Spring Resilient Week One: Strength in Vulnerability with Michelle Medrano

[00:00:00] We're so happy to have you here and we invite you to join us for upcoming Easter services on Sunday March 31st, Reverend Josh will be speaking about the resurrection of humanity

[00:00:14] and we've got great music being provided by Tom Lynch, Jennifer Burnett and DAX Singleton and our Mile Hi Band. It's going to be wonderful, please join us. Today I'm launching the series by exploring the strength of vulnerability, strength in vulnerability.

[00:00:34] It is the notion that as we are our most vulnerable, true, as self, we actually are stronger, not weaker. And looking at how we have been taught to build up our defenses and hide behind walls. And so how do we be that kind of strength?

[00:00:53] Well I found a cute little joke that just made me giggle, so I'm going to share it to start us off today. About a German Shepherd, a doberman and a cat all pass away at the same time.

[00:01:05] And they find their place in heaven and God is sitting there on a throne waiting for them. And as they approach, God welcomes them and says to the German Shepherd, German Shepherd, you're all going in, but tell me what do you believe in?

[00:01:21] And the German Shepherd says, well I believe in love and caring for everyone. And God says, wonderful. German Shepherd, you may be seated here on my right. And he says to the doberman, what do you believe in?

[00:01:34] And the doberman says, well I believe in loyalty and really protecting those who I love. And God says, that's wonderful. You may sit on my left. And he says, cat, what do you believe in? The cat says, I believe you are in my chair. Right?

[00:01:55] Those of us who have cats, we get it, right? You know that's what a cat would say to God. Get out of my chair. My chair.

[00:02:04] I thought that was just like depicting strength when you're in front of the creator of the universe and you're claiming the chair, right? You're owning it. And it's about I think owning who we are at the deepest level and claiming it for ourselves and being it.

[00:02:22] And I think that this topic is really probably very perfect for me because in all honesty, as I've shared here many times, the way that I was raised. My family of origin, my childhood taught me right away that it was dangerous to be who I was.

[00:02:40] It was literally physically dangerous that if I wasn't being what one of my parents needed and wanted me to be that I was not only in trouble,

[00:02:49] not only, you know, shamed or encouraged to be different but literally threatened with violence if I didn't be the way that he wanted me to be. And so my first lessons came in life showing me you can't be who you are because you could get in trouble.

[00:03:07] I'm sure I'm the only one in the room who ever had that kind of experience, right? What it caused me to do was to grow up seeking safety, seeking an ability to say I want to be as safe as possible.

[00:03:20] So let me do my best to ascertain what you might need from me right now so that I can be it and not only that but let me always assure myself that I am the most perfect version of me in front of everyone that I'm always cute and charming.

[00:03:41] And happy and easy going. And I am not always feeling cute and happy and easy going to tell you the truth, but I learned that I had to, had to do that and it became a habit.

[00:03:55] And what I discovered is that by taking on that habit, I built walls to fortify my sense of safety. And I put who I was in front of people on this wall.

[00:04:09] I am this person and it wasn't the real me and people fell in love with the wall. But here I am hiding behind the wall, scared, vulnerable because I really want to be who I am and not really feeling very loved.

[00:04:29] Oh, people love the wall but they don't love me in order for me to feel real love and to be really loved. And I got to come out from behind the wall. That's the only way.

[00:04:44] But I had all these reasons to stay behind the wall, the hide behind the wall and so it was coming into this church. It was doing workshops and classes and personal growth work. It was therapy.

[00:04:59] It was having relationships time and time again where I discovered that someone would fall in love with the wall and then I would show up as my real self and get rejected. Because that was what I was afraid of.

[00:05:10] If you knew the real me, you won't love me, you won't like me, you might reject me, you might disagree with me, you might not approve of me and that's just too painful. I can't handle it and not only is it too painful, it's dangerous.

[00:05:22] So I hid really well but when I discovered that I was doing it and I began to dismantle the wall, I slowly but surely began to be strong and who I was and to be willing to be more vulnerable. It wasn't always easy.

[00:05:39] I had times where I failed and didn't do it very well. There's a particular time back in, I think it was 1993. I was brand new in my ministry. I entered ministry in 1990, 1991.

