October 24, 2023 • 55 mins
Have you ever wondered how our dietary choices influence our blood sugar and dopamine levels, or how insulin works to store fat in our bodies? There's a great deal to unravel when it comes to understanding our metabolic health. In our recent chat with Sue Cramer, a certified life and wellness coach, we delve into this complex issue, discussing the intricate connection between food addiction, emotional eating, and metabolic health. Sue offers practical advice on forming healthier habits, identifying triggers, and addressing underlying issues - indispensable for anyone seeking a healthier lifestyle.
There's more to wellness than just physical health. Our conversation takes an enlightening turn as we navigate the often overlooked aspects of inner healing, grieving healthily, and forming a connection with God for improved spiritual wellness. Sue’s incredible journey battling a mixed connective tissue disease and her triumph through dietary changes offer invaluable insights into the process of reclaiming one's health. As she aptly explains, acknowledging who we are as children of God, provides a secure foundation for our identity and purpose, impacting our overall well-being.
To wrap up our conversation, we delve into the joy of movement and the power of accepting that we are enough. Sue's empowering message about embracing our identity and finding confidence through spiritual and physical wellness is profoundly inspiring. Join us and awaken your moxie, as we journey through this rich and enlightening conversation with Sue Cramer. Listen in and transform your understanding of wellness, identity, and purpose.
Connect with Sue:
https://www.facebook.com/praiseandcoffee
https://www.facebook.com/AwakenYourMoxie
https://twitter.com/SueCramer
Thanks for listening in!
Follow the host, Mary
Social Media: @maryjohess
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of the
Back 40 podcast.
I'm your host, mary Hess.
Thank you for joining me today.
My guest today is Sue Kramer.
Sue is a life coach, a wellnesscoach.
She is helping women over theage of 40 to awaken their moxie,
to take back their spiritual,emotional and physical health,
(00:23):
to be the best that they can bein the second half of life, and
we're going to spend a lot oftime today talking about those
different avenues.
So put your listening ears on,be patient with us.
We are going to jump all overthe place, but it is a really
rich conversation.
I'm excited for you to hearthis interview.
(00:43):
Stay tuned.
Sue is up next.
All right, we're so glad tohave you guys with us today, and
my special guest is Sue Kramer,like I said in our intro, and
Sue and I hmm, sue, how far backdo we go?
(01:06):
I didn't even think about thisbefore we hit the record button
to start talking.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, I started praising coffee back in 2007.
Okay, so I think we all, wekind of connected through all
that.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Okay, that's what I thought.
So the early blogging days prewell right around the start of
when Facebook went viral and weall started using it and trying
to figure it out.
So Sue was one of the ones thatI have actually gotten to meet,
one of my online friends thatI've actually gotten to meet in
person and have a coffee with.
But we went back into the dayswhere Sue would do these ladies
(01:42):
gatherings online and encouragepeople to do them in person,
called praising coffee, and, ohmy gosh, those were so good.
Those were some fun timesgetting to do that with ladies.
I completely had forgotten aboutthat because it was just a
short season that it worked outwhere I could do it, but it was
(02:02):
so fun and really we brought alot of people together from
different walks of life and youwere really good about drawing
people in and giving usresources to kind of make that
happen.
And then so tell us a littlebit about yourself, because I
know life has changed quite abit since then.
Just tell my listeners a littlebit about who you are and what
(02:22):
you do.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, absolutely.
Those were fun days, and thatwas all kind of happened by
surprise myself.
I mean, my husband and I havebeen pastoring for a while, and
then we were never paid forpastoring or for working at the
church, and so when his businessstarted to grow so much that it
needed him more, we had to stepaway from pastoring and we
(02:43):
handed over the church to somegreat leaders, and in that
process I was like well, gosh.
I mean, I was doing women'sministry, leading worship,
writing, bible studies, all thethings and I'm like, well, I get
it that he had to do that, butwhat now for me?
And so I started just bloggingpraising coffee, and it caught
(03:06):
on and people started followingme, and then one night I had a
night out with the girls and Icalled her praising coffee night
and I blogged about it.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
And all of a sudden, all these people are asking me
well, how do I do a?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
praising coffee night and what are your guidelines?
And I'm like you just meet, youknow so, but it's funny, I just
was like really wanted to.
Then I took that as encouragingwomen to meet outside the four
walls of church, just around acoffee table or a kitchen table
or whatever, and share life andso that kind of compelled me.
(03:39):
I did an online magazine forfour years I wrote a booklet on
how to do a praising coffee togo Now since then, so that was a
wonderful wild ride and I gotto travel all over the nation,
visiting all these praisingcoffee nights and gatherings,
which was great.
I met you.
I met Melissa down in Floridaand Renea in California and good
(04:01):
stuff and fast forward justhighlights.
I ended up opening a coffeehouse in 2015, which was
wonderful.
And it turned into kind of afull restaurant and the whole
thing because I don't know howto sit, still, I guess, and had
never five years and then in2020 ended up actually selling
it.
Wasn't again looking to do that, but a situation came up with
(04:25):
this couple who were young andhad no kids, and it was always
their dream.
And I'm like, well, this isperfect, because we were
shuttered for a few weeks withCOVID and I was like, wow, it's
kind of nice to see my houseagain Like this is nice and not
have to go pick up 10 gallons ofmilk every night and then so.
(04:46):
So that was really neat.
And then, just at the time too,being involved in that, I was
involved in our Chamber ofCommerce.
I was the president for a whilein our town and just, I love
business, I love helping peoplestart business, so that was fun.
So then, after I sold thecoffee house, I ended up
coaching and becoming acertified coach through the
(05:08):
Center for Executive Coachingand in that I became very
unhealthy.
Actually, my health kind ofreally took a toll and I wasn't
eating correctly, I wasn'ttaking good care of myself.
I ended up after many years oftrying to figure out what was
going on you and I have talked alittle bit.
(05:28):
I had some issues with hormones,just like you, and I'm on all
the fun things too and thank Godfor them, because they I really
believe they saved my life andI was diagnosed with a mixed
connective tissue disease, whichis it's not necessarily lupus
rheumatoid Hashimoto's, but it'skind of.
All of them can flare at anytime.
(05:50):
So I was having a lot of fun.
Hot mess we call that a hotmess.
I would wake up and I would beso sore I can hardly move and
all these things.
Well, try to shorten the storyup a little bit, and then I
ended up taking, starting totake my health back by what I
ate and what I put in my body,because we were at the point
(06:11):
where they wanted to medicate meand that I'm not a big fan of
medication at all, and so I waslike, okay, let me research this
and let me see what I can do.
Naturally, because I knew thatthere were ways to help with
your, your inflammation andblood sugar and all those things
, and I felt like that was wherea lot of this was coming from,
(06:32):
and so I did and my doctor waslike all right, I'll give you a
little time to figure out whatyou can do before I insist that
you take something.
So I went basically into a verymetabolically healthy diet which
is kind of a low a ketogenicdiet, and I say that carefully
because so many people talkabout a keto diet?
(06:54):
and they buy all this junk ketofood in the store and think it's
a keto diet and why doesn't itwork?
And no, I went on ametabolically healthy way of
living.
So I went to Whole Foods.
I got rid of all the grains andthe sugars and all those things
and after a year, my blood work.
I went and had more blood workdone and it was, I had reversed,
(07:16):
or at least stopped, the effectof the autoimmune in my body.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Wow, oh yeah, that is why.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
And now I'm working on a book and I'm I'm leading
some groups called.
The book is called Awaken yourMoxie, yeah, and it is
encouraging Christian women over40 to find their purpose and
get healthy and get closer toGod.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
That is so awesome.
Yeah, I have so many questions.
We can have so many ways withthis.
Okay, so one of the things,part two we're recording this In
between me dropping part oneand part two of the menopause
thing journey that I recordedand I don't talk about it a lot.
(08:04):
But I mentioned that it'simportant that we change the way
we eat and how we eat, and Ijust briefly talk about the fact
that when I was going to awellness coach, a doctor he used
to be my OBGYN and then heswitched over and started a
wellness center and gotcertified and all those things.
(08:26):
When I was Shannon and I weregoing to him, we started talking
about high protein, high fats,high good fats and then hardly
any sugar.
We didn't go completely nosugar or no carbs, but if we had
carbs, they were the better ofthe junk foods and stuff.
I could not believe howdifferent I felt just doing it
(08:52):
for a couple of weeks because Ithought there's no way I'm going
to be.
I'm not a meat eater.
Oh, the thought of eating somany grams of protein feels
exhausting.
I would rather know.
In my arm my husband was likemeat, yes, well he was so
excited.
I was not excited about it, butwe started doing it and paying
(09:13):
attention to that.
I could not believe how muchthe food changed.
So many things.
So brain fog.
Yeah, my energy is not back towhat it was or what I would
consider acceptable levels yet,but I can tell a difference
because I haven't figured outall my hormones stuff yet, all
(09:34):
the dosages right, but I cantell a difference in the energy
levels just when I eat better.
It is so true, and I hate toadmit it, but it is so true,
that some of those carbs andsugars and stuff will give you a
quick punch but, man, they suckthe life out of you.
On the downside.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So talk a little bit about this metabolic Like?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
what if you were encouraging women over 40 who,
hey, let's bring Perry menopauseand menopause, let's talk about
how that.
What does that look like foryou?
What would you coach them?
Like right away all yoursecrets, because I know you
coach people.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
So well, no, I have, I'll give away everything I mean
.
That's why I do this is to helppeople.
I I do very little that Iactually at this point get paid
for.
It's like I really love to helpwomen.
Sure, and I'm 56 now, so Ibasically helping women
(10:26):
understand that carbohydratesare increasing your blood sugar,
right, and causing you like yousaid you feel good, you get
that punch and you absolutely dobecause it spikes your blood
sugar, and so you get a dopaminehit every time that we eat
something that makes us feelgood.
And what happens, though, isbecause of that spike, then it
(10:47):
drops, because if it's a carb,it's going to spike up.
It's not going to be a goodline.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
You know, we want our blood sugar to be more of a.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I think I'm backwards here.
I know just flowing along, youknow where it's not going up and
down and up and down becausewe're going up every time we
have carbs we're it's releasinginsulin because our, our body
wants to get that sugar out ofour blood and into the cells so
we can do work.
So it's kicking out insulin,which is a hormone I didn't
(11:17):
understand, right, or hormones,great so and then it'll bring
our in our blood sugar down,which makes us basically feel
hungry again.
So we get, if we're eating alot of carbs, we're doing this,
whereas protein we kind of givesus a little bit of a flow and
fat really doesn't raise ourblood sugar at all.
(11:38):
It is so crazy, yeah.
So, again, we want to make sureit's healthy fats, like you
said, yeah, but so, yeah, you'refeeling that brain fog because
your body is fighting that allthe time.
And then insulin is a thank Godfor insulin.
You know, it brings our bloodsugar down and it also tells our
body to store fat.
