Episode 305 Transcript
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[00:00:00] You are listening to episode 305 of the Peaceful Mind Podcast.
Welcome to the Peaceful Mind Podcast, a place for creating the peace of mind. You need to be the best mom you are created by God to be. If you wanna bring more balance, more joy, and more peace to your motherhood, this is the place for you. I'm your host, certified life coach at Catholic Mom Danielle Thienel.
In the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let's get started.
Hello. Welcome back beautiful Mamas. Thank you for joining me on the podcast. Today I am talking with someone I know you are going to love Jill Simons from Many Parts Ministries. Jill has devoted her work to helping Catholics discover their spiritual gifts, those unique ways the Holy Spirit works in us and [00:01:00] use them in real everyday life.
And here's why I've chosen to meet and talk with Jill today, and it's because I know that this subject matters to us moms. When we understand the gifts that God has placed in us from the beginning, life just feels more aligned, more peaceful, and more purposeful. We stop forcing ourselves into roles that drain us start stepping into those things that actually fit the way that God designed for us.
So today we're gonna talk about the simple ways to notice your spiritual gifts, why identity matters so much, and how knowing your gifts can help you avoid burnout and live with more confidence and joy. So I'm so excited today to bring to you, Jill Simons.
Welcome to the podcast. You so much for having me, Danielle. I'm so happy to be here. So will you please introduce yourself to my listeners, and first, let us know how you first got into helping people [00:02:00] discover their spiritual gifts. Yes, absolutely. So my name is Jill Simons. As Danielle said, I am a mom also.
I have four children under 11. So I definitely know the seeking for more peace in your own life, in your family's life. And I discovered Terrorism's in a different season of life. Actually, I was in high school and I was trying to really discern where it was that God was calling me to. What he was calling me to pursue really in college.
I had a lot of diverse paths open to me, and I had been given this really beautiful faith that had taught me to go to the faith for what it was that I needed. And so I was like they've gotta have something about this. And so I find that there is this theology of charisms that's articulated vatican two in the catechism. And John Paul II talked about it a lot during his Wednesday audiences. And so I find these little snippets throughout Vatican documents about charisms, and I was like, perfect. Yes, that's exactly what I need. [00:03:00] And. 8 0 1 of the catechism talks about how, you know it's always necessary to discern your charisms to understand how you fit in the church.
I'm paraphrasing. And so I am hyped for paragraph 8 0 2 because we're gonna get into like how to discern them and what we're gonna do, and that is the last time that the catechism mentions charisms. It is. It says, you need to do this. And we're not gonna tell you how. And so that really launched me. And that's not a criticism of the catechism, that's just, it was outside the purview of what they were doing.
And so I spent the next 15 years just put on fire by that and by the fact that other resources to discern charisms that were available at that time were only available at a parish level. So you had to have your entire parish. Go through a program or bring in a program or something like that.
And I was from a small rural town where that was just never gonna happen. It wasn't even possible for us to consider something like that. And that just started a journey for me where I [00:04:00] really, I remember even at that age really promising the Lord if you make the way for me to do this, I'm gonna make it so that nobody ever.
Feels like this again who is never in a situation where it's I wanna understand what the Holy Spirit wants me to do, but I just don't have what I need to be able to do that. And so we focus on creating t discernment resources that are as flexible, affordable, accessible as possible so that as many people as possible.
Able to take advantage of these things. Whether it's something that your community is doing or not, it's something that you're able to do independently in all seasons of life, all situations to better understand how you are being called to build the church. I love it. I, that's so powerful and I love starting with the backstory of how somebody came to it.
Helps give us the right context of what brought you to where you are working today and. Just as a note, because I know that the title says Spiritual Gifts. And just tell us a little bit about like where you're, you use the word [00:05:00] charisms and just again, we're using them interchangeably and you've said that's okay.
I just am trying to think about not only, our Catholic LI listeners, but also the broader sense of US Christians understanding, like more of the layman's term, yeah, absolutely. It's, they mean the same, right? They are interchangeable. Typically it kind of breaks along ideological lines, not because they're different, but just because that's how tradition has arisen.
In a lot of Protestant communities, they refer to them as spiritual gifts where we just have a more specific term, those don't use two words when one will do within the Catholic church, which is charisms. And so that's what's referred to in like those Vatican documents that I'm just referring to.
So for the moms who aren't as familiar with exactly what charisms are how do they show up for us in our everyday life? I think as just a foundation definition so that people coming into it have a better sense of the kind of thing that we're talking abouts are a [00:06:00] kind of grace. So this isn't something like your natural talents or something where you were just made this way and whether you would have been.
