rwrobinson4633@gmail.com: You've been building your life on soil you've never tested. And you're wondering why everything you plant keeps dying. The career that should have fulfilled you, the marriage that should have been easy by now, the faith that should feel deeper than it does. It's not the seed, it's the soil. Welcome to Shifts and Ladders, I'm Ryan Robinson. If you're new here, this is a show about high performers who look successful on the outside but feel fragmented on the inside. We've got one pattern from Jesus, one principle from how real change actually works. One shift that changes everything for you. We've been laying a foundation and straight up we've been talking about what wholeness looks like, how Jesus modeled it and why most of us have been living fragmented lives without realizing it. Okay? This series or the next four episodes that is, is about rebuilding because knowing you're fragmented and knowing how to become an integrated person are two different things. And today we're gonna start where nobody wants to start, ground zero. Underneath the ground is where everything is built and we're gonna build up right now. So let's go. ⁓ Jeremiah chapter 17, verse seven and eight, it says this, but blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends its roots. by the stream it does not fear when heat comes. Its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. It's a good word, ain't it? Most people read this and think the lesson is about trust. It is to an extent, but it's a bit deeper than that. The tree doesn't survive the heat because of willpower. It survives because its root system had already found water before the drought arrived. The tree didn't panic about starting and started to dig for water when the sun got hot. It already had the underground work done in the quiet season. And when pressure came and the heat started beating down, it had something to draw from before it needed it. So now let me ask you a question. When pressure hits your life, and it will, What are you drawing from? Here's what I see most individuals, I'll say most individuals, this is what they do. They've built impressive structures in their lives. The career's real, the business is real, the ministry is real, the family looks solid from the outside. Everything's looking good, sexy, you put it on Instagram and everybody's smiling, but the root system is shallow. they've never gone to do is check the roots. There are wounds underneath the ambition. There are wounds that got covered up, not by heat or by anything else. It just got covered up. They weren't healed. It's like putting a bandage on a bullet wound. Shout out to Taylor Swift. A father who was never satisfied. So you built a career that proves you're not. Financial crisis in childhood. So you hoard control and call it stewardship. Betrayal that taught you vulnerability is weakness. So you lead from a fortress instead of from foundation. And this is the thing, y'all, the wounds don't go away. All the issues never go away. They just go underground. And everything you've built, you built it on top of unhealed soil. So here's a powerful process. that I've used when I've worked with individuals in the corporate space. And when sometimes, when something keeps going wrong, a pattern you won't quit, you can't fix it with surfacey stuff. You have to ask why to get to the root cause, okay? Now, why does this keep happening? That's one level. Let me give you an example. Let me start over. Let me give you an example of how this actually works. Okay. You ask yourself, say you have an issue of, I don't know, you spend money too much. You ask yourself a question like, why does this keep happening? That's one level you dig. Then you ask yourself another why to the answer to that question and then ask another why question. Then you continue to ask yourself those why questions five times. It's like peeling back an onion. And most of us stop at the first and second layer because that is where it gets comfortable. That is where all the answers sound like a scheduling problem or a strategy problem or someone else's problem. But the real answer is usually getting down to five layers. It's five layers down. We're almost, I'll say nine times out of 10. It's a personal issue that you. have not dealt with. Almost always, rooted in something that happened long before your current situation is the root to the problem. And most individuals that I work with or pray for or even come up to in business are solving layer one and layer two problems. I need better time management. I need to delegate more. I need a better morning routine. Those are symptoms of stuff. Those are symptoms of issues, not the root cause. The root cause is usually sitting in a wound from 20 years ago that nobody ever named. You can't out-strategize a soul wound. You can't schedule your way around it. You have to go underground to deal with it. Okay. I'm gonna be transparent with you. There was a season in my life where I built everything I thought I was supposed to build. corporate credentials and certifications, ministry platforms, businesses that I started, blogging. ⁓ I kept hitting the same wall, different contexts, but it was the same pattern. I kept overperforming in public and under connecting in private. I kept saying yes to stuff and no to stillness because stillness, I have to deal with stuff. You cannot be distracted in stillness. I kept choosing a version of me that got applause over the version of me that actually needed healing. And when I finally had the courage to ask myself why, not once, not twice, five times deep in different areas of my life, I found something that I didn't expect. I wasn't driven by vision. I was driven by wounds. And that wound had convinced me that if I ever stopped building, I would feel what I'd been running from. And I hated to actually face that in the mirror. I had to deal with me. Because once you stop running, you have to literally look at the thing you've been running from. Ambition and positive pursuit of a desire goal all look the same until you sit down. And that's the deal underneath the deal. that we talked about earlier. I'll keep performing if you promise not to suffer. That is the sign of an individual who has not been healed, but pursuing those things. And we like individuals and people who like to pursue things. It looks good, it looks sexy, it's great. But we never want to know what they're actually running from because it doesn't benefit us. Because we benefit from the performance. not from a whole person. So what does that actually look like when we do that? Okay. All right, so Matthew chapter seven, verses 24 through 27, we're gonna talk about this. It's the parable of the wise and foolish builder. You might've heard it, but we're gonna run this back here. