How to Stop Striving with Ruth Chou Simons

Does it feel like your anxiety level is at an all-time high?! You’re not alone. Ruth Chou Simons joins me to talk about how to care for ourselves, especially when we feel like we have to keep striving to make things feel like they’re okay. After the last two years, I’m sure that everyone is feeling it in one way or another. It’s one of the reasons why I had to hit the pause button on writing my next book till this year.  Ruth and I explore the pressure we feel to do more, define what striving is, and discuss ways we can check in with ourselves when we are doing more from our own power instead of relying on God’s plan.  We also dive into how to ultimately find God’s grace and why what He offers is so much better than the hamster wheel of performance and perfection. This conversation is so good and you may want to take notes! Ruth drops some brilliant truth bombs for us.  Ruth is a talented artist, and a best-selling, award-winning author of several books, including her latest release When Strivings Cease: Replacing the Gospel of Self-Improvement with the Gospel of Life-Transforming Grace. Listen to learn more about : How to stop subscribing to the Gospel of Self-Improvement and replace it with the Gospel of Grace. How we can cease striving and yet be productive and fruitful.  How to discern making Christ our role model as opposed to making ourselves the hero of our own stories.  Favorite quotes: The truth is we have to be honest and keep realigning our hearts with what is true,(because pandemic or not),  it is pretty easy to spiral into a narrative or a thought pattern that takes you far from what is actually true. Weariness in itself is not some awful thing. It is that weariness that is self-induced by carrying the weight of performance, approval and belonging - all those things on our own shoulders, thinking that it was up to us to hold all things together and that, is not the gospel. If we are Christ followers until we know what is unshakeable and true about our identities in Christ and until we know what is sure and true and what we already have in Christ, we will be chasing after something thinking that we can attain it for ourselves, when it was meant to be given by God alone.   In this episode I answer this question: 1. How do I know what to name my Business? (34:50) Great things we discussed:  1. When Strivings Cease 2. Graceland by Ruth Simmons 3. John Piper's quote on sleep 4. Ruth's favorite song - City of Lights 5. Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings 6. The Disciple of Grace - Jerry Bridges 7. Nars Concealer 8. Ruth Chou Simmons Instagram 9. American Underdog 10. Brooke Ligertwood - A Thousand Hallelujahs 11. Standing Strong Order your copy of Standing Strong here. Hope you loved this episode! Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and slap some stars on a review! :) xo, Alli  www.alliworthington.com/ruthchousimons2/