So here we are eating carbs andI don't know about you but I
(12:01):
like my carbs with fat.
Yes.
So, that's usually how I'mdoing chips and cheese.
I know.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Just can't get one without the other.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
No, oh, right, and yeah, so that's kind of, but I
don't.
I don't know if I answered that,but metabolic health means
getting their metabolic healthincludes five factors and I'm
going to sneak up my notes realquick here and the main
components of that are obesity,high blood pressure, high blood
(12:30):
triglycerides, low cholesterol,HDL cholesterol, which is the
one we want higher, and theninsulin resistance.
So it's those things that makeup metabolic syndrome.
So I really try to focus moreon that than I do on keto, you
know.
I mean, I just feel like it'sgotten such a bad name because
(12:54):
it's coming as this bad diet andthere's nothing.
I think it's the mostancestrally appropriate way to
eat, really.
So yeah, yeah, Well.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I.
I feel like what I've had to do.
This is the weirdest thing.
This is what I've noticed in mylife and I was telling someone.
The other day I was talking toone of the girls at church I
think it was, and she's in her30s, and I was talking about how
I, I you know we've got severalfactors going on here.
First of all, I'm 52.
(13:30):
And I think that I didn'tremember I lived on a farm with
my family until I was almost 20.
And we ate, for the most part,everything we made.
You know, we had a garden andwe had animals that we
slaughtered and packaged themeat, and mom would buy things
from the grocery store.
So it wasn't like we didn'thave things, but it didn't
(13:50):
consume the majority of our diet.
And, of course, the governmenthad different regulations and
stuff on foods and how they werepreserved and all the things.
Back in the 70s and before theystarted, everything started
changing.
So I didn't, I didn'texperience any kind of issues in
my body until my late 30s,early 40s.
My daughters, on the other hand, started experiencing things
(14:14):
straight out the gate.
You know you have babies whohave issues with milk or have
issues with these foods, orgluten issues or all of the
things.
And on top of that, we now arein a society where diets are not
only to get rid of the fatquick and the weight on your
body, but it's the cool, hipthing to do.
(14:35):
And number three it's you know,it's the newest health craze,
but yet it's a thing whereyou're trying to maintain a
certain look and a certain feel.
And so I've just gotten to thepoint where I'm like, okay, I
want to eat in a way that keepsme healthy and alive as long as
possible.
(14:56):
Number one but I also recognizethat I don't live in a world
where I can grow my.
I'm not at a place where I cangrow my own food all the time.
That's not where we live.
We live on the side of amountain and I don't get direct
sunlight and you know like,maybe someday.
So how do?
How do we do that and change ourmindset from, especially in our
(15:17):
age?
Because, look, I put on 20pounds this in the last month.
I put on 20 pounds so fast andI've all my clothes don't fit, I
feel yuck, I'm trying to getback into exercise and just all
the things you know.
So you've got all these factors.
How do we change our mindsetsabout why we eat like we eat and
(15:41):
that we I don't know how strictyou may have to because of your
physical symptoms issues, butlike I'm trying to not be so
strict on myself that whathappens is I crash and burn and
then I just go off the railsbecause that's my personality
it's all in or it's all nothing.
So how do you encourage peopleto change their mindset to?
Speaker 2 (16:03):
change what they eat.
Right, and you nailed itbecause it's for years.
I would gain weight and loseweight and I've gone to some
conferences now on lowcarbohydrate.
Usa, all these different thingsand some of these really cool
places where I can meet allthese doctors who are doing this
.
And you know what's crazy?
(16:24):
I'm sitting there at a tablewith doctors who know less about
this than me, because they'rejust not taught about all this
and they're taught to foodpyramid.
But what I wanted to say wasthat I had to get to the point.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You know, some of these people have lost like 100
pounds and 120 pounds, andthat's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Well, I lost and gained 48 times.
That's my story.
But what do I have to do?
Different this time?
And I had to finally decide.
It was no longer about what Ilooked like or what size I was,
because I would get to the sizeI want and then I would slowly
just creep back to my old way ofeating and living and I would
(17:06):
be headlong right into it again.
And so I had to decide.
This is my journey of alifetime and, yes, the physical
part of it does affect me, likethe reason.
My health is the biggest thing,and I thought I have six grand
babies now.
You know I want to be here forthem.
I want to be able to walk aroundwith them.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
I want to be able to go through the back fields and
play with them and do all thesethings.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
And I had to decide this was a journey now of my
life, for my health, for therest of my life.
And so when those thoughtswould come of, oh, just have a
little here and do a little ofthis, it's like, no, this is my
life now and I had to.
One of the biggest keys I tryto help my student or my clients
when I'm coaching is helpingthem see themselves differently,
(17:55):
changing their identity.
Because they say that changingour habits, the strength to
changing our habits, is to seeourself as a different person,
like I'm no longer that personwho does that.
I've now changed my identity ofwho I am as a person.
So then when the temptationcomes, I'm like that's not who I
(18:18):
am anymore, right?
So it's literally kind ofchanging the whole way.
I would see myself and say, no,I actually I live healthy now
and I don't eat sugar or I don'teat whatever the bread.
I'm telling you bread is justas hard.
It's not harder for women toquit than sugar.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Oh, I would agree with that a thousand times over.
I would agree with that athousand times over.
Yeah, yes, yes, and I don'tknow about you, but I didn't
want my bread without butter ordipping it in ranch dressing.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
So oh.
I got it.
Perfect vicious cycle.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah .
Yeah, yeah, so I, you know it's.
I hope that even I try to pushthat, even though this is a
podcast that I've created totalk about things in the second
half of life, I hope there arepeople listening who are a
little bit younger, who go.
(19:14):
You know what.
I'm gonna start tackling thisnow because I don't want to get
to a point where I'm playingcatch up and I've already done
damage to my body that takeslonger to correct.
Because you my mom was doctorwas telling me that you, as you,
every decade you have to eatless or, you know, bring your
(19:38):
caloric intake down slightly inorder to just stay where you're
at, because your body naturallystarts converting things to fat
and hanging on to protect yourorgans, to protect who you are
and like for women, especiallybecause we already hold fat so
much easier for childbearing,and that's the way we're
designed.
We can't help it.
That's how God made us.
It becomes easier andespecially then you have your
(20:01):
hormones and all of the thingsthat are playing against you.
So I was about 10 years ago.
I had this epiphany moment andI have found that if I don't
maintain it I have, I findmyself slipping.
So about 10 years ago I waslistening to a sermon and this
(20:22):
lady was speaking at this Iguess it was a ladies event, I
can't even remember now and shesaid that she had a lot of
health issues and she was reallyfrustrated with her body and
she was arguing with God aboutthe fact that why is my body,
you know?
And just I hate it, I hate theway my why is my gut acting like
(20:43):
this?
And I can't figure it out andjust really angry about it.
And God said to her he said hesaid you're a house divided and
a house divided can't standunited right and it will fall.
And he said, and he said to herwould you talk to someone else
(21:03):
Like you talk to yourself?
And when I heard her say that,I was like you know, I was like,
oh God.
And so everything startedplaying in my head how
negatively I talked to myselfand about myself, how often I
deflect compliments and howoften I push off I mean even the
(21:26):
most simplest thing, like oh,that's a cute shirt.
And going, oh my God, I likeI've had it like 14 years
instead of.
You know what I mean.
I'm not really necessarilybeing negative, I just am not
saying thank you.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Oh, I got it on sale.
Oh, I mean.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, I only paid a dollar for it, or you know?
Or your makeup looks so goodtoday, oh girl, I had so many
pieces of acne I had to cover up, are you sure?
You know just weird things.
And specifically with myhusband, who has been a champ
and compliments me all the timeLike I am the sexiest, most
beautiful woman in the world,even with 20 more pounds on me,
(22:01):
and I'm like you know, I'm agood man, Right?
So I have found that if I don'tmaintain my thought life, it
affects everything else, becausethe atmosphere around me
absorbs and takes on, and that'sa spiritual thing, that's a
Godly thing, that's a biblicalthing.
But I have to maintain mythought life, I'm telling you,
(22:23):
and it has been the mostdifficult thing for me this past
summer to do, because Iliterally am not happy with
where I am, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Oh, it's so precious, I love it.
There are so many things thatyou said there that I think we
have to rethink how we get ourcomfort, cause basically, we
were raised, I was raised, foodwas comfort, you saw it, and
good happened, we went for icecream.
I mean so reframing that.
(22:57):
What is my comfort?
Finding comfort in somethingelse besides dopamine, hits of
food, focusing more on gettingserotonin by walking outside, by
doing all these things, not infiguring out how to get beyond
the need for instantgratification.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
You know that instant hit, Cause food is the best
that every time you know.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
It never lets you down.
But then the fast down and thenyou talk, you went into
something that is so incrediblyimportant, and that is that we
have to care about ourselves andunderstand that we are precious
in God's eyes and we arevaluable and God has a calling
and a purpose on us, for us.
(23:42):
That if we are sick andinflamed and mad at ourselves
all the time, I mean I totallyget that.
You know we're gonna struggleto do the things that God's
called us to do.
We have to be able to seeourselves, and really I feel
like I unpack this with womenall day long is okay.
(24:03):
Where did the need for thatkind of comfort come from, you
know?
And then what is the need I'mreally trying to fill, you know?
And how many times does Godwant to be part of that that
fills us?
It wants us to lean on Himinstead of leaning on a dopamine
hit.
(24:23):
Let's face it.
You know it's very similar toaddiction and I studied a lot on
addiction.
I've taken courses on addictionnow and understanding food
addiction.
But it's so much more than food.
Like I said with my clients,I'm talking with them.
We're talking about thespecifics what should I eat,
(24:43):
what shouldn't I eat, when, how,what.
But we almost always bring itback to why.
Why are we doing this?
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Right, yeah, we have to get to the root of the issues
.
Because if we don't, all we dois is we pile these quick little
band-aids or fixes or smoothout, and what happens is is
because we have the smooth outfor a short season, we're like
(25:12):
oh, oh, that feels good, okay,that works, until the next time
when something gets pinged.
And I have discovered that Idon't eat emotionally, I eat out
of boredom, like I'm not asuper emotional eater.
I have talked to some of myfriends who are if they have a
(25:35):
bad day or if they have a, I'mnot.
I don't typically lean that way,but I work from home all day
and if I'm not, if I don't havea busy day, I will automatically
think, oh, I need some chips, Ineed something to do, I need to
go eat some chips.
And I'll be like but I'm nothungry, but they're there and
I'm bored and so I want to.
You know, I won't do it laterand then I eat them and I
(25:59):
immediately go.
I didn't.
Why did I do that?
Why did I, you know, why did Ifeel like I had to just
overthink it and push pasteverything?
I know what is down in therethat makes me want to do it.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
And how much of it is biological and how much of it
is is is emotional.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
So many factors?
Yeah, there's, and that's likeunpacking, figuring.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I think that's why God makes our kids be gone.
