October 3, 2023 • 51 mins
Do you have beliefs that are holding you back that (no matter what you try), they continue to have a stronghold on you?
In this week's episode of the God Pod, Leanne Ellington shares her personal journey of transforming beliefs through the unique intersection of where "faith meets science"...and where "science meets faith", as we start to unravel how faith and science intersect in transforming your deepest-held beliefs about yourself.
She shares a unique process to transform your own beliefs, but also takes you on a deeply introspective voyage, and candidly discusses her transition from attempting to change her beliefs purely through scientific and emotional tools...to inviting God into the conversation.
She shares her initial struggles with self-worth and the fear of "being alone the rest of her life", and details how she crafted new beliefs that resonated with her core self and how she "backed them up" with carefully-chosen scripture.
Leanne's journey from skepticism to faith, from doubt to trust, ultimately culminated in a profound transformation, including the unexpected and beautiful development of a loving relationship, and this episode invites you to explore your own beliefs and see where "faith meets science" can help you reshape your own self-perceptions.
HOST: @LeanneEllington
To learn more about Leanne, head over to www.LeanneEllington.com, and to share your to share your thoughts, questions, feedback, or guest suggestions instantly, head on over to www.WhatsGodGotToDoWithIt.com.
What's God Got to Do With It is an iHeartRadio podcast on the Amy Brown Podcast network. It's written and hosted by Leanne Ellington, Executive Produced by Elizabeth Fazio, Post Production and Editing by Houston Tilley, and Original music written by Cheryl Stark & produced by Adam Stark
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
If you want to go on a journey. If you're skeptical,
don't worry. Now here to preach, gonn to keep it
clean and talk to me and recall where faith meets
all nature. Get in touch with your creator with a
baking love and jo She even speaks Hebrew. What's that?
(00:31):
What's that? As well? Sendah talking transformation? What's done? Got
to welcome back to what's God got to do with it?
And thank you so much for all the feedback we've
received so far, and thank you to everyone who has
(00:52):
followed or liked or subscribed to the podcast. And if
you like what you've heard, we have so much great
content for you on the way. So for example, next
week we're going to be talking about all about the
faith brain connection and so for all my logic and
reason listeners, I totally have you covered, and we're going
to talk about where faith meets science, specifically where this
(01:14):
self image meets neuroscience. We also have an entire episode
coming up dedicated to what's God got to do with it?
When it comes to food and body image struggle. So
if you struggle with the whole food and body conversation,
or you just feel like it's the one thing you
can't seem to control or get a hold of, and
if you remember, that was my story for most of
(01:36):
my life. We're going to take a deep dive into
what God has to do with all of that. And then,
of course, you just heard the two episodes with Pastor
Kevin Queen, and if you miss those, definitely go check
those out. But we also have some other amazing interviews
that you will get to hear very very soon. So
just make sure that you like and subscribe and come
(01:57):
back every single Tuesday when new episodes of the God
Pod drop. Okay, so before we dive into today's episode,
I just want to bring you back to some important
things we talked about in previous episodes because it really
does bear repeating. So when I first went on my
own quest for surrender, which led me to seek God,
(02:19):
words and language were extremely important to me, and coming
from my background in all things brain and nervous system,
the meanings associated with words have the power to either
create positive or negative neuro associations in our brains. And
that's why when it comes to the words and language
that I'm using, I want you to meet yourself where
(02:41):
you are, so as I'm using words like God or
Holy Spirit or Jesus. You could interchange it with spirit
or universe or higher power or source. Because I truly
believe that experiencing the knowingness of who you are and
stepping into your true worth is the most important thing here.
If you need to change some language in your own
(03:02):
inner conversations to have it resonate with where you are
and who you are right now, then I am totally
cool with that. And the reason I keep emphasizing this
is because I learned how important this is firsthand in
the work that I do in the professional world with
women and teens coming through my stressless eating program. So
when the work that we do goes in that direction,
(03:23):
and of course my clients invite me to meet them
in the spiritual conversation, or when they do invite me,
I should say I am constantly having to meet people
where they are based on their own past experiences. So
from women who were maybe burned by their childhood experiences
of faith, or it was just a touchy spot for
them even though maybe they even know really desired a
(03:45):
deeper connection with God, or to women who identify as
Christians but they were carrying around so much shame that
they had, shame about their shame, or maybe they felt like,
you know, bad Christians because they felt so far from God.
I've even had fellow Jews who, just like me, God
and Jesus or any faith based conversations were not a
(04:07):
part of their culture, so they needed to start with
something like higher power. And you learn that when I
first encountered this Jesus guy as I call him, I
replaced Jesus with the word universe and then eventually God
because that's where I was in my journey. So right now,
I just invite you to meet yourself where you are
in this moment, and trust me when I say God
(04:30):
will show you the words to align what you say
and mean with what you feel. So when it comes
to today's episode, I'm going to share all about how
God helped me heal a really massive and long standing
belief of mine, the belief and fear that I was
going to be alone the rest of my life. But
also I really want to shine a light on the
(04:53):
process and invite you into healing some of your own
long withstanding stuff while I share mine, because I'm going
to share this specific example, but really it's a process
that you can wash, rinse, and repeat to meet you
in your own doubts and in your own shame and
in your own limiting beliefs. And that's where I also
(05:13):
want to point out that my life was not roses
and butterflies. The moment I gave my life over to God.
There were still some residual beliefs that I had tucked
away in the back of my own brain. And for
some of them, I knew they were there, and then
there were ones that were in my blind spot, and
I just couldn't see what I couldn't see. And that's
why I want to be clear that I'm not trying
(05:35):
to paint this podcast, or finding God for that matter,
as some one and done solution to all of life's
problems and circumstances, right, But I do believe that how
we view our challenges and the thoughts and beliefs that
we practice every day, and then of course our identity
and the lens that we see ourselves through all of
(05:56):
that will absolutely make or break how you experience all
of life's problems and who you become in the face
of them when they do come, because trials will come.
It's one of the things we can count on right.
But that's really the beauty of this podcast, Like I
kind of just want to lay it out for you,
and I really plan on laying it out for you
(06:17):
as it happened for me and just invite you into
your own versions of similar conversations. But when it comes
to all this mind stuff, I'm most likely not going
to come at it from the typical perspective that I
see and hear that beliefs are often approached. And this
episode is just one example of what I mean when
(06:38):
I say where faith meets science, because, as you'll learn,
I needed to actually call on my own understanding of
the brain to meet me in my own skepticism and
doubt and fill in the gaps where my faith had
I mean, honestly, they were just gaps, right, And this
is where you'll start to learn more about my semi
obsession with the part of the brain that houses the
(07:00):
self image, and that will connect a lot of dots
to understand what God's got to do with all of
this belief stuff, which you'll learn a bit about in
this week's episode, but in next week episode, I'm really
going to do a deep dive on that. But the
reason I'm even mentioning all of that right now is
because this is the thought process that helped me meet
(07:23):
my skeptical, cynical brain where it was, and like I
shared before, once I unlocked the magic and possibility that
exists within the human body and nervous system. And because
of the neuroplastic, malleable, pliable nature of this machine of
possibility that we all have access to, combined with the
(07:44):
law of cause and effect programming, that we can all
feed it in order to transform slap on understanding why
we do what we do, and why we say what
we say, and why we feel how we feel, and
why we cope with those emotions, how we cope with
them and heck, there is no judgment and no shame,
(08:04):
but in the name of full transparency. You know, I've
used everything from food and Netflix to social media and weed.
And trust me when I say I am not claiming
to be perfect, and it goes without saying that I
don't want you to feel like you have to be either.
So that being said, being exposed to all of the
healing powers of the nervous system on a science level
(08:25):
essentially just primed my mind, my heart, my soul, and
my spirit for seeing what I couldn't yet see on
a spiritual level. But again, and as you can imagine
for any curious, science driven gal, that all of a sudden,
after thirty years, decided she wanted to go find God.
It made me extremely skeptical and cynical about the whole
(08:46):
faith side of things, because again, if there wasn't a
research paper about it, or I couldn't see it with
my own human eyes, I didn't believe it. And that's why,
for the sake of this episode, I want to start
by literally you in your own skepticism and doubt about
your own beliefs, because I believe that's truly how I'm
(09:07):
going to best serve you in shifting them. So let's
just start there. Because you can read all the self
help books in the world, and attend every webinar and
post all the motivational quotes on your wall, and you
can know the Bible inside and out and be able
to recite scripture on demand and technically be very schooled
in all things spirituality or theology. But if you don't
(09:30):
believe in what you're actually saying or reading or doing,
you're going to feel out of alignment. And that's when
that gap between what we say and how we actually
feel and what we actually do can just become a
massive gap filled with broken promises and unmet goals. But
if fake it till you make it and acting as
(09:51):
if and reciting all the scripture hasn't cut it. There's
a big reason why, because there is a science behind
shifting our beliefs. But I also believe that when you
start looking for that crossover where science meets faith and
faith meets science, that's when things really start to get interesting.
And for me, you know, they just got exponentially easier
(10:15):
and calmer and really more aligned. And in my experience,
things started happening that can't not force you to wonder
if there's something bigger at play and that you couldn't
have even imagined or asked for the goodness that ended
up happening. Or on the flip side, you know, when
things don't go your way, I believe it's possible for
(10:35):
you to find peace in the storm so that you
can get back to becoming the version of yourself you
need to become to receive it when it does happen,
rather than taking yourself down a rabbit hole of disappointment
or you know, worrying if it won't happen, which you know,
we are human and that happens to all of us.
But I believe we are in control of how long
(10:58):
and how far and how freak we go down those
rabbit holes of shame, fear, anxiety, worry, disappointment, numbing, soothing,
you know, fill in the blank with wherever we go.
