Transforming Life and Faith: Ben Gosden on Compass: Finding spirituality in the everyday.
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Join us for an inspiring discussion with Ben Gosden as he shares his transformative journey through addiction, recovery, and the ever-present grace that guided him back to spiritual alignment. Explore Ben’s insights on how the tenets of recovery not only shape one’s faith journey but influence daily habits and mindfulness.
Ben Gosden, a pastor and author of Grace Rediscovered, has over fifteen years of pastoral experience. His book chronicles his personal path to recovery and deeper spiritual understanding. For those seeking spiritual growth or grappling with their own challenges, Ben offers a candid look at the power of prayer, humility, and acceptance. Discover how aligning your daily life with your core values can lead to genuine spiritual richness and connection.
Tune in and be open to the transformative grace and spirituality that beckon us in our everyday lives.
Episode Notes:
Check out the latest from Ben Gosden through his Substack. Ben also co-hosts a podcast about what it means to be authentic and welcome ALL people. Check out "Faith Revisited".
In this episode:
(00:00) Addiction, Recovery, and Grace
(05:40) Alcohol Addiction: A Personal Journey
(08:48) Overcoming Evening Temptations
(11:34) Embracing Humility: God Isn’t You
(13:58) From Requests to Surrender
(16:11) Letting Go: Faith and Acceptance
(21:53) Values: A Checkbook and Calendar Audit
(23:30) Practicing Margin Time
(27:02) Balancing Work and Personal Time
(31:22) Compass Podcast Episode Recap
Related episodes
- From hate to hope, episode 139
- Contentment and connecting with all life, episode 145
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This episode posted on February 5, 2025
Episode Transcript:
Ryan Dunn [00:00:00]:
Hi, this is Compass Finding Spirituality in the Everyday. My name is Ryan Dunn. This is an episode about transformation. We're going to hear Ben Gosdin's story about addiction, recovery, and grace. What's interesting is that as we hear Ben share his story, we're invited to take note of the ways in which our own lives have fallen out of alignment with our values. We also will learn about how the principles of recovery impact our faith faith and our daily habits. Ben Gosdin is a pastor and author of Grace Rediscovered, a book that narrates his personal journey towards recovery and spiritual alignment. With over fifteen years of pastoral experience, Ben shares insights on overcoming addiction, the power of prayer in recovery, and the importance of humility and acceptance in our faith journeys.
Ryan Dunn [00:00:52]:
If stories like this are meaningful for you, we invite you to share your appreciation by clicking the subscribe button on your podcast listening platform. You can also leave a rating and review on your podcast platform that helps new people discover the meaningful stories that we share through Compass. Alright. Let's get into an inspiring discussion that highlights the presence of grace in our everyday lives with Ben Gosdin here on Compass. Ben, it sounds like we watched a lot of the same shows growing up. I noticed that you also have a fondness for professional wrestling. Is that true? Does that still last for today, or did you outgrow that?
Ben Gosden [00:01:33]:
You know, it's funny. I am probably one of those, like, get off my lawn, guys. I don't I don't follow enough now. Yeah. But one of the beautiful things that you're probably aware of this is Paul, like, it seems like all the pro wrestlers from when we were kids, obviously, they're too old to wrestle. They've all got podcasts now.
Ryan Dunn [00:01:49]:
They do.
Ben Gosden [00:01:50]:
And it is like reliving my childhood. Man, I Bruce Pritchard's podcast
Ryan Dunn [00:01:56]:
Yeah. He's been in
Ben Gosden [00:01:57]:
the WWE guys forever. I love Bruce Pritchard and just all the inside stories about all the stuff that we grew up watching. So I'm probably more nostalgic about pro wrestling. Yeah. But I I do appreciate it. I really do.
Ryan Dunn [00:02:11]:
Yeah. Same boat. I got into that stuff in the the biographies on a and e. Did you see those? So I I found myself watching those kind of thinking, like, you know what? I think I like professional wrestling. Don't tell anybody.
Ben Gosden [00:02:25]:
Well, and I'll tell you what's fun. Did you follow it as a kid?
Ryan Dunn [00:02:29]:
I did. Uh-huh.
Ben Gosden [00:02:30]:
Okay. So do you subscribe to Peacock? Yes. So you know they got all our vibes. Yeah. All the stuff. I mean, you can go back and watch the pay per view. Oh, man. It it it is so much fun.
