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Ep 28: You Can’t Compartmentalize Wholeness with Guest Joshua Symonette
12 Plays11 hours ago
In this episode of Aligned Living, Dr. Autumn speaks with Joshua Symonette—pastor of Hopeville in Baltimore, nonprofit leader, husband of 23 years, and father of four—to explore the hidden cost of unprocessed emotions in leadership and everyday life. Joshua shares a vulnerable turning point when an unexpected emotional breakdown revealed he had been living in constant problem-solving mode—running on “survival skills” instead of “thriving skills.”
Together, they unpack why emotional health isn’t optional for leaders, why ignoring emotions quietly shapes our relationships and environments, and how practices like silence, slowing down, naming emotions, and prayer help cultivate true wholeness. If you’ve ever felt like you’re holding everything together on the outside while something inside feels off, this conversation offers a powerful invitation to pause, pay attention, and ask one honest question: Why do I feel this way?
Intro and Outro Music Credit: Savage by Beat Mekanik, Free Music Archive, License type: CC BY
Please visit: www.autumnswain.com
Contact: autumn@thealignedleader.org
IG: @drautumnswain
FB: Autumn Alena Swain
Guest Info: Joshua Symonette
IG: jmsymonette
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Transcript
Introduction to Dr. Autumn and the Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello there, I'm Dr. Autumn, leadership consultant, wellness coach, author, and I'm incredibly grateful to be your host of the Align Living podcast.
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm here to equip you with the tools, inspiration, and practical tips necessary to lead a life of wholeness and pursue greater shalom in your life and that of your families, teams, and communities.
00:00:34
Speaker
My mission is to empower you to lead from a place of holistic wellbeing. It's time to say, peace out to the fatigue, fog, and frustration of living in a place that lacks abundant wellbeing.
00:00:49
Speaker
Join me as we embark on a comprehensive exploration of spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, social, and economic well-being, all within the comforting embrace of one podcast.
Empowering Leadership and Holistic Well-being
00:01:08
Speaker
Hey, good people. Welcome back to the Align Living Podcast. Dr. Autumn here. want to start today with a question. If you want your organization to be healthy, or if you want your leadership to reflect shalom, or if you're wanting your community to flo flourish, or even your family to be whole, are you leading from the front? Or are you just hoping that others will embody what you haven't cultivated within yourself?
00:01:35
Speaker
Because here's the truth, we cannot build environments of wholeness while living fragmented lives. And yet, compartmentalization feels so natural.
00:01:46
Speaker
We separate our spiritual formation from what we eat, or we disconnect our prayer life from our emotional health, or we preach stewardship but ignore our stress. We talk about peace while living in nervous system dysregulation.
00:01:59
Speaker
As pastors and nonprofit leaders and parents and culture shapers, it's easy to operate as if these domains exist independently. But they don't. You cannot pursue God deeply while neglecting your body. You cannot steward relationships well while ignoring unprocessed emotion.
00:02:16
Speaker
You cannot cultivate shalom externally while living internally divided.
Introducing Joshua Simonette: Leadership and Faith
00:02:22
Speaker
So today's conversation is about integration. My guest, Joshua Simonette, a dear friend of mine, pastor, nonprofit leader, husband, and father of four, lives at the intersection of vision and responsibility. And what makes this conversation powerful is that Joshua doesn't just talk about mission.
00:02:40
Speaker
He walked his church through emotionally healthy spirituality, and he holds a deep conviction that leadership must be holistic to be sustainable. We're going to talk about rhythms, emotional health, nervous system awareness, family leadership, and why it's essential for leaders to pursue their own shalom if they hope to see it reflected in the spaces they lead.
00:03:00
Speaker
Because alignment isn't just a concept, it's a responsibility. So let's dive in. Well, Joshua, thank you so much for being on the show today. It's really, really super lovely to have you here. And I'm excited to have this conversation with you. So um I would love to just jump right in and have you tell us a little bit about yourself. I know you wear a lot of hats. So like, what is life looking like for you right now?
00:03:26
Speaker
Well, um, my first job is i am, um, husband and dad, um, Erica and I have been married. My wife, we've been married for 23 years now. Wow. Um, and we've got four kids and they're kind of all over the place. Um, one is graduating from college in May. Um, another one just graduated from high school, but it's taken a gap year, just went to Australia. And then I've got two little ones who are in fifth and second grade. we basically started over.