Why we're empty nesters now isbecause we've got plenty of time
to figure this out and we don'tneed to be cleaning up after
them right now.
We have to figure this out.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
The ears have stuck to figure out here.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
It's exhausting, it's you know that is so faithful
and he really, when he's and hesays come to me if you're weary
and heavy burdened, I'm going togive you a rest, you know, he
shows us, he gives us the keys,and it is simple, but it's not
easy, no, no, but it's walkinghand in hand with him, going
(26:58):
okay, what can I?
And when we fail and we fall,just learn it's not, don't get
stuck there and don't continuedown that ditch.
Go, okay, what did I?
Just?
Okay, I just blew it.
I just did some, you know, Ijust I don't know.
Since we're talking food, Ijust ate all the things.
Yep, why did I do that.
What can I learn from this?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
What was I lean?
What was it?
Was it boredom?
Okay, so now when.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I'm bored.
What's our new plan for boredomRight?
No yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
I mean, I can't tell you how many times now I have
gone in to my junk drawer,dumped it on the counter and
reorganized it because I'm likeI'm bored, I better do something
, you know, and there's alwayssomething to do.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yeah, I will do that kind of thing sometime, just to
make myself busy.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, and I think it, like you said, it's forming new
habits.
It's.
I told Shayna the other day wewere talking about all of this
and when I was recording themenopause podcast and on part
two, the very first thing Istart talking about are all the
symptoms, the symptom list theygive.
It is the longest list I'veever seen in my life and when I
(28:05):
read them I was like no wonderpeople are so confused.
Right, we have, I was tellingShayna, we have, as a woman, I
know men do too, but I feel likebecause we have some other
traits that and things that mendon't necessarily carry
prevalent.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
More working parts right.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah, that it feels exhausting to try to have to
check off the list.
When I was doing morecounseling and pastoral
counseling and stuff, I wouldhave girls come to me and we
would be sitting down talkingand they'd be like and I just my
life is horrible.
And the first thing I would sayis are you PMS-ing?
Are you on your cycle?
(28:44):
Did what happened to make youfeel this way?
Was it, Was it?
And so I start going throughemotional, spiritual and
physical, and you have to dothat In this phase of life.
I feel like I'm tripling that upsomehow, Like I have.
So why am I eating out ofboredom?
Okay, is that a spiritual thing?
Is that a bad habit I'vecreated?
(29:06):
Is that all of them mixedtogether?
How do I address it?
What would you say when you'recoaching people and talking to
women?
How do you?
Do you have like a I don't know, like a check off list of
something like how do you canaddress these quickly or figure
(29:28):
out or look at why you'refeeling this way or reacting
this way, or those sorts ofthings?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
You know what?
Every situation is different.
I mean, I have notes and I'vestudied and all those things,
but I just I try to listen well,so I can hear what is it, what
are they really saying here?
Because sometimes they're like,oh, I just I do this and I do
this and I just tell me more,you know, tell me more.
(29:58):
And then we start talking andfind out that the kid got in
trouble at school and they'refeeling like a horrible mother,
you know.
And so it's kind of it'stracing back to that.
I had one client who said to meI just I was stressed out and I
started eating pudding and Idon't even like pudding and I
(30:18):
don't know why pudding and I?
said well, did you have puddingas a chocolate?
Was that?
She goes, no, and I'm like well, I'm not sure right now, and
she emailed me two days latershe goes.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Yeah, I talked to my mom, she gave us pudding
whenever we were upset.
Oh, and she didn't even rememberand it was just a natural
comfort response.
Interesting.
So many factors play into allof this and it what I love about
what you're doing is it verymuch is paired with what's
(30:50):
really close to my heart, whichis we call it inner healing or
healing of the heart.
Like a lot of what I do withpeople, and especially with us,
pastoring and just in day to daylife is, hey, let me walk
alongside you here for a seasonand let's talk about why you act
the way you act or what causesyou to react the way you do, and
(31:11):
we work on those internalissues.
What I love is is you'recombining it with also the
physical aspect of okay, also,the food you put in your body is
not helping your body and it'salso affecting your mood because
of the dopamine and theserotonin and the ups and the
downs and the highs and the lowsand all of that I love.
(31:31):
It's really about the wholebody, right, it's about the
whole person body soul andspirit.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
It is all of who we are, and that is it's just.
It's like.
I say it's not like you're a,you're not a problem, you're a
puzzle.
Let's figure this out, becauseGod did he put all these things
in you?
Okay, let's try to figure someof it out, and some of it we
will not figure out on thisearth.
I'm convinced that there's.
(31:57):
You know, I have trauma in mypast and my childhood, and just
yesterday, something came up andI was like oh my goodness, I
learned something about myselfas a child, and I'm like that's
why I respond this way to thatsituation, I mean, and it's we
just so?
The thing is, though, what isso beautiful about what we can
(32:19):
do is because we're Christians,we can take that to the Father
and go learn.
I need your healing in thatarea, and a lot of times, what
I'm learning is that we need togrieve so many of these things
that and I'm sure you're doingthat with inner healing your
things are coming up.
okay, let's unpack it and let'sgrieve the fact that you know,
(32:42):
okay, your mom was a narcissist.
You weren't loved the way youdeserve to be loved as a child.
You know, and I talked to herNarcissism comes up a lot.
It's marriages, families, allof those things, relationships
at work and okay.
So how should you have beentreated, how did you deserve to
(33:02):
be treated?
And you know what.
Bring that to the Father andask for Him to not only help you
hurt from it and then heal youknow to heal through that but we
also can't ignore the fact thatit hurts.
We need to acknowledge thatpain and say, yeah, it's real,
it hurts and maybe we have atime where we sit in that, but
(33:23):
then I'm very, you knowactionable about okay let's move
forward.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Let's make a whole ocean.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
then how do we, what do we do to let God heal that
and redeem that?
From what the enemy wanted todo with it.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Yeah, we had.
I had a lady on.
Her name was Keras.
She was on a few episodes backand we talked about not knowing
how to lament and mourn well, asbelievers, because we just
wanna do the celebrate part.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
We just got it.
We got it all the time and allthe time.
God is good.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Amen, but we don't, I know, but we don't know how to,
like you said, I say to yeah,sit with it.
It's okay to sit in thistension of not being healed yet,
but also, you're not in thismoment back here where you were
hurt or wounded in any kind ofway.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Right, you're saying, but you've not ever felt it.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
You've never acknowledged it and felt it, and
so we're gonna sit right herewith this in this tension and
process through it so that youcan move on from it.
You step on.
No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, andI think that we don't know how
to do that.
Well, in the body, I thinkwe're learning.
(34:39):
I think that there has beenprogress, but even for all of
the healing, everybody's intotheir feels and everybody's
triggered and everybody's got.
It's the trendy thing to talkabout right now.
It's the hot topic, but thereal hard work of it is you
(34:59):
don't stay there.
That's not the purpose of it.
It's just to acknowledge it,talk about it.
It is to move on from it, andwe don't know how to.
I don't know how to sit withpeople well, in those moments
and do it, but I hope we getbetter at it.
You know, yeah, I think we are.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I know for the way I help women through it is I talk
a lot about attachment and thethings I learned by adopting a
child from China who had beentwo years in an orphanage and
had attachment disorder andthrough that process of bringing
her home, getting her attachedto us, which included a year of
(35:41):
really hardly leaving the home,not letting anyone else hold her
, bringing her back to bottlefeeding, because I needed her to
need me, I needed her to dependon me.
I had to create an attachmentwith her that she had never
experienced, ever before shecould attach to others.
And then, as I'm doing all this, god says this is what's wrong
(36:03):
in my body right now is becausewe have basically attachment
disorder.
So how does a child react outof that?
They act out, they rejectpeople, they try to control
every situation, and it's likethis is what's happening with my
children is they are becausethey didn't take that time to
(36:26):
lean in.
Let themself trust me, pause,be still and know that I'm God.
Create that attachment.
We're like orphans, even thoughwe have a family, like if I had
just brought Lauren home anddidn't do any of that, we could
have functioned, but it wouldhave been very dysfunctional.
(36:48):
I mean, it would never havegotten the love that she needed,
she would have never healed inthe ways that her little brain
even needed to heal, to get thatnurturing and all those things,
and I don't believe she'd bethe young woman of God she is
now.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
We talk about this quite a bit.
There's, especially with a mom,the whole attachment.
That's a psychological thing wetalked about it when I was in
school, I've become anaccountant.
But applying it in the body aswell, I think about the classic
story of the loving father, theprodigal and the older son.
(37:29):
I mean living.
We have so long lived likeorphans in the house and we
didn't have to.
We had everything at ourdisposal, we had God right there
to be in relationship with, butwe didn't attach properly.
We didn't.
And so when someone else comesalong and is successful in all
(37:53):
of those ways, it pings us andwe act like orphans.
We try to gather in stuff tokeep it all ours.
We think that someone's gettingour piece of the pie, we think
that we have to scramble to keepour place, all of those things.
But if we were a son and adaughter and not the orphan,
then we obviously are secure inour identity and who we are,
(38:17):
because we're the child of God,we're a king's kid and so we're
royalty.
We don't have to worry about ifthings are at our disposal or
if we have a place.
It's hard because identity.
I do think identity goes downto the base issue of pretty much
everything we experience inlife and, yeah, if we could just
get that one thing really right, I think a lot of things would
(38:41):
naturally fall in place.
I'd want to take care of myselfbetter.
I'd want to be my best.
I would.
I mean, that's just my thoughts, it's not, doctor.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Great.
Well, I think it's cool.
We I mean, don't you think that, as If we make it too easy to
sound like, well, if you jointhis church or this Bible study
or you do this, this will bringthis and this where it's?
Are we really talkingrelationship?
Speaker 1 (39:11):
No, it's consumer driven.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Yeah, and I recently went to a visited a church and I
just felt like it was.
There was a lot of scriptureand it was all good, but it was
all like it was just kind ofbeing thrown and there wasn't
this sense of knowing him asfather or knowing him in a
(39:35):
relationship.
It was.
It was religion, right, and I'mlike man.
I think that's one of thebiggest themes to a relationship
with.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Absolutely.
Well, you can't.
You can't do both.
Religion is the opposite ofrelationship, so you can't do
both.
You have to choose one or theother and you're either going to
go by the rules and do all thethings, or you're going to live
in relationship, which means therules don't feel nearly
astringent, but theresponsibility is heavier and
(40:06):
greater, because now you are.
Now you are not worried aboutconcerned about keeping the
connection, over the need ofbeing right or getting all of
the things right, or all of thethings you know being good, yeah
, being good.
And it's like you said with yourdaughter, lauren, when you,
(40:28):
when God was speaking to you.
That's a lot of how he did withme as well.
When Zoe was little.
You know, we grew up really ina very works oriented.
You know religious experienceand people were great and I
thank God for the foundation Ihave because I've learned so
much from it.
But at the time it was allabout the outward and it was all
(40:50):
about all the things you did.
