In this deeply honest and inspiring episode of Curious for Christ, I sit down with Kathy Heinen, co-author of "Spiritual Discovery: Seven Principles for Spiritual Growth". Kathy shares her personal journey—from navigating a painful marriage to experiencing deep healing through Christ—and how God’s presence, not our performance, is the key to transformation.
Together, we discuss how our emotions are not obstacles but indicators—clues that can lead us back to the truth about God and ourselves. Through decades of ministry helping women overcome codependency and addiction, Kathy brings powerful wisdom and real-life application to what it means to grow spiritually and walk in freedom.
Yes, there were a few technical glitches—but the heart of this conversation is too rich not to share. :)
You’ll walk away encouraged, grounded, and reminded of just how personal and healing God’s love truly is.
What You’ll Learn:
• Why emotions are the bridge to our deeply held beliefs
• The spiritual battle behind the lie “I’m not enough”
• How God’s response—“You are mine”—shifts everything
• Why belonging is the foundation of true identity
• The seven principles of spiritual growth from Kathy’s book
• How spiritual transformation requires both truth and encounter
The 7 Principles of Spiritual Growth:
1. Stop and Consider
2. Recognize your Spiritual Battle
3. Tell the Truth
4. Look for the Lie
5. Ask, Seek, Knock
6. Find Peace in Forgiveness
7. Own Your Rescue Story
Mentioned in this episode:
- "Spiritual Discovery: Seven Principles for Spiritual Growth" by V. Lefler, K. Heinen & J. Lefler
- Episode 74: Finding Peace Through Biblical Meditation and Mindfulness with Virginia Leffler
- Learn more about Kathy’s ministry and resources at https://www.myspiritualdiscovery.com/
Alexandra’s Reflections:
One of the most powerful moments in this episode is when Kathy shares how God responded to her deepest lie: “I’m not enough.”
God’s answer wasn’t logic or evidence—it was simply: “You are mine.”
That response silences the lie. Why? Because it’s not based on what we do, but on who we belong to. God’s presence is the tool we need in our spiritual battles. Just like in Genesis, when He said “Let there be light,” His word still brings light to our darkness today.
Subscribe + Share:
- If this episode spoke to you, would you do me a favor? Share it with someone who needs encouragement
- Subscribe or leave a review—it helps others discover the show
- Join my newsletter for weekly words of truth and healing, sent straight to your inbox: curiousforchrist.kit.com/insider
Final words of encouragement:
You don't have to earn God's presence. You don't have to fix it all to be held. Whatever pain you're in, whatever pattern you're stuck in, Jesus sees, and Jesus still chooses you. The invitation is simple and sacred: Come as you are... and sit loved.
Until next time:
Be true. Speak truth. Walk free.
With love and light,
Alexandra
Thanks for listening! Your support means the world. Join our Curious for Christ Facebook Group and become an Insider for weekly inspiration and encouragement on your faith journey.
Want to go deeper? Let's connect—set up a FREE Discovery Call today. See you next time!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome back to Curious forChrist.
I'm your host, Alexandra, andtoday's episode is for anyone
who's ever felt stuck inpatterns they don't understand,
weighed down by emotions they'vebeen taught to ignore or unsure
how to move forward spiritually.
We're talking about realhealing, how our emotions,
(00:21):
instead of being something to.
Fear or suppress can actually bethe very path God uses to bring
about deep transformation.
You'll hear how emotionalhonesty can become a doorway to
spiritual growth and how Godmeets us, not just in our
victories, but right in a messthrough codependency, addiction,
heartbreak, and beyond.
(00:43):
And to help guide us throughthat conversation.
I'm so honored to welcome a veryspecial guest, Kathy Henan.
Kathy has served in the Breakingfree ministry in Chicago for
over 25 years, walking alongsidewomen as they overcome
codependency and addictionthrough Christ-centered Healing.
She facilitates groups, trainsothers to lead and pours her
(01:06):
heart into the church Alongsideher husband Doug, they have five
children, eight grandchildren,and a deep passion for helping
people discover true spiritualtransformation.
I, Kathy is also the co-authorof Spiritual Discovery seven
Principle for Spiritual Growth,a powerful book and curriculum
(01:28):
she wrote with VirginiaLoeffler, who you might remember
from episode 74 on biblicalmeditation and mindfulness.
So make sure you listen to thatepisode as well.
Now, I'll be honest, we had afew technical glitches during
this recording, but what Kathyshares is so heartfelt and full
of wisdom.
I knew I had to share it withyou anyway.
(01:48):
This conversation is a safe,sacred space.
I hope it meets you right whereyou are.
Let's dive in.
I hope it meets you right whereyou are.
Let's dive in.
Welcome to Curious for Christ.
Do you ever find yourself lying,awake at night wondering about
(02:11):
God's plan for your life?
Maybe you wake up with bigdreams, but feel unsure where to
start or what your next stepshould be.
If you're curious aboutexploring your faith and finding
purpose, then you've come to theright place.
Hi, I'm Alexandra.
I too felt lost and sure of thedirection my life was taking.
(02:32):
I yearned to understand mypurpose and have someone guide
me, but I kept telling myself Iwas too busy.
The timing wasn't right, and mylack of clarity prevented me
from being consistent until Ifound Christ.
He brought peace into my lifeand revealed the way to find
purpose by anchoring myself.
(02:53):
In him.
In this podcast, we'll journeytogether exploring the Bible to
gain a deeper understanding ofhim and cultivate your own
personal relationship withChrist.
So open up your Bible, put inthose earbuds and listen up
because God is speaking to you.
He's making everything new andyou don't wanna miss it.
(03:14):
Let's get started.
Hi Kathy.
Welcome to Curious for Christ.
I love to start I always ask myguest speakers to start with
their own stories'cause there'sso much power to see how God
(03:35):
works in our lives.
It is the same God, and yetwe're very different.
And so I I believe that ourlisteners would relate very
personally to hearing about yourown journey, your faith journey,
and what led you.
To write and co-write Your book,spiritual discovery.
The Seven Principles forSpiritual Growth you co-wrote it
(03:56):
with Virginia Loeffler and herhusband as well.
Virginia was on the podcast, soI will put the link again.
She spoke on meditation,biblical meditation.
So please share about yourjourney and what led you to
write this book as well.
Thanks very much.
So it's been a long journey andit's been wonderful.
I grew up in a mess.
No, actually totally in a mess.
(04:17):
And just was making life work.
I married my first husband whowas eight years older than me,
and we had three kids.
It was a really hard marriage.
And my third child, I was like,I need Jesus.
I started taking the kids tochurch and God found me and I
studied the Bible and realized alot of things that I needed to
(04:40):
change.
I was in a super bad marriageand I thought it was all my
fault, and the more that Ifollow Jesus.
The more he didn't want tofollow Jesus.
And it got tougher.
So we separated and duringseparation I got some
counseling.
And the counseling really showedme my patterns from childhood
that's why I married my firsthusband.
And so it was really a hardtime, but it was such a good
(05:03):
time.
It was such a time of growthand.
Codependency and addiction andthe lies that we come to believe
that move us to very unhealthyfigures especially for women.
I think that we tend to wannacontrol the whole world and
it's, and we're not in charge,which is really a relief.
But anyway, so we ended updivorced and I was a single mom
(05:23):
for eight years and I married mywonderful husband.
Now I've sponsored many peoplethrough the chains released
ministry.
