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Grit ‘n’ Grace: Good Girls Breaking Bad Rules

Episode #187: Farewell to Good Girls Breaking Bad Rules

 

Amy:
So, Cheri, tell me how you feel about change?

Cheri:
Okay. Is it fun for you for me to make gagging sounds, like retching into the toilet sounds at the beginning of a podcast? Or should I wait at least five minutes before I do that?

<Laughter>

If I knew how to make the sounds of being strangled. Oh my gosh!

You know I love change when I am the one making it happen, and I’m totally in charge of it. I love that kind of change. Whee!

<Laughter>

And at this moment in my life, none of that kind of change is happening. So I hate change. To quote the Grinch, “I loathe it entirely.” How about you, Amy? How do you feel about change?

Amy:
Didn’t you like the way I tried to say it with an excited voice.

<Laughter>

Cheri:

Yes, perky!

Amy
The truth is – oh, everybody’s favorite – the truth is I’m change averse. I’m like you, though, sometimes I like change if I’m in control of it.

Cheri:
The ‘C’ word: control!

<Laughter>

Amy:
But, generally, I like things to stay constant. And, boy, in this season none of us have a constant. Do we?

Cheri:

Not in the least. Well, especially as an enneagram 1, you probably like to get things so they are just so, just right, and then, of course, you want them to stay that way and for nobody to mess them up.

Amy:

Here’s the secret. So everybody’s home, of course. Anson, my oldest, is home. He’s on hiatus from a tour. Barry, who usually travels about half the time, is home all the time. Usually, when Barry leaves, the minute he walks out the door, I put everything in its place. And I sit and I look and I smile. And it stays there until Barry gets home.

<Laughter>

And that is not a slam on my husband, girls. I promise. He is my favorite person on the planet, but he doesn’t have a place for things like I do. So, yeah, change is hard.

<Laughter>

Cheri:

Well, this is Cheri Gregory.

Amy:
And I’m Amy Carroll.

Cheri:
– and you’re listening to Grit’n’Grace: Good Girls Breaking Bad Rules. The podcast that equips you to lose who you’re not, love who you are, and live your one life well.

Amy:
Today, well, going to tell you about a little change and the near demise of Grit ‘n’ Grace.

Cheri:
I think you all know that back in January I called Amy to tell her that I needed to back out of our speaking engagement in Hawaii. What you don’t know is the question that she asked me after she assured me she would miss me, but she would manage just fine without me for the speaking engagement. She asked me a very specific question.

Amy:
Well, Cheri was in the throes of a lot of things including her dad’s illness. And so, I just said, Cheri, do you need to also back away from Grit ‘n’ Grace? And, listen, I choked up while I said it, I’m sure, because I love Grit ‘n’ Grace! And I didn’t want it to go anywhere, but I knew this might be the time for it to end.

Cheri:
I told you that I had just gone through my calendar, and I was just starting to take things off. I need to do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do the other thing. Hawaii was one of them. And if my memory serves me, you said or kind of what I received was is Grit ‘n’ Grace something else you need to take off of your calendar?

I had just parked my car when I listened to the message. You just have to imagine me taking my arms and putting them on the steering wheel and then put my head down in my arms and I bawled, like complete body heaving, chest racking kind of sobbing. Because, the thing is, I knew that the answer was yes. I knew that I needed to take Grit ‘n’ Grace off my calendar. And, I so didn’t want that to be the answer, but I couldn’t lie and tell Amy, no, I’m doing fine. There’s no problems whatsoever. We can keep doing this in the midst of everything else.

But I also couldn’t stand the thought that Grit ‘n’ Grace was over, so I messaged back. I messaged you back, and I said, “You know, that’s probably a good idea for us to take a little bit of a hiatus. And then, Amy had to go and twist the knife!

<Laughter>

Amy:

Well, I mean, I thought about that word hiatus. Even to me, Cheri, it still felt like a weight. It felt like a lot of pressure. I just responded to you, as you know, “Hey, that still sounds like a lot of pressure.” And you had a tremendous amount of pressure on you from a lot of different directions. And I think that we needed to do a hard stop.

And I talked to Barry about it, too. He talked about the great athletes, Michael Jordan, for example. They’re the ones that really step away when they’re at the top of their game.

And it felt so bad! Didn’t it, Cheri?

Wow! We had more downloads that month than we ever had before.

<Cheri laughing>

We just love what we do. We love you guys! I mean we really do.

When we hear from you, you cannot imagine the emails that fly back and forth between Cheri and I. And we just couldn’t imagine it, but it felt like a hard stop was the thing to do.

