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September 23, 2025 45 mins
Hosted by Dr. Sarah Hensley, Specialized Social Psychologist, Attachment Theory Expert, and Founder & CEO of The Love Doc Relationship Coaching Services with Co-host Raina Butcher, Owner/CEO of Joyful Consulting, LLC. 

Welcome to "The Love Doc Podcast" Season II, where Host Dr. Sarah Hensley and her co-host Raina Butcher dive deep into the intricacies of love, attraction, attachment, relationships, and self-awareness. Dr. Hensley brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to help listeners navigate the complexities of modern romance. In each episode, Dr. Hensley tackles burning questions about love, relationships, and the mind’s complexities, drawing from her psychological research, real-life experiences, and her own individual expertise, to provide insightful perspectives and practical advice.

Episode 18, Season II: "Holding onto Hope in the Midst of Pain"

In this week’s episode of The Love Doc Podcast, Dr. Hensley and Raina lean into one of the most powerful forces we can carry with us through life’s darkest seasons—hope.

So often, when we walk through trauma, loss, or deep relational pain, it feels as though hope is the first thing to vanish. Whether we’re wrestling with the aftermath of PTSD and CPTSD, navigating heartbreak, or enduring circumstances that seem impossible to recover from, hopelessness can take root quickly. But science and lived experience both show us something remarkable: hope has the ability to transform the nervous system, soften the impact of trauma, and ignite the possibility of change.

Dr. Hensley and Raina dive into the differences between hope and faith, exploring how these two forces weave together. Faith, they share, is the unseen—it’s trusting in something bigger than ourselves. Hope, however, is the present—it’s the silver lining we can cling to even in the middle of heartbreak, the light that helps us breathe through the shadows. Together, faith and hope create a bridge between what is and what can be.

Through raw honesty and deeply personal stories, both hosts open up about seasons in their own lives when hope was the only thing they had to hold onto. Their reflections remind us that while pain may shape us, it doesn’t have to define us. When hope enters the room, everything begins to shift—our perspective, our choices, and the way we show up for ourselves and others.

This episode is more than just a conversation; it’s an invitation. An invitation to believe that even in the hardest, most heartbreaking circumstances, hope can still bloom. And when it does, it has the power to rewire our brains, reframe our stories, and restore our joy.

🌟 Special Invitation: Don’t miss Dr. Hensley’s free webinar on 9/25 at 5pm EST, where she’ll go even deeper into healing, attachment, and the tools you need to create lasting change in your relationships. Save your spot here → courses.thelovedoc.com/webinar


Tune in to "The Love Doc Podcast" every Tuesday morning for candid conversations, expert guidance, and a deeper understanding of life, love and relationships in the modern world. To see all of Dr. Hensley’s services please visit the links below and follow her on social media. 

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to the lovedg podcast. I'm your co host Ryina
Butcher here with our host, doctor Sarah Hensley, the owner, founder,
and CEO of the love Doc relationship coaching services. You
can find her at the lovedoc dot com and on
all social media platforms at doctor Sarah Hensley. Hey, Hey, hey, hey,
let's go on now. Oh not much, so we'll get

(00:35):
right into it. Last week's episode was about fear yes,
and so we thought it would only make sense to
follow up that episode with an episode about hope.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yes. Hope is such a powerful construct, and it is
one of them what we call moderating factors associated with
some one who has had trauma, either going in the
direction of PTSD or what we call PTG or post
traumatic growth. So scientifically, hope is a moderating factor. So

(01:11):
it means that when someone has hope that they will overcome,
they are much more likely to overcome and to land
in the space of post traumatic growth where they feel
that they have found meaning in their suffering and where
they found redemption in their suffering, and when they actually
feel like they've learned something that has helped them in

(01:32):
their suffering. So hope is a very powerful psychological construct,
and they've looked at in women who have been sex trafficked.
There's been some research on who sort of ends up
being able to get out and maintain sobriety, you know,
especially if there was you know, forced drug use upon them,
you know, where they became addicted, not by choice, right,

(01:55):
but by you know, these people that have trafficked them,
and how much hope they had in being able to
overcome the trauma and live a normal life. And there
was really clear effects of hope being the most influential
construct to predict whether or not these women would go

(02:18):
down a path of more addiction, more suffering, more you know,
early death, or whether they would thrive and have normal
relationships and beat income out of addiction. And you know,
there's a lot of wonderful programs, not enough, but a
lot of wonderful programs that exist for women who are
have been sex trafficked and they have been able to

(02:42):
find be you know, essentially taken out of trafficking and
brought to safety. And there's you know, homes and rehabilitation
centers for these women. We need so many more of
them because sex trafficking is such an awful humongous problem.
We don't even realize how much is happening in the
United States under our noses, yeah, and our backyards.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
And so hope is very very powerful.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, And I want to I want to dig deep
into like what you how you personally view hope, because
like I think about hope and I'm like, it's it
feels like like almost it's hard to conceptualize, right, Like
it could mean a lot of different things to a
lot of different people. And so I want to get
real granular and break it down for our listeners in