00:03:57
Speaker
So that's a big portion of of my life um and a fun portion, too. But then I lead a faith community called Hopeville in Baltimore, Maryland. It's a little over three years old and um I'm really excited.
00:04:12
Speaker
Kind of all consumed with that. Anytime you have a startup kind of thing that you do, it takes a lot of effort and energy. But that's the that's the main thing that I'm that I'm really focused on right now. And then, you know, I do um speaking and coaching because I love leadership development, anything related to empowerment. So that's kind of a little bit about me and what I got going on right now.
The Importance of Personal Wellness in Leadership
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I love that you um led with that because I think a lot of listeners and people, when I talk about aligned living, um ah a lot of folks are like, oh, i'm I'm balancing too much. And then their own self-care like falls on the back burner. like, no, I got to put my my kids my family first. and Then I got this job where these people are relying on me and and whatnot. So I'm really looking forward to diving in on and why, you know, your own wellness has become a priority for you. i remember when we first met and started talking, we had soapboxes for days and how all the different ways that we were thinking outside the box and how to change the world and it's pouring out, pouring out, pouring out. But you hit a point where you're like, man, if I'm going to keep pouring out and being effective, I really need to be mindful of of my own wellness. So I want to ask you was there a turning point when you became convinced that pursuing your own well-being and alignment was not optional, um not just for your impact as a leader, but for your effectiveness in every role that you have?
00:05:33
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I love the fact that you said that it wasn't an option because it was definitely something that I'm aware of and understand the importance of, especially being, you know, former professional athlete and, you know, a lot of time invested into mental, um emotional, physical, you know, health is super important. But um I think a big turning point for me happened June 30th of 2023.
00:06:02
Speaker
And i was, you know, really just kind of at the very, very beginning stages of this faith community that i launched in in in Baltimore called Hopeville.
00:06:14
Speaker
And a lot of like changes I didn't anticipate and things happening um that It really just exposed me, honestly. And so on that night, um you know, it was a rare night where no one was home.
00:06:30
Speaker
um My kids were I don't know where they were. Erica was out with her friends and I was home. And that I watched this movie again, another rare thing. while I'm just kind of, you know, watching a movie. And there was there was some something that happened in the movie that was very, very emotional and jarring and really kind of like, um you know.
00:06:56
Speaker
One of those moments where you realize, like, man, you know, like there is a finite ending to this thing. Like I'm kind of seeing my mortality, so to say. And that's really kind of what the movie was about.
00:07:08
Speaker
And like, I didn't just cry like the damn broke. Like I went to the bathroom, I started like hyperventilating or couldn't catch my breath and like all of this stuff. And it really, it scared me because- Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. And I didn't realize it until like way after the fact that I had kind of had like a panic attack, but I didn't know what a panic attack was. i had heard people talk about it, but I had never experienced it myself. And I had always wondered like, how do you have a panic attack? Like, what like what is that?
00:07:40
Speaker
And I took a photo, this is crazy Autumn. I took a photo of myself, like a selfie. um that day because I'm like, I can never forget this moment and I will never be back here again.
00:07:56
Speaker
So like, I gotta figure out what happened. And so it just so happened I had a trip the next week to Montana, love Montana, one of my favorite. You know, places. I'm going back there in May. I've been several times, but I love Montana. So I was going there and a guy um that I was doing some fly fishing with. And we were both in a boat together with with our guys. So three of us in a boat. And he just was talking about, you know, this book he was reading by Dallas Withard called Life Without Lack.
00:08:27
Speaker
And he kept quoting it. So I got the book and I came back home and um I started reading it. And I realized in that moment that, wow, like my mind just constantly stays on things I have to do and problems I'm trying to solve. And like, it just never gets off of that.
Joshua's Journey: Aligning Life with Faith and Commitments
00:08:49
Speaker
And I realized like, that's my problem.
00:08:52
Speaker
Like, I can't, I can't like keep living like that. And as someone who, um you know, faith is a big part of who I am. It's ah it's foundational for me. I'm like, man, OK, I'm actually doing the opposite of like what I'm supposed to be doing as, you know, ah a follower of Jesus, which is, you know, um very foundational to me. So I know, you know, maybe there's some people listening. You're not a follower of Jesus or, you know, whatnot. But nevertheless, like if you're living a life that's incongruent to your foundation, like that's what you get.