And since I promised to show you where faith meets science,
I think that is really the perfect way to just
walk you through what I want to walk you through.
(11:28):
Since I promised to show you where faith meets science,
I think that is really the perfect way to just
walk you through what I want to walk you through.
So first I'm going to share my own general paradigm
of how I was looking at my own beliefs and
really working with my clients on their own beliefs before
you know this Jesus guy came along. Okay, Then I'll
(11:52):
share how I took that very same process and I
transformed it by simply asking, you know, what's God to
do with my beliefs? And I just invited him into
the conversation. And then I'm going to share one of
my own big hairy beliefs as it showed up in
my life, and I'm going to be totally vulnerable and
(12:12):
not hold back. But also just to heads up that
this episode is going to give you more or less
like a high level overview of this process and walk
you through an example. But this whole belief's topic, it's
a massive subject and we as humans, we have so
many three dimensional beliefs that we carry around with us.
(12:32):
And that's why I'm so excited to start that conversation
now and give you a new way to approach your
own beliefs and invite God into conversations that just like
I was, you know, trying to human your way through it.
And don't worry, because I'll have future episodes where I'm
going to go narrower and deeper into more specific beliefs
(12:54):
and topics that you can explore within your own relationship
with God. Okay, so specifically, today, I'm going to walk
you through my former fear of being alone the rest
of my life, which you'll learn wasn't really the real fear.
That's just what I thought it was. But we have
beliefs about everything, and I'm gonna share mine in order
(13:19):
to help you relinquish your own shame so that you
can reconcile your own beliefs. And so I'm going to share,
you know, beliefs about my body and fears about money,
you name it. I'm going to share them, and we
will look at all of those and more in specific
episodes moving forward. But back to where faith meets science
and science meets faith. So let's start off with the
(13:41):
science and maybe you know, for lack of a better
way of saying it, the logic and reason side of this. Okay,
So those deepest held beliefs that we have about ourselves, right,
the ones that have been haunting us the longest. Maybe
they're the deepest, like they have the deepest roots or
the longest threads, and the one ones that are really
the most painful or maybe they just created the most
(14:03):
shame for you. And whether you're aware of it or not,
those beliefs become your self image. Okay, those become the
goggles that you see yourself through. So if you do,
or maybe you have been for a while, either telling
yourself that you're unworthy or unlovable or undesirable or a disappointment,
(14:25):
a failure, maybe you're telling yourself that you're living beneath
your potential, or that you're weak willed, or a self
sabotage or just fill in the blank. So if you've
actively and consciously been telling yourself stuff like that, or
if you didn't even know you were saying those things,
and maybe it was unconscious or subconscious, right, simply put,
(14:46):
those beliefs become your self image and how you see yourself,
how you perceive yourself and what you believe to be
true about yourself, and if you're really not aware of it,
you start to become identified by those things. So for me,
it started showing up as me trying to prove that
(15:07):
I was attractive or lovable or needed or wanted or
successful or all those things. And like I did what
I had to do to feel like I was proving
those things. And so that meant that I was chasing
things like skinny or popular, or chasing a relationship. And
you know, there's no shame about it. It's really how
(15:28):
our brains and self images work. We really start chasing
after what we value because we as humans, in some way,
shape or form, we want to feel like we are
increasing our own value or our own worth. It's just
kind of a human part of us. But I believe
that this can become super dangerous if your value is
(15:50):
solely determined by things like, you know, gene size or
bank balance or scale weight, or relationship status or likes
or hearts on Instagram or Facebook or fill in the blank,
with all of those worldly, quantifiable pursuits, because then our
whole identity becomes wrapped up in that. Okay, it's all
(16:10):
we think about. We chase it, Heck, we sometimes obsess
over it. And again, I've obsessed over so many things
thinking it would make me happy, only to find out
that I was chasing the wrong things. And that's why
I'm not here. I'm not calling you out. I'm calling
it out and showing you I've been there too, and
there's no shame. But until we become aware of it
(16:33):
and actively shift our gaze and renew our minds and
posture our hearts and spirits in a different direction, unfortunately
it will stay that way. And I'm not trying to
be all doom and gloom here, like, I'm just really
trying to keep it real and share what I wish
somebody had told me years ago. So really, that's my
(16:54):
first invitation for you. I just want to invite you
to try on this idea that you you can shift
your beliefs and take on a whole new identity, that
what you've been chasing and what you've been valuing doesn't
have to be the thing going forward, and what you're
believing about yourself doesn't have to be what you believe
about yourself moving forward. Okay. But while you're doing that, like,
(17:18):
while you're trying on this idea that wow, maybe I
can shift my values and I can shift my beliefs,
there's something else that's really important that I want to
bring up. And again we're staying on this logic and
reason side for a moment, right, So, when it comes
to shifting your beliefs and your identity, your self image
knows how you really feel deep down inside. Okay. So
(17:42):
if you are trying to step into a new belief
that deep down you truly don't believe, or maybe you're
thinking that you're lying to yourself, your brain and nervous
system can actually detect that. Okay. And I'm just going
to give you the cliff notes version of this, and
I'm not going to get too but you're gonna want
to keep this in mind as we go. So every
(18:04):
thought that you think and every feeling that you feel,
it has a physical, chemical, biological response kind of like
a frequency. Okay, and it's actually a very researched, well
known science, but it's not really often talked about in
the mainstream world. Okay. But on top of that, thoughts
can also lay down two very different types of pathways
(18:27):
in your brain called neuro associations. Now this is the
second time I'm mentioning that neuro association's word in this episode.
But you're either laying down positive neuro associations or negative
neuro associations. So you might be wondering, like what determines that,
How is it going to be negative? What's going to
force it to be positive? And the simple answer is resonance,
(18:49):
Like does it resonate with you? And here's what I mean. So,
let's say that you say something to yourself that does
not feel true, right, or it does does not resonate,
or you're outright calling it out as a lie. In
the back of your mind, your brain will lay down
those negative neuro associations alongside that thought and that lie
(19:12):
or that belief that you don't really believe it's actually
gonna work against you changing your beliefs and you're never
really truly gonna download it or believe it, and it's
not going to become part of your self image and identity. Okay.
But on the flip side, if you meet yourself in
your doubt right or in your unbelief and you use
words that actually feel true or they meet you in
(19:37):
the unbelief right and it resonates. When your brain experiences
truth and something resonates with you big time, it lays
down those positive neuro associations alongside that thought, and those
positive neuro associations are kind of like the secret sauce
for transforming your beliefs in a way where it just
(19:57):
becomes your new reality because it aligns. Okay, So that's
really the oversimplified version. Like the bottom line is, don't
outright lie to yourself as you're choosing new beliefs. You
want to choose beliefs that really resonate with you and
meet you where you are, even if you feel doubt,
because if you really do want to change your beliefs
or believe in new reality, it's got to feel good,
(20:20):
it's got to feel true, and it's got to resonate
otherwise you're not really gonna believe it. And that's why
I keep telling you in every episode, I'm like, hey,
don't just take my word for it. Don't just like
you know, lie to yourself if you don't believe it, right,
try it on, see what fits, and ditch the rest.
And that's why, because I want this to really land
for you. And this is actually a good time to
(20:41):
share another distinction and it's really one that changed the
game for me when I first started even entertaining this
idea of going on a faith journey. It's this the
difference between thinking thoughts of positive anticipation or positive expectation,
or thinking thoughts of negative anticipation or negative expectation, okay,
(21:04):
as in, you can negatively anticipate the future aka you know,
fear or anxiety or worry or dread fill in the blank.
Or you can positively anticipate the future you know, hope, belief,
positive expectation and really like focusing on a solution or
like an action that will move you forward. And this
(21:25):
is something that only you can choose, okay, And trust me,
I get the irony of this because this is where
faith comes in, right, And as I said, when I
first found God, and I still say it today. It
takes faith to have faith, Like it takes faith to
believe in what you can't yet see, and it takes
faith to have that positive anticipation or positive expectation. It
(21:49):
takes faith to have faith. Okay. And I used to
say this too, and I hear it from others all
the time, and it's this idea of you know, but Leanne,
I don't have any guarantee that it will happen, and
I don't want to get my hopes up or be
too optimistic. And I totally get that side of it too,
But I'm not talking about delusional optimism, right, I'm not
(22:11):
talking about you know, magic genie lamps or prayers for
winning the lottery or anything like that. I'm just inviting
you to at least see that you don't have to
choose negative anticipation. You can choose to positively anticipate your future.
It really is just a choice. And the super interesting
(22:31):
thing about this, and this is the last time this episode,
I'll get a bit geeky, but I find it super
interesting that anxiety and excitement. Okay, yeah, you can imagine
anxiety and excitement. They are two very different experiences for
us as humans, but anxiety and excitement they look very
(22:52):
similar on a brain scan. Okay, and so oversimplifying it again,
isn't it safe to a say that in anxiety is
just a negative anticipation or expectation of your future, while
excitement is really just a positive anticipation or expectation of
your future. Right. But both of these things are a perception,
(23:14):
and they're a perception that you can choose any day, anytime,
any moment, so you can either worry about what might
happen or just positively anticipate that it will all work
out right, or maybe even hopeful and prayerful about what
might happen. And both of these scenarios are literally all
manufactured in your head. And I'll repeat you know, this
(23:38):
is where the faith comes in, and sometimes that is
not easy. Right. But also coming back to this idea
of meeting you in your current doubts and belief that
whole it has to resonate with you factor that that's
why as I'm taking you through the process I'm about
to take you through. You don't want to just jump
(23:58):
from a belief of like, you know, so I am
unworthy or ugly or unlovable or fill in the blank,
like one of those really like dark, deep beliefs. You
don't want to jump from a belief like that and
try to take a massive leap over to No, you
are worthy and lovable and your dream body, your dream job,
your dream relationship is right around the corner. And I know,
(24:19):
I know, I see some of the same fake positivity
on Instagram that you see and even though yeah, that
might actually be true, like your dream job might be
around the corner, and your dream relationship might be around
the corner. Right, But going from I'm unworthy or I'm
unlovable to no, you are worthy, you are perfect without
(24:40):
meeting yourself where you are right now, Like, no, you're
probably not gonna believe that right now. I wish you would, right,
But it's a very very big it's really a massive
leap of from where you feel right now to where
you want to eventually get to. And like I share
before that big of a leap, and you saying some
something that you don't really deep down believe it will
(25:03):
actually undermine you overhauling your beliefs if you feel like
you're flat out lying to yourself. Okay, So you've got
to meet yourself where you are in your doubt, because,
like I said, your self image knows how you really feel.
