Graced to Lead

S2/E6: Being Fully Known with Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith

• Belinda Gaston • Season 2 • Episode 6

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What happens when you move beyond sacred rest into a deeper understanding of who you truly are? Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, board-certified physician and wellness expert, takes us on a journey from her work on the seven types of rest to her newest revelation about identity and belonging.

The conversation explores her framework of beholding, becoming, and belonging that challenges everything you thought you knew about fitting in. Dr. Saundra makes a compelling distinction: fitting in means blending with the crowd, while true belonging happens when you uniquely fill a space with what only you can bring. For women leaders who often find themselves "the only one" in their professional environments, this reframing offers tremendous liberation.

The conversation delves into the challenges of personal transformation, from the "friendly fire" of those uncomfortable with your growth to the seemingly stagnant "set apart seasons" where unseen root growth is happening. 

Whether you're feeling burnout, wrestling with your identity beyond your roles and titles, or searching for where you truly belong, this conversation offers the guidance and perspective to help you step into the fullness of who you were created to be. Join us to discover how being fully known—by yourself, by others, and by God—can transform your leadership and your life.

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Belinda Gaston:

Hey, it's Belinda with the Graced to Lead Podcast, and listen. Today's episode features one of my favorite people, Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith. You may know her from her first book, Sacred Rest, but today we're diving into her newest release, being fully known. So if you've ever felt burnout, restless or unsure of where you truly belong, this one's for you. Dr. Saundra is a board certified internal medicine physician, a work-life integration researcher, and she's an international wellness expert. She's been featured in Prevention, MSNBC, Women's Day, Fox, Fast Company, Psychology Today, even has a few TED Talks under her belt. We're going deep today, y'all, on emotional wellness, identity and what it really means to lead from a place of wholeness. So go ahead, grab your coffee, grab your journal. You're gonna want to take notes for this one. Let's get into it. Welcome to the Grace to Lead podcast. I am Belinda Gaston, your host, and listen, I'm excited about this conversation. You already heard about my guest, Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith. We are excited to have her on the Grace to Lead podcast. Welcome, Dr. Saundra, to the podcast.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

I'm excited to be here with you.

Belinda Gaston:

Dr Sandra to the podcast. I'm excited to be here with you, thank you, and I think it's best for us to jump right into our conversation. I am a huge fan of your writing your Sacred Rest. I went to the Rest Quest retreat when I was first introduced to Sacred Rest, your first book, and it really did change how I view rest and how I think about things as it relates to rest. And now you have a new book, so I want to talk about it. The new book if you listeners, if you didn't catch all of the introduction is called being Fully Known. Being Fully Known it is available now and listen. If you thought that her book about rest was going to change your life, this book is amazing. So first let's talk about Dr Sandra. What inspired you to write being Fully Known, especially now?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

Yeah, I felt like the conversation on rest wasn't complete. You know, I understand quite a few people, as you'd mentioned, had had an experience where just understanding there are more than one type of rest, that sleep is not the only thing that's needed for us to feel restored. I know that for myself, that revelation and the seven types of rest changed my life, but I also realized that even after that there was, there was levels of restlessness that still remained that had nothing to do with any of those seven, and I needed to go deeper into what is this? What is this continued level of restlessness Like?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

There's this undergirding that keeps me slightly stressed all the time, and I started to really just understand within myself and through the guidance of Holy Spirit that it was within myself and through the guidance of Holy Spirit that it was. It's really a lack of rest, specifically in allowing myself to be me. You know, I am in professional settings oftentimes and I find that I'm living up to expectations of other people. I have high expectations of myself. I'm constantly kind of in this ambition driven mode and starting to really reflect on who am I, apart from my roles, my titles and my accomplishments, and can I rest in that, and so that's what this book goes deeper into.