00:09:27
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, I knew something significant and it happened a few years ago. But yeah, thank you for sharing um and being but vulnerable about that, because I think a lot of us hit those places in isolation and um and it could be very freeing to one, acknowledge it and to let it inform what comes next. And so um just real quick on before you say that, the reason I took the selfie was because I was trying to capture the moment for myself.
00:10:00
Speaker
But I realized probably six, seven, eight months after that, that um I needed to show that photo. So I literally like three, four, five speaking engagements have shown that photo and say, hey, this is what I look like on June 30th of 2023.
00:10:17
Speaker
I mean, puffy eyes, red, you know, it obviously look like. So, again, it was an opportunity to like put a, you know, you have people talk about things, but like you like seeing them in that vulnerable state, it just changes everything.
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. For sure. Thanks for sharing. And and I know um a big part, you mentioned Hopeville a couple of times, like your desire and part of the reason you and your family moved from you know Northern Virginia to Baltimore was because you wanted to lead um your community that you're in towards Shalom and have this calling to your city.
Challenges in Leadership: Neglecting Emotional Health
00:10:54
Speaker
yeah One thing that I've wrestled with, even in just my calling in this work that I do is why do you think leaders sometimes neglect their own shalom in this process? So in other words, why is there this disconnect between people's guiding words for others and then their choices in their own lives?
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really great question that I think you could probably answer um a bunch of different ways, but I'm not going to answer for other people. I'm going to answer for me. And I think the issue for me was the inability to really pay close attention to my own emotions.
00:11:31
Speaker
to pay close attention to you know what was going on inside of me and let me tell you what i discovered um i being the introspective thinker that i am started trying to piece together like okay how did i get here and what about my makeup and my wiring has allowed me to like experience this breakdown how do i need to be different and what i realized i called my dad And I told my dad, I said, dad, and I'm really, really close to my dad. Like my dad and I are probably like best friends now. um And he's still a very much a coach for me.
00:12:13
Speaker
And I called him, I said, dad, you know, as great of a job as you have done raising me, the thing that I realized is that you gave me survival skills. You didn't give me thriving skills.
00:12:26
Speaker
And the the thriving skills that he didn't give me. And most most people ask me like, okay, well, what did your dad say to that? Like, was he offended? Like, no, you don't know my dad. Like we just, these are the kind of conversations that we have. And we unpacked it. And what I realized is that like, he came from a world, did not have a father present in his life, had a lot of death around him. His brother died in front of him when he was like seven years old. um So he's experiencing all of this trauma.
00:12:54
Speaker
his his way of surviving is like, hey, you know what? I got to mentally like put this stuff away. There's no time to cry and do all, I got to just like pick my world up and keep it moving.
00:13:08
Speaker
That's what he gave me. Son, pick your world up and keep it moving. So I never learned along the way to check in on how I was feeling, check in on like you know what's going on. I just kept pushing past you know, my emotions and my feelings because, man, it had like produced a lot of success in my life. It had produced a lot of, you know, great things um until, you know, i hit a wall.
00:13:34
Speaker
And so, again, i think that leaders, um you know, often neglect themselves or neglect, you know, this shalom for themselves like sometimes it's because they don't have proper boundaries sometimes it's because like they don't have the skills themselves which i didn't um or they were underdeveloped um or you know there's a little bit of a um i don't know like superiority complex or a superman complex like i gotta save the day or it won't get saved
00:14:09
Speaker
Yeah, think I think I'm so grateful that you mentioned emotions specifically, because if as I've done a deeper, deeper dive into how God created our bodies, you know, emotions. um are the first stimulus that comes in. And then if you have any past traumas or histories where you've learned to mismanage them or suppress them, um then and not deal with them, you know, it's easy just to to
00:14:41
Speaker
not acknowledge their importance in one's life to be mature. Right. So, if so you as a, as a guy saying, this is so valuable because what I found over and over is, you know, my therapist says emotions are information that point to met or unmet needs and they're everything. It's not just sadness, it's anger, it's frustration, it's, it's happiness. it's It's all the things, right? And so every human, male, female experiences emotions. Right. And so what you're basically saying is if you want to be emotionally mature, right. Cause nobody wants to admit that they're emotionally immature. Right. You think it's okay just to say, oh, I'm, you know, I'm not emotional. No, God created that we we all experience life through the lenses of emotions. And if you want to be emotionally mature, you have to acknowledge that, you know, you have to learn how to navigate them. And so I love, love that you said that. and we're going to lean into this a little bit more. yeah I do want to ah kind of just because, you know, even though the listeners come from different faith backgrounds, they know myself, also a Jesus follower like you. So when I asked this question about um spiritual spirituality, I want you to lean into your faith journey. yeah i want to I want to ask you, like, do you believe that pursuing personal wholeness is a spiritual responsibility for leaders?
