Author: Carrie Bock

I am a Christ follower, wife, and mother. I seek to bring a calm, compassionate, and hopeful approach to my practice. I am direct and transparent, ensuring no guessing games or hidden analyses. I believe in taking my own advice before sharing it with clients as we strive towards physical and emotional health together. I’ve been a licensed professional counselor since 2009, but I’m still learning every day. I’ve been practicing EMDR since 2013 and became an EMDR consultant in 2019, which is the highest level of training in EMDR. I also host the podcast “Christian Faith and OCD.” This started with a hesitant “yes” to God in 2020, and has grown into a world wide ministry.

49. Will Less Stuff Equal Less Anxiety? with Becca Ehrlich

Written by Carrie Bock on October 6, 2021. Posted in Anxiety, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 49. Will Less Stuff Equal Less Anxiety? with Becca Ehrlich

Today on the show, I am joined by a Christian minimalist, pastor and author, Becca Ehrlich.
Becca and I had an interesting conversation about how minimizing and simplifying your life can help with anxiety.

How Becca developed an interest in minimalism
Different aspects of minimalism
How to be more intentional with time and energy
The intersection between Christian faith and minimalism
Minimalist approach to buying things
Small steps to take to minimize and simplify your life
How to tackle the tasks of evaluating possessions and minimizing stuff as a couple.

Links and Resources:

Becca Ehrlich
Book: Christian Minimalism: Simple Steps for Abundant Living

Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/hopeforanxiety)

Let’s Talk About Hoarding!

More Podcast Episodes

Transcript of Episode 49

Hope with Anxiety and OCD Episode 49. If you’re new to the show, I’m your hot Carrie Bock and today we are talking about the connection between having too much stuff or clutter that invades our lives and how that can cause us anxiety. We can’t find things anymore because there’s too much stuff in the way or we have piles around maybe that is crushing our creativity, things that are keeping us, from doing everything that God has called us to do.

Carrie: So here today with me or a discussion of Christian minimalism is Becca Ehrlich, who is a pastor and Christian minimalist. Thank you for joining me today.

Becca: Thanks for having me. This is going to be fun.

Carrie: So you once had what some would quote, call the American dream like I have a spacious house and I have lots of stuff in it. What kind of suffering do you feel like coming from at some point of having too much.

Becca: I sort of bought into pun intended. The idea is that the reason we exist is to have more, more stuff, more time commitments, more things. We use our energy and time for more recognition, all of that like more status. And so we bought a 3000 square foot house and then and it was just me and my husband, and when you have that much space, you fill it with stuff cause it just looks weird to have empty space sometimes or so we’ve been told.

Carrie: Makes sense.

Becca: So did what normal folks would do in consumer culture and filled it with a bunch of stuff. And then we moved, we moved into a smaller place just because that’s what was available at the time where we were moving and we did not have enough room for all this stuff. So we rented a huge storage unit outside of town and we filled it, they call it high and tight.

So it was literally like wall-to-wall stuff, ceiling to floor stuff and we couldn’t even get into this stuff if we wanted to in that storage unit. Then in our new place, it was like stuff was coming out of corners and out of closets and it was just stuffed to the gills with all the stuff. It was just not helpful for my life I couldn’t find anything. It was things that would fall on top of me. We’ve all been there. Right? You open the closet, it is just all down and it was just not good for my well-being. I just didn’t like it and so when I discovered minimalism, which by the way is not just about stuff, right? Our issue was stuff, but a lot of other people could be other things. It made sense to us and we were like, I think we need to start living a little bit more minimally.

Carrie: How did you discover this and develop this interest in minimalism?

Becca: I watched Netflix and my life changed.

Carrie: Wow.

Becca: No one expects their life to change when they’re watching Netflix. But that is what happened. I have a chronic illness, so I was having bad health, and usually, when I have a bad health day, I kinda chill on the couch and watch Netflix or whatever. And I was browsing through, I watch a lot, a lot of documentaries and it recommended the minimalism documentary, the original one by the minimalists.

I’d never heard of minimalism before. I had no idea what I was like, well, it’s only an hour and 15 minutes. So if it’s terrible, it’s only an hour and 15 minutes of my life that I wasted and it was the opposite. Like I watched it and said, oh my gosh, I think this is something I need to do and my husband will get home from running errands and I was like, you gotta watch this and he was like, I don’t know. He eventually sat down with me and we watched it together and he said, you know what, I think this is something we need to do.

Carrie: That’s good. You definitely have to get your spouse on board if you’re married and are going to do this.

Becca: Yeah, I will say though, that like both of us have very different ways. We live out minimalism, which I think is also okay. So you don’t necessarily have to be completely on the same page and agree with all the things you just have to know. Be okay with each other, living out a very simple life.

Carrie: So you said that it’s not just about the stuff. Can you tell us about some of the other aspects of minimalism?

Becca: Yeah. So basically minimalism is a focus on the aspects of life that matter most and intentionally removing everything. So at its core, it’s living intentionally and getting rid of anything, that’s keeping you from focusing on what’s most important. So that can be anything, right? Like for a lot of people, it’s stuff, because of how consumer culture works, we’ve accumulated too much stuff, but for other people, it could be time commitments. Like maybe you said yes to all the things out of obligation or because you felt like you had to, or were expected to, or whatever.

It could be chasing wealth and status and fame. That’s also something that’s glamorized in consumer culture. So paring down your life to be more intentional and focus on the most important things like relationships and self-care, passion, and things like that.

Carrie: It’s interesting that you say that about not chasing fame and fortune. I just had a conversation with another entrepreneur this morning that we just get together and have business chat. She told me, everybody’s trying to chase this six to seven-figure thing. She’s like, I just don’t need all that. I just, I mean, I need a few thousand dollars to pay my bills and live okay.

She’s like, what do I need to make six figures for us? That’s not what’s important to me and so that’s kind of exactly what you’re saying. Like finding what’s really important and really valuable and this individual also has a daughter. So obviously it’s important for her to have time to spend with her and to have self-care and have enough rest. So do you feel like having the chronic illness or receiving that diagnosis affected this?

Becca: Oh yeah. I think for folks who don’t have an infinite amount of energy and health that’s everybody really, but especially folks who are living with illness, living more simply and more minimally, it just makes the most sense because you’re just more intentional about what you’re using your time and energy for.

So it was a no-brainer for me as someone with chronic illness, because I just have to be more intentional about how I’m using my time and energy throughout the day. Because if I don’t, by the end of the day, I’m just going to be dead meat and maybe the next day I’m going to be dead meat.

Carrie: It’s interesting because my husband, I got married last year in October and my husband calls me a minimalist, which I find kind of funny because I wouldn’t necessarily put that label on myself, but he really sees how I interact with stuff specifically for buying.

Like, I may see something and say, oh, that’s, cool or something, but I really don’t have space for that extra gadget in my kitchen. I mean, where would I put that? I just don’t know that I would really use that a whole lot, or I just don’t need that. You think about how many people have invested in multiple kitchen appliances that don’t pull them out of the cabinet or don’t use them.

I watched the documentary as you did as well and it really made me. Actually, the minimalists have a podcast I’ve listened to some of their podcasts episodes as well. And I appreciate some of their values that they repeat a lot to like using things, not people, the memories are not in the stuff like they talk about, not having to hold on to every family heirloom that you have because of your memory with your relative.

So even though I don’t think that they say anything specifically about their faith, I do believe that some of those values can be translated over and aligned, with Christian values. And I imagine that you, you found that same thing and, and that was how you started, like writing on your blog.

Becca: Yeah at the time. So when I discovered minimalism, it was the end of 2017. So there, there really wasn’t like. I researched it afterward because I was like, oh, they talk the minimums, talk a lot about meaning and so the implication being, you’ll be able to find more meaning in your life when you’re living more simply and focusing on what’s most.

Which makes sense and I was like, oh, that’s really interesting because usually meaning is something that you find through religious tradition. And for me as a Christian, I found that a lot of what they were talking about aligns very well with Jesus’s teachings and what’s in scripture. And so I was like, I want to read more in-depth about this and at the time there really wasn’t anything out there. There were a couple of articles or blog posts or maybe a YouTube video here and there, but there was nothing in Greece and that’s so that’s why I ended up writing about it. Because I was like, okay, well, I can’t be the only one that’s interested in this intersection between the Christian faith and minimalism and I wasn’t, which is great, but it’s really interesting because like when you write, you really discover things about yourself while you’re writing, it’s like, that’s why people journal and things like that.

So the blog has really helped me discover things about why I accumulated stuff in the first place and why I say yes to things when I really shouldn’t and really helped me get at the core reasons why I do things that are not serving me well And that’s helped me live more minimally.

Carrie: Talk with us a little bit about that putting the pause button on getting new things, because everyone can go through their stuff or their closet and be like, yeah, I don’t need this. I’m getting rid of it, going to give it away, whatnot put it in the garage sale. But then next thing you know, six months later, they’re back in the same place with too much stuff.

So I’m curious, like what that process was like for you, like in terms of your evaluation of buying things or having to approach things differently.

Becca: Yeah, one of the big things for me, and this is what I always tell people is that you have to find your why, your reason for, to live more simply because if you don’t do that and it’s just so like the decluttering movement. For example, it’s super trendy right now, basically, it’s just about getting rid of stuff which in itself is not bad. But like as you said, it’s not going to last, if you don’t get at the core reason why you want to simplify in the first place, because you’re just going to accumulate back the things that you got rid of eventually. So finding your personal why.

Like, for me, it was spending more time with friends and family. It could be other things for other people. Maybe you want to go back to school or whatever. There’s a wide range of wise. You want to do this but find your why, and that will also help keep you motivated because it’s not super glamorous to minimize. It sounds cool and you get halfway through and you’re like, oh my gosh, I’m going to die.

Carrie: A lot of work and I appreciate the transparency there. That’s good.

Becca: Yeah. Like everybody gets a wall at some point because it just works and it’s going a lot of times, it’s going counter-culturally and it’s going against what, how you lived previously. So it’s not only physical work, but it’s also mental, emotional, spiritual work because you’re literally shifting your worldview and your lifestyle.

So knowing why you’re doing it in the first place is going to help you get motivated to continue that process and then live it out, continue living it out. Because that’s the thing like decluttering is a one and done process. Like you get rid of stuff and you’re like, you’re done, but like you’re not done right.

It’s a constant journey that’s why I always call it the Christian minimalism journey because you’re constantly figuring out what adds value to your life and what matters most and how you can focus on that. Because a bachelor bachelorette is going to live out the minimalist lifestyle differently than someone who’s married and has three kids like that and that’s normal. So you have to kind of shift depending on your context.

Carrie: I think that’s great. Hard for people with children who may receive a lot of gifts from grandparents. He has an uncle and next thing, birthday parties, Christmas, next thing they know, there’s just piles of stuff everywhere and kids typically do not want to get on the minimalism board.

So it’s like, if you can ward some of that off ahead of time, it’s probably helpful in encouraging relatives to buy experiences instead of things. Different opportunities for that time to spend time together.

Becca: Definitely and the earlier you can start the better, but it’s never too late with kids. Joshua Becker actually has a great book called clutter-free with kids kind of outlines a lot of this or younger to older kids, which I think is great. So I think there are ways that younger children and teenagers do actually want a more simple lifestyle. But you just are so used to the consumer culture around them, that it may be a little bit of a shift for them, just like it is for us. Right but I think it’s definitely something that can be incorporated with kids.

Carrie: For you, what does being a minimalist look like on a practical day-to-day level?

Becca: Yeah, an intentional living which sounds kind of cliche, but I’m literally aware of how I’m making decisions around consumption and spending and money habits and ways. I use my time and energy and resources. Like I’m just very much aware of how I do that and how I make decisions around that. How I make those decisions has completely shifted since becoming a minimalist. It’s not that I don’t spend money and I don’t own things. I think some people hear you’re minimalist and it’s like, they picture this like room with one chair and that’s it, you know?

Carrie: Right. No pictures on the wall.

Becca: Right? Like obviously I own stuff. I have pictures on the wall. I’m currently packing to move. So I own things, but I own less things because I’m much more intentional with what I bring into my life and that includes all things. That includes things that include people that include time commitments. Media usage, I’m just very intentional with how I use all of that. And so for me, it’s a good productive day if I’ve been intentional and I made some time for rest and renewal as well.

Carrie: That’s good. Did you use to have a lot busier schedule and just kind of say yes to all the opportunities and pile them on?

Becca: Yeah, 100%. Like I was like, I was one of those I’ll rest when I’m dead type people and it was not good for me. I mean, I felt awful all the time. I was exhausted. I felt burnt out. I just wanted to disappear on a desert island and that’s not normal. We shouldn’t feel like that.

Carrie: Right, so much goodness there in terms of rest and Jesus getting away to reflect, spend time with God and really, if you look at the life of Jesus, He was very intentional about how He spent His time, who He spent His time with. I always find it interesting that in one of the early chapters of Mark, where people were coming to be healed and they were trying to get to Jesus and Jesus, looked up and left and we look at that and we’re like, that doesn’t seem right.

But it was just, He couldn’t do everything in his humanity. Like He couldn’t meet with every single person, he would have been there for years and years just doing that. He could have set up a little, but, and just had people come to Him. But that wasn’t the mission. So you had to get out and be on the move and I look at that and I think, a lot of times we try to help everybody with everything and we think that that’s like a Christian thing.

Oh, well, I’ve got to do all these good things for other people. But the reality is we need to be intentional to like our calling and what God has asked us to do globally as Christians, but also specifically. And if we miss that, because we’re looking at every single opportunity to help people, then we’re missing the boat there.

Becca: I think especially like churchgoing folks tend to be like over overextended. I don’t know why that’s a thing in Christian culture, but it totally is and that’s not even what Jesus said when God created the world. God gave us the Sabbath as a gift to re-ask and connect with God and our loved ones. And like, so we’re not even created to keep going 24/7 all the time. Like we’re not made to do that and so if we do that, we’re not, it’s not going to go well for us.

I learned that the hard way and especially with my chronic illness, that is not even doable for me. So making sure that there’s built-in time for rest and renewal, even when it’s a busy time, obviously we go through spurts where it’s busier than others. And so making sure that you build in that time, so you’re not getting burnt out.

Carrie: Sure. So we talked a little bit about some small steps that people can take to get started and you talked about I think before getting rid of stuff, like finding your why, why do you want to live more simply or more minimalistic. Looking at that, maybe what domains need to change? Is it about the stuff? Is it about how I’m spending my time? Am I overextended financially? And then what are maybe some other small steps that you feel like people can take if they’re just really beginning this journey?

Becca: Yeah. I always encourage people to start small. I think it can be very overwhelming. Like if the problem is stuff and you’re looking at a whole house filled with stuff, obviously, you’re never going to get started if you’re like, oh my gosh, I have a whole house full of stuff. I can get this big paralysis by looking at all the things you need to do. So for us, it was stuff for us. We started literally 10 to 15 minutes a day and it was easy and it was quick and you could see results really quickly and it helped motivate us to continue more because you can see tangible results.

And then when we had more time on our hands, like a Saturday, we like tackled that storage unit. I talked about it before it took many Saturdays, but finding ways to set aside time to do it and even if it’s just 5, 10 minutes a day, just start. Like, if it’s your social media usage, for example, I’ve had some people start there and being like, okay, I’m going to let myself scroll through social media for a half-hour tonight, and then I’m done.

And just being more intentional with that, because we’ve all been there over scrolling through, and it’s been like an hour and you’re like, where did that hour ago? Then you’ve lost an hour. You’re never getting that hour back and it’s probably not the best use of time. It might be if you found some cool stuff, but it’s still an hour out of your life. Just find ways to be intentional and start small.

Carrie: Yes, that’s good. So we were talking about when I intro the episode that oftentimes having a lot of stuff can lead to anxiety. Have you seen in terms of other people that you’ve interacted with or yourself personally, like a reduction in anxiety from reducing the amount of stuff or living more intentionally?

Becca: Oh, definitely. Yeah. I have a lot of folks who either have anxiety disorders that are diagnosed or feel anxious regularly. And once they cleared their space, whether that be physical, mental, emotional, social, they find that they have breathing space basically and the anxiety has lessened a little bit. Obviously, if you’re diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, it takes a lot more than that, but it can at least help the process of finding ways to handle that anxiety.

I know that for me, I feel a lot less anxious when I don’t have as much stuff or clutter in my brain or around me. They’ve done some studies around this to show that when there are less clutter people feel less anxious, less stressed. And so finding ways to make that space for yourself is really important.

Carrie: I find that true in my office, now I have a home office. And if it’s got a lot of paperwork stacked up or things that I’ve put to the side and haven’t dealt with, I just noticed that I feel more cramped in there, less free. I find myself trying to work in other areas of the house instead of being in the office, which is where I need to be in. So I can definitely attest to that. That’s true for me. And obviously, I think what we’re talking about here as well. We’re not necessarily diving into hoarding or anything of that nature, which is something that’s more extreme.

We’re just talking about the normal day-to-day American westernized way of living, unfortunately, that we often so easily, because it’s all around us in our culture. We just kind of fall into it and we don’t even realize how it’s affecting us until we get to a certain point

Becca: And actually the typical American house on average has 300,000 things.

Carrie: Wow. Isn’t that a lot of things?

Becca: It’s insane.

Carrie: Wow. I did not know that. I know for me, I’ve gone through different seasons and periods of my life where I had foster children and I had this kid stuff around. And then you wouldn’t know what ages of children you’re going to get. So I had these different toys and clothes in the attic. Then I went through a divorce and then I got remarried. My husband moved in. It’s interesting. Now we’re in kind of a similar season where we’re trying to decide what’s most important and I’m trying to be sensitive to his stuff and not just say like, ah, we don’t really need that.

So I’m curious for you, maybe you could talk a little bit about relationally in terms of working with this with your husband. Like how have you two been able to come together to achieve the common goal? Did you have certain criteria for things as you were looking through them?

Becca: Yeah, that’s a great question. And I always tell people, it’s funny, you bring that up because I always tell people do not minimize another person you’re living with stuff because it doesn’t end well, never ends well, let them deal with their own stuff.

So I always encourage people and this is something that we did is we dealt with our own stuff because obviously, we were dealing with stuff first and our own time commitments. Obviously, time commitments when we have them together. We have to have those conversations. If it’s stuff that we both use, obviously we talked through it and see if it adds value to our lives and if we want to keep it in our lives.

But keeping communication open is really key and that’s for anyone you’re living with. Right? So like it could be any family member. It could be a roommate, especially if I’ve had friends who started the minimalist lifestyle and live with. And their roommates are not minimalist, right. Finding ways like, okay, well, my own space is going to be my own space, but then also like trying to find ways to live in this way in communal spaces where other folks may not be living the same lifestyle. So just finding ways to do that and what we’ve actually seen is that a lot of times when people start living more minimally, other people see the benefits and then they start doing it after the fact.

So even if the folks you’re living with aren’t on board right away, they may be doing it later. So just do what you’re doing and they may see for themselves that it’s worth it.

Carrie: That’s good. We had a yard sale recently from just combining two households of two adults. And obviously, we couldn’t keep everything and we redecorated the house. I got let go of my office and just have my home office. So that was definitely a big downside and it was interesting to see my husband go through this process. Because I think he struggles a little bit more maybe than I do with getting rid of things. And he said, I really like such and such picture, but it just doesn’t fit with the decor of our house anymore.

Or I really enjoyed that and I think maybe somebody else will enjoy that as well. So there are, there’s something about being able to let things go and bless other people maybe that can use it more than you can.

Becca: Yeah, that was a big thing for us. So we have a son who died and we moved a couple of times with all the baby stuff because we knew we were planning on adopting at some point probably. But we didn’t know when and so we were just holding on to all this. And we realized after a few years of that when it was sitting in a storage unit that I talked about like there are families that could use this stuff right now, and we’re just collecting dust over here.

And so we don’t eat it at all and know full well that when we do adopt and we’ve started the adoption process now that we would most likely have to get it again. But we knew that was going to be a few years down the road and that we could save up to do that. So we made sure that helped us let go of it because we knew that there were families that would be using it right now and getting used out of it, as opposed to us holding onto it for years and years and years for when we’re going to use it again.

Carrie: Yes. That was something that I had to help evaluate for myself after, the foster kids left and everything. And I said, well, I have to have my space according to the life I’m living right now, not the future life I hope to have. And I don’t want my house to be full of stuff that’s just representative of the past life that I’ve lived. It has to have this balance of just being present and being in the moment. And what does this fit in with the life I’m living right now was a question that I asked myself a lot and it helped me determine which stuff needed to stay and which you could go.

Becca: That’s fantastic that you did that naturally because most of the time we hold on to it either because it made sense in the past or because we think it might make sense in the future. And like in reality, most of those in future things don’t actually happen in the past. It doesn’t, it’s not serving us now. So being like, okay, is this serving me now? Is this adding value to my life right now? And if it’s not, if it’s asked for the future, it’s okay to get rid of it.

Carrie: Right. I might need this one-day mindset.

Becca: Yeah. And like that just in case thing, like never ends up happening like 99% of the time. Right.

Carrie: Right. So as we’re getting towards the end of the podcast, I like to ask every guest to share a story of hope, which is a time in which you received hope from God or another person.

Becca: Yeah. So, I went on a three-week retreat to Costa Rica, which was not a Christian retreat. It was an alternative wellness retreat, which was a whole new experience for me. I had not really dealt with the grief around not really being able to have biological children. So my chronic illness, I have mast cell activation syndrome. It’s genetics. So it’s past, it’s 50 50 shot. that’ll get passed on if I were to have a biologic and try to have another biological child again, and it’s more severe every time it’s passed on.

So I could in all consciousness, like give birth to a child that would be disabled. So I don’t feel comfortable doing that personally. So we had felt called my husband and I to adopt at some point. Anyway, it’s just, we’re just adopting up. But I didn’t feel, I wasn’t ready to let go of the fact that I wasn’t going to have biological children, and in Christian circles, there’s a lot of weird baggage around, women and childbirth and weird stuff around that had to work through.

And I just kind of stuffed it down and not dealt with it. And so when this opportunity arose to go on this retreat, I said, okay and I did it. And I came out of it and I was ready to adopt, like I had worked through all that stuff, which was really cool.

You can actually watch this retreat and my experience, it was filmed. It’s called Last Resort. It was filmed. It was originally aired on PBS network, so you can watch it on demand there, but now it’s also streaming on HBO max. If anyone is interested in watching that, but that gave me so much more hope because I just wasn’t ready to take the next step to adopt.

And now, we already started the process. We’re really excited. We did all the educational classes and we just really excited to see what child God wants us to parent.

Carrie: That’s great. We have to be able to allow God to fully close one door so that we can be ready to receive and open that next door. I’m glad that you were able to just receive from God on that and be able to fully process through those emotions. I’m sure we’re pretty.

Becca: Yeah. And like it was interesting for me because I think there’s this mentality sometimes in Christian circles that like something needs to be Christian in order for God to work through it. And in reality, like God can work through, like God’s God. And so like, I, even though the retreat I went to wasn’t necessarily Christian and like it had indigenous cultural practices and it like, God worked through that so that I could then be ready to adopt. So I think finding ways to listen for God in places that you wouldn’t necessarily expect.

Carrie: Yeah. Yes. That’s a good point to bring up. I’m glad that you talked about that because God works in all kinds of different ways through different people and even people that don’t know him. Well, thank you for giving us the gift of your time today and I’ve really enjoyed having this conversation and I know it’s going to be a positive impact on so many of our listeners.

Becca: Great. Well, thanks so much for having me and I hope everyone is able to live a little bit more simply.

Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production By The Well Counseling in Tennessee and our original music is by Brandon. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

48. The Christian Meditative Practice of Centering Prayer with Rich Lewis

Written by Carrie Bock on September 29, 2021. Posted in Podcast Episode. No Comments on 48. The Christian Meditative Practice of Centering Prayer with Rich Lewis

Today on the show, I’m privileged to be interviewing Rich Lewis, a speaker, coach and author. Rich has been practicing centering prayer since 2013 as a way to relate and pray to God. He even wrote a book about it.

What is centering prayer and how do we do it?
What are the purposes and benefits of centering prayer?
What are the challenges in practicing centering prayer?
Basic steps of centering prayer
Rich Lewis’ Book: Sitting with God: A Journey to Your True Self Through Centering Prayer

Resources and Links:

Rich Lewis
Sitting with God: A Journey to Your True Self Through Centering Prayer

More Podcast Episodes

Is Mindfulness for Christians?

Transcript of Episode 48

Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD, Episode 48. This is your host, Carrie Bock. On our show, what we do is focus on reducing shame, increasing hope, and developing healthier connections with God and others. In one of our very early episodes, we talked about prayer. We’ve also talked on the show about mindfulness in the past. Both of those were great episodes. I encourage you to go back and listen if you haven’t heard those.

And today we’re talking with author and speaker Rich Lewis. A meditative practice called centering prayer. So I’m really interested in learning more about this and how it might be beneficial for people with anxiety.

Carrie: So thanks for coming in and talking with us Rich. I really appreciate it.

Rich: Sure. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

Carrie: So how did you get connected with and interested in centering prayer?

Rich: I stumbled into it in late 2013 in a book. So prior to late 2013, I’d had read books by Carl McColman and he talked a lot about silence and how powerful and transforming it was. But I don’t remember him talking about a practice to do in this silence. So at that point, I just sit in silence but do not really have a practice and this was probably in 2012 and 2013. Then I was simply browsing Amazon looking for a book to read and I came across Amos Smith’s book, Healing the Divide: Recovering Christianity’s mystic roots.

In his book, he talked about a practice called centering prayer that he had been doing, I think for about 15 years at that point. So that immediately intrigued me because I was looking for something to do in this silence, which may sound funny, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do in silence.

So I began investigating centering prayer and obviously, his book talked about it. Then I began reading other books on centering prayer. I started practicing centering kind of dabbling in it in late 2013 and then decided to, I’ll call it, jump into centering prayer, swimming, swimming pool on June 1st, 2014 and practice it more regularly on a daily basis.

So that’s how it happened. I’ve been attracted to silence and then I came across a practice that you can do in the silence in late 2013 and started exploring it. It resonated with me and I’ve been doing it since June of 2014.

Carrie: I know silence can be intimidating for some people is, especially in the beginning. Maybe they feel uncomfortable with it. I’m curious for you when you started out was surges, like this internal craving in your spirit for more silence. Just a sense of like, life is so busy, so noisy, so much going on, like you needed that space.

Rich: It just intrigued me. I guess I was looking for a new way to relate to God and a new way to pray to God. I guess I was all, I always considered myself an introvert, so I didn’t mind being alone at times. I go into crowds and have friends, but I don’t mind being alone or taking a walk alone or going in nature or going on a walker or a bike ride by myself. Since I had read silence was powerful. I thought it was the way to sit with myself and another neat way to just sit with God, rather than talk out loud to God. So it kind of intrigued me.