And when Zoe was born, I canremember God showing me and kind
of talking to me about the factthat he's like Mary, when, when
Zoe falls down and doesn't walkall the way across the room,
like you think she should,because she's walking now and
she stumbles and she falls.
Do you?
(41:11):
Do you pick her up and say youknow what?
You're going to have to sitover here right now until you
figure this walking thing out.
You don't get to be my kid, youdon't get to, you don't get to
do all things.
Do you make her crawl back upinside of you and rebirth her
all over again to let's try thisagain?
Let's you know there was so manythings that he would show me
(41:33):
and I'd be like, well, no, Iwould just say, hey, babe, get
up, don't stay down there, getup and keep moving.
He's like right, why are you sorigid over here when that's not
how I, that's not how I operate?
So I learned a lot with thatkind of thing and I feel like
that.
You know, that identity thingis a huge, huge factor in in in
(41:57):
a lot, and I mean that's stillstuff that you know.
From time to time I have toremind myself hey, hey, come on
now.
That's not who you are, youknow, that's that's where I have
people in my life who get tosay that to me, because I've
given them permission, you know,and they can say those sorts of
things.
Girl, we have been all over theboard today, amen.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
I feel like we need to take up an offering.
I don't know how you're goingto label this, but I'm going to
give this anymore.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Thanks, Sue.
Thanks so much.
Now I'm like a little ofeverything with Sue Kramer.
Thank you, Episode 22.
Episode 22.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I kind of knew it would go this way.
I had a feeling to I had afeeling to.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
This is what.
This is what happens.
Well, let's try to circle backfor a moment.
So what would, what advicewould you give someone in their
in their forties, hitting theirfifties, who is potentially
going through all the changes?
Well, who potentially are goingthrough all of the changes who
am I kidding, Like, if they'rejust kind of getting started
(43:03):
checking things out what wouldyou suggest are some first steps
?
What would you suggest thatthey do?
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Well, goodness, I mean spiritually, emotionally,
physically, I would say.
I mean, if we're going to, I'mgoing to go physically.
Yeah, let's go physically.
Yeah, I'm telling you, as hardas this is, I see the best
results from people who cut asmuch processed food and sugars
(43:32):
out of their life as possible.
Yeah, you, just it's nothelping you, it's really not.
And people think, well, it's,it's essential.
I have to have that, technically, carbohydrates are not an
essential part of food at all.
There are only threemacronutrients protein, fat and
carbohydrates.
And carbohydrates.
If we never had another one notthat you're going to go zero,
(43:55):
but if you didn't, you would befine your liver, your liver,
would produce every bit of sugaryou actually need.
So you technically don't needthem and so I would cut out,
especially the processed stuff.
Second thing I always say don'tdrink pop, don't drink sugar pop
.
Please, please, please.
That's the one thing.
If you stopped in your life,don't drink your sugar.
(44:17):
Yeah, and fruit smoothies arecausing damage to your body.
I know it sounds wonderful, Iknow everybody's, I've got some
information on this too, butfruit smoothies are technically
very dangerous because we'retaking in, we're we're getting
rid of all the fiber and they'revery high sugar, so we're
(44:38):
taking away any part of it thatwould be good for us by blending
it, and then we're drinking itdown and so we're getting a fast
sugar spike that is causingdamage to our liver.
They're seeing so much fattyliver disease now, not due to
alcoholism, but due to sugarintake, and fruit smoothies are
one of the highest.
(44:59):
It's almost as bad and I'veheard doctors say it's worse
than having alcohol.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
No, do do research, don't take that.
Oh no, no, no, no, yeah,absolutely yeah, yeah yeah,
absolutely, absolutely.
So, physically, those are thefirst things I would say.
And then, boy, you know, findout who you are in him, find out
who you are as his daughter.
You know, surround yourselfwith people that make you better
(45:28):
.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yes, definitely, absolutely.
Then turn around and help makesome other people better.
Pass it on, give it away.
Pass it on and give it away.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
That's the best way to get oxytocin is to give.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Oh absolutely.
I agree with that 100 percent.
I agree with that 100 percent.
Have you found that any of yourresearch?
Or when you're talking to women?
I know that I've read somethings and I feel like this is
the path to go.
And this is kind of what I'vebeen doing is converting over to
more strength training as I age, to build muscle, to help with
(46:07):
my bones, and not being asdriven to do that 45 minute
cardio session.
But I feel like if I'm buildingmuscle, that that should also
help burn fat if I do want tolose weight.
But I haven't.
That's what my my doctorsuggested and I'm trying that
(46:27):
because I, first of all, I don'thave the energy to do a cardio
workout anymore.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
I don't know why.
Well, and you're right, and theresearch is proving exactly
what you're saying is true, thatand we are going to it is much
more beneficial to us to do, andI would say, resistance
training, because to me weighttraining is scary sounding.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I can't, I don't want to wait for it.
I'm talking about them, littlelight, dumb bells.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
you know the light hand You're.
You're doing something that'scausing resistance, and some of
that you can get through yogaand Pilates, you know, but it is
definitely a refocusing of ofphysical activity.
I mean, the research is showingwalking is generally way better
than running.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Oh yeah.
And I used to run and I lovedrunning but it was one of those
people.
Oh my God, if you ever see merunning you ever see me running,
it's because somebody's chasingme.
Just, you better run, because Iam not doing it.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
You know what it was.
Here's the thing, here's theother thing.
Is, like I just said,connection.
It was because I was connectedwith a group of girls who did
yeah, sure, it became fun and Iactually enjoyed it and I don't
do it anymore, but I have a newhit this year though.
So that's fun, right, right,yeah.
But yeah, I think it's.
(47:43):
It's important that we movemore period.
What does that look like?
I mean, if that means you canthrow on music and dance around
your house and do whatever greatgo for a walk out in the field.
Getting outside is veryimportant for us and, living in
Michigan, that's a challenge alot of times of the year.
Oh yeah, oh, so yeah.
(48:06):
But yeah, definitely switch awayfrom the aerobic and into the
resistance training and then for, for your heart and think, go
for a walk, but resistancetraining is very, very good for
you.
And they're showing it doesn'teven have to be a lot, right,
that's what they told me to ityou could do like it, like for
(48:26):
me.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
I, when I say weight strength training, I'm not
talking like big, dumb barbellsand things.
I've got five pound weights andeight pound weights and three
weight and doing things that arebuilding high reps, low weights
, high reps, low weights, so youknow your triceps and your
hammer curls and and all ofthings to just strength train,
(48:50):
to help your bones and yourmobility so that you can still
get up and down off the floorand it not be this huge.
You know chore, so you knowthose kinds of things.
Now I will say that I foundthis.
I don't know if you've heard ofthis guy, so I found this dude
(49:10):
who I?
I work from home, so it's hardfor me unless I do it super
early in the morning.
I am not a morning person, Itry to be.
I think it looks so cool whenpeople are like oh, I was up at
five am and I worked out and Iread my Bible and spent an hour
with Jesus, and I'm like I don'teven know if Jesus is awake at
five.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
He's up yet.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
I have a problem with this.
I am never going to be early.
Will I seek you like David?
I guess I'm just going to belike King David, because I can't
do it.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
And I love it.
I'm a morning person, but I'mjealous of your evenings.
Like I'm nine o'clock, I'm apumpkin.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
I'm oh no, yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
So I'm jealous of that.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Oh yeah, Well, the problem is is I'm not really an
evening person.
I discovered I'm, and there'sno name for it.
I'm a good middle of the day.
Yeah, I'm like a 10 am to about3 pm and let me tell you I can
knock everything out in theworld.
I love that, but anyways.
But I found this guy and thishow do you say his name?
(50:10):
Keoni Tamayo.
He has YouTube videos out andthey are so fun.
He'll have different videos outwhere you can walk with him and
his mom to music, oh, and it'slike get 3,000 steps in in 20
minutes or get 10,000.
But it's fun and he moves andkind of half dances and stuff.
And I'm telling you he is sojoyful about it that I just want
(50:35):
to do it, just because he makesme smile.
And so when I'm standing hereworking and I'm like I'm not
getting a movement, movementenough, I can pop on one of
those videos and just standthere and in my office and go oh
, ok, I can, I can go, I canmove.
So that you know, stuff likethat I've been trying to do.
But it's really weird changingthe mindset that it's not about
(50:56):
the cardio and it's not aboutcardio.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
It's not about low fat you know, all these things
that we were trained to learnand to believe, and boy, it's
blown out of the water now, ohman it has.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
It's crazy.
Ok, one last question for you.
I ask it of everybody that's onmy podcast.
Oh, if you could go back toyour 20 year old self with all
the wisdom, knowledge andexperience you have right now,
what would you say to her?
Speaker 2 (51:32):
Oh my goodness, I mean, I almost made me cry.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
I have a lot of people burst into tears when
they do this.
It's OK, go ahead, it's.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
OK, you know what?
It would be completely relatedto identity, and it would be.
You are enough and you haveevery right to show up and take
space and but in a way, ofcourse, that loves others but
don't be afraid, like, stopbeing afraid to be yourself.
(52:03):
And of course, at that time Ihad no idea who I was, sure, but
I think it would just be Toreally encourage myself to be
more secure and to how do I saythat?
Does that make sense?
I mean, I think I was.
I just think back, I was justso insecure, I didn't know who I
(52:25):
was.
I was a brand new mom and wifeand all those things, and I knew
my identity shouldn't bewrapped up in any one of those
things, but I still, just I hadso much fear and insecurity that
that would be the thing is.
It's OK, it's.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
OK.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
You're going to be OK , you know, and just the
confidence now that I have, notbecause I've achieved some great
thing, but just the fact that,god, you make me exactly the way
I am and that's OK you know, OK, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Yeah, I think if we, that's so good, because I think
if we could get that earlier inlife, it does make things so
much easier.
I tell my girls all the timeyou know, I have a 27 year old
and an almost 17 year old nowand I'm always telling my 16
year old Zoe if, if you wouldjust take advantage of the
(53:22):
experience and knowledge we haveright now about how to know who
you are and to be confident andhealthy and to do things from a
place of love, and you know allof these things, you're not
going to have the baggage I hadin my forties when I was
experiencing this for the firsttime.
You know my late thirties,early forties and going what,
that's not who I am.
(53:43):
That's just a glitch that needsto be fixed.
You know what?
What I always thought that waswho I was, but just that
identity thing.
Then take advantage of it,because it just saves so much
heartache and frustration andloss of relationship and all the
things.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
Could I do it, though , without experiencing all the
things and a lot of the pain?
Speaker 1 (54:08):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know I don't know, maybe a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
Maybe a little yeah and just it's going to be OK
would be a great message.
Yeah, it's going to be OK.
You know you're going to hitsome things and it's going to
hurt and God's going to heal andit's going to be OK.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's so good so I hug Virtualhug.
