2. Daigle Bites - IdentityLauren Daigle

INT. RECORDING BOOTH

Lauren Daigle: Yeah! 'Daigle Bites.’ The next episode, we are gonna talk all about identity.

["You Say" by Lauren Daigle starts]

[Pre-Chorus]
Ooh-oh

[Chorus]
You say I am loved when I can't feel a thing
You say I am strong when I think I am weak
And You say I am held when I am fallin' short
And when I don’t belong, oh, You say I am Yours
And I believe (I), oh, I believe (I)
What You say of me (I)
I believe

["You Say" by Lauren Daigle stops]

Lauren Daigle: I remember standing in the back of some venue in Knoxville, Tennessee. It was an arena and there were cinder block walls everywhere. They all start to look the same after a while. But I remember specifically this one particular room because I said, "God, what am I supposed to do for this next record?" It was actually over two years before I ended up writing 'Look Up Child' and I just remember feeling overwhelmed with the idea of going into right another record while I was on tour. So here I am standing surrounded by the cinder block walls kind of serendipitous because, let me tell you, that's how I felt on the inside. And as I was standing in there, I heard the word "identity" flash across my mind. And, um, I remember thinking, "No! Not identity! This is gonna cost something." And, sure enough, it-it actually has taught me a lot in the process of writing 'Look Up Child.' I've been privileged and honored to get to be a part of just— I don't know. Uncovering one more little piece of who I’m becoming. And hopefully all of you have learned a little bit more about yourself in the process of listening to ’Look Up Child' as well. In this episode, as we talk about identity, we’re gonna get questions from the Q&A. Here we go. Let's dive in. From Knoxville, Tennessee, once again, I've gotten this question and I love it. "Life comes in seasons. What season are you in right now and why?"