(03:28):
terms of, you know, really specific circumstances and really specific,
specific hopeful outcomes.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
So I talked last week about the fact that we're
watching Boardwalk Empire, right, and in the show, not to
ruin it for anybody, but one of the main character's
daughters gets polio. It's set in the early nineteen twenties,
so polio is very much an issue, right, And she

(03:57):
is basically told, you know, your kid's gonna be paralyzed,
like there's no there's no reversing this, And she starts
to go to the Catholic church and steals from her
husband and gives them all this money and these priests
are kind of corrupt, and they're taking her money and saying,
oh yeah, like the more you give, like maybe it'll
reverse or whatever. And so she has this hope for

(04:17):
a very very specific outcome that her daughter's paralysis will
be healed. Now, does God do miracles every day?

Speaker 3 (04:27):
Every single day?

Speaker 2 (04:28):
And I think that it's fine to think I believe
that God could work a miracle in this situation. But
I think where hope becomes more powerful is I have
hope that I will come out of this a better
version of myself emotionally, mentally, maybe not physically. We can't

(04:54):
always control some things in our body can be permanent,
but our spirit has unlimited, vast power to direct our lives.
And so when I view hope, we may not get
the outcome that we want, but can we have hope
that we will move through it and end up in

(05:16):
a place where we can live around it and live
with it and still have joy and still be able
to experience life's greatness. There's a lot of wonderful things
about life. Life can really be hard and traumatic, and
there can be a lot of suffering, but there can
be a lot of beauty and a lot of joy.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
And I think about my former mother in law.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
She lost obviously her son, my ex husband, And I
don't know if I don't think she listens to my platform,
because I think if she really did, she would probably
hate my guts. And I hope not because I try
not to throw her son under the bus. I just
try to speak my truth without demonizing him. Because he died,
he paid, his debts were paid.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
In his death.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Every sin he ever had he died, like the debt
is paid, right, And so I see how much she
hurts because I can't imagine losing a child, like that's
the one thing I can't really truly conceptualize. And I
don't think it matters if your child's an adult or young.
I think losing a child is losing a child. But

(06:24):
I also see her just get to be this wonderful
grandmother to her daughter, her living child's children.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
And she's a.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Wonderful grandmother to my girls in so many ways. And
I see her laugh, and I see her have joy
with them, and I see her going to their sporting
events and cheering for them. And I see, even though
I know she carries this horrible heavy bird all the time, Yeah,

(06:57):
she still has joy, you know, even people that have
gone through I.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Talk simate people the ultimate pain of losing a child.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, and I talk to people.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
It's probably not a day that I see clients, whether
that's group or individuals, that I don't meet someone who's
been sexually abused as a child. And I am thankful
that I did not go through that as a child.
But it's a pain that I can't even really wrap
my head around.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
You know.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
And when they disclose this to me, like my heart
just like it breaks in the moment, because I can't
imagine being violated when you are so innocent and so
susceptible to your nervous system trajectory just forever sort of
being changed into how you just would never be able

(07:49):
to feel safe in the world. And I mean that's
pretty much the common theme that I hear from sexual
abuse survivors is you just can't ever really believe that
anything or anyone in the world is safe.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Mom was proof of that. Yeah, she was sexually assaulted
when she was ten.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
I think that is the worst crime against humanity. It is, okay,
deep breath.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
I will use my emotional processing tools when I get
out of here, But I'm gonna try to not snot
all over the microphone.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
I'm not gonna lie. I've had an emotional week two.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
And yeah, and these people, some male, some female. It
happens to boys too. Absolutely, they still talk about how
they've had hope or what hope has done for them,
especially when they didn't have a lot of support or tools.

(08:42):
Because most of the people that had been sexually abused
and then come to see me, their parents either couldn't
face it so they just never spoke about it again
and didn't get their children any help or any therapy,
or their parents didn't believe them, or you know.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Or they could never tell their parents.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
Or they can never tell their parents.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
For as a mom, she could just never tell her parents.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
You know, a variety of reasons.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Maybe it happened within the home and the mother, you know,
happened my father and mother just refused to believe it,
took dad's side, and then the abuse continued. I mean,
there's some horrific things. And that's why, you know, I
have in some ways reduced my individual coaching load, not
just because I don't get to help as many people,
but because it is a very emotionally taxing, very thing

(09:30):
to do. It is beautiful work, but it is heavy work,
and a lot of it is very very heavy. And
I have to hold people's heaviest traumas very delicately and
with a lot of love and compassion and support and
being as empathetic as I am as a true fearful avoidant,
Like I can feel it in my body right, and I.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
Have to be able to work through that.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
But what I've noticed is that the people who talk
about that they have hope, well, you know, I always
had hope that I would be okay, and I have
made and a lot of them have made a really
wonderful life for themselves. Now they have attachment trauma that's
interfering in their relationship. Yeah, but a lot of these
people are extremely successful. They have raised amazing kids who