00:16:07
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, like, ah you know, I'm getting goosebumps right now, just like, you know, responding to this question, because I think what I learned when the lights finally came on for me is that, like, we talk about particularly as followers of Jesus and those who are, you know, would say they are Christian or come from the Christian tradition, like Jesus is the picture.
00:16:35
Speaker
But I don't think that we are like looking at Jesus completely and hope and like, you know, like through a lens of wholeness, man, look at like how he led his life, the practices, the things that it said that he did, like he regularly retreated, you know, he regularly prayed.
00:16:52
Speaker
I mean, He literally like lived his life within limits. like He told his family members, who is my mother? Who is my brother? No, these people want something from me that's going to distract me from my purpose and what I'm here to do. So I'm going to say no to them because I have another agenda. Or they would come to him Hey, Jesus, man, these people are calling you like, man, you know, they're looking for you. He's like, no, no, I'm going over here. Like, that's that I'm done. I'm finished here. Like I'm moving in it. So he was very, very clear with um who he was, um how he lived within his limits um and understanding that, like, you know, he had to be regularly tapped in in terms of like, you know, I can't allow my energies to be divided. And man, when I think about that, Autumn, I think about
00:17:47
Speaker
how much our energies are divided, you know, because we don't have the ability to say no, or like, man, we feel guilty for, you know, and not being able to show up in particular ways. So yes, yes, yes, wholeness is like, it's incredible and it's incredibly important. And I am really a little bit embarrassed, like as a leader that like, I haven't been modeling that.
00:18:16
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. I mean, you know, you're probably not giving yourself enough credit because I asked you to do this interview because you do model and embody that in many ways now. So thank you. But yeah, I mean, we all have our life's journey and we're, we're growing through it. And I guess that's kind of what I mean. Like, you know know, I, I think I'm doing it in a much better way now than I was previously. And For sure. um And I'm just, I'm wanting to be honest and I really want to show up because like, you know, we make changes and adjustments in our lives and then like we start speaking like we're the expert or we've lived it and like we just started doing this five minutes ago. We're still figuring it out. Yeah, still figuring it out. Exactly. right I know, I know. It's like I hit a new challenge in life and then I'm like, OK, what does it look like to apply all these things that I've been living in this totally like new space, you know? So yeah, for sure. So so but piggybacking on that now, I want to lean more into the emotional well-being
Emotional Health, Spiritual Maturity, and Leadership
00:19:14
Speaker
stuff. yeah um So why do you think emotional health so often gets neglected in leadership conversations, including faith based spaces? And then additionally, why is emotional well-being essential, not secondary to spiritual maturity? So there's a lot there, but you just run with what you feel like you want to share. Okay. So the the first question was like, why does it not get the attention? it Yeah. Why do you think that emotional health is just gotten neglected in leadership conversations and faith-based spaces? And why do you think it's an essential part of spiritual maturity?
00:19:47
Speaker
Yeah, well, to to the first part of your question, I mean, again, i hate like speaking for other people or overgeneralizing. I think that like sometimes generalizations do help, but I think like from my perspective, um I think you know, emotions can be seen as, um you know, messy and maybe sometimes you you you seem weak, you know, if you're just like overly emotional about things or you're not in control of yourself. um Obviously, you can definitely be out of control, um you know, with how you respond to certain things or emotionally out of control. But yeah, I just I just think that particularly for men, you know, there's there's a
00:20:32
Speaker
you know, uh, uh, kind of an, these unspoken rules and like ways you're supposed to show up, um, where like, you don't, you don't show emotion, just like side note, like even in things like athletics, many, many decades ago, um, there was, there was this thing about, uh,
00:20:52
Speaker
like football players not even celebrating after they score a touchdown. And it was just this idea that like, as a man, you're supposed to like be composed and act like you've been there before. and like, but this is a cool moment. Like this, and it's what if I never scored a touchdown before, you know? So I think a lot of it is, is, is just a negative view of emotions in general. And I think,
00:21:19
Speaker
that's the That's the generation that raised me, was a man who felt that way. Like, you don't have time for that. And no one cares about it. So, like, hey, you just keep it moving.
