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It was a beautiful Saturday morning, but I wasn’t happy. 

 

Work was supposed to be set aside for weekend family activities, but I couldn’t shake the knowledge that payroll for my business was due on Monday and we were $12,000 short for covering it. I knew the company mail generally arrived around 11 a.m. on Saturdays. So, late that morning I drove to the office, praying the mail would include enough checks from the $65,000 of receivables on our books to cover the shortfall. With shaking hands, I sat in the empty office opening envelope after envelope. $2000 here, $500 there. I was tallying the totals in my mind. There were a few envelopes left. Would I make it? $1000 from a client who owed $5000. My heart sank. I knew the other two envelopes couldn’t possibly contain enough money to bridge the gap. My weekend was ruined knowing on Monday I’d have to make an unpleasant call to ask my business partners to kick in cash to cover payroll. My family would soon realize I would be very unhappy for the weekend.

 

Happiness seems hard to reach at times, and even when reached, it’s fleeting. There’s always another payroll or quota or fiscal goal to meet. So, how do we find happiness? Or are we even supposed to be happy?

 

“Permanent happiness is the goal of our lives—a goal that we can never reach,” said Nancy Collier, LCSW in Psychology Today. “What we can reach, however, is a state of well-being, a deep sense of lasting contentment that can include and survive both happiness and ‘not happiness!’” 

 

Being “happy” shouldn’t be our goal. As Collier says, the search for permanent happiness is unreachable, as happiness is often based upon external factors out of our control. The impossible search for permanent happiness is rampant in American culture today, making us vulnerable to the deep spiral of attempts to numb ourselves, or scream victimization (usually on social media) when our drive to “be happy” goes unfulfilled. If happiness is our goal, then sensing the absence of happiness can drive us into a long-term spiral of ever-increasing need to medicate the pain of non-happiness. This creates an unsustainable version of life. Maybe, instead of happiness, we need to look for something else.

 

 

The goal of life should not be “happiness.” A better goal is a state of well-being that can survive the good days and the bad. A Biblical writer once said “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation…” (Phil. 4:12.) 

 

Learning to be ”OK” on our good days and also on our not-so-good ones is a goal worth striving towards.

 

There’s a Hebrew word “shalom.” Shalom is commonly understood to mean “peace,” or “to be without conflict.” To the ancient Hebrew, however, “shalom” was much more. It meant “to be safe in mind, body, or estate.” It spoke to a wholeness or complete fulfillment in one’s life - a true state of “well-being.”

 

How do we get to a state of shalom/well-being? Well-being is achieved when a person is ready to take a look in the mirror and get really honest about who they are. It’s stopping to look inside our core to spot the hurdles that keep us from being OK at certain moments. Well-being requires one to ask, “Why do certain things push my buttons?” and then to journey into the deeper question of “Why do I have those buttons in the first place?”

 

Thus begins our journey together. Let’s go on this path to discover well-being, even on the days when there aren’t enough checks in the mail to meet payroll.

 

 

While there is potential to over-simplify the core human psyche, there are some very basic building blocks of well-being in us. Everyone is in search of three basic things: safety, value and purpose and we spend our whole life chasing them.

 

SAFETY
Safety trumps all other needs. If a person doesn’t feel safe, they’ll do whatever it takes to feel safe - even using the most incredible means. Adult survivors of childhood trauma, for instance, may find they’ve used dissociation (a mental process of disconnecting from one's thoughts, feelings, memories or sense of identity) to survive in the unjust world of their upbringing. Dissociation can be a miraculous human means of safety for a child with no other means to feel safe. If not managed as we grow, however, dissociation can make true relational connection difficult as an adult. Even in less violent or neglectful circumstances, parents often leave scars on their children that impact those children as they age into adulthood, resulting in actions such as self-harm or addiction. This is because, no matter what, the human spirit has to feel safe and will find protection in whatever means is necessary to survive.

 

Once a sense of safety is felt in life, human beings want to know they have value to someone. 

 

VALUE
I always say “Human beings may be made of matter, but even more so we want to know that we matter.” A child is taught personal value, or lack thereof, mainly by a parent or authority figure. A child failing to receive the nurture, attention and affirmation needed as children, can have a sense of value stolen. Non-nurturing environments where “children are to be seen and not heard” or households where young girls are taught their role is always to serve, are examples of spaces where children may be convinced their needs aren’t worthy of expression — thus devaluing the child. We all know, though, a child's needs WILL be expressed — through crying or acting out in a tantrum - if not given healthy room for expression. Likewise, adult needs will find their expression, no matter how ‘chill’ we think we are. Self-loathing, passive aggression or rage are a few examples of unhealthy expression of unmet needs. We may say to ourselves, “well that’s just how I act sometimes,” never stopping to think those actions are our core screaming for value. We all have needs — I promise you do — and those needs must be and deserve to be expressed. Otherwise, they become like files we tuck away in a file cabinet, hoping the drawers are never opened and the emotion hidden inside never allowed to see the light of day. The injuries stored in those files become like oozing sores with bandages on them: the bandage may cover the infection for a bit, but eventually it will cause issues that require much more attention than a band-aid.