And I saw a need for curriculumfor some specifics to help
people, but it's not just aboutcodependency or addiction, but
we all have habits and thingsthat we don't want to do that
hinder our spiritual growth.
(05:45):
And so Virginia and I are veryclose and we started talking
about writing a curriculum tohelp people process whatever the
challenge is, whatever hasgotten them stuck.
And really what we came to was,our emotions are the bridge back
to our deeply held belief.
But when people say things like,I got triggered, what that means
(06:07):
is there's something in my pastthat is coming up right now.
And people don't know how towork those things through.
So that would.
That was the whole beginning ofthe book.
We started doing groups and wehad some wonderful women who
were willing to open up theirhearts.
We also wanted to create a groupwithin the church where you
could be real, where you didn'thave to free up your stuff to
(06:28):
come in.
We're gonna talk about sexualaddictions, cutting food
disorder.
Pornography, whatever you got,we wanna talk about it.
'cause there's something behindthat behavior.
And it doesn't have to be a bigthing either.
It can be just strife in arelationship.
You can't figure out.
So it's been, it was a longjourney in writing the book and
it was really good.
(06:48):
And we continue to lead classes.
My husband and I oversee theSpiritual Discovery Ministry in
the Chicago Church and it's beengreat an honor.
So thank you.
Wow.
Thank you so much for sharingthat.
I wanted to talk about,'causeyour book introduces those seven
principles for spiritual growth.
And we all want to grow.
We all want to grow closer toGod, most importantly.
(07:12):
So could you give us an overviewof these principles and how they
have impacted even your own lifeand journey?
Sure.
Absolutely.
The first principle is stop andconsider.
And honestly, the reason stopand consider came up is when I
was doing my work with my firsthusband I was used to doing a
dance with him.
(07:32):
You're unaware that you dancewith different people, but I
decided to put up my shield offaith and stop whatever was
coming at me so that I couldtake a look at it to evaluate
it.
He moves against me and I moveto please him or he moves
against me and I move away.
I wanted to learn to movetowards gum, and so stopping to
consider, put that pause inbefore I reacted to stuff.
(07:55):
The next one is why don't youstop and consider, you have to
recognize it's spiritual battlebecause it's not that person.
Our battle is really againstSatan, and he's the one who
always wants to divide usbecause we're all really, God
created all of us.
And he wants us to get along andto be one, but it's Satan in
there.
And so we recognizing it's aspiritual battle also recognizes
(08:17):
that Satan's wanting me to movein a way that's unhealthy and
then tell the truth, and tellthe truth isn't.
A lot of times we should onourselves, we say, oh, you
should feel this way.
You shouldn't do that.
You should and tell the truth ismore saying.
I feel sadness right now.
I feel anxiety right now.
I feel helpless right now.
(08:37):
But it's naming your emotion.
And we have a whole lesson onemotions because we tend to run
away from our emotions.
First thing when we're feelingsomething we wanna do is pick up
the phone and scroll or put onNetflix or go get something to
eat, just to move away fromanything that is uncomfortable.
And so we really try to helppeople to be willing to sit in
(08:58):
that because there's things tolearn.
So identifying and saying, I'mfeeling this way is powerful.
And then we wanna look for thelie.
What is it that we're believingin this whole thing?
There's a belief that's movingthis emotion and sitting in what
is that is powerful.
(09:19):
A lot of times people, they getawareness of, oh my goodness, I.
Dia I was believing this thing.
And they feel already victoriousbecause they brought awareness
to it.
But the next step really is toask, seek and knock is to ask
God for the Holy Spirit.
What is the truth here?
What do you want me to knowhere?
And I think that's one of thetoughest things we ask women and
(09:42):
men.
Men's groups and women's groupsare separate, but it's the
toughest thing we ask people todo because to be still is really
hard.
To lean into pain is really hardbut it's on the other side that
we have free from.
And so then we, after asic andKnock, the truth is, a lot of
these things, these triggers aretied to childhood pain or just
(10:04):
pain from the past.
Pain from the past usually meansthat somebody's hurt us.
Something's happened and weprocessed it in a way that it
wasn't meant or it was meant,but somebody hurt us.
And so the next principle is tofind peace and forgiveness.
And we talk a lot about whatforgiveness really means.
It doesn't mean acceptinginappropriate behavior, it does
(10:25):
mean you have to stay in aunhealthy relationship.
It means that you're releasingthe debt that the person owes
you.
And a lot of people talk aboutforgiving yourself and really it
is, there is a release, but itdoes go back to God.
It's.
God forgave me.
So I'm accepting that he'sforgiven me, that he's not
(10:48):
holding this debt against me,and he's big enough to do that.
And then the last principle isto own your rescue story.
Because a lot of times we havethese messy parts in our life
that we own, that we think, whatwould everybody think of me if
they knew this?
If they knew this about me orthat I struggle with this, but
owning your rescue stories wherethere's freedom and there's just
(11:12):
so much freedom and you can lookback at your life and see in
those messy parts, those painfulparts.
God was very present.
In the wilderness.
He is always there doingsomething good, and so it's a
way that we see God and that wecan help others.
By owning our story, we create aspace for other people to own
(11:34):
their stories.
That's not gonna be shame.
This is a safe place and we getto be real.
You know what?
I'm strength and struggle.
I'm divine and human.
And it's okay.
We don't have a lot ofself-compassion because we live
in this world of put on yourface and look a certain way or
have a certain thing.
(11:55):
But owning your rescue story hasa lot of freedom.
Yes, I agree.
It's true that the shame is anopen door for Satan to isolate
us and to believe that we're theonly one, in this situation,
while actually it couldn't befurther from the truth.
It's so true, and I reallyappreciate you bringing up shame
because we do a whole lesson onshame and self-worth because
(12:15):
You're right.
Shame just divides us.
It makes us wanna hide, andthat's where Satan wants us to
be.
Yeah.
He wants to divide us and he canconquer us for sure.
Definitely.
You also mentioned the role ofsilence and listening to God,
and we spoke about that in aprevious conversation prior to
(12:35):
us meeting again here, and itreally stuck with me.
You mentioned the importance ofsitting with God and listening
to the Holy Spirit, and yet itis very challenging for most of
us.
It's very hard to achieve thissilence and unless we.
We sit in silence.
It's hard to hear God's voice aswell.
(12:56):
So could you please talk aboutthis this dilemma and the
challenges that come and theimportance of sitting in silence
with God?
Absolutely.
So we actually added meditationto the groups because we
realized that people don't sit.
And so we start each group witha meditation, and there's so
(13:17):
many different meditations.
Virginia has written a reallygreat book on scriptural
meditation, but there's othermeditations as well.
When we're sitting to listen tothe spirit we're so hard on
ourselves.
We're like, oh, I'm doing itwrong.
Everybody's getting something.
I'm not getting, I'm doing itwrong.
But if we can start trainingourselves, just sit for two
(13:38):
minutes, start with our breath,breath work is super powerful.
If we will exhale longer thanour.
That for at least a minute, wecan actually shift from the
sympathetic to theparasympathetic nervous system.
So from fight, flight, or freezeto rest and digest.
And then if we can just firststart with being with ourselves,
(13:59):
whether it's putting our hand onour chest or we, I'm just
present.
I'm present right here.
And then notice what's going onare you feeling something
anywhere?
Notice any tension.
Our bodies are always givingsignals, but we don't listen.
We just, we keep it moving.
(14:20):
And so oh, okay, I'm feelingsomething right here.
Or I'm like, feet in my throat,or, oh, I just feel like I need
to just do this and be presentwith me and bringing this
awareness to I'm right here inthis moment and I'm safe.