Carrie: Okay. What is centering prayer exactly? How do you describe it to other people?

Rich: Centering prayer has been around since what was created in the early 1970s by three Trappist monks. So, three Catholic priests saw a transcendental meditation going on and they wanted something for the Christian community. So they created centering prayer and the method itself actually was found by Fr. William Manager. One of the three Trappist monks kind of found the method of centering prayer in an old book called the Cloud of Unknowing.

And then the three of them, the two other priests, including himself sort of refined to practice and started teaching it to priests, clergy, and rolling it out to the public. So it’s been around, I guess, at this point for about 50 years. It’s considered meditation and a relationship with God and it’s silent wordless prayer.

I’ll describe how you do it. The guidelines are you sit comfortably with your eyes closed and then to begin your silent sit, you introduce what’s called a sacred word interiorly, and it really means you’re consenting to the presence and actions of God within. The word usually is anywhere from one to three syllables and it could be anything – love, ocean, God, Jesus, some type of short syllable word. Whenever you begin engaging your thoughts as you’re sitting there. What I mean by that is whenever you begin thinking about what you did before your sets or thinking about what you’re going to do when you get up from your sets, you realize that you’re beginning to engage your thoughts and plan and plot and that’s you’re supposed to let go of them.

So you’ve then re-introduced the sacred word. Let go of these engaged thoughts to bring you back to the present moment. Then you let go of the sacred word itself as well And you do that during the duration of the time that you’ve decided to sit, whether it’s five minutes or 10 minutes or 20 minutes, you kind of repeat that.

It’s not a mantra. So there are mantra-based practices. Centering in this with centering prayers just used when it is needed. The last thing I’ll say about the sacred word is that it doesn’t have to be a word. Like if you’re an auditory person, it may work well. I started with a word and then I discovered I’m really more of a visual person. So I used an image and I would kind of picture the image and I wouldn’t like to paint it out and draw it out. But I would just think of that picture and think of that image to bring myself back. So if you’re a visual person, If you’re more of a physical person, you can use your breath. And then lastly, some people want to keep their eyes open, or they’re just afraid they’ll fall asleep.

So they keep their eyes open and stare at a spot four or five feet in the distance somewhere and kind of focus on that during this sit. So that’s a little bit about what is centering prayer. It is meditation, then a relationship with God where you are consenting to the presence and actions of God within and how long it’s been around and how you do it.

Carrie: Okay. So when people are selecting a sacred word or picture of that nature that they can use and kind of go back to, to redirect themselves to the practice, do they usually use the same one each time, or does it depend on the day?

Rich: That’s a good point. So you should use the same word or visual image during the sit. Don’t change it because then you’ll spend more time in what’s my next sacred method instead of really sitting with God. So use the same method during these sets. Then if you discover, you want to switch a word, or I think I want to switch to an image, do that on your next sit. That is what we recommend and then kind of find the method that works best for you and then stick with it. So, as I said, I started with a word and then I switched to an image and I’ve been using the same image for years at this point.

Carrie: What are some challenges that people run into when they start this practice?

Rich: I guess the first thing they say is, they think maybe they’re failing at it because they have racing thoughts and they’re using their method numerous times. If you show up, you’re doing it right. So they may think that they’re failing because they’ve used their sacred method a hundred times or 500 times. If you show up, you’re doing it right. So that’s kind of one thing people say, and then another thing, some people will, they’ll say, I don’t have time for this.

I challenged them to do this sit anyhow. So for example, I would challenge people, make it. The first thing you do is you begin your day and then get up and, and start your day. Then I encourage people to add a second sit and I think that’s where some people will say, well, I don’t have time, I’m too busy and I’m not arguing. But I’ll say it has a way of giving you back time from my experience. Now I stop what I’m doing and do a second sit right before lunch, no matter how busy I am. Then when I look back at the day, I discovered that I was very productive and I got done what I needed to get done.

And in fact, I really needed this sit because the benefit of the sit is that you’re bringing this let-go posture that you do in centering prayer into your everyday life. You’re letting go of the tasks that you don’t need to do and focusing on the things that you need to do. So has a way of giving you back time, but you don’t know that until you actually try it. So that’s another thing that people will say, I don’t have time to do it. And I’ll say, I think actually it has a way of giving you back time if you trust the process and trust your sits.

Carrie: I imagine that if you feel calmer after this practice or more at peace, and maybe your mind is more clear to prioritize like you were saying of what’s the most important thing that I actually need to get done today and what is really inconsequential or it can wait till tomorrow.

Rich: Right. That’s exactly what happens in the gesture or the posture of letting go and opening to the moment, opening to God, opening to life comes with you outside of your sit. You take that same gesture or posture with you, as you get on with your day. I have found it calms me down, slows me down and helps me focus on what I need to do, and lets go of what doesn’t have to happen today.

Carrie: I imagine that you have different experiences on different days with this, but what are some of the experiences or the takeaways that you’ve received from these moments of centering prayer?

Rich: So well during them, it’s not your even special life go of whatever your experience is. So if you’re experiencing joy and peace, that’s wonderful. But you are really supposed to let go of that. Come back to your sacred method and just continuously open to the presence and actions of God within. Obviously, you may experience painful thoughts because a lot of times things can come up.

Our bodies and I guess our minds hold a lot of repressed thoughts. Some of them we don’t even know we have, and they start coming up. When we do sit, other times it forces us to come to terms with some of our things and they come up. So we are kind of let go of them and come back to the present moment with our sacred word. It’s more so outside of centering prayer is where you notice the benefits of your practice. During the practice, our job is just to show up and let go of us and all of our thoughts, all of our emotions, and be open to the presence and actions of God.

I think of it as reverse prayer. God is praying for me, what I need, and that can be many things. It could be inner peace, calm, confidence, wisdom for tasks, nudges to get out of my comfort zone and try and do new things. So all of this is happening during my sit, and I’m noticing it’s outside of my sit where I’m noticing I feel more confident or I feel more energized or I seem to have wisdom for a task that earlier I didn’t know how to do or I feel like I’m being nudged to try and do something new. That scares me a little bit, but I know it’s going to help me grow. So it’s outside of your practices where you notice kind of the fruits of the practice from God, quite frankly.

Carrie: So it’s an opportunity for the holy spirit to minister to your spirit.

Rich: Right. I mean, that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re sitting with God and letting God act in you and just resting in the rest of God and trusting that God knows exactly what you need for even when you get up from your set.

Carrie: I really like that because there are times where we may feel lost spiritually and we don’t even know what to pray or what to ask God for. But just like you’re saying, God knows exactly what we need, even before we ask that’s scriptural. So if we take that opportunity to commune with God and say, okay, I’m here and I know that God is here, then things can happen that are probably even outside of our awareness.

Rich: Right and that encourages people. By all means, don’t give up your other prayer forms and I pray other ways as well. Just add a silent meditation, prayer like this, and see how it can enrich and complement your other prayer forms and enrich your prayer life. If you think about it, often we might sit with a friend or someone special or spouse and you don’t always need to be talking. You’re just together taking a walk or together sitting and we’re together watching a movie. It’s kind of the same thing you’re sitting with God and you don’t always have to have words with God. You just sit with God and it’s like sitting with a friend, a special friend’s words aren’t always needed.

Carrie: I like that and there’s the truth to that. Tell us about when people are first getting started. Is there a length that you recommend that they start with?

Rich: Sure. The temple of outreach is the main center and prayer organization that was created in 1984. They suggest two sits or get yourself up to two sits of 20 minutes. But obviously, that could be rather difficult for people and so I suggest taking baby steps. The first thing you do is you get up in the morning before you do anything. And then two, make it five minutes and then begin your day, and then slowly work your way yourself up from 5 to 10 to 15 to 20 minutes.

I then encourage people to do the same thing with the second sit and take a look at your life. Where does the sit best belong? Is it before lunch? Is it before dinner? Is it after dinner? Is it later in the evening? Only you can know when it makes the most sense for you and then take the same approach with that sit if you have to start with five minutes and work your way up to 20 minutes.

The last thing I’ll say is they suggest 20 minutes because sometimes they can take you that long, just as still you’re in the inner voice is going on in your head. But in my opinion, any silence is better than nothing. So there are times where my first sit is 20 minutes and then my one before lunch is 7 minutes or 10 minutes. I think it’s more important to take the time for silence because any silence is better than no silence in my opinion.

Carrie: Okay. So what are some of the other benefits that you’ve seen in your life as you’ve been on this journey of centering prayer?

Rich: When I think about myself before centering prayer, then after centering prayer, even though, obviously right now into the present moment, it definitely has changed me. I enjoyed life then, but I think I’m more excited about life simply because I think I’m more present in the present moment and enjoying the present moment, whatever that is. So a practice such as centering prayer helps you kind of let go and be present, whether it’s for the task you’re doing or enjoying or listening to the person in front of you, who’s talking or taking a walk and enjoying the scenery.

It’s helped me have a bigger excitement for life and to be more present for life and more present for people. It definitely gives me wisdom for tasks. I’ll have things just pop into my head during the day that I couldn’t figure out earlier. Some of them are, as one example what my daughter works at Wawa and it was a Saturday and I’m driving home after picking her up and a solution popped into my head on SA I wasn’t even thinking about it. The solution to a problem at work popped into my head. So I tried it quickly when I get home. I didn’t plan on working on Saturday, but I quickly tried it and it worked. So I’ve seemed to notice sometimes solutions to things start popping into my head that I was struggling with. I attribute it to my centering prayer practice and kind of clearing the clutter.

So that kind of stuff. I think I’m a much more confident person and I’m definitely more willing to get out of my comfort zone and try and do new things, which is really what I’ve been doing since I’ve been practicing, centering prayer. I’ve created my website and I get out and teach people. I work with people one-on-one and I’ve written a book and I get out and talk to small groups or even one-on-one about the book. These are the things that I probably don’t think I would have done previously. I think they would’ve made me nervous just the idea of doing all those things would have made me very nervous. I never would even never have tried them, but centering prayer has given me a boost of confidence or God has given me a boost of confidence just to trust me and together we continue to move forward.

Carrie: That’s awesome. I think that’s great and that’s so much has changed for you. We willl certainly put the links into the show notes regarding this, but I know that you wrote a book on centering prayer. Tell us a little bit about that. If people are interested, in reading more and getting their practice.

Rich: The book’s called Sitting with God: A Journey To Your True Self Through Centering Prayer and it’s hard to believe that next month it’ll be out one year. What caused me to write the book was, I had mentioned earlier that Amos Smith, I discovered centering prayer in his book that I read in late 2013. Then I began kind of an email dialogue with Amos via his website and then we became friends along the way.

I began initially working with him off of his site. He’s the one that actually challenged me to write a book. He saw that I had a big interest in centering prayer and he thought his book was more academic and that I might be able to approach it a little bit more laid back than his book did. He actually challenged me to write a book. So at the time, I thought he was crazy because I had never really written anything long, longer than six, seven pages in college. He challenged me to think about what is centering prayer and what does it mean to you and just write single sentences.

So I did that and then I came back to him with about, I remember 15 or so sentences and then in his mind he said, there’s your chapters, go write your book. I didn’t think it was as simple as that. So I picked one of them and then I took a couple of weeks to write that chapter, sent it to him and I just wanted to get his reaction. To my surprise, he thought it was fresh, neat and had something interesting to say. So at that point, it dawned to me that, well, maybe I really can do this. So I kind of checked in with my wife and I said, how do you feel about me taking time to write a book? And she said, do it. So I decided to write the book.

I didn’t want to take time away from my family so this is pre-COVID-19. The book actually got written mostly on Saturdays. Believe it or not. Saturday mornings in Starbucks, I would get up at about 5:30 in the morning, put on a baseball cap, grab my laptop, go to the local Starbucks, get a cup of coffee, open the laptop and that’s really where the book got written over. Probably two and a half years or so, because then the next step after that was really kind of editing the book and then approaching publishers to see who would want to publish it.

So that’s really how the book happened. It happened because Amos challenged me to, and I’m really glad he did because those Saturday mornings were neat spiritual exercises for me. Other than the one chapter I did, which talks about Jesus and what did the scholars say we know what is true about Him, where I had to do some research, listen to some of the scholars, and read some of them taking notes down. I then decided from my notes and what am I going to put in that chapter. In the other chapters, I knew basically what I wanted to write about, and I just needed to let the words naturally flow from my heart, to my fingertips, and onto the laptop, so to speak. So it was a neat spiritual exercise and that’s how the book got done.

Carrie: Okay. So towards the end of every podcast, I like to ask our guests this question. What is a story of hope? Like a time where you received hope from God or another person?

Rich: So this is going back to about 1997. I’ve been married for five years at that point and my wife and I, joked around about this, that we’re on the five-year plan. We wanted to be married without kids for five years, but then after five years, we wanted to have a family and we weren’t able to, it wasn’t working the natural way. So we decided we needed to explore other ways to have children.

We did a lot of praying to God and the pastor of our church actually knew somebody within the church that was also adopting and they were adopting from Russia. So we were put in contact actually with that agency. Normally, it takes a lot longer, but in our case, it only took us about six months from contacting the agency, doing all the stuff you needed to do, and then flying over, to pick up your child.

It actually took six months and in six months of beginning contacting them, we adopted our first son, Benjamin Lewis. We actually saw him on his first birthday. So we adopted him the day after his birthday because I remember celebrating his first birthday in the adoption where he was living and then we actually legally adopted him. I believe it was the next day that was something where it was a lot of hope and praying about we wanted to have a family and God was telling us that I want you to adopt a child. Obviously, we adopted Ben, and then we went back to Russia in 2002 and adopted Gabriela.

So Ben is now going on 25 and Gabriela, we adopted her in 2002, she’s now 20. Then they say this happens, you’re just relaxed or whatever. We were able to have children and Joshua came along and that we have a natural Joshua or biological son, but all three of them are our children and they all love each other and we don’t consider them biological versus adopted. They’re just our three kids. Josh was 13. So we have a 13-year old, a 20-year-old, and a 24-year-old. That’s what God wanted us to do. God wanted the first two. He wanted us to help two children that needed a home and we did, and then he wanted us to obviously have Joshua. So we did.

Carrie: So you are triply blessed with children.

Rich: It was a neat experience. I think when all said done, I think I was in Russia five times, never expected that I would be visiting Russia five times for with this adoption process. But now, it was a wonderful experience and we’re blessed with three great, still call them kids, even though the two of them are not quite kids anymore. Three great kids.

Carrie: Awesome. Thank you for sharing that story. That’s a good one. Well, I appreciate you educating me and our listeners on centering prayer. This definitely sounds like something I want to add to my practice even if it’s just in a small way and maybe it’ll grow and build from there. I hope that some of our listeners try this out as well. So thanks for coming and sharing with us.

Rich: Thanks for having me, and hopefully this was helpful for your community. So thank you very much.

Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum. Until next time may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

47. Why Did God Allow Me to go Through That? with Jennifer Harshman

Written by Carrie Bock on September 22, 2021. Posted in Anxiety, Counseling, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 47. Why Did God Allow Me to go Through That? with Jennifer Harshman

Today, I am privileged to be interviewing Jennifer Harshman, an author and owner of a publishing agency. Jennifer shares with us her personal story of overcoming trauma, how she wrestled with God and how those awful experiences formed her character.

Jennifer’s childhood
Hating God for not putting a stop to it
Moving away and cutting ties with family members
Staying connected with God in the midst of trauma.
How Jennifer dealt with her traumatic experience.
How God used her story in a positive light.
Jennifer’s Book: Better Days Journal: For anxiety and depression, ADHD and autism

Related links and resources:

Harshman Services
Better Days Journal: For anxiety and depression, ADHD and autism

Keep an eye out for some exciting opportunities that I’ll be launching this month!

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More Podcast Episodes

Transcript of Episode 47

Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD Episode 47. So as many of you know, I often work with clients who have experienced a wide variety of traumatic experiences. Often, these traumatic experiences are the layers that are underneath their anxiety and OCD. I thought it would be great to do a show on why does God allow certain things to happen in our life.

And so today we have a personal story of overcoming trauma and working through those spiritual wrestlings of why God allowed her to go through certain things and how He allowed that and used it for good in her life. So today I’m speaking with Jennifer Harshman who owns a small writing and publishing service agency. She helps a wide variety of authors through the publishing process, which I’m sure is quite a process from what I’ve heard from authors.

Carrie: Jennifer, thank you so much for agreeing to be on the show and tell your story.

Jennifer: Thank you for having me, Carrie.

Carrie: So tell us a little bit about why you wanted to come on and share your story on the podcast.

Jennifer: I feel a lot of people who struggle and grapple with the question about how can a good and holy God allow such terrible things to happen in the world. I have been through what I would say is more than my fair share of that terrible stuff and so I think that I have a good handle on how to make some good use out of those things and how the whole experience can be transformative and how it can be a good thing, looking back.

Carrie: Okay. Tell us what was your childhood like.

Jennifer: They can’t put the content into movies because it’s that bad. I was severely abused in every way that you can imagine. From the time I was born to the time I escaped my home just after I had turned 18, if you can think of it, that happened and probably more. So I don’t know how much you want to get into that, because I know that hearing about some things can be very triggering to people.

Carrie: Right. Sure. So I imagine that it’s so double whammy when you’re in that type of environment, because not only are you having awful things happen to you. You’re also not having anyone provide any kind of emotional support or encouragement or needs being met, kind of those trauma wounds and also the attachment wounds.

Jennifer: Well, there was one place where I felt like I could be successful and that I had at least some measure of protection and safety. So that’s where I excelled.

Carrie: Did anyone suspect what was going on at home?

Jennifer: Everyone knew because I was one of those people who broke the rule of “don’t tell anyone”, and a lot of narcissistic family systems and in a lot of abuse cases, there’s this intense fear of calling people. Usually, the abuser is the one who instills that fear in us because they say, “if you tell this, bad things will happen”. I didn’t care. It was so bad. I wanted it to stop no matter what. So everyone knew, but my family members were well connected enough that every time it went to court, it was instantly thrown out.

Carrie: Wow. So major things were covered up and excused. Wow. Was that hard for you to get out of? How did you get out and just be on your own at 18?

Jennifer: I had some skills and I got a job and worked multiple jobs and I just scratched and clawed and finally found people that I could relate to and depend on and I started to build my own family.

Carrie: Yes. I’ve had many clients who have had to do that because unfortunately, the situations were so severe. They had to cut all ties with their family. That doesn’t happen in all cases, but in some of the more severe abuse cases where people aren’t willing to acknowledge their behavior, then sometimes that’s the only option that people have in order to stay safe.

And to heat all from everything that’s happened in that process, how did you learn about God or become a Christian?

Jennifer: Well, I hadn’t been raised in the church, but going through all of those things that I went through. I was praying and I was crying out to God constantly. Give me a way out of this, make these people stop, make the police actually do something and it seemed like He just didn’t and just didn’t. It got to the point where I attempted suicide multiple times because I just wanted it to stop and I wanted to hate God. I was so angry with Him for not putting a stop to it. When we’re young and even when we’re older, maybe we are one person with one perspective and we’re from a certain point of view. We can’t see everything that God can see.

And so here I was in my little bubble, seeing only the things that I could see, and I had no idea how any of that could be something good. It seemed awful. How could this possibly be for my good? And I saw scripture verse, “All things work together for good, for those who are, who love God and are called according to His purpose.” And I was like, well, I love God. I think I’m called according to His purpose. Why isn’t He doing something? How can this be good?

Well, now years and years later, that’s very different and I can see all of the good that can come from things like this, and all I can see is a lot of the good that has come from it. We can’t see everything. There are ripples that we will never know about. I’ve been on a lot of podcast interviews. I don’t know who all listens. I don’t know how it may affect them or help them and I may never know that and that’s okay.

Carrie: Sure. Absolutely. So there was this sense where you talked about, like, I wanted to hate God. What kept you from hating God? Obviously, you got to a very, very dark place, but there was a part of you that was so connected to Him.

Jennifer: Yes and I don’t know that it was necessarily something in me. I think that’s one of those instances where we say, but for the grace of God, like He kept that connection like I wanted to. I think it’s kind of like a kid, you get mad at mom. You might say, I hate you, but you still have that feeling of connection and that even under all of that mess, your mom still loved you. I think that’s what it was. It was just that constant and then my spiritual health gradually improved from that low point.

Carrie: What was that process like of getting help for dealing with these traumatic experiences? Like did you go to therapy? Did you read self-help books?

Jennifer: Yes, I did all of that and I also went to college to get a degree in psychology to help me figure out all the mess in my family system. And how can people do those kinds of things and figure out how to heal myself with the help of therapists with the help of books. It was a long road. I don’t want anyone to think that “Oh gosh, okay, you can go through all this horrible stuff, and in a month, snap your fingers and everything’s okay.” It tends to take a long time and I still have what I call baggage. I still have some issues that I’m working on with my current family, my husband and my kids, and people that I have chosen to be kind of like adopted sisters and adopted brothers to me.

Carrie: I think that’s a good point to make because sometimes people say, okay, well, I walked away from that experience. It’s not going on anymore. And so, therefore, it shouldn’t affect me, but those psychological scars most often impact relationships as where those things tend to show up. So it takes time to work through those things.

We all have some level of baggage that we’re working through in our relationship life. If we have people that are close to us, if we’ve walled people off, it’s probably not as affecting us as much, which can happen too. But I think that that’s huge to make that point that you do have to work through those residual effects of trauma.

What was the process like reconciling, okay? I know these horrible experiences happened to me and maybe even asking God, why did you allow such evil to pervade my life for a long time and not rescue me from it? Because you could have, you could have just jumped in or sent somebody that really believed and wanted to do something about it.

I could have been in a just court system, whatever the case was, God could have intervened and He chose not to, like it that’s a hard thing for us to sit with.

Jennifer: It is. I think for my case, anyway. The big thing was scripture kept coming to mind and other people would point out some things. Now, sometimes people try to be helpful and they give you these pat answers and it’s not helpful. But I had some people who were helpful in things that they said. That scripture that I mentioned kept coming back to mind and I kept saying, okay, I believe that scripture is true. I just have to figure out how it’s true. So I took it as my job to figure out how those things could be good for me or good for the kingdom as a whole. Once I had made that decision that I was going to look for ways that this could be a good thing.

I started to see those things. I was able to spot a family in a fast food restaurant and know that the father was sexually molesting the daughter. I was able to put a stop to it by calling the local police. I worked in a daycare where I was able to spot some abuse taking place and put a stop to that.

So instances like that, where when you have lived it. You know what when you see it. You know what to look for and being able to take action and help someone else. Now, if I had never lived through that, would I have been able to help any of those people? Probably not. So once I took on that attitude and said, it’s my job to find out how these things are good for me or could be good for the kingdom, then it just changed everything.

Carrie: Wow. Were you able to, as you process some of the trauma, go back and find some of the good pieces of your childhood, even if they were small? Like those positive interactions with teachers and things like that?

Jennifer: Yes. That was another thing too, at the time. I didn’t really notice because of all the big, bad. But looking back in hindsight in 2020, I was able to spot that there were even stranger who would say something in the grocery store or on the street while I was waiting for the bus, just little things that at the time I would kind of like raise an eyebrow, scratch my head, like what? But it was a seed planted or it was the encouragement that I needed to get through that day or that week and there were so many of them.

That’s what makes it obvious to me that God was there and He was intervening. But He chose not to stop what I wanted him to stop because it formed my character. It turned me into the kind of person who could make a big difference in this world and now I’m grateful for it.

Carrie: Wow. So you had told me when we talked earlier off the microphone, that you wouldn’t change anything that happened to you. I thought that was a huge statement for you to make.

Jennifer: Yes. If I had changed it, a lot of people will think those types of things like, oh gosh, if I could just go back and change time, like erase that part of my history, I would. I would not because of those reasons. Because I don’t even know what kind of person I would be. Maybe I would have been spoiled. Maybe I would’ve been entitled and selfish and oh goodness, I don’t want to be that kind of person. So I think everything that I went through shaped me into who I am into developing the skills that I’ve developed into serving the people that I serve.

If I were to go back and change any of it, then all of my current life and all of the people that I’ve been able to that might be changed and I would not want to do that.

Carrie: I think that’s a huge statement and definitely it takes a lot of recognition on your part to see, and to identify all the different things, ways that God has used your story in a positive light.

So you talked a little bit earlier about going to therapy, seeking help. What were some other things that you did that helped you along that journey?

Jennifer: One of the things that I did was I journaled quite a bit. I wrote things out, wrote out my thoughts, and I would be able to look back on that and process and try to put things into perspective. I also was very frank with God. So in my prayer life, I did not pull any punches. I was not afraid that He would be mad at me. I figured He is a big God, He can handle my anger. So I just let Him know how I was feeling and what I was processing through and I’m thankful that He still loves me in spite of my bad attitude, which I have had at times. Those types of things can be very helpful to people. Trying to put your thoughts into perspective.

Carrie: I know that we’ve all had bad attitudes towards God at one time or another. It can be very frustrating just being on the earth and having a limited viewpoint. God has that vast viewpoint like you’ve talked about earlier and trying to bridge that gap in a way where we can humanly understand things. Sometimes we just, aren’t going to get it. Tell us about this better days journal that you created with your daughter.

Jennifer: So my daughter just turned 18. She and I together, everyone in my family has had their issues. She has struggled with anxiety and depression. She’s autistic and she has ADHD. And so together, I had started creating some journals, planners, organizers, those types of things, where people can write and organize their day. I got the idea to have her help me pick some images to put into one because I knew that having something would help her. She had been struggling with her anxiety quite a bit.

I walk her through some exercises verbally, but I thought when she’s alone, if she had something where she could write her own things and just process through that on her own, without needing to come to mom, then that would be very helpful to her throughout her life. So I handed her a stack of images for the different sheets that could go into one of these.

And I said, why don’t you pick what you would want, in a journal or planner and she was so excited. She’s like me? Well, what would it be about? I said, well, what do you struggle with? So she listed off the things and I said, let’s do this and so it is now on Amazon. It’s Better Days Journal and the subtitle is for anxiety and depression, ADHD, and autism. So anyone who struggles with any of those types of things who might need to take a thought that’s negative and turn it into something positive. There’s a page that has little clouds where they can write the negative thought and then turn it into a positive thought. There are places where you can put down whatever it is you’re worried about, and then put it into perspective and ask yourself. Then when you get that perspective, it can help you to feel calmer and it can help you to feel like you have a step that you can take to move forward. And boy, that feels so empowering.