Ben Gosden [00:02:41]:
It's so much fun.
Ryan Dunn [00:02:43]:
Amazing. Our our listeners are like, what are these guys talking about? Oh, man. We're, well, we're looking at our past, so we're talking about the presence of grace throughout our lives. And one of the ways that you kind of address your past, Ben, is looking at some of the things that you grabbed onto growing up and what was sometimes a chaotic childhood. And, you noted that oftentimes, well, you looked for father figures and professional wrestlers, and sometimes you look for family connections through, like, the TGIF shows that came on ABC on Friday nights. Did you have a particular favorite show or TV family or one that you'd like to find yourself in the midst of right now?
Ben Gosden [00:03:21]:
You know, it's it's funny. I remember when I was a kid, I loved Family Matters. Mhmm. I I there was something about the Winslow family that was a lot of fun, but, of course, I love full house.
Ryan Dunn [00:03:32]:
Oh, yeah.
Ben Gosden [00:03:33]:
Step by step was fun. You know, all all the TGIF. I remember TGIF being a wonderful thing because my parents you know, this was also the day and age when you probably had only one TV in the house. Mhmm. My parents had shows that they liked, and it was like, don't talk while our shows are on. TGIF was designed, I know, for families, but it was really something that felt inclusive of kids. And it's funny, you know, looking back, there's a lot of things that are formative about those sitcoms that we don't realize, and it and it comes out in deep ways and sort of the the unfulfilled expectations of our childhoods.
Ryan Dunn [00:04:15]:
Right. It's like almost each one had some kind of lesson that they were trying to teach throughout it. Right?
Ben Gosden [00:04:20]:
Yeah. Yeah. And and and and and you think that life can be solved, the hard moments with, like, a sit down conversation at the end of an episode and piano music playing in the background and everything's fine and but you realize it's it's not. You know, you you age and you're like, you know, life's a lot more messy than a sitcom. But for what they were, they're they're wonderful escapes. Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:04:43]:
Well, your book is Grace Rediscovered, and it's, about a a journey in recovery. I think a lot of us tend to, when it comes to the the heavy things or things like addiction, we gloss over it. And, certainly, that's part of your story in terms of kinda being in denial. Was there, like, a moment of realization for you, a kind of moment when you realized that maybe you did have an addiction?
Ben Gosden [00:05:10]:
You know, I was told growing up that addiction was in my family. And so I knew and and my father my father was an alcoholic that my mother forbid from drinking. Okay. And as a friend in recovery has told me, god, there's nothing more miserable than an alcoholic who's not allowed to drink. I mean, it's just the worst. And and so I knew that genetically it was there, but, you know, it's almost hard to describe. So that was one element. Then another element was I was never comfortable in my own skin growing up.
Ben Gosden [00:05:40]:
I always wanted to fit in. I was so afraid of rejection. And I I remember the very first night in college when I when I had alcohol and it the warmth that washed over me and all of a sudden the ease that I felt, it was magic. I mean, it was just like this is what I've been looking for. I mean, I ebbed and flowed and then, of course, as I came into a career and had more money and able to buy more alcohol and it just a nightly unwinding routine slowly became something that I didn't even realize it was out of control until it was out of control. And it was really during the COVID pandemic that I began to really you know, as I told somebody recently, I began to like, the morning after, and I felt like I'd been hit by a car. It was just it was awful. But, you know, it was the pandemic and, you know, we were all kinda just, you know, taking things very casual because we couldn't go anywhere.
Ben Gosden [00:06:34]:
Yeah. And I found myself the next morning feeling both physically terrible and then this deep sense of shame. And I knew that I would tell myself, like, oh, that was too much last night. I'm I'm not gonna do that again. And then unconsciously, I would that same night be doing it all over again. And I began to to Google how many drinks makes you an alcoholic. And looking back, I realized if you have to Google whether or not you're you probably are alcoholic. So I was rationalizing my my intake and and that's when I really began to say something's probably not right.
Ben Gosden [00:07:10]:
And it was a combination of the pandemic. I was getting my doctor of ministry. I was a functioning pastor doing what pastors were doing of just trying to do all the virtual. And and I was increasingly exhausted and not, like, just tired. Like like, my soul was weary. So I'm there was something that was coalescing in there, But it really began with that, you know, one of these dry Jan. 0 things, you know, that that's in in vogue. And I just began to feel a shift all around that I thought there's something going on here.