Belinda Gaston:

And that is a huge question who am I beyond these titles and these roles? And I think we often get so caught up in being all the things and not really understanding who we are that this book is relevant and listen for our listeners. I have started reading this book and I have to. I tell you, I have to read it and put it down because it does offer some challenging questions but also some practical advice, and so one of the things that you talk about is beholding and becoming and belonging, and so I want to talk a little bit about that framework. Can you describe what you mean when you talk about beholding and becoming and belonging to someone who may not understand what that means?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

Yeah, this is to me, this is the journey that we get to walk on in this process of being known, and it starts with being known by God and knowing him. So it's him knowing us and us knowing him. So that's the first part the beholding. The becoming is really after we spend focused attention on God, after we spend time beholding, we become what we behold, we begin to transform into the image of Christ. We actually can see more clearly the aspects of God's character that we have inside of us, that maybe we haven't allowed to come to the surface yet, and so that becoming is a deeper awareness I guess is the best word of ourselves through the lens of Christ and through what we see about and know and learn about God. And then that third aspect of that as we begin to fully understand ourselves more and see God more clearly, we are bolder, we are more confident and we are able to then step into true places of belonging.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

Most of the time when we say, oh, I feel like I belong in this group, or I feel like I found where I belong, we're actually saying I think I found the place where I fit in. It's like I look like everybody else, I sound like everybody else. This doesn't stretch me. This is really comfortable. You can drop me in the mix and I'm just blend right in.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

That is not true belonging, because you're still fitting in and kind of conforming to this world in that situation. True belonging is when you uniquely fit a space. It does not matter what anything else looks like, Does not matter what else is happening in the space. You feel the God void in that location. You're bringing in his character, You're bringing in an aspect of his nature, You're bringing in something that is specifically and unique to you, based off of your past experiences, your dramas and traumas and how you have beheld him in your personal life and who you've become through that process. Those are the places of belonging that allow us to be ourselves without limit, without having to worry about what is someone thinking, because you've shown up with a level of boldness that only comes when you know yourself well.

Belinda Gaston:

And I think that's one of the concepts, dr Sandra, of the book that I found a bit not really challenging, but you really turn things on its head for me in that when you're thinking about the concept of belonging because I've always kind of pictured belonging as these are. You know, as you described earlier, this is my place, this is where people are like me, this is where people think like me and to think about. Well, wait a minute, what happens when you go into a space where people don't look like you or they don't think like you? Does that mean that you don't belong in that space? And so I would like to talk about belonging when you are different, right, and so this podcast is geared towards women who lead and many of the spaces that women are leading in.

Belinda Gaston:

They may be the only woman, or they may be the only person that looks like them or talks like them. Or even, if we take our faith, you may be the only woman or they may be the only person that looks like them or talks like them. Or even, if we take our faith, you may be the only believer in Christ in a space. Yet you're encouraging us to really be fully known and to seek and to find that space of belonging. And so if we have a leader who is in that space where I'm not like everyone else, is it possible to find belonging in a space like that?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

That is the space you are most likely to find true belonging. Because when we I love what you described there, because I don't put belonging and community in the same bucket, I don't put belonging and community in the same bucket I can be in community with people who look similar to me, but those communities may change because I may not always look like that. So I'm, you know, I'm 20 years, I'm a clinical physician, and so I found community with other doctors who are working in the hospital and doing, you know, 60 hour a week clinical work, because I look just like them, I'm living a similar life as them. When I started working in different ways, when I started becoming more entrepreneurial, all of a sudden that community didn't, I didn't fit in anymore. And that's the problem when we confuse community with belonging, because community, if you change, you don't fit the community anymore.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

And that's the problem when we confuse community with belonging, because community, if you change, you don't fit the community anymore. And then you're like I don't belong. Well, it depends on how you're viewing it, because maybe you're there to show them that something else is possible. And so if your belonging is only wrapped up in the mindset of community, you miss opportunities to actually step into true belonging, where you're the unicorn in the room but you're filling a god void because you're bringing the imagination of what is possible, not just what's probable.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