I'm in this season of learning that’s for sure there's 1000000 things going buy me 1000000 miles an hour and you know I talk to someone I was at the YMCA yesterday's sit in the sauna then I hear this guy starts talking he has an accident hello Hey what's your name and where you're from and he told me he's from the U. K. and we start small talk and and I was really amazed at some of the things that he was saying because he was in his fifties and he was really. Being honest about how his life has taken him down this path of photography but he wasn't able to build a family and different things like that because of his life going so fast to travel around the world is that all this is very familiar and he said but you know what happened with me as I had dreams and visions and goals but I never saw them to fruition because I was too afraid to fail and I asked about people who you know they've accomplished this an accomplished that and how he arrived at this destination and it was always because they embraced failure and they the software is the pay a place to thrive in and run from in and enjoy not run from like run away by start there and run you know and so I started thinking about that a lot. Realized in I'm in a season of learning because right now you it's it's it's a position to embrace the success and embrace the failure and not see one is good and one is bad but just see them as friends that hold hands and help each other get to the next phase of life and so for me that yeah that's what I would say a season of learning. While I was in Nashville Tennessee I was asked a question that is pretty difficult to answer when people ask me about fear typically I say I'm not afraid I don't have fear until I start to sit a little bit and then I can think of one or 2 I'm a 7 on the enneagram so that often makes me run away from things like fear I enjoy fun let's just replace the F. word with something different not fear but fun anyway while I was in Nashville I was asked what advice do you have on fear and weariness a lot of times fear makes you weary right so it feels like you're being captain cinder block walls that just keep pushing in more and more and more and more more when an anxiety surmounts you get exhausted from anxiety it wears you out wears me out and I've I've had just you know 3 weeks ago talking about the pressure it was like 3 weeks ago. I was on the beach in here in San Diego and I was really really sick hi blew in from San Francisco we have to show the day before and we had a show in San Diego says fine from San Fran to San Diego K.. N. I remember sitting in a coffee shop just like going to get food really quick once we landed and I was with my producer and one of my security because in as I was talking to them it was like all the walls started pushing in and I was holding a menu and word started like floating off the menu and it was as if 5 years of pressure just all hit at one time like all of the the intensity had just kind of surmounted in that one moment. And you say that you feel it every day so my advice to you because I I I feel like I'm starting to experience a little bit every day just a little bit of a weight is added and I have to remember purpose so for me that's that's the first way to break out of it like all right why am I here what is it that I'm supposed to be doing on this planet and are you are your fears like. Are they around what you're doing are they around action are they around fear the unknown like what's coming in that I'm unsure us that was actually why we wrote you say it was because I was having so much anxiety about what was coming down the pike that I wasn't aware of. So what I would say is. Just stay focused on your purpose knowing that god will call in the computer everything that is to come whatever comes your way hello he will be the the stabilizer the one that keeps your feet intact and a lot of times people think when anxiety calms I just I had talked myself out of it doesn't necessarily work like that it's not really like that to the other thing I would say advice wise is find one person that understands that just knows you and can look in your eyes and remind you you are in one instance and just say okay if someone has my back in this then I'll be able to get at least one foot and from the other through the process of fear and I think there's something beautiful about the process because a lot of times we see fear we see anxiety we see weariness and we say get away these are bad things but they're actually great teachers and I've learned to say all right this is actually what I'm feeling in this moment I feel overwhelmed I feel insecure I feel like my back is against the wall help me to see who you are god in this process and not will innately bring me out of it back in Knoxville I was asked how do you get through hard times and anxieties that you deal with some joyful and happy and by the nation is I'm an extrovert I'm all these things I left cliff jumping in a less skydiving I'm like bring it on all the adrenaline I love it so I wouldn't necessarily say oh I'm an anxious person. Until anxiety comes and there are times where I'm like what is happening this isn't me this isn't me can someone tell me a long time ago they said perfect love casts out all fear and I remember listening to that over and over and over again perfect love casts out all fear I know someone who loves me beyond my wildest imagination beyond my wildest dreams and he has a love that so rich for me he's actually looking out for yesterday today and tomorrow and he can see the things that I can't see sell even now as an adult when more anxiety is added to my life I've never been anxious I didn't really know about that but the older I'm getting the more I'm starting to learn what what that is and how that has come up in my life and so because of that I have to say okay god I want to know what you see for tomorrow can you come in give me that peace so that I can rest tonight can you show me all right I might have here here but if I really believe in that perfect love that you have for me I'm just kind of pushed fear aside and say that's a lie you're trying to get in my head you're trying to get my heart is not going to work. Now when I push that aside and say okay god come and show me what your love looks like right here right here in this moment last night I was driving down the bass I don't know what happened I just our best not crying out of nowhere and that this is not my behavior I'm like doesn't that does not happen often pass started yeah I was thinking about that with the season as like season of learning because last night to start crying I don't know when I realized what it was is anxiety I was getting anxious because they're about to come off the road and I'm about to have to go into a different pace of life and it's a different change every time we come off the road and I get anxious about that I don't like it I'm I was just in one season of I can just run and and enjoy it Hamann some might be going to school and maybe facing people that are on kind they're unsure of from maybe it's going home I mean going to school and feeling like your family's gonna leave or something I used to have that when I was in eighth grade I would get so scared that something was gonna happen to my family while I was gone a lot of those things would come up and now in my adult life I can identify I was anxiety back then that's what that was but guess what god saw through every single day on the other side it was always available his love was always available and is always looking out for me in places that I couldn't see and so that's what I focus on all right god your love is better than me trying to control tomorrow and work it out he let his better in it it'll it'll have my back better than I'll have my own and so that's kind of what gets me through so you just keep your head in the game stay strong because a lot of times in attacks like that calm even when you're young it's because you're meant for something great said just now it's just noise it's not real none of it's real it's just noise you have to say be quiet and then say I caught show me love is gone and if the teacher. In New York I was asked a question that I'm often asked and I love answering this question because it was a song that I wrote in the process of discovering. Who I was becoming in the midst of all of the pressures and the demands and the expectations that kind of float around in your mind just when you're someone in the music industry I like this question how did you say come about I finished my very first awards show and it was kind of one of those moments and everybody could experience this probably in different ways but where you feel inadequate for what is to come are you feel maybe not not equipment and secure about where life is going so for me it was. I am in this. Industry I'm from Louisiana I'm like a swamp girl I just I love being outside and I love the simple things in life they really means so much to me but he got all these flashing lights and cameras and I could kind of it was really early on but I could kind of start to feel where things were going to go. At the time I was seeing and I think in like you know 500 people rooms and I was kind of like okay I can just see the ripple