00:21:31
Speaker
And that's the way I was conditioned. And it's great when you're playing football, but not great anywhere else in life, you know? So I think that's a big part of it is that, like, It's just the mindset of it. And then why I think it's important.
00:21:46
Speaker
um Well, I think it's hugely important because then you have people who rise to you know high levels of influence and they are just damaging people, you know, and they are just like, not creating healthy environments and there's high levels of insecurity and you know people have to walk on eggshells or there's abuse or all of these sorts of things and so because you have just like significant unhealth at the highest levels experiencing all of this pressure and no real positive outlets or systems or foundation to really like you know handle those things properly
00:22:28
Speaker
For sure. i would love to have you just keep going on that quick. was like what i'm what like Here's the thing is everyone is experiencing emotions, right? yeah And so your option is either you either acknowledge it and learn how to regulate well, and then come from a place of health or you don't, and then you're dysregulated by them. There's no alternative, but like what you keep saying, you know, and just how how people might have been raised or or perspective on emotions is like when you just
00:23:02
Speaker
you know, neglect that space. One thing super powerful you said is the other areas in your life will be impacted. Yeah. You know, your physical health will be impacted. How you parent your kids will be impacted. Your romantic relationships will be impacted. Your relationship with your family, your friend, everything, how you handle finances. Like this is the deep conviction that you and I speak from. yeah about this, because if you don't acknowledge this, it will show up in every way, including, like you said, in your leadership. So, okay, you have been taking um your church through this, and ah you know, just understanding what emotional health, healthy spirituality is, and just leaning into this question a little bit more, what have been some of the biggest, would you say, transformations or aha moments or you know, maybe where there's disconnects, where people have made connections. i would just love for you to speak into, I don't even have a specific question for you. I just want you to lean into this a little bit more.
00:24:05
Speaker
I think the easiest way that I can help anyone wherever you are, like in life, um you know, on your spiritual journey, follower of Jesus or not, it's just simply this because this kind of touches everything.
00:24:21
Speaker
You know, there's such a high level focus on activity and producing. And that's literally how we measure how we, you know, determine value. I mean, there's obviously you think about capitalism and, you know, there's not that I'm like, you know, pooh pooh and all capitalism, but it it has its downside from the standpoint of like, you know, everything is about, you know, kind of scaling and growing and producing and, you know, all of that sort of stuff. And so it's about doing, doing, doing.
00:24:56
Speaker
But um in In life, really, it we gain so much more when we learn how to be. i like we don't We haven't mastered being, and that's what we are created to be, human beings. but we have settled for for human doing, you know? And so like everything is doing, doing, doing. So we don't even know how to be, like, we don't even know how to rest. We don't even know how to just like chill out, you know? um And so I,
00:25:31
Speaker
I think that like one of the things that we've been unpacking with, you know, some leaders in our church is in our faith tradition, as you know, followers of Jesus, like, you know, we're really supposed to entrust our lives to him and and be in relationship with him.
00:25:51
Speaker
And so what that means is that like, the the the kind of, even the activities that we would associate with being a follower of Jesus, like reading the scriptures and praying and fasting, um serving, being in community, all of those are practices to help us be with God, not to do for God. And I think that like a lot of what has come out of our, you know, our traditions within churches has been like, oh man, you got to do, do. So we, we, we mastered a checklist of things to do, but we have no spiritual depth because we haven't spent time with God.
00:26:35
Speaker
We haven't, contemplated the scriptures that we've read. We haven't given space in our prayers. We we haven't um served in a way that is more slowed down and says like, hey, I'm also interested in being with you as I serve you or I serve with you, you know? So I think that's a big part of it. It's like, ah, okay. Like,
00:27:00
Speaker
there's ah There's an aspect to my spiritual growth and my and my depth and my relationship with God that has to do with um spaciousness.