Carrie: It does. So it was a little bit of a therapy journal combined with a planner and organizer. That’s good. For the closing question, I used to do this question about, tell us the story of hope and then I started having people on to talk about personal stories. So it didn’t really make sense or have alignment because I thought, well, your whole story is hopeful. So I came up with a different question, which is still along with our hope theme. If you could go back in time, what encouragement or hope would you provide to your younger self?

Jennifer: That is a very powerful question. I would tell myself it’s going to be okay and you’re doing all the right things. Just keep that way. If I could just that one little snippet, that’s what I would say. I would and maybe even say, look for the help that is there. You’re not seeing it right now but look for it because it’s there.

Carrie: Sure. Somehow you got a glimpse that there could be a better life for you, and that seems to have propelled you forward. So that’s awesome. Well, Jennifer, thank you so much for being on our show. I know that people are gonna really be blessed by this episode and be able to resonate with some of the things that you’ve talked about.

People that have been through traumatic experiences. Sometimes it’s really hard to reconcile that with faith and, and why questions, but I think that you provided some guidance for people on how to look for how God’s using this for good. So thank you so much for doing that.

Jennifer: Thank you.

Carrie: I want to tell you all about an exciting opportunity and something that I’m launching this month that is that we now have a subscription service for the show. The subscription is available for people who may be listening to the show on a regular basis, really believe in this ministry, and want to support what we’re doing. It’s also for people who would like access to exclusive content related to the show. What I’m going to start doing is having a monthly live question and answer format for our subscribers that will be videotaped and put in the subscription service.

I am also including my thought hush program, which has mindfulness and meditative activities, a workbook that you can follow along with. This is all really just good self-help material to help you along your journey, whether you’re going to counseling or not going counseling. It’s something that will help your process as you’re working through your anxiety or OCD.

For more information, we will put this link in the show notes as well. You can go to, buymeacoffee.com/hopeforanxiety. Thank you so much for listening to the show today, and we will be talking to you next week.

Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum. Until next time may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

46. Combating Emotional Eating with Scripture with Cat Sharp

Written by Carrie Bock on September 15, 2021. Posted in Podcast Episode. No Comments on 46. Combating Emotional Eating with Scripture with Cat Sharp

After losing 100 pounds, Cat Sharp, a certified life coach has committed her life to helping more Christian women do the same.

Today on the show, Cat shares with us how she overcame emotional eating and found God’s peace.

Using food to cope with anxiety and depression
How God revealed to her that she had a sugar addiction.
Feeling convicted about her eating habit and making the decision to remove sugar from her household.
Meditating and using affirmations based on Scriptures
Learning new ways to manage emotions instead of turning to food.

Resources and Links:
Cat Sharp

Verses and Scriptures discussed: 1 Corinthians 10:13, Romans 6:16, The law of Moses in the Old Testament, 1 Samuel 30Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopeforanxietyandocdpodcast
and like our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/hopeforanxietyandocd for the latest updates and sneak peeks.

Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/hopeforanxiety)

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Transcript

Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD, Episode 46. I’m your host Carrie Bach. If you’re new to the show, we’re all about decreasing shame, increasing hope, and developing healthier connections with God.

And today on the show, I have Cat Sharp with me. She’s going to talk about her journey of overcoming emotional eating through using scripture and prayer support from others. Now she’s in a position where she’s helping other women who want to achieve the same goals. She’s a very powerful testimony, and I believe you’re really going to enjoy this episode.

Carrie: Cat, welcome to the show. I’m excited about our conversation today.

Cat: Well, thank you so much for having me. I’m excited too.

Carrie: So you had told me that prior to your weight loss journey, food had become an idol in your life. Tell us that story about God revealing that to you.

Cat: It was such an interesting experience. I had been part of an abusive relationship, had walked away from the Lord for years and was in a deep season of depression and anxiety. I had created a habit of binge eating when I was unhappy, which was a lot. I didn’t realize I had done that until after the divorce, after I had returned to church, after I was starting to seek the Lord as actually my father, instead of just the genie on the shelf that, put them in that role.

When we think that we want to do things our own way, I started to seek Him. I started to feel this conviction about my eating habits. Around this time, our church started a recovery ministry and I am a singer part of our praise team. I joined the ministry thinking I was supporting music, not realizing that the Lord was getting ready to flip my life upside down.

So as I was participating in this ministry, being the helper, I thought I was. I’m hearing stories from our participants about they were bargaining, that they would only use whatever their addiction was on the weekends or when they were with friends or when they would only use this much, but never any more than that, I started to hear myself in their stories and I was saying those same things about food.

I would hear them talk about how they would do really well until they had a bad day. And then they would seek the object of their addiction. I thought, that’s me, I do that. One particularly terrible day,I had started to feel convicted about seeking sugar often and my reliance on that. I had cleaned sugar out of my house completely.

There was no sugar in my house and I’d had a very bad day at work. I remember coming home and opening the cabinet doors and throwing things out of the cabinet. Imagine for a moment, the cartoon where somebody is cleaning out the closet and they’re just throwing things over their shoulder, behind them really quickly. That’s what I was doing and every cabinet in the house. I remember crawling on my stomach in the lower cabinet reaching in as far as I could to get there had to be something in here. I thought there’s gotta be something back here and I reached the very, very back of the cabinet where the corners meet and I pulled out a Ziploc bag with just a little bit of powdered sugar in it. I put it in a bowl. I added a little bit of milk. I started up and I ate it with the spoon and I sat on the floor and I cried. What have I become? How did I get here? And so that was that, “Come to Jesus Moment” that instead of seeking the Lord on this day, that was really, really bad. I had turned to sugar and didn’t even taste it.

Carrie: Wow. I’m sure that was a process that developed over time for you. I’m sure maybe even going back to childhood of relying on that for comfort.

Cat: Absolutely. My mother owned a bakery when I was very young and through my work, through this process over the last few years, I realized that subconsciously I had learned from the experiences in the bakery of my mother, delivering these amazing, beautiful cakes to people for their parties and weddings and celebrations. Food brought joy. I’m from the South and we love each other with food. If you want to show love to someone, you give them food. And so I had kind of trained myself that if I wanted to feel loved or share love with someone, food is how we do that. And then going through a time where I needed love so desperately. I just kept bingeing, trying to feel that satisfaction and never really felt it. Of course, nothing fills that hole when you need the Lord. But at the time I wasn’t in a place that could be that.

Carrie: Absolutely that makes so much sense and I’m in the south too. I would definitely resonate with that. We call it comfort food, or we’re talking about emotional eating and it’s just like, there are changes that happen in our brain too in terms of different receptors and things like that for sugar.

We do feel better temporarily in the moment and it makes sense that we can get in a way addicted to food. Not everybody necessarily looks at it like that, but I think when you’re talking about feeling that intense level of craving or need for something sugary, then that makes sense.

Sometimes getting started on making a major life change is the hardest part. I’m really curious about that decision that you made to get sugar out of your household and how that got started.

Cat: I started just like you do every other new habit, right? Made the plans and I did the things, but what I learned very quickly is that my human willpower is very, very limited. After a few days, I got to the point where I didn’t think I could handle the temptation anymore. I was cranky and hateful and short-tempered with my family. I had a headache, my body terrible because I was going through the physical effects of withdrawal. I remember standing at the kitchen table crying and apologizing to my family.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me because my habit was to go to sugar at this point and I was not. So I had to learn a new way of managing those emotions after a couple of weeks of really, really trying to hold on with my own willpower. I hit my knees and there were days so many tears and anger and lashing out at God.

Why do I have to give up sugar? My husband doesn’t have to, my kids aren’t having to, my best friend doesn’t have to. I was angry with him for asking me to give this up. I was that and lamenting that first Christmas was very difficult realizing how many traditions I had that were around candy and cookies and food. That was so difficult. But once I made the decision to give it to Him and I had never actually faxed it before, so I didn’t have that experience. And so I remember studying about fasting and treating this like a fast and whenever I wanted sugar, that was my signal that I needed Jesus and I would go to prayer. I would go to my Bible. I had several, I call them on my 911 note in my phone when I desperately needed some help that I was tempted to jump off the wagon face first into a pan of brownies. I had my 911 note that I would read aloud.

Oftentimes I had a friend that I could call just about any time. She was my accountability partner, interestingly enough, who hated sugar and was teeny tiny. It was almost like God was pulling judgment out of me to get skinny women. It was such an interesting experience and He put exactly who I needed in my life at that time.

Carrie: So tell us about this 911 note. Did that have scriptures on it or was it an affirmation about who you wanted to be on the other side of this journey? Was it like who you are in Christ? What kind of stuff was in there?

Cat: It had a little bit of all of that. I had song lyrics because as a singer, I love music. I had song lyrics in there. I had scriptures in there. I had statements that I had personalized from scripture in there. I plastered my house with truth and what I learned very quickly was affirmations unless they were based in scripture, that did not work for me because if I was trying to claim something that I could not say on the absolute worst day was true. I said my brain called BS and was trying to think the other way.

Carrie: And they would not receive that at all. It’s like, no.

Cat: Exactly. So I had what you could call affirmations based in scripture and I stated them in a way that was either personal towards me or personal towards the journey. I don’t believe that scripture is about me as a person at all. I believe scripture is about my Savior and my Heavenly Father. I don’t love the idea of personalizing scripture for all the time, but in those moments, that’s what I needed. And so like, some of my favorites were of course, 1 Corinthians 10:13, where this temptation I’m feeling is normal. It’s no more or no less than anybody else experiences.

And God’s already given me a way out. I just have to take the door and that was a very paraphrased version, but that was the truth that I needed to hear. This is not any worse than anybody else’s temptation. There are people who are tempted by illegal drugs. I’ve seen that experience and seeing it was almost like a mirror at one point. But seeing that personally and knowing as I read that scripture, this is no worse than anything anybody else is facing helped me not feel alone, helped me not feel helpless.

Another favorite was Romans 6:16. I think I wrote it down because I wanted to share it. Yes, it was stated this way. I am only a slave to that, which I present myself because the sugar had no hold on me. My old habits had no hold on me. I was not a slave. I had a choice and I needed to be reminded that I had a choice in that moment when I didn’t necessarily feel like I did. But because it was based in scripture, I knew it was true.

Carrie: That’s so good. Yeah. Like I don’t have to be a slave to sin or those former things like anymore. That’s a powerful promise. I think understanding our position in Christ as His child is so powerful. Like if we can wrap our minds around it. I think that’s huge and it changes a lot of personal decisions for us because hopefully like we’re following the Lord. We want to please Him and we want to honor Him, but also being in this state of I’m fully loved.

And I’m not always going to get it right. Like some days I’m going to mess up and I need the grace. It can make a lot of changes if you have. I think some of those go-to scriptures for whatever it is that you’re facing. I think we probably all need a 911 note in our phone for whatever issues are most pressing in your life right now. Like I’m meditating on a lot of scriptures about trust right now. Like where the Lord has me and I’m like, okay, like I trust you, I trust you. And here’s some things I can say to myself and when we repeat those truths to ourselves, sometimes it can help align our feelings. Would you agree with that? As we always feel like doing the right thing, pouring in of that truth can help motivate us.

Cat: Absolutely and this is something in the last six months or so that there are many times that as disciples of Jesus, we’re called to do things we don’t feel like doing and oftentimes we like to say things like I’m not motivated to XYZ. Jesus didn’t feel like going to the cross for me, but He did it. So whenever I start to feel like that, I don’t feel like it, that has been the truth that has popped up is that if I’m called to do a job, I’ll just tell you. I didn’t feel like getting on a podcast chat today. I’ve had a long week, but I have a message that I want people to hear that they’re not hopeless and I have a message that I want people to hear.

Jesus has done something that makes everything. He calls us to make everything possible and I felt so hopeless in that time of my life that I thought there was no way God could ever use me. There was a season in my life I truly thought that my job was to be miserable and I would have joy when I got to heaven. That was what I thought. There’s hope and I know there are women who feel that.

Carrie: Sure, you are utilizing prayer and scripture and did you find that group that you were going to and helping lead the praise like the recovery group? Did you find that helpful as part of your journey as well? Just like hearing other people’s stories and sharing a little share.

Cat: Absolutely. One of the things that we started doing was challenging each other to reframe our statements. We as humans, we like to claim things. I am, whatever. I am an emotional eater.

I am an addict. I am whatever. Like you said, our identity in Christ is such a powerful concept. And that group, we built enough trust with one another, that we started challenging each other to reframe the way we spoke, because what comes out of your mouth is an overflow of what’s in your heart. And as I continue to tell myself, I am an emotional eater or I am a couch potato, I am whatever I’m going to say that way. And so we were challenging each other to recognize what was coming out of our mouth and reframe it to match God’s word and that was the reframe. That was the phrase that we said a lot. It’s a very helpful group and a very helpful experience.

Carrie: Did you have an accountability partner along your journey? Did you have anybody that was helping you? Like in terms of what you do today is you are a coach for women. Did you have a life coach or a nutrition coach or anybody that was helping you along the eating journey?

Cat: Not a coach. I had my group with our recovery ministry. I had my accountability partner and I was a member of a group that was supportive as far as healthy choices on the daily and exercise and things like that. Nobody was necessarily prescribing what to eat, which I think was probably a good thing because I was moving towards not just freedom from sugar, but also freedom from the diet mentality, which had done a lot of damage. Food freedom is a concept that we don’t quite understand really because of the diet culture that we’re in.

Carrie: Yeah. I wanted to talk about that a little bit more because you had talked with me about how diets can be like the law of Moses in the Old Testament. And some diets are very restrictive and I see a lot of my clients, Jojo in terms of what they’re doing and they go from either restricting to completely bingeing and they never find that like a medium of healthy eating. So can you talk with us about that a little bit.

Cat: I’ve started and stopped a thousand diets in my lifetime. During each one, there would be that cycle of I’m doing great. Then there would be the feeling of deprivation and then the dip, whether it would be, I was angry that I couldn’t have what I wanted or sticking to plan, or I would just jump off plan and say, forget it. This is stupid. And what ended up happening was my worth. My value became tied up in whether or not I was following the rules. If following rules made me holy, I wouldn’t have needed Jesus. And so I have to remind myself that my value is not determined on whether or not I stayed under a calorie level, or if I hit a certain level of macros.

And I fully believe that there are times that we do need to follow particular types of plans. I don’t think plans are bad. I think it’s the heart that we have when we go to them. There was one plan for salvation and Jesus Christ. So I don’t think plans are a bad thing in God’s eyes, but we have to make sure that we’re watching our hearts about the plan because if my worth comes from whether or not I follow the diet, that is not what God had in mind for me. That’s me presenting myself as a slave to something and living by a law that I’ve imposed upon myself.

Carrie: And I think what you’re really showing is that any kind of life transformation, like this, has to come from the inside out because whenever we try to make those changes externally first, and it ends up being this white knuckle like type concept, and we can only hold it together and do it for so long.

But if you’re really like having to do the soul searching of why am I seeking out certain kinds of foods when I don’t feel well. Like when I have a really hard day at work, like what’s causing me to run into that direction instead of Jesus, then that’s going to make a much bigger difference.

This took you three and a half years to go through this journey and process, right?

Cat: Yes.

Carrie: How did you persevere on that journey? Were there times where you were like, “Nope, I’ve lost a plate. I’m okay. I’m good. This is good enough”. Like, “I don’t want to have to do this anymore”, or “I want to go back and have some sugar in my life”. Like, what was that like on those hard days?

Cat: It’s so interesting during these three and a half years. It started with the sugar, that conviction about the sugar and the way that I was turning towards it too. Whenever I was in an emotional state and what ended up happening was I was studying who I am in Christ because I thought that would be helpful, but I didn’t believe any of it.

So then I needed to dig deeper. I started praying to the Lord, I want to know You helped me know Your character and that led to believing. And that was months and months and months, and I would just seek the names of God in the Old Testament and how He revealed Himself to His people. Over time, as I got to know God in a more intimate way, I started believing the things he was saying about me and the things He was saying about what it meant to be a child of God and what it meant to be saved by the blood of Jesus Christ the holy spirit.

I started believing those things and one thing that hit me when I was studying in the Old Testament was the story in 1 Samuel, I believe it’s Chapter 30 where David and his men come back to their town. The town has been burned to the ground and all of their wives and children have been taken by another army. Everybody is distraught. They’re talking about killing David because it was his fault. They’re away from home and all this stuff. I don’t remember the verses five or six verses in it say, David encouraged himself in the Lord. I thought that’s a bad day. Like David’s whole family was gone, his house was burned to the ground and the whole town. Everything was gone and David encouraged himself in the Lord.

And I thought if David can turn to Jesus in that, I have no excuse to turn to brownies. I learned from the Old Testament stories and from the Psalms good examples of how we can react and respond when we have those bad days, because God knows that we have sad moments and we have painful moments. We have angry moments and the Psalms are full of experiences that you can read where David or the Psalmist were right. I’m upset. I’m sad. I’m scared. I’m lonely. I feel abandoned. I feel attacked, but You are good and I will praise You and it always turns back to praise. So that’s what I learned during that time, it’s okay to be sad, but I have to remember where to put my attention and that’s to the Lord.

Carrie: Did this process just transform your prayer life in terms of getting really down and really honest with Jesus in terms of what you were feeling and thinking and experiencing?

Cat: It did. I think the very first time I ever prayed was, “Lord, Your will be done” and I truly meant it during that season. I remember it very clearly. My niece was, I believe, eight years old and had gotten lost in the woods and it was cold. They live in Alaska actually and I got a call. She’s been missing about an hour now. We’ve got cops out, dogs out, we’re running to look for and it was going to get dark soon and I hit the concrete floor in our garage on my knees. I started praying for her to be found and at the time my sister was not following the board. We were raised in a good Christian home. She was living in a way that was very opposite of what we’d been raised in just like I had been during a season. And I remember feeling, what if this is what draws my sister back to God’s will, and I started crying and I said, Lord, Your will be done,

Your will be done, Your glory, be brought through this experience. That’s what I prayed and I remember feeling almost guilty for praying for 10 minutes. She was delivered to the house and a car. She had stumbled out of the woods on some street. Somewhere, a lady in a blue car stopped and said, honey, are you okay?

And she said, I live over there and she takes her home. They don’t know who the woman was. My sister is following the Lord right now and I’ll just never forget that experience of truly saying that whatever it is that needs to happen here, Lord, we want Your will to be done. And that was the scariest prayer, I think I’ve ever prayed, but yes, it did revolutionize my prayer life.

Carrie: Getting to that place of full surrender is so hard. Sometimes it’s so hard, whatever we’re facing, whether it’s emotional, eating, or anxiety or something. I think of even people that are struggling with anxiety coming to that, understanding that maybe this is what God is using in their life. Like Paul’s thorn in the flesh to minister to other people and maybe it’s what God’s using to transform their character.

So I like that your prayers weren’t just like, okay, take away this desire for sugar. I don’t want to have that anymore because I think that can be an easy place for us to fall into. Okay. Take this hardship out of my life, take this desire for sin out of my life, take this anxiety out of my life. Whatever it is that we’re like, just get rid of that God. Okay. Can we just eliminate that out? Like eliminate the hardship and instead, you really saw it. Okay. God teach me about Your character through this experience. Teach me when I understand Your character and who You are, then I can understand who I am in relationship as Your daughter and that guides your other processes.

I think in terms of life change.

Cat: It absolutely did. He used this experience to show me where I don’t like to use the term control freak, but I absolutely was. Everything had to go my way and it had to be organized and if things didn’t go according to plan, I lost my mind. So that came out during that time and I was convicted of that. My husband and I got married and I had been a single mom for a long time to a man who wasn’t very nice to me. The thought of letting him take control of our finances or be the head of our household, not gonna happen, I was the boss. Through this three and-a-half-year process, the Lord started to convict me of the way He had set up a Godly marriage and I was not allowing it to happen in my household. I remember crying to my husband and supposed to step back and let you be the leader of the household and whine and cry. But the Lord has completely flipped my life upside down, completely flipped my life upside because I committed this one thing to Him.

He used it to show me His character and His love for me and all the things that were possible here and the way that He can use even my broken parts to encourage other people. I don’t love telling the story of me climbing on the stomach in the cabinet. That’s kind of embarrassing. I don’t love telling it, but I do know that there’s somebody who’s going to be encouraged by that and know that I’ve had one of those kinds of days.

Carrie: Like someone’s will say, I’ve had one of those kinds of days. Like, I’ve been there. So tell us a little bit about your coaching practice and what you do there.

Cat: I love helping women like me. I love helping women who have dieted their whole lives and are still overweight. Women who may not yet be ready to admit that they might have a little bit of an issue with emotional eating. Women who want to honor the Lord, but don’t know how.

No, there’s something more than just the diet. I’m not a personal trainer. I am not a nutritionist. And so I don’t give advice on those specific things, but I do love my Bible. I just start asking questions and we get in prayer together and we get in the scriptures together. It’s a wonderful experience just to see peace and food freedom for women who have been slave to the diet mentality and their value in the number on the scale, because that’s so prevalent.

Carrie: Yeah, unfortunately. There’s so many people, even people who aren’t overweight and have put value in what the scale says or what their body looks like and so much embodied dissatisfaction out there. But that’s a whole, whole nother topic. If you could, as our time is winding down to a close, like if you could go back in time, what encouragement or hope would you provide to your younger self?

Cat: I think that I would take her by the hand and tell her that there is no need to be ashamed, that all of the things that she’s embarrassed about and ashamed of. Jesus knew all of that when He died for her and she doesn’t have to stay there.

Carrie: That’s so good. One of our purposes of the show is to reduce shame. So I think that falls right in line. With what we’re trying to do, to help people understand that when we have these stories and we’re able to speak about them out loud and address them and get help and find supportive communities within the church, that can be incredibly transformative as it was in your experience as well.

So thanks so much for sharing your story and your wisdom of how you got to where you are today. I really appreciate it.

Cat: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been an honor to share.

Carrie: This episode reminds me that we all have a powerful story inside of us. And sometimes we just need that courage to be able to step out and share it with others who need to hear it. So maybe that encourages you today to be a little bit more vulnerable at times, and encourages others who are in a place where maybe you’re a former self has been.

I wanted to let you all know that we’ve been getting inquiries through the Hope for Anxiety and OCD Podcast Website about seeing me for counseling, which is really nice of you guys to want to see me.

However, there’s two issues that we have to address. First is that due to licensing requirements, you really have to be in the state of Tennessee in order to see me. We did not have a national counselor licensure although we are still holding out hope and would like to have it one day. Hopefully with telehealth becoming more prevalent and popular that will expand.

However, that’s not where we’re at. The other issue that we’re having is that, that’s just not a good place for those inquiries to come. And so if you really are in Tennessee and you want to see me for counseling, please go to the By The Well Counseling website. There is a link there through our podcast website. Both websites will take you to each other. So just make sure that you are on the right one for the right thing. If you are looking to give us show suggestions, tell us what the show means to you. Tell us about potential guests. Then definitely contact us through the Hope for Anxiety and OCD website.

And if you’re looking for virtual telehealth counseling in Tennessee, you can contact me at the By The Well Counseling website. I hope that provides some clarity for everyone. If we don’t get back to you right away, it’s because unfortunately, sometimes you end up in a spam folder and we have to find you and rescue your message out of there.

But I know that between my assistant, Ella and I, we do seek to respond to all inquiries. So if you haven’t heard back from us, please send us another message. Thank you so much, everyone for taking the time to listen today.

Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum until next time may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

45. Improving Nutrition to Help Anxiety with Dr. Katie Thomson Aitken, ND

Written by Carrie Bock on September 8, 2021. Posted in Anxiety, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 45. Improving Nutrition to Help Anxiety with Dr. Katie Thomson Aitken, ND

We are privileged to have our first ever Canadian guest on the podcast, Dr. Katie Thomson Aitken. Dr. Katie is a licensed naturopathic doctor who enjoys helping people with all kinds of health goals achieve positive changes in their health and in their life. She also has a passion for mental health, the management of stress and anxiety, and helping individuals connect with their higher purpose.

What are the benefits of seeing a naturopathic doctor?
Is naturopathy an alternative medicine?
Can naturopathy be used alongside other medical and therapeutic techniques?
The 5 Pillars of Mental Wellness
The role of neurotransmitters in anxiety
Nutrition-related concerns of patients with anxiety and steps to take to help improve nutrition.
Dr. Katie’s book: Create Calm.

Resources and Links

Dr. Katie Thomson Aitken, ND
Book: Create Calm

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopeforanxietyandocdpodcast
and like our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/hopeforanxietyandocd for the latest updates and sneak peeks.

Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/hopeforanxiety)

More Podcast Episodes

Transcript of Episode 45

Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD Episode 45. If you’ve been following the show, we talk about all kinds of things related to not just the mental health aspects of anxiety but also our physical health. When our physical health is working good, it combines well and helps our mental health and both of those things need to be functioning properly in order for us to get to a better state of overall health.

Carrie: So today on the show we are talking with Dr. Katie Thompson Aiken, who is a naturopathic doctor. This is going to be an interesting episode for me as well since I don’t know that much about naturopathy and that pathway. I’m probably going to ask some questions that some of you might have as well, and we’ll both be learning along together. So thank you so much for being here.

Dr. Katie: Thank you so much for having me. It’s always a pleasure to talk about anxiety and the mind-body connection.

Carrie: And a random fact, I think you are the first Canadian that I’ve had on the podcast. And I know that we have listeners from all over the world, so it’s good to have people outside of America on every once in a while. I think this adds to our diversity.

Dr. Katie: That’s wonderful. It’s my absolute pleasure to be here.

Carrie: Let’s talk a little bit about how seeing a naturopathic doctor benefits people in a little bit different way than seeing a doctor that follows traditional Western medicine.

Dr. Katie: That’s a great question. I think we will start talking about naturopathic medicine. A lot of people think of it as an alternative medicine, but I like to use the word complimentary. So what I do works alongside some of the traditional care choices that someone might have when they’re looking for support with their health concerns, whether that’s anxiety or for something. In a traditional model.

If you’re experiencing anxiety, you might be offered medication. You might be offered therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, or group therapy and sometimes that’s it. But we know that there are a lot of things, lifestyle wise, that can be supportive of anxiety. There’s also a lot of conditions in the body: hormonal imbalances and nutritional deficiencies that can contribute to anxiety. When you see a naturopathic doctor, one of the big differences is that naturopathic medicine treats the whole person rather than looking at just one piece of someone’s health, say the anxiety.

When I see a patient and when my colleagues that are naturopathic doctors treat someone, we are asking questions about all systems of the body and what’s going on with your hormonal health. How is your digestion? Do you have cardiovascular risk factors like high blood pressure? And piecing those all together to come up with a comprehensive care plan. We’re also asking about lifestyle. How are you living? How are you eating and moving and sleeping? How is your connection with their friends and family? Because all of those pieces then support or can get in the way of optimal health and including optimal mental.