Cheri:

If you had used any word other than pressure, I would have fought you tooth and nail. But, of course, pressure was the key word. It was the key word that defines our book, Exhale. Like we’ve said, it’s for the woman who’s suffocating from all the pressures. And so, I had to acknowledge, and it did feel so strange.
When you shared what Barry said, I was like, theoretically I understand this to be true that people often quit at the top of their game. But, I mean, for a perfectionist, recovering, reforming perfectionist who’s been striving her entire life the idea of stopping at the top was like what is this crazy talk?

But I realized you were right. I mean, it’s just, you know how something, you can fight it with your words, you can fight it with a surface part of your brain, but like in the core, like, really, really, really in your soul. You’re like, it’s right; it’s true. I could spend weeks fighting this thing and still come to the same conclusion. So, I accepted that this was the decision and Grit ‘n’ Grace was coming to an end.

Amy:
Except it wasn’t really the end.

<Laughter>

Here’s what happened, ya’ll. She says, “Yes, you’re right. Let’s do it.” And then I got voxer after voxer with ideas about how we could not stop.

<Laughter>

Cheri:

Okay! So hang on a second. You are the one. You really walked me through this. You assured me that we would still talk to each other, which was like really important, because, I’m like I could not imagine my life without…how would I even know what I was thinking without talking things through?

And then, I think somewhere in there, I think you probably said it to make me feel better, you probably said something like, well, there’s nothing to stop us from starting another podcast someday.

And, of course, that’s all that Cheri Gregory’s little crazy idea generating brain needed to start going on the hamster wheel. And so, here’s the crazy thing that I absolutely did not expect. And that is once my brain had accepted that Grit ‘n’ Grace was done, like, not on hiatus, but done. All sorts of new ideas showed up that really, there’s no way they could have shown up without putting that full stop.

And so, we even did go back and forth. I was testing you. I was throwing ideas out to see if you would be like, Cheri shut up. We’re done. We’re done. We ended up with this little bit of banter, back and forth, like, what we would name a new podcast. We even tried a few names and realized we both love Grit ‘n’ Grace. We didn’t want to move away from it. And then, once we settled that, it kind of hit me. Maybe it’s not Grit ‘n’ Grace that needs to end. Maybe it’s Good Girls Breaking Bad Rules.

In fact, it then hit me when we started this podcast we named it based on very much an idea I had, which was this whole idea of Breaking Bad rules. And I realized, hang on, for like for three or four years we’ve been doing this based on my ministry, but I know you’ve pivoting your ministry. And, I thought, what if we switch the podcast so it follows where you’re going?

Things change over time. Who knew? What I’d love, love, love is for you to share with our listeners a little bit about your ministry pivot just as an example of a change that you’ve chosen. It chose you and then you’ve chosen. Share a little bit about what’s that been like.

Amy:

Well, for over a decade, really, the foundation of what I have spoken and written about is deeper relationships. Deeper relationships with God and other people.

And then the way… the turn it took about halfway through that decade, was that I started talking about perfectionism because perfectionism was one of the main agents that ruined my relationships. And I’ve talked about that a lot here, and how God used some imploding relationships to really point out my problem, which was my own perfectionism.

And so, Cheri and I, Grit ‘n’n Grace, good girls breaking bad rules, it was Cheri’s concept, but it was a great fit for me because it’s who I am, too.

And so, here we’ve been rolling along talking about perfectionism and people pleasing and this all fit exactly where I was until a couple of years ago.

Really, it started about two years ago. I think it was about a year and a half ago where I was on a conference call with Kathi Lipp and Cheri. And Kathi, we were with a bunch of interns, women new to ministry and new to this idea of what your calling, your ministry niche is.

<Cheri giggling>

And Kathi goes, so how many of you don’t know what your ministry niche is? Raise your hand. And I raised my hand. She goes, “Amy Carroll! Why are you raising your hand?

Cheri:
<Laughing>
That was hysterical!

Amy:
We’re going to talk about this later! The truth was it was funny that I raised my hand but I was being honest that I was in this quagmire of I don’t know who I am anymore. And what I had not recognized is that God was wanting to shift my ministry and what I was writing and speaking about, and I just hadn’t recognized it. So I just felt lost, and I was just floundering around.

Well, I had a great call with Cheri and Kathi, and out of that call came my new tagline, which is tender hearts, strong voices. And, the shift is that God… I’ve talked about perfectionism and people pleasing for so long, but I’ve grown just like you’ve grown, Cheri, and our listeners have grown.

And this has been going on for over a decade. If I still was stuck in perfectionism and talking it about it, there would be a problem. It’s not that it’s not part of who I am anymore. It’s just not the main part of what God is doing now.

The main part is He is teaching me how to use my voice for Him in this very divided culture in Godly ways. And so, that’s what I started writing and speaking about, and it’s very different. It’s a hard left turn. And so, finally, I’ve got my website up to speed on all that.

