[00:00:00] Speaker A: Some adventures do more than stretch us, they transform us. And today Pam Watts is back in the guest co host seat to share with us what God revealed during and after the experience that she was still preparing for. The last time we talked here on Grit and Grace.
What began as doing something fun for something good became something truly sacred and it reshaped her understanding of excellence, identity, rest and God's power at work through human weakness.
In our conversation, we explore a different definition of excellence, the gift of doing hard things in community, and how offering our widow's might opens the door to experiencing God's might.
So if you're in a season of saying your own faith based yes or in the reflective time that comes after, this conversation is rich with clarity, insight and wisdom.
Welcome to Grit and Grace, the podcast for highly sensitive Christian women. I'm your host Sherri Gregory.
Are you tired of the overthinking, overwhelm and exhaustion that can come with being a highly sensitive person?
Are you ready to stop worrying that something's wrong with you and start understanding and nurturing yourself as an hsp?
Together we'll build resilience, practice self compassion, set healthy boundaries, unlock your creativity, and learn to embrace, not fight, your God given sensitivity.
Let's dig in.
Hey friend. I'm so glad you could join me again today.
Now, just a quick heads up. This episode is a follow up to episode 298, adventure, not overwhelm, how to say yes to what matters most. So if you haven't heard it yet, you might want to hit pause, listen to that one, and then come on back.
Now, if you're listening to this in real time, there's a good chance that your nervous system is already carrying a lot. December has a way of doing that to us, even when the things we're doing are good, meaningful and intentionally chosen.
For many HSP Christian women, this is the time of year when we can look at the amazing things that everyone else seems to be doing and giving and feeling like what we have to offer doesn't even begin to compare. And it's hard to live with that sense of continually falling short.
In today's conversation with returning guest co host Pam Watts, I hope you'll hear a gentle reminder that God knows your capacity. He doesn't demand more than you can give. He simply invites you to offer what you do have and then watch as he does what only he can do.
Pam Watts is the mother of four amazing children. Three biological and one by international adoption, or as she puts it, three domestic and one imported.
Pam serves on her local school board where she spends 95% of her time doing things she loves, alongside people she loves on behalf of the community she loves, and 5% of the time trying not to get stuck between a rock and a crazy place.
Pam recently launched her new ministry, Faith First Family Activity Coaching, where she cheers on busy families with active kids from a faith based perspective. And in her spare time, she loves getting to do cool things that make for fun stories like the time she appeared on a Carnival cruise ship stage or her latest adventure, which is what we are absolutely going to talk about today.
Alrighty. Well, Pam, welcome back to Gert and Grace.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Hi.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: So the last time that you sat in the co host chair, you were deep in the midst of rehearsals and preparation. And now that the show is behind you, inquiring minds want to know. How did it go?
[00:04:02] Speaker B: It was epic. It was all the big F feels so much muchness. Everything about it was off the chart. So much better than I ever could have imagined. Oh, that's a verse that I love beyond anything I could ask or imagine. It was, it was off the chart. Just every superlative you could think of is what it was.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: How did it measure up to your expectations going into this? Obviously you had to have had something that you imagined or were hoping for. How did the reality end up comparing with what you were imagining as you went into it?
[00:04:33] Speaker B: You know, that's a really good question because when we've never done a thing, it's. It's hard to visualize having been through it. It all seemed very organic and it went very smoothly and there wasn't any aspect of it that I found stressful.
But I can only know that on the back end, I would say that there were many components of it, many moving parts.
There was a dinner, there was family coming in, there was getting ready. I had my makeup professionally done. We were backstage. I mean, just so many moving components and I could have stressed about any of them individually. Like, oh my gosh, I hope my family can find a place to park and I hope my daughter gets here in time. And somehow I just let that go.
I don't know how I ended up in that mental space because that's not like me. But all of the pieces of it just went incredibly smoothly and everything about it was joyful and successful and low stress. Even though it was such a high stakes evening. Like I said, a lot of people, a lot of different places I had to be. I had to change clothes three times.
I mean, there, there was a building where I was in you know, 12 different places over the course of the evening. And it was all. Okay. It was very complex.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: But it went very simply, which is not how my life usually works at all.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: Okay. So one of the things we normally talk about as HSPS is being completely overwhelmed. And what I'm hearing from you is that it had the potential to be completely overwhelming in a negative way.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: But it sounds like you kind of ended up in this place of, like, flow. You use the word organic. It moves smoothly.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: Yes. Everything went smoothly.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: So cool.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: This is occurring to me even as I'm saying this to you, because I didn't realize. I thought this until you're asking this question. How is it that something that. For an hsp, it was sensorily, incredibly stimulating. Yeah. Lights and costumes and people and music and crowds. It. It couldn't have been more stimulating.
