut us off, it’s to open us up. Boundaries create the safety to be open and receptive to our self to others and our world. But the power of boundaries is the power of our “YES!” It’s more about saying what we want, what we need rather than having to be a policeman saying no no no no no no no. Standing in those negatives on a regular basis and just literally policing your boundaries, it’s exhausting and it’s not life-giving and it’s not a way of experiencing and expressing life. It confines you, it walls you in, it makes you isolated and that’s just not how you come out of shame.

We come out of shame, as I’ve stated before, through community. And that’s why coaching is so amazing, because you step into your processes and you step into your world and you’re able to gain clarity. You lay it out and you’re able to gain clarity and direction but you’re inviting someone in to help you through and to walk out of your shame and away from your shame.  But it’s not done by micromanaging everything around you and in your world so that you remain safe. It’s opening yourself up. It’s giving your YES. It’s giving your consent. It’s negotiating boundaries.  Boundaries are huge! Boundaries are beautiful and I am so excited about the work of boundaries and what boundaries actually can afford you. They open your world. They don’t close your world, they open your world. I’m not telling people, “Don’t touch this realm!” “Don’t go here!” “Don’t do this!” I go into my world and I’m open. I’m open and I’m receptive and I’m receiving and I embrace all these areas and that’s beautiful.

And it isn’t like I’m not gonna state my NO. That’s gonna be the inevitable part of establishing boundaries, is stating your NO. What you don’t want, what you’re not allowing, but the force and the power behind boundaries is your YES rather than your NO. Your primary force, your primary focus is your yes. That is opening you up to your world. That is opening you up to community, that is opening you up to living life.

When you have everything blocked out with just list and a litany of NO’s, that’s when you are confining yourself and I don’t feel like that’s how Christ called us to be. He’s called us to be open. He’s called us to love and he’s called us to receive. And that’s the position where shame starts diminishing and going away.

So as your establishing boundaries you’re not walling yourself in, you’re not walling yourself up, you’re not further isolating yourself, you’re just establishing the realms of a hat is allowed in your life? What is your boundaries and your borders and your safety.

So I’m continuing to deal with this and I’m continuing to look at this and I’m really excited about what boundaries mean to those dealing with shame and overcoming shame. You have to establish boundaries. You have to establish your safety, but it’s not a list of policing laws and legalism. It’s walking in your world with a YES! to God, to yourself, and to others. And where you want those yeses to be…it’s your choice. It’s your life and you’re able to do it.

So I hope you continue to follow me as I explore this whole area of boundaries related to shame and how we live our life and how we express our life and how we experience our life. So thank you for listening. I am so excited about this book about Overcoming Shame. It is being edited and being set up to be released and so thank you for your patience, and I look forward to releasing this and bringing you more in the days in the weeks to come.

Discover the transformative power of yes in boundaries to overcome shame and live a more open, fulfilling life. Establishing healthy limits isn’t about isolation but about creating safety and freedom for yourself, your relationships, and your world.

The post The Power of Yes in Boundaries – Episode #875 first appeared on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

The post The Power of Yes in Boundaries – Episode #875 appeared first on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

Enter the powerful exploration of healing and breaking free from the weight and heavy burdens of toxic shame.

The Weight of a Shame Identity

Walk and talk with John Enslow

Well, hey there, so I want to give you some good news today! So I have finished the book with one caveat. I finished the book on overcoming shame with one caveat. The caveat is that I have another section that has to be written. When I was going through it, I realized that I needed to write about the shame when someone places their shame upon us. So someone’s shameful act and their shame is put on us, and then we carry that shame as our own until we deal with it. And so as I was looking at that I was saying OK in abuse, in abusive situations… as a child or whatever, we can…. Someone can act shamefully on us, upon us, towards us, and then we take that shame on, and we take it on ourselves and then we carry that shame. And there’s really nowhere to deal with it because it is not ours. It was something that was put on us. And though we were involved in it, though we were made culpable because of it, ultimately those shames aren’t ours, but we carry it as if it is. And we have self contempt and self hatred, and we have self bitterness about it. This is toxic shame. This is awful toxic shame!