Christian or not, you would've experienced the same things. This is a specific kind of grace that you've received that's unique to you. And so when you or your parents said yes to Grace coming into your life, to cooperation with Grace at your baptism, whether you are baptized in a Christian Church or in a Catholic church any baptism that is Trinitarian results in.
The acquisition of charism. So you have all of these things that we all have the same, Danielle and I and you, the listener, all have the same gifts in some areas of grace, but in charisms, they are uniquely chosen for the individuals. So they vary from person to person. So that's a really interesting element of it because these are places where it's not just oh, you're pretty good at that.
They're actually supernaturally effective. It's like Christ himself in a very real way, is moving through you [00:07:00] doing these things more than in other areas of your life. And so what you're looking for in identifying these is that supernatural effectiveness is this something where I just show up and do the thing and I didn't spend a lot of time.
Thinking on it or planning it or something. Dang. That was awesome. Like it just showed up and it all came together and it worked. And a lot of times we, especially as moms, are very bad at self-reporting on what these things likely would be like. There's a lot of things, especially if you are baptized as an infant or a small child, where you've always been this way, and so you don't have the sense of the supernatural nature of what it is that you're able to do.
Because it feels like you've just always had it because Grace came into your life at the very beginning. I love that so much because I know that some moms listening are just having an introspective conversation with themselves now asking like, do I even have any, or [00:08:00] what are mine?
But tell me the why behind it. Like why does understanding who we are in Christ matter so much before we start trying to figure out what our gifts and charisms are? I think as moms, it's so easy to think about this and understand this when we look at children. So if you think about a child who is scared about where their next meal is going to come from, or if mom or dad is gonna be in a bad mood when they get home, or there's that I need to be perfect in order for everything to go okay energy about their life. They might be doing the same things that your child is doing, but I think everyone listening would be horrified if their child was acting that way because we all want to, our children to of course know they're gonna be fed, have a place to stay, have all the things that they need, and so the energy with which we do the same actions can shift hugely.
Based on what we think the [00:09:00] consequences of that action are gonna be or what we think the states are. So this is where there's a lot of intersection with like just thought management and things like that come up a lot is, you know what it is that we think about what we're doing, it's gonna impact how we are doing it.
And so if we do not understand our identity in God, the fact that. We are already loved, already seen, already known, already chosen. It can be really tempting for people that are in a place where their identity is really hurting, where they don't know if God is really trustworthy in their life. If they don't know if they're safe in their relationship with God, it can be easy to.
Kind of go to these places of your charisms and say, oh, awesome. This is like a superpower thing that I can do to try and earn that love and affection that I'm craving. And God doesn't want that for us. He is exactly like you as a mom. He wants his children to know that they are fine. They're gonna have everything that they need.
And yes, there's [00:10:00] gonna be worries and concerns, but we should not. Basic things about am I be am loved? And you start at children who know all. Go to school, play sports, play music are in theater, and things like that. There's an ability to play and to try things that actually increases their capacity for excellence that is inaccessible when you're doing those things to earn something from the people around you.
So it's that freedom for which Christ set us free that talks about Galatians that. He wants to call us out of the slavery that we have been in and into the freedom that he has for us, and we have charisms. No matter where you're at in this situation, if you are like, man, it's really resonating me that I don't trust God the way that I should, I don't feel safe in my relationship with him.
You absolutely still have charisms, but sometimes the Holy Spirit invites us to just [00:11:00] that's not the most important thing at this moment. The most important thing is that you. Know you're safe, that you know you're loved. Not because I'm trying to tune you up to go get to work, but because I care about you, for you to be healed for you.
And then so often out of just joy and gratitude, when we do receive that healing, we wanna go do the things that it is that the Holy Spirit has empowered us to do. I know moms are hearing you. And just again, I can see the the collective nod of heads. Yes, this is like this not only does it resonate, make sense, like it's what I've known but maybe not have remembered.
So what do you want if a mom out there wants to know her gifts, wants to know her charisms, like again, bringing it, like now that the whole subject, talking about it and hearing your why behind it. And she's just feeling yes, I do want to know what they are. What's the easiest way for them to [00:12:00] start noticing them?
It's interesting because like I said, like we said at the beginning, a lot of people are bad at the noticing of things, and so a lot of times we need like an outside perspective to help get the lenses on for us to be able to notice what they look like. So in a perfect world, everyone would have a spiritual director that's known them for 20 years and is intimately aware of all of the things that they're good at and bad at, and et cetera, and is able to like personally shepherd them.
