August 25, 2025 • 56 mins
I am sharing this conversation for our Summer Series with Kerry Connelly. She is an emerging voice in the world of progressive Christianity, sought after speaker, coach and author. Together, we de-construct spirituality. In our discussion, we explore the definition of spirituality, the divine and how leaning into "who we really are" will provide the answers to your life’s purpose.
Whether you are seasoned spiritual warrior or new to the subject, this is a fascinating conversation that you don’t want to miss!
(2:15) Why did Kerry choose this career and path?
(4:33) What does Progressive Christianity mean?
(6:19) Who are some of the types of people she works with?
(13:48) How does Kerry define spirituality & the divine?
(23:54) How does Kerry approach and work with clients as a coach?
(32:04) How do you access your spirituality? How does Kerry guide someone through this experience?
(43:36) Who are some of the thought leaders that Kerry follows?
(46:28) What path is Kerry on? She shares some of the things she is working on in her life and career.
Subscribe: Warriors At Work Podcasts
Website: https://jeaniecoomber.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/986666321719033/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeanie_coomber/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeanie_coomber
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanie-coomber-90973b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbMZ2HyNNyPoeCSqKClBC_w
Whether you are seasoned spiritual warrior or new to the subject, this is a fascinating conversation that you don’t want to miss!
(2:15) Why did Kerry choose this career and path?
(4:33) What does Progressive Christianity mean?
(6:19) Who are some of the types of people she works with?
(13:48) How does Kerry define spirituality & the divine?
(23:54) How does Kerry approach and work with clients as a coach?
(32:04) How do you access your spirituality? How does Kerry guide someone through this experience?
(43:36) Who are some of the thought leaders that Kerry follows?
(46:28) What path is Kerry on? She shares some of the things she is working on in her life and career.
Subscribe: Warriors At Work Podcasts
Website: https://jeaniecoomber.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/986666321719033/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeanie_coomber/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeanie_coomber
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanie-coomber-90973b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbMZ2HyNNyPoeCSqKClBC_w
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Warriors at Work Show. This is Genie Koomber,
your guide and host. This is a show for men
and women in the workplace who want to move from
the predictable to the potent. This is your weekly dose
of inspiration with an edge. I talk with CEOs and shawmans,
sports marketing executives, and therapists. All of us are like
(00:24):
minded thinkers and doers who tell stories, share wisdom, and
challenge each other to have the best life possible inside
and outside the office. Welcome to your Warrior Conversation. Hey everybody,
it's Gennie. Thanks so much for joining me here at
Warriors at Work and Happy July. As we reach the
(00:46):
halfway point of the year, it's a natural time to pause,
reflect and realign with ourselves. So over the coming weeks,
I will be resharing podcast episodes from Warriors at Work
and the intention here is to help you to reconnect
with yourself, refuel your energy, and move forward with clarity.
Let's make the rest of the year really count enjoy.
(01:09):
So excited to bring to you Kerrie Connolly, who calls
herself a progressive Christian writer, speaker and coach. She's an
emerging voice in the voice in the world of progressive Christianity.
She's a sought after speaker, coach, and author. She's got
over twenty five years of business experience as well in
corporate nonprofit direct sales, and she is a well known
(01:31):
author and blogger on Jersey Girl Jesus on patheios dot
com and her book Pause, Make Time for the Walk
with God is available exclusively at Barnes and Noble. Not
to mention that Carrie is also a New York City
Leadership Center Fellow and is certified in Christian Life Coaching,
disc personality assessment, emotional intelligence, and she's also pursuing the
(01:55):
Open Pathway to a Masters of Divinity from Christian Theological
Seminary in Indiana Anapolis. So clearly Carrie is immersed in
this subject of spirituality. So, Carrie, thank you so much
for bringing yourself to this conversation today.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I am so excited to be here. Thank you so
much for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
So, Carrie, tell us, why did you choose this work
for yourself in such an interesting background. Obviously you've got
a lot of business expertise and a lot of different
paths that you've taken. But why this place.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
You know, it's it's so funny. I don't mean to
sound trite about it, but I have to honestly say
it chows me like I can't I can't tell you
that when I was a little girl, I said, oh,
I'm going to grow up to be a writer about
progressive Christianity, or even I need to update my bio
(02:47):
because I do a lot of work in racial justice
and social justice, and that wasn't in there. But you know,
nowhere in my past could I have pointed to this moment.
And it really has kind of been a sort of
intuitive following of of what I felt. My next step
(03:08):
was that that brought me here. I often joke and
laugh that I feel like I am the heroine of
this amazing novel that God is writing, and if I
look back, I'm like, man, that's an amazing plot, you know,
like look at it.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, that that.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Didn't seem like they were a big deal at the
time but turned out to be life changing and life
altering and and but but the one theme I think
that has always uh underscored everything is that I've always
been desperately trying to chase down what I am supposed
(03:42):
to be doing. That's always been, uh something that that
has been in my psyche, and I've always been really
really passionate about using up all of my potential.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Right I really am.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I don't want to die having wasted a single ounce
with my potential, so I've always tried to stretch myself
and lean into that really intentionally. So I don't know
if that really answers that question, but that's the honest truth.
That's the authentic truth about how I got where I
am right now.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah. So I'm nodding like a crazy person because what
you just said about not wasting a moment of my
potential is literally my life mantras like I'm always constantly
thinking about my mortality. How much more time do I
have left? What don't I know yet? Can you tell
us what the heck does progressive Christianity mean?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
I know? So it's funny because most progressives are always like,
I don't really know, I mean, aside from having tattoos, piercings,
and personal really you know, where the pastors who curse
and we're skinny jeans. But it's essentially I think most
progressive Christians would self identify as people who are not
(05:03):
into atonement theory. Maybe some are, But an atonement theory
is that whole idea that Jesus, that God required Jesus
to die for us, because you know, a loving father
would require his own son to sacrifice himself. You know,
that's a little weird. So maybe we don't believe in
hell as much. We believe in that whatever thing that
(05:25):
Jesus did on the cross was good for everybody. You
don't have to, We don't. We're not going to go
out there and bang you on bang you on the
head and say you have to believe in this thing.
We tend to be for the most part, affirming of
the LGBTQ brother you know, our siblings in the LGBTQ community.
Open affirming, celebratory of those precious people. We tend to
(05:50):
be really concerned with social justice. We believe that the
book the Bible is a book about social justice, and
that Jesus was an imperial subverb. You know. So these
are these are kinds of themes. I mean, again, I
don't speak for the entire community, and we tend to
be really notoriously bad at self organizing, but that's generally
(06:13):
what I think most of my friends are kind of
aligned with.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
So interesting so, you know, when we connected about doing
this this podcast conversation, you talk to me about clients
that come to you and say, look, there might be
a power in me that I want to bring out
to the world. Can you help me? Can you say
more about that process.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah, So most of the clients that I work with
in coaching tend to be people who are in corporate
usually people who are in the corporate arena, and they
have amassed all of this amazing experience and knowledge, and
you know, just they're just so talented and they're they're
(06:57):
filled with all of this this good stuff, and now
they're finally at that point where they've always kind of said,
you know, I felt like I am here to do something.
I feel like I have a purpose. I know I'm
supposed to do something, and they're ready to start leaning
into that. And sometimes they're a little scared because they
think that maybe that means it's time to leave their
(07:18):
corporate gig, and they're like, I don't know if I'm
ready for that. And so sometimes they sense their purpose,
they sense their power, and they know that there's something
but they haven't clarified it yet. Sometimes they're really clear
on it and they just need to figure out how
to implement it. And because my coaching tends to be
(07:41):
a combination of, you know, the spirituality if that's what
they desire, the coaching practice of trying to figure out, okay,
what's blocking us, and then really practical stuff like, Okay,
this is what we have to do to get stuff
done right, a practical action plan. That's kind of how
I work with clients, and they'll come to me and
(08:01):
they'll say, I know I have this thing, and so
we'll help refine it and clarify it. And one of
the things that I think is so important for people
to understand about this kind of work when you're really
trying to lean into that thing that you know you're
here to do, is very often have a you can
(08:21):
sense it. It's like way out there on the horizon
and you can sense it, but the only thing you're
going to know is the next step, which can be
really frustrating, especially for my fellow control freaks out there. Right.
It's like, it's scary to think that you're chasing down
something big and beautiful and bold, and all you know
is that today you're supposed to email this one person,
(08:41):
and that can be the most frustrating place to be.
But when we can trust that process, that's how you
end up writing this divine novel that that is your life,
you know, and it's a beautiful process when we can
learn how to surrender to it. So I kind of
come alongside people and work with them to do that.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You know, you you characterize that. My mind immediately went
back to most people I know, and this is clients, colleagues, friends, family,
start to investigate more of their spiritual side when they're
in the middle of crisis, the unhappy. Work is very,
very challenging, very stressful. There's a lot of change, there's downsizing,
(09:21):
whatever that is. There's some sort of life event that
makes you start to investigate. Because when you're in it
and you're just operating and your transactional self is a
common thing that I'll say, you're not paying attention to
the cues and to like the whispers from the universe,
if you will. It's when some sort of cosmic shift
happens that you start to pay attention to things. And
(09:43):
what's interesting about it is you feel better at least
I did you feel better knowing that, Wow, there is
a bigger plan for me here and that I don't
need to be afraid of the pain. I don't need
to be frightened. That this is going to level me
know that there's going to be healing and a great
path that's going to emerge once I moved through this. Yes,
(10:07):
And you know it's like you give a lot of
encouragement and courage really to help navigate that.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Oh yeah, yeah, it's so funny. I have to give
kudos to the amazing Patty Lennon, who she's a business coach,
but an intuitive business coach, and I just really have
to give a shout out to her because I think
that God has placed her in my path in a
certain to play this certain role, and she's the one
(10:34):
who delivers the hard spiritual messages to me, Like so
for all the lessons that I have to keep learning
over and over again, and I'm like, really do I
have to do this again? And she's the one and
I remember, like she was the one who said, you know,
you need to learn this lesson now because if you don't,
Spirit's just going to keep bringing it back to you
and you're gonna and it's gonna get harder and harder
(10:55):
each time. And I was like in the middle of
this like really horrible time, and I was like, well,
screw you, Patty, that was not the message I wanted
to hear. She was like, well sorry, and she was
so right, you know, she was so right. And so
it's it's very true. I think that we do our
soul is on this amazing adventure to to learn stuff
(11:21):
and to evolve into as end. And I think that
as we go through these life lessons, and a lot
of them do come back around over and over and
over again until we learn the lesson that that spirit
does use that those two to grow us up. And
And because I truly do believe that God is love right,
(11:43):
that that that this whole uh divine conspiracy is about love.
