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What's up everybody? My name is cliff and you are listening to the What now podcast. That's right. The what now podcast where we threw conversation discuss ways that we can effectively address life's most difficult moments. So sit back, relax and enjoy tonight's episode blog, talk radio. Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to what now? The podcast and you know what I call the podcast. But I guess there's a radio show as well because some of you may not realize this, but the live to what is available. Um, I record these live. The only thing is sometimes it's at midnight, Sometimes it's at 12:30 a.m. Like it is right now. So I don't know if you're up during those times, but if you would like to listen live, please write me and let me know and I'll start advertising the lives, Okay, We still don't have an intro song as you can see uh if you've been listening, you are aware that this show was started spontaneously.

I needed to have a sound check and from that sound check, I just got behind the mic and instead of doing testing 123, I just started talking And as I begin to talk, I was like, no, this is what's up. How about I just get on and give them 15 minutes. He's a nightly. We're starting out nightly now we're not gonna be nightly all the time. Okay. But I just wanted to get on and share myself with you guys for those who may not know me. My name is Clinton Pettijohn, but for the sake of this podcast, you can just call me cliff. All right. So tonight, what we're talking about this is probably one of the most as questions that I get. Um, well, it's one of the most asked questions that I get. I'll share with you with the most asked question that I get is the first question I always get is why are you still single? Okay, Why are you that is the most asked questions. The 2nd most asked question is are you single?

Then I get the why are you still single? And I think that that question is funny in and of itself. Um, I know I've asked people that before a lot of times. I asked people that before that I was interested in and was thinking about trying to spit game to or approaches some type of man. All right. Um, but I think that's really like a complex question like why are you still single? And it causes us to really examine ourselves. And then the second question that I put on, you know, the title was or am I single and that right? There is loaded as well guys. And I'm not talking about a singleness in the sense of, you know, you're talking to people and it could evolve into something. I'm talking about a singleness of heart, a singleness of mind and a singleness of spirit. I know with me a lot of times I haven't pursued relationships with individuals because I'm still working on unpacking some things in my life that I need to unpack before I create another relationship.

See there are some baggage that we will bring into relationships and then there are some baggage that sometimes it's brought into relationships That was supposed to be dumped off prior to you entering into a relationship at this point in my life. You know, I'll be 40 in a couple of weeks December 23 and as I said last night, I am accepting gifts throughout the entire month. You can cast at me at Clinton Petty John all right. Um, but at this space in my life, I just don't have time. Um for I don't want to say games because sometimes it's not really about a game. Sometimes what has happened to us is we get caught up in the cares of life and sometimes we think we've honestly dealt with something. And because we haven't had the proper tools and strategies instead of dealing with those things, those things that we need to deal with, we end up suppressing those things. We put those things in the back of the closet or we sweep them under the rug, thinking that that's the end of it.

But the one thing about problems or circumstances that we do not address is that they will begin to come up in the time that we lease the desire for them to come up for a time that seems least appropriate for them to come up. And that's why I'm in a space and time in my life where I just want to deal with everything that I need to deal with prior to even thinking about entering a relationship because I don't want to bring somebody else into a relationship that I'm creating. And what I mean by that is if I pursue somebody, then I want to create a relationship with them. But if I haven't dealt with the baggage and the and um some of the things that have become bondage to me, I'm gonna talk from that standpoint. If I'm bringing that into the relationship, it's almost like bringing a third party in and now all of a sudden, Instead of us being one and 1 Is there one and me bringing two and 3 and four and 5 and six different people with us.

Uh and I'm again, I'm not talking just from a physical standpoint. Um so one of the things I realized is, you know, I'm as I'm unpacking that there's still some things that I need to deal with to make sure that my heart mind and spirit is single. Another thing that I'm dealing with is I was in a situation ship and I write about that in my book. If you have not purchased my book, I encourage you go by my website www dot clinton. Pettijohn dot com. There you're gonna find a free preview of my book is entitled from stagnation of transformation, Preview The book 1st. Then I want you to look at the purchase options of the book and I guarantee you your life will be transformed if you apply the principles. All right now, one of the things that I've realized um in that sense is that how do I say this in the right way? Mm Do I want to go there? Maybe I don't want to?

Okay, yeah, I was in a situation ship with somebody. Okay. And I'm going to tell you, I didn't realize how much I held on to my past until I was in a situation ship with them. I didn't realize how much I struggle with letting go, whether it was letting go of people that needed to be let go, whether it was letting go of circumstances and situations that needed to be let go hurt for your anger, rejection. Uh, whatever it was that needed to be let go, I did not realize how much I struggled with that until I got into a situation ship with somebody that had their own struggles with letting go of some of the things in their path. And I remember I was talking to them about it and we were sitting, we would talk sometimes and the reason why I called a situation ship really never evolved into a relationship because we both wanted to different things or perhaps we wanted the same thing. However, what we wanted, we technically didn't want from each other, if that makes sense.

It's basically what I brought to the table the way that I treated the individual. They would like to take that treatment and what I brought to the table and then transplanted into the person that they really wanted to be in and vice versa. You feel what I'm saying, that's why was a situation ship. But they taught me such a valuable lesson because I used to get frustrated with them because in my mind I'm thinking as good as I'm treating you and yet you're still hung up on the past that did not work out. But the reality was that God was using this opportunity for me to stop looking at them and begin to realize I was looking in the mirror at my own self. But the sad part about it is I did not realize that until after the situation ship after everything blew up, it did not end very well. And all of those things, you know, it took all of that for me to realize, you know, just how much I was still holding on to the past and I'm gonna tell you something.