Through this discernment process, but I have yet to find that spiritual director. I don't know about you, Danielle, but or I have to interject here. A life coach. Hello? Yes. Yes. Exactly what I help with every day. Yep. Yes. And so the most people need objective perspective at some point. Yes. Amen.
That is what we provide through our assessment. It's not required. There's nothing magical about it. It's just a really helpful tool that helps a lot of people. So that will be new information to [00:13:00] them. So you have an assessment. It's one I took yesterday. It was very enlightening. Again, like we don't know what we don't know.
And yes. Tell us a little bit more about about the assessment. I went through it, it literally is, you've already curated the questions to reveal right charisms. Do you wanna speak to the assessment that. The many parts ministry offers. Yeah. So it is all online. It's digital, it's on demand, it's $9.
That's the main way that we support our ministry. We try and keep it as affordable as possible. And what the assessment does is it adapts to you. So you'll put in your age, you put in your vocation. Please do put in the real things because they're gonna adapt to you. So if you put in incorrect things, it's gonna incorrectly adapt to you.
And it's gonna change the questions based on whether or not you're married how old you're and what your baptismal status is. And then at the end, it's gonna create a custom report. Specific to you that goes through all of your most [00:14:00] likely charisms and what it is that we're seeing from your results.
Now, like I said, there's nothing spiritual or magical about the assessment. It's just a tool that helps you narrow things down. When you have the narrow down information, now you have what you need to say, okay, there's these four or five, six charisms that seem like they really could be things that I have.
This is what I'm gonna start watching for. This is what I'm gonna start noticing. This is what I'm gonna look back into my personal history, and maybe I can point to yeah, this actually does come up all the time. I never knew that was a spiritual gift, which is extremely common. There's a lot of women especially who are like, yes, I do that literally every day.
But I didn't know that there was a spiritual component to that because not everything that is a charism would be perceived as something spiritual. Things like service and administration and mercy and giving are all. Heroism that a lot of people will have and they'll be like, oh, that's a, that's a [00:15:00] Jesus thing.
That's one of the one things someone had said to me before. They were like, I just thought that was the me thing. I didn't know that was a Jesus thing. I was like, yep, it definitely is. I love it. Yeah, and once you have that narrowed down, it becomes so much easier to see where it's. We all know, like in the workplaces they offer Myers-Briggs assessment strength binders.
But this is a way like for us women of faith, right? And that's the most important route we wanna go to. And now this is a beautiful assessment that helps you again, take a look and just either, either discover spiritual gifts that you didn't know, or maybe like me, I, why my answers revealed. Things that I think I knew were already my gifts, but it just feels good to be like, to be able to then say on, you're on the right track. And then I also wanna know that I for listeners to know when you, when I. Took it, it also revealed some other things that might not have been like right as my top, gifts.
But I [00:16:00] still, I think I'm not giving them enough credit that I still had that I could grow in them. And I'm just wondering if I did put a little bit more time and attention to those what God might. Help, create with me in this life. So it's just, again, like in my work as a life coach, it is all about getting that outside perspective.
Like sometimes we need to gain knowledge before we can make the changes in our lives. Like we don't know what we don't know. And then it helps focus us going forward. I wanna encourage everyone to take that assessment. I love self-evaluation and then connecting this to our faith is just makes it so much more fruitful.
So my next question for you is, you say that spiritual gifts are super naturally effective. What does that actually mean for a mom in her day-to-day life? So I think it's the same kinds of [00:17:00] things that we see in Christ's interactions with people where it's not necessarily okay, there's pyrotechnics that go along with this, but there are these places where there's a level of ease and also an experience of the fruits of the Holy Spirit that doesn't come with other things.
So I always say, there's. There's a lot of Mario played at my house. I don't know about your listeners, but there's those pipes in Mario that Mario goes up and comes down and there's, drop different things out in different places. And in a very real sense, the fruits of the Holy Spirit are coming down in that Mario pipe in our lives.
And a lot of times we're just not standing under it like the Holy Spirit is pouring out his. Fruits and his grace is on us, but we're off doing something in an unrelated space. And so we're not experiencing that. So it's really tempting to be like, gosh, I don't have any peace. I don't have any joy, I don't have this kindness.
And so often it's because our attention is put on things that [00:18:00] don't bring us those things. And are we going to get to the point where like. Life is universally 100% like flowers and roses no. But these places where we cooperate with the Holy Spirit, even in hard situations, allow us to experience those fruits so much more.