That we are actually safe and we will actually survive
and thrive when we are willing to be authentically aware
and in our emotions. And I actually think that, you know,
(12:05):
I even as recently as a year ago, I was
one of those coaches who was talking about, oh, discover
your life purpose. And I am still very invested in
life purpose, but not in the same way that coaches
tend to talk about it anymore. I'm kind of over that.
I'm starting to realize that our truest divine purpose is
(12:27):
to lean authentically and as really if that's even a word,
as possible into who we are and really determined and
really kind of just diving into our truest selves and
becoming really authentic with our own selves. I think the
(12:48):
world leads us to do so much pretending, and we
put on so many layers of roles and responsibilities and
hiding our selves that when we can when we can
really learn to just be who we were beautifully intentionally
(13:10):
created to be, that that is the biggest divine adventure
we can have on this earth. And I think that's
what gives honor and praise to God more than anything,
more than stepping into a church, more than you know,
paying tithes, more than good works of good service. The
best thing that we can do to honor God is
(13:30):
to live into the creation that God imagined for us.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Everything you just said again, I'm nodding my head like crazy,
is like there's so much pressure to be a certain
way and to show up demonstrating certain things. We started
to touch into my next question, but I'd love to
take a deeper dive here is so let's talk about
what what do you how do you say, how do
(13:57):
you define spirituality?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So for me, it's pretty simple. I think spirituality is
simply the relationship that we have with the Divine and
with ourselves, right to two things, right, And that kind
of speaks to what I was just saying, you know,
really kind of doing that deep dive and understanding who
we are. My friend Ben Tapper has a podcast called
(14:21):
Invisible Truths, and he talks about radical self awareness. You know,
that is just as much a spiritual activity as it
is to relate to God and try to understand who
and what God is. So I think it's very much
about learning about who we are, who God is, and
(14:41):
how that all interacts.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, so the word divine you use a lot in
is sort of your vernacular, so share with us for
those that aren't even familiar with the term, how would
you characterize it?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
So there's this really annoying theologian named Paul Tillic. He's
dense and I need I need him to learn how
to tweet. But but one of the things that he
he used to describe God is the ground of our being.
(15:16):
And I love that. I love that phrase, the ground
of our being, The Divine is the ground of our being.
It's that thing that is beyond us. It's the thing
that we swim in. It's this thing that we have
access to. It's the creative energy that supports the world.
It's not something that I can ever really explain. It's
beyond explanation and it is only something that can be experienced.
(15:41):
But we all have access to it. We all have
the ability to experience it, and we we just kind
of need to open up to it. And I believe
our bodies are tuning forks to receive the divine. So
I do believe in it that our embodiment is a
deeply spiritual experience.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
And what about for those that just don't identify with
a God or not religious, but have some sort of
longing for a sense of purpose, or they're starting to
ask questions, how do you engage them in this discussion?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
So the way I engage when I talk with people
who don't believe in God, the first thing that I
want to say is that's cool, It's totally fine, no
worries I do. I'm going to be authentically myself in
any kind of conversation or relationship. But that does not
mean that I insist that anybody else has to believe
(16:39):
in God. People are welcome in my space however they
feel like showing up. So that's the first thing. The
second thing is I think that quantum physics is a
lot of fun, and quantum physics can can describe a
lot of what I call the divine and actually is
(17:00):
kind of what helped me move away from that very
rigid belief system that I had and into that space
of hey, I'm just going to be open. I'm just
going to say call this what it will, what I
want to, you know, but maybe there's this is something
about you know, string theory. Maybe maybe string theory can
(17:20):
explain God better than I can. So people who don't
necessarily aren't necessarily into the spirituality, I believe they can
still have a a an awe inspiring experience and they
can call it and relate to it however they want.
(17:42):
My invitation to them is to just be open, to
just be open to the experience. You know, saying no
doesn't give you a lot of options, and I always,
like I teach my kids, I try to remember this
for myself that it's really just about creating as many
options as possible. So I think that's you know, I
(18:03):
have to say, I'm going to always be as authentic
as I can, And for me, authenticity is I'm going
to be about the divine. But anyone I think can
access awe and beauty and love, and it doesn't matter
what they call it, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter
(18:27):
they are loved and cherished and beautiful. However, however they
decide to manifested or call that, it's still true.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I love that you can act. Anyone can access all
beauty and love that is really really beautiful. You also
mentioned when we were connecting that the idea of evidence
in scripture that points to a movement towards spiritual ascension
beyond the church. Can you offer some perspective there?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, this is where I'm gonna piss a lot of
people off.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
In that's all right, just circles.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
But so you know, well, first and foremost Jesus talks
in scripture about He is always talking about how the
Kingdom of God is within us. Now, kingdom is problematic language,
so many progressive Christians might call it the Realm of God,
or might call it the kingdom as in family k
(19:25):
I N instead of kingdom. And the reason that we
talk we say kingdom is problematic is because it's patriarchal
and imperialistic. I already mentioned that the Bible is a
deeply political book. It's it's there is nothing non political
about the Bible, especially the four Gospels, are deeply subversive
(19:50):
books that were written as an act of resistance against
imperial Rome. Jesus himself was sort of anti church, right like,
and I mean he cares desperately for the church. That's
obvious from scripture. And the church obviously did not exist
in Jesus' time as we know it today. It was
the Temple, and Jesus would he cared deeply about it,
(20:13):
but he was passionate about it. I mean, he went
in and flipped over all these tables in the in
the temple because they had basically turned the church into
a mall right, and he was like, not in my house,
You're not going to do that. But he also recognized
that God wasn't only in the temple, and he recognized
that the temple in his day had gotten just very
(20:35):
similar to today to today, the temple had gotten in
bed with government. And he was very much an imperial subversive.
He was anti systemic poverty. He was anti systemic racism.
But he was also a mystic, and he was a
spiritual healer, and he was a medical intuitive, and he
was a psychic, and he was a chakra master. You know,
(20:57):
he was somebody who could feel the power going out
of him. That's his words. He said, a woman who
had a bleeding disorder walked up to him, touched his
robe and in a crowd of people, and he turned
around and he said, who touched me? And his disciples
are like, are you kidding me? Jesus, like, look, there's
five million people around you. Everybody's touching you. And he said, no,
(21:20):
I felt the power go out of me. So what
power is he talking about in that scripture? Right? He's
talking about this this thing that we don't we can't
We have a lot of names for, but we don't
know what it is, right, We can't point to it
and say, look, there it is. But it's this this energy,
this power that we all have that is something spiritual
(21:41):
at something beyond us. Right. And unfortunately the scripture that
was canonized as the canonization of that was a political event.
It was about power structures and the apocrypha. The scriptures
that didn't get canonized but were still widely soulated in
the early Church and were were deeply valued by the
(22:05):
early Church. And mostly we're also talked a lot about
women as Jesus's disciples. Mary Magdalene to be most specific.
She in the in the Gospel of Mary, which is
not something that's in the Bible, it's in the apocrypha.
We hear about a very metaphysical Jesus, and Jesus that
(22:27):
was talking very much about how we need to experience God,
and that God is an experiential thing. It's not something
that can be written down in a law. It's something
that needs to be felt and experienced and sensed. And
that was what Mary taught the disciples. And surprise, surprise,
(22:49):
you know, the women got silenced, the women got pushed
out of the cannon. And that's not what got into
the quote unquote approved Bible. So there's a lot of
evidence that Jesus was a very mystical guy.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
M Wow, what fantastic insight. That is amazing. So, I mean,
I love the power went out of me. I meant,
my brain immediately went to you know, thinking about all
the women that are listening to this, right we we're
doing it all day long, and I don't even think
(23:25):
we have consciousness to it. We're either asked a question
where we have to respond to or there's some sort
of need that people have of us and we just
naturally give it, and we may not even be aware
of how often that power is going out of us
to other people. Yes, so it's almost like striking a
(23:45):
balance between what you are putting out and what you're
what you're identifying with within you is so interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
So I want to.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Shift gears a bit because I'd love to understand more
about how do you work with clients. So, if I
am Jeanie Koomber, I'm an executive vice president in a
financial services organization, I'm starting to get a sense of
I want to know more about my purpose. I call
you talking what does this coaching experience look like?
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah? So, okay, I need to say one thing regarding
our last thing and before I answer that question very quickly,
and that is that Jesus often retreated because he needed
self care. So I have to say that for all
the women out there who are listening, that he was
always with the people, but then he often retreated to
go be alone and practice some self care. Okay, so
(24:39):
to answer your question. Very often it starts off as
a conversation with a new client just to kind of
understand where they're at and and kind of what they're thinking,
and we'll talk a little bit about you know, Usually
people can identify there there's a there are some certain
(25:01):
things that you can at questions. You can ask to say, okay,
where is the realm of my purpose? Right? So the
first thing that I'll usually ask is if somebody has
no clue, they know that there's something, but they don't
know exactly what it is. The first thing I'll ask
is I'll say, okay, well, what makes you really angry
or really happy? Right? Like when you see something on
(25:23):
the news, when you see something, what's the thing that
just gets you that you can't that you lose sleepover
the news stories that you almost can't watch because they
upset you so much. That's a holy passion, you know,
when when you feel something that deeply that you want
to pay attention to that because that's a holy passion.
The next thing I'll say is who do you care about? Like,
(25:45):
who is it that gets you? Is it animals? Is
it children? Is it the elderly? Is it the homeless,
the hungry, like who is it that breaks your heart
that you can't get out of your head when you
when you see a story about them. Those kinds of
things are really going to give you insight into a
(26:07):
little bit about what your purpose might be. So we'll
talk about that for somebody who doesn't have any idea,
and then I might talk about a little bit about
how did you play when you were a child, because
that often gives you insight into how you'd love to
spend your time. And so then I'll kind of switch gears.
