UPLEVEL Your Faith to Your Next Level Yes

Over the past few years I have identified triggers and traps that has kept me stagnate – not flowing or developing to places I desired. This new level of awareness creates opportunities to more quickly move form surviving to Thriving, which breaks the power of stagnation in my life. Recently I participated in a  nontraditional business mastermind retreat with some amazing people whom I have grown to love within the last year. I was in an unfamiliar emotional and physical space before and during the retreat which brought forth some triggers. I am thankful to God for helping me identify these triggers so that when they appear, I recognize them and can choose to process differently that creates a more favorable outcome.

I was not involved in the retreat planning process which was a different space for me because ever since elementary school I have been on committees that planned events. I can count on one hand the number times I have shown up as participant only. I enjoy creating and facilitating space for others to UPLEVEL and Thrive. It wasn’t until my healing to wholeness journey that I realized how uncomfortable I was being a participant. As the planner I am in doing and performance mode, the ultimate task master, so I was never free to fully partake and benefit from the goals of events. There was a level of excellence and a standard I required of myself for the sake of the participants’ UPLEVEL experience, which means I didn’t fully get what I could have for myself.

At this retreat I was vulnerable in a way that not even those closest to me experience often. I cried on the first day. I was frustrated throughout because I felt unclear and couldn’t connect the dots. I felt like as soon as I think I have it figured out a stumbling block appears making me question my previous resolve. The assignments seemed to overwhelm, and I felt like my fellow collaborators had answers to help, but they wouldn’t. I know by now that God most times don’t release people to share with me about me. He may use others for a piece of the answer, but He makes sure that I trust and rely on Him for my answers and directions.

My frustration was obvious to my fellow collaborators. Even though I recognized my triggers, I partly succumbed to my traps. They were providing guidance, but because it wasn’t what I wanted to hear I began to shut down and become nonchalant. I tuned out. These actions have been traps in my life when things and people don’t show-up or respond the way I desire. It’s the trap of expectations and perfectionism. This didn’t last long, praise God. In the past the traps and triggers would have caused major regression in my life and whatever outcome I was trying to receive. I would have then mentally beat myself for making those decisions and not moving forward.

The visionary of the retreat sent me text which included a link to song. I miss read text and thought it meant something else and didn’t listen to the song because we were still in session. He also spoke into my process and prayed for my clarity and that it wouldn’t take long for God to answer me. During this time, I also prayed “Lord remove the scales from my eyes like you did Paul, remove the blinders from my eyes.”

God often speaks to me through songs and movies. As I am pulling into my garage, I play the song and burst into tears during the 1st verse. I listen to the song then read the lyrics. I went into a praise thanking God for loving me, caring for me and speaking to me. The song was “Your Number” by Gladys Knight & the Pips.

“I may not have the answer

But I can make it easier to find

Too many times

You gave more than you took

Now I can show you

Things are better than they look

You’re number in my book.”

Even though this is secular song, I could hear God speaking to me. My nature is to give and I had to learn to receive. When I began the process for beginning my business my primary services were built to be the #2-person to visionary leaders and their projects. During the building process God would gradually nudge me and tell me to shift and I would shift. I responded to the shift, but keep what I believed was the approach in the background. I was attempting to do both. Even though it was my business I was building it very similar to how I spent my career. I was really comfortable being the behind the scenes person. I think I enjoyed, I think I was good at, I felt like that was my assignment. I defiantly learned a lot. But recently I didn’t feel the same level of grace and excitement as I once did. A business with this structure would not give me the freedom I ultimately desired to be with my family. I would be on someone’s schedule not one I created.

One of the lyrics say “another chapter”. I say no another book in the series in your personal book series. In a new book, “this time you’ll capture things that should never be denied.”

One of the activities during the retreat asked us to write down 5 things on sticky note that would require us to take risk, but push our vision forward this year. The first thing I wrote down was “Be comfortable being in front executing my vision not someone else’s.” He didn’t know I wrote this down, so God used his text to confirm I wasn’t off in identifying my risk.

The next day I went to church and I felt like the worship experience was just between me and God. The praise team sung two new songs (“Mention” by Fresh Start Worship and “You will satisfy me” by Vaughan Pheonix) that resonated with where I was and my retreat experience.

