S03, Ep. 01: Breaking the Rules
In this season 3 launch, Mandi talks about breaking rules to Find Your Beautiful.
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Transcript
Mandi: Mandi Frantz here welcoming you to my podcast - Find Your Beautiful: Life Through the Eyes of a Christian Disabled Woman.
Mandi: Welcome to season 3 of this podcast! I can't even believe I'm saying that. I started this podcast a little over a year ago because I had things I needed to say and hoped at least my closest friends would listen. Never did I imagine my episodes having over 1,200 plays and people I have yet to meet in real life tuning in. Thanks so much for giving me a space and the support to share my truth.Mandi: Mandi Frantz here welcoming you to my podcast - Find Your Beautiful: Life Through the Eyes of a Christian Disabled Woman.
[Upbeat Background Music]
One thing this podcast has taught me over and over again is that what I think I know today will likely not be the same as what I know tomorrow. Life has a funny way of expanding your mind if you let it, but it's really scary. Asking the hard questions, or even knowing what the hard questions are, can be terrifying. Once you start asking though, especially when you start discovering answers, there is no turning back. The hardest questions for me in the last 2.5 years have been who do I want to be? How do I become her? Why am I who I am now? And what am I willing to sacrifice to be my best self?
These questions have caused me to break a lot of "rules." Many of the rules I grew up with, whether taught or self-imposed, kept me in a box. There is a sense of safety in that box. Everything is black and white. Right and wrong are clearly defined. My place in the world is laid out. To be perfectly honest, sometimes I wish I could climb back into that box. Who has seen the movie Look Who's Talking? Remember the scene where Mikey is born and he just thinks, "Put me back in, put me back in?" Yeah, that's been me sometimes. The thing is, like being born, you can't undo stepping out of the box. So today, I'm sharing 2 rules I had to break to start finding my beautiful.
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[Doorbell Sound Effect]
Mandi: "Because I said so." I remember hearing this a lot whenever I questioned the rules. I'll be honest, I'm guilty of telling my own kids this when they question me. In fact, I used to think it was weak parenting to explain the reasoning behind the rules to kids. Yet, as I've matured, I've started to realize the conflicting messages many of us are brought up with and carry into adulthood, from our parents and the church. We tell children not to be followers, especially not blind followers. We ask our children to trust us. Yet, these things require openness, safety, and transparency.
There are many rules that we need to break to truly break out of our box and experience freedom. I'll likely do more episodes on other rules, but today I want to breakdown 2. The first is "blood is thicker than water" or in faith-based terms, "don't be unevenly yoked." Listen, if you know me at all, then you know how important family is to me. I think that family has the ability to do crazy things, yet we should still go to bat for them. Loyalty is one of my core values.
I recently lost my biological father. I use lost very loosely because I didn't really have him. I hadn't seen him in 20 years, and that was at his mother, my grandmother's wake. Before that, it had been about 7 years. Yet, there was still a sense of grief, a grieving I'm still going through in fact. There is a saying in Spanish, "La sangre llama," or "blood calls." I say all this to demonstrate that I strongly believe in family, in blood bonds.
However, I no longer accept this idea that you must be biologically connected to be family, or even the idea promoted by many churches, that we should only surround ourselves with other believers. I no longer believe that blood ties are stronger than choice. See? From the beginning God gave us the power to choose. Now I'm not going to get deep into the theologies of predetermination versus free-will in this episode, but I do believe we have free-will. The ability to make choices is empowering. I think the ability to choose your family is so important in our society, in our broken world. This isn't a foreign concept by any means. We do, after all, have legal options for choosing family. Think about marriage. Wouldn't you consider your spouse family? They have no biological connection to you, but they are family. An even better example is adoption. It's a legal way of choosing your children. I believe this power to choose goes beyond the legal world though.
This begs the question, what is family? It's a deep, maybe even philosophical concept to contemplate and I surely won't pretend to have a blanket answer. I can only share through my eyes. Family are people who choose to be in your life to love, support, encourage, and challenge you. They're loyal and stay by your side through the hard times. They don't necessarily need to be around all the time, or be in contact everyday, but you know they're always there. And ultimately, you are also willing to return all that love and loyalty to them. People in your family do not need to share all of your core values, or believe everything you believe, but they must honor and respect you.
The first rule I had to break was no longer believing that blood is thicker than water.
Rule number 2 is one that might make you shake your head at first, but bear with me and hear me out. The second rule I've had to break is the second greatest commandment in the bible: love your neighbor as you love yourself, found in Matthew 12:31. In theory, this is a truly powerful concept. However, there is a big problem with this. Many of us don't actually love ourselves well. And so we end up not loving others well.
In the church, we are often taught that loving ourselves is the opposite of what God wants. We hear about the sacrificial love of Jesus, but also need to talk about how much Jesus practiced self-care. Jesus took time to be filled up by his Father God, then poured out into others. Jesus took time to spend with his chosen family, the disciples, before he sacrificed his life. Jesus loved himself in a healthy way and then showed us that love.
In today's world, where we struggle greatly with self-esteem issues, mental health concerns, and practice all types of self-harm, it is clear that many of us don't know how to love ourselves. In our brokenness, we often end up trying to love others through tactics of fear, manipulation, intimidation, and abuse. To be honest, I think we have watered down and misrepresented this commandment. The ideal was that we would all love ourselves well, the way Jesus loved himself. Since this is often not the case, I believe we need to love our neighbors as Jesus loved us. Now I know not everyone believes in Jesus, so this would again need to be a bit more generic. Perhaps saying love your neighbors with the greatest, truest, purest love there is would be better.