00:27:10
Speaker
And like our lives in this world and our culture is all about like, hey, if there's space, we got to fill it. Like we need to fill it with something. And then like, oh, we run out of space?
00:27:20
Speaker
Well, we've got 25 apps that can help us create more space. Now we just managed the 25 and... So it's crazy, you know? Yeah, for sure. For sure. And so, you know, ah leaning into specifically, I know I could probably talk with you about any of the pillars of Align Living, um but just leaning into the emotional well-being piece, because what you were just saying, I feel like if um so,
00:27:49
Speaker
Let me let me phrase this question
Confronting and Processing Emotions
00:27:51
Speaker
like this. I want to ask you, what have you seen happen when emotions go unprocessed? But let me qualify that question, because there's a lot of resources out there for people um that are, let's say they they express a lot of their emotions. They're just figuring out how do i regulate this? But I speak very openly that.
00:28:11
Speaker
for the folks who who don't, who are kind of like unprocessing them and suppressing them, I feel like, you know, even what you're saying is if you're struggling, like what to do next, like God wants us to open up to him fully. Like there there you can, there's no better place to be fully vulnerable and transparent than, than with God, because I feel like one of the reasons, and I want you to answer this question, like what happens when these emotions go go unprocessed and and what do you think kind of, what are first steps for people who are struggling with this? Because I do think fear gets in the way, right? Like if you open up this box, you have these underlying fears and oh my goodness, if I, it left that transparency, that vulnerability is very scary, especially, i mean, for men and women, again, I'm with you. I don't like to generalize, but speaking, I think men,
00:29:05
Speaker
um go with more emotions being unprocessed than than anyone probably so can you just speak yeah can you just speak into this a little bit more than yeah um i'm trying to think like where where to begin because i think that um um Okay, here's here's what i what here's what I see. Because one of the things that you said is like, you know, man, emotions like being suppressed or being unprocessed. And then like maybe there's fear of like, you know, um if I share those things. i but I think part of our, like one of our number one issues is
00:29:43
Speaker
we just don't have we don't have intimate relationships. Like we don't even know like how to have, you know, close relationships with people who would love us just for us. Like so many of our,
00:29:59
Speaker
Man, I think if we really took, and this is maybe kind of a ah a slight detour to answer your question, but I think if we really took inventory of who we say our friends are, what is the connecting point?
00:30:13
Speaker
Like a lot of the connecting points have something to do with like, you know, work or, or um ah inactivity or it's like kind of surface level which which is fine to start but like so many of our relationships don't go you know down two three four levels and therein lies the problem because you don't have a space or a place to be vulnerable you don't have community so this is what jesus said he said
00:30:46
Speaker
Hey, the great commandment is love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Here's essentially what he was saying. be in deep communion with God and be in deep communion with your neighbor or with, with, with your people around you, you know? So, because love is not a surface thing. So like you love God, you love your name, like there's depth to that. And so we don't have much relational depth in our culture.
00:31:16
Speaker
We don't know how to get to it. It's completely foreign to us. So the easiest thing to do is to suppress or unprocess until we blow up or we throw up, you know, over yeah everybody, you know? yeah So I think that's really it. Like we've lost a sense of what it means to be in community.
00:31:34
Speaker
And like, we would feel less fearful about sharing what's going on with us. If we had, you know, intimate community, we had proper community.
00:31:46
Speaker
For sure. No, I think that's so, so important to hear. I remember listening to a sermon. It was talking about the different levels of friendship and, you know, you have acquaintances that, you know, there isn't that much a depth to. But then, you know, i think a lot of people, like you said, form friendships around like a circumstance in their life, but very few people and statistically men, even less have those deep friendships where they do feel safe to be vulnerable and open up. And so that's a really good challenge for
Practical Strategies for Managing Overwhelm
00:32:16
Speaker
everyone listening. um So, so when, when you don't have rhythms or practices to support your, your aligned living, people often go into spaces of feeling overwhelmed or stretched thin, or even if you do have practices like you and I both have practices, but sometimes life just a lot hits you at once. So when you feel overwhelmed or stretched thin, What does recalibration look like for you specifically?
