Live2Lead Reflections — What Leading from the Stop Taught Me
- Patrizia a.k.a. Trixi Schwartz
- 5 hours ago
- 5 min read
How healing reshaped my understanding of success and influence 🕯️
There are books you read for insight, and there are books that read you.
In May 2024, when I first read Leading from the Stop by Elias Kanaris, I expected leadership wisdom. I did not expect holy unravelling. Yet by the time I reached the final pages, three simple statements had reached far deeper than strategy or performance:
You’re not in trouble.
We believe in you.
We’re here to help.
They were not loud. They were not dramatic. They were steady, grounded assurances.
They undid me.
What surfaced in the weeks that followed was not merely reflection, but revelation. I began to see how deeply childhood judgments, expectancies, inner vows, and foundational lies had formed around those very phrases.
“You’re not in trouble.”
Somewhere in my early story, I had learned to brace. To anticipate correction. To assume I must have missed something, misread something, or disappointed someone, even when I was trying my best. My nervous system had been trained to scan for fault.
A quiet agreement had taken root: I am always one step away from being in trouble.
📖 "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." — Romans 8:1 (NKJV)
Conviction is redemptive. Condemnation is suffocating. Learning the difference has been part of my healing.
“We believe in you.”
Belief once felt conditional. Dependent on output. Sustained by performance. Withdrawn at failure. I had formed inner vows I did not recognise at the time: I will not risk too much. I will not need belief to survive. I will not depend on anyone’s affirmation.
Yet the Lord’s belief is not fragile.
📖 "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." — Ephesians 2:10 (NKJV)
His belief is anchored in His authorship.
“We’re here to help.”
Help felt unsafe. Help meant exposure. Help meant vulnerability. It meant the possibility of being misunderstood or dismissed. Self-sufficiency had become a badge of survival.
An old vow whispered: I will handle it alone.
Yet the Body of Christ was never designed as a performance arena.
📖 "Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." — Galatians 6:2 (NKJV)
Family carries weight together.
🕊️ Leading from the stop, I have discovered, is not first about productivity. It is about pausing long enough for truth to confront what secretly governs you.
High performance without healed foundations produces exhaustion.
Trust without inner truth produces fragility.
Building high performance teams truly does start with building trust. Trust, however, must first be built within the heart that leads.
📖 "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." — John 8:32 (NKJV)
Freedom unfolds gently. Through awareness. Through repentance for vows once formed in fear. Through forgiving those who did not know the impact of their silence or tension. Through allowing the Holy Spirit to shine light without shame.
The little girl who braced for trouble is learning to rest.
The young woman who feared disappointing beliefs is learning to receive them.
The adult who vowed self-sufficiency is learning the humility of help.
This is leadership shaped from the inside out.
When I heard Elias deliver his keynote last weekend, for the first time since I had worked with him, the principles were familiar. The voice was steady. The message was unchanged.
This time, however, the lessons on leadership landed differently.
🌱 They no longer felt like a threat to my survival. They felt like an invitation to steward influence without harming others. An invitation to lead without trampling. An invitation to succeed without losing my soul.
Leadership, redeemed, is not climbing over people. It is lifting them.
Leadership, purified, is not proving worth. It is stewarding responsibility.
Leadership, healed, is not dominance. It is dignity.
🌱 This is what leading from the stop has meant for me: pausing long enough to notice what governs me internally before attempting to guide anyone else externally.
High performance without healed foundations produces exhaustion.
Trust without inner truth produces fragility.
Leadership without relationship is just management.
🪨 Building high performance teams truly does start with building trust, yet trust must first be built within the heart that leads.
If you would like to read the full, unfiltered story of how this message intersected with my own journey through healing and leadership, I share it in greater depth here:
That reflection carries the fuller narrative, the tears, the stage moments, and the quiet revelations that followed.
💡 Reflection:
Which of these statements is hardest for you to receive: you’re not in trouble, we believe in you, or we’re here to help? 🤔
What childhood expectancy might still be shaping how you interpret authority or correction? 🤔
Have you formed any inner vows that once protected you but now limit your growth? 🤔
Where might the Lord be inviting you to stop, so that truth can lead before you do? 🤔
🎺 Affirmation:
You are not one mistake away from rejection. You are not leading alone. You are not unseen in your growth. The Lord who formed you also surrounds you with grace, belief, and help. You are safe to mature in Him.
🙌 Prayer:
Father, thank You for the courage to pause. Thank You that Your voice does not accuse but restores. Where I have formed judgments, vows, or lies in response to fear, gently expose them with Your truth. Teach me to distinguish conviction from condemnation. Help me receive belief without striving and help without shame. Lead me from the inside out, so that any influence entrusted to me flows from wholeness rather than defence.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
🕊️ You are allowed to stop.
🪨 You are allowed to rebuild on truth.
🌱 You are allowed to lead from healing, not from hiding.
🌸 A Gentle Call to Action
If this reflection spoke to your heart, I invite you to take it deeper:
Journal your thoughts and prayers as you process these truths.
Explore my Devotional Collection for more writings that weave Scripture and creativity together.
Visit my This is My Story page, where I share the deeper journey behind my art, writing, and ministry — a testimony of God’s restoring love in the broken places.
Consider joining one of my Healing 💔heARTs💖 gatherings or paint parties, where we create, share, and heal together in God’s presence.
Your story matters. Your freedom matters. And most of all, you are deeply loved by the One who sets captives free.
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