(10:17):
they then were able to protect right, And they say
that was sort of like my legacy, Like I was
never going to let this happen to my kids, you know,
when I was going to teach them about body safety,
and I was going to teach them about how they
needed to speak up if anybody tried to ever be
inappropriate with them. And they've had a lot of healing
through their own children. And watching their own children thrive

(10:39):
and grow and not experience what they did, and just
how powerful hope was for them in their lives. And
even if they're still having difficulty now, they've still been
able to function and even and in some ways create
a lot of meaning out of their lives from the suffering.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
That's what I was going to I feel like hope
is seeing the beauty in even the worst of circumstances.
It's seeing the silver lining even when the silver lining
hasn't happened yet.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yes, it's saying, you know, but it can come. Yes,
And hope really aligns with faith.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
That's what I was gonna ask. That was gonna be
My next question was, like, what's the difference between hope
and faith in your opinion?

Speaker 2 (11:27):
I think, you know, Faith to me is so much
about salvation, which is the hope of what is better
to come right. I mean, I believe heaven is full glory.
I believe in that wholeheartedly. I believe that to be
absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
And so no matter what happens to me in this life,

(11:50):
there will be a day in which I am glorified.
And so that obviously gives me hope. I think that
for me, faith is much more about this salvation and
the presence of God through our suffering, where I think
cope is a little bit more outcome based in this life,

(12:14):
right Like faith is like, okay, well, even if I suffer,
God is with me, and God understands suffering. He suffered
and died on the cross, So yes, that they are intertwined.
But I think hope is more about the reality on
this earth and the fact that even through suffering there
could be so much beauty and thriving and redemption and

(12:38):
growth and.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
Just this life that you.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Might not even be able to know what's coming. Yet.
I tell people like, if you knew me five years ago,
when I was going through when I was sick with
vestibular migraine and my attachments were all ripped away from me,
and my mom was so sick and we thought she
was going to die, and you know, my father, my
kids died, and my kids were grieving and.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Actually painting a picture for y'all if you want me to, Yeah,
I mean, I'll paint a picture. I can give it
an actual example, and I don't know if I've given
it before. On the pod but I remember one day
in particular, and this was like you were in the
throes of it, and I was, you know, I was
struggling with knowing how to deal with it and and

(13:23):
being your friend. I don't I can say, you know
with utmost certainty that at that time I don't think
I had the proper tools to know how to not
necessarily comfort you. I think I did my best to
comfort you, but to really get you through it. And

(13:43):
I made plenty of mistakes, but it was during COVID.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
So right on top of it.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
It was right in the throws and.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
Locked down.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeah, And so I remember, so we were all working
from home, and I'm going to be just really transparent, honest.
So I was adjusting to working at home, and I
remember you showed up at the house like randomly, and
I was like in the throes of work. And I mean,
at that time, I think every person wanted to scream

(14:14):
into a pillow, Like every single day, I just wanted
to like scream into a pillow or pull a forest
gump and take off running and never stop. That's the
only way I can describe it. So I remember you
showing up at the house and when I opened the door.
I was frustrated, but you were in shambles. You were
shaking like a leaf from I mean your head to
your toes and like you. I don't remember exactly what

(14:38):
you said to me, but it was very obvious now
looking back at that moment, like you were on the
verge of a nervous breakdown.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
And oh, I was in it.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
It was it. It gets me emotional thinking about it
because it gets me emotional because so much of me
didn't have the capacity. I wanted so badly to hold
the space and have empathy and sympathy because I did.
I'd been there, you know, I had. I had seen
my rock bottom looked differently than yours, but I had

(15:11):
been there where I sort of felt all alone and
I didn't know where to turn, and I was just like,
where do I go? And I knew that that's where
you were in that moment, and I and I didn't
have the answers for you, and it was it was heartbreaking.
It was heartbreaking for me to watch, and it was
heartbreaking knowing that that I was, I was at capacity

(15:31):
right like I had hit my threshold with what I
was able to give to you. And it sucked and
It sucked on a lot of levels for me too,
because it was at that time that I didn't do
everything right, but I sort of kind of, you know,
distanced myself from you and which I knew was probably

(15:53):
the last thing that you needed. But in hindsight, it
was also kind of what you needed, right because I
was of your last attachment at that point that kind
of pushed you to this place of like, Okay, all
I have now is my faith. All I have now
is God, and that's where I'll turn, you know, And
that's what happens, right, That's that's what happens to a