00:32:41
Speaker
um Well, there's a few things, but I'll i'll throw out at least um a very practical thing that I think everyone can do that um might not seem very um exciting or like, oh yeah. But like, I think if we just literally took walks, right?
00:33:05
Speaker
like I mean, and you can do your walk. And this is what I do. Like I do walks, um you know, a lot, not as much in the winter because I'm not really cool with that. But the weather is pretty good. Like I like I will I will find a way to take, you know, take walks.
00:33:23
Speaker
um I always try to listen to music. some music or some sounds with no lyrics. Now you can do whatever you want, but I'm a, like, I like to think and I like to have space to process, you know, so the lyrics would distract me and not allow that space for me. But I think walking, like that's a really big one for me. Every single morning, um you know, I give myself 20 minutes.
00:33:49
Speaker
of of silence and solitude where, um you know again, i have a guy that I listen to named William Augusto. He has like 20 volumes. It's called Soaking in His Presence. And it's just such beautiful music, no lyrics, um night sounds, chimes, those sort of things that just kind of put me in a space where this is how I start my day. I kind of like give my my body and my mind you know a deep breath. um And, yeah, I try to also throughout the day pay attention to when I'm feeling anxious or when I'm feeling like, oh, man, like I'm feeling tense right now. I try to name it. um I try to, like, take deep breaths and I pray. I say, hey, you know, God, I'm just feeling really like.
00:34:36
Speaker
frustrated right now or you know anxious about this thing. you know And that just, that helps me. So those are like some really simple practices, walking, starting the day with silence and solitude. um It took me a while to get up to 20 minutes. So anyone who wants to like try that, I started with two minutes and I was struggling. So um it took me a while to to build up to that. ah And then yeah, just really trying to like really pay attention to you know to how I'm feeling.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah, actually, okay, we're going to wrap up with one last question, then I'll um ask you where people can find you. But those practices that you just mentioned, I want to highlight self-awareness. And you said noticing when my body or noticing when my mind, because let me tell you what I know from from my expertise is I always say you have to lead with honesty and self-awareness because you're not going to do yourself or anyone else good if you're justifying certain things or denying certain things. So noticing in your body. So what so
00:35:39
Speaker
awesome about you mentioning that is we talk about that when I did like health coaching and I'm sure when you were an athlete or whatnot, you had to notice, OK, what is my body telling me? Like, am I eating because i need to feel my body and I'm hungry or am I bored or am I stressed or like noticing in your body if you feel um you know, certain that it helps with our physical health, right? But we don't always think about that with emotional and mental health. Like, let me notice when and get ahead of this and be proactive and be mindful. And so I think that that is like so ah such a lost practice for for human beings and maybe why we're not living our our best life always because of a lack of self-awareness and just not being honest with ourselves. So thank you for mentioning that. Just noticing when.
00:36:26
Speaker
Can I just say really, really quick, I know you wanna you want to land a plane on this, but part of the reason why we don't notice is because of the speed of our lives. That's why the spaciousness and slowing down, taking walks, you know, that sort of stuff.
00:36:41
Speaker
Like we have to find a way to slow ourselves down because like we just miss things. It's the difference between like driving down a street a hundred times and walking down at once.
00:36:53
Speaker
like You're going notice so many more things walking down that street once because it's at a slow pace than you are driving it. And so that's what it is. It's the speed of our lives. Just don't allow it.
00:37:04
Speaker
Yeah.
Self-awareness and Personal Growth
00:37:05
Speaker
And I want to add to that. It's not always um even just speed in the way of being busy back to back to back to back. Some people are like that. But I think it's also what you're saying could apply to people that just keep constant distractions in front of them. I just listened to the book um Dopamine Nation, and I'm big on neurotransmitters and how God created our bodies. We're supposed to do healthy things, have healthy levels. But the problem is, is we, um with with um phone scrolling and dings and all of this stuff, like also I think people just constantly keep so much stimulation coming in, even if they're not the craziest, busiest person around, they're still not like what you're saying, giving space to noticing because it's like, oh, okay, da I have two seconds of free time. Let me open Instagram. I have five minutes of free time. Let me like constant distractions. So then you're not going to hear or notice anything either. So that's the same thing, a different type of speed, if you will, I suppose. So um yeah. So thank you for sharing that. So just in wrapping up um for listeners who feel fragmented right now, what's one small shift you think someone can make this week? Right. Because Align Living is all about decompartmentalizing, understanding that everything's integrated. So somebody running around feeling fragmented, what's something you think that they could do that's doable?