[00:05:55] Dr. Roger Teele, as the senior minister at the Huntington Beach Church of Religious Science at that time. And when I graduated from the School of Ministry here, he invited me to go be a minister on his team in Huntington Beach.

[00:06:06] So I went and I was an assistant minister and I looked very young and was very young and Roger after a couple years promptly high-tailed it back here to Denver. He came to serve this church.

[00:06:21] And so there I was and the Board of Trustees felt like they had this kid in experience kid left. There were a few other ministers there but we were without a lead minister at Huntington Beach.

[00:06:33] So they were reaching out trying to get everybody they could to come and speak. And I was speaking regularly there on Sunday nights but none of the Board members ever came to that service and they had very little confidence in me.

[00:06:46] At one week when they were desperate for a speaker, they finally came to me and they were like, Okay, I guess we'll let you speak. And I said, okay, okay and it was Mother's Day. And so I prepared this Mother's Day talk to honor and celebrate Mother's Day.

[00:07:05] But I don't know if you all remember back at that time the Vice President of our country was Mr. Dan Quail. And Vice President Quail was on a tie rate at the time about Murphy Brown.

[00:07:18] Remember Murphy Brown that series. She was a single mother and Mr. Quail was touting very loudly how inappropriate this series was because after all,

[00:07:28] the only true way that a child can grow up and be happy in our cultures if they are raised with a cisgender male and a cisgender female who stay together and stay in marriage so that that child might thrive. And I thought that was hogwash.

[00:07:48] I thought that was inappropriate. I thought that wasn't my life experience at all. Still still feel the same way quite frankly. I disagreed with our Vice President. And so here I am giving this talk about about Mother's Day and I say that I disagree with our Vice President.

[00:08:04] I wasn't rude about it but I mentioned it and go on with my talk and it's all fine. I go the next week and all of a sudden in my male at the office comes this big long complaint letter.

[00:08:19] Apparently a big fan of Dan Quails was in church that Sunday and wanted to educate me as to Dan Quails true platform around family values and wrote like a three page letter.

[00:08:32] And I get it. I got it. I was like okay that's fine but then I look at the bottom of the letter and he has copied every board member. And I got a little nervous.

[00:08:45] Now this was before this was an ancient time for some of you, but young folks before email, right? There was no email so there were actual letters that had arrived at the office and we had a folder system where all the board members had their mail that arrived.

[00:09:02] And information we were giving them in the folders. So I sat there for a while pondering what I should do. And I promptly ran downstairs and I grabbed every letter out of the folders.

[00:09:19] I grabbed them and I went back to my office and I shoved them in my desk and then I sat there. And I felt a slight relief because I thought they'll never know.

[00:09:29] But then I started feeling a little guilty like, you know, all this gosh darn spiritual work I'm doing on myself to be authentic. And I battled for a while and I sweat a lot and I shook a lot.

[00:09:49] And finally I took a deep breath and this that inner voice that's behind the wall. It won and it said, you know what just faced the music. This is what happens when you get out there on the edges and you have the courage to speak your mind.

[00:10:06] I went down and I put every letter back in the folders and then I waited. And I waited and I waited. And I waited.

[00:10:17] And then next Sunday I saw the board president at church and I said to her, I bet you got that letter from the Dan Quail guide didn't you? And she's like, yeah, she was really cool about it and she said, look Dan Quail is a public figure.

[00:10:31] You don't agree with this platform. That's fine. You have a right to say you don't agree with this platform and church went on. Oh, and life went on. Ministry went on and they let me speak again too, which was awesome. It was no big deal.

[00:10:46] Like, yeah, thank you. Oh, shh. This thing that I thought was going to be this big deal that I'd made this big deal turned out not to be.

[00:10:55] But it was one of the, the major times that I was tempted to hide behind a mistake and error, a failure, something a misstep that I wanted to erase it and keep it out of everyone's eyes.

