December 1, 2024 • 28 mins
What's up y'all! I've been talking to God a lot about what our generation needs to hear from Him. I've also been posting a ton of polls on my Instagram (@em_led11) to get an idea of what we're all struggling with. And PHEW.
There's a lot to unpack and talk about, but I've boiled it down to one main issue that keeps coming up again and again in all my research: our obsession with ourselves is what's making us all so miserable. Our first series on the podcast is gonna be allll about this!
This series is for you if you are:
- Between the ages of 22-35, working full time, and don't have kids
- Feeling a lack of purpose, peace, and community in your life
- Questioning God, faith, and this whole Jesus thing
We're keeping it real, honest, and vulnerable as always baby. Let's go!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:24):
What's up beautiful people and welcometo the wrestling with life podcast.
I'm your host Em Led.
I am so freaking happy that you're here.
I just chugged a Celsius and I'm readyto run through a freaking brick wall.
Let's go baby.
I have some really, really excitingthings to share with y'all today.
And it's going to sound a little bitdepressing at first because we're going
(00:47):
to be talking about the reality of somereally deep struggles that I think our
generation is struggling with right now.
But by the end of this episode, I thinkyou're going to feel very encouraged
and I feel like you're going to reallywant to make some little tiny changes in
your life to, to fix your heart posture.
And.
(01:07):
Kind of change the way that you goabout your day to day life and your day
to day interactions with other peopleAnd hopefully feel a little bit more
peace a little bit later a little bitmore joy and a little bit more More
positivity and direction and purpose.
Okay.
Does that sound good?
Okay, so this is us kicking off thevery first series of the wrestling with
(01:29):
life podcast And this is the the new andimproved version You where we are kind
of rooting everything back into Jesus.
And if you don't believe in God,I don't want that to scare you,
and I don't want that to be thereason that you turn this off, okay?
I'm not here to shoveJesus down your throat.
I think that looking to the person ofJesus and his character and using him
(01:51):
as kind of inspiration on how we canact and love and give and feel, that's
the angle that I want to go with, okay?
I'm not here to shovereligion down your throat.
So hang with me.
And here what I have to say and Ireally challenge you to just have an
open heart as you're listening to this.
Okay, have an open mind and open heartand take and pick, pick and choose
(02:13):
from what I'm about to say, how youcan apply it to your own life to
hopefully feel a little bit more peace.
Okay?
So y'all, I've been so honest.
If you listen to the first episodereintroducing wrestling with life, I
have really been working on submittingmyself to God, hearing his voice,
hearing his direction for my life.
(02:33):
And what I'm about to share with you, Ireally feel like he is placed on my heart.
And I know that there's someone onthe other end of this microphone, the
other end of this podcast, who really,really needs to hear this, okay?
If you are in the age bracket of22 years old to about 35 years old,
you're working full time, you're inyour career, you're grinding baby,
(02:56):
and you don't have any kids yet.
This message is specifically for youand I fit into that demographic and
I want wrestling with life to be foranybody who fits into that demographic.
And you don't have to fit into thatperfectly to be here and to listen,
of course, but that's what allof the things that we talk about.
That's the type of person thatthis is all going to be geared for.
(03:18):
I mentioned in the last episode thatI kind of got to a place in my life
where I was looking around and thingswere going pretty well on the outside,
like anybody from an outside pointof view would look at my life and
be like, life's going great for her.
And it was, it was going great,but internally, I felt like crap.
Internally, I was anxious.
(03:40):
Internally, I constantly justfelt like I wasn't good enough.
I constantly felt likeI was proving myself.
And I constantly felt like I wasin competition with other people.
And so I started praying alot to God about, Hey God.
This doesn't feel great, and Ican't figure out what I'm doing
wrong, because I think I'm doingeverything right, so can you please
(04:02):
show me what I'm not doing right?
And really slowly over time, I feellike God kept giving me like tiny
little puzzle piece after puzzlepiece to fit together to realize
our obsession with ourselves, is thereason why all of us are so miserable.
We, as a generation, and honestlyas an entire world, but this age
(04:26):
bucket specifically, is probablythe most self obsessed of any of the
other generations, and there's a lotof different reasons why that is.
But I think a lot of it has to do withsocial media and technology and political
tensions being at an all time high.
we are all so concerned with winningand being right and being superior
(04:49):
to other people, that we havelost all of the ability to truly,
genuinely hear and love the truth.
And learn and hear and see other people.
We have just become soobsessed with ourselves.
We've become so obsessed with tryingto get ahead, trying to compete,
(05:09):
trying to win the competition, that wehave forgotten that the entire point
of our time on earth is to learn howto unconditionally love one another.
We are so focused on risingabove each other that we have
lost the the meaning of life.
And no wonder most of us don't feel anypeace and we don't feel any direction.
(05:31):
So this is the first episodeof a series that we're going
to talk about exactly this.
We're going to talk about how ourself obsession is destroying us.
I've been doing so much research to tryto really, genuinely, deeply understand
what our generation is up against, okay?
So I've posted a bunchof polls on my Instagram.
If you don't follow me, you can giveme a follow at em underscore led 11.
(05:56):
And I've been asking you guys all kindsof questions like, do you feel peace?
Do you feel lonely?
What are the biggestworries on your heart?
Are you worried about money?
Do you feel like youuse technology too much?
What kind of things do youuse to cope with stress?
Are you drinking?
