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Steve Cuss
@stevecusswords 3 years, 4 months ago 911 views

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I've been doing more study on the constant critic(s) that every church leader deals with. Its amazing how a steady group of 2-5 critics can really tax a leader's health and impact them way beyond their numbers. ie, more than 3 feels like 'legion' to a leader.

1/

All vocations face criticism of course.

I wonder if church criticism is unique because:

a) church leaders tend to conflate personal identity and church health more than most.

b) critics falsely think they know about leading a church because they attend a church.

2/

For example, doctors and teachers face criticism. People come into a Doc with diagnosis from Internet etc. But I wonder if attending and serving in a church makes someone more confident that they know when they really don't know.

3/

I've often marveled, and been hurt by how strongly someone has an opinion about something they've had zero training in. They are oblivious to how broad a church is - they think everyone thinks the same.

4/

One reason they think this is because their phantom mob is usually made up of like minded people. A handful of passionate people agreeing, so they say, 'everyone thinks' but actually it is less than 1% of the church.

5/

Criticism stings all of us. I am learning more and more what it is like to be an HSP. I take things so personally and have to work on it. It comes in waves.

6/

Our culture is generating so much anxiety now days and people need to dump it on someone.

In this season you might be running on fumes, but the criticism is coming sharper than usual. It's a double hit.

7/

We have to be so kind to ourselves, leaders. And we have to avail ourselves of the love of our Good, Good, Father.

Work to balance the criticism with the ever present goodness of God.

What gifts has God given you today that you can receive and enjoy?

8/

I'm not talking spiritual gifts where you're the conduit. I am talking gifts for you to receive as God's beloved child?

Who has God put in your life? What activities? What places?

You can make time today.

9/

More from Steve Cuss

Steve Cuss
@stevecusswords

The Inner Critic.

Ugh.

Its hard to dislodge the power and influence the IC has over us. Here is a helpful tool:

1. Find at least one other who cares about you and get together.

1/

2. Have your friend write down the messages your IC tells you as you share it.

3. Then ask her/him to write the adjectives of these messages, ex: 'harsh,' 'unrelenting,' 'condemning.' etc.

So now you have the actual messages on one line and descriptors on the other.

2/

4. Now write the descriptors of God's character and God's posture toward you. Patient, loving, kind etc.

5. What if I were at least as ________ to myself as God is.

3/

We tend to get wigged out by talk of Satan and Spiritual Warfare, but the more I work with people on chronic anxiety, the more convinced I am that our self talk, our IC, the story we tell ourselves about how we MUST be and how the world MUST be is keeping us trapped.

4/

Paul says, 'it is for freedom that Christ has set us free' yet so many are bound by our IC and .the story we tell ourselves.

We give it WAY too much authority, too much real estate in our soul. It has a 'gospel' which is always some form of legalism and condemnation

5/

Steve Cuss
@stevecusswords

Anxiety resides in 4 spaces:

1. The space inside you
2. The space between you and another
3. The space between others
4. The space inside another.

A powerful de escalation tools is to first locate the anxiety. Where is it?

Often the answer is 'all 4.' Yikes!

1/

Anxiety is contagious, we spread it and escalate it unless we know how to manage it.

This was perhaps my biggest lesson as a trauma chaplain - the very hard work of not catching someone's anxiety.

2/

When I caught it, I was no good to them. I no longer saw what was going on, I was now 'infected' by my own triggers, assumptions, the story I tell myself. I was all wrapped up in myself.

But when I managed my anxiety, I was able to be calm, aware and fully present to them.

3/

Even in the very worst moment of their lives, even if they had me by the shoulders screaming, 'how could God allow this to happen?'

4/

Incidentally, early in chaplaincy, I thought this was an actual question. Because I was anxious, I was more infected by my need to answer than I was to simply be calm and present with them in their pain.

5/

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Steve Cuss
@stevecusswords

There are 4 spaces in life, 3 we can do something about. We spend too much time and energy focusing on the one that we cannot and ought not try to manage.