[00:11:08] And I learned from that and then later on as I went on to serve at new vision center in Arizona where our theme was all about being our authentic self and even me showing up as the spiritual leader and being willing to share

[00:11:22] times when I was struggling with ministry or in my own life and learning so clearly discovering to my shock and amazement that if I put the pretend me up, it was sort of like, yeah, if I put the real me up, love.

[00:11:42] Love that was generated in my direction, love that I could feel and take in. Love that was healing and I learned the only true position of strength in life is to be our real self and to be our real self requires vulnerability.

[00:12:02] Years ago I think Dr. Raj recorded it for the first time for me a very important piece of the story from Velveteen Rabbit by Marjorie Williams, where they're talking, they're all stuffed animals talking to each other and one of the characters says, you become.

[00:12:20] It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily or have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept.

[00:12:32] Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby.

[00:12:42] But these things don't matter at all because once you are real, you can't be ugly except to people who don't understand. That's the gist of this message today. Once you are real, you can't be ugly except to people who don't understand.

[00:13:02] So this is an invitation to invite us into being real, authentic, being vulnerable because our hiding behind our walls, it's not serving us. It's just not.

[00:13:20] It's not allowing us to be the full measure of who and what we are. My favorite teacher who teaches about this is the great Brennen Brown, who talks so beautifully about vulnerability because what she distinguishes is that we hide often because we have shame.

[00:13:39] We either felt shamed or been shamed for who we are, how we are, who we love, how we want to live, how we want to be what's going on. We've been shamed and so that hurts.

[00:13:50] That does hurt and so our strategy to meet that pain is too hide. To hide who we are, to say I don't ever want to feel that again. So I'm going to just hide behind this wall.

[00:14:03] But she says that will never serve us. In fact, she says if you trade your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment and inexplicable grief.

[00:14:22] These are things that are plaguing our world right now with all the issues that we're facing, with the divisiveness and the energy that we're facing. It's an invitation to be willing to be who we are, to seek out our authentic self and be that and express that.

[00:14:42] And it is not always easy. It requires transparency. Now what I like about what Brenna says, that transparency doesn't look like. I just run around boarding out who I am to everyone who'll hear it.

[00:14:54] Yeah, well I hate that, I don't like that, I never want that again or when that's not where we're talking about. That's not the authentic life.

[00:15:02] Here's what we're talking about. We're talking about in these places where our heart is connected in our life, these relationships and conditions and situations where we can say,

[00:15:15] I'm hiding. I'm hiding because I'm ashamed. I'm hiding because I'm afraid, I'm not having the difficult conversation that I need to have.

[00:15:25] I'm not speaking my truth. It might be in a romantic relationship and a family situation. It might be in a work situation. It might be in just some direction or decision that we, we crave for our life to go on.

[00:15:41] We just haven't had the courage to be transparent about it with people around us. It also might be about sharing with other people that it's I'm having a hard time right now.

[00:15:52] It could be that simple and we in this beautiful new thought movement sometimes misunderstand and think to really be practicing what we teach, we must always be positive.

[00:16:04] Always have a happy thought. Always have put our best foot forward and so this teaching in and of itself can appear to say, You're hiding by the wall, you never let people know you're struggling but that's not why we come here is it.

[00:16:18] We don't come to church to be some perfect automatron to always look great. We come here to love each other. We come here to support each other. We come here to see each other. We come here to lift each other up.

[00:16:32] We can't feel that unless we let other people know what's happening for us in a realistic way.

[00:16:40] To stand before a practitioner and say, I'm really having a hard time with my relationship with my kid and invite a prayer to get support in a class by talking through an issue and really sharing with a prayer partner, a fellow student, I'm really scared about my finances.

[00:17:04] This is why we come here to speak that authentic word because in and of itself it releases an energy that then allows us to be available for transformation.

[00:17:15] It's not to come here to hide. And I would actually suggest your life, my life, it's not to come here to hide. We did not go through all we've gone to be born and to live this life just to hide and pretend and be safe and look perfect.

[00:17:34] That is not why we came here. We came here to be and the love that we yearn for and we crave and we need and we deserve can only happen when we dismantle those walls and we show up just as we are.