00:38:27
Speaker
um
00:38:30
Speaker
I'm big on questions, you know? And so i think I think one practice is if you feel however you feel, whatever the feeling is, I feel mad, I feel disappointed, i feel hurt, I feel tired, or like you don't even know what you feel, it does not do it, you know? i think I think just pausing and saying, why do I feel this way?
00:38:57
Speaker
And even if you are not sure, just sit with the question, why am I feeling tired why am I feeling it just just sit with it don't don't rush to try to come up with or think of an answer you know in my faith tradition as a follower Jesus there's this thing we call the Holy Spirit that will reveal things to us Jesus said hey the Spirit has come to lead you and guide you into all truth and so there's a there's a revelatory
00:39:29
Speaker
you know, aspect to what we can tap into to show us. But I think, I think just slowing down, asking the question, um why do I feel this way?
00:39:40
Speaker
You know, that, that could be a journal prompt for some people that could be a question. You just take on a walk with you or something you just, you just sit with. I think that's, I think that's a big one because I think we have to,
00:39:54
Speaker
If we don't, like you said earlier, if we don't like try to build the self-awareness muscle, then we'll just add another activity to like what we're trying to do. So it's like, oh man, I feel this way. so let me just go on a walk. But like, you're not like really digging underneath to figure out like, why do you feel it? So you're not working or developing the self-awareness muscle. You just added another activity, you know? So I think, I think asking questions is a really big one.
00:40:24
Speaker
Okay, I love that you said that. That was so unexpected. But let me tell you, I feel like our culture and even how we raise our kids and our society, we suppress the gift of asking good questions. um When I wrote my book, The Playground Leader, and thinking about what characteristics do we want to steal? And you being a father of four and me being a mother of two, um like we know that when our kids are rambling off questions, it can be annoying sometimes. But in in my book, one of the things I wanted to talk about, we want to highlight and encourage in our kids is being inquisitive yeah and and inquiring. And so, you know, we start to stifle that in our children. And then even as adults, even in relationships with other people, when people start asking questions, we get irritated, much less we don't pause enough to ask ourselves,
00:41:13
Speaker
important, essential questions to even have the self of self-awareness for growth. I love that you ended there. That is really, really good. So that's the challenge for all the listeners is the next time you're hit with something like uncomfortable or bothersome or you're wondering what's going on or why you're feeling some type of way. Just ask yourself why. So, um but thank you for so much for spending some time with us, Joshua. What, where can people find you? You mentioned you do some different, I know hope hope, hope fills up in Baltimore, but I know you have some different other projects and things that, that you're working on. Like where would people find you? Where do you want to send people to look at?
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not i'm not ah really great, I think, at the self-promotion stuff. um I don't have a website yet. Like, I'm working on it because I want to do more speaking and more, um you know, create more opportunities to engage with people outside of Baltimore and outside of of my faith community. But the best place to find me is just Instagram. J as in Joshua, M as in Michael, Simonette, S-Y-M-O-N-E-T-T-E is my... Instagram. So at JMSiminette on Instagram is probably the best way to track, you know, with me and you'll reach out as well. If, ah you know, you you have something you want to ask or you got a resource or whatever.
00:42:33
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. For sure. Maybe you need to start like doing a ah group on, um, for men who are suppressing their emotions. Hey, maybe, maybe. I don't i don't know. I'm just kidding. There's probably a market there for sure. I'm just kidding. But i will put your Instagram in the show notes as well as the Hopeville Lang just in case you want to see what's going on there, especially if you have a heart for that city or anything. There's a lot of great things um happening. So anyways, ah thank you all for listening. And thank you, Joshua, for being here.
00:43:07
Speaker
Good to be here. God bless you guys.
00:43:12
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in to the Aligned Living Podcast. I'm Dr. Autumn, your guide on this journey to shalom or wholeness. Ready to embark on this journey of self-discovery and transformation?
00:43:27
Speaker
Head over to autumnswain.com to learn more and to dive deeper into the world of Aligned Living. Until next time, stay aligned.