And yet it was still just fine. I don't know. I'm really surprised that I was as comfortable in the middle of all of that as I was, which was part of why it was so amazing and joyful.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: Well, that's very cool. Of course we are celebrating with you. We are just like, yay.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: You can't see, but I'm smiling really, really big right now.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: Well, in our first episode together, we talked about your planning and preparation, and you walked us through three Rs. And once again today, we have several Rs, and the first one is reflect.
So you and I had a coaching call the day after. In fact, it was less than 24 hours later. It was like, boom. And you were absolutely jubilant.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: Except for one thing. Can you tell us about that one thing and what God has been revealing to you as you have reflected on it?
[00:07:14] Speaker B: I'm laughing because I know exactly. I'm. I'm back in that space.
When I came home that night, I was electrified, you know, like a thousand watts, which is kind of honey, because that's my last name. And I was trying to wind down. And we've talked about doing things to relax, and mine involves hot water. I love to get in a bath or the hot tub. And friends and family who attended the show had been faithful to film my performance.
And in all of these weeks of rehearsal, it was the first time I ever got to watch myself from the point of view of an audience member.
And I was just flabbergasted. And my first thought was, oh, my good Lord. I did not realize that my arms moved like that. I had no idea this is what I looked like. And to be frank, I was Horrified. I felt like a spaz. It just. It was not what I expected to see. And that was really shocking. And for a couple of days it was really, really hard to accept that that's what I looked like.
A lot of very, very hard inner criticism for the first two or three days. And to see that video at the end of this night, that was so incredible, was very deflating. Like, couldn't I not have felt good about this for just a little bit longer?
[00:08:32] Speaker A: You saw the video that same night. We talked the next morning. And then you continued to reflect on it and kind of process through it in terms of some of the. Kind of not enoughness, some of the struggles that had come to a head over the whole. Fill us in on some of that.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: Well, one of the things that you and I talked through Friday morning was the passage from Lectio Divina that same day on the Widow's Mite M I T e where she is honored for giving her little bit because it was all she had.
And that ties into this really powerful analogy that ended up happening for me as we talked in the last episode. I had a very significant fundraising commitment to satisfy that was getting extremely stressful to me.
And at the very last minute, practically the 11th hour, an unexpected benefactor came forward and donated $1,000, which just, it was. It was game changing and we were able to keep up with our donors. And so I had the list with all the names of the people who've supported me. And there was this individual and then there was another friend who gave $5.
Well, clearly one number gets me closer to my goal than the other.
But when I'm looking at their support and their contributions, I'm not seeing five dollar friend and thousand dollar friend. Sure, I'm seeing people that supported me.
And it took me a while to process and get to this place of recognizing something that I did not know when I went into the performance was that some of the amateurs, quote unquote, like myself, are more thousand dollar dancers.
There are people who have done theater for years. They have people who do amateur dancing performances for years.
And it was just so brutally unfair for me to compare myself, as, if you will, a $5 dancer to these thousand dollar dancers. And I'm going to get teary. All the things that God assured me of. Pam, you gave your all. Yeah. And your all was enough.
And actually pat on the back for someone like me who does not dance to come forward and do what I did was actually maybe a little more heroic. Yeah, there were some people on that stage that night for whom this was incredibly easy.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: And for me, it was not. And one of the places I landed was, it's not about more than or less than or better than or worse than. It's about all of. And there wasn't an aspect of this entire experience where I did not give a hundred plus percent. I truly gave my all and that I recognized that ended up being enough.
For the record, I'm the only one who was evaluating myself that way. Everyone else who came to cheer for me, including my own family, said, you were amazing. You were amazing.
It's the inner critic that was brutal. Everyone else was so enthusiastic and supportive, and, oh, my gosh, I couldn't have done what you did. You know, all the superlatives. I got a lot of people cheering for me afterwards. The only person I had to deal with who wasn't was me.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: Ooh.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: That's a powerful thing to realize right there.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: Yes, it was. It was very powerful.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: Lots to reflect on.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: And I know that you and I are both reforming and recovering. We're perfectionists. And you had a really good.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: Aha.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: That was kind of around perfectionism.