Carrie: Dr. Akin. I think that you make a great point there that anxiety is a complex issue. It’s not just a physical health issue. It’s not just a mental health issue. It’s not just a social or spiritual health issue. This is an issue that affects many different domains of our lives and so it’s important that we’re able to look at all of those different domains and evaluate them. So I like that, that’s something that you bring to the table for people that you work with.

Dr. Katie: Thank you. Yes. I think it’s very important that we acknowledge that no one we’re talking about any house condition. There are physical, mental, and spiritual causes and solutions for health concerns. And my approach is to look at each of those, look at the resources that people have available through that, and really work to find solutions that support people through their physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing. I know sometimes maybe a rut that certain doctors can fall into is having a one size fits all approach.

Carrie: And sometimes the one size fits you and sometimes it just doesn’t seem to fit. And so I imagine you probably have patients come to you who have been to other doctors before, or have tried other courses of medication maybe, and haven’t achieved the results that they were hoping for.

Dr. Katie: Absolutely. I see a lot of patients that have resistance or like what’s considered treatment resistant depression or treatment resistant anxiety. We know that the standard medications for anxiety work for about 80% of people, which is great, but that leaves a whole 20% of people who do not respond to first-line medication. Some folks go through a lot of trial and error and they don’t find something that works for them and it’s the same with natural therapies. Right?

We have things that work very well for a lot of people, but not everything works for everyone. I have patients that certainly have tried many things before coming to see me are quite frustrated and it’s always very rewarding. We can try new tools like lifestyle supplements, acupuncture, and be able to get a different result for those patients, as well as patients who are, for whatever reason, just not interested in pursuing other avenues of care.

Perhaps they had a family member that had a bad experience with medication and they’re a little more hesitant to try it. So being able to open up more options for whatever someone’s reason is for choosing naturopathic care. I will say I also have patients that do naturopathic care alongside conventional medicine. I have a lot of patients that take medications and we work on supporting their lifestyle so that their medication doses are effective so that they can stay at the lowest effective dose that they’re reclaiming their health and their life in terms of how they want to be living and their choices.

Carrie: That’s an awesome option to like, so it doesn’t have to be completely one or the other. You can really combine both together. I like that.

Dr. Katie: I think it’s really important to know that you have lots of choices and it doesn’t have to be one or the other, we can work together so that you feel supported in your mental wellness.

Carrie: Talk with us about what you consider to be the pillars of mental wellness.

Dr. Katie: In my practice, I mentioned that we’re talking about how things come up looking for other screens, then also assessing lifestyle factors. I call those the pillars of performance. We go through five of those: nutrition, exercise, sleep, prayer or mindfulness and connection. Those are the pieces that we talk about in terms of what are your current habits right now. Then they’re also the pillars moving through my tranquil minds program, where we really work on building up healthy habits in each of those categories.

Carrie: Okay. So we want to dive in and talk a little bit more about nutrition today. We do have some other guests that are going to be talking about sleep. We have had an episode on mindfulness, which was really great. I encourage people to go back and listen to that. We’ve had an early episode of prayer. Tell me about some nutrition concerns that you’ve seen in your patients with anxiety.

Dr. Katie: Often when I start working with patients who have anxiety, we end up in one of two situations, nutritionally. One is people who are eating very, what they would call clean. They’re very concerned about what they’re eating. They want to eat in a way that’s going to optimize their mental wellness and they actually are often overthinking.

Then on the other side, we have people who are overwhelmed in general, or maybe not educated around nutrition. People who have symptoms of anxiety that manifest through the digestive system. Maybe they have IBS nausea, low appetite associated with their anxiety. Often these folks are not eating regularly and don’t really know even where to start.

When it comes to managing their nutrition. We always start with understanding. Where someone’s starting from. If it’s safe for them to record their food for a week, we often will do that. We’ll do a diet recording. That’s not the right first step for everyone. Some people find that upsetting and we don’t want to trigger any disordered eating habits. So always be cautious around starting recording, but once we know what someone’s feeding, then I like to look at first of all, for regular. Is someone eating often enough and I think this gets overlooked a lot when it comes to mental wellness, we think of, are you eating the right things? Are you eating quote-unquote healthy foods? We miss the main piece, which is that if you’re not nourishing yourself, then your brain isn’t getting everything that it needs in order to feel well. So people that are on a weight loss protocol or a restricted diet, they may be experiencing anxiety simply because they’re under fueled, like their body doesn’t have what it needs to feel well, and I see that more often than I do.

Carrie: I think that that’s huge and I want to circle back around to a couple of things that you said. One was, the people that are very focused on eating clean or eating a certain way, but it’s to an extreme level. There is actually something called orthorexia where it’s kind of a subset of anorexia where people will only eat very specific, limited foods that they believe to be clean or healthy for them.

Sometimes those people can actually be nutritionally deficient because they’re not getting enough, maybe fat, for example, or enough protein in their diet. I’m sure that that’s something that you’ve probably encountered at some point or another.

Dr. Katie: Certainly yes. I think that’s something we have to be very careful of orthorexia . Definitely in the field of naturopathic medicine there is a lot of nutritional advice that gets presented through natural healthcare and nutritionists. I think it’s something to be mindful of that each person is different and the most important thing is being fueled first. So sometimes the work is actually including more food in the diet. In fact, that’s always where I start, regardless of someone’s level of nutrition, we always start with, what can we add before we ever look at what could we maybe reduce.

Carrie: That’s a good point. So like, if people are saying, well, I don’t really eat enough vegetables instead of focusing on cutting something out first saying, okay, well, can you add one more vegetable maybe per day, then you’re already eating. That sounds better than, oh gosh, I’ve got to stop eating junk food. Right.

Dr. Katie: A hundred percent and that’s actually stage two of my nutritional approach, which is adding in produce and protein when it comes to managing blood sugar and helping with anxiety. It’s making sure that you have all the pieces that your brain needs to make all the neurotransmitters that can encourage people to look at what they’re eating and say, do I have a piece of fruit or vegetable in this new snack? Does this meal or snack have any sources of protein in it? For a lot of my patients, that’s a good starting point of starting to add it in by saying, oh, typically my breakfast is a piece of toast. Okay, well maybe we can add a piece of fruit to that. Or maybe you can have a toast and a fruit smoothie. That’s got some protein powder in it. Maybe you want to start with adding a piece of bacon to that toast and getting some meat in the morning. We’re not demonizing food. We’re just looking for options to increase both the protein and the produce pieces in the nutrition.

Carrie: I liked that a lot. I think that that’s a great starting point for people to help improve their nutritional intake. One of the things that you talked about was people not eating enough or not eating on a regular basis, which can also happen with anxiety. And one thing I’ve found or noticed with some of my clients is they’re not tuned in really to their body because tuning into their body means I’m noticing the anxiety symptoms. Sometimes that means that they’re tuning out the hunger signals as well. Like I’m not really paying attention to that. I’ve got to work or I’ve got to stay focused on something else and just plow forward. And next thing you know, it’s two o’clock and they haven’t eaten all day. That means they haven’t had any fuel for that day.

Dr. Katie: Absolutely. I see that as well. I also sometimes see a confusion of hunger cues and anxiety cues. Not feeling well in the stomach, having some nausea and going I must be anxious rather than reflecting and saying, well, when was the last time I ate?

I’ve worked with many people where we’ve been able to separate those cues out and try eating. I give my patients a guideline of four to six hours. So when you’re looking at your day, especially if you’re not used to eating regularly and say, are there times where I’m going more than six hours without eating and then, or more than four hours.

And when you have anxiety, feelings of anxiety, thoughts come up and it’s been that long since you ate, just questioning, am I really worried about this, or should I have a snack? And sometimes having something to eat really alleviates some of that anxiety feeling because your brain is more fueled, you’re in a calmer place. It also takes away some of those physical symptoms that are actually hunger.

Carrie: I think that there have been times where I’ve felt nauseous or light-headed, and I knew I needed to eat something right now. Like it’s been a while or I’ve been busy or I’ve been out doing things and you can definitely have some symptoms from that. That totally makes complete sense to me. Sometimes you just need a snack.

Dr. Katie: Sometimes you just need a snack. I know for myself. I had an experience like this. I was picking up my daughter from daycare and had a busy day. We were walking home. So I was getting lots of exercise that day and as I was approaching home, I just noticed all of these worried thoughts were coming up for me. I was like, oh, I think my husband was traveling that day. I started wondering, is he going to get home safe? How’s this going to go? And I just was like, When was the last time you ate? Why are you worrying about this? Like there’s no reason for me to think that my husband wouldn’t come home safely that night and sure enough, it had been about six hours, so I got an after-school snack. And with my daughter, I didn’t have an anxious evening. I just had an anxious thought. So from my personal experience and from working with my patients, it’s definitely something that can be helpful for a lot of people.

Carrie: Yeah. Can you elaborate on that point that you made about neurotransmitters and protein because neuro-transmitters are like the things that are targeted essentially in medications for anxiety, like, SSRI, those types of things are affecting serotonin. So talk with us a little bit about that protein connection.

Dr. Katie: Protein is the building blocks of your neuro-transmitters without getting overly technical about amino acid breakdowns, and which ones become, which neuro-transmitters I always invite my patients to just consider. Do you want your body to have just enough protein to make it your neuro-transmitters or do you want to have abundant protein so that it’s easy for your body to find the building blocks? It needs to make these neurotransmitters.

I don’t do a lot of precision medicine or genetic testing in my practice. That’s just not how I focus. I focus more on basic principles, like eating protein because I find that’s more accessible for most people who are really struggling, but we’re looking at some of those more precision pieces we get into this idea that, what if you have a genetic polymorphism or a change in your own genome that makes it harder for you to make a certain neurotransmitter or piece of mechanics in your body.

That’s important for your nervous system. One of the ways nutritionally that we look to support that is just making sure that there’s an abundance of everything that you need in order to make those systems run. But really there is no need in most people, I would say to do that precision piece as a starting point, most people are not having tons of protein throughout their day.

And so just looking at that, especially if you’re feeling anxious and your stomach’s upset, it doesn’t feel good when you eat certain foods, looking at how to get in just regular sources of protein, eggs, chicken, fish, like just food can really make a difference in making sure that you have the pieces that you need.

The other reason that I really love focusing on protein for my patients with anxiety is it’s very stabilizing to blood sugar. One of the things we’re learning about anxiety and blood sugar is that folks who have anxiety seem to be sensitive to hypoglycemia. So when they eat something that’s high in sugar, their body is very good at removing it from the bloodstream. And actually their blood sugar can go too low and cause that like, shakiness and nausea.

You were describing earlier as like, oh, I’m hungry and I need to eat. Including protein when you eat for a lot of people with anxiety causes that to be more modulated. So less of those crashes and spikes and more of that, even blood sugar, which facilitates an even mood sugar is the fuel that our brain is using to make decisions and feed our nervous system throughout the day. So when we can eat in a way that keeps it stable, we can keep our thinking more stable.

Carrie: That’s good. I know that it’s very easy to eat a lot of carbs and sugar, especially in the American diet and the processed foods that we have in different things. And so focusing on those stabilizing factors of protein, that sounds really helpful, and I’ve never heard anyone break it down quite like that. So I appreciate that explanation with neuro-transmitters and anxiety. We talked a little bit about eating more protein, focusing on adding things that we need to add, like produce. Are there any other small steps that you encourage people to take to help improve their nutrition?

Dr. Katie: There’s two more steps that I look at the third and know we can refer back to your earlier episode on mindfulness, but is to eat mindfully. When we pay attention to what we’re eating, we’re more likely to get those hunger cues that we were talking about earlier. Understand our fullness. We’re less likely to have emotional eating when we’re paying attention to our food and we’re less distracted and it also involves our brains. And eating and really, that’s a great tool that a lot of us forget about when we’re paying attention to our food and we’re taking time to taste and savor it.

Our brain tells our digestive system, hey, food’s coming. And that creates an opportunity for our digestion to be optimal, which we want. So we can then absorb all of those wonderful nutrients that we’ve taken all the effort to include in our diet. If you’ve taken time to chop up a salad or open a bagged salad, instead of opening something that was a little bit easier grabbing some of those like chips or fries, or even doing both, including some salad and some French fries with your food rather than one or the other.

You want your body to be eating those and you want to enjoy them, especially when you are eating foods that you’re eating for pleasure, not just for nutritional value. You want to save for that. And those moments of joy beyond their helpfulness nutritionally, it’s soul food. It’s good for our spirits to say, this is delicious and I’m enjoying it with my friends and family. This tastes really good. Having those moments of pleasure when eating and paying attention, I think is really important. You feel like that helps our digestive system. A hundred percent when we’re tasting our food, the digestion, we always forget.

We think it starts like in our stomach, but the digestion starts in our mouth and it’s not just the chewing. We have this wonderful sensory organ of our tongue and our nose, and that’s sending information to our brain saying, hey, this is what’s coming. When we taste foods like vegetables that have bitter notes that cause our digestive system to increase its gastric juices, to say, here’s some stomach acid, here’s some enzymes. You’re going to need this to absorb this food properly in order to break it down.

When we really pay attention to that sensory experience, we maximize digestion. I feel like you’ve just given us all permission to enjoy our food because so many times people feel like, well, if I’m going to eat healthy, it’s like, here I am with the bran flakes, like choking it down, like, I don’t even want to be eating this, but I think that you can find good foods and eat healthily and enjoy your food.

I hope so. I think that that is really where the joy comes in. When you look at how I can increase my vegetables, how can I enjoy things like that. It’s a lot easier to do when you actually enjoy eating the vegetables. I love to cook and I’ve been on this journey of discovering my favorite way to eat all of the different vegetables. So for example, my favorite way to eat cauliflower is roasted with Kumon and lots of olive oil and salt. Yes. It has salt and it has known fat on it, but that doesn’t make it a bad food. In fact, it makes it delicious and then I eat more of it.

Carrie: Yes. I like cauliflower roasted like that in the oven. I don’t usually eat it any other way, which is kind of interesting. I don’t necessarily like it raw and anyway, that’s a whole nother issue. But I think finding the ways that you enjoy the vegetables is important. If you’re going to be eating more of them, if you just think, oh, I’ve got to eat it this way and I can’t. I have to make myself enjoy it. That’s just going to be torture. Find some good recipes, experiment, enjoy the process and get more vegetables in your day. Tell us about your book. Create Calm.

Dr. Katie: My book Create Calm was really brought out of my wish to share the tranquil minds method that I work with my one-on-one patients on with more people. Like I said, I practice in Ontario, Canada. So I really can only help people who are in Ontario, Canada. I was feeling really limited by that. I took my clinical methodology where we go through the five pillars of performance that we talked about earlier and put them in this book in order to educate how to go about increasing the pillars.

There’s a whole section on nutrition, which goes into depth about how to do the things we talked about today. Like including protein and produce and focusing on eating regularly and mindful eating. But there’s also sections on the rest of the pillars that we didn’t get to today: how to maximize your sleep hormones, how melatonin comes in, how you can make your own melatonin, how to think about bringing in mindfulness and how to evaluate your exercise. So that again, like we talked about enjoying your vegetables, you’re actually finding joy in movement rather than that obligatory. Well, I better go for a run because otherwise I’ll have more anxiety.

Carrie: Good and the tranquil minds program, you actually have an online program as well.

Is that right?

Dr. Katie: I do. So the tranquil mind was born out of my clinical work and some folks learn better from a book, but some people learn better from an online course. The training program is available through online modules where you can listen to me talk and you get access to a workbook that walks you through over six weeks kind of like a bootcamp style of revamping these health habits, where each week we’re working on a different piece of each pillar.

So we start with eating regularly and looking at your boundaries. Then we move into protein and produce and exercise. Then we really grow from there till we reach the last week, which is our connections module. We talk about getting to know yourself, your relationship with yourself, looking at your community relationships and how to develop closer friendships. And then also your spiritual health, finding that connection to God or to however you connect with something bigger beyond our day-to-day self.

Carrie: Okay. Towards the end of every podcast, I like to ask our guests to share a story of hope, which is a time where you’ve received hope from God or another person.

Dr. Katie: I love this question. I love this segment on your other episodes, because I think it’s so important to just reflect back and be grateful for the times where you have experienced that. I know when I look back at my life, there were a few times that I was trying to pick from, but I wanted to talk about my clinical work and seeing my patients. Sometimes I meet people and I feel like I’m looking at them almost through a cloud. If you’re trying to see what’s really going on, I always experienced so much hope and gratitude. When I feel like I can see a peak behind who this person is behind their anxiety and when I get to hear things like I don’t have anxiety anymore, or I really love myself now, I feel like I finally understand self love, that gives me more hope than anything else in my life. I’m just so grateful for the opportunities to witness that.

Carrie: That’s awesome. That’s really beautiful. Seeing the true person that’s underneath those like layers of symptoms is great. So thank you so much for being on the show today. I think that this has been informative. I know that I’ve learned some things about nutrition and anxiety, and I hope that other people have as well.

Dr. Katie: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been my absolute pleasure.

If you love the show in general or found this episode particularly helpful, please share with a friend. Word of mouth is always the best advertising. Just a reminder that our webinar is coming up this Saturday and it is not too late to sign up.

So go on our website: hopeforanxietyandocd.com/webinar and hope to see you.

Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum. Until next time. May you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

44. How Can Improving Gut Health Help Your Mood? with Maggie Roney, MS, NCC, LPC

Written by Carrie Bock on September 1, 2021. Posted in Counseling, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 44. How Can Improving Gut Health Help Your Mood? with Maggie Roney, MS, NCC, LPC

Today, we are privileged to have Maggie Roney on the show. Maggie is a Licensed Counselor and Functional Medicine Practitioner. She helps those who wish to get to the true root cause of their illnesses

Maggie shares with us her knowledge on functional medicine and how we can improve our gut health.

How does functional medicine work? What are its benefits?
Is functional medicine better than conventional medicine?
Types of toxins we put in our body that we are not aware of.
The link between anxiety, stress and gut health
Small steps to take to achieve better gut health

Resources and Links

Maggie Roney, MS, NCC, LPC

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopeforanxietyandocdpodcast
and like our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/hopeforanxietyandocd for the latest updates and sneak peeks.

More Podcast Episodes

Transcript

Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD. One thing that we often see with anxiety is that individuals who struggle, who commonly have issues with their digestive system. They may have gone to doctor after doctor or gastroenterologist has tests run only to find out that they can’t necessarily find anything specific and it may be tied back to stress and anxiety.

Today on the show I have with me, Maggie Roney, who’s a licensed professional counselor and certified functional medicine provider. So we’re going to be talking about the connection between anxiety and gut health, too.

Carrie: Maggie, how did you become interested in additional training? So you started out as a licensed professional counselor and then chose to become certified in functional medicine. How did you get to that?

Maggie: I specialize also with trauma and EMDR consultants. I would see many clients that even as we, for the trauma, we worked on lifestyle choices and even lowering the stress they would still be on medications after medications. But the medications and our wants to make a, just a side thing hereof. I am not against medication. It has its place and it’s time to use it but I don’t have to go through so many and they’re not working. Then I thought there has to be a different way.

There has to be something that can be added or something that can be done. People would want to come off of their medications due to side effects that they did not particularly care for. It worked at first, but now it’s not working. So that was one reason. Another is my own health journey. I was 35 and they said, you’re completely healthy. But yet I’m on five medications that do not make any sense to me. None of them were things like pencil lines and as I learned more and I went on my own health journey, I thought I can really integrate these two and help someone out and that’s whenever I sought out and printed, the certification.

Carrie: Okay. I know a lot of people who have experienced trauma. We talked about how trauma is stored in the body. This is just one way it can manifest in terms of digestive issues, but it can also manifest in terms of muscle tension, sexual dysfunction issues and a whole host of other things. A lot of times people don’t necessarily connect that back to the traumatic experience.

You and I had talked off-air about auto-immune issues that people have. Oftentimes that’s very common with trauma, like fibromyalgia.

Maggie: Yes and it’s not even okay. It’s a traumatic event that caused that. Lifestyle choices and stressors that keep on working through and someone may get a virus and that’s what kicks the body into an auto-immune condition.

Carrie: Gotcha. It’s interesting to me how much overlap there is in our emotional health, mental health and our physical health. Unfortunately, a lot of times, those seeking help are very polarized. Perhaps the counselor may not be talking with the primary care physician and vice versa to really figure out and get to the bottom of what’s going on.

Have you seen that with your practice as well? That those areas tend to be silenced and people aren’t communicating as much.

Maggie: I have. I do believe that more often than not counselors do try to reach out. It’s kind of split under the rug — “Okay, good. You’re taking care of your mental health. That’s fine. But you leave everything to me.” Sometimes you have to find positions that are receptive to different ideas. Even as a therapist, you can say, “I have this insight, can you help me understand this part of it?” That can be difficult, but I do see where there is just not enough communication.

Carrie: I think it can be hard for clients too if they’re honest with their medical practitioner to say, “I have anxiety.” They’re afraid a lot of times that their symptoms will be dismissed. That’s automatically your anxiety versus fully looking into the different aspects of it. Right? How can functional medicine benefit people in a different way than traditional Western models of medicine?

Maggie: Unfortunately with Western medicine and many advancements that we have made, it is not a one size fits all. If you have anxiety, here’s your protocol. Here’s what you do. Here’s your perspective. We see you in a month to three months with functional medicine.

We look at you as an individual. What is it that you are needing or could be doing differently? You could have the most summary of chronic stress, the cause may not be considered something big like divorce or death or something of that nature. It could be a high stress job. It could be insomnia and then we look out for the underlying reasons. Do you have a mammal or a vitamin deficiency? Do you have a genetic capability or a genetic condition that causes it? Or you may need a little bit more supplementation in one area versus another. Is it that you have food sensitivities exacerbating symptoms that you are experiencing? It is really getting down to the root causes for that individual which unfortunately is a lot of just toxins practice.

Carrie: If you’re able to eliminate those things, then you’re able to feel a lot better physically is what you’re saying.

Maggie: Yes.

Carrie: Talk with us about toxins, like what kind of toxins do you see that the people are dealing with or consuming? Maybe it’s something that we aren’t fully aware of.

Maggie: No, of course the die die, obviously for ADHD, The anxiety process is a lot of this. We have things that we can’t even connect and those have difficulties with the body to break down and utilize some nutrients and it can create and test on permeability, which we can get into just a little bit. Other toxins can be our personal care products. For some reason here in the United States, they allow so many more ingredients that are banned in Europe and they have severe fines and can shut down your business. The Roundup weed killer, it is FDA approved, even though yet the FDA says, okay, it causes difficulties, but the FDA approves it to be utilized for weed killer. We then ingest that and that has a tremendous effect on our bodies.

Another thing as great as technology is, we all love it especially over this last year. It’s safe but all of the Bluetooth and the WIFI and all of that, has EMS electromagnetic fields that can be very damaging to our health. It causes ourselves to oxidize or cross the free radicals which are very damaging to us and our bodies can’t keep up and work on getting those out. It can be heavy metal toxicity. Not just lad, but mercury and that billings that you had 20 and 30 years ago that can still be in the body needing to detox. If our body doesn’t do a job detoxing, what it does is it stores it in the body but then that doesn’t function that makes us healthier.

Carrie: Why is gut health so important to our mental health?

Maggie: It used to be known that serotonin and dopamine are just made in the brain. However, scientists have discovered that in our gut, we actually have a third nervous system called the Enteric Nervous System. When we eat food, when the digestive process begins, and even whenever you smell the food, it releases enzymes to tell the stomach to get ready. It tells the stomach to make acid to break down the proteins that are coming and get everything that needs to go to the small intestine, the large intestine, and we will utilize what is needed in our gut.

We make 95% of our serotonin then it comes up with a nerve called the Vagus Nerve that goes from 60 to 70% of a person’s dopamine which is for motivation. If our gut is trashed, but if you are in your thirties to forties, we came from the age of using antibiotics for sore throat, stuffy nose, and headache.

Our guts are trashed because we have bacteria that live in our gut that help break down the food, help take the nutrients, utilize those nutrients and get them to where they need to go to be used. Those nutrients are needed to make the serotonin and to make the dopamine. That’s pretty much why the gut is so important.

Carrie: That’s so interesting to me because I don’t hear psychiatrists talking about this with their patients when they’re prescribing medication for SSRI or others for depression. They’re not saying, “Hey, what is it that you’re actually eating from a holistic view? Are you eating a lot of processed food? Or eating a lot of fast food?” And we get into this negative cycle where we don’t feel good. Then we don’t really feel like doing the good things for ourselves to take care of ourselves and then we’re putting that stuff in our body. And then we’re back to not feeling good again because of what we ate or how we treated ourselves.

It’s a hard cycle I think sometimes for people to get out of. I mean, would you agree with what you’ve seen?

Maggie: Absolutely. You talked about psychiatrists not talking with their patients and some of them just don’t know, and it’s not because they’re not good psychiatrists. But in medical schools, they take one semester on nutrition. They take two years on pharmacology and again, are highly respected, but unless they go out and they seek further education on that, then they won’t know and I’m sure they don’t have time, the way it is. But I wish that they would, and I wish that as needed as antidepressants are or anti-anxiety or anxiety medication, something that we certainly never learned in school or I did — the longer you take the SSRI, your body just stops making serotonin because it figures why we don’t need it.

It kind of stops and then, when people decide, “Hey, I’m going to get off my medication”, their body isn’t used to making serotonin and that takes a little while.

Carrie: Sure but they can. It can rejuvenate and relearn to do that.

Maggie: Yes.

Carrie: Okay. Good. That’s really interesting because those medications are often prescribed for OCD as well and in certain higher doses. I think that this topic is very important. What kind of toll does stress have? Cause you talked about stress a little bit earlier and anxiety takes on the body specifically related to gut health. How does that stress affect our gut?

Maggie: Whenever something major happens, your adrenal system goes into overdrive.

That’s when your sympathetic nervous system says, it’s fight or flight. We’ve got to go, go, go, go, go, go and do, do, do, do do. Unfortunately, the brain can’t tell us or it doesn’t decide. They’re just doing normal everyday life. They’re just really busy and they don’t sleep long. So no, it just goes simply off of the nerves that are kind of firing in the brain, we need to enact this.

So that can be one thing, just a very high-stress life and you ask people today, “Are you stressed?” No. “Okay. Well, how much do you work?” 70 hours a week. That’s anywhere from 50 to 70. I’m finding it to be a pretty normal number. Then I have kids’ activities and can’t sleep, and then I’m taking care of my mom.

So all of those are stressful factors. Even though for us, we have kind of gotten it ingrained in our brains. We go more, we do more, we get more done and we’re better. We’re more successful, although we’re feeling awful. So it can be something very simmering as a toxic situation at work, a very unhealthy marriage just kind of day in, day out and large event rate for death or trauma of abuse.