And hug to everybody out there.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Thank you for listening to our Our our
interesting conversation journeytoday.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
It's been fun it was wonderful.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
Thank you for having me.
And when I get my down the ball, I will have you on my girl.
Speaker 1 (54:49):
I would love that.
That would be so fun.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
I'm going to wait in your moxie because, girl, you
got moxie Well yes, I do, yes, Ido.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
Do yes, I do.
Thank you.
Thank you, sue, thank you.
Well, everybody.
Thanks so much for joining usfor another episode of the Back
40 podcast.
I'll have all of Sue's contactinformation and stuff all the
good stuff down in the shownotes, so be sure to check that
out, sue.
Thank you again for being withme today.
(55:20):
It's been an absolute honor andso much fun and so informative.
We will see you guys on anotherepisode, so come back and visit
us in a couple of weeks, seeyou.
Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of the
Back 40 podcast.
I'm your host, mary Hess.
Thank you for joining me today.
My guest today is Sue Kramer.
Sue is a life coach, a wellnesscoach.
She is helping women over theage of 40 to awaken their moxie,
to take back their spiritual,emotional and physical health,
(00:23):
to be the best that they can bein the second half of life, and
we're going to spend a lot oftime today talking about those
different avenues.
So put your listening ears on,be patient with us.
We are going to jump all overthe place, but it is a really
rich conversation.
I'm excited for you to hearthis interview.
(00:43):
Stay tuned.
Sue is up next.
All right, we're so glad tohave you guys with us today, and
my special guest is Sue Kramer,like I said in our intro, and
Sue and I hmm, sue, how far backdo we go?
(01:06):
I didn't even think about thisbefore we hit the record button
to start talking.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, I started praising coffee back in 2007.
Okay, so I think we all, wekind of connected through all
that.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Okay, that's what I thought.
So the early blogging days prewell right around the start of
when Facebook went viral and weall started using it and trying
to figure it out.
So Sue was one of the ones thatI have actually gotten to meet,
one of my online friends thatI've actually gotten to meet in
person and have a coffee with.
But we went back into the dayswhere Sue would do these ladies
(01:42):
gatherings online and encouragepeople to do them in person,
called praising coffee, and, ohmy gosh, those were so good.
Those were some fun timesgetting to do that with ladies.
I completely had forgotten aboutthat because it was just a
short season that it worked outwhere I could do it, but it was
(02:02):
so fun and really we brought alot of people together from
different walks of life and youwere really good about drawing
people in and giving usresources to kind of make that
happen.
And then so tell us a littlebit about yourself, because I
know life has changed quite abit since then.
Just tell my listeners a littlebit about who you are and what
(02:22):
you do.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, absolutely.
Those were fun days, and thatwas all kind of happened by
surprise myself.
I mean, my husband and I havebeen pastoring for a while, and
then we were never paid forpastoring or for working at the
church, and so when his businessstarted to grow so much that it
needed him more, we had to stepaway from pastoring and we
(02:43):
handed over the church to somegreat leaders, and in that
process I was like well, gosh.
I mean, I was doing women'sministry, leading worship,
writing, bible studies, all thethings and I'm like, well, I get
it that he had to do that, butwhat now for me?
And so I started just bloggingpraising coffee, and it caught
(03:06):
on and people started followingme, and then one night I had a
night out with the girls and Icalled her praising coffee night
and I blogged about it.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
And all of a sudden, all these people are asking me
well, how do I do a?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
praising coffee night and what are your guidelines?
And I'm like you just meet, youknow so, but it's funny, I just
was like really wanted to.
Then I took that as encouragingwomen to meet outside the four
walls of church, just around acoffee table or a kitchen table
or whatever, and share life andso that kind of compelled me.
(03:39):
I did an online magazine forfour years I wrote a booklet on
how to do a praising coffee togo Now since then, so that was a
wonderful wild ride and I gotto travel all over the nation,
visiting all these praisingcoffee nights and gatherings,
which was great.
I met you.
I met Melissa down in Floridaand Renea in California and good
(04:01):
stuff and fast forward justhighlights.
I ended up opening a coffeehouse in 2015, which was
wonderful.
And it turned into kind of afull restaurant and the whole
thing because I don't know howto sit, still, I guess, and had
never five years and then in2020 ended up actually selling
it.
Wasn't again looking to do that, but a situation came up with
(04:25):
this couple who were young andhad no kids, and it was always
their dream.
And I'm like, well, this isperfect, because we were
shuttered for a few weeks withCOVID and I was like, wow, it's
kind of nice to see my houseagain Like this is nice and not
have to go pick up 10 gallons ofmilk every night and then so.
(04:46):
So that was really neat.
And then, just at the time too,being involved in that, I was
involved in our Chamber ofCommerce.
I was the president for a whilein our town and just, I love
business, I love helping peoplestart business, so that was fun.
So then, after I sold thecoffee house, I ended up
coaching and becoming acertified coach through the
(05:08):
Center for Executive Coachingand in that I became very
unhealthy.
Actually, my health kind ofreally took a toll and I wasn't
eating correctly, I wasn'ttaking good care of myself.
I ended up after many years oftrying to figure out what was
going on you and I have talked alittle bit.
(05:28):
I had some issues with hormones,just like you, and I'm on all
the fun things too and thank Godfor them, because they I really
believe they saved my life andI was diagnosed with a mixed
connective tissue disease, whichis it's not necessarily lupus
rheumatoid Hashimoto's, but it'skind of.
All of them can flare at anytime.
(05:50):
So I was having a lot of fun.
Hot mess we call that a hotmess.
I would wake up and I would beso sore I can hardly move and
all these things.
Well, try to shorten the storyup a little bit, and then I
ended up taking, starting totake my health back by what I
ate and what I put in my body,because we were at the point
(06:11):
where they wanted to medicate meand that I'm not a big fan of
medication at all, and so I waslike, okay, let me research this
and let me see what I can do.
Naturally, because I knew thatthere were ways to help with
your, your inflammation andblood sugar and all those things
, and I felt like that was wherea lot of this was coming from,
(06:32):
and so I did and my doctor waslike all right, I'll give you a
little time to figure out whatyou can do before I insist that
you take something.
So I went basically into a verymetabolically healthy diet which
is kind of a low a ketogenicdiet, and I say that carefully
because so many people talkabout a keto diet?
(06:54):
and they buy all this junk ketofood in the store and think it's
a keto diet and why doesn't itwork?
And no, I went on ametabolically healthy way of
living.
So I went to Whole Foods.
I got rid of all the grains andthe sugars and all those things
and after a year, my blood work.
I went and had more blood workdone and it was, I had reversed,
(07:16):
or at least stopped, the effectof the autoimmune in my body.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Wow, oh yeah, that is why.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
And now I'm working on a book and I'm I'm leading
some groups called.
The book is called Awaken yourMoxie, yeah, and it is
encouraging Christian women over40 to find their purpose and
get healthy and get closer toGod.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
That is so awesome.
Yeah, I have so many questions.
We can have so many ways withthis.
Okay, so one of the things,part two we're recording this In
between me dropping part oneand part two of the menopause
thing journey that I recordedand I don't talk about it a lot.
(08:04):
But I mentioned that it'simportant that we change the way
we eat and how we eat, and Ijust briefly talk about the fact
that when I was going to awellness coach, a doctor he used
to be my OBGYN and then heswitched over and started a
wellness center and gotcertified and all those things.
(08:26):
When I was Shannon and I weregoing to him, we started talking
about high protein, high fats,high good fats and then hardly
any sugar.
We didn't go completely nosugar or no carbs, but if we had
carbs, they were the better ofthe junk foods and stuff.
I could not believe howdifferent I felt just doing it
(08:52):
for a couple of weeks because Ithought there's no way I'm going
to be.
I'm not a meat eater.
Oh, the thought of eating somany grams of protein feels
exhausting.
I would rather know.
In my arm my husband was likemeat, yes, well he was so
excited.
I was not excited about it, butwe started doing it and paying
(09:13):
attention to that.
I could not believe how muchthe food changed.
So many things.
So brain fog.
Yeah, my energy is not back towhat it was or what I would
consider acceptable levels yet,but I can tell a difference
because I haven't figured outall my hormones stuff yet, all
(09:34):
the dosages right, but I cantell a difference in the energy
levels just when I eat better.
It is so true, and I hate toadmit it, but it is so true,
that some of those carbs andsugars and stuff will give you a
quick punch but, man, they suckthe life out of you.
On the downside.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So talk a little bit about this metabolic Like?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
what if you were encouraging women over 40 who,
hey, let's bring Perry menopauseand menopause, let's talk about
how that.
What does that look like foryou?
What would you coach them?
Like right away all yoursecrets, because I know you
coach people.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
So well, no, I have, I'll give away everything I mean
.
That's why I do this is to helppeople.
I I do very little that Iactually at this point get paid
for.
It's like I really love to helpwomen.
Sure, and I'm 56 now, so Ibasically helping women
(10:26):
understand that carbohydratesare increasing your blood sugar,
right, and causing you like yousaid you feel good, you get
that punch and you absolutely dobecause it spikes your blood
sugar, and so you get a dopaminehit every time that we eat
something that makes us feelgood.
And what happens, though, isbecause of that spike, then it
(10:47):
drops, because if it's a carb,it's going to spike up.
It's not going to be a goodline.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
You know, we want our blood sugar to be more of a.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I think I'm backwards here.
I know just flowing along, youknow where it's not going up and
down and up and down becausewe're going up every time we
have carbs we're it's releasinginsulin because our, our body
wants to get that sugar out ofour blood and into the cells so
we can do work.
So it's kicking out insulin,which is a hormone I didn't
(11:17):
understand, right, or hormones,great so and then it'll bring
our in our blood sugar down,which makes us basically feel
hungry again.
So we get, if we're eating alot of carbs, we're doing this,
whereas protein we kind of givesus a little bit of a flow and
fat really doesn't raise ourblood sugar at all.
(11:38):
It is so crazy, yeah.
So, again, we want to make sureit's healthy fats, like you
said, yeah, but so, yeah, you'refeeling that brain fog because
your body is fighting that allthe time.
And then insulin is a thank Godfor insulin.
You know, it brings our bloodsugar down and it also tells our
body to store fat.
So here we are eating carbs andI don't know about you but I
(12:01):
like my carbs with fat.
Yes.
So, that's usually how I'mdoing chips and cheese.
I know.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Just can't get one without the other.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
No, oh, right, and yeah, so that's kind of, but I
don't.
I don't know if I answered that,but metabolic health means
getting their metabolic healthincludes five factors and I'm
going to sneak up my notes realquick here and the main
components of that are obesity,high blood pressure, high blood
(12:30):
triglycerides, low cholesterol,HDL cholesterol, which is the
one we want higher, and theninsulin resistance.
So it's those things that makeup metabolic syndrome.
So I really try to focus moreon that than I do on keto, you
know.
I mean, I just feel like it'sgotten such a bad name because
(12:54):
it's coming as this bad diet andthere's nothing.