That you live in me and you saythat you're right here with me.
(14:44):
The core of who I am, my trueself is just fully loved.
Just full loved.
And I wanna sit with you fullyloved listening to anything you
wanna say.
You know what happens is ourminds wander because they're
(15:04):
just made to wander.
If you look at a brain that'sgot all these little grooves and
you think that's what we do,like this one thing happens and
then we're down this groove,think about that.
Or but you kind to yourself andyou go, it's okay.
I'm a human.
You picture it like a cloud thatjust went by, or you picture oh,
I'm.
(15:26):
Back and the more that you'llsit and do that and more
bringing yourself back andbringing yourself back, you.
You're able to sit with Godlonger.
One time I I identified a liefrom childhood was that you
don't matter.
Get a long story where it cameup, but you don't matter.
(15:48):
And I was sitting in that withGod and I got prepared and I was
sitting there and I was like,God, is it true?
I don't matter?
And I started feeling all theemotions of that.
I was doing the ugly crying.
I had a box of tissue when Iwas, and I just sat there.
God, I really wanna know, is ittrue I matter?
And I pictured myself back, thatlittle girl, four years old, in
(16:10):
the living room where they leftme.
And I felt like Satan wasscreaming at me, you don't
matter.
And I brought back to thatmoment.
Jesus is not bound by yourspace.
And I said, Jesus, is it true?
I don't matter?
And I was still crying, feelingall of it.
And I felt he just answered my,you've always mattered to me.
(16:32):
Light filled.
The room, there was this peace.
It was like the.
I didn't have the hold of meanymore.
I felt like I stop crying.
I felt like the truth in myinmost being shifted everything.
But I had to be willing to bestill, to sit with God and to do
(16:53):
the ugly cry and to be like,wait, I'm feeling this.
And it feels familiar.
And allowing myself to go backto where I.
Yeah.
I like what you mentioned about,and you've mentioned that at the
beginning, the feeling, theemotions, because we have an
understanding in our head of,okay, this is not true, but we
(17:13):
are afraid to go thereemotionally and feel again.
I.
I am not enough or I am notworthy, or, whatever thoughts
you had.
And so allowing ourselves tofeel it, to cry, to let it go.
Actually an emotions to be felttakes only 90 seconds and it
just move through your body andit's out, and it's out.
(17:35):
Then you have room for God'struth to sit in your body more
deeply.
But we work so hard to avoidfeeling these emotions because
we believe that they're thetruth while they are just an
expression of how it felt atsome point when we believe that
truth, when we did not knowbetter.
Yes.
(17:57):
We just shut ourselves down.
We don't wanna listen to ourbody.
We're we separate body, mind,and spirit and they're one.
And I really love with thatbecause crying is such a
blessing from God.
I know it sounds weird, but likeit's your emotions coming out,
your eyes.
It's a release.
Like you also release all these.
Chemicals in your system whenyou allow yourself to cry and
(18:21):
when you're willing to allow theemotion outta your body.
Yeah.
I love what you said.
It's true, but we just, we don'tlike pain and we're in a try to
be pain-free society and that'sjust not true.
It is not.
And it makes us human.
We don't need to hold it all uptogether.
We are human.
We can feel it all.
It's okay.
God loves all of it.
(18:41):
Yeah.
And then he shows us the truthas well.
I wanted to talk about unhealthybeliefs.
You touched on that because inyour book you do mention
identifying and releasingbeliefs that are not true, such
as the belief.
I'm not enough, what I justmentioned.
Can you share.
More about how someone canrecognize these false beliefs.
(19:02):
I mean you, you did mentionsitting in silence Sometimes for
me, actually, I have to say I dohave my quiet times, but
sometimes I hear God's voice asI go through my day, I drive in
transitions.
When there's moments of silence,then I hear his answer to my
questions that I had askedearlier.
In the morning or the nightbefore.
(19:24):
Is there anything that you'dlike to share more about that,
about recognizing the falsebeliefs and then finding healing
in God's truth?
Yeah.
First I just wanna say I decidedthat I was gonna drive the speed
limit and I don't know aboutanybody else, but that's.
(19:45):
I can hear God better in theslowly lane.
Because I'm not trying to get tothe next thing because I'm not
rushing.
And what we really teach isthat.
That the emotion is going to bethe bridge back to your deeply
held belief.
And so when you're triggered,very often you're triggered and
you're the middle of something,you've got family over, or you
(20:08):
know you're out and you'retriggered.
You can't deal with it Rightthen.
It's not the time that you'regonna deal with it, but you can
say, oh, stop and consider, I'mfeeling an emotion.
This is a spiritual battle.
I'm tempted to move against thisperson.
Or I'm tempted to move away.
I'm gonna put this on the backburner and I'm gonna bring this
(20:29):
back up later.
And then when you have satisfiedtime, you sit and bring that
back up.
You go.
You go back to where you werethat happened.
Felt like this.
You sit in that and that's whereyou're gonna allow the emotion
to be the bridge back ly.
Now a weird example, I rememberidentifying that I had this, I'm
(20:52):
not enough.
You're not enough.
And it was screaming at me.
And so I was sitting, I couldn'tidentify one place that I felt
like I wasn't enough.
I felt like it was through mywhole life.
And so then I was like, okay,God, is it true?
'cause it feels true that I'mnot enough and I just sat with
God and I listened and he didn'tanswer.
(21:14):
So I said, okay, I gotta go towork now.
I got up and I went to work thenext day.
I set aside time again.
I did that for a number of daysand one day I was on my face, on
my on floor in my office, justcrying God, it just feels so
true.
What is truth for my innerbeing?
And I felt like he said to me,you are mine.
(21:38):
And.
I'm your, I'm yours.
And then I thought that's youranswer.
Because I had never said that Iwas waiting for him to say no,
you're enough.
Or Jesus makes you enough orsome sort of something.
But he said, you're mine.
And I sat in that and I waslike, yeah, it's not about
enough.
Where does enough come from Itfrom measuring myself to
(22:01):
somebody else or some otherstandard or something instead of
me, I'm just his.
And it just, it washed away somuch that I keep it on my desk.
Now.
Has it cleared up all of the I'mnot enough.
No.
It'll still come up, but it'snot like it was, yeah.
There's still this humanity thatI'm still in this fallen world,
(22:24):
but it's not like it was.
So I think that allowingyourself the silence and the
perseverance to say, oh, I'mshow.
I had one sister in groupTraumatic.
(22:45):
But when she received truth, shejust set aside time every day.
But when she received truth,it's washed over so much.
It's changed who she's, itchanged the dynamic of her
marriage and it's had an impacton her children.
I'm just like, yeah, becausethat is the power of the Holy
Spirit.
We, the Holy Spirit working inus, that's power, love, and his
(23:06):
sound just keeps messing withus.
The more we keep going andgoing, we're not creating the
space to hear the Holy Spirit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's an art of cultivatingit.
It's a relationship.
It's not being perfect the firsttime.
The Bible talks about to seekhis face to always search for
(23:27):
him, just like a lover, right?
Someone that we can't get enoughof, and our sense of identity is
in him.
So when we feel we're notenough.
We, something has taken to placeof us, like you mentioned,
measuring our identity tosomething other than God
himself.
And so that's it's verypersonal.
(23:49):
Like you saying that moment wasa turning point for you.
You're not the same after thatmoment.
But it took you going after itfor as long as it was needed.