And so I, for the person who might find themselves in a company you're like, I'm the only person who's of a certain gender or even of a, you know, a certain faith or whatever it is, in that particular community or in that area, you may not feel as if you fit in, which is fine, because that fitting in is fitting in is stressful and belonging should.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

It should feel like social rest, it should feel like I have showed up as me, and so fitting in is not belonging. So you're not trying to fit in. But belonging is so much deeper than that. Belonging is allowing yourself to be who you are in that space, and recognizing that the differences is why you belong there. You're bringing a completion to the puzzle, because if no one's in that space who can speak in a way that they understand being a woman or they understand being a certain race or they understand being a certain religion, if no one is filling that void, is that picture complete? Does it have a fullness to it? Is it bringing a whole reality to the question that your company or that your division is asking no, and so we have to then get the leadership inside of us to be willing to speak in our places of belonging.

Belinda Gaston:

That is so good. I feel like we need a moment of pause there, because we often do associate belonging with community, and I think what you've said really does clarify that, and so I think all of this, this conversation, and even the book, continues to encourage us to be well emotionally, mentally, spiritually. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about emotional wellness, why it's critical for leaders, especially for women of faith. Why is it important that we understand and find our space and understand where we belong and get these things in alignment. Why is that important for women who lead?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

Yeah, emotional wellness is a foundation really for being able to live in a place of being known and not people pleasing, and not being limited in your beliefs because of past traumas and dramas and all the other stuff that we may have gone through. So I find it as if we look at kind of our lives and our work, the things that we do as a leader, if we look at it as a tree, emotional wellness is like the roots of that tree. If your emotions are not deeply rooted, then you're going to be blown over whenever something happens that's outside of your norm. Most leaders the battle that they have, the reason that they get stuck or stunted growth, if we're using the tree analogy, the reason that happens is because they refuse to allow themselves to process, through the emotions that are toxic, the parts of their root system that need to be uprooted and that need reframing and need to be re-evaluated. And a big aspect of that is because true leaders go through phases of what I call the set apart season and the unknown and they fluctuate back and forth between those two as they go higher and higher, because each new level is an unknown. Each new level has its own stressors and particulars and periods of pruning, the set apart time that's needed. And so when we have, we have this mindset that it's just kind of a straight shot up up the ladder. You know, whether it's the corporate ladder, the entrepreneurial ladder or whatever it is, it's just a straight shot up and you don't have to have any growing pains and you don't have to have any testing of your faith and you don't have to have any, you know, extension of your trusting and knowledge of trusting God. It's a live causes worsening of those, because our emotions want a level of stability and, like definite structure, our emotions want to always be in control. You know, if we think about the way we approach emotions, we don't want to lose. Control is how we define our emotions.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

But true emotional wellness is that you have periods of time where you realize I don't know how, what to feel in this moment and I need to simply stop and get divine guidance on what it is is going on inside of me. And if you're a leader and you've ever experienced this, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I just checked the box off three goals and I'm still not happy. I just won such and such award and I'm not satisfied. I just got the promotion and that stresses me more than when I was trying to get the promotion.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

It's like I don't know what to feel, and so then a lot of us just shut our emotions down. And that's where we have a lot of people right now. They're in grind and they don't know what to feel and they don't want to feel because they don't know what they're feeling. And so with emotional wellness particularly with people of faith, but in general, emotional wellness is the healing of that process where you realize that I have to feel it and experience it to get the emotional resilience from it and the growth and the strength that comes from that. And if I just keep trying to break it under the rug and keep going, I'm never going to get to a higher level because I'm not actually letting the roots grow deep enough.

Belinda Gaston:

I love how you phrase this because it's sparked another thought for me that I know it's come up on this show before and I know that some of our listeners are thinking about this. I think that leaders we know, as particularly women who lead, we know, okay, we got to deal with our emotions, one of the questions that keeps coming back. I get messages and thank you listeners for sending me text messages. I appreciate keep them coming. But one of the messages I get often is this idea of the safety to even think about this right, that the safety you're creating a safe space to reflect on the emotions, to understand our belonging, because as a leader, you have to keep going, right? Is that what you talked about? Is you put it on the road? You just keep going, you grind, grind, grind, and some leaders feel like that's a weakness to take a moment to do that, to find the time and the space.