So as I was dealing with this, I thought about it and I said OK I need to get testimonies about this. So I’ve gotten three guys that have written testimonies and I’m working those testimonies. I’m writing this section and then I’m gonna be done. I’m gonna be sending it to the editor, real soon and looking forward to getting that work done. Then I’ll get it up on the… through the formatting I’ll get it up on Kindle and print on demand with Amazon. I can’t wait. I really, really, really am so looking forward to this. The writing trip was a complete success. I was blown away by the fact that I was able to get there, I was able to get it all done   So I celebrate. This is a celebration time. This is really, really fun.

What this shame is like is you’re taking someone else’s shameful act and then you turn that shame that you have and you turn that shame back upon yourself. You impale yourself.  You impale your heart, you impale your person with contempt. Self-contempt is so horrible. That’s when it becomes so toxic, because those barbs of self-contempt, self-hatred… “Why didn’t I say no? Why didn’t I do something about it? Why was I so stupid to go there? Why didn’t….” All these things. And you turn on yourself and then you just tear your soul, and that is tragic. That is devastating to our personhood, and then the residual shame is a weight that we have to carry. We have to literally… it is exhausting! If you have lived with shame all your life, one of the key things is exhaustion. You’re exhausted to carry shame. It is a heavyweight, but it feels just like YOU, because you’ve taken it on, because you’ve absorbed it, embraced it as a truth, as a reality, as a belief system. It becomes this weight, this heavy burden weight that you cannot get free from and you cannot deal with.

It just would feel like a backpack but it’s not like a backpack because it’s not just hanging on you, it feels like you. It makes it impossible to deal with. It makes it where you say how in the world do I deal with this? How do I face this? How do I process this? And again, as I’ve said, it’s not something you can do alone. If you could’ve done it alone you would’ve done it alone but it’s not something you can do. Someone needs to come alongside of you with the Spirit of God and help you unburden yourself from that, process that, deal with that.

I was being coached the other day and it was amazing to me because I was seeing the steps of what coaching through shame would look like.

• Opening the dialogue, this is huge. Inviting someone into witness.

• Untangling yourself from the burden, and the lie. Detaching from all that chaos, all that confusion, all that self-hatred.

• Embracing your true self, finding out who your true self is apart from shame. And then once you have embrace this new self, this shame free self.

• Once you embrace that then there’s the process of having to recalibrate everything. You’re recalibrating how do you live life. 

It’s almost like you have to go through physical therapy to relearn how to walk, how to talk, how to deal with life because your life has been so stymied, so tragically crippled with this and you think it’s you and it’s not you and so all sudden now you’re here and you’re having to deal with it. You have to relearn how to live, how to think, how to process life and set goals for yourself.

How do I live now that I don’t have shame? How do I live free of this weight of shame? Do you know how huge it is? You have to relearn, recalibrate how to even position yourself in life. That’s exciting and that’s part of the coaching. It’s OK where do I go from here now that I’ve unburdened myself from this shame, how do I walk out life? How do I live in the wonder of life? It changes the entire perspective, so that now you can go forward and you can celebrate life, you can enjoy life, you can live life that you were intended to. You can live your authentic self, your true self, apart from this shame cloak, this toxic shame presence in your life.

So I’m excited! I’m excited about where this is all going. I’m excited about what it’s gonna offer and what is gonna bring. So I’m inviting you into the dialogue. Let’s experience true life, true identity, true shame-free living where we can excel and exceed all our expectations of living and come into a new place of wholeness and healing and stretch those muscles that have atrophy because of shame. So I love you, thank you and let’s get this journey going!

How can I handle the shame of abuse? A guide through the path of shedding the weight of shame and stepping into a life of authenticity.

The post The Weight of a Shame Identity – Episode #874 first appeared on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

The post The Weight of a Shame Identity – Episode #874 appeared first on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

Uncover the truth that living without shame is not only possible but essential for a fulfilling life.

Overcoming Shame: You Can’t Do It Alone

Walk and talk with John Enslow

Well hey there, so the other day I was trading coaching with another coach. As they were coaching me over the book Overcoming Shame, I was amazed at the questions that they were poising, and what came out. One of the things that came out was that this process is not a process that you can do alone. You know I’ve looked at shame and I’ve looked at people’s shame and how it’s controlled them and how it’s racked their lives with destruction. Shame is something… if we could’ve dealt with it, we would’ve dealt with it.