[00:17:55] Just as we are, I always talk about people who date and if they ask my advice, I always say, just put yourself out for what you really are

[00:18:05] because dating is this thing where you sit down and you put your best foot forward and maybe you never dress up but you dress up for date for the date. I got to dress up but it's not who I really am.

[00:18:16] I'm stunned when I work with couples who come and say, I'll ask them things about what their plans are and one of them wants five children and one of them doesn't want children and oh they've never talked about that before. Oh you're going to get married okay.

[00:18:31] You got to put who you are forth because when you do that whether it's dating or a job or some friendship the people who are in your business and you're going to be a good person. If you put the fake you forward, you'll get what you don't want.

[00:18:48] And so it's important to be authentic and be transparent. Now it's interesting I'm so exciting that we have, I'm so excited that we get to have KuT Lacks and come and speak with us in April on April 26th.

[00:19:02] We still have plenty of tickets so we encourage you to come and we've all been reading this book, the magic of surrender. Many of us have gotten the book and we've been reading it.

[00:19:12] And one of our members of our marketing team, one of our staff members who leads our graphic efforts, Lindsey Portan Coso pointed out this process on page 70 of KuT's book that is about the truth called the truth process.

[00:19:27] As you leave today there'll be a paper available for you to take home with you that has these questions on it and has information about KuT who's coming but you can use these questions this week to support us.

[00:19:38] This week to support you in dismantling the wall. So here are the questions.

[00:19:43] It's a laser tool to drill down to the essence of what you really feel. Now before I share the questions I do want to say that prior to KuT sharing these questions he'd been talking about working with a man who had been married for many years and he and his wife had decided that their marriage was definitely over.

[00:20:02] But they were living as a married couple for the sake of the children and not that that's good or bad or wrong or right but they were both very unhappy.

[00:20:13] And the man was extremely unhappy feeling as though he was setting his life aside and KuT was using these questions to just challenge him to really think about if this needed to continue to be his choice or not. So here were the questions are the questions.

[00:20:29] What lies am I telling myself? What lies am I telling myself? So the lie that I told myself when I hid those letters was that if I made a mistake I would never be allowed to speak again.

[00:20:43] If I made a mistake if I embarrassed the church that the board would fire me I told myself all sorts of things that turned out to be lies. Now I didn't know at the time I convinced myself that I believed in the truth.

[00:20:58] But that's the point isn't it? Most of our lies are actually assumptions we're making. If I really told you the truth about what I'm thinking, I know you wouldn't approve.

[00:21:09] No you don't. That might be a lie you're telling yourself. The second one is what am I pretending not to know? What am I pretending not to know?

[00:21:19] I was pretending not to know that we're adults. I was pretending not to know that mistakes can be made. What are we pretending not to know?

[00:21:32] The third question is what is the payoff for staying stuck? Oh take a deep breath on that one right? We might think there's no payoff. I don't want to be stuck.

[00:21:45] I don't really want to be stuck in this situation. I don't like it. Yeah that might be your conscious mind. I don't just love a dress with pockets. I just have to say.

[00:22:03] Take your hands out of your pocket. What is the payoff for staying stuck? A lot of times the payoff is the comfort zone, right?

[00:22:15] Sometimes we love the comfort zone. It's all comfy and cozy and warm in here, and I don't like it at all, but I know the terrain. And so staying stuck means staying safe. But stepping out might represent a risk.

[00:22:36] And so what's the payoff looking at that? Number four, what has the lie been costing me? That's a big question. What I've discovered in my life is that the lie always cost me me. It always cost me my authentic self.

[00:22:54] It always cost me a liveness because the opposite of all those qualities that run a suggested depression and anxiety, all those things is total a liveness when I am who I am.

[00:23:06] I might not get everyone's approval. I might be rejected, but at least I'm being me. At least I am embracing and expressing the fullness of who I am. And that means more than anything.

[00:23:19] What am I afraid might happen if I tell the truth? Again back to comfort zones. Things might change someone might have a different opinion about me.

[00:23:29] And there's a lot of things, but what am I afraid might happen if I tell the truth? And then lastly, what right action can I take today?

[00:23:38] There's a part of me who's been dreaming of moving to New Zealand. Maybe my right action is that I research. What is it that people do for a living? What's the cost of living in New Zealand?