Ben Gosden [00:07:40]:
There's a longer story that it took me about three months, and I realized there's something deeper here than just I need to break a habit.
Ryan Dunn [00:07:47]:
Yeah. But all along, you were still functional. Right? It's not like, you were losing jobs over this or anything like that.
Ben Gosden [00:07:56]:
I was functional on the outside. I was increasingly miserable on the inside. And such perfectionism is a paralyzing thing in me. Mhmm. I wanna be all the things to all the people all the time. And it works until it doesn't. And alcohol became the thing that that I escaped with, the thing that I self medicated. It said, you know, this tension would rise every day, and it was the thing that would take the edge off.
Ben Gosden [00:08:24]:
So yeah. I mean, yes, on the one hand, but but I also I also think I probably was gonna be one of those alcoholics that it may not have been the loss of a job, but it may have been a diagnosis. It may have been a doctor saying, hey. There's something wrong.
Ryan Dunn [00:08:39]:
Okay.
Ben Gosden [00:08:39]:
And and it's from years. I mean, because I was over ten years of secretly daily heavy drinking.
Ryan Dunn [00:08:46]:
What were your first steps towards recovery?
Ben Gosden [00:08:48]:
My first steps were what we call white knuckling, which is like you just grit and bear every night because my body and and and everything was like clockwork. At 08:30 at night, I would sit down with a cocktail and, you know, I would I would try to avoid it and I would walk the dog and I would, you know, all these and I would be increasingly anxious. I became an early bird, which I am to this day because I just decided I'm gonna go to bed. If I if I go to sleep, then then I don't have to worry with it. So I started going to bed about 09:00 and and now wake up around four in the morning and realize I love being a morning person. But all that was to avoid it. It was about three months in that I had an opportunity with a group that I could have a drink, and I began to do what we call in recovery, play the tape where I just kinda played. Well, I could have one.
Ben Gosden [00:09:39]:
Mhmm. And then I played it out where I knew what would happen, what would happen. That's when I called a friend who I know is in recovery, and I said, I think I've got a problem. Normal people don't think about alcohol the way that I think about it. And, Ryan, it even get got into, you know, it is weird to say for people who are nonalcoholics, the emotional and mental energy I would spend every day taking stock. How much is in the house? Do I need to go to the liquor store? When I travel, where's the nearest liquor store? How can I go you know, all these things that normal people just don't spend that kind of time thinking about, I quietly obsessed over?
Ryan Dunn [00:10:18]:
Was that the first point at which you reached out to somebody else about this? Were you just carrying it all yourself up to that point?
Ben Gosden [00:10:25]:
Yeah. Yeah. It was. Even hiding my my worries from my wife, because I was never a mean drunk. I was actually a fun one. You know, it would loosen me up. I'd get funnier. I was beginning to have memory lapses, which is one of the first signs of what what doctors call, like, wet brain.
Ben Gosden [00:10:41]:
We would have entire conversations that I wouldn't remember the next morning. And and so I knew I knew something was going on. But, yeah, reaching out to to a friend who's actually a church member. And I'm blessed, by the way, that I have numerous church members who are very publicly in recovery. We have recovery ministries that that happen out of here. And so I've been a supporter of the recovery world for years. I had no idea until then that I needed to be a member of it.
Ryan Dunn [00:11:08]:
Are you able to look at some of the process of recovery and really point out how it opens us up to a deeper relationship to to God? Why are the principles of recovery so important in our faith walk? Like, I think about this even for the person who's listening, who's maybe saying, well, you know, I don't identify an addiction that I need to that I need recovery from. Why would I be that interested in the principles of recovery?
Ben Gosden [00:11:34]:
Yeah. The the story I tell in the book is one of my favorite ones a friend told that a guy who'd been in recovery for a long time said to him at a meeting once, he said, you know the difference between God and you? And he goes, no? What? And he goes, god doesn't go around pretending to be you. Right. And the truth is, now three years later, I can see my addiction and my disease as a gift because it opened me up to the reality that god is god and I am not. And more than I care to even describe, I try to play God in my life. Whether it's obsessing about the future, trying to control other people's lives, worrying about things that are beyond my control, all these things that that whether you have a disease, the disease of addiction or not, we all try to play God in some form or fashion or and or we self medicate. You know, when when we can't be God and we're all anxious about it, well, what do we do? We go eat. We we we scroll.