There's no comparison andthere's layers to how much we
have to uncover from our storiesas well.
Yeah.
So that's why going over andallowing God to speak to us.
(24:12):
So important.
And identifying the lies,because sometimes a lie keeps
another lie in place.
This is gonna be too much foryou.
Or just keep it moving.
Like you're okay.
It's not that bad.
And we really have to identifywhat we're believing, what lies
we're believing, so that we canbring each one of them.
(24:33):
I think what we do in ourculture especially, is we
compare.
My trauma's not, my upbringingwasn't as bad of so I shouldn't,
and that, and there's a proverbthat says only a heart knows its
own joy and its own and socreating space for ourselves is
really key.
Me God.
And I'm in a safe, loving space.
(24:54):
And if I don't believe that,that's the first lie I.
So we are having the air showthis weekend.
Probably you're hearing theaircraft doing some practice.
So hence the noise outside.
But this is what Fort LauderdaleBeach has to offer lots of
activities.
Sorry, back to what you weresaying, that was meaningful and
I wanted to mention also.
(25:15):
So that you've been helpingpeople.
Heal from codependency andaddictions.
How can someone begin to healand experience true intimacy
with God and then with others?
Yeah.
We in the book, we lay thefoundation first of it being a
spiritual battle, emotionsshame.
(25:36):
Like we wanted to identify thelight to move towards God to
forgive, and then we go to thebehaviors.
When we're triggered by apainful emotion, we usually move
some way.
What way do we move?
Codependents usually tend tomove to these people.
And somebody who has addictionmoves towards their addiction.
(25:58):
And so it's actually we identifyit's a way of moving up pain or
moving towards pleasure becausewe're not making, we're worth.
And in identifying it, wereally, awareness is the
beginning of change.
'cause I don't change anythingI'm aware of.
Yeah.
And so a lot of teaching on whatCodependence is and how to
(26:19):
overcome and obviously we're,it's all God's the one who gives
us the power to do it.
And we do the same thing withaddiction.
We talk about all the differentaddiction and how.
We have lots of scripture.
We overcoming with righteousnessmeans that we're identifying
what it is we're temptedtowards, and then we're looking
(26:40):
for the way out.
God provided we're removing theobstacles that we put in our
place.
Okay, I've, food is myaddiction.
Stop buying Doritos, stop buyingTwinkie, we talk about the
basics of how you overcome, andwe actually talk about sugar,
which is as Christians, we havesome addictions that we think
(27:01):
are okay.
And that's just okay.
Everybody does that.
But they hurt us.
And a lot of times we think it'snot hurting anybody, but it
does, it robs us of time, ofmoney, of self-control.
We get this of I know I'm notsupposed to.
And so our conscience getsinvolved in it.
And a lot of people haveexperienced a lot of freedom.
(27:23):
Co-dependency is something thatyou it's a pattern of thinking.
Just like anything, we canchange our patterns.
That's great.
It starts with awareness.
Thank you so much for sharingall that.
Your book goes along with,there's an accompanying online
course.
How can someone make the most ofthe book?
It's not a usual book.
(27:43):
It's a workbook as well.
There's a lot of annotationsthat we can take.
How can someone make the most ofyour book, of the online course?
Where can they find it?
Okay.
My spiritual discovery.com, wewrote the book and then we
revised the book as we keptdoing groups.
So then once we revised thebook, then we started
(28:06):
considering, okay, it would begood if we could do this for
teens and campus because mostpeople are visual learners.
It was suggested that maybe wedo an online class and so the
online class is actually thebook, But by doing the online
class, you can watch it as muchas you want.
And every time revision to it,you automatically get it.
(28:26):
And then when we get together toprocess we ask everybody to
bring a notebook so they writethe question and then everybody
answers.
We make a really big point of itis the confidential group.
What setting in groups stays ingroups so that people feel safe,
and the processing is amazingbecause when you process within
a group, you hear your story insomebody else.
(28:50):
And you get perspective on yourown stuff by listening to other
people.
That's great.
Thank you.
What final word of encouragementwould you like to leave our
listeners with today?
Is such a big question.
The first is oh, loved sit,loved.
(29:11):
And it's not about any struggleyou might have.
Once you get rid of thatstruggle, God isn't gonna love
you more.
He just loves you where you areand wants to help you out of
that struggle.
And saying that I have stuff Ineed to work on is actually very
brave to be vulnerable.
And willingness to see who I.
(29:34):
That's where the healing starts.
And it doesn't have to be a hugething.
It could be like, I just don'tknow why I have this low level
of anxiety all the time.
Or it, it could be anything butreally it's always gonna land in
you're just deeply loved who youare or who you are.
I love you have a unique story,like nobody else's story.
(29:57):
There's nobody on the planetlike you, and you have a unique
way of representing God.
Wow.
I hope this conversation spoketo you as deeply as it spoke to
me.
What I love most about Kathy'sstory is her honesty and the way
she lets us see how God meets usright in the mess, not after we
(30:18):
clean it up.
And one of the most powerfulmoments for me was when she
talked about the lie, I'm notenough, and God's unusual
answer.
You are mine.
That's it.
No reasoning, no list ofaccomplishments.
Just himself.
And that's the whole point.
God's presence is the tool.
(30:38):
What's the tool?
What's the answer?
God.
In the face of darkness, in themiddle of a spiritual battle,
the only thing strong enough tosilence the lie is God himself,
his presence, his authority.
When he enters in, it's likelight flooding a dark room,
exposing the lies, thisspelling, the shadows, bringing
(30:59):
truth.
It's the same principle we seein Genesis when there was only
darkness.
God said, let there be light.
And light came.
His word still does that today.
His presence still breaksthrough darkness.
His truth still silences thelies.
Remember.
This is a spiritual battle.
(31:19):
We are in the middle of aspiritual battle, and if we want
to be victorious, we have to usespiritual tools.
We need God on our side.
We need God by our side.
And here's the second reason whythat answer.
You are mine is so powerful.
The lie I'm not enough is rootedin performance.
(31:40):
It tells us that our value or.
Our identity is based on thevalue of what we do or fail to
do.
But when God says, you are mine,he's declaring that your
identity isn't tied to yoursuccess or your failures.
It's rooted in belonging andespecially in who you belong to.
(32:00):
You were created by God claimedby him, rescued from darkness,
brought into the light.
That truth changes everything.
That is it for today, my friend.
But before we go, let me repeatthe seven principles for
spiritual growth as introducedin the conversation.
These are the foundation of thespiritual discovery journey,
(32:22):
Number one, stop and consider.
Pause and reflect on where youare, what you're feeling, and
how God might be working in yourlife right now.
Awareness is the first steptoward transformation.
Number two, recognize yourspiritual battle.
You are in a spiritual battle.
Recognizing this helps you stopfighting the wrong enemy and
begin engaging with the real onethrough prayer, truth and faith.
(32:45):
Number three, tell the truth.
Be honest with yourself, withGod, and with others.
Truth brings freedom, healing,and deeper connection.
Number four, look for the liebeneath our struggles.
Our lies we've believed aboutourselves, God or others.
Identifying those lies is key toreplacing them with God's truth.
Number five, ask, seek andknock.
(33:08):
Come to God with your questions,your needs, and your heart.
He welcomes your pursuit andpromises to respond.
Number six, find peace inforgiveness.
Forgiveness means to release orlet go.
When we truly forgive, whetherit's others or ourselves, we
experience a deeper inner peacein setting someone else free.
We often discover it's our ownheart that's been released.