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine, this is Jesus speaking, and puts them into practice is like a wise man who has built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, the wind blew and beat against that house. yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came, the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell with a great crash. Now here's what I want you to catch. The same storm hit both houses. Both builders experienced the rain. Both experienced floods. both experienced wind. The variables weren't the storm, it was the foundation. And both houses looked fine before the storm came, and that's the deception. The Sand House and the Rock House were indistinguishable in good weather. It's only under pressure that the foundation gets revealed. When you go through a storm, you find out how well you've been built, and it's built on the foundational level. Some of you are in a storm right now, things are cracking. Not your skills, your foundation, not your strategy, but your soul. And you're confused because you did everything right. You got the degree, you built the business, you served the church, you showed up for your family, but you built it on sand. Not because you were foolish, but because you were wounded. And wounded people build fast. They build impressive and they build so the outside looks unshakable because if the outside looks strong enough, maybe nobody will check what's underneath. But the storm always checks foundation. I'm gonna just leave that there for a minute. Now here's the integration piece. You cannot build an integrated life on a fragmented foundation. to run clean water through contaminated pipes. The output will always carry the poison no matter how pure the source is. The root system has to be addressed first. Not after the career is stable, not after the marriage is better, not after you've hit your revenue goal. Your revenue goal, but. First, because everything you build on top of an unhealed wound will carry the shape of that wound. So your leadership will be unhealed when you carry it. Your relationships will carry that unhealed area. Your parenting will carry that unhealed area. The wound doesn't stay underground, but it shows up in your patterns. Here, check this. It shows up in your reactions, how you respond to your kids when they say something. when you make a mistake at work, when your wife says something to you, in the things that trigger you disproportionately, they show up that way. It shows up in the relationships you keep sabotaging. That reaction is your diagnostic. It's the root system sending you a signal that something is not right and that the work of integration starts with excavation. Not because you're trying to dwell on the past, but you can't build forward on ground you've never examined. Whoo, you're getting this. Good, good, good guy. I feel this because I know what it's like when you live a fragmented life. You cannot go forward. You will continue to find yourself in the same cycle year in and year out, wondering what went wrong. because you hadn't dealt with the root cause. And it looks like you're living in Groundhog's day, that's a movie, look it up. And you will continue to live that cycle until you address what the root problem is. Okay, so I'm gonna give you a couple of tools here. There's one tool when we started this, it's like five whys. Okay. I want you to take a pattern that you've seen once you've been aware of it. Something that keeps showing up. Maybe it's inability to help or receive help. Maybe it's a compulsion to buy things, maybe. It happens when you shut down emotionally. It's usually feedback that people tell you, like, you always do this. that keep asking why you keep doing it and ask yourself five times. So I'm gonna give you a little bit of example, because I've been told I've been the overworker. hard worker that I've actually been addicted to work over time. But it says this level one might be like this. I overwork because there's a lot to do. Level two, I overwork because I feel like I'm behind. I need to stay late. I need to do some of these extra things to get done. Level three, I feel behind because I believe I should be further by now. Level four, I believe I should be further because I was taught that My value is tied to my output. Now here's the level five. I was taught that because my father never acknowledged anything that wasn't a measurable achievement. Now you're at the root. That is where the real work begins. Not at level one, where you can buy a new planner, but at level five where you can grieve what never was given. That's tough. You gotta be brave and have courage to dig deep because it gets dark down there, but it's needed. Okay? That's tool number one. Tool number two, a soil test. I gotta find a better word for that, but it is, it's a ground test. It's simple, but it requires honesty. Write down the five domains of your life, work, home, faith, health, community. And under each one, answer this question, what am I building here? and what wound is underneath the building. And not every domain has a wound driving it, so don't dig up something that ain't there. But most fragmented achievers will find at least two or three where the ambition is rooted in a pain other than the purpose. And that difference matters because purpose-rooted building produces fruit that nourishes. And wound-rooted building produces fruit that impresses but doesn't satisfy. It's like empty calories. And you've been eating from the wrong tree long enough to know the difference now. Okay. So here's, here's your assignment this week. Please do not skip it because if this literally builds up from here, the rest of them, the rest of the actions that come, it's foundational. Literally. I know you want to get to the strategies, the frameworks, the systems, how to rebuild content, all the fun, sexy stuff that's coming. We're going to talk about that too. and I'm gonna give you blueprints, tests, all that kind of stuff, but none of the work works if the foundation is still cracked. So this week, I need you to do the five why questions on one pattern. Literally just pick one. A pattern that frustrates you the most, the one that you keep telling yourself that you should have fixed by now. Go five levels deep on that, write it down, not in your head, but on paper, and your brain will try to protect you from the truth, but the pen won't. So pin it down, literally. And if you find that level five is bigger than a journal entry, if it's a wound that needs more than self-reflection, that's not weakness, it's wisdom. So we gonna be real here. You need a counselor, reach out to a therapist, a trusted mentor. There's no framework that replaces a human being that can sit down with you in the excavation and help you heal process and get through that healing process, okay? Now the next episode we're going to get practical. We're going to talk about ⁓ a friction test. And we're going to map out exactly where the fragmentation is actually costing you in time and energy relationships and money. So you know precisely where you need to rebuild first. It's so important to know which one is the priority first before you start working. But we got to get down to the root cause so that you can heal and grow from there. Okay, I got a fragmentation assessment. If you haven't taken it, there's a link in the description. I want you to take it because it'll help you at least get to know where or your current state of fragmentation. And if anything, take it so that you know, share it with somebody, all right? I'm Ryan Robinson. This is Shifts and Ladders. Stop performing and start becoming whole. Until next time, we'll see you in the next one. Peace.