Are you playing video games?
Are you scrolling on your phone?
(06:18):
Are you doing drugs?
Like, How do you cope with stress?
Do you feel like youhave a lot of friends?
Do you feel connected to other people?
Do you feel like your life isgoing in a positive direction?
Okay, these are the kind of questionsthat I've been asking people.
And there have been some freakingcrazy themes in the data The most
(06:38):
staggering stat of all is that98 percent of us are more focused
on ourselves than other people.
I don't even know if that'sshocking, because I feel like
I could have told you that.
I think at our age, first of all, like,let's be real, it makes sense that we
would be focused on ourselves, right?
Like, we have just left home, we'reno longer with mom and dad, we are
(07:02):
figuring out how we fit into thisworld, we're figuring out, okay, how
am I gonna make money and pay rent andkeep a job and maintain a social life
and, and do all these different things.
And at the same time, then wehave technology on top of that
(07:22):
and advertisements and TV and allthese different things that are
constantly begging for our attention.
It makes sense that all weever have time to think about.
Is ourselves because Ithink we are overstimulated.
I think there's a million things comingat us at once and we are constantly being
(07:43):
put into a place of you are not enough.
So you need to focus on yourselfand you need to figure out how
you're going to become enough.
Thus, we We are constantlythinking about ourselves.
Okay.
And how couldn't we, when every singlead that we see is for a new product
that's going to make us more fit orprettier or more desirable or smarter
(08:03):
or more productive, everything isbasically subliminally telling us
that we are not enough as we areand that we need this product or
this service to be better, right?
This isn't new news.
I know we all feel this and howcouldn't we when it's constantly
being shoved down our throats, right?
We are constantly being madeto feel like we're not enough
(08:23):
and then we're like, okay.
Well, that's on me It'son me to figure out.
How am I gonna be enough?
And then we're playing the comparisongame and we're constantly looking at
other people and we're like, okay Well,how do I stack up against this person?
How do I win?
How do I become better?
How do I prove that I'm enough?
And I don't know about y'all, but Iwas stuck in that rat race for so long.
(08:46):
I was doing it in my career becauseeven our, even our jobs, even
our careers are set up that way.
You're not even, you're kind ofpitted against your co workers if
you're in the business world, like,who's going to get the promotion?
Who's going to get thecredit for the project?
Who's going to get the bonus?
You know, like, it's literally organizedso that we keep competing with each other
(09:06):
to climb, and so is America in general.
Like, America in general is set up sothat we're all competing constantly,
so I'm not saying any of this toshame you, I'm saying it to explain
that it's so understandable thatall of us are constantly trying to
compete, I've always been a competitor.
(09:26):
Okay, I hate to lose.
So if you tell me there's a competitiongoing on and that there's going to
be a winner, I want to be the winner.
And I don't think there's anything wrongwith winning, but I do think there's
something wrong with stepping on otherpeople to get where you want to go, and
I think the way that you win and the waythat you treat other people along the
(09:47):
way to winning really freaking matters,and I think it also impacts how you feel
about yourself, the purpose that youfeel, and the peace that you feel, right?
okay.
So that was a tangent, but backto the data back to the data over
three quarters of us feel like weare spending way too much time on
technology and I am part of that state.
(10:10):
like my boundaries with socialmedia specifically are just
horrible in my nine to five job.
I use social media, so I'm already on itfor my work and then I use it also for
myself and to keep in touch with peopleto share things about my day in my life.
And I can end up spending hourson Instagram alone in a given day.
(10:30):
And I'm not alone in that 75percent of y'all feel the same way.
I also learned that half of us areincredibly stressed about money,
and we believe it's our biggestobstacle to a happy, healthy life.
Half of us are lacking strong,consistent, in person community,
and over half of us don't feel likewe know our life's purpose, and
(10:53):
we feel like we lack direction.
And, What I want to encouragey'all to see is that all of these
themes in the data are intertwined.
Okay?
We're all focused on ourselves.
We're all using technology too much.
And most of us are so worried about moneyand how we're going to pay rent and how
(11:15):
we're going to put food on the table andhow we're going to be successful that we
can't really think about anything else.
And we're really lackingstrong support systems.
We're lacking connection to other people.
And all of these things have somethingto do with each other, right?
It's taking away from our senseof purpose and our sense of peace.
(11:37):
It's fostering pride in us.
It's convincing us that the way that we'regoing to be happy, the way that we're
going to find peace is by winning againsteach other, winning arguments, winning
promotions, winning glory, winning fame.
winning attention, makingourselves more beautiful.
The list goes on, right?
We're convinced that the power isin our hands to save ourselves.
(12:01):
And if we just have more of this or that,or we just beat so and so, or we just
do more, then we're going to feel peace.
I feel like if we're all being honest, weall want the glory for ourselves, right?
We want that promotion, we want theraise, we want the money, we want, um,
the adoration, we want the respect.
(12:22):
We want ourselves to be up on thatpedestal, if we're being really
honest with ourselves, don't we?
Like, who wants to lose?
Who genuinely wants to lose?
I don't, I don't think anybody.
I think we all want to win, right?
But that is what is causing oursuffering, is that we are so concerned
with winning and being superiorthat we're cut off from love.
(12:45):
We all want to bespecial so bad, don't we?
We think that we're somisunderstood or that we have
qualities that nobody else has.
But I don't think any of us haveactually ever had an original thought.