(16:15):
lot of people. I think that you know, Doc can
attest to this. I can attest to this in my
own journey of when I saw my rock bottom is
that I honestly felt all alone and the only thing
that I had was hope and God.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yeah, and I had no hope for a really long time.
And when I started to have hope, it's when everything changed.
Everything changed, you know.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
It was.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
I mean, I wanted to die. I wanted to die
so bad. I wanted to commit suicide so bad, but
I couldn't leave my girls.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
I remember that day too. That was a phone call
you called me and you were like, I'm going to
you know, I mean, you said the words I'm going
to kill myself. And again I can't remember word for
word what I said, but I felt I felt really helpless,
and God, it gets me so emotional I think about it,

(17:12):
because anyone you love, you know, when you see them
going through that, and again like i'd been there, you know,
i'd been there before. I remember when I was in
my rock bottom calling my dad and saying, you know,
I want to die, you know, I don't want to
live anymore because I felt like everything had been stripped
away from me, you know. But it's in those moments

(17:36):
that I think God sends us the right people. And
I think God knew that I was at capacity, and
it's one reason why you sent you Ashley.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah, Ashley changed, Ashley is and I don't even get
to talk to Ashley anymore, which really sucks, like.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
A million babies, and she doesn't. She just Whi's good
for her.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
I love a lot of active trauma and God bless her.
And she loves she loves babies. She just loves having
babies and raising her babies. And she's in a really
beautiful marriage. And she lives on this gigantic farm and.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
Actually was a beacon of hope for you though.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
She was everything. Yeah, she was everything, but it wasn't her.
It was God through her. And she admits that, right, Yeah,
like I'm just the one. I was just the vessel,
like this is God.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
And I had people like that in my life too
when I was at rock bottom. You know that I've
talked about before and Darla heflin, Hey, Darla, I miss you.
Shout out to you because you were you were sort
of my I want to have Ashley on the pod.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
She did, because you will never find someone as faithful
as Ashley to the Lord. Everything in her life is
about God. Everything in her life is glory to God.
Everything she does is for God. And when you see
somebody that is so undeniably faithful and there, you can't
rip it away from her even for a second.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
You can't.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
No, Well, she's very authentic and so when you when
you're around her, and I've only been around her, you know,
maybe a handful of times you look at somebody like
that and you're like, I want that.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
I want that, I want That's how I thought the journey.
I was like I want that. Yeah, I want that.
I want that unshakable faith.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
I want that. What if is even if I want that?

Speaker 2 (19:18):
And she just she just kept saying, you have to
have hope, you have to have faith, you have to
have hope. And for me, as somebody who I would
consider myself, at least previously, not really so much anymore,
a very large pessimist, a very defensive pessimist. I was
always very afraid of disappointment. I was raised to not

(19:39):
have hope. I was raised to expect the worst because
then you wouldn't be disappointed. Keep your standards low so
then you won't be disappointed. But really, when you think about.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
The law of attraction, that is the way to breathe.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
And I've noticed, like my parents, I mean, anything bad
that could happen to them happened to them, honestly, And
you know, there's just they were so negative and so
everything was awful, everything was a problem this and that,
and you know it was just a transformation of like,

(20:13):
I can't be scared of disappointment. Again, there's fear, and
so what if I'm disappointed? I would rather have lived
my life in hope and feel the chemical reactions in
my body of positivity and of hope and feel happy
and feel content and deal with the disappointment if it

(20:34):
comes right then to stay in fear so that I
can avoid disappointment because then everything's ruined.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
Right.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
My whole outlook on faith has been that same way
where I've said, I've often said to people or non believers, like,
wouldn't you rather just believe because in believing the outcome
is so much better their life?

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Don't live right, right?

Speaker 2 (20:57):
Because what are you What are you losing by not believing?
You're losing all of the beauty that faith gives you,
which is so much hope, you know. And it's like,
I would rather live my life believing in my heart
of heart down to every cell in my body that
we serve a good and loving guy and that we

(21:18):
go to heaven, and that we go to heaven and
we're glorified when we die because it makes earth such
more of a pleasant experience. And then find out that
I'm wrong.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
At the end exactly right, then it won't matter anyway.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
So Okay, everything is just eventual continual darkness.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
Okay, So I was wrong all the time. Yeah, Earth
was a great time. Yeah, and Earth was survivable then.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
I feel like if if we are wrong at the end,
it'll sort of be like what it felt like before
we were born.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
It was a loss.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, we don't know.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
No loss, no loss, but there's a real loss of
not having that face exactly. There's a real loss, a big,
the ultimate, the ultimate loss. And I mean from the
Christian point, Hell is not this fiery place, like the
Bible doesn't talk about Hell as this fiery place where
Satan lives. Hell has spoken about as eternal separation from God.

(22:11):
It's like, we get this whole lifetime to say God,
don't leave me. We get the entire lifetime, and then
we always get And maybe I've discussed this before. I
think I have, so I apologize if you've heard this
in an earlier episode, but it was probably so long ago.
Maybe it'll help our new listeners. There's one guy I
don't know who he was, made a TikTok series about like, well,
if we really serve a loving God, why would he

(22:32):
send us to Hell? And he's like, well, if you
saw a beautiful mansion on a hillside and you didn't
know these people from Adam, and you just walked up
to their door and you're like knocking on the door
and you're like, hey, I'd like to live in your house.
Do you think they would invite you in and be like, okay,
well I don't even know who you are. But why
do we expect to do that to God? Like if
God is with us every single day begging, and he's begging.