I think it's the mostancestrally appropriate way to
eat, really.
So yeah, yeah, Well.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I.
I feel like what I've had to do.
This is the weirdest thing.
This is what I've noticed in mylife and I was telling someone.
The other day I was talking toone of the girls at church I
think it was, and she's in her30s, and I was talking about how
I, I you know we've got severalfactors going on here.
First of all, I'm 52.
(13:30):
And I think that I didn'tremember I lived on a farm with
my family until I was almost 20.
And we ate, for the most part,everything we made.
You know, we had a garden andwe had animals that we
slaughtered and packaged themeat, and mom would buy things
from the grocery store.
So it wasn't like we didn'thave things, but it didn't
(13:50):
consume the majority of our diet.
And, of course, the governmenthad different regulations and
stuff on foods and how they werepreserved and all the things.
Back in the 70s and before theystarted, everything started
changing.
So I didn't, I didn'texperience any kind of issues in
my body until my late 30s,early 40s.
My daughters, on the other hand, started experiencing things
(14:14):
straight out the gate.
You know you have babies whohave issues with milk or have
issues with these foods, orgluten issues or all of the
things.
And on top of that, we now arein a society where diets are not
only to get rid of the fatquick and the weight on your
body, but it's the cool, hipthing to do.
(14:35):
And number three it's you know,it's the newest health craze,
but yet it's a thing whereyou're trying to maintain a
certain look and a certain feel.
And so I've just gotten to thepoint where I'm like, okay, I
want to eat in a way that keepsme healthy and alive as long as
possible.
(14:56):
Number one but I also recognizethat I don't live in a world
where I can grow my.
I'm not at a place where I cangrow my own food all the time.
That's not where we live.
We live on the side of amountain and I don't get direct
sunlight and you know like,maybe someday.
So how do?
How do we do that and change ourmindset from, especially in our
(15:17):
age?
Because, look, I put on 20pounds this in the last month.
I put on 20 pounds so fast andI've all my clothes don't fit, I
feel yuck, I'm trying to getback into exercise and just all
the things you know.
So you've got all these factors.
How do we change our mindsetsabout why we eat like we eat and
(15:41):
that we I don't know how strictyou may have to because of your
physical symptoms issues, butlike I'm trying to not be so
strict on myself that whathappens is I crash and burn and
then I just go off the railsbecause that's my personality
it's all in or it's all nothing.
So how do you encourage peopleto change their mindset to?
Speaker 2 (16:03):
change what they eat.
Right, and you nailed itbecause it's for years.
I would gain weight and loseweight and I've gone to some
conferences now on lowcarbohydrate.
Usa, all these different thingsand some of these really cool
places where I can meet allthese doctors who are doing this
.
And you know what's crazy?
(16:24):
I'm sitting there at a tablewith doctors who know less about
this than me, because they'rejust not taught about all this
and they're taught to foodpyramid.
But what I wanted to say wasthat I had to get to the point.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You know, some of these people have lost like 100
pounds and 120 pounds, andthat's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Well, I lost and gained 48 times.
That's my story.
But what do I have to do?
Different this time?
And I had to finally decide.
It was no longer about what Ilooked like or what size I was,
because I would get to the sizeI want and then I would slowly
just creep back to my old way ofeating and living and I would
(17:06):
be headlong right into it again.
And so I had to decide.
This is my journey of alifetime and, yes, the physical
part of it does affect me, likethe reason.
My health is the biggest thing,and I thought I have six grand
babies now.
You know I want to be here forthem.
I want to be able to walk aroundwith them.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
I want to be able to go through the back fields and
play with them and do all thesethings.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
And I had to decide this was a journey now of my
life, for my health, for therest of my life.
And so when those thoughtswould come of, oh, just have a
little here and do a little ofthis, it's like, no, this is my
life now and I had to.
One of the biggest keys I tryto help my student or my clients
when I'm coaching is helpingthem see themselves differently,
(17:55):
changing their identity.
Because they say that changingour habits, the strength to
changing our habits, is to seeourself as a different person,
like I'm no longer that personwho does that.
I've now changed my identity ofwho I am as a person.
So then when the temptationcomes, I'm like that's not who I
(18:18):
am anymore, right?
So it's literally kind ofchanging the whole way.
I would see myself and say, no,I actually I live healthy now
and I don't eat sugar or I don'teat whatever the bread.
I'm telling you bread is justas hard.
It's not harder for women toquit than sugar.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Oh, I would agree with that a thousand times over.
I would agree with that athousand times over.
Yeah, yes, yes, and I don'tknow about you, but I didn't
want my bread without butter ordipping it in ranch dressing.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
So oh.
I got it.
Perfect vicious cycle.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah .
Yeah, yeah, so I, you know it's.
I hope that even I try to pushthat, even though this is a
podcast that I've created totalk about things in the second
half of life, I hope there arepeople listening who are a
little bit younger, who go.
(19:14):
You know what.
I'm gonna start tackling thisnow because I don't want to get
to a point where I'm playingcatch up and I've already done
damage to my body that takeslonger to correct.
Because you my mom was doctorwas telling me that you, as you,
every decade you have to eatless or, you know, bring your
(19:38):
caloric intake down slightly inorder to just stay where you're
at, because your body naturallystarts converting things to fat
and hanging on to protect yourorgans, to protect who you are
and like for women, especiallybecause we already hold fat so
much easier for childbearing,and that's the way we're
designed.
We can't help it.
That's how God made us.
It becomes easier andespecially then you have your
(20:01):
hormones and all of the thingsthat are playing against you.
So I was about 10 years ago.
I had this epiphany moment andI have found that if I don't
maintain it I have, I findmyself slipping.
So about 10 years ago I waslistening to a sermon and this
(20:22):
lady was speaking at this Iguess it was a ladies event, I
can't even remember now and shesaid that she had a lot of
health issues and she was reallyfrustrated with her body and
she was arguing with God aboutthe fact that why is my body,
you know?
And just I hate it, I hate theway my why is my gut acting like
(20:43):
this?
And I can't figure it out andjust really angry about it.
And God said to her he said hesaid you're a house divided and
a house divided can't standunited right and it will fall.
And he said, and he said to herwould you talk to someone else
(21:03):
Like you talk to yourself?
And when I heard her say that,I was like you know, I was like,
oh God.
And so everything startedplaying in my head how
negatively I talked to myselfand about myself, how often I
deflect compliments and howoften I push off I mean even the
(21:26):
most simplest thing, like oh,that's a cute shirt.
And going, oh my God, I likeI've had it like 14 years
instead of.
You know what I mean.
I'm not really necessarilybeing negative, I just am not
saying thank you.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Oh, I got it on sale.
Oh, I mean.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, I only paid a dollar for it, or you know?
Or your makeup looks so goodtoday, oh girl, I had so many
pieces of acne I had to cover up, are you sure?
You know just weird things.
And specifically with myhusband, who has been a champ
and compliments me all the timeLike I am the sexiest, most
beautiful woman in the world,even with 20 more pounds on me,
(22:01):
and I'm like you know, I'm agood man, Right?
So I have found that if I don'tmaintain my thought life, it
affects everything else, becausethe atmosphere around me
absorbs and takes on, and that'sa spiritual thing, that's a
Godly thing, that's a biblicalthing.
But I have to maintain mythought life, I'm telling you,
(22:23):
and it has been the mostdifficult thing for me this past
summer to do, because Iliterally am not happy with
where I am, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Oh, it's so precious, I love it.
There are so many things thatyou said there that I think we
have to rethink how we get ourcomfort, cause basically, we
were raised, I was raised, foodwas comfort, you saw it, and
good happened, we went for icecream.
I mean so reframing that.
(22:57):
What is my comfort?
Finding comfort in somethingelse besides dopamine, hits of
food, focusing more on gettingserotonin by walking outside, by
doing all these things, not infiguring out how to get beyond
the need for instantgratification.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
You know that instant hit, Cause food is the best
that every time you know.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
It never lets you down.
But then the fast down and thenyou talk, you went into
something that is so incrediblyimportant, and that is that we
have to care about ourselves andunderstand that we are precious
in God's eyes and we arevaluable and God has a calling
and a purpose on us, for us.
(23:42):
That if we are sick andinflamed and mad at ourselves
all the time, I mean I totallyget that.
You know we're gonna struggleto do the things that God's
called us to do.
We have to be able to seeourselves, and really I feel
like I unpack this with womenall day long is okay.
(24:03):
Where did the need for thatkind of comfort come from, you
know?
And then what is the need I'mreally trying to fill, you know?
And how many times does Godwant to be part of that that
fills us?
It wants us to lean on Himinstead of leaning on a dopamine
hit.
(24:23):
Let's face it.
You know it's very similar toaddiction and I studied a lot on
addiction.
I've taken courses on addictionnow and understanding food
addiction.
But it's so much more than food.
Like I said with my clients,I'm talking with them.
We're talking about thespecifics what should I eat,
(24:43):
what shouldn't I eat, when, how,what.
But we almost always bring itback to why.
Why are we doing this?
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Right, yeah, we have to get to the root of the issues
.
Because if we don't, all we dois is we pile these quick little
band-aids or fixes or smoothout, and what happens is is
because we have the smooth outfor a short season, we're like
(25:12):
oh, oh, that feels good, okay,that works, until the next time
when something gets pinged.
And I have discovered that Idon't eat emotionally, I eat out
of boredom, like I'm not asuper emotional eater.
I have talked to some of myfriends who are if they have a
(25:35):
bad day or if they have a, I'mnot.
I don't typically lean that way,but I work from home all day
and if I'm not, if I don't havea busy day, I will automatically
think, oh, I need some chips, Ineed something to do, I need to
go eat some chips.
And I'll be like but I'm nothungry, but they're there and
I'm bored and so I want to.
You know, I won't do it laterand then I eat them and I
(25:59):
immediately go.
I didn't.
Why did I do that?
Why did I, you know, why did Ifeel like I had to just
overthink it and push pasteverything?
I know what is down in therethat makes me want to do it.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
And how much of it is biological and how much of it
is is is emotional.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
So many factors?
Yeah, there's, and that's likeunpacking, figuring.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I think that's why God makes our kids be gone.
Why we're empty nesters now isbecause we've got plenty of time
to figure this out and we don'tneed to be cleaning up after
them right now.
We have to figure this out.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
The ears have stuck to figure out here.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
It's exhausting, it's you know that is so faithful
and he really, when he's and hesays come to me if you're weary
and heavy burdened, I'm going togive you a rest, you know, he
shows us, he gives us the keys,and it is simple, but it's not
easy, no, no, but it's walkinghand in hand with him, going
(26:58):
okay, what can I?
And when we fail and we fall,just learn it's not, don't get
stuck there and don't continuedown that ditch.
Go, okay, what did I?
Just?
Okay, I just blew it.
I just did some, you know, Ijust I don't know.
Since we're talking food, Ijust ate all the things.
Yep, why did I do that.