Carrie: We’re definitely living in a day and age where more and more people are experiencing chronic stress and I think you’re right. They’ve just kind of normalized it like, well, isn’t this what everybody does, you climb the corporate ladder and you have a family and you have a social life.

I mean, I don’t have time to exercise three times a week or prepare meals. And it’s in a lot of our priorities in what we’re choosing to spend our time on.

Maggie: Right.

Carrie: So is that something that you do as part of the functional medicine approach is help people figure out how to make the dietary changes and the lifestyle changes that they need in order to feel better and take better care of themselves.

Maggie: Yes and it’s not just, I see this on your paper so you need to do this, this and this. We talk about what is the motivating factor for them to keep this behavior in and then also explain down to the science of this is what it’s truly doing to your body and this is how it’s affecting your nervous system. If you are in constant sympathetic nervous system mode, you’re not digesting your food, you’re not replenishing, you’re not sleeping and truly sleeping to where your body restores itself. You’re not getting to the place where your body can utilize the food you even eat. It won’t even recognize it. Therefore, you’re not making serotonin, you’re not making Gabba. You’re not making dopamine.

Carrie: Being in that fight or flight state really arrests the digestive system because that has to come from the other part of our nervous system, kind of like being more relaxed.

Maggie: Yes.

Carrie: Yeah. I think so many people don’t know that or they don’t realize that what are some small steps you would say that people can take to achieve better gut health?

Maggie: I would think the first thing is to really look at your schedule and kind of prioritize what is important for you and what do you want to accomplish. Whether it’s in the day or the week and beginning to really have the activities that are self-care, whether it’s exercise, spending time with others and being social.

It is very important to have those deep relationships with others. Another thing would be to look at what you are eating. This doesn’t mean you have to eat salads all the time and never enjoy anything. Trust me. I love some pizza and if you put peanut M and M’s in front of me, it’s going to be really hard and starting to fail, even though I know I’m going to feel awful the next day.

And sorry that I love a good margarita at the same time. I may have to watch when I eat those things, but watch for the amount of sugar that you are eating. Sugar is terrible for our bodies. It causes such an inflammatory response, even though it may not when you are in your teens and twenties, but it will add up and kind of begin to look at different areas that you would like to detoxify.

Whether that’s in cleaning, there are chemicals in there that are neurotoxic. There are chemicals in there that affect our Endocrine System, which makes our hormones. There are things that affect our adrenals which then affect everything in our body. So really look at all of your products that you have.

Another thing would be, when your doctor says your laboratory work looks great and you are in good health. Actually ask some questions and look at it. Well, it’s within range, but is that the best range for me? Those are some basic areas.

Carrie: Do you have people that come to you that their labs look great? But they kind of don’t feel good or they don’t feel like themselves, or they feel like they could be at a better place of health.

Maggie: Yes, everything is completely within range. The standard range of here’s what the lowest person is normal. Here’s the highest person that is normal. They’re all within range, but it’s not at its optimal for that person. Looking at the relationships with these different results, we can tell that you have benefited from digestive enzymes for whenever the stomach breaks down proteins or it kind of indicates you’re low and the basics for being nine. Those types of things, which are B6 is probably one of the most prevalent BS that is needed to create neurotransmitters and to create energy in the cell site.

Carrie: Okay. Awesome. It sounds like there’s a lot of different options that people have, whether that’s diet changes, supplement reducing stress in order to get to a better place. And trusting that inner intuition of your own body when you feel most optimal. When you don’t start really paying attention to those cues like, when I eat these certain things, I notice I feel this way the next day. Or if I eat those things, I have more energy or I feel a little bit better. It can make a huge difference by making small changes, just in tune with where we’re at with our own bodies.

Maggie: Right and that is difficult because I think that we are taught or at least it seems that way to just ignore your own body and just keep going. Well, they said everything was normal, so I don’t know, maybe I’m making this stuff in my head. Then excuse that it is normal and don’t even pay attention to it until then we have other things. I’ve talked to several clients and they will say I was fine until this year and then all of a sudden I have type two diabetes and hyperthyroid and it didn’t happen all of a sudden. We kind of delve into what happened, the root cause and work on reversing those issues.

Carrie: This has been, I think, very informative. So towards the end of every podcast, I like to ask our guests to share a story of hope, which is a time in which you received hope from God or another person.

Maggie: The first thing that came to my mind would kind of in a way, be my testimony. I believed as a child and then through my twenties, just some things happened and I thought, nope, nope, no, God, no, God. Well with my son, when he was in the third grade, he became suicidal and he was just kind of out of nowhere and it didn’t seem right.

Something wasn’t adding up and I got him to a different place and different school. We ended up switching schools, he wasn’t bullied or anything. We couldn’t figure it out and then we decided on medication. Things got a little bit better, the following year he became suicidal again, and then a break in the next year, the third year, and then suicidal again.

Well, we eventually found out and I know this is extremely controversial, but this is my story and my experience. We found out it was a vaccine injury. Every time he received this vaccine, it was 11 to 13 days later, he would become suicidal. It didn’t click until that third time I thought something was different. He had been on medication for years and years.

Through that experience, whenever your child is suicidal, I just said, “Okay. I don’t know what is up there but just help.” I didn’t bargain or anything. When the first time I saw him happy and running into school and the sunlight was shining down on him, I took a picture of it and I sent it to his teacher and I said, “This is hope for me” and this secures my faith.

It was the most peaceful feeling I had knowing things were going to be okay now. Yes. We still had a rough few years and we had to detoxify him of the heavy metals. Now he is off all of his medications and doing great.

Carrie: Does he still struggle with anxiety? Certain things happen, changes and all of that?

Maggie: Yes, but that’s why he has tools that he’s learned from other counselors. But that honestly was the greatest moment of hope I’ve ever had in my life.

Carrie: That’s good. I think it was very perceptive for you to be able to put those things, those dots together, and be able to advocate for him to get what he needed at that time. Trying to look at it from a holistic point of view, I think that’s really important.

Well, thank you so much, Maggie for coming on and talking with us about functional medicine and gut health. I think it’s been very interesting and informative and hopefully it will help some people kind of think through their life and how they can make further positive lifestyle changes.

Maggie: Thank you so much for having me.

Carrie: Just a reminder that in two short weeks on Saturday, September 11th, we are going to have a webinar on dealing with difficult thought processes. This is a great opportunity for me to be able to connect with some of my listeners and I absolutely love that. So if you can join us, we would love to have you there.

You can find out more information and sign up by going to:

www.hopeforanxietyandocd.com/webinars. Thank you so much for listening. Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum. Until next time may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

43. Overcoming Anxiety about Career and Calling with Kelsey Kemp

Written by Carrie Bock on August 25, 2021. Posted in Anxiety, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 43. Overcoming Anxiety about Career and Calling with Kelsey Kemp

I had the privilege of interviewing Kelsey Kemp, a Christian career coach, speaker and podcaster. We had an interesting conversation about career and calling that will help you gain a new perspective on making career decisions that honor God.

What to do when you get anxious about making career decisions?
How to make a wise career decision?
How to know God’s will for your career?
Scripture verses about choosing a career and using your God-given talent.
Steps to take if your work isn’t aligned with your purpose and calling.
How to evaluate whether it’s time to stay or leave your job?

Links and Resources:

Verses and Scriptures discussed: Mark 12:30, Matthew 7:7, Proverbs 16:9,
Matthew 25:14–30, Romans 8:28, Matthew 6:33, Matthew 25
Kelsey Kemp
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and like our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/hopeforanxietyandocd for the latest updates and sneak peeks.

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Transcript

Carrie: Welcome to Hope For Anxiety and OCD, episode 43. If you’re new to the show, I am your host Carrie Bock. And on this podcast, we’re all about reducing shame, increasing hope, and developing healthy connections with God and others. Today, I’m gonna be talking with Kelsey Kemp, a certified career coach.

One of the reasons that I wanted to talk about overcoming anxiety, related to career and calling is because oftentimes this is an area as Christians where we can really get hung up on what we’re supposed to be doing with our lives occasionally. I know for myself, even though I’ve only had one career per say, I’ve got a master’s degree and became a therapist right away.

However, along that journey, I’ve had many different jobs. And I feel like I’ve learned different things from each of those jobs. And at some point before I got into my private practice and had my own business. Became self-employed. I came to this crossroads really of, I read this book called “The real adventures of working girl”. About a woman who had had a bunch of different jobs. And I sat down, had this prayer time with the Lord and was like, okay, what is the role for me? Where do I thrive? What do I do the best? And it allowed me to, instead of just going and looking for a job that was out there really mapping out what my ideal job, where my strengths really go and what fits with me.

And so, I’m so excited, Kelsey, to have you on the show to talk about some of these things, because I think it’s gonna be really valuable to people maybe who are anxious about, am I, am I in the right job or my in the right career? And you know, am I too old? Is it too late for me to change? There’s so many questions that, and anxiety can really keep people stuck in a place where they don’t need to be. So thanks for coming on and talking about this with us?

Kelsey: Oh my goodness. Well, now I actually just went to dominate this interview and ask you questions. You said about your exploration of different jobs. And at first I was like, she’s a unicorn that stayed in the same career the whole time. But even you acknowledging that you had multiple different facets to enrolls how you play that out. I thought that is actually, so how callings go a lot of the time, even if you only figure that out in hindsight. But there was something drawing it all together, but there’s a lot of ways that you could go about it. But man, do I also relate in what you’re saying about “how this is like a cesspool for anxiety”.

Carrie: Right.

Kelsey: With career decisions and wearing off, am I gonna miss it wrong? Am I just going to totally derail God’s plan for me, side note? He’s way more powerful than. But anyway, yes thank you I can’t wait to dive in. Obviously I’m already, like jumping out of the bed, getting ready to go.

Carrie: How did you get into this business of helping Christians finding their calling?

Kelsey: Goodness. So I listen to business podcasts all the time, and I recently heard somebody say “business is actually just radical empathy”. And it’s also reminding me of, I’m reading through all the gospels again right now of work as a way that we carry out the second greatest commandment, you know. The first being loved the Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. I think I got the order, right. And you always mess it up. And then the second being, love your neighbor as yourself. So my story very much started with being the person that needed this help.

Right out of college I went into tech consulting. So I was working for a really huge multinational firm. I was in their digital and emerging tech group as a business analyst. Helping it really large firms develop new, basically overhaul their integrated Tech systems. And a lot of people, when I would say that, would say, that sounds so cool. And I, my ego, what’s a, yes, that’s why I chose this one. That’s why I wanted you to say, or that’s what I wanted you to think about me, but it was so incredibly dissatisfying. And after two years, I really realized. I had spent so much of my academic journey and my young professional journey, doing things that others deemed as most valuable or sought after. And it led me to just white knuckle my way into saying “I can do it look, look at what I could do”. And over time that just wears on you. I mean, two years, I guess it didn’t even take that much time. It wore on me so much to realize that what you’re called to do is so much different than just doing what you can.

So, I was very much suffering in my health, my mental health, and in the bottom of that pit, just so desperate. God, would you please show me what is your will for my life? Isn’t that kind of the common prayer?

Carrie: Right.

Kelsey: Please show your will for my life. Please show me, please show me, please show me. And after her whole life, I just realized when I would dwell on Matthew seven, seven of the famous, like asking it will be given to you. Seeking, you shall find, knock and the door will be open to you. That sounds like a pretty active process actually.

Carrie: Yes.

Kelsey: And I realized I was waiting for God to actually, just write the direct 10 step instruction list on the wall for me. And I felt convicted of my spiritual brattiness actually. God, I need you to essentially, I realize, assure me from all discomfort and the guilty. I want you to confirm that I’m going to have, It’s such a significant life of my dreams, and I want you to get me on the direct path to being there without any searching. And so when I realized, okay, I really gotta start making this an active process, doing my research, learning about fields that I don’t even know exist because I realized I had a pretty childlike view of what career options were available to me. All the while God just revealed to me this moment of remembering what my mom always said of necessity is the mother of invention.

Again, that’s a theme of love your neighbor as yourself. What did I most want? I wanted somebody to help me discern what I was truly called to do occupationally. And so I thought I’m 24 and I have no idea how to solve that problem. But man, that would be so amazing. If one day I figured out the solution and then gave it to other people.

So I thought, why don’t I just start now? So I signed up to become a certified career coach. And it started my practice actually earlier in life than I thought I could. Did I get some laughs along the way? Absolutely like it was not lost on me though. I was 24 and it’s been three years since then. Still I get some laughs, but I’ve worked with people even in their sixties executives. God has been very, very gracious with me.

Carrie: That’s awesome. That’s really awesome. It’s just a great testimony of how God uses our struggles and turns it into something beautiful for. Then you to be able to pass the torch on and, like, help the next person who was going through what you were going through just a few years ago.

Kelsey: Exactly. He wastes nothing.

Carrie: Right. So you talked about this a little bit, like where people really are like, okay, God, you know, show me. You know, show me your calling. And I think there can be this anxious component among some Christians of like, okay, what if I miss it? What if, like God’s calling us some kind of bullseye and I shoot the arrow and I just, I totally end up on the wrong target. And I ended up in this job that God just doesn’t have for me. Or maybe you feel like you’re in that job right now. Oh gosh. I just feel like I’m totally wasting my time or missing out on, what it is God has and we look at calling is some kind of, like big, you know mysterious thing that we’re gonna miss it. And we’re gonna mess it up. What would you say to somebody that’s dealing with some of that right now?

Kelsey: I think one, I will quote Tim Keller most likely in abundance during this interview, because he just informs so much of the theology of work that has really helped me come to this point. But one thing he said was no, that God’s will, is more of something that he does then he gives. And so we want all the clear instructions, but what he actually models for us in the Bible is it says in Proverbs 16, Verse 1 and 9 are quite similar, but 9, it says “A man’s plans belong to his heart, but God is the one that establishes the guards, his steps”. And what does that take? It actually takes lifting your foot and, and then God will direct it in the right place.

But what we see in the parable of the talents that has been, so that is probably one of the most foundational scriptures to my career coaching practice of seeing the, you know, the parable of the three servants, the master who’s going well on a long journey gives each of them a he, He divides his wealth among them. It says according to their abilities and he did not give them any instructions at all. But you see that when the master comes back at an unpredictable time, you see that the rules were actually clear all along. He always knew he was going to judge each of them. Based on what they did in absence of instructions.

Carrie: Wow!

Kelsey: So he, and it was so clear and to the servant who out of fear saying “Master, I didn’t, you’re a shrewd man. I didn’t want to make you angry if I lost any of it”. So he buried his talent in the ground and I like how talent it’s meaning the piece of gold, but actually just in English. It’s interesting to think, Okay, what about my innate resources? Of my abilities too.

Carrie: Sure.

Kelsey: I will bury it in the ground for fear of losing anything. And he said “you wicked and lazy servant” and it reminds me of the Matthew effect too. Those who have little understanding, even what little they have is taken away. But those who have understanding even more will be given to them. So what did the faithful servants get? They doubled their masters’ wealth. We don’t know if it was by taking it to a certain brand of bank. We don’t know if they invested in a certain new crop that was all up to them, but their result was that they doubled their master’s wealth in absence of instructions. And the master said, “well done, good and faithful servant. Now come and share in your master’s happiness”. And that is what work is like to me, that faithfulness, of course, we’re here to serve and not be served, but our father in heaven is so gracious that he does give us joy, fulfillment, purpose, happiness. We’re not chasing happiness, but he says, “here that comes from me. I’ll give you all more than you can imagine, when you’re faithful”. And so to answer your question, just kind of more tangibly, as I think about, kind of that bag of gold in the parable of the talents.

I imagine us coming into this life and we have all these clues and these breadcrumbs, our internal resources of who God made us to be with our innate talents when we’re reborn in him and the spirit, our spiritual gifts. Our core values that are unique to each of us, our personality, all these things. Those are all context clues that you’re meant to multiply those natural, also the opportunities physically that are given to you and the spheres of influence and the abilities and all these things multiply those for the glory of God.

I pay attention to the breadcrumbs and the context clues and make a wise decision based on what career path given my research and exploration and talking to many people. Do I think, would best glorify God and serve others? And I can trust that God’s going to also bring me joy through that. They don’t have to worry. And that is when I think you can know you’re following a calling because God teaches you so much through action. Clarity comes through action, not just from thinking and not especially for whom honestly, having a kind of sparse. I will be very honest prayer life of only saying, God, show me your well, God, show me your well with your arms crossed in a dark room, refusing to do any research or trusting or taking action.

Carrie: Sometimes we have to take that risk and we have to try things and see how it works out. And that can be scary at times, just thinking of, you know, different things that I’ve done, even going to get a master’s in counseling. I hadn’t ever sat down and talked to a counselor about what their job was like. Looking back on that, that probably would have been a good idea to do, for seeing what kind of careers are available to me afterwards.

But I knew like when I got into that room and I had my first session with someone, it was like, there was this wave that came over me like, this is it. This is what I’m supposed to do. You just, I just innately knew that. And I didn’t know exactly how that was going to manifest out. It’s manifested in ways that I couldn’t have imagined, but if I hadn’t have, taken that step to move across the country to go to graduate school, to try out counseling, then I wouldn’t have known. And I know some people that got into that practicum and they had a completely different experience and they were like, you know, I think I wanna do more church type ministry, but maybe counseling. Isn’t the professional nature of it. It’s not really for me.

I have a friend that uses her counseling degree working in a museum. She’s not doing any formal counseling, but she loves what she does. And she works with people and got hired because she could do people because she has a counseling degree. So it was just incredible how God been steer and guide us. I can’t remember the quote, but it’s basically something to the effect of God can steer you if you’re moving, but it’s kind of hard for God to steer you. If you’re just not moving. If you’re standing still.

Kelsey: And that’s called a Whirlpool, actually, if you’re just spinning around in circles, actually, that’s why a lot of my most anxious thoughts felt like it felt like I was spinning when I wasn’t just making a decision about my career. I, again, Tim Keller. He has this whole sermon. I really recommend anyone looks it up on YouTube. It’s called, “Your plans versus God’s plans”. And he excellently breaks down the mystery of God’s sovereignty and our free will. And he says, anytime that somebody comes to him and says “much would I do in my career”? Whatever. He says, “make a decision” and they say, “how spiritual have you? You’re supposed to be a pastor”. And making decisions. Practicing wisdom is how you become more and more the kind of person who discerns God’s will. And I will definitely be sending this episode to people because of what you said of how you were already in the room, when you had that feeling of confirmation of calling.

Wash over you. And it was a feeling of confirmation, not of go, do this.

When you were in high school. I don’t know. Or like, in you’re on the volleyball court and this just like, Hey, Carrie you can be a counselor. That’s not how it, how it went. We would love it. But honestly, in the end, I don’t think we would want that to happen because God is sovereign. And He knows that we have to through experience, train our hearts to be faithful to Him. And especially in ambiguity.

Carrie: Yes. Yes, that’s true. And you can pray about things and sometimes you don’t have the clearest sense. It’s not something that’s for or against in the Bible. You know, if it’s very clear, aligned with scripture, okay, this is very clear. You know, I need to do that. And or if it’s very not aligned with the values of scripture, then we know, okay, that’s not what I should be doing.

But many, many, many I’d say most decisions in our life we make, we can’t go directly to the Bible to find the answer to that. We have to base it on biblical principles and values of loving God, loving people. What we sense in our spirit, because I do believe that. The holy spirit speaks to us. And sometimes we just sense that internally of like, this is a no, and I don’t even have to know why it’s a no, it’s just a no for me. So we can, we can trust those things that, that God gives us. But sometimes we just have to say, okay God, I, I’m not sure, but this is the decision or the direction that I believe that you’re sending me in. And I’m gonna, I’m going to go in that direction. And do it. I think that you’re, you know, you’re spot on with what you’re saying.

Kelsey: If it’s okay. I would like to speak a little bit more to the question of, can we miss our callings? Cause I think that there’s one more aspect to this conversation of yes, you and I just supported a lot of points to say, generally speaking, God will faithfully lead you in that direction. And also we should just know that our free will is not a joke. We’re not all the way like puppets on strings. There actually are plenty of options. Just like I think our culture is finally releasing our grip on the view of their being the one that you will marry.

There’s a lot of personal choice involved with that as well. Though we know that we can trust God, he’s guiding us. It’s complicated. But what I wanted to say as an additional point of perspective is, and this is hard to admit. It’s quite honest and honest look at life, but we can miss our calling in general. Yes, because one, if we look at our primary calling that we see in the Bible to follow Jesus. To believe in him to have a salvific relationship, to go and make disciples of all the nations. That’s the great commission.

Carrie: Right.

Kelsey: You see those callings are very direct instructions that are blatantly listed out. Do people opt out of those constantly?

Yes. Is it unequivocally God’s will that we would all follow them? Yes. So why would we believe that we cannot also opt out of faithfulness? In all other decisions in life and not re consequences. Is that harrowing? Yes. I mean, have we all seen that person who has squandered their talents for a lifetime bearing under them under many, many excuses that I’m sure are valid, but you know, you could, as an option, trust God.

Precede regardless, but yes, I think that we’ve all seen that example play out. And so this is something that is harrowing, but important to acknowledge that you can opt out of faithfulness at any point. And why, if you are not communing with your creator and seeing work as an and your calling as an opportunity to commune with him, And so if you’re not even obeying your first command to be in a relationship with him, why would you believe that he would just release you to go have all your idols in the world?

Which of course you can, but then he will always be knocking at your door saying, “come back to me, come back to me”. So I’m not sure if that was a little long and winding of an answer, but I have spoken at a few places and especially students come up to me and they’re like, “you know what? I was just so encouraged for your talk”, to know, like I can’t miss my calling and I thought, wait, did I say that? No.

I think that, like, if you’re opting into faithfulness, you could trust absolutely that you are a part of God’s promises. He’s guiding your steps. He’s even guiding your words, as it says in Proverbs 16:1. “And he is working all things together for your good, for those.” What does it say when people just say he’s working all those things to your good in Romans 8:28, but they don’t mention the last part of that first “for those that are called according to his purpose who love him and are called according to his purpose”.

Carrie: Right.

Kelsey: So I think that there is like, a pulling up to the bar. And then I think that you could be super secure.

Carrie: Right. I think about Matthew 6:33, that “seek first his kingdom and all these things shall be added to you”. It’s like if you have your priorities and your perspectives in order, and you are seeking God, who’s going to lead and guide you and whatever that next piece is, the next step, you don’t get the whole roadmap. Sorry. That’s not how spirituality Christianity works. I’ve never gotten the whole roadmap and I’m not expecting you to either, but you will get the next piece of the puzzle. The next step along the way,

Kelsey: But who would we become if we actually had the full roadmap, actually in all of the, those end of times, Parables, especially in Matthew chapter 25, the bridegroom didn’t announce when he would be coming back and the virgins with the lambs. It was to test who was faithful and the master didn’t announce when he was coming back from the journey. It was, so her true character could be revealed. And if we just got all the assurance in the world, here’s your life story one. I don’t think we would actually want that. That’d be kind of like, I don’t know. I want a little mystery of my life, but then also this is an opportunity to grow with him in the midst of uncertainty.

Carrie: What would you say, just shifting gears a little bit to someone who is in a work environment and they don’t believe that that aligns with their faith or calling, like for example, maybe the company is expecting them to work too many hours and that doesn’t align with their God-given need for rest or God given need to spend time with their family and put them as the priority that they want to. Maybe the company is just. All about profits and they don’t really care about the people that they’re serving or the people that are working for them. What would you say to someone who’s, who’s in that environment and just not feeling good about it?

Kelsey: I would say the same thing to them that I would say to others who are even, maybe they would say their content at work, but they’re starting to get this inkling that maybe there’s some greater thing that I could live into for God in my career, some greater measure of service and use of my vision, my aspirations, my talents. So whether it’s a really bad situation or a, maybe there’s something more, my advice is pretty much the same. Be proactive. Do not wait. I’m such a firm believer of, you don’t have to marry the first option that comes in your line of vision, you post you find, I think this could be my next step. Doesn’t mean that it’s time to jump ship tomorrow, but good grief. We all hear that saying like start with the end in mind.

So essentially you could reverse engineer what you need to do in the meantime. Let’s understand what that end is in terms of starting. The discernment journey of what are you called to on an overarching level, given who God created you to be very specifically what he put on your heart to go do or serve, like to help who doing what, why? And then the last step after that more bigger vision discernment is the very practical of great what jobs, what role title.

Companies would allow me to best carry that out or what business idea would allow me to carry that out. That’s great too. And so then you can only then really kind of reverse engineer. All right. Wait. So now that I have that, well, at least I know I could start acting on it at any time. I think it’s appropriate. And so then it’s kind of a more detailed conversation of when do I jump into that next thing, but at least you have started the discernment journey when here’s the key. When like, before you are seeing red and deeply stressed out, there’s just a, you know, you’re a mental health professional. When somebody is in a fight or flight, you actually are not able to perceive.

The reality of the array of options available to you when you act, physically get tunnel vision. And so how therefore would you be able to perceive some cool thing that maybe otherwise you wouldn’t think is possible or go out and do more research and have more tenacity in that, or make a decision out of faith and not fearfulness. All those things start early. I really recommend it. At least being very thoughtful about exploring, especially through informational interviews. You know, even if you’re slightly interested or you heard about somebody’s job title and you’re like, I wonder what that is. Or you have a family friend and you think they’re just doing the coolest thing, even if you don’t.

Aren’t a hundred percent sure. That’s the key, don’t make a decision before you actually do research. I find people really forced themselves to make career decisions before they know what the day-to-day reality is like in that job, what tasks they would spend the majority of their time doing, what the career outlook, what the growth trajectory is. And if they’re okay with all of those things, I find that people do not want to have a coffee chat with someone, unless they’ve already decided, I for sure want to be an HR professional because I’m a people person. And little did they know there’s a ton of paperwork involved in that. And also there are so many different specialties in HR it’s mind-boggling. So, if you do those informational interviews, you would know that, but I find that people try to decide beforehand so they could treat their networking conversations as a. I’m just going to say a few things to sound impressive until I could get to the punchline where I asked you to pass on my resume when actually it should have just purely been a research conversation.

Carrie: That’s good to note, I think. Are there any specific guidelines that you use when helping people evaluate whether it’s time to stay or time to go and their job?

Kelsey: There’s a couple, and I actually have a frequency about this on my website that goes through in depth, some more on each of these criteria and it’s interactive and it’s not meant to make you make a rush decision. That’s the point just to, help you predict, okay. What are the number of months that I should really be expecting and why? If it is a yes, I should leave. Why and what else did I do instead? So that’s some of the things that can help, but to run through a few of them right now, one, do you actually want your boss’s job or your boss’s boss’s job? Do you actually, not only, maybe on one end, if there are growth opportunities within your current field or your current company, do you want them, or it may be, I’ve talked to a lot of people that do like their job, but they get frustrated because, they are current company does not offer advancement opportunities and that’s essential to career satisfaction.

