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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 Block told radio. They will sell everybody. Welcome back to what now? The podcast? That's right. What now? The podcast, This is the time that I'm sharing with you guys. You know, some of the things that are going on in my life as I was getting on, I started thinking uh because I've done my radio show earlier tonight and then I recorded a show for this last night and then friday night, we did another radio show and I begin to realize that my anxiety is trying to kick back up.

Like my anxiety kicks back up, sometimes I getting mixed up in my words or trying to rush through something and you know, I don't know if I've shared that. I know I've been sharing on here. I believe I've shared it on my other show. Yes, I've struggled with anxiety as well as depression, anxiety has seemed to try to creep back up, but I'm telling you I defeated it before and I will defeat it yet again. But we're not talking about that on tonight. We are continuing with part two of my marriage, my divorce, I believe when we from our last conversation, we left off at me um coming out and my um but it was my boyfriend at the time. I don't know if we had to find what we were at the time. I think we'll just what we were to each other, but hadn't put a definition on it or we had.

I remember it was a major support I think died for him and his family when I came out because as I said, you know, when I came out and ended everything that I knew as the norm. Now, I will also add this too. There were people in my life that I isolated myself from, I withdrew myself from because I felt like I didn't want to face rejection from them as well. Um I believe I talked about the emails and text messages and facebook messages that I received from those who name the name of christ and I'm gonna tell you the truth, I was not angry with them. Um, I kind of expected expected it because you know, that's kind of the norm. I did expect expected, I felt sorry for them, that they didn't know how to express themselves, but I also was understanding because I kind of threw it on people. Um, the problem with me being understanding what throwing in all people was, I wasn't very understanding of myself and it's great to be understanding of others, but also make sure that your understanding of yourself as well.

So now I've come out, all right, I've come out, I've come out on social media, I've come out to uh some of my family members, I've come out to the, those who were my pastors at the time, I came out to everybody, you know, and it didn't feel freeing. It was a weight lifted off of my shoulders. I no longer had to carry the secret around anymore. It was like, now I'm free to be me, I'm free to be me and let's start start right there. Um being free to be me was kind of a challenge because I didn't even know who I was. So here I am free to be somebody that I never built a relation or establish a relationship with. Now that's funny in and of itself because how am I going to establish a relationship with another person when technically I haven't established a relationship with my cell.

Um and it was at this point where I began to learn some things about me outside of what everybody expect expected of me and to be honest with you, what I presented to other people. Um and I found out I didn't like me that that very, I didn't like me very much, I knew already knew that, but I realized that I didn't like me very much because a lot of the things that I did was because I felt obligated to do this. So coming out kind of freed me from those obligations as well, and I'm not saying we shouldn't be obligated uh to anything because I do believe that we need to make ourselves accountable, um, you know, and whatever capacity that we need to experience accountability. However, I also believe that sometimes we can over extend ourselves to the point where you're, you're like me, you don't even know who you are, you don't know what you like, you don't know what you like to do for fun, you don't know within the crazy thing about it is even now to your sports teams.

Um I discovered that sometimes I would modify things that I like just being stoned who are other people in my life life. I told you I really viewed myself as a pump and I'm going to use that because some people, you shouldn't call yourself that that's how I know how to define. Um I wouldn't stand up for anything that I believed in and now here I am out here on my own and it's forcing me to stand up and I was so if I'm if I do say so myself, if I do say so myself, okay, um I was really proud of myself for the first time in my life and the reason why I was proud of myself was because I made a decision without my safety net and my safety net would be those who always supported me even when I didn't make the best decisions and what I'm talking about support, I'm not saying like they just cheered me on and they were my yes men or yes women, Huh?