If somebody knows kind of what they want to do,
(26:29):
then we'll start getting into some logistics. And I actually
have a work book called Joy Revolt that brings them
through kind of six steps and it's a step that
you can actually go over numerous times, and people can
actually purchase the workbook just by itself on my website.
But you can go through this process and keep refining
your vision and your vision here's one thing too, and
(26:52):
this is truth, Like your vision is going to refine itself.
You're going to do it for a little bit and
then you're going to go You're going to learn, and
then you're going to go, oh, it's this is something
I need to do differently, or I need to fine
tune this, or I need to pivot. Oh, this isn't
the thing, but everything that I learned during by doing
(27:13):
this thing is part of the bigger thing. Right, So
that's kind of how it works. And so the Joy
Revolt Workbook will take people through six steps and please
don't ask me what they are, because I don't remember.
I don't have it in front of me. I haven't
looked at it in a while. But they're good. There
are six steps that will help them really clarify and
(27:34):
create an action plan so that they can go through.
They'll they'll clarify their vision, they'll clarify what they want
to do, and then they'll create an action plan based
on that vision. Then they'll assess that action plan, how
did it work, and they'll determine how, if, and how
they need to pivot. So the idea is eventually we'll
go through this together, and eventually they can go through
(27:56):
these six steps as they move, like maybe once a year,
so every year they can go, Okay, this is where
I'm at and this is where I want to go.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Wow, so cool. I love all of those questions that
you were just talking about, especially that access to joy.
There's such a direct correlation, in my opinion, between you
know where you are if you're stuck, and where your
joy is and where your sense of self value is.
Just had this conversation with a client yesterday and we
(28:27):
did a little bit of like almost like a twenty
four hour map of where where's your time, your energy,
and your enthusiasm, And it was there was nothing in
there for him. It was all output. There was no
sense of what brings me joy, what where's my where's
the access to the things that make me even smile? Yeah?
(28:49):
It's just like head down, do do do? It's so interesting. Yeah,
And for the sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Sorry, I feel like there's I just want to say.
The other thing is that as you begin, very often,
as you begin leaning into this this purpose, something that
is very true that will happen is there's going to
be a time of intensity and not funness. Right, there
will be this time where you are you're doing a
(29:20):
lot of things, and it's sometimes you do things for
free or your stuff is undervalued. But you keep doing
that for a period of time believing that this is
your process and knowing that it's the next right thing,
and eventually something will hit, will shift, and it will hit.
And I just want to say the reason I say
(29:42):
that is because I think that joy is important and
joy is different from comfort, and joy is different from happiness. Okay,
so it brings me joy to write. Sometimes the writing
process is not fun. Sometimes the writing process is completely uncomfortable.
(30:02):
Some like you know the book that I just turned
into my publisher about racial justice. The editing process. I
hate the editing process every day passion, but it's a
necessary part of me living, leaning into my purpose. Right,
And so there's a I think that we can there
(30:23):
is this, especially in the coaching world. I have to
be honest, Janie, Like, there's there's this idea that coaches
can give you this, like this vision of you sitting
by your pool and working for three minutes a day
and making millions of dollars in finding joy. Right, Joy
is often messy. Joy is often crying and laughing at
(30:44):
the same time. Right, it's not this perfect ideal state
of being. What it is is finding this steady ground
of being that flows like a river underneath it as
we're going through and leaning into what we're here to do.
(31:04):
So I just want to be really clear that you
can be joyfully living your purpose and your life can
still be a hot mess at the same time.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Oh my goodness, is that so true. I'm reminded when
you just said that, I have like a smirk on
my face because that comes up for me being a parent,
especially being you know, my oldest is fifteen, my youngest
is eleven, and my fifteen and I lock horns constantly.
(31:34):
It is through that process of making mistakes and constantly
having to shift and evolve my relationship that I I
access exactly what you just talked about. It's it feels
like it's it's a complete train wreck. Yes, somehow it
I walk away and I'm like, okay, that's that was
a good lesson. That sort of that sort of sucked
(31:56):
when I was going through it, but yep, got it,
got it. Thank you, move on to the next one.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
So for those that are listening that are just like
new to this whole spirituality conversation, like how do you
access it? Are there signs, practices, questions you ask? Is
it like just look at your toes and you're being spiritual?
Is it looking at the clouds? Like what what is it, like,
how how would you guide somebody through that?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yeah? So I think it. It starts with awareness and
and this is you know, this was a business lesson
I learned a long time ago, and it's it's deeply
a deeply spiritual one too, which is that you know,
you can listen to business gurus all you want, but
ultimately you're the expert on yourself. Right. So I can
sit here and say, hey, Genie, how do you do
(32:45):
this thing? Like how do you increase your sales? And
you can say, well, my five step process is this, right?
And so I can take your five step process and
I might try to apply it but to my own experience, however,
because because I'm the expert on my own life, my
own business, my own spirituality, my own whatever, I have
(33:07):
to be willing to take that with enough of a
grain of salt that I can change it for myself, right,
And so the same is true for other people. What
works for me is going to be different for you.
So I can tell you what my thing is with
your understanding that your thing, Spirit's going to talk to
you the way spirit talks to you. Okay, So I
(33:29):
just want to put that disclaimer out there it's really
it's a really important one because the first step is
understanding how to trust your own self, how to trust.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Your own gut right.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
It starts for me, It starts with awareness and being
willing to quiet myself for a little bit. Sometimes it
means moving my body. My body, I do believe is
a tuning fork for spirit, and so I have to
be paying attention to my body. I have to be
treating my body kindly, whether that means I don't talk
(34:01):
ugly about it, whether that means I am moving it.
Like today, I definitely know I need to go for
a run. Given the pressure that I've been under and
the month that I have ahead of me, I know
that I need to move my body and sweat. I
know that I have to drink lemon water. I know
that I have to be still and breathe. So those
(34:25):
things have to kind of become a priority. There are
meditations that you can do.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
I love.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
There are some apps that do brain wave apps which
are wonderful. Even just ten minutes of some closing your
eyes with these apps, these brain wave apps and deep
breaths are is a wonderful way to connect and then
to go a little deeper. For me, I definitely notice
(34:51):
things in my body when I feel something needs to
get my attention. Sometimes the pressure in the room changes.
I often feel something on the right side of my body.
I'll feel chills, I'll feel uh, a pressure, a warmth sometimes,
(35:12):
and that's a very that's a very real thing, and
it's also very subtle. So for me, I have to
pay attention. It's very very much in my body. I
think that prayer does not need to be formal. You
(35:33):
can do a lot of prayer in a journal writing
and God is totally fine with cursing, and God is
totally fine with oh my God, please yes, absolutely, and
you can you. I think that the most powerful prayers
(35:56):
are the ones that are the most authentic, where you
know you are just letting loose on God. If you
are angry, God can take it. You know, if you
are frustrated, God can take that too, And just pouring
that out to God is cathartic and powerful, and it's
(36:19):
very much about surrender. It's very much about one of
another one of my favorite scriptures, and I don't remember
the specifics around the story, but a guy comes to
Jesus and he says, I think his daughter was going
to die, was dying, and he's like, please come. You know,
if you if you just say the word, you know,
my daughter will live. And Jesus says something like, you know,
(36:43):
if you believe your faith will make that happen and
Jesus and the guy goes, I believe, Jesus, I believe
help me in my unbelief. And I love that. I
love that because it's so true. I believe, help me
in my unbelief. You know, that is an authentic way
to come to God. And I think so many people
(37:03):
feel like they have to follow some ritual or something
and really it's just about okay, God, here I am.
And I've had plenty of moments where I'm like fed
up with the whole faith thing and I'm like, listen, God,
this is what I know to do. This is what
I'm going to do. The rest is on you.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
I give up.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
And usually that's when like all the things happen, right,
So it's a very it's it doesn't have to I
guess My point is ultimately you don't have to overthink it.
You can just just be and allow and God will
find you.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
And I find that you talked about expressing frustration or
anger and just sort of processing it outline. And you know,
even if you don't mistard believe in quote unquote God,
but whatever spiritual connection you have, whatever faith you have,
I find it to be something very present of mine.
When there's a passing, especially sudden passing. You know, my
(37:59):
mom died suddenly. My father died unexpectedly two years ago.
I was furious because in both instances, you know that
in my mind didn't need to happen, and was both
young and no warning. And I remember, particularly with my
father's passing, because it really just was a complete storm
(38:20):
of problems that happened very quickly in a medical environment.
And I was trying to click over to surrender because
I realized, like, there's nothing I can do. I just
have to accept what's happening in front of me. And
I kept resisting it, and in my own quiet time,
I was screaming at God. I was out on the
(38:42):
board walk just yelling like how could you put my
family through this again? And it was like just like
a ripped down, one sided scream fest. And then I
was like, Okay, that felt good, loiked over, and then
I found my my way through the process and then
now you know again when you get to the other side,
(39:03):
you see what you now have access to because you
you I didn't fight it. I thought it in the moment,
but I saw I got to go through it. Yeah,
to come out the other side, I've got to go through.
My aunt often says that to me, you got to
go through it to come out the other side. And
I use that idea of surrender as a tool. And
(39:23):
it's so hard if you are a perfectionist or just
a very controlling personality, where especially if you have a
job where you have the ability to manage a lot
of things, and then something happens to you in your
life and you don't have access to that. You have
to be able to recognize that there is some divine
order to things and you may not like it, but
(39:46):
that's the way it is. And if you can just
access that surrender, it can bring you a lot of
the things that you really want in your life. But
it's so hard.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yeah, it's so hard. And isn't it interesting how afraid
of our own emotions we are? Like why is that?
What is it about our emotions? I mean, they're just feelings, right,
They're just feelings, and listen, I am preaching to my
own self here because there are so many especially when
it comes to anger. I think as women, we've been
(40:19):
socialized to believe we're not allowed to be angry and
certainly not allowed to show anger, and so and very
often anger. You know, they say, depression is anger turned inward,
and women tend to turn our anger inward more than
men do. And so I often talk with my clients
(40:40):
and I say, you know, emotions are like waves in
the ocean. Trying to resist them is futile, right. Like
one of my favorite stories about the first time I
brought my daughter when she was little, tiny girl, to
the beach. She wanted to go into the ocean so bad,
but the waves were so big, and then she all
of a sudden, she just stood on the on the
beach and she yelled, stop waving at me, ocean, I
(41:01):
want to go in Cute, I know, but it's so true,
Like you know, we try to fight emotions, but they're
going to keep coming. They're just waves that are going
to keep coming. But the thing about waves is they
come and then they go, and then they come back
and then they go. And if we can allow that
flow of those emotions and realize that we're not going
(41:24):
to die. It's just an emotion. I think what happens
is that emotion gets connected with a sense of something
in our childhood, from that deep tribal trench that's been
dug in our brain that's all about survival, and our
brain is saying, if you show this emotion, you're going
to die somehow, And so we need to kind of
(41:45):
rewrite that path and go no, I can allow this.