A lot of us are, Beautifully,wonderfully average, myself included.
I think for a long time I really,I really clung on to the idea like,
(13:08):
Oh, I'm different, I'm special,because that made me feel significant.
That made me feelsuperior to other people.
That made me feel like I was winning.
But where that kind of prideexists, you never actually win
because you never feel peace.
You're always looking toyour left and your right.
You're always looking aheadat what more you can gain.
(13:30):
You're always looking at how youstack up against other people.
And there's no part of you thatever genuinely feels content
exactly where your feet are.
You never feel like enough.
You're always on thathamster wheel of chasing.
Always, and it's never ending and it'snot fulfilling and you never feel peace
and you never feel purpose when you'removing like that, you are literally
(13:53):
in fight or flight 24 7, which meansyou're in fear and when you're in fear,
all you're thinking about is yourself.
How can I protect myself?
How can I make myself better?
How can I make myselfsuperior to other people?
How can I survive?
So when you're always thinkingabout yourself, you have less
compassion and kindness for others.
You're not thinking about other people.
(14:15):
And when you're not thinkingabout other people, you're
not connected to other people.
And then you feel this lack ofconnection and belonging, which is
core to having peace and feeling likeyou matter and feeling like you're a
part of something bigger than yourself.
And when you're feeling like that,you're lacking purpose, you're lacking
direction, you're lacking an abilityto truly experience life, how we are
(14:38):
meant to experience it, which is tappedinto love with an open heart, with
an open mind, with openness, period,Our obsession with ourselves is the
reason why we are all so miserable.
It's the reason that we're cutoff from joy, it's the reason that
we're cut off from peace, okay?
there's a very consistent huge messagein our culture that is I'm a good
(15:00):
person, therefore I deserve good things.
It is everywhere.
It's all over social media.
The affirmations are everywhere.
Like I am enough.
I will do things that serve me.
I will cut myself off from people whohurt me and this was a message that I 100
percent was behind in the past before Irealized how freaking damaging it is and
(15:23):
how much it shuts you off from living anopen life of connection to other people.
This narrative of I'm a good person soI deserve good things is so freaking
destructive because it fosters so muchpride and so much entitlement where we
start operating from a place of I am God.
I am the best.
(15:43):
I'm the most important.
I deserve all these good things.
I'm such a good person.
But if we're being really honest withourselves, don't we know our heart?
Don't we know that our desires and ourintentions and the way that we go through
life is not always pure, not always good?
Like, for me, I recognizedhow much selfish ambition
(16:04):
I actually had in my heart.
Like, when I was running my podcastfor the past year, I had so many people
say to me, Oh my gosh, Emily, you'resuch a good person, like, you deserve
all the good things in the world.
I started believing that.
I started externally believing that, butthen I almost always felt like a fraud
at the same time because I knew my heart.
(16:27):
I knew my selfish intentions.
I knew I wanted success more than Iwanted to help other people at times.
I did.
I did.
and I wanted applause for that,and I wanted that more than I
wanted to make a difference.
And so, I knew my intentions weren'talways pure, yet I was operating
from such a place of entitlement,so I was constantly suffering.
(16:47):
Because when people weren'tclapping for me, I was like,
Did you guys forget about me?
Everything became about me and I feel likea lot of us do this in different ways,
whether it's with success, with socialmedia, whether it's in our relationship,
whether it's in our career, like we'reconstantly just wanting people to
(17:07):
recognize us and wanting to rise aboveothers and be put on that pedestal, right?
Rather than realize that wedidn't deserve any of this.
The condition of our hearts, thispride that we have, like, that is
the poison that Satan leaked intothe world when he fell out of heaven.
When he got kicked out ofheaven, that's the poison that he
spread into all of us was pride.
(17:30):
Freaking pride.
And it runs every single one of us.
We care so much more aboutbeing right and rising above
other people than loving them.
We care more about winning theargument than hearing someone.
We care so much more about findingourselves in a position of superiority
over others than genuinely making adifference and helping other people.
(17:54):
We care more about ourselvesthan anything else.
So how do we fight this?
How do we fight pride?
I'm going to be really honest, thething that I'm about to say is not sexy.
The solution to this problemthat I'm about to suggest is not
appealing to a lot of people, okay?
As I've kind of been taking this toGod, bringing all of this to his feet
(18:18):
and being like, Okay, God, we knowas a generation that this is not it.
What is the answer?
The answer has not been an easy pillto swallow, because it's not one
that ends like how we want it to end.
it doesn't end up with us beingglorified or us being better than
other people, but I genuinely believeand God keeps telling me that it
(18:41):
leads to peace and I've experiencedthat peace when I can do this, okay?
How we find peace through this andhow we find purpose and connection to
others and like our life has directionand matters is through humility.
Okay?
I told you it wasn't sexy.
I told you it wasn't gonna sound fun.
(19:04):
But I'm telling you,humility is the answer.
And it is something thatis not preached in church.
I think a lot of Christianity isreally focused on following the rules.
That's what religion is focused on.
That's not what I'mhere to tell you, okay?
It's a heart posture.
It's how we treat others.
It's how we see ourselvesin comparison to others.
(19:27):
I want to talk about what humilityis, and I feel like Andrew Murray in
his book Humility said it best, so I'mgoing to read this quote from Andrew.
Humility is perfect quietness of heart.