And I'm not even talking about the people in my past, to be honest with you. I'm the type of person if we're in a relationship or were talking and it is then it ends, it ends. And I honestly, I know a lot of people don't agree with that. I don't care who you talk to after me. I honestly don't care. I'm not the one to say, oh, they're trying to talk to my whole boy or my they're trying to talk to this part. I honestly don't care about all that because in my mind, I'm thinking if we are over, we're over and I'm not talking about that just happens. And I deal with it from that standpoint because I'm angry. But I deal with that from the standpoint because I don't own you. And I remember I was having a conversation with somebody that was having a hard time at at that space in their life of letting me go. And when they used to talk about me, they talk about me as if I was their possession and I had to explain to them and they had a family member explained to them as well. You do know, you don't own him and then I had to tell him, yo you don't own me, nobody owns me.

The creator created me, he owns me. And sometimes I don't even listen to him. Matter of fact, a lot of times I don't listen to him because I struggled with what he's trying to get me to do, even though it's for my good. So I realized, you know, from that situation ship, you know, that there was a lot of things that I had to let go and some of the things I had to let go that were detrimental to me individually as a person was my fear of rejection, my fear of being vulnerable. Two individuals that I was in a relationship with and I'm not just talking about relationship that is, you know, boyfriend, girlfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend, whatever, you know, whatever whatever it is that you do that evolves into husband, wife, husband, husband, wife, wife, whatever. You know, I'm talking about relationships as a whole. You know, a lot of people try to understand me, but a lot of times I've made it hard. I talked about being an enigma.

I've kind of made it hard for people to understand me. I'm a little different now, I'm kind of more outspoken um and you don't have to guess where I'm coming from because I'm going to let you know where I'm coming from. I haven't always been like, I have it and I struggle with vulnerability. I was on the show the other night and I was talking to the guests and he was telling me how he had been vulnerable. He was a vulnerable person from, you know, childhood on up. That's not my testimony. Um My testimony is kind of similar to that. I am a very vulnerable person. I was a very vulnerable person. But my problem was I didn't value my vulnerability because I was seeking value in others. The sad part about it is when you don't value your vulnerability or in in essence value yourself. You will find yourself being vulnerable with people that don't value your vulnerability. Which will then cause you if you're not careful if you're not careful and you're not going down to catch those lessons, you will now just completely shut down.

And the people that you could be vulnerable to. Now you have walls up in your defense. Why? Because you have exasperated your capacity of vulnerability on the wrong people. And that's sometimes why we need to take a step back and assess some things I'm kinda I was talking to my therapist about, we were talking about dating and he was talking to me about, you know, how do I approach dating? I said, well, you know, I'm at this space in my life and I just don't have no time for games. So when it comes to dating on that first encounter we have, I just want to lay it all out on the tape, and he said, what do you mean by that? And I started going down the list with uh what I mean about that. I don't want anybody to get offended by some of the stuff I say on all the podcasts. This is me emptying out of me. This is my thoughts, my beliefs, it is no attack against anybody.

I will let you know as we get deeper in the conversation, what I'm actually attracted to and who I'm actually attracted to, and I want people to understand that just because somebody's not attracted to who you are, or um I'm gonna leave it at that for right now, that does not mean they're attacking you. That does not mean they hate you, or or anybody else that is like you, it's just them voicing their attraction. And sometimes we have to get to honest space in relationships to understand that we need to be honest and upfront about what we're attracted to in the beginning, because we're going to take some tests and trials in some of those relationships. And if we haven't been honest about what we're attracted to, we can easily get distracted by something that grabs our attention, that's an actual attraction to us as opposed to what we have pretended to be a an attraction. That's why I said I'm very straightforward now.

And but my therapist was explaining to me that sometimes cliff you have to slow down and not put it all out on the table Bruce because you don't even know the capacity or the level or um, I guess, yeah, the sphere of the type of relationship that's going to develop with you guys. So I'm learning to slow down. I'm learning to value me a lot more and I'm learning to understand that before I can go into a relationship or even entertain a relationship or the concept of a relationship. I must first embrace the singleness that's a gift to me. So that's my encouragement to you on tonight. Thank you for joining us once again. And I'll see you guys on the next episode. Be blessed. Can you identify any areas in your life where stagnation is manifesting now? I know some of you might say, no, I can't.

I want us to look at stagnation for what it really is. Some people have identified stagnation as something that's not growing or that's not producing. I don't believe that stagnation to me stagnation can also be the Yes, we're growing. Yes, we're producing however, were growing and producing in a manner that's disrespectful to the purpose and the greatness that resides inside of us. And listen, we all have areas where we can identify that we could be doing a lot better in. There's greater potential in those areas than we are experiencing. And guess what? I have a tool that will help you begin to experience transformation in those areas of stagnation in your life. And that tool is called from stagnation of transformation. That's right, that is my book from stagnation of transformation. So I want you to hit over to my website www dot clinton petty john dot com.

I want you to hit there, I want you to hit the transformation tab there. You're gonna find a free preview of my book. That's right. A free preview of my book. And I promise you after you read the preview, you're gonna want to invest in your personal transformation through purchasing the book. So again, hit over there, purchase the book, let me know you purchased it. Here's what I always say guys. If you purchased the book you read the book, you apply the principles in your life and yet you still are stagnant in the areas that you are applying them to and you're not experiencing any transformation and you can prove to me that you have applied these principles. I will give you a 100% refund. That's right. A 100% refund. Why? Because I believe in the application of the principles that are outlined in this book. So again visit www dot clinton Pettijohn dot com and purchase your copy of from stagnation to transformation