I can allow this, and I can observe it, like
the Buddhists might say, I can just observe this and
let it go and let it pass by. And the
other story that's coming to my mind is one time,
I am a firm believer that God is not a he.
(42:06):
God is genderless and all encompassing of all genders actually,
but there is definitely a masculine aspect to God. And
I remember one time when I was still very entrenched
in the whole imagery of God the Father, and I
was really pissed off and angry about something, and I
(42:27):
was praying and meditating, and I remember in my meditation
it was as if God showed me a big manly
chest and was like he kind of like in this sense,
I'll talk, I'll call him he but he kind of
pulled open a shirt and said, go ahead, I can
take it. And it was just like he was showing me,
go ahead. You don't have to be afraid. You don't
(42:47):
have to be afraid to show me that you're mad
at me. In fact, God was saying, if you show
me you're mad at me, we're in relationship and that's
what I want.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
I love that. That's great, right, I.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Was like, oh, I get it now.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
You know. The last thing I'd say about emotions too,
as you were talking. I think you know, we often
associate negative labels to it. So if we if we
are emotional, angry said whatever it is that we're bad,
We're not we're not enough, we're not living up to
expectations that others have of us, instead of just recognizing
it's part of the realness of who we are. You know,
(43:25):
are there instances, of course, where maybe it's in excess
and needs to be addressed, of course, but it isn't bad.
It just is so interesting. Yeah, So I'm curious, like,
who are those thought leaders that you follow on the
subject of spirituality.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
So there are some amazing writers in the world of
Christian progressive Christianity. Rachel held Evans, who unfortunately just passed
away at a very young age. She was an amazing writer,
Sarah Bessie, Nadia bolts Weber. These are people that I
(44:04):
really that I love to read in that world of
progressive Christianity. I am a huge fan of Carolyn Mace,
who does energy anatomy work and she's a medical intuitive.
I actually had a dream about her last night. Yeah, yeah,
that was interesting. And then I also in the social
(44:25):
in the realm of social justice. I as I said,
I do a lot of work in racial justice. I
have a book coming out in March called Good White Racist.
And so I listened to or follow Rachel Cargole, Austin Channing, Brown,
Sean King. Those are people that are are leading me there.
But I have to all of that said, I have
(44:45):
to be honest and say that I'm kind of a
little over celebrity. The whole celebrity thing. Celebrity culture is
getting old for me, especially in the world of Christianity,
both in evangelical which is my background, and even in
the world of progressive Christianity. I'm getting tired of it.
(45:08):
There's a person by the name of doctor Robin Henderson Espinosa,
who's actively they are a somebody who they are a
thought leader, public theologian, and they are working very hard
to dismantle celebrity culture. And I really appreciate their work
in that. And I have to be honest and say
(45:28):
that the people that are most impacting my thought right
now are the people close to me. They're my friends,
They're my husband, my good friends that I'm in deep
relationship with. These are the people that are probably influencing
me the most. And I've been lucky because I have
really I'm married to a great man. I am in
(45:51):
deep relationship with smart, intelligent, spiritual, deeply emotional people, and
they're the ones who are really feeding me right now.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
That is such a profound statement, is to it isn't
necessarily you don't have to over architecture this. Yeah, it's
like pay attention to who are those people in your
immediate circle, Like who are the spiritual gurus around you?
Speaker 2 (46:16):
And make sure they're healthy and that they're giving you
good stuff. You know.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
I think my kids are my spiritual gods because they'll
say or do something that I'm like, that's genius. Thank
you for saying that it's good. Yeah, So Carrie, you
know what path are you on? What are you working towards?
I mean, you obviously have a tremendous, tremendously rich background.
You're very very articulate and well versed on a lot
(46:42):
of the things that we've been talking about, like what's
next for you?
Speaker 2 (46:46):
You know, again, I'm practicing what I preach and I'm
just trying to go, Okay, what's the next right thing?
You know? So for me, it is there are two
direct pathways that I can see for right now. Who
knows where I'll end up. And this is another thing too,
I think that there's been in business, and I think
(47:08):
this is going to be really important for your listeners.
In business and in this whole purpose chasing thing. I
think very often many of us go I have to
focus on one thing. But I also believe that right
now there are many people walking this planet who are
multi talented, multi They have a number of different interests
(47:34):
and they are I think that's by design. And it
seems like from a marketing branding point of view, that's
really hard to kind of describe, but all of the
things converge to to do what you're supposed to do.
And I say that because for me, you know, on
(47:55):
the one path, I'm definitely very involved in this racial
justice and social justice like I see that work ahead
of me, especially in the Church, because the church is
so entrenched in racism, so working with and this is
deeply spiritual work. I'm not saying that this is not
spiritual work. It's deeply spiritual for me. I wouldn't be
doing it if it was for really annoying Jesus. He's
(48:16):
so annoying but so true. I would be nice and
comfy my yoga pants, but no, Jesus had to tag me.
But whatever. So the racial justice and the social justice
work that I do is deeply important, and I do
believe that I'll be doing that work for some time.
(48:36):
And then there's this coaching and spirituality work that I do,
and they converge. There's definitely points of intersection in them.
But this spiritual work that I'm doing is new, a
little new, not new. How can I say this? I
guess it's new for me to be as open and
(48:57):
authentic in it as do a podcast about it. This
is not something I would have talked about a year ago, even.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
To the to the way in the.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Way that I'm talking about it today, I'm really choosing
to lean into it. And I will say it's a
little scary for me, you know, but it's the next thing.
It's the next boundary for me that I have to
kind of push against. And so just kind of really
leaning into this work of spiritual mentorship and and guidance
(49:29):
and doing this work and owning it and being public
about it, I think is the is the next step
for me.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
It takes so much courage to do the kind of
work that you're doing, especially in the space of uh,
you know, racial issues. I'd love for you to just
share a little bit about what your work is there
before we wrap up our conversation.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Yeah, sure, thank you. So the work that the blog
that I write is called Jersey Girl Jesus, and I
didn't set out to do racial justice work, but I
just started seeing a lot of things happening in our
world that I couldn't look at and say this is
not right, you know, like I had to point it
out and it turned out to be. And this is
(50:11):
something I work with clients on too. Is I say,
where's the responsive energy? Well, I got a lot of
responsive energy around all of my stuff on racial justice
and LGBTQ justice as well. And so, to make a
long story short, that work led to an editor reaching
out to me and asking me for a book proposal.
So the book is called Good White Racist, and it's
(50:33):
all about how in the United States we are so
white people tend to be so obsessed with our own
goodness and with our own and defending that goodness that
we can't see how racism has been programmed into us,
and so we get really defensive about it. And that's
(50:54):
at and it's a hard awakening, but I also really
believe that it's the next great spiritual awakening that Americans
are going to need to need to have in order
to heal a lot of what's happening in our country.
And so that's kind of the work. And it was
inspired by a woman named Ruby Sales, who is a
black public theologian and racial warrior activist. And she was
(51:20):
a seventeen years old and she was working at a
protest and a white seminarian threw himself in front of
her and took a bullet for her and died at
that protest. And she was on an episode of On
Being and she said, she said, you know, we have
a black liberating theology. Where's the white liberating theology. Where's
(51:42):
the theology that liberates white people from our addictions and
from racism and from all of the things that have
broken our souls? And that just made me think so deeply,
and I said, well, you know what, nobody else is
doing a white theology. Let me do a white liberating theology.
(52:02):
Let me start thinking about that. So that's what led
me to start my podcast, which is called White on White,
Reimagining a white identity apart from pseudo supremacy, this idea
of pseudo supremacy. So it's really trying to do the
work of discovering what would a white identity be if
we didn't have this idea of pseudo supremacy kind of
(52:22):
ingrained into us by everything around us, media, all of
that thing, that kind of stuff. So that's essentially what
that work is about.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
Wow, so interesting. So I'd love to end our conversation
with some questions that I like to ask all of
our guests so that they hear a little bit more
about you on a more of a personal level. So, Carrie,
what brings you joy?
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Time alone? Runs long runs on hot days like today,
which I can't wait to go and do, and spending
time with my family and my cat. My cat is
so cute and snuggling. And one thing what frustrates you,
what frustrates me is arguments on Facebook. I get frustrated
(53:13):
when I feel like I am not progressing as quickly
as I want to be progressing. And mechanical things that
don't work the way they're supposed to frustrate me.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
To know, end what scares you? And how do you
handle fear?
Speaker 2 (53:30):
You know, it's interesting. I'm doing a lot of work
around this. The thing that causes me anxiety. I have
a money story, so money. Talking about money is something
that scares me, and I'm handling it through counseling. I'm
handling it through really unpacking my own anxiety. The unhealthy
way that I handle fear is through avoidance. I just
(53:52):
avoid and I'm really working hard to stop doing that.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
And who would you want to meet? A live or dead?
And why?
Speaker 2 (53:59):
Oh that's so hard? I have like five million people,
But I'll say today the person that I would love
to meet is Mary Magdalen. Why well, because I think
that she represents so much of spiritual of the spirituality
(54:22):
and the divinity of feet of women. And and she was,
you know, Jesus's favorite person, and I want to know
more about her. She was silenced in the race from
the Bible in so many ways, and I want to
know more about her.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
And last question is what's a daily practice that keeps
you focused and grounded?
Speaker 2 (54:46):
Journaling? I try to journal every day and that's the something.
That's something I try to just find those few minutes
of breath and journaling every single day.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Thank you so much, Carrie. This has been such an
interesting and enlightening conversation and I so appreciate you sharing
so much about yourself, your story, and your wisdom with
all of my listeners. So how can my listeners find you?
Speaker 2 (55:14):
The best way to find me is right through my website.