(22:55):
God is always trying to reach you, but you can't
hear him. When you're listening to the voice of the enemy,
you can't hear him. And so if you are blocking
him out and you are using your free will to
say I absolutely turn away from you. I don't want
you with me. If you are literally saying to God,

(23:15):
I don't want you here. He gave us free will,
and he gave us a choice to choose him or not,
and he can't mess with that because that was his
gift to us. You don't have to. I'm not forcing
you to love me. I'm not forcing you to live
with me in my house. You can choose to not
live with me, but I will spend a lifetime trying
to convince you to do that. But if you use
all of your free will, which I cannot interrupt, to

(23:37):
choose to not live with me at the end of
your life, I will separate from you because that was
your choice. And so eternal separation from God is what
hell is if you really look at it biblically, and
that means we don't even know what that would really be,
Like who knows. That would be eternal torment and torture.
It would be only the devil's voice. It would be

(23:58):
no hope, it would be no faith, it would be
no God attitude, it will be no contentment, it would
be eternal suffering.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
This sounds way.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
I'm hesitant to say what I'm about to too scary
for me because I don't know, you know, like I
have no idea and I don't I personally don't believe
in reincarnation. I don't think it's I don't either. But
at the same time, like I think that you know, spirituality,
our relationship with God, our relationship with higher Being, whatever
that may be for you, mine personally is God and

(24:25):
Jesus Christ. Like it's a journey, and I think like
questioning is okay because it's what leads you to God.
Your questions.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
God can handle your doubt. God can handle your questions.
God can handle when you turn away from Him for
a while, but ultimately God wants you to come back
to him, Yes, because he has so much to offer.
It's not because he's this narcissistic being that's like, you
must worship me or you are damn to hell. No,
God is just like, but I have so much to
give you. I have so much love for you. I

(24:56):
have so much for your spirit that can soothe you
and heal you and make you whole and make you
complete that no other human on this earth can do.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
Only I can do it. And that's why.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
I don't believe in reincarnation, because reincarnation is just human suffering,
like over and over and over again. And that's not
the type of God we have. And so it's like,
so when I try to conceptualize hell right like I don't,
it's not of God.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
It isn't right.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
So you can't. You can't blame God for hell.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
No, you can't blame God for help. You blame you
blame yourself for hell because you chose to deny God.
And God says, ultimately, I will honor your choice of
free will, which I cannot interrupt. And I will not
interrupt because I will not make anybody. I will not
force you to come live in my house.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah, and when you start to question, like and I
say question, but I really just mean like being curious.
And and you know, my my own journey has taken
so many twists and turns, and and you know, Josh
sometimes gets fascinated when I talk about the Holy Spirit.
And you know, until you've experienced the Holy Spirit, it

(26:03):
is otherworldly, other you can't And again, I'll say it again,
it's hard to conceptualize, it's hard to put into words
what it feels like. But I can say with utmost certainty,
one hundred percent, with every cell in my being, that
I have felt the Holy Spirit and I have heard

(26:25):
God's voice, and not everyone. Josh is always like, wow,
you're so lucky. But I'm like, no, it's available to
you too. You just have to ask for it.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
You just have to open yourself to it, and you
have to get the doubt and unbelief out, and you
have to honestly a little bit. Maybe there's too much
of the devil's voice in your brain right, because the
devil's voice drowns out God's voice if you allow it to.
We have free will to turn towards it or away
from it. That's that's the thing, right, The devil doesn't

(26:57):
just capture you and like you have no control to
get out of the day like grips. Like, No, you
can use your free will to turn away from the
devil's grips by not participating in the principalities of fear
and rejection and accusation and unlovingness and self pity and
jealousy and envy and pride and offense and we could
go on and on and on. But all of the
things that are not of God, you can choose to

(27:18):
not participate, right, And I know that it feels like
you can't choose, And that was always my dilemma. I
can't help the thoughts I have. I can't help that
I feel this way. Yes I could, And when I
learned that I actually could choose, and I learned and
now I get to teach that to everybody, how to choose. Yeah,
And of course you know, I don't make my programs
about God. I have modules and things about God and

(27:42):
Christian faith if you want to take that route, So
I kind of.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
Have like a dual route.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
You can choose the secular psychological route, or you can
choose the faith based.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
You're able to talk about the testimony from your clients yesterday,
though I mean obviously without saying their names, because I
thought that that was we've had some really beautiful testimonies
this week, or just some beautiful men guys that have
given us personally hope. My gosh, but let's we'll share
some with you. Guys.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
I had a couple.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
And honestly, when I met this couple, I thought, there
is there's no hope. This is so dysfunctional, so abusive,
so bad, so there's been so much damage done in
this marriage. There's just no way. But both of them

(28:30):
looked at me and they said, we want it, and
we've brought God into our lives and we believe that
God can turn this around for us. And I was like, well, okay,
then then I'm here with you, because I don't think
without God there was any hope for them. There would
be no There's not. All the psychology in the world,
all the tools in the world, could not undo the damage.