 

Let me pause here and use one of my favorite words — “tension.” There’s a tension in considering how safety, value and purpose were expressed to us in life. Our parents can be fine people, who did their best and are deserving of grace, but also have been hurtful or injurious to us at the same time. There’s a tension in knowing our parents did their best and still potentially did things that have caused lifelong harm. After all, parenting is difficult, and even the best parents ding their children’s hearts from time to time. It’s important we learn to live in the tension of this truth.

 

PURPOSE
When safety and value can be attained to some measure, humans want to know there’s a reason for existence that is beyond day-to-day subsistence. “Why am I here?” is an age-old human question. Being able to envision a purpose for existing is a vital component of a fulfilling well-being. When we start to see ourselves as individuals involved in changing the world, a purpose for living starts to become a reality. A fulfilling and sustainable well-being can be perpetuated through pouring out into a world bigger than us, and receiving back the safety and value one feels when we can be transformative in the world, rather than a victim to it.

 

 

The American belief that our “just do it” superiority can overcome any neediness often cultivates a shocking lack of understanding of our basic human needs. Who wants to do the work of well-being when we have the resources to simply mask, medicate & ignore our humanness? Add in our “Christian/Puritan'' ethics and much of American culture is driven by a foundational sense of shame and not being “enough” — an acute lack of safety, value and purpose in life.

 

“Just get over it.”

 

“Pray and read your Bible and you’ll be fine.”

 

“Let’s take another trip or binge watch Netflix so we can forget our problems.”

 

This cultural mindset of replacing well-being with placation and self-medication has created a major health crisis in the United States. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, suicide has grown into the tenth leading cause of death in our country and second leading cause of death for Americans ages 25-44. Generations of neglect towards our mental well-being have led to a cultural place of harming ourselves (or screaming at one another in search of self-protection) instead of doing the hard work of self-reflection and supporting each other in doing the same.

 

Not only does this lack of well-being come at great personal cost, but there are often great professional costs, as well. Patrick Lencioni, in his book The Advantage, states that thirty years of business consulting taught him “businesses don't fail because people don’t know their business, but from leadership (and teams) that aren’t healthy.” How did we get to this place in our culture? More importantly, how do we get out of it?

 

Well-being is gained through choosing to do the work of self-introspection and true self-improvement. That choice looks something like this:

 

Look around you, do you see a healthy culture today? If not, we have to change something, just as the diagram says. Such a change can only begin with individuals choosing to change themselves. I’m encouraging this generation to say “ENOUGH! Of telling each other we’re not enough!” I believe a tipping point of people willing to be transformed can transform our culture. So, are we willing to choose to do the work of well-being? All you have to gain is a life of feeling safe, valued and filled with purpose. Shall we proceed?

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Each of you is a member of our Cohort. A Cohort member is a person pursuing a deeper understanding of their own personal value and the value of others and desires to use that understanding, not only to positively impact their workplace, but to benefit the broader culture around them.  

Your “core” is your innermost place – your “gut.”  It’s the place from which your emotions and reactions emanate. The quality of your decision making, both professional and personal, is based on your core health. Just as your physical center of gravity and all body movements begin with your physical core muscles (i.e. midsection muscles), a healthy emotional core will result in healthy reactions and quality decision making.

Well-being is a sense of contentment and fulfillment that is not determined by external circumstances. A Core Cohort Member maintains a sense of well-being in the middle of both good and challenging circumstances.

Transformation is a change in a person, group of people, or organization that cannot easily be reversed or go back to the way things were before the transformation took place.

In the context of the Core Coaching, a “sphere” is one's 'inner circle;' those close in like family, friends and work team. A "sphere of influence" is any space, organization, or group in which one has an ability to impact its direction and outcomes.

A “Cohort” was a term for a Roman Military unit and has come to mean a group of people who are banded together. Think of your Core Cohort as a group of people who are intentionally banding together in the common pursuit of well-being and personal transformation so that each of us makes an impact on our spheres of influence. Together, we can bring positive transformation to our business, our city and our region.
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Before moving on to our Thought Questions, Consider going deeper:
- Schedule a 1-on-1 with Pastor Paul
- Sign up to join a Core Cohort
- Need to know more? Contact us through our Contact Page

Or, Move on to Module 1: IDENTITY

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Write a “Professional Epitaph.” Imagine you’re at your retirement dinner. The tables are all set, looking beautiful with amazing centerpieces. There’s a plaque for you and gifts. And people are going to get up and speak and share about their experiences with you.

What would you want those people to say about you? In your journal, make a bullet point list of things you’d like people to say (perhaps minimum 5-7 items) in a format like: “I so respect _(your name)____. They changed my life by doing” or “...they showed me the meaning of ____” 

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Want to go deeper?
- Schedule a 1-on-1 with Pastor Paul
- Sign up to join a Core Cohort
- Need to know more? Contact us through our Contact Page

Or, Move on to Module 1: IDENTITY.