So it's got to feel good, it's got to feel true,
and it's got to resonate or at the very least,
it can't just create that dissonance. And for me, this
(25:23):
all happened in phases, like it wasn't an overnight thing.
And this is actually the perfect time to share another
kind of important sidetrack. So when I first started my
faith walk, I was trying to get connected at cross
(25:44):
Point and I ended up working with one of the
high school ministries called the Teen Dream Center. And the
man who runs that ministry, Ketric, who is unbelievably wise
and gifted and will be a guest on this podcast
very soon, so you'll meet him. Well. Ketrick me about
something called Freedom Prayer, and essentially Freedom Prayer, it's this
(26:05):
personal prayer ministry where anyone can just schedule a focused
prayer time with a member of the Freedom Prayer team,
and really it's designed to help you recognize and resolve
anything keeping you from having a close relationship with God.
So I scheduled a Freedom Prayer session pretty much right away,
honestly not even knowing what it really was. And that's
(26:25):
actually a funny story for another day. But now I'm
actually on the prayer team and I serve on the ministry,
and there's so much goodness that I could share about that.
But the reason I'm sharing about it now is because
once again there was now something else that connected with
me and resonated with me so deeply and so instantly.
And now I know that it was because it aligned
(26:47):
with what I already knew about the human brain. And
you know what I knew about addressing hurts and wounds
and identifying and breaking strongholds and how to bring healing
and freedom. But in the case of free prayer, it
was all with the purpose of knowing God better. And
in my case, for me, that really meant seeing myself
through God's eyes, which, like I shared, at that point
(27:09):
in time, that wasn't really even on my radar. So,
you know, overhauling beliefs cool, you know, but seeing it
through God's eyes definitely new to me. Because remember I
was still trying to strictly brain change my way through
my beliefs, and yes, I was using the emotional tools
and they were working really well. But I didn't have
the spiritual tools yet that I needed to break through
(27:30):
some of those longwithstanding beliefs. And this is why God's
timing is so good, because as I got more and
more involved with freedom prayer, one of the massive gifts
that God gave me through that process was was this
concept in language of something that they call unbiblical beliefs. Okay, Now,
again keep in mind, at this point I had been
(27:50):
teaching beliefs for over a decade, but this concept of
unbiblical beliefs like that felt revelatory to me. And I
immediately saw that my old beliefs or you know, now
I see them, that they were just lies and non
truths that I was telling myself. But you know, at
the time, like I could come up with these new
Liande versions of the truth, right, and that is a
(28:12):
really important step, right, Like you definitely want to see
it through your own eyes. But now I was seeing that, like,
what if there were also these unbiblical beliefs and I
could prefer to scripture and God's words about the truth
and find biblical truths about these unbiblical beliefs, Like that
was something I had never thought about or tried to do.
(28:34):
So I literally and again talk about just trying things
one and throwing stuff at a wall and see what sticks.
I literally just started googling things like what does the
Bible say about shame? Or what does the Bible say
about being alone the rest of your life? Or what
does the Bible say about body image? And it really
(28:55):
ended up being like this gateway of inviting God into
my science and brain experiments. So now you're probably starting
to see all of these pieces coming together. And like
I said, it's my version of where science meets faith
and faith meets science. So first, remember, there was this
paradigm I was seeing things through of how I was
looking at my own beliefs and working with my clients
(29:17):
on their own beliefs before this Jesus guy came along, right,
But then when I took that very same process and
transformed it by simply asking what's God got to do
with my beliefs and I invited him into the conversation,
that's when everything transformed. So let's look at a specific
(29:38):
belief so you can see how this played out in
reality and you can kind of get a picture in
your mind of what I mean. So this is a
belief and the story that I had been painting in
my mind and my brain and heart for a very
long time. So again, lots of deep roots on this one.
And it was fear about being alone the rest of
my life and my belief that I would never find
(29:59):
somebody to love me. So again, this one ran deep
for me, like really really deep. And you heard my
shame story on episode one, a scientist goes looking for God,
but just to paint the picture. You know, I grew
up hearing things like she'd be so pretty if she
lost weight, And you know, my childhood and most of
my teen years were spent you know, being friends with
(30:20):
all the boys, but never having me them like me
like that, you know what I mean. And that caused
me to believe from a very young age that there
was something wrong with me, and that I was unlovable
or unworthy of truly being loved for all of me
and in all honesty. Later in life, that became the
belief that I was unmarriable. Okay, So again, these these beliefs,
(30:42):
they start somewhere and then they grow weeds and they fester.
Because I'm sure you can imagine how this belief that
started out when I was a little girl. It kept
growing weeds and festering all the way into my mid thirties.
And that's conveniently when the incessant like so when are
you gonna get married and settled down questions started happening.
And even though I was loving and supportive of my friends,
(31:02):
if I'm totally honest, I was starting to get really
jealous of all of the people's weddings and baby showers
I was attending because secretly I felt so alone. And yes,
in many ways I felt behind in this world, like
because I wasn't married in my mid thirties, I was
some sort of epic failure. Right now, Obviously, these are
(31:22):
beliefs which I eventually reconciled. But if you're listening to
this right now and you've experienced anything similar yourself, you
know what I'm saying. Okay, these beliefs are hard on you,
and they can be heartbreaking, you know. But also, the
sneaky thing about this belief in particular that I'm talking about,
and you know, the fear of being alone the rest
(31:43):
of my life, the sneaky thing about it is that
this was not the true belief that I needed to
face head on. In fact, I realized that how I
was feeling had little to do with whether or not
I was married or even getting closer to being married.
Because of God's grace, I had the awareness to start
seeing things like, hmm, interesting, my clients that are happily
(32:08):
married or have kids or grandkids, they have some of
the feelings and fears that I do, right, the fear
of rejection and the fear of abandonment, and the fear
of really being seen and really being known for all
of who they are, like even the dark parts. And yeah,
like they felt it too, Yet they had the marriage
and the family the things that I was like swearing
(32:30):
would make me feel the way that I wanted to feel,
It would make me feel whole and complete. Right, but
I'm seeing it. I was like, wait, they have marriage, Like,
so it's not marriage that's causing this, right, And that's
when God gifted me the wisdom to see that again,
it wasn't really about my circumstances, which I very much
labeled and identified with the word single at the time,
(32:50):
by the way, but it wasn't about that. It was
about the state of my heart and really the beliefs
that I was repeating over and over again about my
circumstances and the deep beliefs. If I'm truly honest, the
deep beliefs were really, no one will ever fully love me,
and no one can air quotes handle me, and if
(33:13):
they find out who I really am, they'll reject me
or leave me or fill in the blank because I
am not worthy of being loved for who I am.
That was it, Okay, that was the deep down belief.
I am not worthy of being loved for who I am.
And it wasn't the fear of being alone the rest
(33:34):
of my life. That was the symptom of the deeper
belief about myself, which was that I'm not worthy of
being loved for who I am. And I was unconscious
of that deep like the true belief until I wasn't. Right.
That's why I say it's sneaky, right, because you're unconscious
until you aren't anymore. And so once I became conscious
of it, that's when I you know, like I said,
(33:56):
the first step for me was to make it over
as Leanne the scientific thing, being self image seeker and
meet myself in my doubt and my skepticism, because you know,
saying to myself things like Leanne, your person is out there,
you will find him. Like the kind of generic stuff
that people say to that, right, that was also the
stuff that didn't feel true to me at the time,
(34:17):
because that's the kind of stuff that was way too
painful to say because I had no evidence of the contrary.
And keep in mind, I was still super new to
the faith side of things, so naturally I just started
with what I knew, which was the science of the
self image and self image. Leanne made over the belief
by saying, Okay, Leanne, like you're right. Whether you think
(34:40):
it's possible or whether you think it's not, you are right.
But now it is time to stop perpetuating the negative
anticipation that it's never gonna happen, because that is something
in your control. And I kind of like had to
adult myself. I was like, Okay, LeeAnne, like I see
you where you are, but like we are done taking
ourselves down that spiral of negative anticipation. At least, let's
(35:03):
stop that. Like I'm not trying to convince you to
believe that what's possible, but I'm just stop telling you
to stop the ti rate of unbelief. Right, And this
next part, remember this is still that crossover time in
my life where I was still just really beginning my
relationship with God. So I know, I just said it
was my logical self image brain, but some of the
(35:25):
realizations I had, like I look back at that now
and I know they were a gift from God because
what I saw and heard next was beyond me at
that point in time. Okay, Essentially I heard God say, Leanne,
the work is not hoping that a man finds you
lovable and worthy. The work and the path is you
(35:47):
seeing that in you. It's time for you to go
find yourself lovable and worthy. So go work on that,
Go think on that, and ask me aka God to
help you fill in those gaps. And so naturally, as
you can imagine, after hearing that and seeing that, it
gradually switched to a less you know self imagy brainy
(36:10):
conversation and became more of a God conversation. So at
this point I had my new you know, I'll call
on LeeAnne beliefs that were going on in the background,
just reminding myself like, nopely and we are no longer
feeding the negative anticipation. The new focus is this idea
that the work is not hoping that a man finds
you lovable and worthy. The work is fine is that
(36:33):
you find yourself lovable and worthy and find the lovableness
and worthiness in yourself first. And so that became my prayer. Right.