(33:31):
Number seven, own your rescuestory.
Live in the truth of who youare.
All that's happened and all thatyou've done, you are uniquely
made by God and every part ofyour story is used to shape the
beautiful soul you're becoming.
Owning your own story bringsgratitude and a powerful
testimony to share with others.
(33:52):
If you want to go deeper, besure to check out my spiritual
discovery.com.
You'll find a book, an onlinecourse, and more tools for
healing and growth.
And if this episode touched you,would you do me a favor?
Please share it with a friend.
Let's spread the hope, thehealing, and the amazing
relationship that God wants tohave with each of us.
It's not a lecture, it's aninvitation.
(34:15):
And if you'd like to stayconnected, I'd love to welcome
you into my Weekly newsletter.
Each week I share a few morepersonal reflections on the
episode, and you'll get a sneakpeek before anyone else.
So just head to Curious forchrist.kid.com/insider friends,
God is inviting you into themost beautiful love story.
(34:36):
Don't miss it.
Until next time, lean in, betrue, speak truth.
Remember your emotions.
Don't define who you are.
They're not your identity.
They're signals.
They carry information.
So lean in and let God meet youthere.
Bye for now hi, I hope you enjoytoday's episode.
(35:04):
If so, would you like to take 30seconds and share it with a
friend who may also strugglewith knowing God and his purpose
for their life?
Also, leave a review on ApplePodcast and let me know what
topics you'd like to hear aboutin the future.
Your voice matters.
I'll meet you back next Friday.
For another episode.
Welcome back to Curious forChrist.
I'm your host, Alexandra, andtoday's episode is for anyone
who's ever felt stuck inpatterns they don't understand,
weighed down by emotions they'vebeen taught to ignore or unsure
how to move forward spiritually.
We're talking about realhealing, how our emotions,
(00:21):
instead of being something to.
Fear or suppress can actually bethe very path God uses to bring
about deep transformation.
You'll hear how emotionalhonesty can become a doorway to
spiritual growth and how Godmeets us, not just in our
victories, but right in a messthrough codependency, addiction,
heartbreak, and beyond.
(00:43):
And to help guide us throughthat conversation.
I'm so honored to welcome a veryspecial guest, Kathy Henan.
Kathy has served in the Breakingfree ministry in Chicago for
over 25 years, walking alongsidewomen as they overcome
codependency and addictionthrough Christ-centered Healing.
She facilitates groups, trainsothers to lead and pours her
(01:06):
heart into the church Alongsideher husband Doug, they have five
children, eight grandchildren,and a deep passion for helping
people discover true spiritualtransformation.
I, Kathy is also the co-authorof Spiritual Discovery seven
Principle for Spiritual Growth,a powerful book and curriculum
(01:28):
she wrote with VirginiaLoeffler, who you might remember
from episode 74 on biblicalmeditation and mindfulness.
So make sure you listen to thatepisode as well.
Now, I'll be honest, we had afew technical glitches during
this recording, but what Kathyshares is so heartfelt and full
of wisdom.
I knew I had to share it withyou anyway.
(01:48):
This conversation is a safe,sacred space.
I hope it meets you right whereyou are.
Let's dive in.
I hope it meets you right whereyou are.
Let's dive in.
Welcome to Curious for Christ.
Do you ever find yourself lying,awake at night wondering about
(02:11):
God's plan for your life?
Maybe you wake up with bigdreams, but feel unsure where to
start or what your next stepshould be.
If you're curious aboutexploring your faith and finding
purpose, then you've come to theright place.
Hi, I'm Alexandra.
I too felt lost and sure of thedirection my life was taking.
(02:32):
I yearned to understand mypurpose and have someone guide
me, but I kept telling myself Iwas too busy.
The timing wasn't right, and mylack of clarity prevented me
from being consistent until Ifound Christ.
He brought peace into my lifeand revealed the way to find
purpose by anchoring myself.
(02:53):
In him.
In this podcast, we'll journeytogether exploring the Bible to
gain a deeper understanding ofhim and cultivate your own
personal relationship withChrist.
So open up your Bible, put inthose earbuds and listen up
because God is speaking to you.
He's making everything new andyou don't wanna miss it.
(03:14):
Let's get started.
Hi Kathy.
Welcome to Curious for Christ.
I love to start I always ask myguest speakers to start with
their own stories'cause there'sso much power to see how God
(03:35):
works in our lives.
It is the same God, and yetwe're very different.
And so I I believe that ourlisteners would relate very
personally to hearing about yourown journey, your faith journey,
and what led you.
To write and co-write Your book,spiritual discovery.
The Seven Principles forSpiritual Growth you co-wrote it
(03:56):
with Virginia Loeffler and herhusband as well.
Virginia was on the podcast, soI will put the link again.
She spoke on meditation,biblical meditation.
So please share about yourjourney and what led you to
write this book as well.
Thanks very much.
So it's been a long journey andit's been wonderful.
I grew up in a mess.
No, actually totally in a mess.
(04:17):
And just was making life work.
I married my first husband whowas eight years older than me,
and we had three kids.
It was a really hard marriage.
And my third child, I was like,I need Jesus.
I started taking the kids tochurch and God found me and I
studied the Bible and realized alot of things that I needed to
(04:40):
change.
I was in a super bad marriageand I thought it was all my
fault, and the more that Ifollow Jesus.
The more he didn't want tofollow Jesus.
And it got tougher.
So we separated and duringseparation I got some
counseling.
And the counseling really showedme my patterns from childhood
that's why I married my firsthusband.
And so it was really a hardtime, but it was such a good
(05:03):
time.
It was such a time of growthand.
Codependency and addiction andthe lies that we come to believe
that move us to very unhealthyfigures especially for women.
I think that we tend to wannacontrol the whole world and
it's, and we're not in charge,which is really a relief.
But anyway, so we ended updivorced and I was a single mom
(05:23):
for eight years and I married mywonderful husband.
Now I've sponsored many peoplethrough the chains released
ministry.
And I saw a need for curriculumfor some specifics to help
people, but it's not just aboutcodependency or addiction, but
we all have habits and thingsthat we don't want to do that
hinder our spiritual growth.
(05:45):
And so Virginia and I are veryclose and we started talking
about writing a curriculum tohelp people process whatever the
challenge is, whatever hasgotten them stuck.
And really what we came to was,our emotions are the bridge back
to our deeply held belief.
But when people say things like,I got triggered, what that means
(06:07):
is there's something in my pastthat is coming up right now.
And people don't know how towork those things through.
So that would.
That was the whole beginning ofthe book.
We started doing groups and wehad some wonderful women who
were willing to open up theirhearts.
We also wanted to create a groupwithin the church where you
could be real, where you didn'thave to free up your stuff to
(06:28):
come in.
We're gonna talk about sexualaddictions, cutting food
disorder.
Pornography, whatever you got,we wanna talk about it.
'cause there's something behindthat behavior.
And it doesn't have to be a bigthing either.
It can be just strife in arelationship.
You can't figure out.
So it's been, it was a longjourney in writing the book and
it was really good.
(06:48):
And we continue to lead classes.
My husband and I oversee theSpiritual Discovery Ministry in
the Chicago Church and it's beengreat an honor.
So thank you.
Wow.
Thank you so much for sharingthat.
I wanted to talk about,'causeyour book introduces those seven
principles for spiritual growth.
And we all want to grow.
We all want to grow closer toGod, most importantly.
(07:12):
So could you give us an overviewof these principles and how they
have impacted even your own lifeand journey?
