Are you a recovering perfectionist? In this podcast, our guests today have just the encouragement you need to exhale and lose who you’re not, love who you are, to live your one life well.
Click below to listen!
About the Authors: from exhalebook.com/#authors
Amy Carroll loves connecting a community through cultivating tender hearts and strong voices. And there’s nothing that delights her heart more than moving through life with Jesus and her community of tender-spoken women. Amy is the author of Breaking Up with Perfect, a member of the Proverbs 31 Ministries speaker and writer teams and co-host of the Grit ‘n’ Grace podcast. Additionally, she loves traveling all over the world and adores hearing the God-stories of women at her events.
Visit Amy’s website to learn more.
Through scripture and storytelling, Cheri Gregory loves sharing experiences that connect to women’s frustrations, fears, and failures, giving them hope that they are not alone—someone gets them. She also delights in helping women draw closer to Jesus: the strength of every tender heart. Cheri is the co-author, with Kathi Lipp, of You Don’t Have to Try So Hard and Overwhelmed; the co-host of the Grit ‘n’ Grace podcast; and the co-leader of Sensitive and Strong: the place for the HSP woman to find Community.
Visit Cheri’s website to learn more.
Connect with Amy Carroll
Facebook | Instagram | Website
Connect with Cheri Gregory
Facebook | Instagram | Website
NEW: EXHALE BOOK
Exhale: Lose Who You’re Not, Love Who You Are, Live Your One Life Well
Share how you’re learning to lose who you’re NOT, love who you ARE, and live your ONE life well!
Go to ExhaleBook.com and scroll to the bottom of the home page. There you’ll find a button that will take you to this form.
Exhale Perfectionism
As self-proclaimed recovering perfectionists, I asked the ladies to describe what kind they are. Amy responded that as an Enneagram 1, Amy begins describing how perfectionism has ruined some her relationships in the past. She has found that heaping expectations on other people as well as herself caused fractures in her closest communities.
Cheri, however, is a different kind. She responds that as an Enneagram 2 (the Helper), the goal of her perfectionism was people-pleasing:
“The people-pleasing hurt my relationship with myself, so that I never really knew who I was – I was constantly shape-shifting.”
For me, perfectionism revealed itself in self-righteousness. As a good little church girl, I always wanting to do things the “right” way.
There was a hilarious sign someone made and posted to Facebook that read: “I’m not really a control freak, but can I show you how to do it the right way?”
Many times perfectionistic and people-pleasing behaviors will masquerade as righteousness within the church. “God-ish” behaviors that are not explicit commands of the Lord are just extra-Biblical and often cultural norms.
Perfectionism never serves us well because we always find ourselves serving it.
Resources Mentioned in this Episode
Grit n Grace Girls Podcast: Good Girls Breaking Bad Rules
Enneagram Personality Indicator
Episode 053 | When You Don’t Feel Like a Natural Pregnant Mom
Jenn Buell – Facebook Live Interview: “Embracing the Gift of Not Overscheduling Summer”
The Four “P” Words We Need to Exhale Immediately
Perfectionism
Procrastination
People Pleasing
Performancism
Mamas who find themselves weighed down by the pressures of parenting to:
- be everything to my husband and children
- make sure my house looks this way before people come over
- do X, Y, and Z with my kids to insure they are successful
- make things as easy as possible for my kids so they don’t have to feel pain
Amy and Cheri share wisdom as mamas who have grown kids: There Is No Formula.
[bctt tweet=”You are not the Formula-Keeper. It’s not your job, it’s only to follow Jesus.” via=”no”]
Exhale What We Don’t Need to Be Doing
Amy and Cheri talk about the “Lose Who You’re Not” section of the book. They explain that, before you add things, you have to subtract things you’re doing that you were never called to:
-to earn approval
-take off all the hats
-to do what people expect
-to be like everyone on social media
…and only then can we…
Love Who You Are and Live Our One Life Well.
Dis-Appoint People and Love Who You Are!
Perfectionists and people pleasers spend their whole life striving to not disappoint others. As a result, Cheri challenges us to simply take that authority back from anyone to whom we have given too much authority.
Embracing your own God-given personality will give you permission to live in freedom.
Focus on and pray-cess your actual strengths. It’s not prideful to acknowledge your God-given gifts!
“We’re doing a disservice to the image of God in us when we don’t love who we are.” -Amy Carroll
Church-girl Christian culture thinks that “humility” means that we don’t recognize these gifts God has put inside of us.
Memorable quotes from Exhale include:
“God uses my trials to train me.”
“God turns my quirks into perks.”
The Goal of Exhale
To go from running on empty to spent and content.
Amy identifies 3 main longings that Christian moms have, but don’t often believe that they can be fulfilled all at once:
-For God to fulfill the desires of our hearts
-To Love our people well
-To Glorify God
It basically boils down to 2 main things that Jesus said: Love God and Love people. -Matthew 22:36-40
Order your copy of Exhale today! Study it in a small group and see how the power of God’s truth sets women free!
Order your copy of Exhale!
Exhale is for the woman suffocating under the pressure of being all things to all people; of filling every unfilled spot at church, work, and home; of trying to do it all right, make decisions that benefit everyone else, and keep everyone happy.
Rather than adding more to your to-do list, Amy Carroll and Cheri Gregory show you how to
- lose the ill-fitting roles you’ve been trying to fill so that you can be lighter and freer
- love your truest, God-created self with all your glorious gifts instead of trying to shove yourself into a mold
- live your one and only life in a way that you know truly matters
This isn’t a time-management book filled with how-to lists and calendar tools. Instead, it walks you through a process that releases you from the things that have created unbearable pressure.
Then you’ll be able to live the combination we all long for:
- fulfilling the desires of your heart
- loving your people well, and
- bringing glory to God