Every there's a link to everything on there. So it's
Kerry Connolly dot com and that's k E R R
Y c O N N E L L Y and
that's the best way to get through through to me.
You can email me there you can find all all
the things, all the links everything. Well.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
Best of luck to you, Carrie in all of the
endeavors if spirituality and whatever's next for you. I'm so
excited to see and hear more about your evolution. So
thank you again, thank you for joining me for another
episode of the Warriors at Work Show. If you are
interested in learning more about what we do at the
Warriors at Work Show and platform, be sure to go
(55:57):
over to my website, Jeanie Koomber and subscribe to my
monthly Warrior Playbook newsletter. I share everything that I'm up
to month by month, as well as some lessons and
insights that I've learned. I'm also interested in hearing any
feedback you have about this conversation or future topics, so
reach out to me directly on JC at Geniecomber dot
(56:18):
com or on LinkedIn. Be sure to tell your friends
and your colleagues about this Warriors at Work conversation, Subscribe,
review and rate us. It's the best way to get
this message out into the world. Be well,
Welcome to the Warriors at Work Show. This is Genie Koomber,
your guide and host. This is a show for men
and women in the workplace who want to move from
the predictable to the potent. This is your weekly dose
of inspiration with an edge. I talk with CEOs and shawmans,
sports marketing executives, and therapists. All of us are like
(00:24):
minded thinkers and doers who tell stories, share wisdom, and
challenge each other to have the best life possible inside
and outside the office. Welcome to your Warrior Conversation. Hey everybody,
it's Gennie. Thanks so much for joining me here at
Warriors at Work and Happy July. As we reach the
(00:46):
halfway point of the year, it's a natural time to pause,
reflect and realign with ourselves. So over the coming weeks,
I will be resharing podcast episodes from Warriors at Work
and the intention here is to help you to reconnect
with yourself, refuel your energy, and move forward with clarity.
Let's make the rest of the year really count enjoy.
(01:09):
So excited to bring to you Kerrie Connolly, who calls
herself a progressive Christian writer, speaker and coach. She's an
emerging voice in the voice in the world of progressive Christianity.
She's a sought after speaker, coach, and author. She's got
over twenty five years of business experience as well in
corporate nonprofit direct sales, and she is a well known
(01:31):
author and blogger on Jersey Girl Jesus on patheios dot
com and her book Pause, Make Time for the Walk
with God is available exclusively at Barnes and Noble. Not
to mention that Carrie is also a New York City
Leadership Center Fellow and is certified in Christian Life Coaching,
disc personality assessment, emotional intelligence, and she's also pursuing the
(01:55):
Open Pathway to a Masters of Divinity from Christian Theological
Seminary in Indiana Anapolis. So clearly Carrie is immersed in
this subject of spirituality. So, Carrie, thank you so much
for bringing yourself to this conversation today.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I am so excited to be here. Thank you so
much for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
So, Carrie, tell us, why did you choose this work
for yourself in such an interesting background. Obviously you've got
a lot of business expertise and a lot of different
paths that you've taken. But why this place.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
You know, it's it's so funny. I don't mean to
sound trite about it, but I have to honestly say
it chows me like I can't I can't tell you
that when I was a little girl, I said, oh,
I'm going to grow up to be a writer about
progressive Christianity, or even I need to update my bio
(02:47):
because I do a lot of work in racial justice
and social justice, and that wasn't in there. But you know,
nowhere in my past could I have pointed to this moment.
And it really has kind of been a sort of
intuitive following of of what I felt. My next step
(03:08):
was that that brought me here. I often joke and
laugh that I feel like I am the heroine of
this amazing novel that God is writing, and if I
look back, I'm like, man, that's an amazing plot, you know,
like look at it.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, that that.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Didn't seem like they were a big deal at the
time but turned out to be life changing and life
altering and and but but the one theme I think
that has always uh underscored everything is that I've always
been desperately trying to chase down what I am supposed
(03:42):
to be doing. That's always been, uh something that that
has been in my psyche, and I've always been really
really passionate about using up all of my potential.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Right I really am.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I don't want to die having wasted a single ounce
with my potential, so I've always tried to stretch myself
and lean into that really intentionally. So I don't know
if that really answers that question, but that's the honest truth.
That's the authentic truth about how I got where I
am right now.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah. So I'm nodding like a crazy person because what
you just said about not wasting a moment of my
potential is literally my life mantras like I'm always constantly
thinking about my mortality. How much more time do I
have left? What don't I know yet? Can you tell
us what the heck does progressive Christianity mean?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
I know? So it's funny because most progressives are always like,
I don't really know, I mean, aside from having tattoos, piercings,
and personal really you know, where the pastors who curse
and we're skinny jeans. But it's essentially I think most
progressive Christians would self identify as people who are not
(05:03):
into atonement theory. Maybe some are, But an atonement theory
is that whole idea that Jesus, that God required Jesus
to die for us, because you know, a loving father
would require his own son to sacrifice himself. You know,
that's a little weird. So maybe we don't believe in
hell as much. We believe in that whatever thing that
(05:25):
Jesus did on the cross was good for everybody. You
don't have to, We don't. We're not going to go
out there and bang you on bang you on the
head and say you have to believe in this thing.
We tend to be for the most part, affirming of
the LGBTQ brother you know, our siblings in the LGBTQ community.
Open affirming, celebratory of those precious people. We tend to
(05:50):
be really concerned with social justice. We believe that the
book the Bible is a book about social justice, and
that Jesus was an imperial subverb. You know. So these
are these are kinds of themes. I mean, again, I
don't speak for the entire community, and we tend to
be really notoriously bad at self organizing, but that's generally
(06:13):
what I think most of my friends are kind of
aligned with.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
So interesting so, you know, when we connected about doing
this this podcast conversation, you talk to me about clients
that come to you and say, look, there might be
a power in me that I want to bring out
to the world. Can you help me? Can you say
more about that process.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah, So most of the clients that I work with
in coaching tend to be people who are in corporate
usually people who are in the corporate arena, and they
have amassed all of this amazing experience and knowledge, and
you know, just they're just so talented and they're they're
(06:57):
filled with all of this this good stuff, and now
they're finally at that point where they've always kind of said,
you know, I felt like I am here to do something.
I feel like I have a purpose. I know I'm
supposed to do something, and they're ready to start leaning
into that. And sometimes they're a little scared because they
think that maybe that means it's time to leave their
(07:18):
corporate gig, and they're like, I don't know if I'm
ready for that. And so sometimes they sense their purpose,
they sense their power, and they know that there's something
but they haven't clarified it yet. Sometimes they're really clear
on it and they just need to figure out how
to implement it. And because my coaching tends to be
(07:41):
a combination of, you know, the spirituality if that's what
they desire, the coaching practice of trying to figure out, okay,
what's blocking us, and then really practical stuff like, Okay,
this is what we have to do to get stuff
done right, a practical action plan. That's kind of how
I work with clients, and they'll come to me and
(08:01):
they'll say, I know I have this thing, and so
we'll help refine it and clarify it. And one of
the things that I think is so important for people
to understand about this kind of work when you're really
trying to lean into that thing that you know you're
here to do, is very often have a you can
(08:21):
sense it. It's like way out there on the horizon
and you can sense it, but the only thing you're
going to know is the next step, which can be
really frustrating, especially for my fellow control freaks out there. Right.
It's like, it's scary to think that you're chasing down
something big and beautiful and bold, and all you know
is that today you're supposed to email this one person,
(08:41):
and that can be the most frustrating place to be.
But when we can trust that process, that's how you
end up writing this divine novel that that is your life,
you know, and it's a beautiful process when we can
learn how to surrender to it. So I kind of
come alongside people and work with them to do that.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You know, you you characterize that. My mind immediately went
back to most people I know, and this is clients, colleagues, friends, family,
start to investigate more of their spiritual side when they're
in the middle of crisis, the unhappy. Work is very,
very challenging, very stressful. There's a lot of change, there's downsizing,
(09:21):
whatever that is. There's some sort of life event that
makes you start to investigate. Because when you're in it
and you're just operating and your transactional self is a
common thing that I'll say, you're not paying attention to
the cues and to like the whispers from the universe,
if you will. It's when some sort of cosmic shift
happens that you start to pay attention to things. And
(09:43):
what's interesting about it is you feel better at least
I did you feel better knowing that, Wow, there is
a bigger plan for me here and that I don't
need to be afraid of the pain. I don't need
to be frightened. That this is going to level me
know that there's going to be healing and a great
path that's going to emerge once I moved through this. Yes,
(10:07):
And you know it's like you give a lot of
encouragement and courage really to help navigate that.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Oh yeah, yeah, it's so funny. I have to give
kudos to the amazing Patty Lennon, who she's a business coach,
but an intuitive business coach, and I just really have
to give a shout out to her because I think
that God has placed her in my path in a
certain to play this certain role, and she's the one
(10:34):
who delivers the hard spiritual messages to me, Like so
for all the lessons that I have to keep learning
over and over again, and I'm like, really do I
have to do this again? And she's the one and
I remember, like she was the one who said, you know,
you need to learn this lesson now because if you don't,
Spirit's just going to keep bringing it back to you
and you're gonna and it's gonna get harder and harder
(10:55):
each time. And I was like in the middle of
this like really horrible time, and I was like, well,
screw you, Patty, that was not the message I wanted
to hear. She was like, well sorry, and she was
so right, you know, she was so right. And so
it's it's very true. I think that we do our
soul is on this amazing adventure to to learn stuff
(11:21):
and to evolve into as end. And I think that
as we go through these life lessons, and a lot
of them do come back around over and over and
over again until we learn the lesson that that spirit
does use that those two to grow us up. And
And because I truly do believe that God is love right,
(11:43):
that that that this whole uh divine conspiracy is about love.
That we are actually safe and we will actually survive
and thrive when we are willing to be authentically aware
and in our emotions. And I actually think that, you know,
(12:05):
I even as recently as a year ago, I was
one of those coaches who was talking about, oh, discover
your life purpose. And I am still very invested in
life purpose, but not in the same way that coaches
tend to talk about it anymore. I'm kind of over that.