Belinda Gaston:

So what would you say?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

Yes, what would you say? It definitely is not a weakness. I would say that is the lie that the enemy is probably. If you're saying that to yourself, that is the lie the enemy is using to keep you stuck. That is the lie that the enemy is using to keep you burned out, stressed out, always feeling like everything's so hard. It's simply just a lie.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

Rest is about restoration, and it's about that's what I talk about in sacred rest. Rest is about restoration and it's restoring you back to a place of being able to do the work God's given you to do. And so when you start seeing emotional rest is what we're discussing emotional well-being, emotional rest. When you start seeing emotional rest, or any type of rest really that you might be deficient in whether it's physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, sensory or creative, any of the seven you get deficient in any of those and you feel like I don't have time to deal with this. You are already under his yoke, the yoke of the enemy, because if he can keep you from filling up a bucket God's trying to pour from, how are you ever going to get into the fullness of that promise? You don't. You're not even equipped with what he's trying to get to you because you're refusing the gift of restoration in the areas of your gifting. So with emotions, we have to start realizing that the stronger those emotional roots are, the stronger I'm able to evaluate what I'm feeling, experience it, process through it, whether I'm processing with a friend or a therapist or a coach or a pastor, whether I'm processing through it, through like some type of artwork, like my son, his emotional rest. He goes up and he plays his guitar and I can tell you what he's feeling based on what kind of music is coming out of his room, because that's how he processes. Some people paint, some people doodle, some people journal. So you get to choose kind of what it is you're going to use to process through emotions. But we all have to do it and it doesn't have to be this huge carved out period of time Like you don't need to go spend 20 hours, you know, on the weekend, doing emotional rest.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

What I like to do is, at the end of each day I asked myself where did I get hit? Maybe it's a patient that made a snide remark, you know that said something that made me feel like, okay, they didn't really show much respect in that situation or they didn't act like they knew what I was doing, or or I don't, you know, whatever it is. So I'm going to deal with that emotion of feeling belittled, or maybe it's. I had an opportunity to come up and instead of like being like, yeah, I think this is what I'm supposed to do, I'm going to say yes and sign up for it, but instead I'm like God, me, am I the right person? So now I'm insecure.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

So where did that emotion come from? If we don't deal with this stuff, it's going to keep showing up. So the next time that an opportunity comes along and it's big and I'm thinking, oh, I got the right girl for this one, that insecurity keeps popping up. Whereas if I deal with it and I start asking questions like God, what in me feels unworthy, holy Spirit, help me, deal with me, help me deal with the parts of me that doesn't feel like I'm worthy to get that kind of opportunity. What makes me feel like that? If we don't deal with those things, they just keep popping up over and over again in our lives.

Belinda Gaston:

So I love that. So for our listeners, here's one practical step is to take each day and do that reflection that Dr Saunders is talking about when did I get hit today? That's what she does. She asks the question, where did I get hit? And then ask yourself questions about why you responded the way you responded or why you feel what you feel. I think that is a great practical step.

Belinda Gaston:

I want to talk a little bit more because something that stood out to me as I'm well again, I'm still reading the book.