(28:53):
And when I say there's been like serious damage in
this relationship, serious damage that most people wouldn't be able
to ever recover from.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
Yeah, And I said, okay, let's do this.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
So they did the group, and the group was wonderful
for them, and it was a great foundation. And then
I did a few individuals with both of them, and
then they actually cut their last session thirty minutes short
and banked what was supposed to be their last session
because they're like, we don't need it. Our marriage has
one hundred percent transformed. We are both fundamentally completely different people.

(29:25):
We are insanely happy. We meet each other's needs beautifully,
Like we just honestly have no complaints, and we feel
like we are now equipped that if anything changes or
we backslide, that you know, we.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
Can come back to you.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
We can come back to you and shore things up.
But we're totally different people and we have a totally
different marriage.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
Do they have children.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
They have eight children, a bunch that are adopted and
several that are biological.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
It just made I'm crying because it makes me so happy,
you know, like I hear a story that and I'm like,
oh my gosh, Like that's what it's all about.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
And now the trajectory of their kids' lives going to
look like.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah, right, and it changes like it changes generational.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
It's generational. But they came and they said we have hope.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
And honestly, after they both told me everything that they
had done in the marriage and every place, everything that
had happened, I mean, my honest to goodness first thought was,
there's no way.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
If you've ever wanted to pick my brain for free,
I am going to give you an opportunity to do that.
I am hosting a free webinar on September twenty fifth
at five pm Eastern Time. I am here to connect
with my audience over zoom and I'm so excited for
you to be there, so you can actually sign up
for that webinar at courses dot thelovedoc dot com slash webinar,

(30:52):
and I hope to see you there and I will
answer all of your burning questions about love and relationships. Well.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
I want to share too, just because I think we
share these things with you one to give you hope,
but it gives us hope too, for sure. But we
got a message this week that just really touched my heart.
It's so so much, but she says, Hello, your podcast
has had a wonderful impact on my life, and I

(31:19):
feel unspeakably lucky to have stumbled upon it earlier this year.
Hearing your voices has helped me cope with any sense
of sadness or loneliness or fear I've experienced after the
birth of my first daughter. The information you're sharing has
become invaluable to me, and it's helped me to look
inward as I heal my attachment wounds, gain understanding and
compassion for my mother, parent confidently, and strengthen my already

(31:43):
solid relationship with my dare I essay born secure unicorn husband.
I get it, girl. This type of growth was the
last thing I expected to experience in my postpartum time,
and I'm so very grateful to you for making your
knowledge available to all. I think you both through a
beautiful job conveying your message. I'd like you to know

(32:03):
that I glean a lot of helpful information from the
personal stories that you share. These stories also portray you
as real, relatable people who know what you're talking about.
This part really really touched me, Reina. I personally love
to hear your yeahs and uh huhs, and I think
you have a knack for leading the conversation where it
needs to go. Your comforting tone brings to mind a

(32:25):
caramel macchiato on a cold rainy morning. That might be
the best compliment I've ever gott like, that's the I
told my husband Josh yesterday. I was like, that's the
best compliment I've ever gotten in my life. And doctor Hensley,
I'm always impressed by how clearly you can explain complex
psychological mechanisms to the lay person without watering it down

(32:48):
too much. The way you both glorify God is beautiful
and has motivated me to start attending church for the
first time. Yes, I live, Yes, So thank you both
rereading your knowledge and love so beautifully God.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
Guys.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
I was when I read that yesterday I cried too,
or the day before yesterday, whenever it was I was
moved to tears. I've moved to tears now and I
could read it. I have read it so many times
since that the other day, and I I'm just honestly,
I'm just so grateful. I'm so grateful, and it gives

(33:27):
me hope to keep going, to keep going when stuff
gets hard, because this is stressful, this business, it's stressful stress.
We have stress that you know, and the people you
know our personal struggles you know, with this year and
we've both had people from our pasts that have tried
to destroy us and destroy our our mission and our success,

(33:49):
and it's been sometimes disheartening and hard. And then you know,
just the the ebb and flow and the ins and
outs of just trying to run a business is it's
it's and there's a lot of pressure. But oh my gosh,
it's messages like that that I'm like, I will not stop.