Cheri:
It is amazing! And we will put a link in the show notes for this. Listeners, you’ve got to go check it out! Not only is it absolutely amazing, but, Amy, it is so you. The tagline is so you.

Amy:

Thank you. I love it!

Cheri:

And here’s the thing, could you be where you are right now if you hadn’t done the work on perfectionism?

Amy:
No! And, in fact, you are the one, Cheri, because I’m working on a new book proposal with Lynn Cowell that I’m super excited about.

Cheri:
Yay!

Amy:
And it’s such a long process that we’ve been doing, but the longer we work on it, the better it gets. I’m so excited! But you were the one that pointed out Exhale was a followup to Breaking Up With Perfect. It was the sequel, and then the next book that we’re working on is a sequel to Exhale. It is fleshing out living your one life well. I hadn’t even seen that myself, but it is. It’s really following the trajectory of my growth and the lessons God has been teaching me, which totally makes sense. So Grit ‘n’ Grace is a trajectory, too.

Cheri:
So, what you‘re experiencing is this really organic and natural change as God has been leading your ministry. And so, we‘re going to be taking these deep breaths here, because God‘s doing the same thing with Grit ‘n’ Grace. I mean, listeners, you know if you’ve been listening for a while that the subtitle Good Girls, Breaking Bad Rules that we’ve had for three and a half years on this podcast came from a failed book proposal. But, two years ago, that book proposal became a contract, and it became a book that released a year ago, Exhale.

And we wrote that book together, and I’m not saying we’re done. But, you know, it just occurs to us now that maybe that phase, that stage has served its purpose, and God is leading us to move on to something new.

Amy:
So, instead of being done with Grit ‘n’ Grace. So, we’re not obviously done; we’re here.

Cheri:
Yay!!!

<Laughter>

Amy:
We feel like God is leading us to shift to new topics. Now, let’s be clear. We’re not completely done with perfectionism and people pleasing, because this is still our baseline struggle. So, it’s not that we won’t ever talk about it again.

But, listen, we have 186 episodes about perfectionism and people pleasing, and that’s a lot. And so, for any of you who haven’t listened to all 186 and it feels like don’t leave me here; I’m still struggling. That’s okay. You’ve got a bunch more episodes to listen to and then you can keep right up with us.

Cheri:
So, we realized how much we have been living by a particular bad rule. And the bad rule goes like this, never ask for help. You should be able to do this all by yourself. And I’ll be honest, that bad rule, which we’ve just kind of unearthed more recently as something we’ve been following, that bad rule really almost was what caused us to quit Grit ‘n’ Grace all together. It really almost was the death of Grit ‘n’ Grace. And we’ve realized that we do need your help and support.

Amy:
We really do. And so, and Cheri and I processed, and we came up with three ways to ask you, our listeners, let me resay that, to ask you, our listener. If I say listeners it could mean somebody else in the group, but we’re talking to you today, babe!

We’ve got three different things that we need. Number one, we really need prayer. Cheri and I have not had a prayer team for Grit ‘n’ Grace, and we just feel such a deep sense of that need. You know, years ago I had someone say to me prayer is not the preparation for the work. Prayer is the work.

And Cheri and I are such doers that we can kind of overlook prayer as one of those means of support. We’re realizing that we need you if you are a prayer warrior and will consistently pray for us.

So, click on the prayer button at GritNGrace Girls.com/support if you would like to join the prayer team, and we’ll add you to an email list that will receive our prayer requests once a month.

Now, the next two categories will help us fund Grit ‘n’ Grace, because I’ve mentioned this here before but the truth is we have a handful of Patreon supporters, and we’re thankful. But, for the most part Cheri Gregory has funded Grit ‘n’ Grace. Cheri and Daniel Gregory have funded Grit ‘n’ Grace out of their own pockets for three and a half years. So, three cheers for the Gregorys!

Okay, we’re so grateful for that. But the truth is that’s not sustainable. It probably wouldn’t be sustainable for you. It’s not sustainable for me. And we want to raise support for financial support for Grit ‘n’ Grace to take that weight off of them.

We want to make our refresh of Grit ‘n’ Grace sustainable.

Cheri:
So the second thing you can do. The first thing is pray. Join our prayer team. The second thing is share. We would love to know if you know a sponsor. That would be an individual or a company that would be interested in covering the cost of one or two episodes.

Or an advertiser someone with a product or service that fits Grit ‘n’ Grace that would like to get the word out during the podcast, and we promise to choose products that you love because we already love them.

To share referrals with us go to GritNGraceGirls.com/support, and you’ll find a form you can fill out there.

Amy:
And, the last way you can support Grit ‘n’ Grace is financially by giving yourself. Now, we want to give a huge shout out and thanks to our current Patreon supporters. Ya’ll have helped us keep the lights on to this point.