Belinda Gaston:

But as I'm reading the book, something that stands out to me is this idea of feeling seen, and it's triggered for me, which is why I put the book. Something that stands out to me is this idea of feeling seen and it's triggered for me, which is why I put the book down this third time. It's triggered for me places where I may have felt misunderstood you know what I mean Like I thought I was being clear, I thought I was presenting myself one way and then it was misunderstood and for me I've had to really lean into community for that. So I'd like to talk about that. Part of what you're saying in your book is listen, you can be fully known, you can be seen. What role does community play in all of this and how do we cultivate these spaces so that if we are in a spot where we feel misunderstood and we need to process this, we can go to these people in our community and find some reprieve?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

Yeah, community is important because we all want that sense of people have our back and we're understood.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

Social rest is one of the types of rest I talk about and it's the rest you experience when you're around people who are life giving, so they can talk your talk, they walk the walk, they get you. You don't have to explain what you do and how you do it. It's like they get your life. But sometimes those aren't the places of deepest belonging. They can be, but oftentimes they're not the places of deepest belonging, but they are places of safety and comfort. And so I think it's important to have communities where you have safety and comfort and camaraderie and you've had that sense of social rest that comes from that. But on the other side of that there's another type of social rest which is that deeper level of belonging which is where you're stepping into also purpose and you're stepping also into giftings and talents, where you're able to be completely unleashed, so to speak. You're not having to fit into your crowd, you're able to actually stand out purposefully and because you're needed in that space. And so I think we need to have both and with community, I think the big part about community is having a community where you're given kind of full license to just speak your truth, because then community brings in that emotional rest that's needed as well. It's not just the social rest of I'm with people who know what my life is like, but now I'm with people who know what my life is like and I feel the freedom to speak about it openly, without reservation. For example, I go once a year to this event up in Myrtle Beach with a group of other Christian authors and speakers and everybody there has, you know, they're in full time ministry, basically of some sort or another. So they're speaking, you know, multiple, 10 plus times a year. They've written a couple of books each and every one of them that's there. So when I'm up there with this group of women I feel I'm in my community. I don't have to explain to them what it's like to have to fight with an event planner over something stupid. I don't have to explain with them what a writer is for a speaker. They know basic stuff. I don't have to. If I'm having a conversation half the time isn't me explaining stuff to them. They get it and so I can have a level of conversation with them, because they don't even know what I'm talking about, and so that is a community that gives me a great deal of social rest, but I don't find it to be the place of my deepest belonging. In other words, when I'm there and I've spoken there, you know. So it's not like I don't feel like I can serve there I can, but that is not the place where God's greatest glory, I would say from my life. He gets it in places where he stretches me and I step into moments where I realize if I weren't there speaking on behalf of my father's business, there's not many other people who could do in that moment at that time. Because I've been, and it can be on a large scale or small scale.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

You know, in the book I share about an experience in the emergency room actually, with a family where the mother had passed, basically, and she had a small child who was there. He ran out of the family room when he heard his dad wailing and when I saw this child bolting toward the door. We had barely gotten his mother, like clothed, back up from the all the stuff you do trying to revive somebody, and she came in pretty much lifeless. So I saw this little person bolting toward the door. It was like a momentary when I say it feels like the heavens open. It was like in one moment I was like there's no way this child is going to see his mother like this. I literally flung myself in front of this child and he's beating my legs with his hands. I want to see mama. And then just burst out into tears and I was like God, I don't know why you have me as a physician, but I know as someone who lost her mother at a young age. I was meant to be here at this very moment Because I was not going to let that child see what was going on on that table. There could have been a hundred other doctors that had that opportunity in that day, but they would not have been able to minister to that child the way I did, because I felt his pain. It's like I'm looking at him and I know what part of his life is going to feel like from this day forward.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

And so I think we often don't recognize the specificity of that. Don't recognize the specificity of that. I've been at events where I'm speaking to groups of people who have nothing to do with God, jesus or anything else Christian, and you know there are organizations where I can't even I'm sharing seven types of rest and I'm having to share spirituality in a very like inclusive way so that they can actually receive the message that I'm trying to share with them. And at the end, grown men are coming up and this is a business event literally almost overwhelmed, like almost crying tears in their eyes, overwhelmed, and say you have no idea how much I needed that. Ceo retreats of like Fortune 100 companies where I'm doing a retreat and people pull me aside and share some of their deepest, darkest stuff. They probably never told anybody ever and I'm literally a stranger, but I know I am there with a very intentional kingdom mandate. They may not be ready for, but they're ready for God's love.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