It is to expect nothing, to wonderat nothing that is done to me,
to feel nothing done against me.
It is to be at rest when nobody praisesme and when I am blamed or despised.
(19:51):
It is to have a blessed home in the Lord,where I can go in and shut the door, and
kneel to my Father in secret, and I amat peace, as in a deep sea of calmness,
when all around and above is trouble.
Humility is really a heart posture.
It's knowing that the way thatyou're going to find peace
(20:14):
is not through significance.
It's not through making yourselfmore, or proving yourself, or finding
enoughness in your career, or money, orrelationships, or beauty, or whatever.
It's knowing that you don't have to doany of that because There is a God that
(20:34):
says, I take you as you are, I knowthat you're broken, and I don't care.
I don't need you to be perfect.
I don't need you toprove your worth to me.
I don't need you to try to beenough by yourself because when
I'm in the picture, you are enough.
Through me, you are complete.
Through me, I see you as perfect.
(20:55):
And so when we have that posture ofhumility and we know God is in control,
competing with other people in this wayto find superiority no longer matters.
That's no longer the thelonging of our hearts.
We no longer want torise above each other.
how do we, how do we have humility?
(21:15):
Great question.
Great freaking question.
Dude, it's a process.
And again, this is not a sexy answer,but it is a lifelong process that
starts by turning your eyes to Jesus.
By having a very similar experiencethat I had a few months ago, where
I fell to my knees and cried outto God and said, God, I need you.
(21:39):
I have come to the end of myself.
I have come to the end of trying tofigure this out and do everything
in my own power and prove myself andfind my way in the world without you.
It's turning your face tohim and just saying, help me.
That's the first step.
That is humbling yourself before God.
And then the more time that you spendwith God, the more time that you spend
(22:01):
with Jesus, And this is between y'all.
I'm not going to tell you what thatshould look like or how to go about it.
And I'm not going to force it on you.
But I'm telling you, at least inmy own experience, the more time
that I have spent with Jesus overthe past few months, the more I
have genuinely wanted to be humble.
There was a time when if someone said tome like, Oh, you got to humble yourself
(22:23):
before God and make yourself less.
I would have been like,you're out of your mind.
I want the glory.
I want the recognition.
I want the success.
I want to win.
I don't want to humble myself.
I don't want to be less than other people.
And I don't want to put mytrust in God because I have so
many question marks about God.
I'm not 100 percent bought into him.
(22:44):
But I am telling you, y'all, All youhave to do is give him an inch and
he will run so many miles for you.
He will run so far for you.
He will do all the freaking work.
All you have to do is be open to him.
And I love looking at the character ofJesus for an example of humility, because
(23:05):
he was, he was a rebel, like he stood upto religious leaders, the Pharisees, he
was constantly calling them on exactlywhat we were just talking about, saying
you care more about the rules and beingsuperior to other people than loving
them, than wanting to help them genuinely,than wanting to make a positive impact
(23:25):
and, and lift people up and have love.
You know, that's what hecalled the Pharisees out for.
And the humility that he had, henever sought glory for himself.
He constantly deflected to God the glory.
He constantly led in love.
He didn't lead in condemnation.
He didn't lead in trying tobe better than other people.
(23:46):
Like, remember when Jesus came,like, Everyone was expecting him
to be this great military leader.
And here he came in love,not wanting to beat anyone.
He wasn't there to rise above anyone.
He was there to love people.
Jesus literally had perfect peace.
He's literally the prince of peace.
Dude was nailed to a cross and had peace.
(24:08):
He was mocked and beaten and had peace.
He was spit on.
He was despised, he washated, and he had peace.
And here we are feeling inferiorand having no peace because we
don't have as much money or asnice of a house as so and so?
Phew, guys.
Humility is not sexy.
It's not fun.
It's not a popular opinion or, or,uh, do this in 10 steps and your
(24:33):
life will be better type of format.
It's going to take time to develop.
It's going to take a lot of prayer.
And it's gonna take a lot of catchingyourself when you have prideful thoughts,
like on a daily basis, guys, I amstill trying to compete with everyone.
I'm still trying to bebetter than other people.
And anytime that I feel like someoneis fighting me or trying to compete
(24:53):
with me or, um, not respecting me orsomething like that, my pride flares
up and I have to catch it and I have totake it to God and I have to be like,
God, I'm putting this at your feet.
Help me to love this person.
Because it's not always easy,especially people who really
are trying to hurt you, right?
It's not easy to love them, especiallyin this very politically charged climate
(25:16):
that we're in right now, especially then.
It's not easy to love people, right?
So we need a higher poweroutside of ourselves to lean on.
You don't become humblebecause you try to be humble.
You become humble by drawingnear to Jesus, and then He, over
time, molds your heart and shapesyour heart to want to be humble.
The more that we try to dothings in our own willpower,
(25:38):
the more that we suffer, okay?
So, I'm gonna end the firstepisode of this series there,
but just know that I have so muchhope for our generation, okay?
If we can make this subtle heart postureand shift to look at Jesus, to try on
humility, I genuinely have so much hopefor us because we are on track to be the
(25:59):
most educated generation to ever exist.
We are open minded, we have so muchtime on our hands, we're accepting of
diversity, we're wizards with tech,and we can use all of those things.
for his glory, for hisgood, and to spread love.
And I want to just encourageall of us to try to do that.