But we want many of you to have a chance to support either with a small one-time gift, a monthly gift, a larger monthly gift. You’ll be able to find out more information at that same place, GritNGraceGirls.com/support.

Cheri:
So, there’s a couple of other bad rules that we discovered that we’re breaking here. The first one is never ask for help. You should be able to do this all by yourself.

So there we go, Amy, we have broken that bad rule. We asked for help. We’ve asked everybody to pray, to share, and to give.

A couple of other bad rules: one of them would be if something’s working, you have to keep doing it the same way. And I’ll admit that was hard for me to realize, oh, what we used to do; it used to work. It’s no longer working, and if we keep on doing it, it’s just going to get all the more damaging. But we can do that other C word. I guess we have two C words now, Amy, we have control, and we have change.

Doing this other C word, finding a new way to do things is going to make things better. And then, the other one, and I just love this one. Once you decided, you can’t go back.

And I love that because we did made a decision. We made the decision that we’re going to end Grit ‘n’ Grace. And, then, as we felt God leading, we spent a whole week really praying over – had we even been called – you and I did this separately. And I resisted the urge to try to influence you. I hope you noticed how very disciplined I was in not trying to send you subliminal messages from me that seem to be from God. I was very, very restrained.

But, after that week, we both came to the same conclusion that God has called us to continue podcasting. So, I love that we broke those two rules, because, I think, those are subtle ones. If something’s working, you have to keep doing it the same way. Not true. Once you’ve decided you can’t go back. Not true. So, what’s the Scripture that you feel goes along with what we’ve been talking about today?

Amy:
Well, it’s a familiar one, and it’s one that we all need right now. Ecclesiastes 3:1 There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens.

So, Cheri, when you hear, when you process everything we’ve talked about and hear that scripture, where’s the grit in it for you?

Cheri:

The grit for me is absolutely making that hard decision to quit Grit ‘n’ Grace and sit in the pain instead of running from it. And I was miserable. And I wanted to figure out a way to change your mind. I wanted to figure out a way to say no to you. I wanted to keep everything going the way it used to be, because I didn’t know what would happen on the other side of that hard stop.

And, you know, thinking about it this morning, because now it’s been a couple of months. If we hadn’t sat with the pain. If we hadn’t made that hard decision, there’s so much that wouldn’t have come…so much good that God had in mind that wouldn’t have been able to happen, like, we would have blocked that from happening.

I would have blocked that from happening by refusing to experience the pain, and I am so excited about the changes and pivots and the new direction that we are taking that I look back at my January self and I’m, like, “Oh, I’m so grateful that I sat with that pain, that I cried all those tears, that I was that miserable.”

I’m so glad, but it was hard, and I almost didn’t. And so, it gives me courage at the moment to realize, okay, as much as I might want to run from pain. I might want to numb from it. I might want to take the easy way out, that making these hard decisions and sitting in the pain of change of a pivot moving into the unknown, so worth it when we are clear that God is leading us.

What’s the grace for you?

Amy:

Well, the grace. I’ve changed my mind from what I first put, because when I heard you talk about when you make a pivot, when you make a hard stop, the grace is in these moments of change, in the pain of these changes that sometimes we’re called to make, that is the only time when we can see the new open door. If we aren’t wiling to sit in the grit of the pain, we don’t get to experience the grace of the new open. I feel like we’ve gotten to do that, and I’m so grateful, so grateful.

Cheri:
We hope you’ve enjoyed episode 187 of Grit’n’Grace: Good Girls Breaking Bad Rules.

Amy:
Make sure you stop by the website to see us, gritngracegirls.com/epiosde187. There you’ll find our transcript and details about how you can pray, share, and give.

Cheri:

We have questions for you to help us prepare for our upcoming interviews. And we’re going to be asking them in our Grit ‘n’ Grace Girls Facebook group.

So, if you’re not yet a member, search Facebook for GritNGraceGirls and you’ll find us.

Amy:

Next week, make sure to join us when we’ll be unpacking all the exciting pieces of this new direction that Grit ‘n’ Grace is taking.

Cheri:
For today, grow your grit. Embrace God’s grace. And when you run across a bad rule, you know what to do. Go right on ahead and…

Amy ‘n’ Cheri:
Break it!

Outtakes

Cheri:
All right.

Amy:

Yay!

Cheri:
You know what occurred to me this morning? We need a new ending. We can say grow your grit. We can say embrace God’s grace. But we need something new after that. That’s the last time we’ll say…

Amy:

Oh, that’s right.

Cheri:
When you run across a bad rule, you know what to do. Go right on ahead and break it.

<Sigh>

A historic moment!

<Laughter>

Put your thinking cap on. We need something else there.

I think grow your grit, embrace God’s grace. I think those still work, but we need something that happens after that. So, between now and next time we record. No pressure. Just come up with something brilliant.