1/

1. Space inside me. What is going on in me? How do I know when I am anxious? We all carry a bubbling collective of pressure, pain, assumptions, inner critic etc that can block our awareness of God and distort reality.

2/

2. Space between people. This can be space between me and you or space between others. Ever walked into a room with people and you felt off? You might be picking up the space between others.

Anxiety is contagious and often the most anxious person has the most power.

3/

3. Space between me and God. It is disturbing how often I forget God With Us.

Chronic anxiety seeps through us like that foam insulation. It finds the nooks and crannies and squeezes out our awareness of God.

But it can be quickly displaced with some tools.

4/

4. The space inside them.

This is the space we spend too much time and energy worrying about. If you've ever thought, 'what were they thinking? Why did they do that, Why wouldn't they _____' you're fixated on the one space you cannot manage.

5/

Steve Cuss
@stevecusswords

John says 'perfect love casts out fear.'

Perfect love displaces fear. I think fear can displace our awareness and experience of perfect love. It cannot displace God's love, but it sure can displace our awareness of it.

1/

Knowing you're in anxiety's grip is actually not as easy as we think. We tend to bear down and try harder instead of pausing.

One way to notice it: you are no longer aware of God's presence and God's love.

It could be that your anxiety has displaced your awareness.

2/

Warning Signs:

- you start to think it is all on you/all on your shoulders.
- 'if it is to be, it is up to me.' An anxious statement if ever I heard one.
- An impending feeling of doom or hopelessness.
- Rigid thinking, either-or locked in thinking.
- double binding.

3/

Chronic Anxiety has a 'gospel.'

'it is on you, there is not much you can do, you are not ______ enough, YOU are not enough, there are only bad options, try harder, do more of the same.'

Recognizing Chronic Anxiety's message helps you displace it with the actual Gospel.

4/

Even though we have the Gospel, we often don't access it. We spend most of our time living by our false selves, not by the Gospel. I have been doing this work for decades and I still spend more time living for false self, than I do resting in my identity in Christ.

5/

Steve Cuss
@stevecusswords

The events of the week have shaken us all. Murray Bowen described 'societal regression.' Anxiety is contagious in any group and a society is one giant interconnected group, so over time, societies become more and more anxious unless the anxiety is displaced.

1/

Displacement requires calm, non reactive leadership at every level and we have lacked that at a federal level, hence the massive escalation of anxiety on the 'system' of our society.

2/

Bowen predicted that as we regress we would no longer be able to listen to each other, we'd become highly reactive, continuing the vicious cycle of catching each others' anxiety and reactivity.

We are there.

3/

But we are not doomed. Especially knowing we have a God who cares.

But it requires calm, aware leadership at every level.

4/

Systems theory often measures anxiety and action through the lens of responsibility and control.

I frame it through the notion of spaces

1. The space inside me

2. The space between us

3. The space between me and God.

5/

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A relationship begins to get stiff when excessive patterns begin to form.

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Nothing is wrong with patterns.

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Sure 👇

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Normal.

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I used to work 14+ hour days and have a 'no days off' mentality. This year I cut that shit off and focused on building a career and life of quality. The results are higher income, more time to enjoy life, schedule on my terms + stronger relationships. Fuck your "hustle."

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To build a successful business it takes way more than just plain old hard work. I am a huge believer in American grit, not American hustle. You need hard work, but if that is all you can bring to the table, you have no place running a business.

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Y’all... please check on your kids, they might not be okay.

My husband and I had no clue that a major crisis was coming for our 14 year old. She was so good at faking “okay” that we were totally blindsided.

I’m apprehensive about sharing all of this, but other parents

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might need to see this and talk to their kids.

To make a long story as short as possible:

On Jan 13th, I came home from work to find my 14 yr old unconscious in a pile of vomit. Thought maybe it was the flu or something at first.

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she was incoherent, slurring her speech, and not really in control of her body. I put it together and realized she was drunk.

She had never done anything like that. Ever. She then started babbling about being so lonely and wanting to go to sleep and not wake up.

3/15

My heart and stomach dropped.

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4/15

They kept her for 6 days, and we weren’t allowed to see her. Just one 10 minute phone call per day.

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