Sure.
Absolutely.
The first principle is stop andconsider.
And honestly, the reason stopand consider came up is when I
was doing my work with my firsthusband I was used to doing a
dance with him.
(07:32):
You're unaware that you dancewith different people, but I
decided to put up my shield offaith and stop whatever was
coming at me so that I couldtake a look at it to evaluate
it.
He moves against me and I moveto please him or he moves
against me and I move away.
I wanted to learn to movetowards gum, and so stopping to
consider, put that pause inbefore I reacted to stuff.
(07:55):
The next one is why don't youstop and consider, you have to
recognize it's spiritual battlebecause it's not that person.
Our battle is really againstSatan, and he's the one who
always wants to divide usbecause we're all really, God
created all of us.
And he wants us to get along andto be one, but it's Satan in
there.
And so we recognizing it's aspiritual battle also recognizes
(08:17):
that Satan's wanting me to movein a way that's unhealthy and
then tell the truth, and tellthe truth isn't.
A lot of times we should onourselves, we say, oh, you
should feel this way.
You shouldn't do that.
You should and tell the truth ismore saying.
I feel sadness right now.
I feel anxiety right now.
I feel helpless right now.
(08:37):
But it's naming your emotion.
And we have a whole lesson onemotions because we tend to run
away from our emotions.
First thing when we're feelingsomething we wanna do is pick up
the phone and scroll or put onNetflix or go get something to
eat, just to move away fromanything that is uncomfortable.
And so we really try to helppeople to be willing to sit in
(08:58):
that because there's things tolearn.
So identifying and saying, I'mfeeling this way is powerful.
And then we wanna look for thelie.
What is it that we're believingin this whole thing?
There's a belief that's movingthis emotion and sitting in what
is that is powerful.
(09:19):
A lot of times people, they getawareness of, oh my goodness, I.
Dia I was believing this thing.
And they feel already victoriousbecause they brought awareness
to it.
But the next step really is toask, seek and knock is to ask
God for the Holy Spirit.
What is the truth here?
What do you want me to knowhere?
And I think that's one of thetoughest things we ask women and
(09:42):
men.
Men's groups and women's groupsare separate, but it's the
toughest thing we ask people todo because to be still is really
hard.
To lean into pain is really hardbut it's on the other side that
we have free from.
And so then we, after asic andKnock, the truth is, a lot of
these things, these triggers aretied to childhood pain or just
(10:04):
pain from the past.
Pain from the past usually meansthat somebody's hurt us.
Something's happened and weprocessed it in a way that it
wasn't meant or it was meant,but somebody hurt us.
And so the next principle is tofind peace and forgiveness.
And we talk a lot about whatforgiveness really means.
It doesn't mean acceptinginappropriate behavior, it does
(10:25):
mean you have to stay in aunhealthy relationship.
It means that you're releasingthe debt that the person owes
you.
And a lot of people talk aboutforgiving yourself and really it
is, there is a release, but itdoes go back to God.
It's.
God forgave me.
So I'm accepting that he'sforgiven me, that he's not
(10:48):
holding this debt against me,and he's big enough to do that.
And then the last principle isto own your rescue story.
Because a lot of times we havethese messy parts in our life
that we own, that we think, whatwould everybody think of me if
they knew this?
If they knew this about me orthat I struggle with this, but
owning your rescue stories wherethere's freedom and there's just
(11:12):
so much freedom and you can lookback at your life and see in
those messy parts, those painfulparts.
God was very present.
In the wilderness.
He is always there doingsomething good, and so it's a
way that we see God and that wecan help others.
By owning our story, we create aspace for other people to own
(11:34):
their stories.
That's not gonna be shame.
This is a safe place and we getto be real.
You know what?
I'm strength and struggle.
I'm divine and human.
And it's okay.
We don't have a lot ofself-compassion because we live
in this world of put on yourface and look a certain way or
have a certain thing.
(11:55):
But owning your rescue story hasa lot of freedom.
Yes, I agree.
It's true that the shame is anopen door for Satan to isolate
us and to believe that we're theonly one, in this situation,
while actually it couldn't befurther from the truth.
It's so true, and I reallyappreciate you bringing up shame
because we do a whole lesson onshame and self-worth because
(12:15):
You're right.
Shame just divides us.
It makes us wanna hide, andthat's where Satan wants us to
be.
Yeah.
He wants to divide us and he canconquer us for sure.
Definitely.
You also mentioned the role ofsilence and listening to God,
and we spoke about that in aprevious conversation prior to
(12:35):
us meeting again here, and itreally stuck with me.
You mentioned the importance ofsitting with God and listening
to the Holy Spirit, and yet itis very challenging for most of
us.
It's very hard to achieve thissilence and unless we.
We sit in silence.
It's hard to hear God's voice aswell.
(12:56):
So could you please talk aboutthis this dilemma and the
challenges that come and theimportance of sitting in silence
with God?
Absolutely.
So we actually added meditationto the groups because we
realized that people don't sit.
And so we start each group witha meditation, and there's so
(13:17):
many different meditations.
Virginia has written a reallygreat book on scriptural
meditation, but there's othermeditations as well.
When we're sitting to listen tothe spirit we're so hard on
ourselves.
We're like, oh, I'm doing itwrong.
Everybody's getting something.
I'm not getting, I'm doing itwrong.
But if we can start trainingourselves, just sit for two
(13:38):
minutes, start with our breath,breath work is super powerful.
If we will exhale longer thanour.
That for at least a minute, wecan actually shift from the
sympathetic to theparasympathetic nervous system.
So from fight, flight, or freezeto rest and digest.
And then if we can just firststart with being with ourselves,
(13:59):
whether it's putting our hand onour chest or we, I'm just
present.
I'm present right here.
And then notice what's going onare you feeling something
anywhere?
Notice any tension.
Our bodies are always givingsignals, but we don't listen.
We just, we keep it moving.
(14:20):
And so oh, okay, I'm feelingsomething right here.
Or I'm like, feet in my throat,or, oh, I just feel like I need
to just do this and be presentwith me and bringing this
awareness to I'm right here inthis moment and I'm safe.
That you live in me and you saythat you're right here with me.
(14:44):
The core of who I am, my trueself is just fully loved.
Just full loved.
And I wanna sit with you fullyloved listening to anything you
wanna say.
You know what happens is ourminds wander because they're
(15:04):
just made to wander.
If you look at a brain that'sgot all these little grooves and
you think that's what we do,like this one thing happens and
then we're down this groove,think about that.
Or but you kind to yourself andyou go, it's okay.
I'm a human.
You picture it like a cloud thatjust went by, or you picture oh,
I'm.
(15:26):
Back and the more that you'llsit and do that and more
bringing yourself back andbringing yourself back, you.
You're able to sit with Godlonger.
One time I I identified a liefrom childhood was that you
don't matter.
Get a long story where it cameup, but you don't matter.
(15:48):
And I was sitting in that withGod and I got prepared and I was
sitting there and I was like,God, is it true?
I don't matter?
And I started feeling all theemotions of that.
I was doing the ugly crying.
I had a box of tissue when Iwas, and I just sat there.
God, I really wanna know, is ittrue I matter?
And I pictured myself back, thatlittle girl, four years old, in
(16:10):
the living room where they leftme.
And I felt like Satan wasscreaming at me, you don't
matter.
And I brought back to thatmoment.
Jesus is not bound by yourspace.
And I said, Jesus, is it true?
I don't matter?
And I was still crying, feelingall of it.