(26:19):
And genuinely, y'all, I feellike if you're lacking peace,
you're lacking direction, thisis a great first place to start.
And Yeah, I'm just really excitedto see what God does from here.
Make sure to tune in to the nextepisode to talk more about how our
obsession with ourselves is making us somiserable and how we can overcome that.
(26:41):
Thank you guys for tuning in andI hope you have a wonderful week.
We will talk soon.
Bye.
What's up beautiful people and welcometo the wrestling with life podcast.
I'm your host Em Led.
I am so freaking happy that you're here.
I just chugged a Celsius and I'm readyto run through a freaking brick wall.
Let's go baby.
I have some really, really excitingthings to share with y'all today.
And it's going to sound a little bitdepressing at first because we're going
(00:47):
to be talking about the reality of somereally deep struggles that I think our
generation is struggling with right now.
But by the end of this episode, I thinkyou're going to feel very encouraged
and I feel like you're going to reallywant to make some little tiny changes in
your life to, to fix your heart posture.
And.
(01:07):
Kind of change the way that you goabout your day to day life and your day
to day interactions with other peopleAnd hopefully feel a little bit more
peace a little bit later a little bitmore joy and a little bit more More
positivity and direction and purpose.
Okay.
Does that sound good?
Okay, so this is us kicking off thevery first series of the wrestling with
(01:29):
life podcast And this is the the new andimproved version You where we are kind
of rooting everything back into Jesus.
And if you don't believe in God,I don't want that to scare you,
and I don't want that to be thereason that you turn this off, okay?
I'm not here to shoveJesus down your throat.
I think that looking to the person ofJesus and his character and using him
(01:51):
as kind of inspiration on how we canact and love and give and feel, that's
the angle that I want to go with, okay?
I'm not here to shovereligion down your throat.
So hang with me.
And here what I have to say and Ireally challenge you to just have an
open heart as you're listening to this.
Okay, have an open mind and open heartand take and pick, pick and choose
(02:13):
from what I'm about to say, how youcan apply it to your own life to
hopefully feel a little bit more peace.
Okay?
So y'all, I've been so honest.
If you listen to the first episodereintroducing wrestling with life, I
have really been working on submittingmyself to God, hearing his voice,
hearing his direction for my life.
(02:33):
And what I'm about to share with you, Ireally feel like he is placed on my heart.
And I know that there's someone onthe other end of this microphone, the
other end of this podcast, who really,really needs to hear this, okay?
If you are in the age bracket of22 years old to about 35 years old,
you're working full time, you're inyour career, you're grinding baby,
(02:56):
and you don't have any kids yet.
This message is specifically for youand I fit into that demographic and
I want wrestling with life to be foranybody who fits into that demographic.
And you don't have to fit into thatperfectly to be here and to listen,
of course, but that's what allof the things that we talk about.
That's the type of person thatthis is all going to be geared for.
(03:18):
I mentioned in the last episode thatI kind of got to a place in my life
where I was looking around and thingswere going pretty well on the outside,
like anybody from an outside pointof view would look at my life and
be like, life's going great for her.
And it was, it was going great,but internally, I felt like crap.
Internally, I was anxious.
(03:40):
Internally, I constantly justfelt like I wasn't good enough.
I constantly felt likeI was proving myself.
And I constantly felt like I wasin competition with other people.
And so I started praying alot to God about, Hey God.
This doesn't feel great, and Ican't figure out what I'm doing
wrong, because I think I'm doingeverything right, so can you please
(04:02):
show me what I'm not doing right?
And really slowly over time, I feellike God kept giving me like tiny
little puzzle piece after puzzlepiece to fit together to realize
our obsession with ourselves, is thereason why all of us are so miserable.
We, as a generation, and honestlyas an entire world, but this age
(04:26):
bucket specifically, is probablythe most self obsessed of any of the
other generations, and there's a lotof different reasons why that is.
But I think a lot of it has to do withsocial media and technology and political
tensions being at an all time high.
we are all so concerned with winningand being right and being superior
(04:49):
to other people, that we havelost all of the ability to truly,
genuinely hear and love the truth.
And learn and hear and see other people.
We have just become soobsessed with ourselves.
We've become so obsessed with tryingto get ahead, trying to compete,
(05:09):
trying to win the competition, that wehave forgotten that the entire point
of our time on earth is to learn howto unconditionally love one another.
We are so focused on risingabove each other that we have
lost the the meaning of life.
And no wonder most of us don't feel anypeace and we don't feel any direction.
(05:31):
So this is the first episodeof a series that we're going
to talk about exactly this.
We're going to talk about how ourself obsession is destroying us.
I've been doing so much research to tryto really, genuinely, deeply understand
what our generation is up against, okay?
So I've posted a bunchof polls on my Instagram.
If you don't follow me, you can giveme a follow at em underscore led 11.
(05:56):
And I've been asking you guys all kindsof questions like, do you feel peace?
Do you feel lonely?
What are the biggestworries on your heart?
Are you worried about money?
Do you feel like youuse technology too much?
What kind of things do youuse to cope with stress?
Are you drinking?
Are you playing video games?
Are you scrolling on your phone?
(06:18):
Are you doing drugs?
Like, How do you cope with stress?
Do you feel like youhave a lot of friends?
Do you feel connected to other people?
Do you feel like your life isgoing in a positive direction?
Okay, these are the kind of questionsthat I've been asking people.