I know people that have carried shame for 50 years and if they could’ve dealt with it, they would’ve dealt with it. We wanna deal with our shame. We want to put an end into it. We want to overcome shame. We want to get rid of that shame, but one of the things that’s kind of key is, we’re not gonna do it alone. Number one we’re not gonna do it without a spiritual life, without God‘s presence, and without God‘s help. It’s just not gonna happen. I know that people wanna overcome shame on their own, be strong. One of the shame this weakness, and if you’re in shame about your weakness, you certainly don’t wanna lean on anyone else because you wanna look strong.

But shame is handled really in community. I know that we were wounded and we were shamed in relationships, and even if it’s bad relationships, and at the same time we heal in relationships. So we need help to carry shame and to deal with shame. It’s something that has to be unpacked with someone else, with others in community, in support. And that’s a beautiful thing because that connected presence of someone that cares, that wants to help you through your shame, that wants to help you to process your shame. It helps to take that heavy burden off of us.

I know another thing with shame is, the energy that it takes for us to carry it, is huge! Carrying shame is like carrying a boulder on your back and you walk through life with this heaviness on your shoulders, on your life. I’m amazed that we can even do it. But we function. We are adaptable and we adapt to the shame but we don’t have to do that.  We can live without shame. It is possible to live without shame, it is possible to overcome shame, but it is something that we have to do with others.

As I am walking with guys that are overcoming shame, that are dealing with shame, the guys that have shared testimonies to me with shame, I am amazed at the process, and just the unfolding of life and what it looks like when we can really truly unburdened ourselves from those heavy weights of shame that have just crushed us all our life.

If you’re experiencing shame and you’re struggling with shame, and you’d like to have someone to walk it out with, talk it out with, reach out to me. I would love to talk to you. I would love to just discuss what a possible coaching through shame, through your shame would look like for you and in your life. It’s all about you, and it’s all for you, and it’s all to maximize your life and your potential. I love that there’s a possibility to get rid of shame, to unburden ourselves from shame, to release ourselves from shame, and to live as an overcoming one, as an overcomer in Christ and away from shame. Don’t battles shame alone, it’s not something that you have to do, and you can’t overcome it without help.  So I love you and I’ll talk to you soon.

Overcoming shame is not a journey alone—it requires connection, support, and a desire to face the vulnerabilities that shame often conceals.

The post Overcoming Shame: You Can’t Do It Alone – Episode #873 first appeared on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

The post Overcoming Shame: You Can’t Do It Alone – Episode #873 appeared first on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

Rise above shame, discover your essentials, and unlock the power to annihilate toxic shame in your life.

Don’t Be Ashamed of Shame

Walk and talk with John Enslow

Well hey there, so I want to say, “Don’t be ashamed of your shame!” I know that that’s easier said than done. But shame is trapping and shame is force to hold us in, hold us under and keep us trapped. The enemy uses our shame so so well to disable us, to nullify our life, to prevent us from living as we were created. And when we get into toxic shame, we boil down to self-contempt and self-hatred. But what if our shame is literally there to be a tap on the shoulder and say,”Hey, there’s something wrong here, we need course correction. That is amazing because then we can use our shame as a motivation, and as a force of good to say, “What’s going on here?” rather than saying, “Why am I in shame?” say, “What is the purpose of this shame, what is shame telling me and how can I look at this in a different way?”

It’s amazing to me how when we get out of our shame focus and we focus on the essentials, how our paradigm shifts and can change. We can get above the shame and get a light on the subject matter so we can have a different perspective on it and it won’t be as tragic and annihilating to our soul and our life.

Looking into my essentials, which is my relationship with Christ, going back and seeing my design rather than living by default. Living by default is what happens when we are in shame. We literally go on autopilot and we literally allow Shame to drive the bus and take us where it wants us to go and it’s never a good place. For me personally, when I’m in shame, I enter into a frozen state. It’s like I’m in a block of ice. Some people flee, some people fight, some people faun… I freeze. I literally am unable to do anything. I feel frozen and trapped and I am not able to even think clearly.