effect of this and I felt like I was stuck in a place where I wasn't sure of what it was going to demand of me or expected me and I wasn't sure if I wanted to give up the life that I had once known but sometimes it feels like you're pushed in the back into something in a way that your feet are trying to catch up. And it was that feeling it's not always a bad thing it wasn't a bad thing for me it was just like the momentum of trying to keep my feet underneath me with a little daunting and I felt like I had to become a different person to measure up to what the demand to us and that could be anywhere in life for the teenagers in here that could be in school are you feel like he got the peer pressure thing going on he wonder how you're going to manage the rest of their high school time and it could be a career change it could be you know someone passing away just life confronting you in a way that you didn't expect that was kind of the feeling the sentiment of letting something go that I'd once known in entering into something that was completely unknown to fear were starting to rise and insecurity was starting to arrive and I went to my producer and my other producer to Emma. And we wrote that song together and they just said you need to replace all the lies at the doubt the worries the insecurities with the truth and that's how it was written. When I was in Nashville I was asked a question that I absolutely admire this question could be. Personified in many different ways this question can relate to many different people in many different scenarios how I. questions like that that are available for not just someone on the platform but available for every person on this planet those are the questions that really inspired me and I love this question and I hope that this question and its answer brings a lot of comfort to you guys this one. Is can you share your thoughts about staying grounded during criticism I remember feeling like why don't these people understand me that's where your heart kind of goes at first you're like why why why are people choosing to be unkind why would they say things that are completely opposite of who I am and be so forthright in their accusation N.. That happens a lot you know I've never the whole cyber bullying thing that was like brand new to me but now my heart goes out to those children are like dealing with that on a day in and day out basis but all that to say I I told her someone told me a couple years ago they said true freedom is when you give people the permission to misunderstand you. And that really sets it sets you free because then you don't take on the offense because why would I sit here and let people who don't know me from Adam all they know is the image that has been portrayed or what they want to believe me why would I let these people dictate whether or not my truth is Israel and. In taking on offense you actually create a world of chaos for yourself and so I had to sit and choose to buy a lot of these people who are they being kind to dictate what my actions are gonna gonna be no instead I'm given this beautiful privilege to love them it's a privilege to sit and have someone accuse you I thank Jesus that the feel just a little bit closer to maybe some of the scorn he's felt just a little bit disaffection but you're able to sympathize with him and he comes in he shows you pieces of his heart that he might not have otherwise experience had you not gone through something painful and so you know he was spit on he had his best friends reject him and deny him the people he lived years with and those are his close brothers I just have people that are in the distance that don't necessarily know me that I don't necessarily know on a public space you know maybe accusing me that I was able to see it as a side of Jesus that I'd never seen before and I I considered it a privilege to get to experience that space and so because of that. He Sydney reject offense he said you know I'm not gonna let this. In may because that will build a world of chaos for myself instead I'm going to say tell you you need the grace section of god you need to understand this piece of him maybe in a different way he just love them he just left the offender he left the one who might not know you the one who might speak against you and I told him how do I stay grounded it's like a horse that Senate race you know they put those blinders up because if the horses it happens it'll shield there wondering and they they're going so much slower but if you can study stay focused on your purpose if you've been given a purpose which we all have maybe we haven't discovered it every single person has a purpose here if you can stay focused like razor sharp. Highs right on that my purpose is my purpose is to win all of these things that are external on the side come in you can see it now I got the blinders I'm staying focused because that's where I run the fastest that's where I run the strongest and that's where I'll do what I was meant to do on this planet. Back in Raleigh North Carolina I was asked what is the most valuable thing you learned during your teenage years let me tell ya my teenage years were so interesting fun hard painful sorrowful joyful all the things but hopefully this next answer will give you something to look forward to sell my teenage years were. Pretty chaotic I never went to I went to the. A private Christian school ninth grade and the beginning of tenth grade year so I started high school when I was 13 ninth grade and I remember having so much excitement so much zeal I'm a social bug so I make the more people the merrier. And all of it came to a screeching halt when I was 15 I was taken out of school and placed on homebound for 2 about 2 years I from an autoimmune illness and I went into incredible solitude lots of isolation and I remember feeling so alone super alone and I was kind of in it a season where your girlfriends get knives in the study in the back. Not signed that's a joke kids that was a joke but it was kind of one of those phases of life where you're like oh my gosh why are people so mean and I remember in that season god really took me on a journey that I I don't even know how to put it into words but he became my confidante and my friend and the person that I could dream with and there are seeds there like moments where I'll be brushing my teeth and in the reflection I could see stages and different tour buses in different audiences and charts and awards and all these things and I remember thinking I'm losing my mind I'm getting cabin fever the girl's been locked up a little too long we need to let her out and. And all the while I'm sitting here like what is this I started realizing this is god showing me what was to come so I say all of that story to say what might seem right now is something that's really difficult or maybe a place of incredible pain. That is also a place where you can launch from as the place that has gotten me here it's the the place that I ran back to the second I feel unstable and it's amazing how. To have this opportunity to take what might be the worst of situations and and actually see god use them for the very very best I want to have what I have I wouldn't be able to sing the song because it was in that phase of life that I started taking voice lessons because my mom didn't I was battling depression and my mom didn't want me to you know do anything inside she said let's start let's start with some voice lessons unity that that's like not too harmful to your body and I was like sounds great and I get to do this for the rest of my life in New York City I was asked if there is one thing you could say to the youth right now what would you say this is one of my favorites one seed people. See people not to screen not through an ideology not through who you think he should be but sit back and like let the person next to you means something to you. The more life you live the more connections you make and if you get to the end of your life and you've only made 3 because you were never real with people and he never gave people the chance to be really you. The evil of the sorrowful life honestly it's a it's a life that was wasted but if you can look and say this is the love that I have established in my heart for you and for you and for you and for you and for you those are the kind of things that change generations those are the kind of legacies that make a mark way greater than the temple of pop culture blitz that's a that's one see people when the second would be be someone of integrity let something with integrity the the thing that allows you to thrive let it be the thing that put your feet on the floor in the morning I want to be a person of integrity here I won't wear fur that doesn't mean you can't go into dark places or anything like that it means in them show the world what integrity looks like I feel like it's slipping to the fingertips of the youth right now integrity is kind of the last thought and I feel like the more people who stand up with integrity who have that boldness the more change will see the more beauty will see of what's to come. Thank you for tuning into this episode a day go by make sure to subscribe tell your friends and send me your questions to podcast that Lauren David.com see you next time.