And there have been some freakingcrazy themes in the data The most
(06:38):
staggering stat of all is that98 percent of us are more focused
on ourselves than other people.
I don't even know if that'sshocking, because I feel like
I could have told you that.
I think at our age, first of all, like,let's be real, it makes sense that we
would be focused on ourselves, right?
Like, we have just left home, we'reno longer with mom and dad, we are
(07:02):
figuring out how we fit into thisworld, we're figuring out, okay, how
am I gonna make money and pay rent andkeep a job and maintain a social life
and, and do all these different things.
And at the same time, then wehave technology on top of that
(07:22):
and advertisements and TV and allthese different things that are
constantly begging for our attention.
It makes sense that all weever have time to think about.
Is ourselves because Ithink we are overstimulated.
I think there's a million things comingat us at once and we are constantly being
(07:43):
put into a place of you are not enough.
So you need to focus on yourselfand you need to figure out how
you're going to become enough.
Thus, we We are constantlythinking about ourselves.
Okay.
And how couldn't we, when every singlead that we see is for a new product
that's going to make us more fit orprettier or more desirable or smarter
(08:03):
or more productive, everything isbasically subliminally telling us
that we are not enough as we areand that we need this product or
this service to be better, right?
This isn't new news.
I know we all feel this and howcouldn't we when it's constantly
being shoved down our throats, right?
We are constantly being madeto feel like we're not enough
(08:23):
and then we're like, okay.
Well, that's on me It'son me to figure out.
How am I gonna be enough?
And then we're playing the comparisongame and we're constantly looking at
other people and we're like, okay Well,how do I stack up against this person?
How do I win?
How do I become better?
How do I prove that I'm enough?
And I don't know about y'all, but Iwas stuck in that rat race for so long.
(08:46):
I was doing it in my career becauseeven our, even our jobs, even
our careers are set up that way.
You're not even, you're kind ofpitted against your co workers if
you're in the business world, like,who's going to get the promotion?
Who's going to get thecredit for the project?
Who's going to get the bonus?
You know, like, it's literally organizedso that we keep competing with each other
(09:06):
to climb, and so is America in general.
Like, America in general is set up sothat we're all competing constantly,
so I'm not saying any of this toshame you, I'm saying it to explain
that it's so understandable thatall of us are constantly trying to
compete, I've always been a competitor.
(09:26):
Okay, I hate to lose.
So if you tell me there's a competitiongoing on and that there's going to
be a winner, I want to be the winner.
And I don't think there's anything wrongwith winning, but I do think there's
something wrong with stepping on otherpeople to get where you want to go, and
I think the way that you win and the waythat you treat other people along the
(09:47):
way to winning really freaking matters,and I think it also impacts how you feel
about yourself, the purpose that youfeel, and the peace that you feel, right?
okay.
So that was a tangent, but backto the data back to the data over
three quarters of us feel like weare spending way too much time on
technology and I am part of that state.
(10:10):
like my boundaries with socialmedia specifically are just
horrible in my nine to five job.
I use social media, so I'm already on itfor my work and then I use it also for
myself and to keep in touch with peopleto share things about my day in my life.
And I can end up spending hourson Instagram alone in a given day.
(10:30):
And I'm not alone in that 75percent of y'all feel the same way.
I also learned that half of us areincredibly stressed about money,
and we believe it's our biggestobstacle to a happy, healthy life.
Half of us are lacking strong,consistent, in person community,
and over half of us don't feel likewe know our life's purpose, and
(10:53):
we feel like we lack direction.
And, What I want to encouragey'all to see is that all of these
themes in the data are intertwined.
Okay?
We're all focused on ourselves.
We're all using technology too much.
And most of us are so worried about moneyand how we're going to pay rent and how
(11:15):
we're going to put food on the table andhow we're going to be successful that we
can't really think about anything else.
And we're really lackingstrong support systems.
We're lacking connection to other people.
And all of these things have somethingto do with each other, right?
It's taking away from our senseof purpose and our sense of peace.
(11:37):
It's fostering pride in us.
It's convincing us that the way that we'regoing to be happy, the way that we're
going to find peace is by winning againsteach other, winning arguments, winning
promotions, winning glory, winning fame.
winning attention, makingourselves more beautiful.
The list goes on, right?
We're convinced that the power isin our hands to save ourselves.
(12:01):
And if we just have more of this or that,or we just beat so and so, or we just
do more, then we're going to feel peace.
I feel like if we're all being honest, weall want the glory for ourselves, right?
We want that promotion, we want theraise, we want the money, we want, um,
the adoration, we want the respect.
(12:22):
We want ourselves to be up on thatpedestal, if we're being really
honest with ourselves, don't we?
Like, who wants to lose?
Who genuinely wants to lose?
I don't, I don't think anybody.
I think we all want to win, right?
But that is what is causing oursuffering, is that we are so concerned
with winning and being superiorthat we're cut off from love.
(12:45):
We all want to bespecial so bad, don't we?
We think that we're somisunderstood or that we have
qualities that nobody else has.
But I don't think any of us haveactually ever had an original thought.
A lot of us are, Beautifully,wonderfully average, myself included.
I think for a long time I really,I really clung on to the idea like,
(13:08):
Oh, I'm different, I'm special,because that made me feel significant.
That made me feelsuperior to other people.
That made me feel like I was winning.
But where that kind of prideexists, you never actually win
because you never feel peace.