And I felt he just answered my,you've always mattered to me.
(16:32):
Light filled.
The room, there was this peace.
It was like the.
I didn't have the hold of meanymore.
I felt like I stop crying.
I felt like the truth in myinmost being shifted everything.
But I had to be willing to bestill, to sit with God and to do
(16:53):
the ugly cry and to be like,wait, I'm feeling this.
And it feels familiar.
And allowing myself to go backto where I.
Yeah.
I like what you mentioned about,and you've mentioned that at the
beginning, the feeling, theemotions, because we have an
understanding in our head of,okay, this is not true, but we
(17:13):
are afraid to go thereemotionally and feel again.
I.
I am not enough or I am notworthy, or, whatever thoughts
you had.
And so allowing ourselves tofeel it, to cry, to let it go.
Actually an emotions to be felttakes only 90 seconds and it
just move through your body andit's out, and it's out.
(17:35):
Then you have room for God'struth to sit in your body more
deeply.
But we work so hard to avoidfeeling these emotions because
we believe that they're thetruth while they are just an
expression of how it felt atsome point when we believe that
truth, when we did not knowbetter.
Yes.
(17:57):
We just shut ourselves down.
We don't wanna listen to ourbody.
We're we separate body, mind,and spirit and they're one.
And I really love with thatbecause crying is such a
blessing from God.
I know it sounds weird, but likeit's your emotions coming out,
your eyes.
It's a release.
Like you also release all these.
Chemicals in your system whenyou allow yourself to cry and
(18:21):
when you're willing to allow theemotion outta your body.
Yeah.
I love what you said.
It's true, but we just, we don'tlike pain and we're in a try to
be pain-free society and that'sjust not true.
It is not.
And it makes us human.
We don't need to hold it all uptogether.
We are human.
We can feel it all.
It's okay.
God loves all of it.
(18:41):
Yeah.
And then he shows us the truthas well.
I wanted to talk about unhealthybeliefs.
You touched on that because inyour book you do mention
identifying and releasingbeliefs that are not true, such
as the belief.
I'm not enough, what I justmentioned.
Can you share.
More about how someone canrecognize these false beliefs.
(19:02):
I mean you, you did mentionsitting in silence Sometimes for
me, actually, I have to say I dohave my quiet times, but
sometimes I hear God's voice asI go through my day, I drive in
transitions.
When there's moments of silence,then I hear his answer to my
questions that I had askedearlier.
In the morning or the nightbefore.
(19:24):
Is there anything that you'dlike to share more about that,
about recognizing the falsebeliefs and then finding healing
in God's truth?
Yeah.
First I just wanna say I decidedthat I was gonna drive the speed
limit and I don't know aboutanybody else, but that's.
(19:45):
I can hear God better in theslowly lane.
Because I'm not trying to get tothe next thing because I'm not
rushing.
And what we really teach isthat.
That the emotion is going to bethe bridge back to your deeply
held belief.
And so when you're triggered,very often you're triggered and
you're the middle of something,you've got family over, or you
(20:08):
know you're out and you'retriggered.
You can't deal with it Rightthen.
It's not the time that you'regonna deal with it, but you can
say, oh, stop and consider, I'mfeeling an emotion.
This is a spiritual battle.
I'm tempted to move against thisperson.
Or I'm tempted to move away.
I'm gonna put this on the backburner and I'm gonna bring this
(20:29):
back up later.
And then when you have satisfiedtime, you sit and bring that
back up.
You go.
You go back to where you werethat happened.
Felt like this.
You sit in that and that's whereyou're gonna allow the emotion
to be the bridge back ly.
Now a weird example, I rememberidentifying that I had this, I'm
(20:52):
not enough.
You're not enough.
And it was screaming at me.
And so I was sitting, I couldn'tidentify one place that I felt
like I wasn't enough.
I felt like it was through mywhole life.
And so then I was like, okay,God, is it true?
'cause it feels true that I'mnot enough and I just sat with
God and I listened and he didn'tanswer.
(21:14):
So I said, okay, I gotta go towork now.
I got up and I went to work thenext day.
I set aside time again.
I did that for a number of daysand one day I was on my face, on
my on floor in my office, justcrying God, it just feels so
true.
What is truth for my innerbeing?
And I felt like he said to me,you are mine.
(21:38):
And.
I'm your, I'm yours.
And then I thought that's youranswer.
Because I had never said that Iwas waiting for him to say no,
you're enough.
Or Jesus makes you enough orsome sort of something.
But he said, you're mine.
And I sat in that and I waslike, yeah, it's not about
enough.
Where does enough come from Itfrom measuring myself to
(22:01):
somebody else or some otherstandard or something instead of
me, I'm just his.
And it just, it washed away somuch that I keep it on my desk.
Now.
Has it cleared up all of the I'mnot enough.
No.
It'll still come up, but it'snot like it was, yeah.
There's still this humanity thatI'm still in this fallen world,
(22:24):
but it's not like it was.
So I think that allowingyourself the silence and the
perseverance to say, oh, I'mshow.
I had one sister in groupTraumatic.
(22:45):
But when she received truth, shejust set aside time every day.
But when she received truth,it's washed over so much.
It's changed who she's, itchanged the dynamic of her
marriage and it's had an impacton her children.
I'm just like, yeah, becausethat is the power of the Holy
Spirit.
We, the Holy Spirit working inus, that's power, love, and his
(23:06):
sound just keeps messing withus.
The more we keep going andgoing, we're not creating the
space to hear the Holy Spirit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's an art of cultivatingit.
It's a relationship.
It's not being perfect the firsttime.
The Bible talks about to seekhis face to always search for
(23:27):
him, just like a lover, right?
Someone that we can't get enoughof, and our sense of identity is
in him.
So when we feel we're notenough.
We, something has taken to placeof us, like you mentioned,
measuring our identity tosomething other than God
himself.
And so that's it's verypersonal.
(23:49):
Like you saying that moment wasa turning point for you.
You're not the same after thatmoment.
But it took you going after itfor as long as it was needed.
There's no comparison andthere's layers to how much we
have to uncover from our storiesas well.
Yeah.
So that's why going over andallowing God to speak to us.
(24:12):
So important.
And identifying the lies,because sometimes a lie keeps
another lie in place.
This is gonna be too much foryou.
Or just keep it moving.
Like you're okay.
It's not that bad.
And we really have to identifywhat we're believing, what lies
we're believing, so that we canbring each one of them.
(24:33):
I think what we do in ourculture especially, is we
compare.
My trauma's not, my upbringingwasn't as bad of so I shouldn't,
and that, and there's a proverbthat says only a heart knows its
own joy and its own and socreating space for ourselves is
really key.
Me God.
And I'm in a safe, loving space.
(24:54):
And if I don't believe that,that's the first lie I.
So we are having the air showthis weekend.
Probably you're hearing theaircraft doing some practice.
So hence the noise outside.
But this is what Fort LauderdaleBeach has to offer lots of
activities.
Sorry, back to what you weresaying, that was meaningful and
I wanted to mention also.
(25:15):
So that you've been helpingpeople.
Heal from codependency andaddictions.
How can someone begin to healand experience true intimacy
with God and then with others?
Yeah.
We in the book, we lay thefoundation first of it being a
spiritual battle, emotionsshame.
(25:36):
Like we wanted to identify thelight to move towards God to
forgive, and then we go to thebehaviors.
When we're triggered by apainful emotion, we usually move
some way.
What way do we move?
Codependents usually tend tomove to these people.