So that’s one thing advancement. Do you have the opportunity and do you want it, and what about your team and your boss? Is it, I think there’s not too much to be sat on that it talks about. Can you trust your management? I think that’s something I take quite seriously because I’ve seen people booted out. I’ve seen bad reports given that are not merited. If you actually cannot trust your management, then, that I have a dear friend right now. Who’s going through that? Not merited whatsoever that is truly something to get out of quickly.

What about, are you interested in the subject matter of your work whatsoever? Maybe you’ve been sticking around because you enjoy your coworkers and there’s a few perks and you have a really cool summer party and a Christmas party, and you liked those things or your interviewer’s servicemen is just the best.

And you want to stick around for that or the health insurance. It’s just, premium, but what about the actual tasks that you’re doing? Do they agree and utilize your innate abilities? If not, or if not all the way. I think that’s something that we could always maximize when you truly find your point of creative genius, which I believe exists in everybody. And you find what task reveals that cause maybe you haven’t stumbled upon the thing that reveals it again test experiments.

Then, oh, man, you don’t even know what sense of flow like buzzing focus and satisfaction that kind of like, and God got to the end of the six days kicked back and said, “that was very good”. That kind of feeling you were missing out. So maybe it’s not like, I hate this or it’s so terrible, but maybe you could just maximize again, like multiplication divine multiplication is a huge theme, especially in the gospel.

Carrie: I think something, you have to take this step back and say, is it my actual job duties that I’m not liking? Or is it the job duties? Is it the structure of how this company has structured the job duties? Maybe I really enjoy my job, but the boss is super micromanage or their coworkers are always whining and griping and complaining, and it’s just like a negative environment to be in. And so sometimes it’s hard to tease those things out cause you just look at it as one whole picture.

But I think like, what you’re saying is it’s like, do I need a different company where I could do the same thing, but maybe have more freedom, autonomy, better benefits, whatever it is, or do I need to be doing something, a different type of tasks, because I’m just not passionate about this, the way that I was in the past and those kind of things can shift and change for sure. And you have to kind of tune in and pay attention to that.

Kelsey: Absolutely. And the last thing I’ll say on this, as you are allowed to see a measure, when we say responsibility, our culture often means hunkering down and like counting the 10 beans that you were given and making sure nothing happens to them. That really sounds like the unfaithful servant. I actually, I think responsibilities should be more defined by.

I assessed everything that God gave me in everything that He, I really believe is a, such a God-given desire that He put on my heart. And I did my darndest with it. I just went for it. A lot of wisdom is not deciding between good or bad it’s deciding between best or better. And I think that I just want to say you are allowed to change jobs. That doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad Christian. That was a big deal for me because my main idea of the theology around work that I grew up around was, and I’m not blaming any pastor because you know, they’re not a career coach. They’re not obsessed with studying the Bible through the lens of career ethics as I am. That’s okay. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing.

But what I did pick up was to be a good Christian at work is to just take whatever God gave you, which by the way, releases all agency from yourself in whatever job is right in front of you, you just have to take it. That’s kind of the read between the lines that I got and you just have to be excellent at it, which again, the read between the lines is just stick in it and make sure that you perform better than everybody else. So one day somebody like Jim at the water cooler. Really? Why are you so much better of a CPA than everybody else? Will you share the gospel with me? And that’s just not how it works. Honestly, due to convict grace, like, oh my gosh. non-Christians and Christians and non-Christians can be so much better at a job than Christians can. That’s fine. So, anyway, I think faithfulness, it’s just a choosing for better or choosing the better, not just managing only what you have, expanding your impact for the kingdom. You don’t have to stay where you’re at.

Carrie: That’s so good. That’s so good. Because I, I’ve talked with clients who have felt guilt over leaving their job. I don’t want to leave my manager in a bad place or just very conscientious of what other people are experiencing or thinking, or they’re not wanting to disappoint someone.

Maybe I, this coworker helped me get this job. I feel like I shouldn’t leave or there’s so many emotions that can get tied up in those things. Even when we know clearly, like in our mind and in our spirit know, it’s time, like it’s time to move on.

Kelsey: And if the spirit is telling you that, and you know that you will be able to glorify God more and serve others better in another place, then pull you. Trust the Lord to fill that seat with somebody better, which is very humbling. Okay.

Carrie: Wow!

Kelsey: He has the whole puzzle mapped out, please. your only concern is to follow him and play your piece. He will figure out the rest. I also speak with clients that are really, they see so many problems in the world. I think that I, you know, I, this was a big part of my quarter life crisis. There are so many things I care about. So many things I’m grieved by. The most loving thing you could do is to pick the one you. I don’t want to say just pick one, because that freaks always freaked me out. But what about in a more playful way, pick the one that you’re drawn towards most. And trust God to be God in you to be a human who could probably just do one thing super duper well. He will fill out the rest.

Carrie: That’s good. This has just been a really great, great conversation. I’ve enjoyed it so much.

Kelsey: Likewise.

Carrie: At the end of the podcast, I like to ask every guest to share a story of hope, which is a time where you’ve received hope from God or another person.

Kelsey: I cannot wait for the story though.

I’m about to share it. So I actually wish I received this from someone in person, but admittedly, I heard it on a podcast, but it was just too good not to tell all my friends about, even still to this day. I, gosh, this instilled so much awe in me like God is so big. And I’m so small, of when this pastor in country and the Middle East undisclosed. He is ruthlessly going out and risking his life, sharing the gospel all the time. And even though he really is, I think doing, I wanted to say like taking everything in his hands as much as he can. I would rather say he’s stewarding his job as much as possible.

He’s initiating conversations about God everywhere he goes, but still in humility, he said, “don’t, don’t get it wrong. God is the only one that could save someone”. I, and it reminds me of the loaves and the fishes of, your job is only, I love how Dallas Jenkins, the creator of the chosen. He says this, he says, “Your job is only to bring the five loaves and the two fishes for Jesus to bless”. Even if you’re like Jesus, like there’s 5,000 people here.

There’s no way this is, this feels really dumb. Bring it to him and it is not your job to feed the 5,000, it is only your job to bring the loaves and the fish. Jesus it’s the one that will multiply it for 5,000. So similarly, this guy he’s saying, “God is the one who saves”. Let me give you an example. I went out into an incredibly rural village, has almost no contact with the outside world.

I went into this one man’s tent and I was telling him about the gospel and this man said, “I’ve heard of these things”. And the pastor’s like how the business is so remote. And it’s a predominantly Muslim country. And he, he said a man dressed in white has been coming to my tent every single night for months. And he’s been telling me to write things down and the pastor said, “Show me what he’s told you to write down”. Wow! Word for word it was the entire book of John from the gospels.

Carrie: Wow! In his language?

Kelsey: In his language.

Carrie: That’s incredible.

Kelsey: So that’s what God means when he says I am the one who calls you. But like he said to Moses, I made you have a mouth. Okay. All I need you to do, but I don’t even need you. It was an Acts 17 as if He is served by human hands, he’s not, he could do this all himself, but he knows for our hearts that we need to participate with him because as a gift, it’s a gift to him or to us actually. But anyway, he says to Moses, I gave you your mouth. I’ll also give you the words to say to Pharaoh. I’m really just asking you to walk into his court. And He is the one who calls us, but all of our callings are for him and for his glory and they will be done through his strength, achieving the results that he always wanted for himself. He just wants our faithful hearts to say, even though this seems ridiculous, I guess I’ll build the art.

Even those, this seems ridiculous. I’ll lift up the loaves and the fishes, even though I feel so scared, I’ll go into Pharaoh’s temple. I think that’s how our careers are supposed to feel. Not fearful because He commands us to fear not. And He commands us to not worry. And that’s not him. The disciples said at one point in the gospel, they were like, how is that possible? You’re asking us to be perfect. And Jesus said, “yes with man, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible”. So he’s not asking you something that you can’t do in him. You need not worry literally, but we can live quite gloriously on the edge for him. And that is what I really hope to help people do through my practice.

Carrie: And so, that’s awesome. I love it. Well, Kelsey, we’re gonna put your, the links to your website in the show notes so that people can find you. And my assistant is gonna go through and pull all the scripture references, the scriptures that you mentioned today. And so we’ll put those in there. If people wanna do some study on those passages. I think that that would be awesome.

Kelsey: All the best thing you can do. Let God preach to your heart. Not me.

Carrie: Thanks for being on the show today.

Kelsey: Thank you so much. This was just the most jubilant conversation.

Carrie: One addendum that we forgot to talk about is that Kelsey has a podcast as well, called “Answer the Call”. So if you like what you heard today, and you want to hear more, go check out Kelsey’s podcast as well. She has a link through her website that we’re going to put in the show notes.

If you have been a regular listener to our show, I would love it. If you could rate and review us on iTunes or other platforms that you listen on that allow reviews that really helps people find our show and validate that we’re talking about good things. So I appreciate you so much for listening and taking the time to do that.

Hope for anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum until next time may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

42. Dealing with Anger in a Godly Way with Ed Snyder

Written by Carrie Bock on August 18, 2021. Posted in Anxiety, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 42. Dealing with Anger in a Godly Way with Ed Snyder

Today’s special is a pastor and anger management expert, Ed Snyder. Pastor Ed not only talks about his knowledge and insights about anger but also shares his personal experience with anger that nearly destroyed his marriage.

How Pastor Ed recognized his anger problem and its root cause.
The turning point in his marriage that prompted him to find ways to deal with his anger.
Using your anger as a force for good and other anger management tips
The connection between anger and anxiety
Main triggers of anger
Ed Snyder’s book, Control the Beast

Links and Resources

Ed Snyder

Control The Beast: A Guide To Managing Our Emotions
True North Podcast

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopeforanxietyandocdpodcast
and like our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/hopeforanxietyandocd for the latest updates and sneak peeks.

More Podcast Episodes

Transcript of Episode 42

Hope for Anxiety and OCD, episode 42. I am your host Carrie Bock. And today on our show, we’re talking with Ed Snyder, who is a pastor, author and anger management expert. I know he has his own experience with anger that he’s going to be sharing with you. And talking about incorporating spiritual principles.

Some people may wonder why are we talking about anger on a show that has to do with anxiety? Well, anger can be a complex emotion and often time runs alongside other emotions. So hang on. And if you deal with anger or know someone who does this content may be really helpful for you.

Carrie: Ed, thanks for coming on the show and talking with us today.

Ed: Well, thank you, Carrie. It’s an honor to be here with you on your podcast.

Carrie: When or how did you realize that anger had become a problem in your life?

Ed: Wow, that’s been a minute ago. Well, let me start here. I was always the overweight kid. That was the bully magnet in school. So I was always getting made fun of. Speed up all that good stuff. I was quiet. You’d never tell that by knowing me now, but I was the quiet, shy type. Again. I knew I was overweight and all that good stuff. So I went through a lot of trauma there that was early on in my elementary school year. I think it was about in junior high. The is when I realized of course back then I took it as, Hey, I got some aggression here because my junior high football coach approached me and said, man, I want you on my team because of my size, you know?

And of course, I had a growth spurt at 12, so I stood six foot at 12 and husky. That’s what my mom always says. You’re just husky. So I think like a good old mom. And so it was then that I joined the football team and realize the aggression that I had pinned up inside of me. In fact, to the point that my coach handed me this weird looking pad, and he said, strap that onto the back of your hand beause I was center or nose guard. So I lined up with the center. Knocked that center out of the way and go sack the quarterbacks. And so I did because, and I was successful at it because I was angry and I didn’t identify the anger at that point so much as I identified the aggression that I had, it wasn’t after four concussions and I played in my seventh grade, my eighth-grade year and in my freshman year, I had made it to the varsity team that I realized this is a little more than just skill and aggression. This is anger because I get up, if I got tackled or knocked out of the way I got up and I was ready to beat somebody down, that’s when identified. And then, of course, after my fourth concussion, I created a brain bleed and ended up in the hospital for three months and was facing some surgery.

That’s a whole another testimony of what God did in my life, but that’s about the timeframe that I noticed the aggression and then realized what it really was, is the years of being bullied and, and the anger buildup.

Carrie: And being that you were playing football, was that aggression celebrated or did your coaches feel like, okay, this is a little bit too far, this is a little too much.

Ed: Well, back then it was celebrated. It was like go after a man. That’s the way to sack them quarterbacks, you know, and all that stuff. Although I earned him a reputation among the other teams, especially locally that you’re going to have to go after Snyder because we can’t allow him to get in there.

And so they, they came a little extra hard against me because of the aggression, but it was celebrated, which didn’t help me. Sure. It kind of endorsed my vibe. Very negative behavior.

Carrie: Okay. What was that process like later on in life when you did seek out help for the anger spiritually, mentally, emotionally.

Ed: Okay. Great question. And of course going along with my story, I was in high school then I got in my freshman year and of course, like I said, I was in the hospital three months. That was a major interruption in my life. And that kind of made me realize, okay, you need to settle down. And I knew I had an issue because.

In my uncontrolled anger, there was two things you did not do to me. And that was hang up the phone on me or slam a door in my face. And my own mother was mad at me and, and we were having a heated conversation, but that way it was teenage rebellion that she was trying to deal with. Anyway, she slammed the door in my face and, it angered me.

And I put my fist through the wall beside the door. That’s when I’m like, this is not going well for me. So I just kinda dealt with it the only way I know how, which wasn’t much, but my turning point, Carrie was in, when I got married, I got married. I met my wife when I was. 15 and knew that’s her, that’s the girl I’m going to marry.

And my best friend Burt said, Hey dude, remember you’re only 15.

Carrie: You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You don’t have to settle down yet.

Ed: Another neat story, but you know, we’ll stick to the subject. It wasn’t until Gail and I got married and of course I hid it because I didn’t want her to know about this.

You know, I might lose her. She’s the love of my life in our first marriage discussion. And God’s got a real good sense of humor. He put together a hard-headed German descent and Irish descent. I mean it, a red headed Irish woman, just fun. Anyway. So we made a vow when we got married that we’ll never go to bed angry at each other that we’ll get it resolved.

And of course she really didn’t know. She knew I was. Irritated quote unquote, but she didn’t realize I had this issue. And so we agreed to that. We agreed and we valid each other. We’re never going to go to bed or go to sleep angry at each other. And then also she told me, he says, look, when I get upset, Just leave me alone.

Let me go for a while. Let me cool off, which is classic textbook anger management technique is to breathe, go intellectualize the situation, come back, deal with it. You know, I’m, the type. No we’re going to deal with it now. And so for the first 10 years of my marriage, I spent chasing her around the house and stop.

We got to fix this and I’m only fueling her fire, but anyhow, in our first marital discussion, you know, she walked off or tried. And, again, slammed the door in my face and she not only slammed the door, she locked it. And I went into outer space. And of course, in my anger, I put my fist through that door and unlocked it now for your audience.

Clarification. I have never, ever laid a hand on any woman, especially that of my wife. And of course my mother I’ve been raised better than that. So I never laid a hand on her, but I put my fist through the door and we finished the quote unquote conversation. Well, it wasn’t until the next morning that we got up, we were having breakfast and she said, I don’t know if I can do this.

And I’m like, do what, what are you talking about? Because, you know, angry people, once they have their fit, they’re rant, it’s over it’s water under the bridge, move on. And it wasn’t. So her, it shook her to her core that to see my fist come through that door and unlock it.

And then, you know, all the unnecessary shouting and screaming and all of that. So that was a wake up call when she said that I did not want to lose this lady. She’s the love of my life. She’s the one. And I wanted to stay married. And by the way, we’re celebrating this October 41 years. Yeah, I always tease and say, she’s such a blessed woman.

I’m actually the blessed one. So anyway, how did I realize? Or when did I realize that I had the problem? It was the progression and of course the process at that moment, that, again, that was the turning point for me. And I said, look, I don’t know how to do this. I’ve been fighting it for years. My teenage years.

All of that, I’ll get help wherever that is. Carrie, this was 40 years ago. Anger management classes wasn’t even in the universe, it didn’t exist. Printed material was rare, books on anger management, things like that. So I went to my pastor and I said, look, I need to chat. And so I went to him and.

And got an appointment with him. And I said, Hey, I need help. I got an anger issue and his advice was, well, son, get in the altar and pray and you’ll be okay. Let me clarify. I don’t want to ever take away the power of prayer. Sure. Pages things. I started. My journey in the learning is faith without works is dead.

I mean, we can pray all day long and fast until our tongues fall out. But if we don’t put some action, some works to our faith. We’re not going to get very far. So I took his advice. I got in the ultra and I really prayed and, and a man felt better got up in a day or two later. I’m I’m throwing things again, I’m yelling and screaming.

I’m back into the same mode. So Gail and I really just started a journey. Of trial and error when I’d get upset or get crazy, I’d cooled down. And of course we amplified not going to bed angry with each other, and we really worked on letting each other walk away and breathe and intellectualize the situation.

Then come back and talk about it. And I allowed her to tell me what I did wrong. So again, this whole process was started right there on 58. And that was when I was 18. I turned 18 September 10th and got married October 4th. I mean like I’m done. Let’s, let’s get this done.

Carrie: That was probably hard in the beginning.

You were saying, I let her tell me. What I did wrong, really receiving that feedback of, Hey, even if it was how she perceived the situation and that could have been totally different than how you perceive the situation.

Ed: Yes. And it took a lot of discipline on my part to listen to her because she, even though she was inside the emotional circle, she was outside of my anger circle.

She was able to see what I, how I was reacting to things. What I was reacting to. And was able to help me troubleshoot that and define why did you get angry with when I said mashed potatoes, that’s an example that, but you know, sometimes we get mad over the most ridiculous things. Big, not because mashed potatoes, but it’s the emotional time.

Way back in the subconscious mind.

Carrie: So there wasn’t a whole lot of help out there for you. Like you really looked for books and materials there weren’t classes. Now you’re actually involved in teaching some of those classes, correct?

Ed: Yes. I’ve. I’ve professionally taught anger management and emotional intelligence. Probably about 17 years give or take. Yeah. And again, back then 40 years ago, again, printed material was just virtually, almost non-existent. I found very level classes, training, teaching on it.

Non-existent so as soon as stuff started being printed, I kept an eye on the shelves, I’m kind of a book freak anyway, so I know my Barnes and noble days was long and I’d go in there.

And look around and when I found something, I bought it and I read it and I digested it and I tried everything I could to apply to my life to help me.

Carrie: Good. That’s good. Because anger can be destructive. And you already talked about that, like, putting your hand through a door or. Breaking things.

Christians sometimes try to suppress it or avoid it like we’ve labeled instead of labeling that behavior as sinful, we’ve labeled the emotion of anger itself as sinful and how can Christians develop a healthy, biblical understanding of anger?

Ed: Well, you really hit a great nerve there that,we, as Christians, we’ve got a criteria to live up to we’re spirit-filled and we’re supposed to be having the fruits of the spirit and to represent Christ on the earth.

And so we’re not supposed to have any flaws or any, setbacks. So I know I did, I suppose. I didn’t want anybody to know. I was an angry person that I was this crazy raging dude that would put my fist through a window or a door or wall or whatever. And that was really part of my problem. I never let anybody know I was in trouble.

And so for years I went through all of this and only to realize that in my journey to manage this. You do not get rid of anger. Anger is an emotion. It’s a part of your psychic. It’s just like love and, and joy and happiness and all of that. It’s identified as a negative emotion, although that could be turned around into a positive direction.

Using your anger to force you to go positive. However, the understanding and in fact, I’m big on the power of understanding when we understand the who, the, why, the what, how come, where they’re coming from, where it’s coming from. It helps us deal with a lot of things. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay. Jesus was angry when he come into the temple and found the money changed.

Buying and selling. He got angry and drove out those money changers and said, my, my house will be called a house of prayer. So again, it’s okay to be angry. The Bible says be angry, but sin not. And there’s, there’s the key, right? We can get upset. We can be angry with some situation, but here’s where we need to be.

Careful. Don’t send that it don’t start violating. Somebody’s cussing using foul language or whatever. That’s going to bring a reproach on your walk with God. People’s understands that if somebody disrespects you, it can upset you. People understand that whatever happens, it upsets us. It angers us. There’s an injustice going on.

For example, one of my friends on Twitter posted out that this kid, a young man and in Montana, him and his family, his mom and dad are church planters. And they’re trying to plant a new church in Montana. And this is a good kid when school bullied and the group that bullied him. Stabbed him 10 times and put him in there and, you know, I cared, I was angry.

I wanted to fly to Montana and find the bullies, but I, okay. God, I can’t bring bodily harm, although I want to, but you know, it’s okay. That’s what we’ve really got to understand. It’s okay. To be angry. It’s what you do with the anger. That makes all the difference in the world.

Carrie: Absolutely. I think that anger can be very powerful in terms of creating beautiful change in the world. Like what if we never got angry about things like human trafficking or child abuse? I mean, we should be angry about those things that are going on in our society and. I know that there was some anger for me that fueled the start of this podcast.

Cause I got so tired of having people say, well, somebody told me anxiety is a sin or depression’s a sin. That means I don’t have enough joy in my life and I just need to pray. Through it. And, you know, it was just so frustrating that people were getting misinformation that wasn’t biblical from spiritual leaders and it was causing extra distress on the distress that they already had, that they were already bringing into therapy.

Ed:Have you got a minute? Let me tell a little quick little neat story about how anger compelled us to, to do a positive bank like yourself, fired of spiritual leaders, basically not bothering to study out or research. Anxiety. It’s not a sin. Anyway, years ago, I learned this story when I was doing some research of a beautiful family in suburban LA.

Nice suburban LA had a 13 year old daughter and daughter asked mom, can I go to whoever’s there? Her friend had just a few blocks over in a very nice suburban. And of course, sure. Not a problem. So only about two or three hours later, LAPD shows up on this lady story. To tell her that her child, her 13 year old is dead, been killed by a drunken driver in, in the neighborhood, in the suburban area.

Of course, that went through it. They caught the guy and the guy got a little bit of probation and 30 days in jail, it was, wow. This guy killed this girl and got off way too easy. And so this woman in the story that I read had a choice, she was very angry.

That her daughter walked out the door and she never got a chance to say goodbye.

You know, she’s never coming back. She was in a very safe, nice neighborhood in suburban LA and her life was taken by a drunken driver, cutting through the subdivision to go somewhere swerved. She was on the sidewalk and the dude swerved up onto the sidewalk and hit her. She had a choice to make, whether she was going to allow that anger to make her bitter probably ruin her marriage and relationships to other children.

However, she chose to allow the anger to drive her to a positive direction and make a difference. Her name is candy and she created mothers against drunk drivers and has literally changed the world. And when it comes to DUIs, the laws have changed the punishment stiffer. They get what they deserve because one woman said, I’m not going to let this destroy me.

I’m going to create something good out of my anchor.

Carrie: Absolutely.

Ed: Hopefully little encouragement to your audience.

Carrie: That’s good. Oftentimes we hear people say anger is a secondary emotion, meaning there’s some other emotion underneath it. Tell us about the connection between anger and anxiety.

Ed: Sure. And, and that is correct.

Anger is always a secondary emotion. It’s a, by-product, there’s always a primary in place, such as loneliness, anxiety in other word, fear, the big kahunas is stress and frustration. When we don’t manage those primaries, then they escalate to anger. Then if it’s not taken care of escalates to rage, rage goes to blind rage.

I had a client years ago that I dealt with that went into blind rage and literally. $5,000 worth of damage to his mother’s kitchen and denied it. He said, I didn’t do that. There’s no way I did that. He was in blind rage. He didn’t even know what he was doing so it can get ugly real fast. But again, let’s back up.

We have anxiety now of course. Anxiety is a lot like, or it has one common thread with the other primaries. We all have stress in our life, the stress of driving in traffic every day to work stress in handling family situations. It’s okay. And we all have frustration in our life. We all have a little bit of anxiety in our life.

A little bit of worry, a little bit of stress. You know, we’ve got something major coming up, whether it’s a certification test or whether it is a presentation that we got to make it work, or we’ve got to deal something with our children, we all have what we would call normal stress, normal frustration, and even normal anxiety.

The challenge comes is when. It doesn’t become normal anymore. We’re stressed out more than we usually are. We’re frustrated more than we usually are. We’re experiencing anxiety more than we usually do. So is the fears and the worries becomes extreme. It becomes excessive. And that right there.

The connection is, is when we don’t deal with frustration or stress or anxiety, we start getting angry because we don’t like the emotion. We don’t like to feel stressed out. We don’t like to feel frustrated. We don’t like to feel the fear, the intense fear, what’s wrong with me? Why am I feeling so afraid?

Why am I worrying so much about this thing? This ain’t that big a deal? And everybody’s saying I’ll just calm down. You’ll be fine.No, I’m not fine. So as you can see, anxiety really kind of ties into the frustration that primary. And of course, if we don’t get something to relieve it, then it’s going to escalate to anger and we’re going to start being mad at ourselves.

We’re going to be angry at other people trying to give us. And they mean, well, they’re trying to help us, but they’re not helping. Then we start getting angry with that. And everything kind of blows up from there. Does that make sense?

Carrie: Yeah. I mean, it’s like a domino reaction, you know, if you don’t back up and deal with the, the initial dominoes that cause the cascade to go, then you’re not going to be able to resolve the issue.

Whereas I think sometimes people in. Anger management situations. We’ll just say, okay, well, I’ve just got to catch myself before I get to that rage point, but they don’t ever deal with those emotions that come before the anger point, which came before the rage.

Ed: Yes. Ma’am. That is exactly right. Again, it’s a.

It’s a cascade. It’s just, it starts falling and you know, we’ve got to stop it somewhere. We’ve got to say, okay, wait a minute. Stop right now.

Carrie: Yes.

Ed: Absolutely.

Carrie: Probably the worst thing that you could do for an anxious or angry person is to tell them to calm down that does not usually help at all. Usually causes more frustration or anxiety.

Ed: Yeah.Do you remember years ago? The movie that came out with Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson, anger management,

Carrie: I’m not sure if I saw that one.

Ed: Go back and dig it up. It’s a great movie. And of course it’s a movie, Adam Sandler. I think he got thrown off a plane because he was angry. I’m not angry.

Nicholson is the therapist that’s going to help him overcome his anger. Everything wrong in getting the character that Adam Sandler is playing a good friend of mine in LA was the consultant for anger management. And it was kind of knowing anger management. And Jack Nicholson was always saying, you need to just calm down.

Okay. Just calm down. And, and then, the character that, um, Adam Sandler’s playing, it just goes through the roof. It was hilarious, but you’re right. When you say to an angry person or to an anxious person, just calm down, you’re throwing fuel on the phone.

Carrie: Right. So tell us about your book control the beast.