Ben Gosden [00:12:36]:
We doom scroll on social media. We, we work. You know, we become workaholics. We try to fill a God sized hole in our soul somehow or another. For me, alcohol worked until it couldn't work anymore. But alcohol was the outward expression of an inward disease that I was also a workaholic. That I was also my ego was bigger than it should have been. I needed right sizing.
Ben Gosden [00:13:01]:
I was a control freak. I had to let go of some things to just accept. I can't control everything.
Ryan Dunn [00:13:08]:
Yeah. Well, tell me about that a little bit because with drinking, you can quit drinking, but you can't stop working then. So how does it how does it work to be a workaholic in recovery while still working?
Ben Gosden [00:13:22]:
Yeah. You just like with alcohol and where every day, I pray for a few I pray for numerous things there. By the way, let me begin by saying, I'm a pastor and I've been one for almost fifteen years and a Christian most of my life. I've never prayed the way that I've prayed in recovery. It opened my spiritual life in a way that I've experienced God's salvation in in daily mysterious, just wonderful ways. How did
Ryan Dunn [00:13:54]:
your how did your prayers change?
Ben Gosden [00:13:58]:
From prayers of petition, you know, God, give me this, give me that, help this, help that, to prayers like, God, help me accept life as it comes today. Help me remember the things that I cannot control and and help me to put my whole I mean, I I even you can steal baptismal language, by the way. Help me to put my whole trust in your grace. We say that in our baptismal liturgy. The first three steps of the 12 steps say that that that, you know, essentially you can boil them down to can't, God can, I think I'll let God? That's steps one, two, and three. And if that becomes your prayer every day to to just rest in the mystery that I can't do this alone, God, but you can come alongside me. And I think I'm gonna let go of some stuff and let you do that. The burden that sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but in God's timing begins to just unload from you.
Ben Gosden [00:14:58]:
And by the way, how can you be able get over the workaholism too? You reorder your life. You also realize that a lot of the quote effort I'm putting in is a way that I'm trying to do things that are beyond my control. I'm trying to be the greatest at whatever it is. I'm trying for my my DS to think I'm the best pastor in the district. I want the bishop to notice me. I want all these things and then you just say, you know what? Those things don't matter, but what does matter? I do a good job, I'm faithful to my work, I think about others, you know, that kind of thing. And all of a sudden it scales the the the burden of work that we think we carry. It scales it into a much more manageable right sized way that it's not the only thing in your life that should give you meaning.
Ryan Dunn [00:15:41]:
There's a difference between asking God to do something and letting God have control.
Ben Gosden [00:15:47]:
Yes.
Ryan Dunn [00:15:48]:
You know, like, I and I find myself even when I think I'm giving control over to God, like, really, I'm just asking God to kinda conform to my wins. Like, here's what I wanna have happen, God. I trust you to to do it, and that doesn't always work. Can you give an example of, like, what it looks like in in your own life to just lay into God, letting God have that control instead of just asking God to do it?
Ben Gosden [00:16:11]:
It's so funny because what you just described as a lifelong church person, we we literally pray that every Sunday as part of the Lord's prayer, thy will be done. Mhmm. And and what I learned was these old timers in recovery rooms who would say the serenity prayer, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And then I hear I would hear some guys say, Thy will, not my will be done. That's a simple reminder comes when we learn to accept that the things we just simply can't change. That we ask God for the courage to be faithful to the things we can change and that we seek God's wisdom to know the difference between the two. Now, how does that work in your daily life? It's funny how many issues can magically solve themselves when I let go of them and stop trying to wrench them into my timing or my way. I don't deal well with unresolved tension.
Ben Gosden [00:17:14]:
And so one of the things that I've really had to work into, and now it comes a lot more natural out of habit is, can I go to bed at night and not stew over something that's not done or something that's not, you know, solved yet and just say, you know what? We'll pick it back up tomorrow. We'll pick it back up tomorrow. Part of that too is the perspective change that I've learned in recovery that I think people beyond recovery rooms need to know, which is we only have today. We I've lived my life too often dwelling on a past that I cannot change or a future that I cannot control. But if I live for today and say, God, give me perspective just for today, God will take care of those other things in God's timing. And then tomorrow, we'll get into today. We're not guaranteed anything other than today. It's a freedom that that that's almost indescribable, but it really comes from trying to get out of God's way.