[00:11:55] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. This lent itself to a lot of quotable quotes, and one of them is the definition of excellence is not the absence of flaws.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: All right.
All the praise hands for that.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: I don't know if you wanted me to tell the wig story at this point, but I can't.
Last time, we talked at great length about the costume and getting the dress right. And the dress, by the way, was fabulous. I dressed up as Eliza Hamilton. So one of my costume pieces was an 18th century powdered wig, and I had it on. The whole ensemble was beautiful for our publicity photos, which we took weeks ago. And then I got ready for the show, and I wanted to make some tweaks to it and add little pink bows to go with my whole theme. And I was arranging it so very carefully in the mirror, so it's not like this was a haphazard, random mistake. I had that thing on my head. I was looking very carefully at where everything went, placing these bows so precisely.
And that's how I wore it for dress rehearsal and work for the show. And it looked a little odd, but I couldn't figure out why. And then days later, I'm looking at the publicity photos and then the candid photos from the show. Oh, my word. I have it turned around.
The degree to which I was irritated with myself, it was off the chart. But I. I didn't know. I didn't see no one else caught it.
Everyone thought it was a non issue, but it was one of those areas where, like, it, it's over with. You did it. You did great.
Move past it. But that. That was part of where that absence of flaws is. Is not the definition of excellence. I made a mistake, but it was such a minor one, and no one noticed or cared but me. Yeah. So I'm taking a pause because that was one of many things that I reflected on. And I do recall a moment where I got one of those holy spirit whispers of.
Do you realize maybe sometimes I allow these things to happen in your life, Pamela, so that you learn to not be so hard on yourself? Like. Like God forced me to come to terms with my own obsession with perfection.
I don't know if that makes sense.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. The wig being backwards did not affect your performance in any way, shape, or form.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: No, no.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: And you didn't recognize it halfway through, and it didn't cause you to stumble or anything. It was just one of those things afterwards where you were faced with a choice. Your brain could keep perseverating on it and go off the deep end, or you could have a little laugh at it and focus in on all the things that made it such an epic experience.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: It was definitely a refiner's moment of recognizing the Lord wants me to come to terms with. With my own worship of perfectionism. It really almost felt like. I don't want to say that it was an intentional mistake, but it. It was allowed to filter through and happen so that I didn't have to get so caught up in this image of everything has to be spot on perfect all the time. And for the record, there were two wig emergencies over the course of the show. At dress rehearsal, someone's wig fell off. During the show, someone's wig fell off. There are worse wig emergencies I could have dealt with.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: Mine was not about a costume failure. It was about a wrestling with. With a character issue.
I like that.
[00:15:37] Speaker A: I do, too. Well, one of the things you told me is that how I measure up is not the measure of the experience.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: And, you know, you made it so clear. It's how you measure yourself up inside your own head. Nobody else was measuring you against anybody else. And so it can be so easy for us as hsps, to allow one little thing to become the whole thing, for it to just kind of overshadow everything.
And so I love how you've held this and then you have reflected on it and you've learned from it.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh, have I learned so.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: Much moving from reflect now to relationships. I think we know that every great epic has a fellowship, a circle of people who make the journey possible. And I know you love nothing more than talking about your people.
So tell us about the community that surrounded you throughout this whole adventure.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Well, there were multiple clusters of people. First of all, there were the people that I got to perform with. And by the end of it, what did you call it? Collective effervescence? Yes, for the most part, that the cast, whether they were the professional dance people or the, quote, amateur stars like myself, I had not met most of them until this performance. And I ended up saying by the end, I would vacation with these people.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: They were all amazing individuals because it does take something, a certain kind of wiring, to come forward and do something this. I don't want to say absurd, but, yeah, this is pretty off the chart for most people.
And I was so honored to be in the company of people who are willing to do something like this. There was just that bonding thing that happens when you collectively come together and do something significant that's bigger than yourself. So there were all the cast and the crew that, like I said, I'd go on a cruise with them. They were amazing. And then there were my family and friends that showed up.
Half of my school board came to the show. I had family fly in from out of state. I had a friend show up at the last minute who drove in from out of town. I mean, I had people who go to significant lengths just to be there.
My daughter drove in two hours from Dallas just in time to see me, and then had to turn around and drive back.