You're always looking toyour left and your right.
You're always looking aheadat what more you can gain.
(13:30):
You're always looking at how youstack up against other people.
And there's no part of you thatever genuinely feels content
exactly where your feet are.
You never feel like enough.
You're always on thathamster wheel of chasing.
Always, and it's never ending and it'snot fulfilling and you never feel peace
and you never feel purpose when you'removing like that, you are literally
(13:53):
in fight or flight 24 7, which meansyou're in fear and when you're in fear,
all you're thinking about is yourself.
How can I protect myself?
How can I make myself better?
How can I make myselfsuperior to other people?
How can I survive?
So when you're always thinkingabout yourself, you have less
compassion and kindness for others.
You're not thinking about other people.
(14:15):
And when you're not thinkingabout other people, you're
not connected to other people.
And then you feel this lack ofconnection and belonging, which is
core to having peace and feeling likeyou matter and feeling like you're a
part of something bigger than yourself.
And when you're feeling like that,you're lacking purpose, you're lacking
direction, you're lacking an abilityto truly experience life, how we are
(14:38):
meant to experience it, which is tappedinto love with an open heart, with
an open mind, with openness, period,Our obsession with ourselves is the
reason why we are all so miserable.
It's the reason that we're cutoff from joy, it's the reason that
we're cut off from peace, okay?
there's a very consistent huge messagein our culture that is I'm a good
(15:00):
person, therefore I deserve good things.
It is everywhere.
It's all over social media.
The affirmations are everywhere.
Like I am enough.
I will do things that serve me.
I will cut myself off from people whohurt me and this was a message that I 100
percent was behind in the past before Irealized how freaking damaging it is and
(15:23):
how much it shuts you off from living anopen life of connection to other people.
This narrative of I'm a good person soI deserve good things is so freaking
destructive because it fosters so muchpride and so much entitlement where we
start operating from a place of I am God.
I am the best.
(15:43):
I'm the most important.
I deserve all these good things.
I'm such a good person.
But if we're being really honest withourselves, don't we know our heart?
Don't we know that our desires and ourintentions and the way that we go through
life is not always pure, not always good?
Like, for me, I recognizedhow much selfish ambition
(16:04):
I actually had in my heart.
Like, when I was running my podcastfor the past year, I had so many people
say to me, Oh my gosh, Emily, you'resuch a good person, like, you deserve
all the good things in the world.
I started believing that.
I started externally believing that, butthen I almost always felt like a fraud
at the same time because I knew my heart.
(16:27):
I knew my selfish intentions.
I knew I wanted success more than Iwanted to help other people at times.
I did.
I did.
and I wanted applause for that,and I wanted that more than I
wanted to make a difference.
And so, I knew my intentions weren'talways pure, yet I was operating
from such a place of entitlement,so I was constantly suffering.
(16:47):
Because when people weren'tclapping for me, I was like,
Did you guys forget about me?
Everything became about me and I feel likea lot of us do this in different ways,
whether it's with success, with socialmedia, whether it's in our relationship,
whether it's in our career, like we'reconstantly just wanting people to
(17:07):
recognize us and wanting to rise aboveothers and be put on that pedestal, right?
Rather than realize that wedidn't deserve any of this.
The condition of our hearts, thispride that we have, like, that is
the poison that Satan leaked intothe world when he fell out of heaven.
When he got kicked out ofheaven, that's the poison that he
spread into all of us was pride.
(17:30):
Freaking pride.
And it runs every single one of us.
We care so much more aboutbeing right and rising above
other people than loving them.
We care more about winning theargument than hearing someone.
We care so much more about findingourselves in a position of superiority
over others than genuinely making adifference and helping other people.
(17:54):
We care more about ourselvesthan anything else.
So how do we fight this?
How do we fight pride?
I'm going to be really honest, thething that I'm about to say is not sexy.
The solution to this problemthat I'm about to suggest is not
appealing to a lot of people, okay?
As I've kind of been taking this toGod, bringing all of this to his feet
(18:18):
and being like, Okay, God, we knowas a generation that this is not it.
What is the answer?
The answer has not been an easy pillto swallow, because it's not one
that ends like how we want it to end.
it doesn't end up with us beingglorified or us being better than
other people, but I genuinely believeand God keeps telling me that it
(18:41):
leads to peace and I've experiencedthat peace when I can do this, okay?
How we find peace through this andhow we find purpose and connection to
others and like our life has directionand matters is through humility.
Okay?
I told you it wasn't sexy.
I told you it wasn't gonna sound fun.
(19:04):
But I'm telling you,humility is the answer.
And it is something thatis not preached in church.
I think a lot of Christianity isreally focused on following the rules.
That's what religion is focused on.
That's not what I'mhere to tell you, okay?
It's a heart posture.
It's how we treat others.
It's how we see ourselvesin comparison to others.
(19:27):
I want to talk about what humilityis, and I feel like Andrew Murray in
his book Humility said it best, so I'mgoing to read this quote from Andrew.
Humility is perfect quietness of heart.
It is to expect nothing, to wonderat nothing that is done to me,
to feel nothing done against me.
It is to be at rest when nobody praisesme and when I am blamed or despised.
(19:51):
It is to have a blessed home in the Lord,where I can go in and shut the door, and
kneel to my Father in secret, and I amat peace, as in a deep sea of calmness,
when all around and above is trouble.
Humility is really a heart posture.