Ed: Oh boy. That was fun. As we’ve gone through this podcast, I’ve totaled bits and pieces of my story. The control of the beast is a book that we have just put out on the market. That is really, for me, it’s 40 plus years in the making because I was, angry kid, young adult, and then Gail and I started when we got married on our journey of trial and error, trying to help me get rid of anger.

We realized I’m not going to get rid of it. I’ve got around a manage. It just like anxiety. You don’t get rid of anxiety, you manage your anxiety. And that’s what you do with anger. As you learn how to manage your anger, how to identify and diffuse. So the book is based on a 17 years of training. I still do training of sharing this because my whole mission and purpose, I felt like God wanted me to give back.

I was this person I managed, I’ve gotten better. And now I need to give back. So, as we talked about earlier, when books and things started coming out, I started ingesting everything. When I did find some kind of training seminar workshop on anger, I took it. And then when certification classes actually came out.

I did it and became certified and then just started teaching. We taught with probation and parole court services. Several chambers of commerce have brought me in for lunch and learns companies, brought me in for identifying and diffusing, angry people, working with their management, et cetera, et cetera.

So control the beast is what is that? 12 chapters. And we’d start out with the power of understanding or discovering the beast. When we understand who we are, what’s going on, what’s our past and everybody around us, again, the power of understanding helps us deal with it. Then chapter two is starve the beast.

We’ve got to clean up our environment, there’s triggers. And I end the book I talked and I also taught it. There’s six main triggers. That exists, that that’s the six popular ones starting out one with pornography, the addiction to pornography, television programming, what we’re listening to music, what we’re reading all could be triggers of anger.

I imagine in your field of dealing with anxiety, that could be, there could be some crossover there. So we talk about the importance of cleaning up our environment. Then it’s not really a book about anger management, as much as it is. Yeah, guide a manual. Uh, how to, I felt like people needed, okay, how do I do this?

Because when I started I’m like, what do I do? How do I handle this? And so I wanted to develop a guide, a manual to say, okay, read this and start following it. And practicing it and you can get your anger under control. So with that, we talk about how the beast works. And of course the beast is our negative emotions and that is emotional mechanics that how does emotions fire, what triggers them?

The biology of emotions. And then Mr. Beasties game, that’s the blame and responsibility we always get in the blame game. Well, I wouldn’t get angry if they would keep their stupid mouth shut, things like that. And so you cannot go into the blame game and blame everybody and everything around you for your bad behavior, you got to own it.

You got to take responsibility. Chapter five is the TMZ of the beast world, and that is the emotion, anger, and emotion unveil. We rip the lid off of it. And we expose the beast for who it is, what it is. And then chapter six is kind of the pinnacle where we don’t play games with the beast and that’s diffusing negative emotions.

That’s the tools, the mechanisms that we can use to help like walk away, breathe, intellectualize the situation, get help, things like that. The beast. Is ambushes and disguises where it hides such as a drug addiction and alcoholism attempts at suicide. People are angry at people around them. Like teenagers will attempt suicide because they’re very angry with their parents and they want to inflict pain upon them.

And so we discover, we talk about the ambushes and the disguises that the beast does time to confront the beast. That’s the answer to the question of self-identity who are. Where are we, it takes a team to control the beast. And that, that is a chapter on vital relationships. I wrote a piece and I taught it and I put it in the book called nine levels of relationships and how to handle toxic relationships.

So many times we get confused with the levels of relationships we have. For example, we have an acquaintance that we don’t really know, but we want to make them a best friend. What can they be trusted with best friend status. Or we have a best friend that violates our trust. We can’t keep them there. They have to move to a different category.

You know, spousal relationship. Of course, the number one relationship that I talk about nine levels is our relationship to God. That’s gotta be strong. That’s gotta be powerful. And then of course, we work our way down to level nine, which is the toxic poisonous relationship. That we’ve got to deal with because the only thing happens when you mess with a toxic relationship is that you get poisoned, you get hurt over and over and over, and you’ve got to get rid of that relationship.

Not to say that it won’t heal not to say that you can’t detox that relationship and put it back up into one of the other levels of relationships. That’s good chapter. I just did two or three podcasts on that chapter alone. Rebuild what the, these destroyed is rebuilding our self-esteem. From our past, the shame that anger brings negative emotions bring.

And of course, then chapter 12, we talk about train the beast and that’s revitalizing the positive inner person.

Carrie: Okay. Wow. There’s a lot in there. It sounds like.

Ed: Yeah. Packed it with some meat.

Carrie: And sounds like very practical information, certainly takeaways that people can implement in their life and step-by-step instructions on how to do that.

I like that. I like practical materials. I don’t philosophical ones are nice, but if you don’t know how to apply it, then sometimes it’s completely worthless. If you can’t put it into practice in your own life, then it’s like, well, what’s the point there? So.

Ed: That’s right. And of course we want to say to God, be the glory for all of this.

We are getting a lot of great feedback. When people read the book, they’re hitting me on Instagram or Twitter. Hey, I just got your book, man. This is fantastic. And they use the word practical, which I’m like, yes, yes.So that’s good.

Carrie: Well, I think it’s just beautiful that you have used your.

Difficulties and struggles and challenges to allow God to use those things for good and then to bless other people and help them along their journey. So as we’re kind of wrapping up our time together, I like to ask every guest to share a story of hope, which is a time in which you received hope from God or another person.

Ed: Wow. Let me go. And we’re going to talk about probably a lot of anxiety that I experienced in my life with everything else. That’s going on. Somebody being bullied like I was, or you’ve got somebody in your life that is, they may not physically be bullying. You beating you up physically, but they’re beating you up emotionally and make you feel small, making you feel.

Insufficient. It really messes with my emotions and kind of makes my eyes water a little bit. When I think about the kid ed Snyder, and I knew me, I just love everybody. I just wanted to get along with everybody and everybody’s making fun of me and tormenting me and all of that stuff. And it literally, Carrie destroyed my,self-esteem.

I couldn’t see my way up. And if it was. For God, putting somebody in my life that I called mother where every day I come home from school, after going through a day of it’s supposed to be a day of learning, which was a day of abuse. She was there telling me, Hey, you don’t need those people. You can do anything you set your mind to do.

God’s got great things for you and your life. He’s got stuff in you that you’re going to do great with.She was constantly just hitting me with that and it really was a saving point in my life. I don’t know where I would be if it wasn’t for the time that God used my own mother. To tell me you don’t listen to them.

You’re better than that. You’re a good kid, et cetera, et cetera. And so, as I grew, God just kept putting people in my life. One being my wife we’re together. I mean, we’re, peanut butter and jelly. I mean, we just, and of course she knows. And that’s what I think everybody needs in their life as somebody that knows them inside and out.

And she knows when to back off of me, she knows when to get in my face and wad up that Iris face or hers and get, straight. And I take it because I know she loves me. And so it’s amazing how God puts people in your life. That will help you. They’re there to be a blessing to you to build you up. And of course, again, I don’t want to take anything away from God, but God uses people.

God uses work, have your faith. God can do anything. He is everything. But sometimes he uses the hands and the voices of people to make that. And of course we’re responsible for putting in the work. Faith without works is dead. I went to the altar and I prayed after my pastor preach the message and I cried and I wanted God to heal me of this and get rid of it.

I don’t want to be like this anymore. And I get up in a day or two later, I’m back at it again. I had to figure out the work, what do I need to do myself? To partner with God’s power and prayer to make it happen. Maybe that’s what I need to help. So a listener of yours and your audience, whether you’re dealing with anxiety or you’re dealing with stress or frustration, or even anger, God’s putting people in your life, this podcast, perhaps get back to this podcast and get the help that you need so that you can put the work with your faith.

And God’s going to do great things in your life.

Carrie: That’s great. So we’re going to put links in the show notes to the book and to your website so that people can reach you. And this has been a great conversation and I think really valuable for our audience. I appreciate you being here today.

Ed: Well, if there’s anything I can do for you or any of your listeners, please reach out to me.

Our emails on the website can hit me up on social media, whatever it is, but thank you again, Carrie, for the opportunity. And the privilege of being on your podcast, I’ve enjoyed being with you.

Carrie: You can find us online any time@hopeforanxietyandocd.com. I would love to hear from you. You can head on over to the contact page and let me know what you think about these episodes.

Thank you so much for listening.

Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum until next time may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

41. Writing the Christian Book about Anxiety She Wanted to Read with Tiffany Ciccone

Written by Carrie Bock on August 11, 2021. Posted in Anxiety, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 41. Writing the Christian Book about Anxiety She Wanted to Read with Tiffany Ciccone

Today on the show, we are privileged to hear Tiffany Ciccone’s journey through anxiety. Tiffany is an English teacher and a writer. She has been struggling with an anxiety disorder since she was a child.

Symptoms of her anxiety disorder that continued into her adulthood
Growing up in a church where she would hear sermons like anxiety and depression are a sin
Having a hard time connecting with God and finding a new church where she could freely talk about her disorder
Started writing a book as part of her healing process
Her husband’s role in seeking professional help for her
Encouragement or hope Tiffany would provide to her younger self

Links and Resources:

Tiffany Ciccone

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Transcript of Episode 41

Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD, episode 41. On today’s show. I am talking with Tiffany Ciccone who is an English teacher and also working on writing a book about her anxiety.

Carrie: Tiffany, welcome to the show. I’m so glad that you’re going to talk with us about some of your personal experiences and your book writing process.

Tiffany: Thank you, Carrie. I’m happy to be here and have this opportunity.

Carrie: We actually met on social media through Instagram because you’re in the process of writing this book about your personal story with anxiety. And so I’m curious what that process has been like for you just like opening up and sharing your story.

Tiffany: Sure. So it started a long time ago, basically, when I was first diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. I did what we would all do. And I went home and Googled. I just Googled it hard. And there was a lot I found about what is generalized anxiety disorder and what are the symptoms, but there’s a whole part of me that wasn’t addressed anywhere online.

I couldn’t find it anywhere. It was back in 2006. It was kind of early on with the whole mental health awareness thing. And there were no Christians talking about generalized anxiety disorder. There were Christians talking about, “Oh, don’t worry. Trust God. He takes care of the sparrows, he’ll take care of you,’ and all that good stuff. But, you know, I grew up in the church and I already knew that stuff. That wasn’t what my problem was. And I just felt so alone. There was nobody talking about and describing what I was going through. And so that night when I was on my laptop, looking for people I could relate to.

I think that’s the moment the book was conceived because I came across this quote by Tony Morrison and she says, if you can’t find the book you want to read, then you need to write it.

Carrie: And that’s so good.

Tiffany: So that was what I had to do. And it was like 10 years until I started writing it because there was a lot I had to go through.

A lot of healing that took place. And I didn’t know in that moment that I was going to write a book. Since then it’s been a ride. So I’m an English teacher and 10 years into teaching my husband and I moved from the bay area to San Diego. And that cleared up some time for me. And I started writing. I just started blogging because, well, if I want to write, I can, nothing’s stopping me. So I started a blog and I noticed that all of my content started to kind of focus around one topic and that was the intersection of anxiety and my faith. So I kind of decided, you know what? this topic is really new one. It’s really deep and it deserves its own book. So I stepped away from the blog and I started outlining a book and it’s been a challenging, worthwhile process. And it’s been a few years now kind of working through it and I have a manuscript now. It’s over a hundred pages and I met kind of a fun point where it’s like a jigsaw puzzle.

I’m trying to see kind of how these different pieces I wrote fit together. And I’m hoping and praying that it can help people kind of in that moment where I found myself where who can relate to this. Who’s been here before, who can tell me what to do and give me the encouragement that I need. I’m hoping and praying that this book can be that for people in their early diagnosis or maybe long into their diagnosis. And they just want to read someone’s story who read, whose resonates with theirs.

Carrie: Yeah, I would absolutely agree with you just from my own searches of who is speaking into this space about having a clinical level of anxiety, not just an anxiety that everybody faces on a day-to-day basis. Because everybody goes through some level of anxiety at some point or another in their life, but when you’re talking about things like I don’t know if this is part of your story, but when you’re talking about dealing with things like panic attacks or just intense episodes of anxiety, not being able to shut off the worries, It’s just a whole different level and a lot of times people in the church will kind of approach it like it’s just kind of, oh, it’s every day, like normal anxiety, like I deal with and not really realizing no, it’s really a little bit more complex than that. So some of the things that might be helpful. day-to-day worries. Anxieties fears are not going to be necessarily the same things that are going to be helpful for generalized anxiety disorder.

And I think kind of you, and I probably share some similarities in that we want to get this message out there and haven’t seen people who are talking about it and it’s kind of part of what’s propelled his podcast too. So it’s really great to have you on to talk about this. So tell us a little bit about in terms of your symptoms like when did you first start to experience anxiety, even if you didn’t know that’s what it was called.

Tiffany: I think the first kind of manifestation in my childhood, I had a lot of health anxiety. Back then we called it hypochondria, but I was just writing about it the other day. It would be like the craziest littlest things like a bump on my shin. And I would go crying to my dad that I have a tumor in my shin. When I Found split ends, I was in third grade, I think on a trip with my grandparents and the trip was great until I saw the split in. And I just knew like this is cancer, like, what else could this possibly be? And when I came home, I just felt the weight of the world.

As I had to tell my parents that their oldest daughter’s dying and I wasn’t afraid of the death part. I was like really afraid of ruining my parents’ lives of bringing them all this sorrow and grief and through like a medical nightmare and that kind of incident just repeated itself throughout probably when I was like 20. I kind of like eased up and stopped.

I was really blessed that my dad gave me extra reassurance. And some of the logical things that he talked me through when I would freak out God kind of embedded in me.

Carrie: So you can start to challenge.

Tiffany: Yeah. He didn’t know it, but he was teaching me like a part of cognitive-behavioural therapy and giving me good ways to challenge those thoughts.

Also, I recently read on, I think it was the national Institute for mental health that children who are really shy, that can be one indicator later on. Maybe there will be an anxiety disorder. I was a super shy kid. I was put in a study of an experimental playgroup were super shy kids and overly aggressive kids were combined.

Carrie: Oh no, that sounds awful.Who thought of that one.

Tiffany: I know. Great opportunity for bullying. I don’t know if it really worked with me, but it wasn’t horrible. The toys were great. And I don’t remember anyone beating me up. So I don’t think I was healed by it. That’s just like how shy I was. I remember also some perfectionism like I wouldn’t know the answer to a question or I’d be confused in class and there’s one time a computer class where the teacher kept saying to push return and he’s like, I don’t know what return is. What’s return. Oh my gosh. I ended up bursting out crying, like hysterically crying. I can see moments like that where it’s just like, that’s, doesn’t seem quite normal. I can see anxiety there. And then in my adolescence, a few symptoms took me to my doc. And those are symptoms of anxiety, muscle tension. I had really tight back muscles. He had to give me shots in my back to loosen them up. I went to him because my hands were tingling and I thought I had diabetes because of my health anxiety. And it was because I was hyperventilating and I didn’t believe him. So he had me breathe into a paper bag and I’m like, okOkay. And then I, as a teenager, had perfectionism in the context of relationships. I would be crying late in the day because I said something to someone and I thought it would have hurt them or something. And then in college, I over-thought a lot. And I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders with a lot of things.

So really like I do see a lot of pieces of it growing up.

Carrie: Yeah. It seems like you were a shy, but also like very conscientious child of like trying to please everyone and making sure they’re happy. And then that pressure that it doesn’t necessarily have to be pressure that other people put on you, you can put it on yourself, like, oh, I’ve got to do a good job, or I’ve got to be perfect at this. And then when it doesn’t happen like you don’t know how to respond in the school scenario that just creates so much anxiety. Makes a lot of sense. How old were you when you were actually diagnosed?

Tiffany: I was 23.

Carrie: Wow. So you had been dealing with it for years, really before you got a formal diagnosis, even with everything you went through with the doctor in high school and stuff, they weren’t able to identify and pinpoint.

That’s interesting. So what was that process for you like of getting help for?

Tiffany: Well, the awareness was at like zero. I had grown up at a church where it was an evangelical free church with a great youth group, but I never forget the most memorable sermon I’ve sat through our head pastors said that anxiety is a sin.

Depression is a sin. There’s spiritual problems that needs spiritual solutions. You need more faith. That kind of a thing. And I was probably 20 when I heard it and it struck me as wrong then because I knew people who were depressed or who struggled with rage and who had traumatic past.

And I’m sure it was harsh. So I grew up in that kind of context. And at the same time, I had a strong faith myself. I’d been on mission trips. I’ve learned to trust God. I’ve learned to be flexible. I grew up with this understanding the anxiety is for when you’re not trusting God with things that are beyond your control. Whereas my problem was I was freaking out about what was under my control. That was my anxiety, that I was going to screw up what’s on mine. I couldn’t see it. I actually ran into like one of my best friend’s moms back when just before I was diagnosed and I was losing my functionality, basically I ran into her at a grocery store and we chatted for a moment.

She was actually also a trained biblical counselor at church. So I ran to the supermarket. We chatted, I was super anxious at the time because it was hard for me to choose groceries because of my indecision. And she called me later that evening. She’d never called me before, my friend’s mom and she wanted to check in because she said it seemed like something was off, like what’s going on? Are you okay? And I didn’t have much of an explanation for her. And I think she was probably hoping for some breakthroughs, some spiritual something or other, and, you know, I just kind of told her my life circumstances and, and I didn’t have words for the anxiety part because it hadn’t been addressed yet and she couldn’t identify it.

So that just goes to show the level of unawareness that was present in kind of the Christian culture I was in. So I mentioned I was losing functionality, so my saving grace that brought me to a therapist was my husband at the time we were just dating and he got a front center road look at my life and how I was doing emotionally and mentally. And he saw me break down at target over like what toothpastes to buy. He saw me break down at church and I had no clue why I was hysterically crying and he’s like, honey, what’s wrong? And I’m like, “oh no, what’s wrong with me.” And he just hugged me. And he said I think you should see someone. And I was like, oh, you mean like a therapist?

And he’s like, “yes.” And it gave me permission to seek help. It gave me a direction to go in it. It wasn’t like, oh, I’m so offended because you’re saying I need professional help. Like, that’s what I needed. And also at that time, I was in my first year of teaching, which is known to be a disaster, like regardless of how mentally healthy you are, that’s supposed to challenge your menta health.

And so I also had this disorder where I overthought every decision I was making in the classroom. So the kid’s behavior was a disaster and I was just getting like psychological beat downs all the time. So it was the hardest year of my life. I also developed a jaw disorder. It goes hand in hand with the muscle tension that we see with generalized anxiety disorder.

So I was like drinking these awful like lukewarm smoothies at lunch in school. Not just like food from clenching, like,

Carrie: Was that from clenching your jaw, like out of anxiety or?

Tiffany: Yeah, it was from clenching and they said a malocclusion. So my teeth just didn’t fit together. So I’d have to like shift my jaw to get my teeth ticket fit together right. And my jaw had clicked since I was a senior in high school, but my dentist didn’t really give me any guidance from there. And so basically by the time I graduated college, it was really, really painful. I went to specialists in San Francisco got physical therapy. I still see a physical therapist from time to time.

So it was just kind of this convergence of all of these really stressful things and got to mention, I was also earning my master’s degree, blond distance through my credential program. So all of that, like it just broke me and I actually knew a couple other people in my credential, in my master’s program who also dropped out because they couldn’t handle it. I don’t know if they were having mental breaks like I was, but I just got to the point where I was kind of barely functional.

Carrie: Yeah. I think that you bring up a good point, cause it’s one thing to be aware of your symptoms. And it’s another thing to then be able to turn around and communicate those.

Like, sometimes all you can say is I just feel like a mess or I don’t feel well or I’m miserable and I don’t know why. Sometimes until you get around a therapist or a doctor, asked you very specific questions like, what’s your sleep? what you’re eating? How do your muscles field you experienced this or that?

And then you’re better able to tease out and communicate some of those symptoms. I know, just from being a counselor and working with a lot of people with anxiety, sometimes people say things like, I just, I don’t feel well. And I’m anxious. I don’t feel good. I just want to feel better. And it’s really just being able to tease some of those things out to figure out what people’s symptoms are and what they actually need like where’s our starting point here.

Tiffany: Yeah. That was very much my…that describes what it was like for me. And, I recently heard of the term free floating anxiety and I certainly had that where it just stuck around. Yeah. And I didn’t know what it was or what to do with it. I just knew that my breathing feels funny. I know I can’t concentrate anymore, but I had no idea why.

Carrie: So you talked a little bit in terms of like how responses were in the church you were just hearing. Okay. Well, pretty much it’s your fault. You’re not trusting God in some way, or this is a spiritual issue that you need help for. How did you resolve some of those messages and turn them from like unhealthy messages, which is what I believe those are into something healthier and kind of make some resolution or peace with your faith.

Tiffany: That’s a great question. And it’s a really complicated, layered answer, I think pencil book. So we’ll see what words I can think of right now. Therapy really helped. And she wasn’t a Christian therapy, but she was a good therapist who knew how to take my religious beliefs and work with them.

And I was warned in a large sense that my church, I was warned against secular therapy. I was warned against medication. You know, like the Bible only is all we need. Why would you let the world. Like help you in the way that God can help you through the Bible. But like, this was different.

It was clinical. Like he said earlier, you know, it’s, it’s not a spiritual issue of trusting God. It had a much more profound, complicated effect on my relationship with God, actually. So my therapist helped me turn that around. I saw her for two years at the end of my first year, I went on medication as well.

She worked with my doctor. So a little bit also if my kind of getting health story, I started with my doctor, I made an appointment and I told him how I was feeling. I was like crying myself to sleep. And part of that was just sheer loneliness, especially before I met my husband. And I shouldn’t say shared loneliness.

It was a convergence of everything. Thankfully he didn’t just write me a prescription. Referred me to three cognitive behavioral therapist. He said, you know, the research shows, this is the most effective treatment. Here’s three good ones I know of. And this is the same doctor that I grew up with actually who didn’t catch the isolated symptoms.

But when I told him I kinda saw the wheels turning in his head, he was like, oh, you always have been pretty hyper.

And we had this thing where my blood pressure was always elevated at the doctor’s office because of my health anxiety. So like, yeah, he, and just the, my mannerisms, I suppose. So he led me to my therapist. So then a year into therapy, I had learned cognitive behavioral journaling, and that was a huge help because I’d always been a journaler.

And that was a huge coping mechanism for me before I was diagnosed. I can look back at my journals, like in high school and I see that I’m coming to my journal to seek what the heck is happening in my head. I’m like, I’m feeling this way. Why God? And then I kind of dialogue with God through prayer in my journal and do some sort of similar thing to cognitive behavioral therapy.

And so when I learned the formal structure that really helped me. And when I learned cognitive distortions and I learned to identify what thought was, what cognitive distortion and then how to deal with those distortions. There was a lot of healing there, but then the triggers kept popping up. So I’d like have an anxious thought deal with it.

30 minutes later, it’s back, but a different topic. And so I deal with that 30 minutes later, I feel it again. And so that’s when my therapist called my doctor. And he started me on medication. And then that medication journey started. I’m still on it today. I’ve been on various ones over time.

It gives me a strong baseline to work from, and it makes the incidents much fewer. I don’t have a pop-up as frequently. So those things. Ironically, the things that my church had warned me against are the things that helped me see more clearly what was happening to me and brought me back to truth because when my anxiety got under control, I was able to see God more clearly along with everything else.

And I was able to concentrate in prayer again and before I was so confused as to why I couldn’t connect with God like I used to, and I thought it was a sin issue. I heard Christian say before that Christians would mention this feeling of I feel convicted of sin and I’d always, I’d always thought like, what is that like” I don’t really feel that. And so then when I had these new feelings of anxiety, I’m like, oh my gosh, this must be conviction of sin. What’s wrong. And I would search my heart. I would do all the right things to try and find answers with God. And I would come up with nothing. I was stuck and then not just exacerbated things and kept the cycle going of this scrupulosity to use a new word that I recently learned. My obsessing over pleasing God, my obsessing over I don’t want to be a failure to God. And I felt like his little failure. I obsessed about what is the will of God.

And then when I moved to San Diego, I mentioned the move. I started a new church. stopped going to that other church. I didn’t keep going and going.

The other churches in between, you know, we went to my husband’s a little while and you know, they were okay. Nothing major either way, but I didn’t open up about my anxiety because all I had known was that people are not going to understand the church’s definition of anxiety is totally different from my experience of it.

They should have different words in my opinion. So when I moved down to San Diego, this new church. The second sermon I heard there, there was a couple on stage and they’re giving their testimony and it involved infidelity. And my husband and I were sitting there, like with our mouths wide open and I was like, oh my gosh, like, okay, if they can talk about this here from the stage, I can talk about my anxiety.

Carrie: Wow. So freeing.

Tiffany: And by that time I was 10 years into this journey with anxiety. And I had actually gone into a remission at a point where my anxiety was under control. It was minimal. And I remember one of the things my therapist told me when she graduated me at the end of my two years. She said, don’t be surprised if this comes back during a major life transition.

You know, like if you have a baby, if you move and sure enough, I quit my job of 11 years in the bay area, quit the ministry I was involved with, moved down to San Diego and I was unemployed for awhile. That was my big trigger. And my anxiety came back with new manifestations too.

It was far more physical than before, far less of the thoughts. It was harder for me to cope because it was harder to find the thoughts underneath the physical symptoms. And I had just like happened. I was like, you know, I’ve done this before. I’ve been here. I’ve been through the therapy. I’ve been through this stigma, whatever, I’m done, I’m talking about it.

And so I started more writing about it more freely. I just put it all on paper. I would talk about it. And my church really embraced that and I could give you great examples of it if we have time for it if you want to take it in that direction.

Carrie: It seems like hearing somebody else’s story that totally freed you up and reduce shame and stigma to allow you to share your story.

And then I’m sure like you sharing your story has blessed someone else in the church who thought, oh gosh, I just thought I was sitting here. And I was the only one going through anxiety because I do think that that happens a lot in church unfortunately, if we don’t open up and we don’t talk about these things, or we don’t say… I look at my clients who talk about their therapy openly to other people. And oftentimes that will free someone up in their life to get therapy because then their friend or family member, whoever will go, oh, you’re getting therapy. Like, I guess it’s okay. Then, it’s that whole reducing the stigma and just kind of making it more of a normal process that, that it’s okay to go through. That’s awesome.

And I love what you said too earlier about how it’s almost like anxiety was this cloud in between you and your relationship with God where you had a hard time seeing God clearly or connecting with him because this was in the way. And I really believe that as we’re able to work through some of those things, so we have a clear picture of who God is, of how much he loves us, so that, you know, he’s for us. And it just changes things a lot in terms of that positive connection with God.