So I had people present in every possible way there was to be. And then there was the staff at the studio where we worked out, and that ended up being such a turning point in getting ready for the show, because normally when you work out at the studio, people are all working out in different routines at any given moment. We're really not paying attention to each other.
I worked on this routine with my partner for many, many weeks, and no one was paying any attention to me at all.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: But towards the end, as we got closer, they would stop what they were doing and watch the two of us, and we would perform as if to them. And there's a point in the routine where it shifts songs and it shifts tempo and dance style, and they would all just say, oh, we love this part. This is our favorite part. We love watching you do this. You're clearly having the time of your life.
And I carried that with me onto the stage.
Sure. Because something in me said, you know, if I can do it for these six people in the studio, I can do this for 600 people at the performance venue. And that's. That was the tipping point for me. It was having those six people say, we love watching you do this. It's so much fun to watch you have such a good time. And I knew they were in the audience cheering for me.
So from a relational standpoint, that's what made all of this possible. There would have been no way to do it any other way.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: And then your partner, Gregory, he was an experienced dancer.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: Yes. And incredibly good at everything.
I've actually journaled a lot of characteristics of what makes a good partner based on what I learned from him. I may have shared the story that he graduated high school with my youngest son. So he is literally young enough to be my own child.
I'm almost three times his age. And that's not intimidating at all. But he's so good at what he does.
And that was something else. I came away thinking, this is his job. He's very experienced. He's a very talented instructor. Clearly, of the two of us, everything he has and does and brings to it is far better than anything. I have one thing, like I said, he's a third my age, so he's in much better shape.
And he never made me feel like anything but an equality.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: And was so encouraging. And, you know, all the way through our practice time, and after the show, he would send me these texts with, you know, five exclamation points. We did so great. I'm so proud of you.
You know, in. In a different world, we really wouldn't have a lot of overlap in our life, you know, age and profession and community and circles that we run in and whatever. But on the dance floor, we were completely equal. And that was something that he accomplished. And I just literally just followed where he led me.
It was extraordinary. That lesson's gonna stick with me for a long time.
There's a lot that's significant about what a really true, successful partnership looks like. And I'm about to take a present over to the studio for him and the staff to thank them because they were all just amazing. Yeah.
[00:21:01] Speaker A: An experience like this brings people together. You get to know them the whole rehearsal practice, you know, try fail, try fail. All of that process brings people together with a sense of shared vulnerability.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: When you and I were talking right afterwards, a concept came up that just kind of Came out of your mouth one degree less alone. And both of us went, we love.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: The sound of this. Yes.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: What does it mean to you either to feel 1 degree less alone or to help someone else feel 1 degree less alone. And what are some of the key components of that when you think of relationships?
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Well, in the last several years, my family and I have been through some really messy hard chapters.
And one of the things who. I love it when I come up with new phrases. And the thing that's occurring to me in this moment is the Ministry of messy.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: Because somewhere in that my husband and I have have become resolved that we're going to be transparent and vulnerable in the things that we're living. And not in a we're going to force people to read our life kind of thing, but. But organically things will come up.
And when we're transparent and vulnerable and invite people into our mess a little bit, it gives them permission to share a little bit of their own.
And that's where we're finding the one degree less alone experience in that when we share the hard things that we're going through and a little bit about that, and then someone finds that they can relate to us. Our hard. Doesn't make their hard any easier, but they do know that they're not doing it by themselves.
And some of the people that I encountered through this dance experience.
Well, goodness, who doesn't have a messy story?
One of the performers is a survivor of domestic abuse, and she was generous enough with her story to share with us a little bit about that.
And then you just recognize that of everyone on that stage, every one of them has something that they're going through. And there's again, there's something about this collective enterprise of coming together where to do something so performative is in itself very vulnerable.
Really putting yourself all out there. And it just kind of created this synergy where it was okay to be ourselves in other ways that were vulnerable and adventurous, if that makes sense.
[00:23:36] Speaker A: Totally.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: It was just an environment of we're going to come together and do something extraordinary, and we're going to bring to it our strengths and our vulnerabilities all in one space.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: All right, so we'll move from relationship to rest and recover, which is what you've been doing for the last little bit. After immersing yourself in something, something so intense and meaningful, how have you been experiencing rest and recovery?
