The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

by Peter Scazzero

You Know You’re Not Doing Endings and New Beginnings Well When . . . • You can’t stop ruminating about something from the past. • You use busyness as an excuse to avoid taking time to grieve endings and losses or to allow for the possibility that you might meet God in the process. • You avoid acknowledging the pain of your losses rather than grieve, explore the reasons behind your sadness, and allow God to work in you through them. • You often find yourself angry and frustrated by the grief and pain in life. • You escape or medicate the pain of loss through self-destructive behaviors such as overeating, use of pornography, inappropriate relationships, substance abuse, overengagement with social media, or working too much. • You struggle with the envy you feel toward those who don’t seem to be hit by the same hardships in life that you experience. • You often dream of quitting in order to avoid the pain, disappointments, setbacks, and endings that routinely characterize leadership. • You are not honest with yourself about the feelings, doubts, and hurts deep beneath the surface of your life. • You rarely acknowledge directly that a program or person has outright failed. You avoid that pain by spinning the truth and glossing over the losses, disappointments, and struggles. • You rarely think about change in your role or position because you dislike change.