So as an example, you can have different approaches, different responses to the same situation. Maybe there's a situation where there's really a struggle with a child in your home, maybe attitude wise, getting him to cooperate with you, using him. I'm not basing this on one of my own children. She said I just coached on this morning with two moms.
So it's totally relevant and a perfect example. Please continue. Yes. And so a helpful question to ask in that situation. Is there one of my charisms that I could lean on in this situation that I'm not maybe I have a charism of music. Have I ever tried singing in these situations? Have I ever tried seeing if that would calm my child?
Like. Why not [00:19:00] try because these are places where we see supernatural effectiveness. Also, do you have a charism of knowledge? Is there something that the Holy Spirit's inviting you to go learn to be able to support your child better? Is there, do you have a charism of mercy? Maybe just calling on you to be with and see the struggle of the child in that moment.
You can help choose your response in a large part based on what cards you have to play and your charisms help you understand what that is. I know what my charisms are. Some of them are used in my home, some of them are not, and I'm really clear on what the home charisms are, and I am able to do those things in a.
A wider variety of situations than maybe at face value would seem to be the case. And they always bring that experience of the Holy Spirit, that if I pay attention, I can name. Now, if you're not paying attention, you might miss it. And so there might be times where you've already done this, you've already experienced [00:20:00] it, and that subtlety of the presence of God and God's voice can mean that it's not like.
Flashing headlights oh my gosh, this was the best thing Ever do this every day. It might be something where you have to be paying attention to be like, I do experience more peace and joy when I do this. This actually is something that really leads to that kind of fruitfulness in my life. And the more you pay attention to it, the more your sensitivity grows to it, and it starts to become something that you are able to notice a lot more easily.
This last answer that you just gave, I literally had a visceral body moment when you gave those examples of where you, when the struggles or challenges that are coming up in your home life, and then you took your mind to that beautiful question. What of my spiritual gifts could I tap into to help me in this situation?
I literally, Jill on this side was [00:21:00] just like. Oh my gosh, that is amazing. And so it's this practical application that I think that once we're like, okay yes, I do want to know what my spiritual gifts are. And then now we have this tool, this wonderful tool to find them out. Now that we have this awareness now to be able to call upon them and use them, and then to think that we would be able to stand under the Mario pipe and then really gain these where we could be like, where.
I have just without this, I just would've not been under the pipe this whole time to get it. Exactly. And so again, I just wanted to, this is just my own time in real time having just thinking it's practical. So I wanna piggyback on that because I think this is the most moving part. And so I wanna know that how is now knowing our gifts, how will it help us avoid, my main thing I help moms with is overwhelm.
Okay. But burnout. How can, like what are some more tangible [00:22:00] examples that these gifts can help us avoid overwhelm, avoid burnout, and then ultimately just feel more aligned with God and his plan for us. I think at the end of the day, no matter who you are, your charisms are meant to help you know what to say yes to and what to say no to.
So this is super interesting because the Holy Spirit really hasn't elevated this in the conversation of the church until the last 70 years or so. It's really interesting. The timeline Pneumatology, which is the study of the Holy Spirit, is probably the most. Or one of the most underdeveloped areas of theology, and there's been a lot of question about like why is this something that the Holy Spirit is bringing about now in, in kind of his ongoing development of church dogma?
And I firmly believe there's not a you don't have to agree with me. This isn't dogmatic, but I firmly believe it is. The Holy Spirit specific response to the overwhelming number of options available to us. [00:23:00] Now you think about your great. There was one place that she was probably going to live, and if she moved it was because her husband got a job somewhere else and it was just.
There they were, and then they would go to church and meet everyone there, and she would fit right back into the same place in society, whether it was in this town or that town. There was a very limited number of options. There was a strong community, and there was an overwhelming amount of silence in their life.
Not only did they just not have the internet, there literally wasn't even recorded music. Think about what that would be like. No. Form of input, unless there are human beings speaking with you or playing music, or you have a rare book to read. People were able to discern easier just by virtue of that, where the Holy Spirit was moving in their life.
More of these things that we feel like we are fulfilled in doing, and I don't really like that. I'm not gonna do that anymore. And it was as quick and as [00:24:00] close to them as that. Now that is no longer the case. And so I think the Holy Spirit is really bringing a emphasis on this kind of discernment in this time in order to help us regain not the same situation, but greater clarity about what it is that we're supposed to do.