What can I learn from this?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
What was I lean?
What was it?
Was it boredom?
Okay, so now when.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I'm bored.
What's our new plan for boredomRight?
No yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
I mean, I can't tell you how many times now I have
gone in to my junk drawer,dumped it on the counter and
reorganized it because I'm likeI'm bored, I better do something
, you know, and there's alwayssomething to do.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yeah, I will do that kind of thing sometime, just to
make myself busy.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, and I think it, like you said, it's forming new
habits.
It's.
I told Shayna the other day wewere talking about all of this
and when I was recording themenopause podcast and on part
two, the very first thing Istart talking about are all the
symptoms, the symptom list theygive.
It is the longest list I'veever seen in my life and when I
(28:05):
read them I was like no wonderpeople are so confused.
Right, we have, I was tellingShayna, we have, as a woman, I
know men do too, but I feel likebecause we have some other
traits that and things that mendon't necessarily carry
prevalent.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
More working parts right.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah, that it feels exhausting to try to have to
check off the list.
When I was doing morecounseling and pastoral
counseling and stuff, I wouldhave girls come to me and we
would be sitting down talkingand they'd be like and I just my
life is horrible.
And the first thing I would sayis are you PMS-ing?
Are you on your cycle?
(28:44):
Did what happened to make youfeel this way?
Was it, Was it?
And so I start going throughemotional, spiritual and
physical, and you have to dothat In this phase of life.
I feel like I'm tripling that upsomehow, Like I have.
So why am I eating out ofboredom?
Okay, is that a spiritual thing?
Is that a bad habit I'vecreated?
(29:06):
Is that all of them mixedtogether?
How do I address it?
What would you say when you'recoaching people and talking to
women?
How do you?
Do you have like a I don't know, like a check off list of
something like how do you canaddress these quickly or figure
(29:28):
out or look at why you'refeeling this way or reacting
this way, or those sorts ofthings?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
You know what?
Every situation is different.
I mean, I have notes and I'vestudied and all those things,
but I just I try to listen well,so I can hear what is it, what
are they really saying here?
Because sometimes they're like,oh, I just I do this and I do
this and I just tell me more,you know, tell me more.
(29:58):
And then we start talking andfind out that the kid got in
trouble at school and they'refeeling like a horrible mother,
you know.
And so it's kind of it'stracing back to that.
I had one client who said to meI just I was stressed out and I
started eating pudding and Idon't even like pudding and I
(30:18):
don't know why pudding and I?
said well, did you have puddingas a chocolate?
Was that?
She goes, no, and I'm like well, I'm not sure right now, and
she emailed me two days latershe goes.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Yeah, I talked to my mom, she gave us pudding
whenever we were upset.
Oh, and she didn't even rememberand it was just a natural
comfort response.
Interesting.
So many factors play into allof this and it what I love about
what you're doing is it verymuch is paired with what's
(30:50):
really close to my heart, whichis we call it inner healing or
healing of the heart.
Like a lot of what I do withpeople, and especially with us,
pastoring and just in day to daylife is, hey, let me walk
alongside you here for a seasonand let's talk about why you act
the way you act or what causesyou to react the way you do, and
(31:11):
we work on those internalissues.
What I love is is you'recombining it with also the
physical aspect of okay, also,the food you put in your body is
not helping your body and it'salso affecting your mood because
of the dopamine and theserotonin and the ups and the
downs and the highs and the lowsand all of that I love.
(31:31):
It's really about the wholebody, right, it's about the
whole person body soul andspirit.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
It is all of who we are, and that is it's just.
It's like.
I say it's not like you're a,you're not a problem, you're a
puzzle.
Let's figure this out, becauseGod did he put all these things
in you?
Okay, let's try to figure someof it out, and some of it we
will not figure out on thisearth.
I'm convinced that there's.
(31:57):
You know, I have trauma in mypast and my childhood, and just
yesterday, something came up andI was like oh my goodness, I
learned something about myselfas a child, and I'm like that's
why I respond this way to thatsituation, I mean, and it's we
just so?
The thing is, though, what isso beautiful about what we can
(32:19):
do is because we're Christians,we can take that to the Father
and go learn.
I need your healing in thatarea, and a lot of times, what
I'm learning is that we need togrieve so many of these things
that and I'm sure you're doingthat with inner healing your
things are coming up.
okay, let's unpack it and let'sgrieve the fact that you know,
(32:42):
okay, your mom was a narcissist.
You weren't loved the way youdeserve to be loved as a child.
You know, and I talked to herNarcissism comes up a lot.
It's marriages, families, allof those things, relationships
at work and okay.
So how should you have beentreated, how did you deserve to
(33:02):
be treated?
And you know what.
Bring that to the Father andask for Him to not only help you
hurt from it and then heal youknow to heal through that but we
also can't ignore the fact thatit hurts.
We need to acknowledge thatpain and say, yeah, it's real,
it hurts and maybe we have atime where we sit in that, but
(33:23):
then I'm very, you knowactionable about okay let's move
forward.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Let's make a whole ocean.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
then how do we, what do we do to let God heal that
and redeem that?
From what the enemy wanted todo with it.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Yeah, we had.
I had a lady on.
Her name was Keras.
She was on a few episodes backand we talked about not knowing
how to lament and mourn well, asbelievers, because we just
wanna do the celebrate part.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
We just got it.
We got it all the time and allthe time.
God is good.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Amen, but we don't, I know, but we don't know how to,
like you said, I say to yeah,sit with it.
It's okay to sit in thistension of not being healed yet,
but also, you're not in thismoment back here where you were
hurt or wounded in any kind ofway.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Right, you're saying, but you've not ever felt it.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
You've never acknowledged it and felt it, and
so we're gonna sit right herewith this in this tension and
process through it so that youcan move on from it.
You step on.
No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, andI think that we don't know how
to do that.
Well, in the body, I thinkwe're learning.
(34:39):
I think that there has beenprogress, but even for all of
the healing, everybody's intotheir feels and everybody's
triggered and everybody's got.
It's the trendy thing to talkabout right now.
It's the hot topic, but thereal hard work of it is you
(34:59):
don't stay there.
That's not the purpose of it.
It's just to acknowledge it,talk about it.
It is to move on from it, andwe don't know how to.
I don't know how to sit withpeople well, in those moments
and do it, but I hope we getbetter at it.
You know, yeah, I think we are.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I know for the way I help women through it is I talk
a lot about attachment and thethings I learned by adopting a
child from China who had beentwo years in an orphanage and
had attachment disorder andthrough that process of bringing
her home, getting her attachedto us, which included a year of
(35:41):
really hardly leaving the home,not letting anyone else hold her
, bringing her back to bottlefeeding, because I needed her to
need me, I needed her to dependon me.
I had to create an attachmentwith her that she had never
experienced, ever before shecould attach to others.
And then, as I'm doing all this, god says this is what's wrong
(36:03):
in my body right now is becausewe have basically attachment
disorder.
So how does a child react outof that?
They act out, they rejectpeople, they try to control
every situation, and it's likethis is what's happening with my
children is they are becausethey didn't take that time to
(36:26):
lean in.
Let themself trust me, pause,be still and know that I'm God.
Create that attachment.
We're like orphans, even thoughwe have a family, like if I had
just brought Lauren home anddidn't do any of that, we could
have functioned, but it wouldhave been very dysfunctional.
(36:48):
I mean, it would never havegotten the love that she needed,
she would have never healed inthe ways that her little brain
even needed to heal, to get thatnurturing and all those things,
and I don't believe she'd bethe young woman of God she is
now.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
We talk about this quite a bit.
There's, especially with a mom,the whole attachment.
That's a psychological thing wetalked about it when I was in
school, I've become anaccountant.
But applying it in the body aswell, I think about the classic
story of the loving father, theprodigal and the older son.
(37:29):
I mean living.
We have so long lived likeorphans in the house and we
didn't have to.
We had everything at ourdisposal, we had God right there
to be in relationship with, butwe didn't attach properly.
We didn't.
And so when someone else comesalong and is successful in all
(37:53):
of those ways, it pings us andwe act like orphans.
We try to gather in stuff tokeep it all ours.
We think that someone's gettingour piece of the pie, we think
that we have to scramble to keepour place, all of those things.
But if we were a son and adaughter and not the orphan,
then we obviously are secure inour identity and who we are,
(38:17):
because we're the child of God,we're a king's kid and so we're
royalty.
We don't have to worry about ifthings are at our disposal or
if we have a place.
It's hard because identity.
I do think identity goes downto the base issue of pretty much
everything we experience inlife and, yeah, if we could just
get that one thing really right, I think a lot of things would
(38:41):
naturally fall in place.
I'd want to take care of myselfbetter.
I'd want to be my best.
I would.
I mean, that's just my thoughts, it's not, doctor.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Great.
Well, I think it's cool.
We I mean, don't you think that, as If we make it too easy to
sound like, well, if you jointhis church or this Bible study
or you do this, this will bringthis and this where it's?
Are we really talkingrelationship?
Speaker 1 (39:11):
No, it's consumer driven.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Yeah, and I recently went to a visited a church and I
just felt like it was.
There was a lot of scriptureand it was all good, but it was
all like it was just kind ofbeing thrown and there wasn't
this sense of knowing him asfather or knowing him in a
(39:35):
relationship.
It was.
It was religion, right, and I'mlike man.
I think that's one of thebiggest themes to a relationship
with.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Absolutely.
Well, you can't.
You can't do both.
Religion is the opposite ofrelationship, so you can't do
both.
You have to choose one or theother and you're either going to
go by the rules and do all thethings, or you're going to live
in relationship, which means therules don't feel nearly
astringent, but theresponsibility is heavier and
(40:06):
greater, because now you are.
Now you are not worried aboutconcerned about keeping the
connection, over the need ofbeing right or getting all of
the things right, or all of thethings you know being good, yeah
, being good.
And it's like you said with yourdaughter, lauren, when you,
(40:28):
when God was speaking to you.
That's a lot of how he did withme as well.
When Zoe was little.
You know, we grew up really ina very works oriented.
You know religious experienceand people were great and I
thank God for the foundation Ihave because I've learned so
much from it.
But at the time it was allabout the outward and it was all
(40:50):
about all the things you did.
And when Zoe was born, I canremember God showing me and kind
of talking to me about the factthat he's like Mary, when, when
Zoe falls down and doesn't walkall the way across the room,
like you think she should,because she's walking now and
she stumbles and she falls.
Do you?
(41:11):
Do you pick her up and say youknow what?
You're going to have to sitover here right now until you
figure this walking thing out.
You don't get to be my kid, youdon't get to, you don't get to
do all things.
Do you make her crawl back upinside of you and rebirth her
all over again to let's try thisagain?
Let's you know there was so manythings that he would show me
(41:33):
and I'd be like, well, no, Iwould just say, hey, babe, get
up, don't stay down there, getup and keep moving.
He's like right, why are you sorigid over here when that's not
how I, that's not how I operate?