I'm starting to realize that our truest divine purpose is
(12:27):
to lean authentically and as really if that's even a word,
as possible into who we are and really determined and
really kind of just diving into our truest selves and
becoming really authentic with our own selves. I think the
(12:48):
world leads us to do so much pretending, and we
put on so many layers of roles and responsibilities and
hiding our selves that when we can when we can
really learn to just be who we were beautifully intentionally
(13:10):
created to be, that that is the biggest divine adventure
we can have on this earth. And I think that's
what gives honor and praise to God more than anything,
more than stepping into a church, more than you know,
paying tithes, more than good works of good service. The
best thing that we can do to honor God is
(13:30):
to live into the creation that God imagined for us.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Everything you just said again, I'm nodding my head like crazy,
is like there's so much pressure to be a certain
way and to show up demonstrating certain things. We started
to touch into my next question, but I'd love to
take a deeper dive here is so let's talk about
what what do you how do you say, how do
(13:57):
you define spirituality?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So for me, it's pretty simple. I think spirituality is
simply the relationship that we have with the Divine and
with ourselves, right to two things, right, And that kind
of speaks to what I was just saying, you know,
really kind of doing that deep dive and understanding who
we are. My friend Ben Tapper has a podcast called
(14:21):
Invisible Truths, and he talks about radical self awareness. You know,
that is just as much a spiritual activity as it
is to relate to God and try to understand who
and what God is. So I think it's very much
about learning about who we are, who God is, and
(14:41):
how that all interacts.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, so the word divine you use a lot in
is sort of your vernacular, so share with us for
those that aren't even familiar with the term, how would
you characterize it?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
So there's this really annoying theologian named Paul Tillic. He's
dense and I need I need him to learn how
to tweet. But but one of the things that he
he used to describe God is the ground of our being.
(15:16):
And I love that. I love that phrase, the ground
of our being, The Divine is the ground of our being.
It's that thing that is beyond us. It's the thing
that we swim in. It's this thing that we have
access to. It's the creative energy that supports the world.
It's not something that I can ever really explain. It's
beyond explanation and it is only something that can be experienced.
(15:41):
But we all have access to it. We all have
the ability to experience it, and we we just kind
of need to open up to it. And I believe
our bodies are tuning forks to receive the divine. So
I do believe in it that our embodiment is a
deeply spiritual experience.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
And what about for those that just don't identify with
a God or not religious, but have some sort of
longing for a sense of purpose, or they're starting to
ask questions, how do you engage them in this discussion?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
So the way I engage when I talk with people
who don't believe in God, the first thing that I
want to say is that's cool, It's totally fine, no
worries I do. I'm going to be authentically myself in
any kind of conversation or relationship. But that does not
mean that I insist that anybody else has to believe
(16:39):
in God. People are welcome in my space however they
feel like showing up. So that's the first thing. The
second thing is I think that quantum physics is a
lot of fun, and quantum physics can can describe a
lot of what I call the divine and actually is
(17:00):
kind of what helped me move away from that very
rigid belief system that I had and into that space
of hey, I'm just going to be open. I'm just
going to say call this what it will, what I
want to, you know, but maybe there's this is something
about you know, string theory. Maybe maybe string theory can
(17:20):
explain God better than I can. So people who don't
necessarily aren't necessarily into the spirituality, I believe they can
still have a a an awe inspiring experience and they
can call it and relate to it however they want.
(17:42):
My invitation to them is to just be open, to
just be open to the experience. You know, saying no
doesn't give you a lot of options, and I always,
like I teach my kids, I try to remember this
for myself that it's really just about creating as many
options as possible. So I think that's you know, I
(18:03):
have to say, I'm going to always be as authentic
as I can, And for me, authenticity is I'm going
to be about the divine. But anyone I think can
access awe and beauty and love, and it doesn't matter
what they call it, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter
(18:27):
they are loved and cherished and beautiful. However, however they
decide to manifested or call that, it's still true.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I love that you can act. Anyone can access all
beauty and love that is really really beautiful. You also
mentioned when we were connecting that the idea of evidence
in scripture that points to a movement towards spiritual ascension
beyond the church. Can you offer some perspective there?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, this is where I'm gonna piss a lot of
people off.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
In that's all right, just circles.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
But so you know, well, first and foremost Jesus talks
in scripture about He is always talking about how the
Kingdom of God is within us. Now, kingdom is problematic language,
so many progressive Christians might call it the Realm of God,
or might call it the kingdom as in family k
(19:25):
I N instead of kingdom. And the reason that we
talk we say kingdom is problematic is because it's patriarchal
and imperialistic. I already mentioned that the Bible is a
deeply political book. It's it's there is nothing non political
about the Bible, especially the four Gospels, are deeply subversive
(19:50):
books that were written as an act of resistance against
imperial Rome. Jesus himself was sort of anti church, right like,
and I mean he cares desperately for the church. That's
obvious from scripture. And the church obviously did not exist
in Jesus' time as we know it today. It was
the Temple, and Jesus would he cared deeply about it,
(20:13):
but he was passionate about it. I mean, he went
in and flipped over all these tables in the in
the temple because they had basically turned the church into
a mall right, and he was like, not in my house,
You're not going to do that. But he also recognized
that God wasn't only in the temple, and he recognized
that the temple in his day had gotten just very
(20:35):
similar to today to today, the temple had gotten in
bed with government. And he was very much an imperial subversive.
He was anti systemic poverty. He was anti systemic racism.
But he was also a mystic, and he was a
spiritual healer, and he was a medical intuitive, and he
was a psychic, and he was a chakra master. You know,
(20:57):
he was somebody who could feel the power going out
of him. That's his words. He said, a woman who
had a bleeding disorder walked up to him, touched his
robe and in a crowd of people, and he turned
around and he said, who touched me? And his disciples
are like, are you kidding me? Jesus, like, look, there's
five million people around you. Everybody's touching you. And he said, no,
(21:20):
I felt the power go out of me. So what
power is he talking about in that scripture? Right? He's
talking about this this thing that we don't we can't
We have a lot of names for, but we don't
know what it is, right, We can't point to it
and say, look, there it is. But it's this this energy,
this power that we all have that is something spiritual
(21:41):
at something beyond us. Right. And unfortunately the scripture that
was canonized as the canonization of that was a political event.
It was about power structures and the apocrypha. The scriptures
that didn't get canonized but were still widely soulated in
the early Church and were were deeply valued by the
(22:05):
early Church. And mostly we're also talked a lot about
women as Jesus's disciples. Mary Magdalene to be most specific.
She in the in the Gospel of Mary, which is
not something that's in the Bible, it's in the apocrypha.
We hear about a very metaphysical Jesus, and Jesus that
(22:27):
was talking very much about how we need to experience God,
and that God is an experiential thing. It's not something
that can be written down in a law. It's something
that needs to be felt and experienced and sensed. And
that was what Mary taught the disciples. And surprise, surprise,
(22:49):
you know, the women got silenced, the women got pushed
out of the cannon. And that's not what got into
the quote unquote approved Bible. So there's a lot of
evidence that Jesus was a very mystical guy.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
M Wow, what fantastic insight. That is amazing. So, I mean,
I love the power went out of me. I meant,
my brain immediately went to you know, thinking about all
the women that are listening to this, right we we're
doing it all day long, and I don't even think
(23:25):
we have consciousness to it. We're either asked a question
where we have to respond to or there's some sort
of need that people have of us and we just
naturally give it, and we may not even be aware
of how often that power is going out of us
to other people. Yes, so it's almost like striking a
(23:45):
balance between what you are putting out and what you're
what you're identifying with within you is so interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
So I want to.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Shift gears a bit because I'd love to understand more
about how do you work with clients. So, if I
am Jeanie Koomber, I'm an executive vice president in a
financial services organization, I'm starting to get a sense of
I want to know more about my purpose. I call
you talking what does this coaching experience look like?
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah? So, okay, I need to say one thing regarding
our last thing and before I answer that question very quickly,
and that is that Jesus often retreated because he needed
self care. So I have to say that for all
the women out there who are listening, that he was
always with the people, but then he often retreated to
go be alone and practice some self care. Okay, so
(24:39):
to answer your question. Very often it starts off as
a conversation with a new client just to kind of
understand where they're at and and kind of what they're thinking,
and we'll talk a little bit about you know, Usually
people can identify there there's a there are some certain
(25:01):
things that you can at questions. You can ask to say, okay,
where is the realm of my purpose? Right? So the
first thing that I'll usually ask is if somebody has
no clue, they know that there's something, but they don't
know exactly what it is. The first thing I'll ask
is I'll say, okay, well, what makes you really angry
or really happy? Right? Like when you see something on
(25:23):
the news, when you see something, what's the thing that
just gets you that you can't that you lose sleepover
the news stories that you almost can't watch because they
upset you so much. That's a holy passion, you know,
when when you feel something that deeply that you want
to pay attention to that because that's a holy passion.
The next thing I'll say is who do you care about? Like,
(25:45):
who is it that gets you? Is it animals? Is
it children? Is it the elderly? Is it the homeless,
the hungry, like who is it that breaks your heart
that you can't get out of your head when you
when you see a story about them. Those kinds of
things are really going to give you insight into a
(26:07):
little bit about what your purpose might be. So we'll
talk about that for somebody who doesn't have any idea,
and then I might talk about a little bit about
how did you play when you were a child, because
that often gives you insight into how you'd love to
spend your time. And so then I'll kind of switch gears.
If somebody knows kind of what they want to do,
(26:29):
then we'll start getting into some logistics. And I actually
have a work book called Joy Revolt that brings them
through kind of six steps and it's a step that
you can actually go over numerous times, and people can
actually purchase the workbook just by itself on my website.
But you can go through this process and keep refining
your vision and your vision here's one thing too, and
(26:52):
this is truth, Like your vision is going to refine itself.
You're going to do it for a little bit and
then you're going to go You're going to learn, and
then you're going to go, oh, it's this is something
I need to do differently, or I need to fine
tune this, or I need to pivot. Oh, this isn't
the thing, but everything that I learned during by doing
(27:13):
this thing is part of the bigger thing. Right, So
that's kind of how it works. And so the Joy
Revolt Workbook will take people through six steps and please
don't ask me what they are, because I don't remember.
I don't have it in front of me. I haven't
looked at it in a while. But they're good. There
are six steps that will help them really clarify and
(27:34):
create an action plan so that they can go through.