So instead of and here's another big distinction, right, instead
of praying and asking God to send me a man
or send me a husband, I asked God to help
me fill in the lovableness and the worthiness gaps for myself.
(36:55):
And then, like I shared, as my faith life started increasing,
my new bl and new prayer became, Okay, Leanne, God
is doing his work in you right now, so he
can prepare you to actually feel worthy of receiving the
love that He has for you. But on top of that,
I stacked on this new layer of prayer and belief
(37:17):
because again, like God starts painting pictures in your brain,
it's like you just roll with it, right, And so
I started saying, Okay, while I'm doing this work on
myself and connecting to myself and connecting to God, the
man for me is doing the work on himself too
and connecting to God himself, and he's preparing himself for me. Right.
(37:38):
And again, it was literally a shift from negative anticipation
to positive anticipation, but one that still met me in
my doubt and one that redirected my emotional and spiritual gaze.
And boy did God deliver on that. Okay, And spoiler alert.
At the time of recording this, I'm about six weeks
(38:00):
away from marrying the love of my life. Who I
get to be all of who I am unapologetically and
receive all of the love that He has to give,
and I feel worthy of receiving it. Right, and again,
this was not who I was a few years ago.
But another spoiler alert, right, he was also doing the
work on himself. And when I met him, you know,
(38:22):
he had been meeting with a counselor to work on
his own mental and emotional health and he was renewing
his own relationship with God before we met. So like,
is that a coincidence? I personally think it's not. But
we can talk about that more another time. So yeah,
(38:46):
that's kind of how it all started, okay. And that's
how I started simply inviting God into my beliefs about
myself and really contributing to my shifting identity through his eyes.
But that's just how it's stars. There's one more layer,
don't you worry. And remember it didn't start out like
as a conversation with God right at first. It was
(39:07):
more a logic and reason thing to meet myself in
my own doubt. And even though I was connecting with
God in my own life at that point in time,
the beliefs were still a lot of my own doing.
Maybe there was a little bit of God, but it
was still me trying to kind of human my way
through it. But that's where now I'm going to connect
that final dot that I shared earlier, which was the
revelation I got from freedom prayer right. And so again
(39:29):
it's no coincidence that the timing all this it lined
up with my experiences with freedom prayer and looking at
my belief but all of my beliefs, I should say,
not just this one through the lens of you know,
is it where's the unbiblical belief versus creating a biblical belief?
And wow, like just that distinction added gasoline to the
(39:50):
fire that I had already started. So, like I said,
I simply started with identifying the old belief and the
negative anticipation that I had been, you know, practicing day
in day out, and I shifted the belief in the
eyes of my own language and thoughts. Okay, but then
this next part what really changed the game for me
was referring to God's words about my problems or circumstances.
(40:13):
And that's where, like I said, I literally just started
googling things like what does the Bible say about being
alone the rest of your life? And what does the
Bible say about shame? And what does the Bible say
about body image? And it ended up kind of being
again like this gateway of inviting God into my science
and brain experiments, and once again I just met myself
(40:34):
where I was in my skepticism, in my doubt, but
also my desire to believe, because that was the whole
point of this, Like I wanted new beliefs, like I
didn't want to be in that downward spiral, right, And
in the midst of that doubt and that belief I
realized that some of the scripture I was coming across
it didn't necessarily speak to me or make sense to
(40:56):
me just yet. So I would just find the ones
that did and the ones that spoke to my soul
and really cut through those unbiblical beliefs that I've been
practicing and those were the ones I would roll with,
because remember, resonance is everything. So here's what it looked
like now, after I added what I'm calling the God lair. Okay,
(41:19):
so we remember the liar, the old belief, right like
that no one will ever fully love me, that no
one can handle me, and that if they find out
who I really am, they'll reject me, leave me fill
in the blank because I am not worthy of being
loved for who I am. Right then I added my
new liean belief, and you'll remember that that was okay, Leanne.
(41:39):
The work was not hoping that a man finds you
lovable and worthy, and you're not praying for God to
send you a husband. The work is for you seeing
that you're lovable and worthy in you, seeing that in you,
and it's time for you to go find yourself lovable
and worthy. So go work on that, and go think
on that and ask God to help you fill in
(42:00):
those gaps. And now I was ready to add the
God layer and what I call my godly beliefs. And
that's where, like I said, I just started finding scripture
that spoke to me and resonated. But also that just
solidified the beliefs that I was trying to establish. Okay,
So for example, I found scripture from Psalm thirty seven
four that said, take delight in the Lord, and he
(42:25):
will give you the desires of your heart. And that
was the NIV version of Psalm thirty seven four, and
that reminded me of my commitment to stop looking for
love from a man to make me feel lovable, and
to build that love within myself by immersing myself in
my relationship with God and seeing myself through God's eyes
to as he says, take delight in the Lord, and
(42:47):
he will give me the desires of my heart. So
that was one scripture that really supported my new beliefs.
I also found this scripture from Isaiah thirty four to
sixteen that totally gave me peace, and it said look
in the scroll of the Lord aka the Bible. Look
in the scroll of the Lord and read none of
these will be missing, no one will lack her mate,
(43:11):
for it is his mouth that has given the order,
and his spirit will gather them together. And that was
from Isaiah thirty four to sixteen, also the NIV version.
But this scripture it just reenforced, like Leanne read the
Bible fill your heart with biblical truth. And God literally
said no one will lack her mate. It doesn't say
(43:32):
his mate. Okay, sorry, guys, this is how I read it, right,
It says her mate. And I remember the first time
I read that, I took that as him talking to Leanne, right,
and I took that as him saying, like, He's going
to do this for you. And the scripture goes on
to stay say like his spirit will gather them together,
like it's not of your doing, Leanne. That's what I
kind of kept telling myself that, And that was my
(43:53):
reminder about the faith part of this, because that's the
part that was so hard coming from my normal like hey,
I have to go do it and control it and
force it and like make stuff happen and white knuckle
like that was my old mentality. Right. Faith is still
like a new concept to me at this point. So
you know, again reminding me that faith, like, Leanne, have faith, like,
(44:13):
let God do a work in this and to focus
on who I'm becoming rather than obsessing over finding a husband,
And that in itself brought me so much peace. Okay.
So now that's two different scriptures that reinforce kind of
like two different elements of the new beliefs I was
trying to establish. But there was one more I found
that really sealed the deal for me on this belief
(44:35):
and it kind of like hit on a point that
was not super obvious to me at first, and it
was this scripture from Tewod Corinthians six fourteen, and it said,
do not be yoked together with unbelievers, for what do
righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can
light have with darkness? And this scripture it's pretty it's
(44:57):
pretty popular, I would say, I don't know if popular
is the right word, but it's a common, well known scripture,
and it's interesting because it actually usually gets brought up
when you're talking about finding your mate or finding your
husband or wife. And I did reconnect to this scripture
when it came to actually, you know, entering into a
relationship with somebody. But for this belief. I was actually
(45:18):
drawn to this scripture based on this idea of me
being yoked together with myself. And when I read do
not be yoked together with unbelievers, it made me realize
that I was the unbeliever yoked together with like the
believer side of myself like I was. I was split
(45:39):
in two. Right, I had hopes for love and worthiness,
but I was yoked to a version of me that
was calling myself unworthy and forgetting who I am in
God's eyes. And when it said you know what fellowship
can light have with darkness? I saw that I was
the darkness putting out my own light. And until I
yoked my heart and soul and spirit to love and worthiness,
(46:00):
I would be the wickedness that the scripture mentions, always
working against my own righteousness, and my own darkness would
cast out my own light. So this became a part
of my godly beliefs. Right, do not be yoked together
with unbelievers? For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?
Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? And again
(46:22):
that was from Tewod Corinthians six fourteen. So now I
had my only and beliefs anchored with not one, not two,
but three scriptures that reminded me of God's words and
God's views about my unbelief right, and not just any
scripture that somebody gave me or told me I should read.
(46:43):
It was hand picked by me, and I only picked
ones that resonated to my bones. And again like the
ones that I picked might not resonate with you, but
that's why it's so important that you find ones that
resonate with you. Right. And that's what I mean when
I say I asked, what's God got to do with
my beliefs? And that's what He's got to do with it? Right?
I mean, can you see how powerful that is? Connecting
(47:06):
the faith piece of the puzzle to the science piece
or the science piece to the faith piece. And here's
what I'll reiterate, like, don't just take my word for it,
try this on. So first find the lie and find
that old, nasty belief that's been hanging around you for
a while, and really just identify it, make the unconscious conscious,
and then create your own new belief that resonates with
(47:28):
where you are right now, and then anchor it, anchor
it with God's beliefs and God's words that resonate with
you to your bones. And you can do it in
the opposite like if you're in that place where you're like, leanne,
I can't even think of the new belief because I'm
so kind of tied up or wrapped up in the
old belief. Start with God's words about your belief and
build your own words after that. So you have your
(47:50):
version of the truth, you have God's version of the truth,
and hopefully, hopefully they align again. Right, Like, you don't
want to just kind of make it in a way
that it serves the lie, because a lot of times,
like we can find something that will reinforce old beliefs. Right,
So again, I want you to meet yourself where you
are in your skepticism and doubt. But just be mindful
(48:11):
that you're not using scripture to kind of perpetuate an
old lie, if that makes sense. But we can we
can get into that more another time. Again, like I said,
this is kind of a high level overview. But again,
like every single day, I would just wash, rinse, repeat
until I felt it in my bones. And here's the thing,
Like I'm not talking months or years or even weeks.