So that’s why refocusing my vision and my view, and looking for my essentials: who I was created to be in Christ. It’s huge who I am in Christ, who Christ is in my life. It’s living by design rather than default, and I go into that in my book His Will Alone. I love living by my essentials and to live your essentials in a nonessential world, where things take us away. To focus and to gain that perspective, to rise above the shame so that you can see where you’re at and what the shame is huge. It’s very, very huge regardless if my shame is personal shame that I’ve developed inside or shame that’s been put on me, all these shames can be notified by gaining a proper perspective and by focusing on what really matters.

I don’t know about you but every time I’m in shame, I literally am scrambling, in my frozen state, to make due.  And what I find is, I grab hold of and I do distracting work to keep me out of the shame, but it doesn’t work. Shame has set me into a perspective and a paradigm that I lose true perspective on who I am. I lose the shine on my life, and I tail spin down into literally nonessentials where I am literally just doing what I can do. It’s maybe nonsensical, it may be distracting, it may be thumbing through thousands of reels. That could be how I would cope with my shame. Does that help me? Does that pull me out of the shame? No, because I’m not focused on the essentials, I’m focused on the distraction. I’m focused on anything that can alleviate that pain of shame so that I don’t feel trapped anymore. I’m at least moving forward. I’m at least moving and doing something even if it is an essential. But the fact is, that’s never really going to truly resolve the shame, it’s just going to delay dealing with the shame.

When I go back down to essentials, when I go back down to what matters most, at that point, I can gain the light I need to see. It just lifts me above so that I can see. There’s so many things that can, even good things, that can distract and keep us outside of the realm of dealing with shame and healing from our shame. I know people that are workaholics. I know that people that are sex addicts. I know people that are food junkies, people that… I mean there are so many things that I can use to try to extinguish the fire, the burning fire of shame. But if I can use that shame and I can use that trap as a motivation and build a fire of motivating me to my essentials.  That’s the fire in need, that’s the fire I want, that’s the fire that brings life.

There is so many keys in shame that I’m discovering and that I’m finding and then I’m witnessing and others and I’m loving this whole process. I’ll be writing again coming up in a week and a half and I really I want to finish this very soon and get this to you. I am blown away by the testimonies that I received. I am loving where the book is going and I’m really excited about it. So the Overcoming Shame book. it’s still in the works and I’m believing that there’s things that are coming in my life that are showing me deeper the message of shame, and how to survive shame, how to recover from shame. And I’ve shames coming into my life that literally are giving me signs and directions clues so that I’ll deal with it and so that I will face it and focus on it.

So I love you guys. I’m very, very grateful for your following me in this journey. This has been a very difficult subject matter. To believe God is sovereign is one thing, to believe that my life is Christ life and it’s not I but Christ and for His life to be my life is my hope of glory, that’s wonderful. And to Overcome Anxiety… great! And how to live and know the will of God, that’s perfect. But there’s something about this subject, about shame. I think it’s a lifetime of dealing with shame correctly and incorrectly. I have struggled with shame, and I have overcome shame, and I have found more shame. So the process of dealing with shame has been super difficult, but it’s very, very, very enlightening. I have loved finding out about shame and about my shame and about the shame of others. I really, really want this book to carry a weight and a power to annihilate the shame and give people direction in their shame, because when we’re in shame, we’re literally pointless and directionless. We are literally consumed by shame. But when we focus on our essentials, when we can go into our essentials, we can change that perspective and rise above the shame to deal with the shame and put it to rest.

Toxic shame annihilates our life, annihilates our creativity, annihilates our joy, but there is a solution and there is a way out of it. So that’s what I’m looking to achieve and this is what I’m looking to face and focus on in this book. So I love you, I appreciate you and I will be talking to you again real soon.

Rising above shame is a journey worth taking! Join me on a path to refocus on essentials and unlock the power to annihilate toxic shame.

The post Don’t Be Ashamed of Shame – Episode #872 first appeared on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

The post Don’t Be Ashamed of Shame – Episode #872 appeared first on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

Staying true to one’s identity amidst the holiday triggers is difficult. In this podcast, we’re learning to resist the toxic allure and emerge from the season with a renewed commitment to the beautifully true self.