And God needs someone who's not afraid to be Jesus and not have the privilege of even saying Jesus maybe in some of the situation, but has been through the beholding and the belonging and have stepped into a place of becoming where, however, god is leading them to fill the void in that space. They have the boldness and the courage to do that, and so I think we have to get leaders kind of unlocked from what they think leadership is. The biggest leadership you will do is leading yourself out of your own fear, out of your own insecurity, out of the smallness of what you think your life can be and how you think God can use you. That's the biggest part of leadership you're going to do. Leading people is easy. Leading you, that's hard, because you will fight yourself to the point that you will talk yourself out of the greatest levels of experiences and exposures that God actually has possible for you.

Belinda Gaston:

So that leads to the next question.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

So what are steps people can take to becoming yeah, the first step I would probably say is to start going deeper in how you view God in your day-to-day life, because the beholding aspect of it is the foundation of it. How are you seeing God that doesn't reflect how you're seeing you? You know, if we just start from the very first words in the beginning, right? So if we just start with the very first part of the Bible, god is constantly speaking creatively. God is imaginative and creative, like. Are you allowing that part of yourself to have freedom? Are you allowing yourself to have imagination and creativity about what your life can look like, about what you are capable of, about the gifts and the talents inside of you? Or have you boxed up some of your own imagination and creativity? Because you got a job, you know you got the thing you do and you're making a check and it's all good and God will keep you know. Sometimes that is what he wants you to do and you'll stay there for a season.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

But when you start feeling kind of that stirring, you know, I hear people say do you feel like there's more? And for most of us it's not this feeling of I need to do more stuff. We got plenty of stuff to do For a lot of us, the more that we are hungering for is more understanding of who we are and what's inside of us. And so that's where I would begin with the beholding time in his word, time and reflection on how, what you see in his word and what you see of him in your life, what does that saying about you?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

You know anything that you admire about the life of Jesus that you're like wow, I wish I could whatever fill in the blank. That's a place to sit and reflect. I wish I could go in and flip tables, or I wish I could raise the dead or whatever it is, whatever it is you're seeing that you that you're like. I wish I could see some aspect of that in my life. That is a heart desire and then open yourself up to God. What would that look like in this day and age?

Belinda Gaston:

I don't think that we often take a moment to do that, but it's important. I never thought about looking at the characteristics of Jesus and what are those things that Jesus did that I might want to do. So I appreciate that, and so we talked about beholding, and in the book you give some other steps. We talked about beholding and in the book, you give some other steps. I would like to ask for women who are going through this journey and I highly recommend leaders that you get this book and actually walk this out, because, as I said, what I appreciate about your writing, dr Sandra, is that, though you're writing this and it's very practical, but it's also personal, you can make it very personal, and so, as people are walking through these steps to becoming, I want to talk about the challenges. So there are always obstacles. What would you say is the biggest obstacle to becoming?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

book. I think it's really important to just be real about some of those. One of them is I define it as friendly fire coming under friendly fire, and it's basically the people in your life that give you pushback when you start changing, because they're used to you being however you've used to be and so you know if you've always been kind of the quiet, reserved, shy person and then you start actually becoming fully known and developing into someone who's not so fearful and who understands who they are in Christ and has a handle really on their identity and all of that, you're not going to act the same way, you're not going to be the same person they've always known. And so they start pushing back when you start trying to do things and so recognizing that oftentimes, when that happened, it's not necessarily that they think you're dumb for trying to do whatever it is or that you're not capable. It's oftentimes the fact that they are grieving or scared about how it's going to affect them, because now, all of a sudden, you know, you decide you want to start a business. Now they're scared because they're like, well, how is this going to affect our income? You making the change. It's about their own insecurities and fears that you're awakening and kind of bringing to light.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