Right within a matter of days of the repetition of
(48:33):
just trying this on as my new story and my
new set of beliefs, my mind and heart and spirit
were totally transforming. So now this whole finding a relationship
or finding my husband conversation, it just turned into a
conversation where I said, okay, God, like I'm going to
surrender that over to you, or I am surrendering it
over to you. And for now, I'm gonna date you, right,
(48:56):
and I'm going to let you show me who I
am and show me what true love and acceptance and
accepting all of me truly is. And in the meantime,
I'm going to trust that while you're doing these works
for me, you're also doing the same thing to the
person that I meant to spend the rest of my
life with. And yes, that's where the trust all came in.
Like that was faith, right, But that's what I did.
(49:18):
I handed it over and repeated on repeat like a
broken record, and I would just read those few verses
and just seed it into my reality. And again, I
just met myself in my own doubt and I made
over the belief in my own words, and then I
backed it up with scripture. And now you know, this
was just one big belief that I did this for.
(49:39):
But there were so many others that I did this
for too, which I promised to share in future episodes.
But I'll just leave it at that for now, okay,
And as always, like, just remember everything I share is
simply an invitation without expectation, to try on a new
story or a new perspective and just see what meets
(49:59):
you with you are in your own journey and we
will definitely be back with more What's God Got to
Do with It? But in the meantime, I would love
to hear from you, So tell me, do you have
beliefs that you know you want to make over and
love the idea of inviting God into the conversation. I'd
love to know where you are in your story and
(50:21):
your beliefs and your journey and what questions you might
have or where you feel like you might need clarity
or wisdom in your own journey. I definitely want to
hear from you, So head on over to What's God
Got to Do with It? Dot com and scroll down
to the form to share your thoughts, questions, your beliefs,
your feedback, anything that you want to share, You can
(50:41):
do it instantly over there at What's God Got to
Do with It? Dot com? And if you like this
podcast and want to hear more, follow like and subscribe
wherever you listen to podcasts to get your weekly dose
of What's God Got to Do with It? New episodes
Drop every Tuesday, and while you're there, be sure to
rate and review to show your support. It really means
(51:02):
so much. What's God Got to Do With It? Is
an iHeartRadio podcast on the Amy Brown Podcast Network. It's
written and hosted by me Leanne Ellington, executive produced by
Elizabeth Bozzio, post production and editing by Houston Tilley, and
original music written by Cheryl Stark and produced by Adam
Stark
If you want to go on a journey. If you're skeptical,
don't worry. Now here to preach, gonn to keep it
clean and talk to me and recall where faith meets
all nature. Get in touch with your creator with a
baking love and jo She even speaks Hebrew. What's that?
(00:31):
What's that? As well? Sendah talking transformation? What's done? Got
to welcome back to what's God got to do with it?
And thank you so much for all the feedback we've
received so far, and thank you to everyone who has
(00:52):
followed or liked or subscribed to the podcast. And if
you like what you've heard, we have so much great
content for you on the way. So for example, next
week we're going to be talking about all about the
faith brain connection and so for all my logic and
reason listeners, I totally have you covered, and we're going
to talk about where faith meets science, specifically where this
(01:14):
self image meets neuroscience. We also have an entire episode
coming up dedicated to what's God got to do with it?
When it comes to food and body image struggle. So
if you struggle with the whole food and body conversation,
or you just feel like it's the one thing you
can't seem to control or get a hold of, and
if you remember, that was my story for most of
(01:36):
my life. We're going to take a deep dive into
what God has to do with all of that. And then,
of course, you just heard the two episodes with Pastor
Kevin Queen, and if you miss those, definitely go check
those out. But we also have some other amazing interviews
that you will get to hear very very soon. So
just make sure that you like and subscribe and come
(01:57):
back every single Tuesday when new episodes of the God
Pod drop. Okay, so before we dive into today's episode,
I just want to bring you back to some important
things we talked about in previous episodes because it really
does bear repeating. So when I first went on my
own quest for surrender, which led me to seek God,
(02:19):
words and language were extremely important to me, and coming
from my background in all things brain and nervous system,
the meanings associated with words have the power to either
create positive or negative neuro associations in our brains. And
that's why when it comes to the words and language
that I'm using, I want you to meet yourself where
(02:41):
you are, so as I'm using words like God or
Holy Spirit or Jesus. You could interchange it with spirit
or universe or higher power or source. Because I truly
believe that experiencing the knowingness of who you are and
stepping into your true worth is the most important thing here.
If you need to change some language in your own
(03:02):
inner conversations to have it resonate with where you are
and who you are right now, then I am totally
cool with that. And the reason I keep emphasizing this
is because I learned how important this is firsthand in
the work that I do in the professional world with
women and teens coming through my stressless eating program. So
when the work that we do goes in that direction,
(03:23):
and of course my clients invite me to meet them
in the spiritual conversation, or when they do invite me,
I should say I am constantly having to meet people
where they are based on their own past experiences. So
from women who were maybe burned by their childhood experiences
of faith, or it was just a touchy spot for
them even though maybe they even know really desired a
(03:45):
deeper connection with God, or to women who identify as
Christians but they were carrying around so much shame that
they had, shame about their shame, or maybe they felt like,
you know, bad Christians because they felt so far from God.
I've even had fellow Jews who, just like me, God
and Jesus or any faith based conversations were not a
(04:07):
part of their culture, so they needed to start with
something like higher power. And you learn that when I
first encountered this Jesus guy as I call him, I
replaced Jesus with the word universe and then eventually God
because that's where I was in my journey. So right now,
I just invite you to meet yourself where you are
in this moment, and trust me when I say God
(04:30):
will show you the words to align what you say
and mean with what you feel. So when it comes
to today's episode, I'm going to share all about how
God helped me heal a really massive and long standing
belief of mine, the belief and fear that I was
going to be alone the rest of my life. But
also I really want to shine a light on the
(04:53):
process and invite you into healing some of your own
long withstanding stuff while I share mine, because I'm going
to share this specific example, but really it's a process
that you can wash, rinse, and repeat to meet you
in your own doubts and in your own shame and
in your own limiting beliefs. And that's where I also
(05:13):
want to point out that my life was not roses
and butterflies. The moment I gave my life over to God.
There were still some residual beliefs that I had tucked
away in the back of my own brain. And for
some of them, I knew they were there, and then
there were ones that were in my blind spot, and
I just couldn't see what I couldn't see. And that's
why I want to be clear that I'm not trying
(05:35):
to paint this podcast, or finding God for that matter,
as some one and done solution to all of life's
problems and circumstances, right, But I do believe that how
we view our challenges and the thoughts and beliefs that
we practice every day, and then of course our identity
and the lens that we see ourselves through all of
(05:56):
that will absolutely make or break how you experience all
of life's problems and who you become in the face
of them when they do come, because trials will come.
It's one of the things we can count on right.
But that's really the beauty of this podcast, Like I
kind of just want to lay it out for you,
and I really plan on laying it out for you
(06:17):
as it happened for me and just invite you into
your own versions of similar conversations. But when it comes
to all this mind stuff, I'm most likely not going
to come at it from the typical perspective that I
see and hear that beliefs are often approached. And this
episode is just one example of what I mean when
(06:38):
I say where faith meets science, because, as you'll learn,
I needed to actually call on my own understanding of
the brain to meet me in my own skepticism and
doubt and fill in the gaps where my faith had
I mean, honestly, they were just gaps, right, And this
is where you'll start to learn more about my semi
obsession with the part of the brain that houses the
(07:00):
self image, and that will connect a lot of dots
to understand what God's got to do with all of
this belief stuff, which you'll learn a bit about in
this week's episode, but in next week episode, I'm really
going to do a deep dive on that. But the
reason I'm even mentioning all of that right now is
because this is the thought process that helped me meet
(07:23):
my skeptical, cynical brain where it was, and like I
shared before, once I unlocked the magic and possibility that
exists within the human body and nervous system. And because
of the neuroplastic, malleable, pliable nature of this machine of
possibility that we all have access to, combined with the
(07:44):
law of cause and effect programming, that we can all
feed it in order to transform slap on understanding why
we do what we do, and why we say what
we say, and why we feel how we feel, and
why we cope with those emotions, how we cope with
them and heck, there is no judgment and no shame,
(08:04):
but in the name of full transparency. You know, I've
used everything from food and Netflix to social media and weed.
And trust me when I say I am not claiming
to be perfect, and it goes without saying that I
don't want you to feel like you have to be either.
So that being said, being exposed to all of the
healing powers of the nervous system on a science level
(08:25):
essentially just primed my mind, my heart, my soul, and
my spirit for seeing what I couldn't yet see on
a spiritual level. But again, and as you can imagine
for any curious, science driven gal, that all of a sudden,
after thirty years, decided she wanted to go find God.
It made me extremely skeptical and cynical about the whole
(08:46):
faith side of things, because again, if there wasn't a
research paper about it, or I couldn't see it with
my own human eyes, I didn't believe it. And that's why,
for the sake of this episode, I want to start
by literally you in your own skepticism and doubt about
your own beliefs, because I believe that's truly how I'm
(09:07):
going to best serve you in shifting them. So let's
just start there. Because you can read all the self
help books in the world, and attend every webinar and
post all the motivational quotes on your wall, and you
can know the Bible inside and out and be able
to recite scripture on demand and technically be very schooled
in all things spirituality or theology. But if you don't
(09:30):
believe in what you're actually saying or reading or doing,
you're going to feel out of alignment. And that's when
that gap between what we say and how we actually
feel and what we actually do can just become a
massive gap filled with broken promises and unmet goals. But
if fake it till you make it and acting as
(09:51):
if and reciting all the scripture hasn't cut it. There's
a big reason why, because there is a science behind
shifting our beliefs. But I also believe that when you
start looking for that crossover where science meets faith and
faith meets science, that's when things really start to get interesting.