“At the mention of your name

The scales fall from their eyes

Once blinded eyes will see

You are Lord”

“You will satisfy me

Right here in your presence

I have been set free

And I won’t leave empty

You set me on fire

There’s a burning in my soul

You purify my passion

Your will is what I want

My heart is full of You Lord

And my joy is complete

Well of living waters

You won’t leave me empty

You will satisfy me”

The lyrics to song are prayers I prayed during the retreat and some are part of my regular prayers to God. My pastor talked about the importance of our story and how God would use our story to help someone else. He said we would tell our whole story without being embarrassed. In worship he instructed us to yell “Yes Lord.” That was not abnormal for me. In my time with God, I literally always say “Yes God, Yes Lord.” As I worshipped and said “Yes Lord” in corporate worship I literally felt something break spiritually. I felt a peace and release. I heard “Yes you always say yes Lord, but that was an old yes, you have to submit and surrender to a new yes. Your next level requires a new yes.”

In reflection of this week-long process (yes, a week from beginning to end, it use to take much longer, thank God for progress). I began the journey to my Next Level Yes. I surrender what I thought it should look like and what made me comfortable. The comfort zone I needed to be concerned with is trusting God and knowing that He is stretching me.

What I realized and what I often realize as a daughter of God is that He answers the root of my prayers. The way I was trying to build a business supporting someone else’s vision meant I am still on someone else’s time table, deadlines and schedule which is contrary to my prayer of developing an environment where my time and attention to my family is first. This is not the first time I realized sometimes my plans, words and or action are not congruent with my prayers. Holy Spirit is providing more and more clarity each day. It continues to been an amazing journey. It is simple not complex. I get show up being not doing and I have overlooked, downplayed and underestimated who I am. But I am thankful to God for being a Good Good Father because one of my lifelong prayers I just want to be-that’s the secret petition of my heart which was message my pastor preached a few weeks ago.

This is all making sense now. A few months ago, I heard God say focus here. I am educated and have skills in various areas. There “here’ made me uncomfortable because it wasn’t rooted in skill. I couldn’t understand how God would allow me to have all this experience and not want to use it as the focus in our business. My “here” is rooted in the expertise of being me and my story. I couldn’t pinpoint the reason for the resistance at first, but God later revealed the primary resistance was rooted in my need for stability, security, establishment and order. These needs are rooted in childhood dysfunction, chaos and trauma which makes me desire to control, problem-solve and bring peace. These characteristics were core in some skill building and experiences. I had “Yes Lord, I submit to helping even when it doesn’t feel good.” This “Yes, God” built a foundation and sustained me until now. I am loyal by nature I don’t give up on people or things so I was committed to that Yes. I thought that was Yes for life. In serving and submitting to God you need to surrender the how and assignment attached to your Yes. You need to learn to pivot, with your “Yes, God.”

Who knew your loyalty to your old yes would interfere with your new yes. Your old yes prepared you for your new yes and your new yes is really what answers your big prayers and the secret petitions of your heart (“I’ll just say Yes by Brian Courtney Wilson).

I'll just say yes
You lead the way
I'm not afraid of what it means for me to say
That this life You gave
Is not my own
I'm trusting You to hear my yes and lead me on
Yes Lord
My life is Yours

And there is peace when I say yes
I might not see it now
But You save the best
For all who trust You and obey
There is an answer
No more delay

Yes Lord
My life is Yours

The mini melt down I had at the retreat, as well as the messages and revelations following was a reminder of my theme for the year. My personal words for the year are create and strength. I am to create this year with God as my strength. Joshua 1:8-9 is my scripture for the year “Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

Great Work Brian Courtney Wilson

“He that has begun
A great work in you
Is faithful to perform it
Oh God is faithful

I declare
You will know the favor of the Lord
And receive a harvest for your seed

And in due time
God will blow your mind
With what He planted inside of you
To bless the world as bloom”

Need help ending it, separating it into multiple blogs and getting a few simple action items/things to think about.

1.     Do you need to start a new chapter or a new book?

2.     What traps and triggers appear as you start a new book?

3.     Is it time to surrender your old yes for your next level yes? What is your next level Yes?

4.     Why are you so committed and loyal to your Old Yes?

5.     What is your resistance to your Next Level Yes and what is the root?

6.     What is your big prayer aka the secret petition of your heart related to this new Yes?

Link to playlist for these songs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFwkwoMOk9k&list=PLYgkYTdCkJB77v2GpNEL1C39nVZZvseJn