Ben Gosden [00:18:15]:
And I don't know that I ever realized how much I was just trying to be God.
Ryan Dunn [00:18:22]:
Yeah. Even from the aspect of being a pastor for all those years. Right?
Ben Gosden [00:18:25]:
Oh, yeah. Oh, all the church problems, the budget issues, the the the, oh, no. Our top giver passed away. Oh, no. This mission, trip's not gonna come together. All these things that you just and sometimes you just have, you know and I'll have people come to me now and and worry, and I have to remind myself to just tell them it's okay. We'll get it. When? I don't know.
Ben Gosden [00:18:47]:
They'll come together. That's really hard.
Ryan Dunn [00:18:51]:
Yes. It is. Yes. It is. And and I wish that I could just understand from reading your book how all that plays out in my own life, but it feels like there's there's more of a process to it than that.
Ben Gosden [00:19:00]:
Well and that's the beauty of the steps. So you begin with, you know, acknowledging that we try to be God, to acknowledge God's role in our life. The third step prayer is to give our life and our will over to the love and care of God. So step three is that that we make a decision to give our life and our will over to the love and care of God. That's not something as Christians, that's you don't give your life to God once. We give our life to God every day. This is what Bonhoeffer talks about, you know, that that that Christ bids a person to come and die. And and and I think it was mother Teresa who said that that every day we we pray that we die to self so that we can be raised again in Christ.
Ben Gosden [00:19:42]:
So that's the third step prayer. All these things that we talk about in our discipleship language for me became very real through those steps. You know, four is a personal inventory. How do we go through the ways in which we we just obsess and or sin and all these different things that that we try to be God and then we try to reconcile those things.
Ryan Dunn [00:20:05]:
Right? Yeah. You talked about this daily giving over of ourselves. Do you have a reminder or a daily practice that helps you kinda repeat that process?
Ben Gosden [00:20:14]:
Yeah. So I'm an early morning person and I go to the gym every morning. And so part of my car ride, I I just I spend time just praying. I kinda have the same formula, but it sort of ebbs and flows. You know, I'm grateful to be sober. Every morning I wake up now sober. It's funny. The magic is still there because I I can't tell you how many mornings I woke up just like a car hit me, hurting.
Ben Gosden [00:20:38]:
But I can wake up and I I'm at peace with myself. I'm clear headed. I feel rested. So I'm grateful for sobriety. I'm grateful for a new day. And then we get into, you know, God give me acceptance to accept life as it comes. Somebody told me once, this is a great analogy, that we should hold life like a loose garment. You know? Something that we don't hold and cling to so tight, but then we kinda let it ebb and flow.
Ben Gosden [00:21:02]:
And that ebbing and flowing is a trust that God's gonna gonna guide us. Now we have our part, you know, but but it's more a response to God versus us trying to tell God to come with us. But, yeah, I pray every morning in the car. I have about a 15 drive to the gym and and just every morning try to pray of over it.
Ryan Dunn [00:21:20]:
There's a line in your book. My reading app was telling me that it's one of the most highlighted. And it says life alignment is about arranging our lives so that the things we invest time in genuinely reflect values we hold most dear. Why do you think that's been resonating so deeply? Why do people keep coming back to that one?
Ben Gosden [00:21:39]:
You know, you said that to me, and I was thrilled to hear that. And that's not a line that I would have expected.
Ryan Dunn [00:21:44]:
Right. Doesn't that always happen though? Like every sermon you've ever given, you're like, yeah. Yeah.
Ben Gosden [00:21:49]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:21:49]:
Here's the take home. And they're like, yeah. I really heard this in your
Ben Gosden [00:21:53]:
sermon, pastor. Yeah. You know, I I think that came from sort of, you know, there's two ways to know what we value in life. One is to look at our our checkbook and one is to look at our calendar. And and someone told me that once, and someone told me that once, and I've used it numerous times in sermons, that if you did an audit of of the way you spend your money and you did an audit of the way you spend your time, you'll know what you value in life. Absolutely. And then I come I come to Jesus saying that that where your treasure is, there your heart is also. I think in the twenty first century world, he'd say, where your Google calendar is, there your heart is also.
Ben Gosden [00:22:32]:
So, yeah, I if if if you wanna live a certain way and by certain values, we have to align our life so that our time reflects those things. Otherwise, we're just it's idle words. So for me, if I say that I value, let's let's let's say that I value I value being rested, and then I stay up late doom scrolling on my phone.