And for me, you know, they just got exponentially easier
(10:15):
and calmer and really more aligned. And in my experience,
things started happening that can't not force you to wonder
if there's something bigger at play and that you couldn't
have even imagined or asked for the goodness that ended
up happening. Or on the flip side, you know, when
things don't go your way, I believe it's possible for
(10:35):
you to find peace in the storm so that you
can get back to becoming the version of yourself you
need to become to receive it when it does happen,
rather than taking yourself down a rabbit hole of disappointment
or you know, worrying if it won't happen, which you know,
we are human and that happens to all of us.
But I believe we are in control of how long
(10:58):
and how far and how freak we go down those
rabbit holes of shame, fear, anxiety, worry, disappointment, numbing, soothing,
you know, fill in the blank with wherever we go.
And since I promised to show you where faith meets science,
I think that is really the perfect way to just
walk you through what I want to walk you through.
(11:28):
Since I promised to show you where faith meets science,
I think that is really the perfect way to just
walk you through what I want to walk you through.
So first I'm going to share my own general paradigm
of how I was looking at my own beliefs and
really working with my clients on their own beliefs before
you know this Jesus guy came along. Okay, Then I'll
(11:52):
share how I took that very same process and I
transformed it by simply asking, you know, what's God to
do with my beliefs? And I just invited him into
the conversation. And then I'm going to share one of
my own big hairy beliefs as it showed up in
my life, and I'm going to be totally vulnerable and
(12:12):
not hold back. But also just to heads up that
this episode is going to give you more or less
like a high level overview of this process and walk
you through an example. But this whole belief's topic, it's
a massive subject and we as humans, we have so
many three dimensional beliefs that we carry around with us.
(12:32):
And that's why I'm so excited to start that conversation
now and give you a new way to approach your
own beliefs and invite God into conversations that just like
I was, you know, trying to human your way through it.
And don't worry, because I'll have future episodes where I'm
going to go narrower and deeper into more specific beliefs
(12:54):
and topics that you can explore within your own relationship
with God. Okay, so specifically, today, I'm going to walk
you through my former fear of being alone the rest
of my life, which you'll learn wasn't really the real fear.
That's just what I thought it was. But we have
beliefs about everything, and I'm gonna share mine in order
(13:19):
to help you relinquish your own shame so that you
can reconcile your own beliefs. And so I'm going to share,
you know, beliefs about my body and fears about money,
you name it. I'm going to share them, and we
will look at all of those and more in specific
episodes moving forward. But back to where faith meets science
and science meets faith. So let's start off with the
(13:41):
science and maybe you know, for lack of a better
way of saying it, the logic and reason side of this. Okay,
So those deepest held beliefs that we have about ourselves, right,
the ones that have been haunting us the longest. Maybe
they're the deepest, like they have the deepest roots or
the longest threads, and the one ones that are really
the most painful or maybe they just created the most
(14:03):
shame for you. And whether you're aware of it or not,
those beliefs become your self image. Okay, those become the
goggles that you see yourself through. So if you do,
or maybe you have been for a while, either telling
yourself that you're unworthy or unlovable or undesirable or a disappointment,
(14:25):
a failure, maybe you're telling yourself that you're living beneath
your potential, or that you're weak willed, or a self
sabotage or just fill in the blank. So if you've
actively and consciously been telling yourself stuff like that, or
if you didn't even know you were saying those things,
and maybe it was unconscious or subconscious, right, simply put,
(14:46):
those beliefs become your self image and how you see yourself,
how you perceive yourself and what you believe to be
true about yourself, and if you're really not aware of it,
you start to become identified by those things. So for me,
it started showing up as me trying to prove that
(15:07):
I was attractive or lovable or needed or wanted or
successful or all those things. And like I did what
I had to do to feel like I was proving
those things. And so that meant that I was chasing
things like skinny or popular, or chasing a relationship. And
you know, there's no shame about it. It's really how
(15:28):
our brains and self images work. We really start chasing
after what we value because we as humans, in some way,
shape or form, we want to feel like we are
increasing our own value or our own worth. It's just
kind of a human part of us. But I believe
that this can become super dangerous if your value is
(15:50):
solely determined by things like, you know, gene size or
bank balance or scale weight, or relationship status or likes
or hearts on Instagram or Facebook or fill in the blank,
with all of those worldly, quantifiable pursuits, because then our
whole identity becomes wrapped up in that. Okay, it's all
(16:10):
we think about. We chase it, Heck, we sometimes obsess
over it. And again, I've obsessed over so many things
thinking it would make me happy, only to find out
that I was chasing the wrong things. And that's why
I'm not here. I'm not calling you out. I'm calling
it out and showing you I've been there too, and
there's no shame. But until we become aware of it
(16:33):
and actively shift our gaze and renew our minds and
posture our hearts and spirits in a different direction, unfortunately
it will stay that way. And I'm not trying to
be all doom and gloom here, like, I'm just really
trying to keep it real and share what I wish
somebody had told me years ago. So really, that's my
(16:54):
first invitation for you. I just want to invite you
to try on this idea that you you can shift
your beliefs and take on a whole new identity, that
what you've been chasing and what you've been valuing doesn't
have to be the thing going forward, and what you're
believing about yourself doesn't have to be what you believe
about yourself moving forward. Okay. But while you're doing that, like,
(17:18):
while you're trying on this idea that wow, maybe I
can shift my values and I can shift my beliefs,
there's something else that's really important that I want to
bring up. And again we're staying on this logic and
reason side for a moment, right, So, when it comes
to shifting your beliefs and your identity, your self image
knows how you really feel deep down inside. Okay. So
(17:42):
if you are trying to step into a new belief
that deep down you truly don't believe, or maybe you're
thinking that you're lying to yourself, your brain and nervous
system can actually detect that. Okay. And I'm just going
to give you the cliff notes version of this, and
I'm not going to get too but you're gonna want
to keep this in mind as we go. So every
(18:04):
thought that you think and every feeling that you feel,
it has a physical, chemical, biological response kind of like
a frequency. Okay, and it's actually a very researched, well
known science, but it's not really often talked about in
the mainstream world. Okay. But on top of that, thoughts
can also lay down two very different types of pathways
(18:27):
in your brain called neuro associations. Now this is the
second time I'm mentioning that neuro association's word in this episode.
But you're either laying down positive neuro associations or negative
neuro associations. So you might be wondering, like what determines that,
How is it going to be negative? What's going to
force it to be positive? And the simple answer is resonance,
(18:49):
Like does it resonate with you? And here's what I mean. So,
let's say that you say something to yourself that does
not feel true, right, or it does does not resonate,
or you're outright calling it out as a lie. In
the back of your mind, your brain will lay down
those negative neuro associations alongside that thought and that lie
(19:12):
or that belief that you don't really believe it's actually
gonna work against you changing your beliefs and you're never
really truly gonna download it or believe it, and it's
not going to become part of your self image and identity. Okay.
But on the flip side, if you meet yourself in
your doubt right or in your unbelief and you use
words that actually feel true or they meet you in
(19:37):
the unbelief right and it resonates. When your brain experiences
truth and something resonates with you big time, it lays
down those positive neuro associations alongside that thought, and those
positive neuro associations are kind of like the secret sauce
for transforming your beliefs in a way where it just
(19:57):
becomes your new reality because it aligns. Okay, So that's
really the oversimplified version. Like the bottom line is, don't
outright lie to yourself as you're choosing new beliefs. You
want to choose beliefs that really resonate with you and
meet you where you are, even if you feel doubt,
because if you really do want to change your beliefs
or believe in new reality, it's got to feel good,
(20:20):
it's got to feel true, and it's got to resonate
otherwise you're not really gonna believe it. And that's why
I keep telling you in every episode, I'm like, hey,
don't just take my word for it. Don't just like
you know, lie to yourself if you don't believe it, right,
try it on, see what fits, and ditch the rest.
And that's why, because I want this to really land
for you. And this is actually a good time to
(20:41):
share another distinction and it's really one that changed the
game for me when I first started even entertaining this
idea of going on a faith journey. It's this the
difference between thinking thoughts of positive anticipation or positive expectation,
or thinking thoughts of negative anticipation or negative expectation, okay,
(21:04):
as in, you can negatively anticipate the future aka you know,
fear or anxiety or worry or dread fill in the blank.
Or you can positively anticipate the future you know, hope, belief,
positive expectation and really like focusing on a solution or
like an action that will move you forward. And this
(21:25):
is something that only you can choose, okay, And trust me,
I get the irony of this because this is where
faith comes in, right, And as I said, when I
first found God, and I still say it today. It
takes faith to have faith, Like it takes faith to
believe in what you can't yet see, and it takes
faith to have that positive anticipation or positive expectation. It
(21:49):
takes faith to have faith. Okay. And I used to
say this too, and I hear it from others all
the time, and it's this idea of you know, but Leanne,
I don't have any guarantee that it will happen, and
I don't want to get my hopes up or be
too optimistic. And I totally get that side of it too,
But I'm not talking about delusional optimism, right, I'm not
(22:11):
talking about you know, magic genie lamps or prayers for
winning the lottery or anything like that. I'm just inviting
you to at least see that you don't have to
choose negative anticipation. You can choose to positively anticipate your future.