They'll they'll clarify their vision, they'll clarify what they want
to do, and then they'll create an action plan based
on that vision. Then they'll assess that action plan, how
did it work, and they'll determine how, if, and how
they need to pivot. So the idea is eventually we'll
go through this together, and eventually they can go through
(27:56):
these six steps as they move, like maybe once a year,
so every year they can go, Okay, this is where
I'm at and this is where I want to go.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Wow, so cool. I love all of those questions that
you were just talking about, especially that access to joy.
There's such a direct correlation, in my opinion, between you
know where you are if you're stuck, and where your
joy is and where your sense of self value is.
Just had this conversation with a client yesterday and we
(28:27):
did a little bit of like almost like a twenty
four hour map of where where's your time, your energy,
and your enthusiasm, And it was there was nothing in
there for him. It was all output. There was no
sense of what brings me joy, what where's my where's
the access to the things that make me even smile? Yeah?
(28:49):
It's just like head down, do do do? It's so interesting. Yeah,
And for the sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Sorry, I feel like there's I just want to say.
The other thing is that as you begin, very often,
as you begin leaning into this this purpose, something that
is very true that will happen is there's going to
be a time of intensity and not funness. Right, there
will be this time where you are you're doing a
(29:20):
lot of things, and it's sometimes you do things for
free or your stuff is undervalued. But you keep doing
that for a period of time believing that this is
your process and knowing that it's the next right thing,
and eventually something will hit, will shift, and it will hit.
And I just want to say the reason I say
(29:42):
that is because I think that joy is important and
joy is different from comfort, and joy is different from happiness. Okay,
so it brings me joy to write. Sometimes the writing
process is not fun. Sometimes the writing process is completely uncomfortable.
(30:02):
Some like you know the book that I just turned
into my publisher about racial justice. The editing process. I
hate the editing process every day passion, but it's a
necessary part of me living, leaning into my purpose. Right,
And so there's a I think that we can there
(30:23):
is this, especially in the coaching world. I have to
be honest, Janie, Like, there's there's this idea that coaches
can give you this, like this vision of you sitting
by your pool and working for three minutes a day
and making millions of dollars in finding joy. Right, Joy
is often messy. Joy is often crying and laughing at
(30:44):
the same time. Right, it's not this perfect ideal state
of being. What it is is finding this steady ground
of being that flows like a river underneath it as
we're going through and leaning into what we're here to do.
(31:04):
So I just want to be really clear that you
can be joyfully living your purpose and your life can
still be a hot mess at the same time.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Oh my goodness, is that so true. I'm reminded when
you just said that, I have like a smirk on
my face because that comes up for me being a parent,
especially being you know, my oldest is fifteen, my youngest
is eleven, and my fifteen and I lock horns constantly.
(31:34):
It is through that process of making mistakes and constantly
having to shift and evolve my relationship that I I
access exactly what you just talked about. It's it feels
like it's it's a complete train wreck. Yes, somehow it
I walk away and I'm like, okay, that's that was
a good lesson. That sort of that sort of sucked
(31:56):
when I was going through it, but yep, got it,
got it. Thank you, move on to the next one.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
So for those that are listening that are just like
new to this whole spirituality conversation, like how do you
access it? Are there signs, practices, questions you ask? Is
it like just look at your toes and you're being spiritual?
Is it looking at the clouds? Like what what is it, like,
how how would you guide somebody through that?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yeah? So I think it. It starts with awareness and
and this is you know, this was a business lesson
I learned a long time ago, and it's it's deeply
a deeply spiritual one too, which is that you know,
you can listen to business gurus all you want, but
ultimately you're the expert on yourself. Right. So I can
sit here and say, hey, Genie, how do you do
(32:45):
this thing? Like how do you increase your sales? And
you can say, well, my five step process is this, right?
And so I can take your five step process and
I might try to apply it but to my own experience, however,
because because I'm the expert on my own life, my
own business, my own spirituality, my own whatever, I have
(33:07):
to be willing to take that with enough of a
grain of salt that I can change it for myself, right,
And so the same is true for other people. What
works for me is going to be different for you.
So I can tell you what my thing is with
your understanding that your thing, Spirit's going to talk to
you the way spirit talks to you. Okay, So I
(33:29):
just want to put that disclaimer out there it's really
it's a really important one because the first step is
understanding how to trust your own self, how to trust.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Your own gut right.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
It starts for me, It starts with awareness and being
willing to quiet myself for a little bit. Sometimes it
means moving my body. My body, I do believe is
a tuning fork for spirit, and so I have to
be paying attention to my body. I have to be
treating my body kindly, whether that means I don't talk
(34:01):
ugly about it, whether that means I am moving it.
Like today, I definitely know I need to go for
a run. Given the pressure that I've been under and
the month that I have ahead of me, I know
that I need to move my body and sweat. I
know that I have to drink lemon water. I know
that I have to be still and breathe. So those
(34:25):
things have to kind of become a priority. There are
meditations that you can do.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
I love.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
There are some apps that do brain wave apps which
are wonderful. Even just ten minutes of some closing your
eyes with these apps, these brain wave apps and deep
breaths are is a wonderful way to connect and then
to go a little deeper. For me, I definitely notice
(34:51):
things in my body when I feel something needs to
get my attention. Sometimes the pressure in the room changes.
I often feel something on the right side of my body.
I'll feel chills, I'll feel uh, a pressure, a warmth sometimes,
(35:12):
and that's a very that's a very real thing, and
it's also very subtle. So for me, I have to
pay attention. It's very very much in my body. I
think that prayer does not need to be formal. You
(35:33):
can do a lot of prayer in a journal writing
and God is totally fine with cursing, and God is
totally fine with oh my God, please yes, absolutely, and
you can you. I think that the most powerful prayers
(35:56):
are the ones that are the most authentic, where you
know you are just letting loose on God. If you
are angry, God can take it. You know, if you
are frustrated, God can take that too, And just pouring
that out to God is cathartic and powerful, and it's
(36:19):
very much about surrender. It's very much about one of
another one of my favorite scriptures, and I don't remember
the specifics around the story, but a guy comes to
Jesus and he says, I think his daughter was going
to die, was dying, and he's like, please come. You know,
if you if you just say the word, you know,
my daughter will live. And Jesus says something like, you know,
(36:43):
if you believe your faith will make that happen and
Jesus and the guy goes, I believe, Jesus, I believe
help me in my unbelief. And I love that. I
love that because it's so true. I believe, help me
in my unbelief. You know, that is an authentic way
to come to God. And I think so many people
(37:03):
feel like they have to follow some ritual or something
and really it's just about okay, God, here I am.
And I've had plenty of moments where I'm like fed
up with the whole faith thing and I'm like, listen, God,
this is what I know to do. This is what
I'm going to do. The rest is on you.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
I give up.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
And usually that's when like all the things happen, right,
So it's a very it's it doesn't have to I
guess My point is ultimately you don't have to overthink it.
You can just just be and allow and God will
find you.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
And I find that you talked about expressing frustration or
anger and just sort of processing it outline. And you know,
even if you don't mistard believe in quote unquote God,
but whatever spiritual connection you have, whatever faith you have,
I find it to be something very present of mine.
When there's a passing, especially sudden passing. You know, my
(37:59):
mom died suddenly. My father died unexpectedly two years ago.
I was furious because in both instances, you know that
in my mind didn't need to happen, and was both
young and no warning. And I remember, particularly with my
father's passing, because it really just was a complete storm
(38:20):
of problems that happened very quickly in a medical environment.
And I was trying to click over to surrender because
I realized, like, there's nothing I can do. I just
have to accept what's happening in front of me. And
I kept resisting it, and in my own quiet time,
I was screaming at God. I was out on the
(38:42):
board walk just yelling like how could you put my
family through this again? And it was like just like
a ripped down, one sided scream fest. And then I
was like, Okay, that felt good, loiked over, and then
I found my my way through the process and then
now you know again when you get to the other side,
(39:03):
you see what you now have access to because you
you I didn't fight it. I thought it in the moment,
but I saw I got to go through it. Yeah,
to come out the other side, I've got to go through.
My aunt often says that to me, you got to
go through it to come out the other side. And
I use that idea of surrender as a tool. And
(39:23):
it's so hard if you are a perfectionist or just
a very controlling personality, where especially if you have a
job where you have the ability to manage a lot
of things, and then something happens to you in your
life and you don't have access to that. You have
to be able to recognize that there is some divine
order to things and you may not like it, but
(39:46):
that's the way it is. And if you can just
access that surrender, it can bring you a lot of
the things that you really want in your life. But
it's so hard.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yeah, it's so hard. And isn't it interesting how afraid
of our own emotions we are? Like why is that?
What is it about our emotions? I mean, they're just feelings, right,
They're just feelings, and listen, I am preaching to my
own self here because there are so many especially when
it comes to anger. I think as women, we've been
(40:19):
socialized to believe we're not allowed to be angry and
certainly not allowed to show anger, and so and very
often anger. You know, they say, depression is anger turned inward,
and women tend to turn our anger inward more than
men do. And so I often talk with my clients
(40:40):
and I say, you know, emotions are like waves in
the ocean. Trying to resist them is futile, right. Like
one of my favorite stories about the first time I
brought my daughter when she was little, tiny girl, to
the beach. She wanted to go into the ocean so bad,
but the waves were so big, and then she all
of a sudden, she just stood on the on the
beach and she yelled, stop waving at me, ocean, I
(41:01):
want to go in Cute, I know, but it's so true,
Like you know, we try to fight emotions, but they're
going to keep coming. They're just waves that are going
to keep coming. But the thing about waves is they
come and then they go, and then they come back
and then they go. And if we can allow that
flow of those emotions and realize that we're not going
(41:24):
to die. It's just an emotion. I think what happens
is that emotion gets connected with a sense of something
in our childhood, from that deep tribal trench that's been
dug in our brain that's all about survival, and our
brain is saying, if you show this emotion, you're going
to die somehow, And so we need to kind of
(41:45):
rewrite that path and go no, I can allow this.
I can allow this, and I can observe it, like
the Buddhists might say, I can just observe this and
let it go and let it pass by. And the
other story that's coming to my mind is one time,
I am a firm believer that God is not a he.