Ryan Dunn [00:22:59]:
What have
Ben Gosden [00:23:00]:
I just done? I've gone against my values. Or or or I wanna, be an early morning person, and then I, you know, get get drink at night, you know, and stay up too late and all this. Like, I'm going against my values sometimes without even realizing it. So it's just saying if this is what I value, then let's let's align our lives to follow that.
Ryan Dunn [00:23:21]:
You talk about this thing in you referred to as margin time within the book, something that that you value. First, can you explain to us what margin time is?
Ben Gosden [00:23:30]:
Yeah. For me, margin time is how much time do you have that you don't have something scheduled? I read an article a few years ago. I think it was a Harvard Business Review article that said one of the top practices they found of CEOs of, you know, companies and stuff is what they called, like, undesignated time. And one guy described that he'd spend thirty minutes a day just looking out his window. And they'd go looking out your window doing what? And he'd say nothing. Just just looking out my window. And so what I try to do with my time, because again, one of my values is and it's not that I value margin time, it's that margin gets me to the value that says, I don't need to be so busy that I have every minute of my day dictated to me. So I try to put a little bit, even if it's ten or fifteen minutes between Zoom calls or between meetings, I guard my time.
Ben Gosden [00:24:31]:
You know, short of an emergency, I don't give certain hours of the day away. My church people know you may get an email from me very early in the morning, and that's because I'm a morning person. But I don't take meetings before 09:30. And the reason I do that is I value my physical health Mhmm. And wanna take care of that. And that's when I spend time with my kids getting them ready for school. And that's a value to me, that being a parent. And so I'm not gonna give that time away because, you know, there's this thing that seemingly seems like a big deal and let that tell me how to dictate my time.
Ben Gosden [00:25:07]:
Short of an emergency like a life being threatened, you know, here's the hours I'm available. And then boundary is one of the most blessed words. I think in the Christian life, how do we set good boundaries?
Ryan Dunn [00:25:19]:
So I read about margin time and, we're gonna reveal a little bit of my neuroses here because at start of every day, I map out the entire day. I mean, hour by hour. And so within that, I've put in, like, this as part of my checklist of of times on the day, I put in margin time and it arrives. And I'm like, I'm not sure I'm doing this right because it feels like it has become another thing within my day.
Ben Gosden [00:25:44]:
Have every hour out?
Ryan Dunn [00:25:46]:
With within my work day, I do. But well, not not applied to. I mean, I'll I'll build in, you know, a margin time or a break time or whatever that looks like. But how do you keep it from, I don't know, not being not feeling a pressure of something else that you have to do?
Ben Gosden [00:26:01]:
Yeah. Yeah. The reason I asked that is because the one thing I I would if I were coaching you, I would say that's a great practice to be organized, but you're planning way too much because you're controlling too much of your day.
Ryan Dunn [00:26:14]:
Okay.
Ben Gosden [00:26:16]:
And and what would it look like if you gave up some of that control? Could your soul take that? Part of what
Ryan Dunn [00:26:23]:
was Well, yeah. I I I have a feeling that the right answer is yes. Right, Ben? But there's a part of me that's like
Ben Gosden [00:26:30]:
The right answer is the honest answer. And and the authentic answer and and one of the great gifts that I have worked into in recovery and therapy is to stop placing value judgments on everything in my life. Mhmm. You said the right answer. And Oh. That's what I would say too. Why does it have to be right or wrong? It just is. But I would guess you're a perfectionist, and you're very productive, and you get a lot of meaning and purpose out of the fact that you're able to to to produce and to do.
Ben Gosden [00:27:02]:
There's nothing wrong with that. What's healthy though is to say, at what point am I doing this for reasons other than the work itself, which is to feed some kinda inner need? Mhmm. At what point am I doing this at the expense of something more important? Like, am I taking this meeting here when it'd be fine to just blow the meeting off and go spend an hour with my kids? Or something for myself. Or even we're playing a coaching game here. Or even, like, do you map in time for you? Mhmm. Mhmm. Because one of the things that I was so bad and have been so bad about is that my god time is usually time that I'm giving away. Reading the Bible for sermon preparation.