[00:23:58] Speaker B: I think I went into it understanding that I was going to need some space on the back end, you know, to just kind of collapse when I think rest. I think sleep. I think torpor. I think I'm just going to lie around and not do anything. And it didn't look like that. It meant taking time to reflect as we just talked about. And then that reflection, that was the recovery. It wasn't about springing back to normal, going back to who I was before. It was starting to process and understanding how profoundly this had all changed me. Resting was about creating space to reflect and reflecting and absorbing the scope of this experience and how it had transformed me.
That was my recovery.
I. I did not go into this expecting that I would be a different human being coming out of it.
I will never be the same again. In fact, one of the lines that I shared with you that we like is that I have now moved so far out of my comfort zone, I don't think I'll ever go back.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: What do you see more clearly now about the person you've become through this adventure? I know you. You had hints of that right afterwards. Like, you. You told me it was life changing. But this has now been seen several weeks. And so what's different about Pam now than before?
[00:25:15] Speaker B: I feel a little more bulletproof. I love it when you do something heroic, and this truly was.
No one is the same at the end of the epic. Yeah, Bilbo and Frodo don't come home the same people they started out as.
I had to move very quickly into some projects and some challenges right after this that were very hard, that actually did test my resilience. I did need to be kind of bulletproof.
And there were. There were a couple of hard days where I was just dealing with something professionally that was extremely challenging. And there. There's some little voice in there that kind of squared her shoulders and puffed up her chest and said, you're not going to mess with me. Look what I just did.
There's something about really pushing yourself and doing something that does feel heroic. And it's heroic because of all the hard things and the challenge and the uncomfortable, and I made mistakes, and that's okay. And I didn't realize I looked like that. And the costume was a pain and, you know, all of the things that were uncomfortable. I'm more resilient as a result, which means other things that are uncomfortable now roll off. I don't know, I just. Just experience them a little bit differently because, like, yeah, I'm a little taller than I thought it was.
[00:26:30] Speaker A: Well, the. The cool thing about something like this is you will never not have done it exactly. Like, you will Always be the person who did this thing. Which means you're the kind of person who does this kind of thing.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:42] Speaker A: And it creates a momentum. Whether or not back on this kind of stage, it still creates a momentum that is going to be internalized. Yeah. And not just in your brain as in, oh check, I did that thing. I think part of the wonder that I've heard in your voice as you've been kind of reflecting and processing all this is that new identity has made it its way into your heart. And it's really, you've. You've embodied it.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: And we've talked, you and I, about a number of significant things that, that are part of my story where on the front end I saw it as something that I was going to go and do.
And it's always ended up in that process of doing the thing. I've become someone different. It's. It's not about a new doing. It's. It's about a new being.
I can see that really framing how I look at what comes next. The adventures that come my way when I decide to embrace them. H. It makes me want to raise a question I hadn't thought about. Now you realize this is going to change you.
And I've said I love doing cool things or what is it? I love doing fun things that make for cool stories. I love having epic stories. I love that those are the markers in my narrative that they're so significant. I'm so grateful for that. I didn't ask for that, didn't expect that. But that is the story God has decided to write for me. And what a privilege.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: You know, back in episode 298, going into this, you described it as an incredible opportunity to do something fun in service of something good.
[00:28:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: Looking back now, how would you say God has used this fun for good adventure to reveal something sacred in you and through you?
[00:28:33] Speaker B: On the other side of this whole adventure, it was clearly not about me and not for me.
And yet at the same time it was incredibly personal and such a significant transformation in me. So it was both and. And I didn't see that coming.
It's a one night show with performances in a costume and an audience that's not new to me.
I didn't expect it to be so profoundly impacting on such deep personal levels.
So while the incentive was to do something that had nothing to do with me and ended up being all about me in, in that I was so completely changed afterwards.
[00:29:15] Speaker A: So often that is how God works transformation. And it sounds to me like, there was an element of surprise and delight to that for you.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
I. I hope that's come through at how. How astonished and delighted and amazed and still feeling all of the feels of having been part of something.
I keep coming back to that word. Epic. It was just all so much bigger than I ever could have anticipated.
But, Sheri, I tell you, there was a. There was a dinner across the street where we had to dress up in cocktail attire and go over and greet people.
And so I'm trying to make sure that my family's all parked and that my guests know where they're supposed to be and that my people can get in with their tickets and.
And then go back and change into costume. And then. I mean, there. Like I said, I was literally like six or seven different places in the building, and I was in clothes that I showed up with to get my makeup on, and then I was in cocktail attire, and then I was. My costume, and then I was back in cocktail attire, and there was the after party. I mean, it was like, how is it I was not a raving lunatic at the end and just wasn't.