For a long time, and I still have my moments, I was guilty of not knowing how to love myself well. I saw this play out negatively in relationships, all different types of relationships. I've been the person to use fear and manipulation tactics. I've been the one to use guilt and shame tactics. It's all because of how I loved, or didn't love, myself. I'm not claiming perfection in this area, but my relationships are much healthier because I started loving me the way Jesus loves me, thus loving others the way he loves them.
There it is! 2 rules I had to break free from, change my black and white view of, to be closer to the freedom I need to find my beautiful.
There are many rules that we need to break to truly break out of our box and experience freedom. I'll likely do more episodes on other rules, but today I want to breakdown 2. The first is "blood is thicker than water" or in faith-based terms, "don't be unevenly yoked." Listen, if you know me at all, then you know how important family is to me. I think that family has the ability to do crazy things, yet we should still go to bat for them. Loyalty is one of my core values.
I recently lost my biological father. I use lost very loosely because I didn't really have him. I hadn't seen him in 20 years, and that was at his mother, my grandmother's wake. Before that, it had been about 7 years. Yet, there was still a sense of grief, a grieving I'm still going through in fact. There is a saying in Spanish, "La sangre llama," or "blood calls." I say all this to demonstrate that I strongly believe in family, in blood bonds.
However, I no longer accept this idea that you must be biologically connected to be family, or even the idea promoted by many churches, that we should only surround ourselves with other believers. I no longer believe that blood ties are stronger than choice. See? From the beginning God gave us the power to choose. Now I'm not going to get deep into the theologies of predetermination versus free-will in this episode, but I do believe we have free-will. The ability to make choices is empowering. I think the ability to choose your family is so important in our society, in our broken world. This isn't a foreign concept by any means. We do, after all, have legal options for choosing family. Think about marriage. Wouldn't you consider your spouse family? They have no biological connection to you, but they are family. An even better example is adoption. It's a legal way of choosing your children. I believe this power to choose goes beyond the legal world though.
This begs the question, what is family? It's a deep, maybe even philosophical concept to contemplate and I surely won't pretend to have a blanket answer. I can only share through my eyes. Family are people who choose to be in your life to love, support, encourage, and challenge you. They're loyal and stay by your side through the hard times. They don't necessarily need to be around all the time, or be in contact everyday, but you know they're always there. And ultimately, you are also willing to return all that love and loyalty to them. People in your family do not need to share all of your core values, or believe everything you believe, but they must honor and respect you.
The first rule I had to break was no longer believing that blood is thicker than water.
Rule number 2 is one that might make you shake your head at first, but bear with me and hear me out. The second rule I've had to break is the second greatest commandment in the bible: love your neighbor as you love yourself, found in Matthew 12:31. In theory, this is a truly powerful concept. However, there is a big problem with this. Many of us don't actually love ourselves well. And so we end up not loving others well.
In the church, we are often taught that loving ourselves is the opposite of what God wants. We hear about the sacrificial love of Jesus, but also need to talk about how much Jesus practiced self-care. Jesus took time to be filled up by his Father God, then poured out into others. Jesus took time to spend with his chosen family, the disciples, before he sacrificed his life. Jesus loved himself in a healthy way and then showed us that love.
In today's world, where we struggle greatly with self-esteem issues, mental health concerns, and practice all types of self-harm, it is clear that many of us don't know how to love ourselves. In our brokenness, we often end up trying to love others through tactics of fear, manipulation, intimidation, and abuse. To be honest, I think we have watered down and misrepresented this commandment. The ideal was that we would all love ourselves well, the way Jesus loved himself. Since this is often not the case, I believe we need to love our neighbors as Jesus loved us. Now I know not everyone believes in Jesus, so this would again need to be a bit more generic. Perhaps saying love your neighbors with the greatest, truest, purest love there is would be better.
For a long time, and I still have my moments, I was guilty of not knowing how to love myself well. I saw this play out negatively in relationships, all different types of relationships. I've been the person to use fear and manipulation tactics. I've been the one to use guilt and shame tactics. It's all because of how I loved, or didn't love, myself. I'm not claiming perfection in this area, but my relationships are much healthier because I started loving me the way Jesus loves me, thus loving others the way he loves them.
There it is! 2 rules I had to break free from, change my black and white view of, to be closer to the freedom I need to find my beautiful.
[Bling]
Mandi: What are some rules you find yourself needing to break to get out of that safety box?
Go download the Anchor mobile app and subscribe to this podcast so you can leave me a voice message with your answer and any questions.
This podcast is also available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and any other place you like to listen! Visit my website linked in the description to get access to all the platforms.
[Mandi voiceover to 'Compton' music]: It's all everyone is talking about, so you know I've gotta get in on the convo. Next week I'll be talking about COVID-19. ‘Til next time Beauties!
Go download the Anchor mobile app and subscribe to this podcast so you can leave me a voice message with your answer and any questions.
This podcast is also available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and any other place you like to listen! Visit my website linked in the description to get access to all the platforms.
[Mandi voiceover to 'Compton' music]: It's all everyone is talking about, so you know I've gotta get in on the convo. Next week I'll be talking about COVID-19. ‘Til next time Beauties!
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