Shadows of Shame During the Holiday Season

Walk and talk with John Enslow

Hey there, so we’re coming into Christmas time, Christmas is next week and we have gone through the holiday season of Thanksgiving. I know that that can be a real triggering time for us. That different times with family can just drum up a lot of shame from childhood, past wounds and I just wanted to quickly come in and talk about that.

One of the key things about shame is that shame can prevent us from living our authentic self. And when that shame becomes our identity…. Woof… Then it becomes toxic and becomes deadly. In my upcoming book on overcoming shame, I wanna primarily deal with the toxic shame that is associated with it becoming our identity and that it binds us.  And when we take on that identity to deal with toxic shame, when we leave our authentic self, and enter into toxic shame, one of the key things that happens is we develop and we form a false self. And that formation… is soul murder. That formation literally kills ourselves. So we lose our authentic nature. We lose our self. And we grab hold of and we develop a false identity.

When we have this toxic shame, it’s a healthy signal that we need help because shame reveals to us our core dependency need of God. So I’m looking at all this and I’m pondering all this and I’m I’m thinking shame is something that can be positive. Shame can separate us from our animalistic nature, from our hedonistic self, that just says do as thou wilt. That’s a healthy form of shame that’s when shame has a benefit to me, when it’s saying, listen these actions, these things that you’re doing are counter to who you are, who you were created to be in Christ. And that’s a positive thing. So there is a positive nature shame.  Shame can stand as a sentinel to say, don’t go here. Don’t go there. This is destructive to your life and it says I’m unable to do this on my own. I have to have Jesus. I have to have His life and I can’t do this without Him.

These are all positive things. These are all shames that you can get that touches and nudges to let me know that there’s a higher purpose, there’s a higher calling, for me to live in and to live under. But when that shame when that touch becomes toxic, when I take on shame as a nature, as a toxic shame nature and I lose my authentic self, and I become a false self to compensate for my shame. That’s when it becomes, deadly and destructive and murderous to my soul. I literally take it on, and I see myself as something beyond who I was created to be. And here’s another thing that happens. When I’m in shame, when I’m in deep shame, I can also use shameful things to compensate. So I can act shamefully to try to prevent shame from crushing my heart and my soul. That’s just destructive, that’s shame on top of shame on top of shame, and that Dagwood sandwich so to speak is just so utterly destructive to my heart to my life into my person. And then I am in a quagmire. I am caught in toxic shame, and I cannot get out of that toxic shame, it becomes something that prevents me from experiencing joy in life and my authentic self, my true self, my God created self, and I enter into a world of sin and destruction.

So I just want to let you know that as we enter into these holidays, and we face things that could trigger us to shame I just wanna stand for the true self, the true created self the beautiful created self that God is made for us and has created us to be. Just remain true yourself. Just remain true to your heart, just remain true to your identity, and don’t allow shame to take you under and leave you flailing in a toxic soup of false identity. So I’ll talk to you soon after the holidays. I look forward to what the new year has to offer.

Explore the most triggering time of the year and the shame of the holiday season. It can either serve as a guiding light or become a toxic force that threatens our very essence.

The post Shadows of Shame During the Holiday Season – Episode #871 first appeared on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

The post Shadows of Shame During the Holiday Season – Episode #871 appeared first on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

Explore the journey through the Thanksgiving paradox, where the very situations triggering shame are unveiled as opportunities for profound transformation.

Thanksgiving Triggers to Gratitude’s Triumph

Walk and talk with John Enslow

Well hey there, yesterday I was thinking about the book on Overcoming Shame, and I was thinking about elements of shame, and I was thinking about Thanksgiving and shame. I know that the holidays can be really… as I’ve heard it said, the most triggering time of the year. And I found that to be the case. I have connected with a number of guys and ladies and they all are really triggered by the holidays. You would think that this time of gratitude and thanks and gifts and family would be something that would be really beautiful and wonderful, and it can be. But for some, it is something that is triggering and soul-sucking and painful.

So I was thinking about Thanksgiving and how does it relates to shame and there is a direct correlation with the overcoming of shame and thanks. I am my book the Sovereign Touch I talk a lot about thanks, and I talk about how thanks is really a major influence in how we overcome our resistance to God being God.  I’ve found in my own life as well in others lives that thanks gives back to God and allow God to be God, where our ingratitude really kind of separates us from God. Nothing can separate us truly from God, but in our thinking and in our experience of God, we can literally build a wall of separation with ingratitude. But where thanks, thanks really, really unifies us and brings us into the very blessing of life. We can literally be blessed by all things.