[00:23:47] I just do a little something that's right action that lets a part of me know that I'm at least willing to consider what I've been thinking about.

[00:23:56] What is it in people who do that career? How do they do it? Go talk to someone who does what it is you'd love to do.

[00:24:04] Go talk to someone who's in a happy relationship and here what works for them. There's all sorts of little right action steps that we can take every day that can help us communicate to our deep self that we're taking little risks every single day.

[00:24:21] Because what this does is it restores our lives. There seems to be a foot here. It's a game, but it's a very serious game that we all came here. See when you were made into being this the infinite life and life.

[00:24:41] You're a part of the research with the specific genetic makeup of you or parents and created you and me and everyone else. This unique expression of Godlyhood. We are, and what I call our original Godly setting could express itself in this world.

[00:25:08] And then our systems here on earth whether it's family or culture or experiences or decisions we made or paying we experience have caused us to often lose touch with that original Godly setting.

[00:25:25] And every time my sense is every time we take down a brick of that wall that original Godly setting has its expression in the world.

[00:25:38] And what was originally intended to occur upon your birth and my birth is launched into the earth. And we find our way, we find our people and we find our expressions and we find our careers and we find our dreams and we find our desires.

[00:25:59] But I am 100% sure that if we stay hidden behind that wall, we will not find what we are looking for. And we will convince ourselves that who we are isn't enough, that we don't belong here, that this world just can't handle us when all the while that's not the truth.

[00:26:22] This week, go forth. Use these questions to take down that wall, be strong, be vulnerable, be willing and I'd like to close with one last quote from the Great Brenna Brown.

[00:26:36] She says stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don't belong. You will always find it because you've made that your mission. Scouring people's faces for evidence that you're not enough. You will always find it because you've made that your goal.

[00:26:53] True belonging and self-worth are not goods. We don't negotiate their value with the world. The truth about who we are lives in our hearts are called a courage to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own. No one belongs here more than you.

[00:27:15] Here's the thing, if you're here, you belong here. Let us have you and all your wild glory. Please join me as we pray together. Thank you.

[00:27:30] I invite our practitioner prayer partners to join me if they would like and stand for this prayer because we stand together, recognizing the one glorious life that expresses in through an as all of creation is God, is source is the infinite presence.

[00:27:47] It's a very life itself that animates everything and we celebrate it in all of its glory. Indeed, in all of its diversity is we stand before a field of wild flowers.

[00:28:01] Isn't one of the things we love best? How beautiful each one is, how uniquely expressed it is, how the beauty of all the different expressions and colors and heights and widths of that wild flower.

[00:28:15] Field make it just an amazing thing to behold. I feel that joy in my heart and my soul. I can see the field before me, and I allow my awareness now to turn towards all humans everywhere.

[00:28:35] To include myself, my own image in the mirror as I recognize that humanity is a beautiful field of wild flowers. And God is inherent in every flower expressing fully and completely in through an as each expression.

[00:28:55] And I see the beauty of it all and most especially this week. I affirm and accept that each of us sees the beauty of our authentic self that we can find the strength.

[00:29:09] As we go forth from this place this day to step more fully into the transparency of the true nature of our life, of our desires, of our heart.

[00:29:22] That we can and do have conversations and share who we are with the world that we take ever more each day. Greater steps towards being who we truly are for this we were born for this we have come to earth.

[00:29:41] And I accept an affirm that in that choice always present is the ever present energy of the divine.

[00:29:51] That is our strength. That is where we can draw courage and we do that as we pray as we meditate, as we make these choices, as we have the courage to stand fully in our life in our life.

[00:30:09] And I'm so grateful that this is who and what we are now. So grateful for the authentic expression of all beings everywhere. So grateful that this is true.

[00:30:19] For I know that all good is expressed through this. And I just give thanks as I release this prayer now into the action of that universal law. I let go, I let it be and so it is.

[00:30:33] Thanks for listening to the Mile High Church podcast. This podcast is made possible by the generous contributions from listeners like you to make a donation. Please visit Mile High Church.org