So I learned a lot with thatkind of thing and I feel like
that.
You know, that identity thingis a huge, huge factor in in in
(41:57):
a lot, and I mean that's stillstuff that you know.
From time to time I have toremind myself hey, hey, come on
now.
That's not who you are, youknow, that's that's where I have
people in my life who get tosay that to me, because I've
given them permission, you know,and they can say those sorts of
things.
Girl, we have been all over theboard today, amen.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
I feel like we need to take up an offering.
I don't know how you're goingto label this, but I'm going to
give this anymore.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Thanks, Sue.
Thanks so much.
Now I'm like a little ofeverything with Sue Kramer.
Thank you, Episode 22.
Episode 22.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I kind of knew it would go this way.
I had a feeling to I had afeeling to.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
This is what.
This is what happens.
Well, let's try to circle backfor a moment.
So what would, what advicewould you give someone in their
in their forties, hitting theirfifties, who is potentially
going through all the changes?
Well, who potentially are goingthrough all of the changes who
am I kidding, Like, if they'rejust kind of getting started
(43:03):
checking things out what wouldyou suggest are some first steps
?
What would you suggest thatthey do?
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Well, goodness, I mean spiritually, emotionally,
physically, I would say.
I mean, if we're going to, I'mgoing to go physically.
Yeah, let's go physically.
Yeah, I'm telling you, as hardas this is, I see the best
results from people who cut asmuch processed food and sugars
(43:32):
out of their life as possible.
Yeah, you, just it's nothelping you, it's really not.
And people think, well, it's,it's essential.
I have to have that, technically, carbohydrates are not an
essential part of food at all.
There are only threemacronutrients protein, fat and
carbohydrates.
And carbohydrates.
If we never had another one notthat you're going to go zero,
(43:55):
but if you didn't, you would befine your liver, your liver,
would produce every bit of sugaryou actually need.
So you technically don't needthem and so I would cut out,
especially the processed stuff.
Second thing I always say don'tdrink pop, don't drink sugar pop
.
Please, please, please.
That's the one thing.
If you stopped in your life,don't drink your sugar.
(44:17):
Yeah, and fruit smoothies arecausing damage to your body.
I know it sounds wonderful, Iknow everybody's, I've got some
information on this too, butfruit smoothies are technically
very dangerous because we'retaking in, we're we're getting
rid of all the fiber and they'revery high sugar, so we're
(44:38):
taking away any part of it thatwould be good for us by blending
it, and then we're drinking itdown and so we're getting a fast
sugar spike that is causingdamage to our liver.
They're seeing so much fattyliver disease now, not due to
alcoholism, but due to sugarintake, and fruit smoothies are
one of the highest.
(44:59):
It's almost as bad and I'veheard doctors say it's worse
than having alcohol.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
No, do do research, don't take that.
Oh no, no, no, no, yeah,absolutely yeah, yeah yeah,
absolutely, absolutely.
So, physically, those are thefirst things I would say.
And then, boy, you know, findout who you are in him, find out
who you are as his daughter.
You know, surround yourselfwith people that make you better
(45:28):
.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yes, definitely, absolutely.
Then turn around and help makesome other people better.
Pass it on, give it away.
Pass it on and give it away.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
That's the best way to get oxytocin is to give.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Oh absolutely.
I agree with that 100 percent.
I agree with that 100 percent.
Have you found that any of yourresearch?
Or when you're talking to women?
I know that I've read somethings and I feel like this is
the path to go.
And this is kind of what I'vebeen doing is converting over to
more strength training as I age, to build muscle, to help with
(46:07):
my bones, and not being asdriven to do that 45 minute
cardio session.
But I feel like if I'm buildingmuscle, that that should also
help burn fat if I do want tolose weight.
But I haven't.
That's what my my doctorsuggested and I'm trying that
(46:27):
because I, first of all, I don'thave the energy to do a cardio
workout anymore.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
I don't know why.
Well, and you're right, and theresearch is proving exactly
what you're saying is true, thatand we are going to it is much
more beneficial to us to do, andI would say, resistance
training, because to me weighttraining is scary sounding.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I can't, I don't want to wait for it.
I'm talking about them, littlelight, dumb bells.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
you know the light hand You're.
You're doing something that'scausing resistance, and some of
that you can get through yogaand Pilates, you know, but it is
definitely a refocusing of ofphysical activity.
I mean, the research is showingwalking is generally way better
than running.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Oh yeah.
And I used to run and I lovedrunning but it was one of those
people.
Oh my God, if you ever see merunning you ever see me running,
it's because somebody's chasingme.
Just, you better run, because Iam not doing it.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
You know what it was.
Here's the thing, here's theother thing.
Is, like I just said,connection.
It was because I was connectedwith a group of girls who did
yeah, sure, it became fun and Iactually enjoyed it and I don't
do it anymore, but I have a newhit this year though.
So that's fun, right, right,yeah.
But yeah, I think it's.
(47:43):
It's important that we movemore period.
What does that look like?
I mean, if that means you canthrow on music and dance around
your house and do whatever greatgo for a walk out in the field.
Getting outside is veryimportant for us and, living in
Michigan, that's a challenge alot of times of the year.
Oh yeah, oh, so yeah.
(48:06):
But yeah, definitely switch awayfrom the aerobic and into the
resistance training and then for, for your heart and think, go
for a walk, but resistancetraining is very, very good for
you.
And they're showing it doesn'teven have to be a lot, right,
that's what they told me to ityou could do like it, like for
(48:26):
me.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
I, when I say weight strength training, I'm not
talking like big, dumb barbellsand things.
I've got five pound weights andeight pound weights and three
weight and doing things that arebuilding high reps, low weights
, high reps, low weights, so youknow your triceps and your
hammer curls and and all ofthings to just strength train,
(48:50):
to help your bones and yourmobility so that you can still
get up and down off the floorand it not be this huge.
You know chore, so you knowthose kinds of things.
Now I will say that I foundthis.
I don't know if you've heard ofthis guy, so I found this dude
(49:10):
who I?
I work from home, so it's hardfor me unless I do it super
early in the morning.
I am not a morning person, Itry to be.
I think it looks so cool whenpeople are like oh, I was up at
five am and I worked out and Iread my Bible and spent an hour
with Jesus, and I'm like I don'teven know if Jesus is awake at
five.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
He's up yet.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
I have a problem with this.
I am never going to be early.
Will I seek you like David?
I guess I'm just going to belike King David, because I can't
do it.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
And I love it.
I'm a morning person, but I'mjealous of your evenings.
Like I'm nine o'clock, I'm apumpkin.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
I'm oh no, yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
So I'm jealous of that.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Oh yeah, Well, the problem is is I'm not really an
evening person.
I discovered I'm, and there'sno name for it.
I'm a good middle of the day.
Yeah, I'm like a 10 am to about3 pm and let me tell you I can
knock everything out in theworld.
I love that, but anyways.
But I found this guy and thishow do you say his name?
(50:10):
Keoni Tamayo.
He has YouTube videos out andthey are so fun.
He'll have different videos outwhere you can walk with him and
his mom to music, oh, and it'slike get 3,000 steps in in 20
minutes or get 10,000.
But it's fun and he moves andkind of half dances and stuff.
And I'm telling you he is sojoyful about it that I just want
(50:35):
to do it, just because he makesme smile.
And so when I'm standing hereworking and I'm like I'm not
getting a movement, movementenough, I can pop on one of
those videos and just standthere and in my office and go oh
, ok, I can, I can go, I canmove.
So that you know, stuff likethat I've been trying to do.
But it's really weird changingthe mindset that it's not about
(50:56):
the cardio and it's not aboutcardio.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
It's not about low fat you know, all these things
that we were trained to learnand to believe, and boy, it's
blown out of the water now, ohman it has.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
It's crazy.
Ok, one last question for you.
I ask it of everybody that's onmy podcast.
Oh, if you could go back toyour 20 year old self with all
the wisdom, knowledge andexperience you have right now,
what would you say to her?
Speaker 2 (51:32):
Oh my goodness, I mean, I almost made me cry.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
I have a lot of people burst into tears when
they do this.
It's OK, go ahead, it's.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
OK, you know what?
It would be completely relatedto identity, and it would be.
You are enough and you haveevery right to show up and take
space and but in a way, ofcourse, that loves others but
don't be afraid, like, stopbeing afraid to be yourself.
(52:03):
And of course, at that time Ihad no idea who I was, sure, but
I think it would just be Toreally encourage myself to be
more secure and to how do I saythat?
Does that make sense?
I mean, I think I was.
I just think back, I was justso insecure, I didn't know who I
(52:25):
was.
I was a brand new mom and wifeand all those things, and I knew
my identity shouldn't bewrapped up in any one of those
things, but I still, just I hadso much fear and insecurity that
that would be the thing is.
It's OK, it's.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
OK.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
You're going to be OK , you know, and just the
confidence now that I have, notbecause I've achieved some great
thing, but just the fact that,god, you make me exactly the way
I am and that's OK you know, OK, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Yeah, I think if we, that's so good, because I think
if we could get that earlier inlife, it does make things so
much easier.
I tell my girls all the timeyou know, I have a 27 year old
and an almost 17 year old nowand I'm always telling my 16
year old Zoe if, if you wouldjust take advantage of the
(53:22):
experience and knowledge we haveright now about how to know who
you are and to be confident andhealthy and to do things from a
place of love, and you know allof these things, you're not
going to have the baggage I hadin my forties when I was
experiencing this for the firsttime.
You know my late thirties,early forties and going what,
that's not who I am.
(53:43):
That's just a glitch that needsto be fixed.
You know what?
What I always thought that waswho I was, but just that
identity thing.
Then take advantage of it,because it just saves so much
heartache and frustration andloss of relationship and all the
things.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
Could I do it, though , without experiencing all the
things and a lot of the pain?
Speaker 1 (54:08):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know I don't know, maybe a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
Maybe a little yeah and just it's going to be OK
would be a great message.
Yeah, it's going to be OK.
You know you're going to hitsome things and it's going to
hurt and God's going to heal andit's going to be OK.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's so good so I hug Virtualhug.
And hug to everybody out there.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Thank you for listening to our Our our
interesting conversation journeytoday.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
It's been fun it was wonderful.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
Thank you for having me.
And when I get my down the ball, I will have you on my girl.
Speaker 1 (54:49):
I would love that.
That would be so fun.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
I'm going to wait in your moxie because, girl, you
got moxie Well yes, I do, yes, Ido.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
Do yes, I do.
Thank you.
Thank you, sue, thank you.
Well, everybody.
Thanks so much for joining usfor another episode of the Back
40 podcast.
I'll have all of Sue's contactinformation and stuff all the
good stuff down in the shownotes, so be sure to check that
out, sue.
Thank you again for being withme today.
(55:20):
It's been an absolute honor andso much fun and so informative.
We will see you guys on anotherepisode, so come back and visit
us in a couple of weeks, seeyou.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com