It's knowing that the way thatyou're going to find peace
(20:14):
is not through significance.
It's not through making yourselfmore, or proving yourself, or finding
enoughness in your career, or money, orrelationships, or beauty, or whatever.
It's knowing that you don't have to doany of that because There is a God that
(20:34):
says, I take you as you are, I knowthat you're broken, and I don't care.
I don't need you to be perfect.
I don't need you toprove your worth to me.
I don't need you to try to beenough by yourself because when
I'm in the picture, you are enough.
Through me, you are complete.
Through me, I see you as perfect.
(20:55):
And so when we have that posture ofhumility and we know God is in control,
competing with other people in this wayto find superiority no longer matters.
That's no longer the thelonging of our hearts.
We no longer want torise above each other.
how do we, how do we have humility?
(21:15):
Great question.
Great freaking question.
Dude, it's a process.
And again, this is not a sexy answer,but it is a lifelong process that
starts by turning your eyes to Jesus.
By having a very similar experiencethat I had a few months ago, where
I fell to my knees and cried outto God and said, God, I need you.
(21:39):
I have come to the end of myself.
I have come to the end of trying tofigure this out and do everything
in my own power and prove myself andfind my way in the world without you.
It's turning your face tohim and just saying, help me.
That's the first step.
That is humbling yourself before God.
And then the more time that you spendwith God, the more time that you spend
(22:01):
with Jesus, And this is between y'all.
I'm not going to tell you what thatshould look like or how to go about it.
And I'm not going to force it on you.
But I'm telling you, at least inmy own experience, the more time
that I have spent with Jesus overthe past few months, the more I
have genuinely wanted to be humble.
There was a time when if someone said tome like, Oh, you got to humble yourself
(22:23):
before God and make yourself less.
I would have been like,you're out of your mind.
I want the glory.
I want the recognition.
I want the success.
I want to win.
I don't want to humble myself.
I don't want to be less than other people.
And I don't want to put mytrust in God because I have so
many question marks about God.
I'm not 100 percent bought into him.
(22:44):
But I am telling you, y'all, All youhave to do is give him an inch and
he will run so many miles for you.
He will run so far for you.
He will do all the freaking work.
All you have to do is be open to him.
And I love looking at the character ofJesus for an example of humility, because
(23:05):
he was, he was a rebel, like he stood upto religious leaders, the Pharisees, he
was constantly calling them on exactlywhat we were just talking about, saying
you care more about the rules and beingsuperior to other people than loving
them, than wanting to help them genuinely,than wanting to make a positive impact
(23:25):
and, and lift people up and have love.
You know, that's what hecalled the Pharisees out for.
And the humility that he had, henever sought glory for himself.
He constantly deflected to God the glory.
He constantly led in love.
He didn't lead in condemnation.
He didn't lead in trying tobe better than other people.
(23:46):
Like, remember when Jesus came,like, Everyone was expecting him
to be this great military leader.
And here he came in love,not wanting to beat anyone.
He wasn't there to rise above anyone.
He was there to love people.
Jesus literally had perfect peace.
He's literally the prince of peace.
Dude was nailed to a cross and had peace.
(24:08):
He was mocked and beaten and had peace.
He was spit on.
He was despised, he washated, and he had peace.
And here we are feeling inferiorand having no peace because we
don't have as much money or asnice of a house as so and so?
Phew, guys.
Humility is not sexy.
It's not fun.
It's not a popular opinion or, or,uh, do this in 10 steps and your
(24:33):
life will be better type of format.
It's going to take time to develop.
It's going to take a lot of prayer.
And it's gonna take a lot of catchingyourself when you have prideful thoughts,
like on a daily basis, guys, I amstill trying to compete with everyone.
I'm still trying to bebetter than other people.
And anytime that I feel like someoneis fighting me or trying to compete
(24:53):
with me or, um, not respecting me orsomething like that, my pride flares
up and I have to catch it and I have totake it to God and I have to be like,
God, I'm putting this at your feet.
Help me to love this person.
Because it's not always easy,especially people who really
are trying to hurt you, right?
It's not easy to love them, especiallyin this very politically charged climate
(25:16):
that we're in right now, especially then.
It's not easy to love people, right?
So we need a higher poweroutside of ourselves to lean on.
You don't become humblebecause you try to be humble.
You become humble by drawingnear to Jesus, and then He, over
time, molds your heart and shapesyour heart to want to be humble.
The more that we try to dothings in our own willpower,
(25:38):
the more that we suffer, okay?
So, I'm gonna end the firstepisode of this series there,
but just know that I have so muchhope for our generation, okay?
If we can make this subtle heart postureand shift to look at Jesus, to try on
humility, I genuinely have so much hopefor us because we are on track to be the
(25:59):
most educated generation to ever exist.
We are open minded, we have so muchtime on our hands, we're accepting of
diversity, we're wizards with tech,and we can use all of those things.
for his glory, for hisgood, and to spread love.
And I want to just encourageall of us to try to do that.
(26:19):
And genuinely, y'all, I feellike if you're lacking peace,
you're lacking direction, thisis a great first place to start.
And Yeah, I'm just really excitedto see what God does from here.
Make sure to tune in to the nextepisode to talk more about how our
obsession with ourselves is making us somiserable and how we can overcome that.
(26:41):
Thank you guys for tuning in andI hope you have a wonderful week.
We will talk soon.
Bye.
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