Ben Gosden [00:27:43]:
Yeah. Preparing a Bible. So sometimes I just need to read the Bible for my own soul. Mhmm. I need to be as selfish as I can possibly be. Because if I'm not taking care of myself proactively, guess what happens at least for me? I become selfish in other ways because I I don't even realize how resentful I'm getting for how much I'm giving away to everybody else. And then for me, that's why I'm gonna sit down and have a couple drinks tonight. Mhmm.
Ben Gosden [00:28:11]:
Because I deserve it. Maybe let go of some of that.
Ryan Dunn [00:28:14]:
Alright. Alright. No schedule will be written tomorrow. We'll just
Ben Gosden [00:28:17]:
You can make a schedule, but be make it looser. I walk my dog. And so what I do is I get out and walk for fifteen minutes. And and just those few minutes, podcasts are your friends, something you enjoy, get one of those wrestling podcasts we talked about or something. Think about fifteen minutes of it or or an audio book. I don't know. Just something to breathe in the glory of God.
Ryan Dunn [00:28:39]:
Well, you wrote this book because you had experienced a a sense of transformation leading into it. Was there a part of the writing process that brought some things up for you or brought some, in a sense, connection or enlightenment?
Ben Gosden [00:28:53]:
Oh, yeah. It was a very cathartic experience. I was sad when I finished the manuscript. I felt like I was sending my child off to kindergarten and, you know, by by sending it to the fellowship. Because every morning, I was I was kinda alternating some writing time and with gym time. And a lot of mornings at 05:00 instead of the gym, I was I was writing and thinking and reflecting and writing chapters that made me cry. May not make anyone else cry, but it made me. James Howell told me recently, and I love this line.
Ben Gosden [00:29:22]:
He said that he found that writing was really for him, and if you wanted to look over his shoulder and get something out of it, great. And that was that was a a lot of my experience that this book really was for me, to just unload this cathartic experience. And if if a reader can pick it up and get something, what a gift. I love that. Yeah. I mean, I thought a lot about a difficult childhood. I thought a lot about the man that I wanna be. I wrote a whole chapter on fatherhood and and manhood because I think I think this notion of hypermasculinity is one of the worst things that is that is victimizing and taking advantage of young men in our country.
Ben Gosden [00:30:02]:
Because boys are being told that things like feelings are enemies Yeah. A lot. They're God's gift. And so what you have are overgrown little boys who are who are coming into adulthood and running the world, who think that being a man is about exerting strength, when they forget that the strongest thing we can do is be vulnerable and self giving and compassionate. So yeah. Yeah. All of that was just so important for me.
Ryan Dunn [00:30:35]:
Well, for folks who maybe want to hear more of of what you're doing, is there a convenient spot online for them to look you up?
Ben Gosden [00:30:42]:
Yeah. So my publicist, told me that I have not done a good job at bengosdencoaching,uh,.com is out there and that is where I do I've started doing a little bit of consulting and coaching work whether it's one on one coaching which I love. I mean, I use kind of a 12 step approach with people for whatever it is that they wanna make a life change about. But I've done a little bit of business coaching. I love working with churches. So any way that we can can come along and journey alongside some, transformation is great. So there and then social media is at b Gosden, g o s d e n, on Facebook or Instagram.
Ryan Dunn [00:31:15]:
Ben, thank you so much for spending this time with us and for sharing your story with us.
Ben Gosden [00:31:19]:
Thank you, Ryan. Appreciate you always.
Ryan Dunn [00:31:22]:
Well, that brings us to the end of this episode. A big thank you again to Ben Gosden for sharing his story with us. If you found today's conversation as inspiring as I did, then I invite you to visit our website at umc.org/compass. There you'll find detailed episode notes and more episodes to explore on your journey to finding spirituality incredible team at United Methodist Communications for making this podcast possible. Your dedication and hard work behind the scenes allow us to bring you meaningful stories and insights every other Wednesday, which is when new episodes of Compass come out. If you haven't already done so, please consider again subscribing to Compass Finding Spirituality in the Everyday. Your subscriptions, ratings, and reviews mean the world to us, and they help others find the podcast and join our growing community. If you want more compass right now, well, check out episode number 145, contentment and connecting with all life.
Ryan Dunn [00:32:27]:
Another super cool episode of transformation is number one thirty nine, from hate to hope. That's with my friend, Neely Hicks. Thank you again for tuning in and being a part of our Compass journey. Until next time, stay curious and open to grace and spirituality that surrounds us in our everyday lives. Peace.