Another one I talk about is, as I mentioned earlier, the set apart season For some. When they go through this period where they've heard from God or they really feel like they know what God is calling them to, the next that he's calling them to, that they hesitate and get stuck in that season where things look like nothing's happening, it looks like there's no growth, it looks like I'm just kind of hanging out in this one area and I can't really see any evidence of God moving or doing anything. And they don't really realize that during that time, that's when that emotional wholeness we were talking about happens, that's when the roots grow. You don't see the tree on top. When the roots are going deeper, it looks like nothing's happening, but everything that's happening is on the inside. And so during that time, most of the work that's being done is the work on you, it's the work in your heart to prepare you, for the thing he's calling you to is to make you unshakable, so that you're deep enough in him so that you're not swayed by so many things.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

And then the third one I would probably say is a huge obstacle is a lot of us throw up firewalls in our lives as it relates to the Spirit of God, and by that what I mean is the easiest way I could probably describe this is you get as much God as you're willing to let run free in your life.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

So if you want to know what all's happening and you want all the details and all the steps and you want God to lay you out the blueprint of your life, you're going to get very little of his spirit flowing through your life. If you look at the Bible, most of the people he's like go here and I'll tell you on the way. It's like. You don't get all the details. You get just enough to be able to make a step, make a move, and so we have to allow ourselves the ability to let our need to know drop and let our trust rise, because that's what really living a life in the spirit looks like. It's a hands off adventure. You're not. Your hands aren't on the wheel and your foot's not on the gas. You're literally just sitting in the car, but you're willing to be on the journey with them.

Belinda Gaston:

I think that's a great place for us to end. I mean, I think leaders listening to this can relate to everything you said and are probably at this point thinking, man, I need to, one, pick up this book, but, two, I need to do some reflection and perhaps some reframing of some things. So, before we go, I would like to know if you have any final thoughts, anything. If you had to leave this conversation with one thing you wanted the leaders listening to remember, what would that be?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

Yeah, the one thing I would probably say I would want them to remember is that there's a life on the other side of what you think is possible, and most of us, when we say possible, you know something looks impossible. What we're actually thinking is it's improbable because the word of God says all things are possible. So once you get your belief system to line up with the word of God, that you're not looking at the probability of something but the possibility of something, it completely rearranges how you step into every area of your life. You step into there with the. One of the words I talk about in the book is with your Hanini. It's a Hebrew word that says God. Before you even ask the question, my answer is yes, that's a life that he can use to do and be glorified in a way that you never thought or imagined.

Belinda Gaston:

This was such a great conversation. Again, I highly recommend our listeners get this book, just like Sacred Rest. I think this is a life-changing book, so I appreciate your obedience and even writing it. Dr. Saundra, if people wanted to connect with you, what's the best way that people can connect with you?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:

Yeah, I'd love to invite you to a book club that we have this summer, starts in June, goes through July on the book and it's the title of the book being fully knowncom. So if you just type that in, I'll get you right to the sign up for the book club. I also have a podcast. I choose my best life that you were on Belinda and be happy to have them over to listen to our conversation there as well.

Belinda Gaston:

Yes, excellent. Thank you Definitely join the book club. Our conversation was amazing. I love Dr Sandra's podcast. If you are looking for inspiration and new information, you definitely have to check it out. I will put all of the links to everything in our show notes so, if you are listening, you can get everything that you need in order to connect with Dr Sandra.

Belinda Gaston:

Dr Sandra, thank you so much for your time. This has been a great conversation, thought-provoking conversation, reflective conversation. I appreciate you so much for saying yes, it's been a pleasure to be here with you. Thank you, and so for our listeners, you can again follow Dr Sandra. All of the links will be in the show notes, as always. I appreciate you listening to the Grace to Lead podcast. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and share the podcast for season two. If you haven't heard season one, go back and listen. You can connect with us on BelindaGastoncom. Within every podcast platform, there's a way for you to sign up and follow us so that you get all of the things Grace to Lead. Again, I'm happy that you are listening and until we meet again next week, remember you are indeed Grace to Lead. Bye-bye.

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Belinda Gaston

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