Speaker 3 (34:06):
We won't give up.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
The mission must go on no matter what because it's
God's mission. And for all the people that stop talking
about God, no no, no, we want we might not
be for you, and that is okay.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, but it is okay.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
If you don't want to hear about God. And not
every episode is about God. I mean, I know we've
kind of had two back to back that were but
you know, God is everything in my life everything to me.
It is everything, everything I do, everything I have, everything
I see in my future. There is nowhere that God

(34:39):
does not exist in my life. And so how can
I be my authentic self and not talk about God?
And of course in my coaching practice, I go with
the secular psychological perspective, but I always say in my groups,
if anybody wants me to share the faith based perspective.

Speaker 3 (34:57):
Please speak up, and I will and the other.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
People then just have to go through a handful of
minutes of tuning out, and you know.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
We might start doing some separate groups.

Speaker 3 (35:07):
We have thought about that where you thought about, like.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
You're Christian based, you know, people who want to have
the more Christian based view, and then just groups that
are more secular. Yes, actually a really good idea.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
Actually, yeah, I think that that might be a really
wonderful idea, just because there are people where it's not
their jam. And listen, I'm not here to pressure you God.
I trust God to work in your life in any
way he sees fit.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
I Am not going to try to be God and
force God upon you. I trust God enough to know
that he's working in your life. And I think that's
where hope can really come in. Where if you feel
like you haven't really been able to meet God, He's
there and you just wait, right, be just maybe just

(35:56):
be open to it.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
Just maybe just kind.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Of feel like just beating with curiosity.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
Just be like, hey, God, if you're there, show.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
Me like a child, like it's not that serious. It
doesn't have to be that serious.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Right, And here's the thing too.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Here's what people I think people what holds people up
from hope and in what God can offer them in
terms of hope and of faith. One, they're like me.
They're afraid of They were afraid of disappointment. So it's like,
if I just don't believe that something good will happen
to me, if I just think about all the things
that could go wrong, then maybe I won't be disappointed.

(36:26):
Screw disappointment. Two, you don't have to be perfect.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
I curse.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
I have, you know, sin in my life? Do I
try to? I tried to stick with what God convicts
me of. I tried to stick with what is clear
in scripture and what God convicts my heart of. For example,
I love Taylor Swift. Okay, I'm gonna admit it. I

(36:51):
have gone on a journey of liking her and not
liking her because when some of the witchy stuff kind
of came out of like in the eras tourn stuff,
I was very.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
Like, oh, witch Crab's not good, y'all.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
But I really prayed about it because man, she has
some bangers, okay. And speaking of hope, her story of
just getting engaged to Travis is like this girl has
had so much heartbreak, She's been publicly shamed, They've tried
to cancel her a bajillion times. She's you know, was

(37:25):
broken hearted when she started the Aras tour. I don't
even know how a human being could do what she
did on the Aras tour, with the stamina and the
energy and the high heels and everything she had to do,
and then she gets this beautiful sort of ending right
where she's engaged. And I listened to them on the
New Heights podcast, and I take back what I said
about Travis in the beginning. I thought he had some

(37:46):
red flags, and maybe he did, but maybe he's worked
through them, and maybe Taylor has helped him identify some
of those parts of himself that needed some growth. And
what I saw in the podcast was just such organical
love and such two people lifting each other so up
so much that it didn't, in any way, shape or
form come across as fake to me. And I have

(38:07):
a great BS reader. I have a great BS reader,
and it seemed so authentic, and so I take back
any time where I may have mentioned that I thought
Travis could have some potential redblogs like screaming I'm not
gonna people like I don't like he gave some vibes

(38:28):
from the beginning, but I've really seen that kind of
drop off, you know, like drop off and maybe guess
what love does that? Yeah, like secure love does that.
Secure love can shape you.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
And I used to do some real do things too too,
oh for sure, terrible things, and I totally kind.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
Of forget where I was.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Going for Well, you were just talking about host in
the fact that she's thirty five. She's thirty five and
engaged and finding her happy ending.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
Finding her happy ending, and so it's available to everyone.
And speaking of like being a Christian, I think I'm
circling back to my original point now finally, is when
I ask God, like, do I need to stop listening
to Taylor Swift because she has this kind of white
witchy part in her music and some of her music,

(39:14):
And I said, God, I want to honor you, God,
I want to do right by you always, So convict
me in my heart if this is wrong and I
need to turn away from this music, convict me. And
I like rap music too, I do, and so like,
I've prayed so hard about that, and what I finally
was able to hear in the voice of God was Listen,

(39:35):
you are called to be in the world, not of
the world exactly. You do not have to endorse every
single thing the woman does, yeah, to reject her.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
And you don't have to. Again, you don't have to
make it that serious.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Because you would reject every human on the planet if
that were the case.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yeah, it doesn't have to be that serious to where
you view everything as a conviction because somebody.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yeah, so many people are like, well, I'm so I
fall so short, like being Christians are too hard.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
We all do.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
That's why Jesus died, right, And that's what God tries
to tell you is like my standards perfection, nobody on
earth will ever meet it. So that's why I sent
my son to die so that you are free and
I and trust God to convict you personally of what
you need to be convicted of. Not all of us
are going to be convicted about the same things.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Well, and then what's so beautiful and comes of that
is humility. And humility is just a beautiful gift. It's
such a beautiful gift. And humble folks. Yeah, and humanity
is you know the result of faith and hope, you know,
and and conviction within yourself and grace within yourself. But