(42:06):
God is genderless and all encompassing of all genders actually,
but there is definitely a masculine aspect to God. And
I remember one time when I was still very entrenched
in the whole imagery of God the Father, and I
was really pissed off and angry about something, and I
(42:27):
was praying and meditating, and I remember in my meditation
it was as if God showed me a big manly
chest and was like he kind of like in this sense,
I'll talk, I'll call him he but he kind of
pulled open a shirt and said, go ahead, I can
take it. And it was just like he was showing me,
go ahead. You don't have to be afraid. You don't
(42:47):
have to be afraid to show me that you're mad
at me. In fact, God was saying, if you show
me you're mad at me, we're in relationship and that's
what I want.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
I love that. That's great, right, I.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Was like, oh, I get it now.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
You know. The last thing I'd say about emotions too,
as you were talking. I think you know, we often
associate negative labels to it. So if we if we
are emotional, angry said whatever it is that we're bad,
We're not we're not enough, we're not living up to
expectations that others have of us, instead of just recognizing
it's part of the realness of who we are. You know,
(43:25):
are there instances, of course, where maybe it's in excess
and needs to be addressed, of course, but it isn't bad.
It just is so interesting. Yeah, So I'm curious, like,
who are those thought leaders that you follow on the
subject of spirituality.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
So there are some amazing writers in the world of
Christian progressive Christianity. Rachel held Evans, who unfortunately just passed
away at a very young age. She was an amazing writer,
Sarah Bessie, Nadia bolts Weber. These are people that I
(44:04):
really that I love to read in that world of
progressive Christianity. I am a huge fan of Carolyn Mace,
who does energy anatomy work and she's a medical intuitive.
I actually had a dream about her last night. Yeah, yeah,
that was interesting. And then I also in the social
(44:25):
in the realm of social justice. I as I said,
I do a lot of work in racial justice. I
have a book coming out in March called Good White Racist.
And so I listened to or follow Rachel Cargole, Austin Channing, Brown,
Sean King. Those are people that are are leading me there.
But I have to all of that said, I have
(44:45):
to be honest and say that I'm kind of a
little over celebrity. The whole celebrity thing. Celebrity culture is
getting old for me, especially in the world of Christianity,
both in evangelical which is my background, and even in
the world of progressive Christianity. I'm getting tired of it.
(45:08):
There's a person by the name of doctor Robin Henderson Espinosa,
who's actively they are a somebody who they are a
thought leader, public theologian, and they are working very hard
to dismantle celebrity culture. And I really appreciate their work
in that. And I have to be honest and say
(45:28):
that the people that are most impacting my thought right
now are the people close to me. They're my friends,
They're my husband, my good friends that I'm in deep
relationship with. These are the people that are probably influencing
me the most. And I've been lucky because I have
really I'm married to a great man. I am in
(45:51):
deep relationship with smart, intelligent, spiritual, deeply emotional people, and
they're the ones who are really feeding me right now.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
That is such a profound statement, is to it isn't
necessarily you don't have to over architecture this. Yeah, it's
like pay attention to who are those people in your
immediate circle, Like who are the spiritual gurus around you?
Speaker 2 (46:16):
And make sure they're healthy and that they're giving you
good stuff. You know.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
I think my kids are my spiritual gods because they'll
say or do something that I'm like, that's genius. Thank
you for saying that it's good. Yeah, So Carrie, you
know what path are you on? What are you working towards?
I mean, you obviously have a tremendous, tremendously rich background.
You're very very articulate and well versed on a lot
(46:42):
of the things that we've been talking about, like what's
next for you?
Speaker 2 (46:46):
You know, again, I'm practicing what I preach and I'm
just trying to go, Okay, what's the next right thing?
You know? So for me, it is there are two
direct pathways that I can see for right now. Who
knows where I'll end up. And this is another thing too,
I think that there's been in business, and I think
(47:08):
this is going to be really important for your listeners.
In business and in this whole purpose chasing thing. I
think very often many of us go I have to
focus on one thing. But I also believe that right
now there are many people walking this planet who are
multi talented, multi They have a number of different interests
(47:34):
and they are I think that's by design. And it
seems like from a marketing branding point of view, that's
really hard to kind of describe, but all of the
things converge to to do what you're supposed to do.
And I say that because for me, you know, on
(47:55):
the one path, I'm definitely very involved in this racial
justice and social justice like I see that work ahead
of me, especially in the Church, because the church is
so entrenched in racism, so working with and this is
deeply spiritual work. I'm not saying that this is not
spiritual work. It's deeply spiritual for me. I wouldn't be
doing it if it was for really annoying Jesus. He's
(48:16):
so annoying but so true. I would be nice and
comfy my yoga pants, but no, Jesus had to tag me.
But whatever. So the racial justice and the social justice
work that I do is deeply important, and I do
believe that I'll be doing that work for some time.
(48:36):
And then there's this coaching and spirituality work that I do,
and they converge. There's definitely points of intersection in them.
But this spiritual work that I'm doing is new, a
little new, not new. How can I say this? I
guess it's new for me to be as open and
(48:57):
authentic in it as do a podcast about it. This
is not something I would have talked about a year ago, even.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
To the to the way in the.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Way that I'm talking about it today, I'm really choosing
to lean into it. And I will say it's a
little scary for me, you know, but it's the next thing.
It's the next boundary for me that I have to
kind of push against. And so just kind of really
leaning into this work of spiritual mentorship and and guidance
(49:29):
and doing this work and owning it and being public
about it, I think is the is the next step
for me.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
It takes so much courage to do the kind of
work that you're doing, especially in the space of uh,
you know, racial issues. I'd love for you to just
share a little bit about what your work is there
before we wrap up our conversation.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Yeah, sure, thank you. So the work that the blog
that I write is called Jersey Girl Jesus, and I
didn't set out to do racial justice work, but I
just started seeing a lot of things happening in our
world that I couldn't look at and say this is
not right, you know, like I had to point it
out and it turned out to be. And this is
(50:11):
something I work with clients on too. Is I say,
where's the responsive energy? Well, I got a lot of
responsive energy around all of my stuff on racial justice
and LGBTQ justice as well. And so, to make a
long story short, that work led to an editor reaching
out to me and asking me for a book proposal.
So the book is called Good White Racist, and it's
(50:33):
all about how in the United States we are so
white people tend to be so obsessed with our own
goodness and with our own and defending that goodness that
we can't see how racism has been programmed into us,
and so we get really defensive about it. And that's
(50:54):
at and it's a hard awakening, but I also really
believe that it's the next great spiritual awakening that Americans
are going to need to need to have in order
to heal a lot of what's happening in our country.
And so that's kind of the work. And it was
inspired by a woman named Ruby Sales, who is a
black public theologian and racial warrior activist. And she was
(51:20):
a seventeen years old and she was working at a
protest and a white seminarian threw himself in front of
her and took a bullet for her and died at
that protest. And she was on an episode of On
Being and she said, she said, you know, we have
a black liberating theology. Where's the white liberating theology. Where's
(51:42):
the theology that liberates white people from our addictions and
from racism and from all of the things that have
broken our souls? And that just made me think so deeply,
and I said, well, you know what, nobody else is
doing a white theology. Let me do a white liberating theology.
(52:02):
Let me start thinking about that. So that's what led
me to start my podcast, which is called White on White,
Reimagining a white identity apart from pseudo supremacy, this idea
of pseudo supremacy. So it's really trying to do the
work of discovering what would a white identity be if
we didn't have this idea of pseudo supremacy kind of
(52:22):
ingrained into us by everything around us, media, all of
that thing, that kind of stuff. So that's essentially what
that work is about.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
Wow, so interesting. So I'd love to end our conversation
with some questions that I like to ask all of
our guests so that they hear a little bit more
about you on a more of a personal level. So, Carrie,
what brings you joy?
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Time alone? Runs long runs on hot days like today,
which I can't wait to go and do, and spending
time with my family and my cat. My cat is
so cute and snuggling. And one thing what frustrates you,
what frustrates me is arguments on Facebook. I get frustrated
(53:13):
when I feel like I am not progressing as quickly
as I want to be progressing. And mechanical things that
don't work the way they're supposed to frustrate me.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
To know, end what scares you? And how do you
handle fear?
Speaker 2 (53:30):
You know, it's interesting. I'm doing a lot of work
around this. The thing that causes me anxiety. I have
a money story, so money. Talking about money is something
that scares me, and I'm handling it through counseling. I'm
handling it through really unpacking my own anxiety. The unhealthy
way that I handle fear is through avoidance. I just
(53:52):
avoid and I'm really working hard to stop doing that.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
And who would you want to meet? A live or dead?
And why?
Speaker 2 (53:59):
Oh that's so hard? I have like five million people,
But I'll say today the person that I would love
to meet is Mary Magdalen. Why well, because I think
that she represents so much of spiritual of the spirituality
(54:22):
and the divinity of feet of women. And and she was,
you know, Jesus's favorite person, and I want to know
more about her. She was silenced in the race from
the Bible in so many ways, and I want to
know more about her.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
And last question is what's a daily practice that keeps
you focused and grounded?
Speaker 2 (54:46):
Journaling? I try to journal every day and that's the something.
That's something I try to just find those few minutes
of breath and journaling every single day.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Thank you so much, Carrie. This has been such an
interesting and enlightening conversation and I so appreciate you sharing
so much about yourself, your story, and your wisdom with
all of my listeners. So how can my listeners find you?
Speaker 2 (55:14):
The best way to find me is right through my website.
Every there's a link to everything on there. So it's
Kerry Connolly dot com and that's k E R R
Y c O N N E L L Y and
that's the best way to get through through to me.
You can email me there you can find all all
the things, all the links everything. Well.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
Best of luck to you, Carrie in all of the
endeavors if spirituality and whatever's next for you. I'm so
excited to see and hear more about your evolution. So
thank you again, thank you for joining me for another
episode of the Warriors at Work Show. If you are
interested in learning more about what we do at the
Warriors at Work Show and platform, be sure to go
(55:57):
over to my website, Jeanie Koomber and subscribe to my
monthly Warrior Playbook newsletter. I share everything that I'm up
to month by month, as well as some lessons and
insights that I've learned. I'm also interested in hearing any
feedback you have about this conversation or future topics, so
reach out to me directly on JC at Geniecomber dot
(56:18):
com or on LinkedIn. Be sure to tell your friends
and your colleagues about this Warriors at Work conversation, Subscribe,
review and rate us. It's the best way to get
this message out into the world. Be well,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.