The Lord says, be thankful and everything, and the reason why is because in that He’s given ownership of all of it, and more importantly, once He owns it, once it is owned by Him, then also everything is blessing. Even our difficulties can become blessings when we enter Thanksgiving. Thanks literally is a transfer of ownership to the Lord so in everything. I can thank Him for my blessings, but thank Him in everything there was a purpose why the Lord said, in everything because “everything” requires His thanks, because He is Lord and He is working all things together for the good of those who love Him.

Another thing I found is thanks is not just a one time thing. Thanks is a lifestyle. Thanks is….to thank God for everything you literally are living out a lifestyle of thanks and gratitude. And so as I entered into the Thanksgiving season and I entered into the day of Thanksgiving. I was able to really look at that, according to the shame. And some of the guys that I’m connected with literally have today reached out to me and said they were in deep shame today. And so as I’ve worked that out and I’ve walked that out with them and I’ve talked with them I’ve seen that the reason why there was a lot of shame in this day was because of all the triggers that Thanksgiving created. It’s interesting that the very thing that would solve that shame is the very season that we were celebrating and the season that triggered it all. To me that’s fascinating.

It was like the Lord brought you into a situation to give you the opportunity to enter thanks, but also that very situation was the thing that was triggering all the shame. And when we go into family situations like this and we don’t feel like we have control, we’re not being seen, we’re not being noticed, we’re not being respected. There’s so many things that can they can trigger our shame from our childhood, from our past, from our current, from everything… and we leave the day— this day of celebration, this day of gratitude this day, that is supposed to be joy and blessing, we enter it and leave it in a remorseful and grieved and shamed position. And so I just wanna really just reflect on that.

I’m gonna bring that element into the book Overcoming Shame and I am looking forward to developing the whole thought around, thanks, gratitude and giving thanks for everything and overcoming shame. So I continue to do this. I’m gonna write some posts about this and I just hope that you will come in and enjoy and really see what the Lord is doing and the fruit of what thanks could have in your life. I know that I am thankful for you. I’m thankful for each one of you that listened and I bless you. I bless you in this holiday season, this most triggering time of the year. I pray that it’s a time of gratitude a time that you’re able to see the Lord and His many blessings in your life, and that you’re able to overcome and to receive what He’s wanting to do as He’s taking ownership of these difficult situations and turning them around into blessing. The very blessing of your life. So I love you appreciate you and I will. I’ll be back soon.

Discover how Thanksgiving and the holiday season are designed for blessings, but can paradoxically become a fertile ground for shame.

The post Thanksgiving Triggers to Gratitude’s Triumph – Episode #870 first appeared on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

The post Thanksgiving Triggers to Gratitude’s Triumph – Episode #870 appeared first on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

Breaking Chains: Unmasking the Shadows of the Shame Life and Embracing True Freedom

The Negative and Positive of the Shame Life

Walk and talk with John Enslow

Well hey there, so I’m continuing to deal with the topic of shame. I’ll probably be on this for a while because of the fact that, that is the book I’m writing and I’m really excited about it. I’m real excited about the outcome of bringing a way of overcoming shame. Shame has been such a part of my life and something that is really been very destructive in my life and I am looking to have it completely eradicated in my life as well as in the lives of those I walk with and love.

So I was thinking about shame today and I’m looking at how much shame is rooted in comparison. We basically will take on data that we are accumulating from our world. I’m not as… pretty, I’m not as thin … I’m not as big… I’m not as successful… I’m not as competent… I’m not as…… It keeps on going.  So we have this data that we’re collecting, through our observation of our world. We’re looking at our world and we’re making observations and we’re comparing ourselves to that data. The funny thing is that data may not have anything to do with the truth. That may be simply our perception and not about reality at all. But then from the data, from the data we make conclusions and we make judgments and those judgments can sink us and tank us. It’s amazing how I am not pretty as…I am not successful as…I am not liked as… I am not… it’s amazing! It’s absolutely amazing how that data can bring such a dark cloud on our soul. Where we take that data and where we don’t match the grade we don’t meet the standard of what we think is supposed to be. It’s tragic because it shut us down. It makes us feel less than and it’s not supporting us in order to get us to where we want to be. It closes us down. It closes our heart down and it makes us feel inferior, weak, less than and it’s a vicious cycle that spirals us down. We feel subpar and that’s just destructive on our lives.