Tiffany: Yeah. I kind of felt in one of those moments, I felt like the prayer where the, I forget who it was, but a man in the Bibles tells Jesus, you know, I believe help my unbelief. In those moments where the anxiety was heavy. It’s like, God, I, yeah, I know these things deep in my gut, but they’re not true in my, yeah.

I can’t grasp them rationally and I don’t know why or how, and, and God was definitely good and that he did help me brought me to that therapist and brought me on this huge journey since then.

Carrie: So what I used to do on my show, I’d have guests on and I’d say, okay, now tell me a story of hope, you know, sometime where you receive hope from God.

And then I started doing more of these personal stories and just in a really make sense, because your whole story is hopeful, right? So I decided that this go-around of recordings. I’m going to shift the question, the kind of, some of our closing question a little bit. So your closing question is if you could go back in time, what encouragement or hope would you provide to your younger self?

Tiffany: This is a great question. And I gave her a bit of thought and I kind of came up with like everything I needed, like basically to my younger self. If I’m going to look at this, literally. I wouldn’t give myself any extra encouragement or hope where I went because God gave me what I needed when I needed it through people, through things like this podcast.

And I wouldn’t change that journey painful as it was because God is a beautiful artist, but there are things, I decided what I wanted to share was what I wanted to hear that night when I realized nobody understood, nobody was talking about what I was going through. So if I could, I think I just closed by reading a piece. I have a writing coach and he challenged me if I only had 15 minutes and don’t worry, this isn’t 15 minutes of reading. If I only had 15 minutes with the people who I’m writing for, what would I tell them? So I’m just gonna read that if that’s okay. So this is, I feel like what I needed to hear.

We have been told that as Christians, we shouldn’t be anxious or depressed. This makes us feel like crap because anxiety and depressive disorders don’t really give us. Scriptures like be anxious for nothing and rejoice the Lord always are directed and fired at us by church leaders, Christian authors, and friends and family who like to tack on offhand remarks and platitudes.

When I’m anxious, be anxious for nothing just makes me feel like that much more of a failure. They don’t understand the desperate darkness we’re dealing with or what it stems from. They expect us to be able to remove the very thorns that God alone can remove. Because the experience is limited and because they’d forget to listen, they assume that depressive disorders are the same as their own struggle with discontentment and they assume that anxiety disorders are the same as their own struggle to trust God with the present and future.

Infact, I consider it a misnomer to use the word anxiety for both their spiritual struggles and our visceral psychological disorders. I know it’s cheesy, but it might help a little bit to refer to the clinical stuff is thorny, after the thorn that the apostle Paul was inflicted with. That’s how I think we need to understand our disorders.

See if Paul’sexperience resonates with yours. And then this is second Corinthians 12 seven. A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited three times. I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me, but he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you.

For my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me for the sake of Christ then I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong like Paul and his thorn, none of us asked for our disorders. They harassed. They keep us from being conceded, from thinking rationally and from being generally functional, they keep us weak and in the presence of tears and the collapsing and the haze and the stigma in the midst of it all, we find that his grace is sufficient.

This is the real gospel, the gospel of weakness. The mistaken American church preaches a gospel of strength self-sufficiency and name it and claim it success in healing. In short, it’s kind of like the pharisees. No wonder it is obsessed with removing thorns with all its books and sermons about overcoming anxiety and depression.

It is forgotten Jesus’s words, “Blessed are the weak in spirit.” It is forgotten that our king was a man of sorrows. Well acquainted with grief. It is forgotten how the heart of God grieves the fall of his beloved mankind is forgotten the, in our very nature, we are all weak. It is distant from the truth and its source. In this ironic sense we are blessed. Our thorns remind us that we need rescue. They keep us tethered to our savior and the source of truth. I need to be rescued regularly from the adrenaline that just shoots on for no reason when my prefrontal cortex shuts down, I need to be rescued when my mind turns on me in a thick fog sets in over the truth.

Over the years, these words of CS Lewis have given me great comfort. They have done the rare thing of understand me as a person of faith with an anxiety disorder. If you are a poor preacher poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless corals saddled by no choice of your own.

With some loads, some sexual perversion, parenthetically I put were bipolar disorders, schizophrenia or panic disorder, or any of those nagged day in and out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends. Do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom he blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you were trying to drive. Keep on, do what you can one day, perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that, he will fling it on the scrap heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonished us all, not least yourself for you have learned. You’re driving in a hard school. The church’s obsession with curing anxiety and depression.

I was controlled. What if Paul came across a book called remove your thorn or pray your thorn away or choose Christ, not your thorn. Would Paul feel like a failure? Would he wonder what am I doing wrong? But he was obsessive, he searched for some horrible sin. That must be preventing his thorn removed. What would it cause him to spiral?

Like I do. I’ll never know the anxiety of guest 70. It’s a good thing that Paul’s thorn wasn’t removed. I have no more ability to cure my anxiety than Paul was able to remove his own thorn. And also like Paul, it doesn’t mean I don’t try. I’m surprised. He only asked God three times.

I’ve asked a bazillion while God is not cured me less I become conceited. He’s done so much healing, especially through means that have been denounced by many in the church like secular therapy, medication, nature, self-care. Do what you can. Here’s my closing. Do what you can to take care of the body God gave you. I’m still learning how to take care of mine. Ours might be a little janky. But remember God redeems, all things let’s get comfortable with the law we’ve been given, not complacent, not giving up, but doing what we can and then surrendering the rest of Jesus. Perhaps the goal is to trust God with our anxiety disorders, that even if healing doesn’t come, that we may have the posture of the mother of God.

I am willing to be used of the Lord. Let it happen to me as you have said, Luke, that’s from Luke one. That’s my prayer of submission. When I can’t shake my anxiety, that’s the end. And that was way longer than I thought it would be.

Carrie: Oh, wow. So good, Tiffany, we really need this book out. And so we will definitely let people know, whenever you let me know that it’s going to be out, I will let the people know because I love that.

I feel like we share a similar heartbeat for people in the church who are struggling. So thank you so much for being brave and coming on here and talking about your own struggles. I know this is definitely going to be relatable to our audience and that people are going to be blessed by the encouragement.

Tiffany: Well, thank you so much.

_______________

So I’d like everyone to know that we are going to have our second webinar for hope for anxiety and OCD on September the 10th. We talked about reducing shame back in May. And there was a great response to that webinar for those who were able to attend. And I’m very excited about this webinar on September 10th.

We’re going to be just talking about how to deal with difficult thoughts, whether those worry thoughts, like we talked about today, whether it’s OCD, thoughts that are popping into your mind, whatever thoughts you’re having difficulty with as a Christian. Let’s hop on a webinar together and talk about those things.

So I’m going to have a short presentation, usually about 30 minutes, and then I open it up for question and answer and we had some great questions last time. So I’m really looking forward to it for more information, I’m going to put that on our website at www.hopeforanxietyandocd.com/webinars.

Hope for anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum.

Until next time may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

40. Life Lessons From 40 episodes of Podcasting

Written by Carrie Bock on August 4, 2021. Posted in Anxiety, Counseling, OCD, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 40. Life Lessons From 40 episodes of Podcasting

We are on our 40th episode today! I’m flying solo to share my podcasting journey and life lessons from the previous episodes.

It’s impossible to have figured out everything before you start something.
Find your why on those days that are more difficult and you will feel like you can finish what you have started.
It’s the mess and the difficulty that drives us to dependence and reminds us that we can’t control everything.
I don’t need to worry about what’s going on with everyone else.
I need to be worried about staying on the path that God has called me to.

All these valuable life lessons and more that you can apply in your life while you’re finding and fulfilling God’s plan in your life.

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Transcript of Episode 40

Hope for Anxiety and OCD, episode 40. Now, if you’ve been following along with the podcast, it’s been a little while since I’ve had a solo episode. So here I am. I wanted to talk with you about my podcasting journey, but more so in the sense of the life lessons that I’ve learned, I think these life lessons are going to be very valuable for you to hear and figure out how does that apply to your own life and maybe some of the things that you’re facing today.

So bit of encouragement, because it’s been a big hurdle over the last year or to not only start this podcast but to keep it going. There’s a term in the podcasting community called pod fade. Essentially pod fade is when people get super excited about their podcasts, they have this great idea. They get rolling and then they’re done before they even have 10 episodes released because the work that’s involved becomes overwhelming.

Whenever you’re looking at starting something new, I think there’s two different pits that people fall into like ditches on the side of the road. So one ditch on the side of the road is the people who never get started with anything because they feel like I have no idea how to do that. I don’t know. I don’t know how I’m even… They feel like they have to have everything figured out before they start something. And so if that’s you, I would say that’s impossible. So if you’re looking to start something new in your life, there’s no possible way you’re going to know everything that you’re going to run into when you face that situation or that task.

On the completely, other side of the road, there’s this other ditch that people fall into another extreme, which is more likely what I’m to fall into, which is, oh, I can do that like that it shouldn’t be too hard. I see other people doing that. Why not me? This sounds really good in the beginning. Right?

However, sometimes when you start out with that mindset, you don’t have the problem with starting the new thing. You have a problem with continuing and keeping going on the new thing. When I got into podcasting, I was like, oh, you know, you get a microphone and you turn it on. You start talking. There’s a there’s books on this. I can go read a book. I knew someone who had a podcast. So I was just like kind of approaching it pretty casually like. This shouldn’t be too difficult. I look back on that now this hilarious guys is absolutely hilarious. There’s a lot more that goes into a podcast other than turning on a microphone, talking and reading a book.

There were so many aspects that I didn’t know what I didn’t know. The thing that kept me going on the days that were more difficult or the days that I felt like I couldn’t do it anymore, or the days that I felt like I couldn’t finish was understanding why I started in the first place. Going back to finding your why. We do all kinds of things in our lives and a lot of times we don’t even step back and take a moment to reflect why am I even doing this?

One of the beauties of the COVID-19 pandemic was that more people took that time to take this step back and to say, what have I filled my life with? And is that a valuable investment of my time, of my energy, of my money?

Life is short. We only have so many hours and we don’t know how many hours or how many days we have in this life. We want to make sure that we’re filling them with things that we believe God has called us to as Christian. That God has called us to. In a personal sense of calling. There’s a general calling.

There’s a specific calling for me for a long time. I’ve believed that my calling was to the church. I may have talked about this on one of the beginning episodes, but I really felt like I was going to become a therapist in a church somewhere. I actually have a degree from a seminary, if you can believe that or not, it’s a counseling degree, but it’s from a seminary.

So here I was thinking that that was how my calling was going to look and that’s never happened. I’ve never, actually, I’m not in a paid sense of the word I have. I’m sure counseled some people in church in more of a lay type fashion. However, I’ve felt this burden for a long time, for people with mental health issues who are struggling in the chruch.

And this concept of them being given false information was so troubling to me. Hearing over and over and over, somebody told me I wasn’t praying enough. Someone told me I wasn’t reading the Bible. I didn’t have faith. I didn’t trust God somehow because they were struggling. They were somehow a less than Christian.

Not only is that concept completely non-biblical because you don’t have to turn the Bible very far to find people who struggled with doubt, with fear, with depression. Elijah by the Brook wanted to die. Job cursed the day of his birth. I mean, There are so many Psalms where David cries out and is wondering where God is in the mess of his circumstances.

If we think we have to have it all together as Christians, we’re completely missing the whole point. The whole point is that in our mess, God enters in and we have communion and a relationship with him. And it’s the mess and the difficulty that drives us to dependence and reminds us that we can’t control everything.

And we need him every single day. I knew people in the church needed messages of encouragement and hope, people who are struggling with anxiety, OCD, or any other mental health concerns for that matter. I also knew there was a void of people speaking into these types of experiences. How did I know there was a void?

Well, because I looked. I looked for bloggers. I looked for people who had written books. I looked for people who are speaking about mental health struggles not just from a personal experience, although I think some of those are helpful, but also from a place of professionalism to say that professional counseling works. We have tools that can help people that are not in opposition to our faith.

I see so many Christians who are terrified of professional counseling because they think they’re going to be steered away to something non-biblical. All that to say, that was my why. And it was so good, even for me as I’m recording right now, just to repeat that out loud and to remember that. To remember the stories that I’ve heard from people who have told me about the messages they’ve heard in the church, I’m so glad that this podcast is part of changing some of those messages.

When you know why you’re doing what you’re doing, that changes everything. So I want to ask you today, if you’re married, why are you married? It doesn’t matter if you’ve been married for two years or 20 years. Ask yourself that question. Why are you married? Why are you getting up and going to work today?

There can be many different answers to this question. And believe me, I have answered this question so many different ways in my life. I remember just crying to someone shortly after I graduated because I was in this job that wasn’t a good fit for me at all. Just crying and them telling me, you know, you’re getting good experience right now. You’re getting experience that is going to help you get licensed. So at that point in my life, I was going to work to pay bills and get a counseling license so that I could hopefully do something differently.

I won’t get into that tangent, but one of these days I may do a podcast on life lessons.

I learned from my many jobs.

I’ve probably had about 30 jobs in my life. That’s not an exaggeration, I’ve done many different things. Some of them were very short-term obviously, but there have been days where I have gone to work because I needed to pay. And there have been days where I’ve gone to work because I wanted to make a difference and everywhere in between.

You can apply the why question to why are you parenting your kids a certain way. Why are you involved in that ministry at church? During the pandemic, I really evaluated my why I had spent much time involved in counselor training and education. While I’m so thankful for that time and don’t have any regrets. I realized that God was directing me back around to ministry, to the church for people who have mental health struggles and getting involved in some type of creation of self-help materials.

Your why can direct you to get started and your Y can keep you going on the hardest of days.

Now we’re going to shift gears a little bit and talk about struggles with comparison. Comparison is huge in the podcasting community at times, not with everyone, but there are these Facebook groups out there where people will get really obsessed with their download numbers. They will ask questions like how long did it take you to get 1000 downloads? I made the decision early on not to become obsessed with my download numbers. One of the reasons for that was because I was in some ways surprised when anyone listened to this. I had a blog prior to the podcasts and I’m pretty sure that very few people ever went on there and read anything that I had written. If you are on social media at all, it doesn’t even have to be social media, It could be the break room at work. It could be after church on a Sunday morning. It’s just so easy to compare yourself to other people.

One thing that I try to tell myself that I hope might help you as well is I have to say I’m on my own journey. This is a journey that God has called me to, and I’m accountable to him. I’m accountable to my husband, to myself. I’m accountable to my listeners and my clients that I see every week for counseling. I’m not accountable to some kind of invisible standard or to Susie Q the most amazing podcast or out there. I don’t need to worry about what’s going on with everyone else. I need to be worried about staying on the path that God has called me to. Don’t get me wrong. There have been plenty of times on this journey, whether it’s been through my business journey or whether it’s been through my podcasting journey, there’s plenty of times that I’ve become jealous of other people or of what they’re doing, their success.

Recently, I made a decision to change the way that I approached that jealousy. When it would come up initially, I would just be so disgusted by it like, oh gosh, I’m feeling jealous. And I don’t like being a jealous person and it just feels slimy and gross. There would be like this self-deprecation I guess that came after the conviction and the experience of the jealousy.

Then one day, I thought this is not working as a helpful way to approach this because I’m still getting jealous of people. I decided to do something that we call “act opposite of how you feel” in the psychology and counseling world. And I decided that I was going to pray for that person that I was jealous that.

Not only was I going to pray for that person, but I was going to ask God to bless them more than he’s already blessed them. That has shifted my perspective so much and cut down on a lot of the green-eyed. How does that saying go the green monster of envy, something like that a big life lesson I learned on the podcasting journey was that I can’t do it all myself and I need help. This was so hard to admit and sit with because I am a very independent person. I’m the type of person that says I have to do this in order to make sure that it gets done right. I can’t really let go and trust other people. And if I want to get something done, I have to be driven and find a way to make it happen.

And this concept of recognizing when you can’t do something, yourself is applicable to so many different areas. It’s applicable to mental health for people that are looking at getting counseling or getting on medication. It’s applicable for working mothers, maybe who are trying to keep up with every household responsibilities and are taking on more than they can handle. It may be time for you to start using grocery pickup, hiring a teenager to help with your laundry. Anything that you can reasonably and feasibly get off your plate is going to help you in the long run. It didn’t take me very long to figure it out. That I was not going to be editing these podcast episodes.

Yes, you can watch some YouTube videos on it, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to be very good at it. It’s interesting to me how many people will be okay with paying for someone to do their taxes, for example, or fix their computer, maybe mow their lawn, but when it comes to mental health help, people think “I should be able to figure this out myself.”

I know I’ve done that in so many areas of my life and what I’ve had to learn, especially over the last several years of having a business even is that you can’t do all the things. And when you admit that and you sit with it, you can go to the next step, which is finding help.

I struggled for such a long time with a negative belief that I can’t get the help that I need. That one, I’m not even sure where it started or how long it had been lingering around in my mind, but I was convinced that that was the truth. Through this journey of finding an editor. as well as finding a podcast assistant to help me with things like social media, getting in touch with perspective guests, scheduling interviews has been so healing for me because it’s healed this negative belief that I can’t get the help that I need.

Maybe that’s something that you struggle with. And I just want you to know there is help out there for you. You can’t always find it on the first try. Sometimes you have to do a little bit more searching and a little bit more work to get yourself the help that you need, but it is out there. If you are willing to look for it and know also that I would not be able to continue this podcast without support from key people in my life. As you all know, my husband, Steve has been incredibly supportive of my podcasting journey. He’s the one behind the scenes, just speaking life to me, reminding me of my why, reminding me of my calling speaking just truth to me when I need to hear it when days get hard or long, or I just want to throw in the towel.

He’s right there. Also have this incredible family support and, and friends, we need other people in our lives. It’s a huge lie of the enemy that we can do this on our own and that we can’t get close to other people. We can’t trust other people. I know that you’ve been burned and I’ve been burned in my life too.

I’ve had people who were close to me, hurt me very deeply. However, I also know that there’s power in community. There’s power in support of other people being able to say, Hey, I’m here with you and I love you. And I just need you to know that. Just keep going, just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

That prayer support is so helpful as well. Steve and I were able to get involved in a small group recently, and that has been such a blessing to us, to be with other believers, to have people speaking truth and praying for us and pouring into our lives. As we seek also to pour into their lives. If you don’t have that type of support network, really evaluate and look and see what can you do to start creating that?

Even if it’s just a small way that you can add interaction, even with other people, we can’t say we want other people in our lives and then go to work, go home crash, get up in the morning, hit, repeat, and do it all over again. We have to be intentional about our relationships. We have to be intentional about reaching out to other people about saying, Hey, I want to spend time with you.

Let’s get coffee, come over to the house. You know, let’s play a game together. Let’s go for a walk in the woods, whatever it is that is going to help you get to know somebody a little bit better and connect with them. See how you can do that today. We need other people, not just surrounding us, but people that are doing what we’re doing.

Sometimes we have good support, but like nobody gets it. If that makes sense. And being a therapist can be isolating at times if you’re in private practice. Being a podcaster can be isolating at times. If you’re just sitting in a closet with a microphone, like I am right now.

I’m so thankful that I’m going to be going to a podcasting conference for the first time this year, and continue to make connections with other podcasters, whenever I’m able to do that. Just can kind of breathe, a sigh of relief because it’s like, oh, somebody who really gets it, who knows like what the struggle that I’m going through is like. I hope that you’re able to find that in the sense of your community. Finding some people who understand what it’s like to struggle with anxiety, finding some people who understand what it’s like to have obsessions on.

Repeat in your head. I know that sometimes it’s hard to find support groups or other avenues like that. I don’t know. Maybe you need to look at starting one because if you’re sitting here and you need that. I guarantee you that there’s somebody else sitting by themselves thing, man, I really wish I had somebody to talk to about this who really got it, who really understood. I spoke about this on a previous episode, but the podcast has really given me the gift to know that I don’t have to be perfect to help people. I consider myself a recovering perfectionist. I want you to know that this podcast is far from perfect. Sometimes the audio has been less than stellar.

I’ve tripped over my words, repeated the same words over and over the website is not perfect. The social media is not perfect, pretty much. Nothing’s perfect about this podcast because it’s run by imperfect humans. And the beautiful thing about that is it doesn’t have to be because people are being helped.

People are being encouraged. Our downloads are growing every day. We have now over 5,500 downloads at this recording. It’s just incredible to me. I’ve, I’ve really been blown away by all of you listeners and the people that I’ve heard from that have said the podcast has been helpful. I appreciate you so much.

It leads me to believe that something we’re doing here is working and thank you for allowing me to be imperfect and still listening. Anyway, this is the last, the life lesson, but also one of the most important is that it’s okay to be vulnerable. Well, I knew it was okay to be vulnerable. When I started the podcast, I had this barrier of being a therapist.

I was concerned about sharing personal details, putting them out there for the whole world to hear. But most specifically, I was really concerned about my clients, hearing them to understand that you have to understand that when I was going to school. I was taught not to talk about yourself. It has to be about the client and listening to them, your story at that point, doesn’t really matter.

Unless somehow sharing it is going to benefit the client more than it’s going to benefit you. However, I was always taught to err, on the side of caution, in terms of sharing things about myself in therapy, different therapists have different views on this. And some end up talking about themselves, more in therapy maybe than I would, and that’s not necessarily right or wrong.

That’s more dependent on how the client feels about it. I. When I started the podcast, I had this big worry and fear that somehow my clients were going to look at me differently, treat me differently. Some become sidetracked in their own work, because they wanted to ask me about my own personal experiences and that big fear, like so many of our fears did not become a reality.

Actually, the clients who listened to the podcast may have said a sentence or two about how they appreciated me sharing my story or some aspect of my story that they didn’t know about me. And it didn’t derail our ability to work together. And it didn’t derail us on to them. Trying to ask me a bunch of extra questions and sessions about what I had shared.

I would have been very pleasantly surprised that this podcast has helped me overcome this barrier of being vulnerable as a therapist. When we share personal parts about ourselves, it’s an opportunity for us to be able to connect with other people. Who are going through difficult situations or who have experienced similar things.

There’s this sigh of relief. There’s this understanding like, ah, okay. They really get it. And I think that is so important in the therapeutic relationship often overlooked. I still don’t talk a whole lot about myself in my therapy sessions with clients. I still make it about them. The clients who have never heard this podcast, um, probably know very little about me other than I’m married.

And they see that I have cats because stitch likes to pop in every now and then to say hi to people when I’m on my online session. Having the podcast as an opportunity to talk through some of the struggles that I’ve dealt with in the past, as well as things that I’m still processing in my own life has been a gift of allowing God to take all the experiences, the pain, the hardships that have happened to me and turn them into something good.

I really feel like those sufferings are being used in a positive and healthy way versus just going through it, not talking about it at all and moving on so many times, we want to just forget where we’ve come through from, or we don’t want to talk about it because it stirs up these negative emotions that we have.

What I would say to you is everyone has a story. Your story may be very different from mine. And maybe there’s someone in your life that needs to hear it. Maybe there’s someone that needs that spark of encouragement before Steve and I got married, there was a lady in his church that came to me. Asked to meet with me.

And I thought, oh gosh, what is this about? I don’t, I don’t know. You know, when you’re a therapist, um, obviously sometimes people want things from you and it can get a little uncomfortable. I thought maybe she was like trying to get advice for me. And it was completely the opposite. Actually. She wanted to sit down with me and talk with me about her own marriage, some of the struggles that she went through with her husband, how she stayed, married, how she worked through some difficult things.

And she was able to give me a book that had been an encouragement to her. It was just this beautiful thing of how she used difficulties and struggles in her own life. To be able to say, I don’t want to see you go through what I’ve been through. Let me try to help you on the front end so that you don’t have to experience some of the pain and suffering.

That I’ve dealt with. And if you do get to that point in your marriage and you feel like there’s nobody I can talk to you, nobody will really understand what I’m going through. That she gave me her information. Like, please reach out to me. Honestly, that was of all the wedding gifts I got. That was one of the best ones.

Just the gift of someone else’s personal experience. And the time that she took to talk with me about it. So never underestimate your ability to encourage and love on someone else through the use of your own story that God has given you. Usually at the end of every episode, I like to do a story of hope.

So my story of hope today is about this whole thing that we’ve been talking about. It’s about the podcast. I want to share with you my hope for the future, for the podcast. You’ve heard the hope as a result of the things that I’ve learned through this process, initial journey of 40 episodes. And now I want to talk with you about the future.

I know I don’t talk about this enough, but hope for anxiety and OCD exists to reduce shame, increase. And develop healthier connections with God and others. I have a whole host of interviews lined up for people to talk with us about all kinds of different things, everywhere from personal stories of overcoming trauma, working through anxiety, processing that spiritually.

Working through the struggles of why did such and such happened to me in my life. I also have some professionals that are going to come on and talk about the connection between addiction and anxiety, how we can use our breath to tap into the calm down, uh, center of our nervous system. And it’s more than just take a deep.

We’re going to be talking about managing anger and sleep habits. They’re just, the possibilities are endless. And those are just the people that I have booked. I also have other ideas that we’re trying to get people on the podcast to discuss. Of course, you’re always a welcome to be a part of this process.

I had a college students reach out to me on Instagram, wanting to share her story, which is so awesome. If you know of other professionals who might want to be on, or if you have a topic suggestion for us, I’m definitely all ears as more and more of you are finding the podcast. I’m getting more inquiries through my, By the Well Counseling website of people seeking counseling.

Unfortunately, I’m not able to see anyone outside of the state of Tennessee due to my counseling license, being specific for Tennessee. We have hope as therapists that someday those laws may change due to the expansion of talent. There are still so many people in underserved areas in rural communities that don’t have access to adequate mental health treatment, especially for specific things like OCD.

While we are far from having a national counselor license, we are also closer than we’ve ever been. So we’re still holding out hope for that. When I do want to say to those who have reached out, maybe from other states to me, that I’m not able to see is that I am in the process of creating some self-help materials for people who struggle with anxiety and OCD.

Of course, you all will be the first to hear more about that once it’s complete. And once I have things set up and ready to go, I’m recording some audio relaxations as well as teachings that I think are going to be beneficial to many people. The best way to find out when those materials come out is to get on our email at hopeforanxietyandocd.com. I know I have failed miserably at emailing you guys on a regular basis, but I will definitely let you know when these materials come out and also check our social media. If you follow those pages. My hope is that people who don’t have access to counseling services or need something to work on in between sessions.

Maybe that are going to counseling. We’ll have more Christian self-help materials available to them that they feel comfortable, that it’s aligned with their faith and belief system. It’s scary even to put this out on the podcast, right? Because now I really need to follow through with what I’ve said I’m going to do.

And that’s all for today. I’m so thankful for each and every one of you here, listening. I know that there’s a reason that I’m here and there’s a reason that you’re here right now.

Hope for anxiety and OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Maingrum. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.