It really is just a choice. And the super interesting
(22:31):
thing about this, and this is the last time this episode,
I'll get a bit geeky, but I find it super
interesting that anxiety and excitement. Okay, yeah, you can imagine
anxiety and excitement. They are two very different experiences for
us as humans, but anxiety and excitement they look very
(22:52):
similar on a brain scan. Okay, and so oversimplifying it again,
isn't it safe to a say that in anxiety is
just a negative anticipation or expectation of your future, while
excitement is really just a positive anticipation or expectation of
your future. Right. But both of these things are a perception,
(23:14):
and they're a perception that you can choose any day, anytime,
any moment, so you can either worry about what might
happen or just positively anticipate that it will all work
out right, or maybe even hopeful and prayerful about what
might happen. And both of these scenarios are literally all
manufactured in your head. And I'll repeat you know, this
(23:38):
is where the faith comes in, and sometimes that is
not easy. Right. But also coming back to this idea
of meeting you in your current doubts and belief that
whole it has to resonate with you factor that that's
why as I'm taking you through the process I'm about
to take you through. You don't want to just jump
(23:58):
from a belief of like, you know, so I am
unworthy or ugly or unlovable or fill in the blank,
like one of those really like dark, deep beliefs. You
don't want to jump from a belief like that and
try to take a massive leap over to No, you
are worthy and lovable and your dream body, your dream job,
your dream relationship is right around the corner. And I know,
(24:19):
I know, I see some of the same fake positivity
on Instagram that you see and even though yeah, that
might actually be true, like your dream job might be
around the corner, and your dream relationship might be around
the corner. Right, But going from I'm unworthy or I'm
unlovable to no, you are worthy, you are perfect without
(24:40):
meeting yourself where you are right now, Like, no, you're
probably not gonna believe that right now. I wish you would, right,
But it's a very very big it's really a massive
leap of from where you feel right now to where
you want to eventually get to. And like I share
before that big of a leap, and you saying some
something that you don't really deep down believe it will
(25:03):
actually undermine you overhauling your beliefs if you feel like
you're flat out lying to yourself. Okay, So you've got
to meet yourself where you are in your doubt, because,
like I said, your self image knows how you really feel.
So it's got to feel good, it's got to feel true,
and it's got to resonate or at the very least,
it can't just create that dissonance. And for me, this
(25:23):
all happened in phases, like it wasn't an overnight thing.
And this is actually the perfect time to share another
kind of important sidetrack. So when I first started my
faith walk, I was trying to get connected at cross
(25:44):
Point and I ended up working with one of the
high school ministries called the Teen Dream Center. And the
man who runs that ministry, Ketric, who is unbelievably wise
and gifted and will be a guest on this podcast
very soon, so you'll meet him. Well. Ketrick me about
something called Freedom Prayer, and essentially Freedom Prayer, it's this
(26:05):
personal prayer ministry where anyone can just schedule a focused
prayer time with a member of the Freedom Prayer team,
and really it's designed to help you recognize and resolve
anything keeping you from having a close relationship with God.
So I scheduled a Freedom Prayer session pretty much right away,
honestly not even knowing what it really was. And that's
(26:25):
actually a funny story for another day. But now I'm
actually on the prayer team and I serve on the ministry,
and there's so much goodness that I could share about that.
But the reason I'm sharing about it now is because
once again there was now something else that connected with
me and resonated with me so deeply and so instantly.
And now I know that it was because it aligned
(26:47):
with what I already knew about the human brain. And
you know what I knew about addressing hurts and wounds
and identifying and breaking strongholds and how to bring healing
and freedom. But in the case of free prayer, it
was all with the purpose of knowing God better. And
in my case, for me, that really meant seeing myself
through God's eyes, which, like I shared, at that point
(27:09):
in time, that wasn't really even on my radar. So,
you know, overhauling beliefs cool, you know, but seeing it
through God's eyes definitely new to me. Because remember I
was still trying to strictly brain change my way through
my beliefs, and yes, I was using the emotional tools
and they were working really well. But I didn't have
the spiritual tools yet that I needed to break through
(27:30):
some of those longwithstanding beliefs. And this is why God's
timing is so good, because as I got more and
more involved with freedom prayer, one of the massive gifts
that God gave me through that process was was this
concept in language of something that they call unbiblical beliefs. Okay, Now,
again keep in mind, at this point I had been
(27:50):
teaching beliefs for over a decade, but this concept of
unbiblical beliefs like that felt revelatory to me. And I
immediately saw that my old beliefs or you know, now
I see them, that they were just lies and non
truths that I was telling myself. But you know, at
the time, like I could come up with these new
Liande versions of the truth, right, and that is a
(28:12):
really important step, right, Like you definitely want to see
it through your own eyes. But now I was seeing that, like,
what if there were also these unbiblical beliefs and I
could prefer to scripture and God's words about the truth
and find biblical truths about these unbiblical beliefs, Like that
was something I had never thought about or tried to do.
(28:34):
So I literally and again talk about just trying things
one and throwing stuff at a wall and see what sticks.
I literally just started googling things like what does the
Bible say about shame? Or what does the Bible say
about being alone the rest of your life? Or what
does the Bible say about body image? And it really
(28:55):
ended up being like this gateway of inviting God into
my science and brain experiments. So now you're probably starting
to see all of these pieces coming together. And like
I said, it's my version of where science meets faith
and faith meets science. So first, remember, there was this
paradigm I was seeing things through of how I was
looking at my own beliefs and working with my clients
(29:17):
on their own beliefs before this Jesus guy came along, right,
But then when I took that very same process and
transformed it by simply asking what's God got to do
with my beliefs and I invited him into the conversation,
that's when everything transformed. So let's look at a specific
(29:38):
belief so you can see how this played out in
reality and you can kind of get a picture in
your mind of what I mean. So this is a
belief and the story that I had been painting in
my mind and my brain and heart for a very
long time. So again, lots of deep roots on this one.
And it was fear about being alone the rest of
my life and my belief that I would never find
(29:59):
somebody to love me. So again, this one ran deep
for me, like really really deep. And you heard my
shame story on episode one, a scientist goes looking for God,
but just to paint the picture. You know, I grew
up hearing things like she'd be so pretty if she
lost weight, And you know, my childhood and most of
my teen years were spent you know, being friends with
(30:20):
all the boys, but never having me them like me
like that, you know what I mean. And that caused
me to believe from a very young age that there
was something wrong with me, and that I was unlovable
or unworthy of truly being loved for all of me
and in all honesty. Later in life, that became the
belief that I was unmarriable. Okay, So again, these these beliefs,
(30:42):
they start somewhere and then they grow weeds and they fester.
Because I'm sure you can imagine how this belief that
started out when I was a little girl. It kept
growing weeds and festering all the way into my mid thirties.
And that's conveniently when the incessant like so when are
you gonna get married and settled down questions started happening.
And even though I was loving and supportive of my friends,
(31:02):
if I'm totally honest, I was starting to get really
jealous of all of the people's weddings and baby showers
I was attending because secretly I felt so alone. And yes,
in many ways I felt behind in this world, like
because I wasn't married in my mid thirties, I was
some sort of epic failure. Right now, Obviously, these are
(31:22):
beliefs which I eventually reconciled. But if you're listening to
this right now and you've experienced anything similar yourself, you
know what I'm saying. Okay, these beliefs are hard on you,
and they can be heartbreaking, you know. But also, the
sneaky thing about this belief in particular that I'm talking about,
and you know, the fear of being alone the rest
(31:43):
of my life, the sneaky thing about it is that
this was not the true belief that I needed to
face head on. In fact, I realized that how I
was feeling had little to do with whether or not
I was married or even getting closer to being married.
Because of God's grace, I had the awareness to start
seeing things like, hmm, interesting, my clients that are happily
(32:08):
married or have kids or grandkids, they have some of
the feelings and fears that I do, right, the fear
of rejection and the fear of abandonment, and the fear
of really being seen and really being known for all
of who they are, like even the dark parts. And yeah,
like they felt it too, Yet they had the marriage
and the family the things that I was like swearing
(32:30):
would make me feel the way that I wanted to feel,
It would make me feel whole and complete. Right, but
I'm seeing it. I was like, wait, they have marriage, Like,
so it's not marriage that's causing this, right, And that's
when God gifted me the wisdom to see that again,
it wasn't really about my circumstances, which I very much
labeled and identified with the word single at the time,
(32:50):
by the way, but it wasn't about that. It was
about the state of my heart and really the beliefs
that I was repeating over and over again about my
circumstances and the deep beliefs. If I'm truly honest, the
deep beliefs were really, no one will ever fully love me,
and no one can air quotes handle me, and if
(33:13):
they find out who I really am, they'll reject me
or leave me or fill in the blank because I
am not worthy of being loved for who I am.
That was it, Okay, that was the deep down belief.
I am not worthy of being loved for who I am.
And it wasn't the fear of being alone the rest
(33:34):
of my life. That was the symptom of the deeper
belief about myself, which was that I'm not worthy of
being loved for who I am. And I was unconscious
of that deep like the true belief until I wasn't. Right.
That's why I say it's sneaky, right, because you're unconscious
until you aren't anymore. And so once I became conscious
of it, that's when I you know, like I said,
(33:56):
the first step for me was to make it over
as Leanne the scientific thing, being self image seeker and
meet myself in my doubt and my skepticism, because you know,
saying to myself things like Leanne, your person is out there,
you will find him. Like the kind of generic stuff
that people say to that, right, that was also the
stuff that didn't feel true to me at the time,
(34:17):
because that's the kind of stuff that was way too
painful to say because I had no evidence of the contrary.
And keep in mind, I was still super new to
the faith side of things, so naturally I just started
with what I knew, which was the science of the
self image and self image. Leanne made over the belief
by saying, Okay, Leanne, like you're right. Whether you think
(34:40):
it's possible or whether you think it's not, you are right.