(40:41):
mostly because of God's grace, we are able to stay humble.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
So what God told me that means is like, well,
don't you go start practicing any kind of witchcraft.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
Now you know how I feel about that.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
But if you rejected someone based on their sin, you
would reject every person on the planet. So you are
called to be in the world, world, not of the world.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
I love that. So I think that's a great place
to wrap up. And Taylor, we do love you.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
Oh my gosh, I want to meet you so bad, Taylor.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Maybe, like I have this, I'm just.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Dream that maybe she's like a she's like a creeper.
Maybe she listens to the Love Doc podcast. I mean,
we've got a big audience, right, I hit three million
ear drums a month across platforms. Yeah, you never know,
or more than three million ear drums, but just three
million followers right across platforms.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
So if you are listening, Taylor, we love I love.

Speaker 3 (41:33):
You, I love you, I love you. Congrat I will
be cool if I meet you, I will be cool.
I promise it will be so cool.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
Be cool. I'll be there with you and I'll be
cool because I love you.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
I love you already pre ordered Life of a show Girl.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
Yeah, I can't wait to hear the new album, and
I'm super excited for you. Congrats, I congratulate you already
deserve that.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
You are so deserving of everything, and everybody that ever
hated on you, they can go.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
The haters are going to hate Jump in a lake. Yeah,
the haters are going to you even wrote a song
about it. So congratulations. I think you and I both
are a testament to hope because I didn't get engaged
until I was forty and married, so and I'd never
been married before that. And it just goes to show
that if you, uh, you hold out hope and you
don't settle.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
Don't settle, and she didn't settle, that's right.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
You don't settle, you hold out hope, you have faith,
then the right things come into your life.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
I want to repeat Meredith Steele, She's funny on TikTok.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
She did this, TikTok was so funny. She goes Taylor
Swift gets.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
To be small girl. She has a big boy, a
big boy to hold her up. She's not the monster
on the hill. She's a small girl. It's like, I
think Taylor's like your size. Yeah, She's like yeah yeah, And.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
Travis Kelsey is bigger, so she gets to be small girls, small.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
Girls, big boy. That's how I feel with you, know,
I love being small. You really are a small girl.
But anyway, so I think this is also a great
time to think our affiliate bet Jet.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Yes, thank you, my gosh, Beget you saved my life
every sing.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yes, I will.

Speaker 3 (43:01):
Never ever, ever, ever ever ever live without you.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
And guys, because it is getting colder, we cannot stress
enough the value of the Bedget.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
It will change your sleep.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
I again, like, the only way I know how to
describe it is it's like the fresh out of the
dryer sheets feeling so like when you pull the dryer
the sheets out of the dryer for the first time
and they're so warm and cozy. Like that's what it
feels like getting into bed with the warm setting on
the Bedget, and it's what are the the what are
the bio bio rhythms? The bio rhythms You can set them.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
And it will help you.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
Actually, it asks you quite a bunch of questions on
the app, and it will help you find a good
bio rhythm for you. So it will ask about your
sleep habits, like if you sleep pot, you sleep cold,
do you wake up pot, do you go to bed cold?

Speaker 3 (43:49):
Do you go to bed hot?

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Like? It will try to figure it out for you,
and then it will just like, in order for the
brain to fall asleep, your body temperature has to lower,
so you can set it to like slowly lower the
temperature to induce sleep.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
Yes, So if you care about.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Your sleep, get you a bedget.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
Yes, it will be one of the best investments that
you ever.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
Made, made by somebody who was an.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
Ass engineer, an ass engineer. It's quiet, they're smart. It
is those people are real smart.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
Easy to use, very easy to use, very easy to install.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
It's not bulky. It slides right under your bed, right
int your bed.

Speaker 3 (44:23):
Can't even see it now.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
And you can get the dual the due so that
both you and your partner can control the temperature on
each side. So we could not recommend it enough for
all of our listeners. You can go to a bedget
dot com slash love doc and receive fifty dollars adull system,
the dual system and that includes the dull sheet. Yeah,

(44:45):
so go check them out and while you're at it,
you can also go check out doctor Hensley at the
lovedoc dot com. And for all of our listeners, we
offer a special promo code of twenty seven percent off
with lovedoc twenty seven that's for her self paced program
and her hybrid group coaching program. And there's so much
more to come, guys. We have so many wonderful things

(45:08):
to offer you, guys, and we just love you all.
We're so grateful for you all, and we just keep
tuning in, keep writing us, share, share, share your testimonies
if you've been listening and following, because they mean they
so touched us and we are so grateful, and so
just keep tuning in and until next time, peace, love,
and perspective
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