And then of course, in the signature Holy Spirit Way. It's almost better this way because we are able to articulate more clearly what it is that we are meant to do to build the church. We're taking the extra step to put language to that, and so one of my favorite things to do is to help married couples.
Be able to look at their charisms together. We have, we actually have just like a free download on our website. It's a date night for couples. You both take the assessment and then we walk you through how to discuss it, to understand, have we built a life together where we both have the capacity to be faithful to what it is that the Holy Spirit wants for us to do.
That's for both spouses [00:25:00] there. I work with a lot of men who have taken roles that are just I wanna make as much money as possible because I'm trying to provide my family, of course, coming. But then they come to realize there's actually something else the Holy Spirit has for me, and he's inviting us into greater trust.
Where in the moment this doesn't look, this doesn't make a lot of sense on paper, but I need to do this to cooperate with what he's leading me into. And a lot of women find that there's more clarity about how to find those fruits of the Holy Spirit in the time they spend at home. And then if there's an invitation.
To additional roles outside the home. There's more clarity about what those could and should be because those things change in different seasons of our life and we're able to look at those things and understand better. And then for women so often it just comes down to having a ruthless policy of not every seat is for me.
A lot of times women really struggle to say no to things and my. Probably biggest [00:26:00] soapbox in, in all the world is the warm body fallacy practiced by so many parishes, groups, women all over the country, that we just need a warm body to fill. This doesn't matter if this is for you, just we just need a person.
And that's such a lie because basically when we do that, we're saying, okay, we're pretty sure the holy. Spirit is insufficient in this situation. So we're just gonna take care of it because there's no way that he could actually provide what we need in this situation. And so I invite women to be ruthless.
If it's an not on your paper, if it's not something that you can provide, don't say that you'll do it. I am famous in my parish for when they say will you help with VBS? No, I will not. Thank you so much. Like I. I hope that it's a success. I will pray for you and what have you, but there are women who are able to do that and they're not me, and I am okay with that about myself.
And if the Holy Spirit gives me new gifts in the future, I hope I'll be humble enough to be like, now this is apparently the season I'm supposed to be helping with PBS. So I'm here to do that now. And [00:27:00] the point to that when you're talking about the VBS example, is to show that because I'm probably in more in line with you right?
To, to not, but I am so grateful and so glad that there are people who do say yes and it is coming from their Ts, right? But when we all follow that, our own as a whole, it makes for, just the more faithful experience. Jill, I have so enjoyed this conversation and this subject.
Thank you so much. And I know that my moms are hearing it, and they are, they're pumped up, right? And I think most of all, they're curious, right? I'm hoping that this sparked them to want to dive deeper into finding out what their charisms are. And so what is the next step that a mom can take here to begin discovering and using her gifts?
I know we mentioned the assessment, but you have something else free for my audience? Yes. Yes. Yeah. So we have a free guide to all 24 charisms we didn't even get to today. In the course of this conversation, what that all the individual charisms are. So if you're curious [00:28:00] about what that is, there's the link in the show notes.
To be able to download that guide. It's just free on our website. We also have that date night if you wanna check it out. Also, just there on our website. And if you are interested in just hearing more about this, we also have a podcast called Charisms for Catholics. Clearly you are a podcast listener and that can just give you a whole lot more information, as much as you'd like before you jump in or after you take your assessment.
In all of the links to what Jill has mentioned here, you can all find in the show notes of this podcast. Anything else, Jill, before we go that I didn't ask or talk about that you think we wanna add now? No, there is. There is of course, as you can probably tell so much to this topic. So there's tons of things that we didn't cover, but just if there's that burning in your heart at all to know it is, you'll not regret it.
It's so worth it to understand these things, and it's so worth it to be able to lay your head on the pillow every night, especially as a mom, and be able to know for yourself that you were [00:29:00] faithful to what it was that you're being asked to do, because you can actually articulate what it is you're being asked to do.
Beautiful. Amen. I totally underscore that too. Okay, Jill, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Alright everyone, thanks for joining me and I will see you again next week and until then, may peace be with you. Always. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of the Peaceful Mind Podcast.
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Whether you need one-on-one guidance to get there, prefer a group coaching program with like-minded women. Or a self-study course I've got you covered. Explore my private one-on-one packages join my Busy to Balanced group life coaching program or delve into my signature course Divine Time. To find out which path is right for you, let's meet and see what's the best fit.
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You'll find all the details in the show notes too. [00:31:00] Until next time, peace be with you always.