How. How was that so easy? It just. It really doesn't make sense.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: That's where it's so clear that the presence of God is there. You're doing his strength. You're doing it through his power. It's a confirmation that you're in the midst of obedience. That which you could not do on your own, you are clearly doing in partnership with him.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: Doing it in his strength doesn't always mean that it's easy or all the pieces are joyful.
It just. It means that everything gets done. Yeah. I guess what startles me so much is the emotional space I was in. I was. I was keyed up and energized, but I was not anxious, which is really weird.
Yeah.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: It sounds like you were in a place of really beautiful anticipation, and you were very present.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: And you weren't being held hostage by high expectations. You know, there's a difference between anticipation and expectation.
Expectation implies that there's a checklist, that there's a whole. All these standards, whereas anticipation is curiosity. I can't wait to see what's going to happen next.
[00:31:26] Speaker B: And all of that came from stepping out into a place where I wasn't dealing in strength.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: Because I was not focused on all of the things that I can control, because I already. I know how to do this so well. I got to make sure that I.
I'm going to still unpack this. It's really interesting for something that was so incredibly performative. I didn't feel like I was performing.
I was just bringing me to all of it, which is not like me.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:55] Speaker B: Oh that's boy, yeah, this went deep.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: Well, I wonder if it had been something that you felt you were stronger at, if you might have ended up with the checklist and more of the expectate having high expectations for yourself.
[00:32:07] Speaker B: Of course I would have. Absolutely.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: Whereas since you knew you were bringing like Gregory, you told me was the thousand dollar dancer and you were the $5 dancer to use your analogy.
And so it sounds like you brought a sense of curiosity and well, let's see what happens. You know, I've done my best.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: I've done my best.
[00:32:26] Speaker A: I've given my mite m I t e and whatever happens is the m I g h t of God at work.
[00:32:34] Speaker B: As a highly sensitive person, I know when I'm entering something much bigger than me and I feel the tension of pushing past my limitations.
What I've learned from this experience is that when I bring all my not enoughness, my might, God meets me there with his might.
I didn't manufacture all the calm, the confidence and the freedom to be so joyfully engaged. Those were things I received.
And what I received that night has forever changed the person I am.
[00:33:05] Speaker A: This was such a rich discussion and it all started with Pam's willingness to pause and reflect.
So here are a few reflection questions for you to process in the days and weeks to come.
Number one where might God be inviting me to release flawlessness in favor of faithfulness?
Number two who has been willing to stay with me in the middle of something hard or stretching, not fixing, not evaluating, but accompanying being me and making me feel one degree less alone?
Number three As I reflect on who I am becoming, what insights are emerging about my capacity, my courage and my calling?
And number four what could it look like to give my widow's might my honest, imperfect best and fully trust in God's might for the outcome?
Now, if you found value in the way Pam unpacked her story here today, I want to invite you to connect with her beyond this episode. Pam leads a ministry called Faith First Family Activity Coaching, where she supports busy families with active kids from a faith based perspective.
Visit pamwatts.com to learn more about the resources she offers and you'll find that link in the show notes as well.
Thank you for listening to Grit and Grace, the podcast for highly sensitive Christian women. I hope this episode leaves you feeling encouraged, equipped to thrive, and excited to offer your widow's might and trust in God's might.
Be sure to follow in your favorite podcast app and share this episode with a friend.
Now, if you're brand new to the whole HSP concept, come on over and take the Am I a Highly Sensitive Person? Quiz. You'll find that link in the show notes. And remember, God created you. Sensitive In Christ, you are always strong.
Did you notice how Pam's clarity didn't come just from the experience itself?
It came through reflection and relationships, through intentionally processing and discerning what God was doing.
If you're a highly sensitive Christian woman who's also a writer, speaker, coach, or podcaster, or is hoping to become a writer, speaker, coach, or podcaster, you may find yourself processing your plans for the upcoming new year. You're holding your ideas, your questions and nudges before God and wondering what kind of support would help you move forward while honoring your HSP wiring.
Perhaps you'd prefer one to one coaching, a private, steady space to think out loud and receive personal guidance.
Or maybe you'd thrive in a small, intentional group where shared reflection and gentle accountability bring clarity.
I offer both. You can learn more about the Right Beside you unlimited coaching program and the clarity in your calling
[email protected] write that's w r I T E and find the support that feels like the best fit for you.