You know, they told me about myself. But yeah, they still were there to embrace me into surround me. But when it came to this right here, when I looked around that which was familiar to me was no longer. So that was a rough transition for me and to be honest with you, um I can say that it kind of made me a very hard person. And when I say hard person, I'm not talking about tough as like, you know tough. Like I'm ready to fight. Um a lot of times when I got angry and upset, I internalized everything, but I'm talking about tough in in relationship to not being able to let people in now, I'm a person that will let you win. Here's what I mean by that, I will be there for you, I will support you. I will push you.

I will sit and listen to the cries of your heart, I will sit and listen to what you're passionate about. I will sit and listen to what frustrates you would angers you. But now when it comes time for me to let you in to find out those things about me, I was guarded, was guarded and I'm going to tell you if you ever want to experience a successful relationship, you can't be guarded to the degree that I was, It was as if I had, I remember one time my apostle was talking to me and he was telling me that I think he was talking about me being liking being in enigma, liking being in the neck and I really, I didn't realize the Enigma side of me until I came out um which was a flip side as well because there were people that had put me on a pedestal that saw me as this great spiritual giant and when I came out to them, it kind of humanize me and they begin to share with me struggles that they were having in their lives.

So it kind of helped me minister more effectively to them and they might sound like I'm a little place right, when I, when you piece it all together, it all makes sense. So I can say that when I came out ministry became real to me, um, I was in ministry since the age of 19. However, even in the midst of being in ministry since the age of 19, I always felt as if there was something missing. I was a part of a great ministry, a great ministry. I can't emphasize a great ministry. The teaching was crazy. The deliverance was crazy. The manifestation of God's power was crazy, but yet I still fell as if I did not belong, I felt as if I did not belong. Um, and for the first time in my life, when I came out, it was like, I felt as if I belong to something that was greater than me, that would embrace who I was.

I never felt as if in any part of my life that people, either one understood who I was, and sometimes I had to take responsibility for that because that's the the neck massager, not allowing people to know who I was. And then I also felt that people didn't care to know who I was, but now being out here on my own, it's making me now have to care to know who I am and then share who I am with a totally different group of people, my marriage, my divorce, we're gonna get to that, but I got to lay the foundation first. So you understand everything that Entails the marriage and then tells of the four. So I come out and you know, as I said, I'm establishing a relationship, live a great guy that I met establishing a relationship and we start to go through some crazy times and every relationship goes through Crazy Tower and the first crazy situation we had involved me and he was there for me through it and I praise God for it, I'm grateful for it, we work past that and then you know, we both had crazy moments in this situation where we were there for each other and here was the thing because we were there for each other in our crazy moments, we kind of built a mentality that it was literally us against the world because nobody really understood us, nobody knew who we are, nobody was going directly what we were going, you know, so we built that bond and you know and establishing that bond, we we said we were there for each other and ah I think our relationship was great, I really do believe our relationship was great, I believe our friendship was the greatest part of our relationship.

Uh and I want to say that again, I believe our friendship was the greatest part of our relationship. Um when it came to marriage, I always use this analogy, I say that I was a better friend than I was a husband. Um I don't personally feel that I was that great of a husband, you know, because the standards that I set for myself. Um but I know that I was a great friend and and being a great friend, sometimes you have to be willing to let someone go and completely be who they are, completely be who they are regardless of how you may feel, regardless of how you may think, regardless of how, you know, it will leave you. You have to be willing not to be selfish and to let someone fully be who they are because if you're not willing to allow some might be who they are and honestly you're seeking to control them.

And one of the things that I understood in my marriage was that I was attempting to shape and mold them, notice my language into who I wanted him to be. I was trying to shape him mold And when I begin to rumors was basically that was a form of control. That was a form of control. And I refuse to be a part of control or manipulation as a form of witchcraft. I refuse to be a part of any of that because I preach teach, promote being yourself, even if it means that you have to let what has become normal to you go. And I began to understand that in order for me to be who I was in order for them to be who they were, that we might just have to do this thing apart and guess what I believe you right there thinking and I will see you on the next episode.

Yeah. 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 that 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 purchase the book, you read the book, you applied 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.