And somebody who has addictionmoves towards their addiction.
(25:58):
And so it's actually we identifyit's a way of moving up pain or
moving towards pleasure becausewe're not making, we're worth.
And in identifying it, wereally, awareness is the
beginning of change.
'cause I don't change anythingI'm aware of.
Yeah.
And so a lot of teaching on whatCodependence is and how to
(26:19):
overcome and obviously we're,it's all God's the one who gives
us the power to do it.
And we do the same thing withaddiction.
We talk about all the differentaddiction and how.
We have lots of scripture.
We overcoming with righteousnessmeans that we're identifying
what it is we're temptedtowards, and then we're looking
(26:40):
for the way out.
God provided we're removing theobstacles that we put in our
place.
Okay, I've, food is myaddiction.
Stop buying Doritos, stop buyingTwinkie, we talk about the
basics of how you overcome, andwe actually talk about sugar,
which is as Christians, we havesome addictions that we think
(27:01):
are okay.
And that's just okay.
Everybody does that.
But they hurt us.
And a lot of times we think it'snot hurting anybody, but it
does, it robs us of time, ofmoney, of self-control.
We get this of I know I'm notsupposed to.
And so our conscience getsinvolved in it.
And a lot of people haveexperienced a lot of freedom.
(27:23):
Co-dependency is something thatyou it's a pattern of thinking.
Just like anything, we canchange our patterns.
That's great.
It starts with awareness.
Thank you so much for sharingall that.
Your book goes along with,there's an accompanying online
course.
How can someone make the most ofthe book?
It's not a usual book.
(27:43):
It's a workbook as well.
There's a lot of annotationsthat we can take.
How can someone make the most ofyour book, of the online course?
Where can they find it?
Okay.
My spiritual discovery.com, wewrote the book and then we
revised the book as we keptdoing groups.
So then once we revised thebook, then we started
(28:06):
considering, okay, it would begood if we could do this for
teens and campus because mostpeople are visual learners.
It was suggested that maybe wedo an online class and so the
online class is actually thebook, But by doing the online
class, you can watch it as muchas you want.
And every time revision to it,you automatically get it.
(28:26):
And then when we get together toprocess we ask everybody to
bring a notebook so they writethe question and then everybody
answers.
We make a really big point of itis the confidential group.
What setting in groups stays ingroups so that people feel safe,
and the processing is amazingbecause when you process within
a group, you hear your story insomebody else.
(28:50):
And you get perspective on yourown stuff by listening to other
people.
That's great.
Thank you.
What final word of encouragementwould you like to leave our
listeners with today?
Is such a big question.
The first is oh, loved sit,loved.
(29:11):
And it's not about any struggleyou might have.
Once you get rid of thatstruggle, God isn't gonna love
you more.
He just loves you where you areand wants to help you out of
that struggle.
And saying that I have stuff Ineed to work on is actually very
brave to be vulnerable.
And willingness to see who I.
(29:34):
That's where the healing starts.
And it doesn't have to be a hugething.
It could be like, I just don'tknow why I have this low level
of anxiety all the time.
Or it, it could be anything butreally it's always gonna land in
you're just deeply loved who youare or who you are.
I love you have a unique story,like nobody else's story.
(29:57):
There's nobody on the planetlike you, and you have a unique
way of representing God.
Wow.
I hope this conversation spoketo you as deeply as it spoke to
me.
What I love most about Kathy'sstory is her honesty and the way
she lets us see how God meets usright in the mess, not after we
(30:18):
clean it up.
And one of the most powerfulmoments for me was when she
talked about the lie, I'm notenough, and God's unusual
answer.
You are mine.
That's it.
No reasoning, no list ofaccomplishments.
Just himself.
And that's the whole point.
God's presence is the tool.
(30:38):
What's the tool?
What's the answer?
God.
In the face of darkness, in themiddle of a spiritual battle,
the only thing strong enough tosilence the lie is God himself,
his presence, his authority.
When he enters in, it's likelight flooding a dark room,
exposing the lies, thisspelling, the shadows, bringing
(30:59):
truth.
It's the same principle we seein Genesis when there was only
darkness.
God said, let there be light.
And light came.
His word still does that today.
His presence still breaksthrough darkness.
His truth still silences thelies.
Remember.
This is a spiritual battle.
(31:19):
We are in the middle of aspiritual battle, and if we want
to be victorious, we have to usespiritual tools.
We need God on our side.
We need God by our side.
And here's the second reason whythat answer.
You are mine is so powerful.
The lie I'm not enough is rootedin performance.
(31:40):
It tells us that our value or.
Our identity is based on thevalue of what we do or fail to
do.
But when God says, you are mine,he's declaring that your
identity isn't tied to yoursuccess or your failures.
It's rooted in belonging andespecially in who you belong to.
(32:00):
You were created by God claimedby him, rescued from darkness,
brought into the light.
That truth changes everything.
That is it for today, my friend.
But before we go, let me repeatthe seven principles for
spiritual growth as introducedin the conversation.
These are the foundation of thespiritual discovery journey,
(32:22):
Number one, stop and consider.
Pause and reflect on where youare, what you're feeling, and
how God might be working in yourlife right now.
Awareness is the first steptoward transformation.
Number two, recognize yourspiritual battle.
You are in a spiritual battle.
Recognizing this helps you stopfighting the wrong enemy and
begin engaging with the real onethrough prayer, truth and faith.
(32:45):
Number three, tell the truth.
Be honest with yourself, withGod, and with others.
Truth brings freedom, healing,and deeper connection.
Number four, look for the liebeneath our struggles.
Our lies we've believed aboutourselves, God or others.
Identifying those lies is key toreplacing them with God's truth.
Number five, ask, seek andknock.
(33:08):
Come to God with your questions,your needs, and your heart.
He welcomes your pursuit andpromises to respond.
Number six, find peace inforgiveness.
Forgiveness means to release orlet go.
When we truly forgive, whetherit's others or ourselves, we
experience a deeper inner peacein setting someone else free.
We often discover it's our ownheart that's been released.
(33:31):
Number seven, own your rescuestory.
Live in the truth of who youare.
All that's happened and all thatyou've done, you are uniquely
made by God and every part ofyour story is used to shape the
beautiful soul you're becoming.
Owning your own story bringsgratitude and a powerful
testimony to share with others.
(33:52):
If you want to go deeper, besure to check out my spiritual
discovery.com.
You'll find a book, an onlinecourse, and more tools for
healing and growth.
And if this episode touched you,would you do me a favor?
Please share it with a friend.
Let's spread the hope, thehealing, and the amazing
relationship that God wants tohave with each of us.
It's not a lecture, it's aninvitation.
(34:15):
And if you'd like to stayconnected, I'd love to welcome
you into my Weekly newsletter.
Each week I share a few morepersonal reflections on the
episode, and you'll get a sneakpeek before anyone else.
So just head to Curious forchrist.kid.com/insider friends,
God is inviting you into themost beautiful love story.
(34:36):
Don't miss it.
Until next time, lean in, betrue, speak truth.
Remember your emotions.
Don't define who you are.
They're not your identity.
They're signals.
They carry information.
So lean in and let God meet youthere.
Bye for now hi, I hope you enjoytoday's episode.
(35:04):
If so, would you like to take 30seconds and share it with a
friend who may also strugglewith knowing God and his purpose
for their life?
Also, leave a review on ApplePodcast and let me know what
topics you'd like to hear aboutin the future.
Your voice matters.
I'll meet you back next Friday.
For another episode.
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