So another thing I’m thinking about as a relates to shame: how much of our spiritual life is based in shame, motivated by shame? Am I again taking from the data that I have gathered…I’m not as spiritual… I don’t read the word as much… I don’t do this as much… I don’t pray… I don’t make every meeting… I don’t… How much of our spiritual life is rooted and motivated by shame? Talk about tragic, talk about destructive, talk about life-sucking. Something that is supposed to be beautiful, something that supposed to be supportive, something that supposed to be life-giving is motivated based on shame, on the shame that I’m not enough.

Our relationship with our Christianity is intended to be based on relationship with Christ, relationship with the body, and it’s based on love. Love is our motivating force. That was the intent. The motivating force is love. So how much of our spiritual life is shame-based? How much of our spiritual life is rooted in a desire to compensate for weakness and sin and generational curses? It’s tragic? It’s pathetic and it’s life-sucking and I hate it. I absolutely hate it.

It goes beyond our spiritual life. How much of our actions are shame-based to compensate for where we feel we lack, where we feel like we’re subpar. How much exactly…how much of our daily living is based in rooted in the motivation of shame to overcome and to protect us from further pain, further shame. Shame to combat shame. It’s amazing how we will use that and that’s just human. It’s really very, very human. We use shame to control ourselves. It’s a force that not only is put upon us, but sometimes we use shame in order to shield ourselves from things that might hurt us. Shield ourselves from pain and things that have been destructive in our lives. These are all just very human, very understandable, but destructive nonetheless. Things that are not needed. Things that can be overcome.

And so as I’m writing this book, overcoming shame, I’m looking to discover these areas that we are caught in, that we are trapped by, and that hold our joy and our life and our potential and our satisfaction. They hold us from, not bring us to.  And I am I’m looking to crush those areas. I’m looking to expose those areas. I’m looking to put those areas in the right light, that they’re destructive and they’re soul-sucking and life altering and we don’t need them.

So I’m writing this book and I’m exploring shame as a motivating force, and I’m exposing shame as a destructive and life zapping rather than life supporting function. I know there are positive ends of shame. We know that if people are living shamelessly, that there is a positive nature to shame, shame is a awareness of, an exposure of things in our lives that should change. Things that are not correct, things that are not right, things that don’t fall in line with God in his heart for us. And we carry that shame because it’s a red flag to say, there’s an issue here, there’s a problem here, there needs to be an adjustment. But there’s a big difference between the natural elements of shame that is a natural emotion to bring course correction and then be the motivating force behind why we are living, what we are doing and who we are. I’m looking to explore that, I’m looking to expose that, and I’m looking to crush that, so that we can live as men and women fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God with the purpose of Christ and living to our full potential.

So I continue to ask for your prayers as I dive into this topic, I ask you for the protection of my own heart, as I am exposing these things, and as I’m exploring these things, I’m experiencing shameful things. I’m experiencing heartrending shame and I’m seeing the awful power and presence of shame but I’m also seeing how to overcome it on multiple levels and I love it. I love it! It’s worth it all, but I would love your prayers for grace to go through it as I bring this out and then eventually I’m looking for it to be super impactful for those that I love, for those that I walk with, and for those I support. So I love you, I bless you, I thank you for listening. I thank you for responding. I thank you for your interest and I praise God that I’m on this path because I’m looking to issue a death blow to such tragedy of living under the thumb of shame and allowing it to define my life and my person. I never want to be the case. So God bless you, I love you, I appreciate you, and I will be back soon.

Reflecting on how the shame life infiltrates every aspect of our lives, from our appearance to our spirituality as a motivating force.

The post The Negative and Positive of the Shame Life – Episode #869 first appeared on Divine Designed Life Podcast.

The post The Negative and Positive of the Shame Life – Episode #869 appeared first on Divine Designed Life Podcast.