But now it is time to stop perpetuating the negative
anticipation that it's never gonna happen, because that is something
in your control. And I kind of like had to
adult myself. I was like, Okay, LeeAnne, like I see
you where you are, but like we are done taking
ourselves down that spiral of negative anticipation. At least, let's
(35:03):
stop that. Like I'm not trying to convince you to
believe that what's possible, but I'm just stop telling you
to stop the ti rate of unbelief. Right, And this
next part, remember this is still that crossover time in
my life where I was still just really beginning my
relationship with God. So I know, I just said it
was my logical self image brain, but some of the
(35:25):
realizations I had, like I look back at that now
and I know they were a gift from God because
what I saw and heard next was beyond me at
that point in time. Okay, Essentially I heard God say, Leanne,
the work is not hoping that a man finds you
lovable and worthy. The work and the path is you
(35:47):
seeing that in you. It's time for you to go
find yourself lovable and worthy. So go work on that,
Go think on that, and ask me aka God to
help you fill in those gaps. And so naturally, as
you can imagine, after hearing that and seeing that, it
gradually switched to a less you know self imagy brainy
(36:10):
conversation and became more of a God conversation. So at
this point I had my new you know, I'll call
on LeeAnne beliefs that were going on in the background,
just reminding myself like, nopely and we are no longer
feeding the negative anticipation. The new focus is this idea
that the work is not hoping that a man finds
you lovable and worthy. The work is fine is that
(36:33):
you find yourself lovable and worthy and find the lovableness
and worthiness in yourself first. And so that became my prayer. Right.
So instead of and here's another big distinction, right, instead
of praying and asking God to send me a man
or send me a husband, I asked God to help
me fill in the lovableness and the worthiness gaps for myself.
(36:55):
And then, like I shared, as my faith life started increasing,
my new bl and new prayer became, Okay, Leanne, God
is doing his work in you right now, so he
can prepare you to actually feel worthy of receiving the
love that He has for you. But on top of that,
I stacked on this new layer of prayer and belief
(37:17):
because again, like God starts painting pictures in your brain,
it's like you just roll with it, right, And so
I started saying, Okay, while I'm doing this work on
myself and connecting to myself and connecting to God, the
man for me is doing the work on himself too
and connecting to God himself, and he's preparing himself for me. Right.
(37:38):
And again, it was literally a shift from negative anticipation
to positive anticipation, but one that still met me in
my doubt and one that redirected my emotional and spiritual gaze.
And boy did God deliver on that. Okay, And spoiler alert.
At the time of recording this, I'm about six weeks
(38:00):
away from marrying the love of my life. Who I
get to be all of who I am unapologetically and
receive all of the love that He has to give,
and I feel worthy of receiving it. Right, and again,
this was not who I was a few years ago.
But another spoiler alert, right, he was also doing the
work on himself. And when I met him, you know,
(38:22):
he had been meeting with a counselor to work on
his own mental and emotional health and he was renewing
his own relationship with God before we met. So like,
is that a coincidence? I personally think it's not. But
we can talk about that more another time. So yeah,
(38:46):
that's kind of how it all started, okay. And that's
how I started simply inviting God into my beliefs about
myself and really contributing to my shifting identity through his eyes.
But that's just how it's stars. There's one more layer,
don't you worry. And remember it didn't start out like
as a conversation with God right at first. It was
(39:07):
more a logic and reason thing to meet myself in
my own doubt. And even though I was connecting with
God in my own life at that point in time,
the beliefs were still a lot of my own doing.
Maybe there was a little bit of God, but it
was still me trying to kind of human my way
through it. But that's where now I'm going to connect
that final dot that I shared earlier, which was the
revelation I got from freedom prayer right. And so again
(39:29):
it's no coincidence that the timing all this it lined
up with my experiences with freedom prayer and looking at
my belief but all of my beliefs, I should say,
not just this one through the lens of you know,
is it where's the unbiblical belief versus creating a biblical belief?
And wow, like just that distinction added gasoline to the
(39:50):
fire that I had already started. So, like I said,
I simply started with identifying the old belief and the
negative anticipation that I had been, you know, practicing day
in day out, and I shifted the belief in the
eyes of my own language and thoughts. Okay, but then
this next part what really changed the game for me
was referring to God's words about my problems or circumstances.
(40:13):
And that's where, like I said, I literally just started
googling things like what does the Bible say about being
alone the rest of your life? And what does the
Bible say about shame? And what does the Bible say
about body image? And it ended up kind of being
again like this gateway of inviting God into my science
and brain experiments, and once again I just met myself
(40:34):
where I was in my skepticism, in my doubt, but
also my desire to believe, because that was the whole
point of this, Like I wanted new beliefs, like I
didn't want to be in that downward spiral, right, And
in the midst of that doubt and that belief I
realized that some of the scripture I was coming across
it didn't necessarily speak to me or make sense to
(40:56):
me just yet. So I would just find the ones
that did and the ones that spoke to my soul
and really cut through those unbiblical beliefs that I've been
practicing and those were the ones I would roll with,
because remember, resonance is everything. So here's what it looked
like now, after I added what I'm calling the God lair. Okay,
(41:19):
so we remember the liar, the old belief, right like
that no one will ever fully love me, that no
one can handle me, and that if they find out
who I really am, they'll reject me, leave me fill
in the blank because I am not worthy of being
loved for who I am. Right then I added my
new liean belief, and you'll remember that that was okay, Leanne.
(41:39):
The work was not hoping that a man finds you
lovable and worthy, and you're not praying for God to
send you a husband. The work is for you seeing
that you're lovable and worthy in you, seeing that in you,
and it's time for you to go find yourself lovable
and worthy. So go work on that, and go think
on that and ask God to help you fill in
(42:00):
those gaps. And now I was ready to add the
God layer and what I call my godly beliefs. And
that's where, like I said, I just started finding scripture
that spoke to me and resonated. But also that just
solidified the beliefs that I was trying to establish. Okay,
So for example, I found scripture from Psalm thirty seven
four that said, take delight in the Lord, and he
(42:25):
will give you the desires of your heart. And that
was the NIV version of Psalm thirty seven four, and
that reminded me of my commitment to stop looking for
love from a man to make me feel lovable, and
to build that love within myself by immersing myself in
my relationship with God and seeing myself through God's eyes
to as he says, take delight in the Lord, and
(42:47):
he will give me the desires of my heart. So
that was one scripture that really supported my new beliefs.
I also found this scripture from Isaiah thirty four to
sixteen that totally gave me peace, and it said look
in the scroll of the Lord aka the Bible. Look
in the scroll of the Lord and read none of
these will be missing, no one will lack her mate,
(43:11):
for it is his mouth that has given the order,
and his spirit will gather them together. And that was
from Isaiah thirty four to sixteen, also the NIV version.
But this scripture it just reenforced, like Leanne read the
Bible fill your heart with biblical truth. And God literally
said no one will lack her mate. It doesn't say
(43:32):
his mate. Okay, sorry, guys, this is how I read it, right,
It says her mate. And I remember the first time
I read that, I took that as him talking to Leanne, right,
and I took that as him saying, like, He's going
to do this for you. And the scripture goes on
to stay say like his spirit will gather them together,
like it's not of your doing, Leanne. That's what I
kind of kept telling myself that, And that was my
(43:53):
reminder about the faith part of this, because that's the
part that was so hard coming from my normal like hey,
I have to go do it and control it and
force it and like make stuff happen and white knuckle
like that was my old mentality. Right. Faith is still
like a new concept to me at this point. So
you know, again reminding me that faith, like, Leanne, have faith, like,
(44:13):
let God do a work in this and to focus
on who I'm becoming rather than obsessing over finding a husband,
And that in itself brought me so much peace. Okay.
So now that's two different scriptures that reinforce kind of
like two different elements of the new beliefs I was
trying to establish. But there was one more I found
that really sealed the deal for me on this belief
(44:35):
and it kind of like hit on a point that
was not super obvious to me at first, and it
was this scripture from Tewod Corinthians six fourteen, and it said,
do not be yoked together with unbelievers, for what do
righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can
light have with darkness? And this scripture it's pretty it's
(44:57):
pretty popular, I would say, I don't know if popular
is the right word, but it's a common, well known scripture,
and it's interesting because it actually usually gets brought up
when you're talking about finding your mate or finding your
husband or wife. And I did reconnect to this scripture
when it came to actually, you know, entering into a
relationship with somebody. But for this belief. I was actually
(45:18):
drawn to this scripture based on this idea of me
being yoked together with myself. And when I read do
not be yoked together with unbelievers, it made me realize
that I was the unbeliever yoked together with like the
believer side of myself like I was. I was split
(45:39):
in two. Right, I had hopes for love and worthiness,
but I was yoked to a version of me that
was calling myself unworthy and forgetting who I am in
God's eyes. And when it said you know what fellowship
can light have with darkness? I saw that I was
the darkness putting out my own light. And until I
yoked my heart and soul and spirit to love and worthiness,
(46:00):
I would be the wickedness that the scripture mentions, always
working against my own righteousness, and my own darkness would
cast out my own light. So this became a part
of my godly beliefs. Right, do not be yoked together
with unbelievers? For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?
Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? And again
(46:22):
that was from Tewod Corinthians six fourteen. So now I
had my only and beliefs anchored with not one, not two,
but three scriptures that reminded me of God's words and
God's views about my unbelief right, and not just any
scripture that somebody gave me or told me I should read.
(46:43):
It was hand picked by me, and I only picked
ones that resonated to my bones. And again like the
ones that I picked might not resonate with you, but
that's why it's so important that you find ones that
resonate with you. Right. And that's what I mean when
I say I asked, what's God got to do with
my beliefs? And that's what He's got to do with it? Right?
I mean, can you see how powerful that is? Connecting
(47:06):
the faith piece of the puzzle to the science piece
or the science piece to the faith piece. And here's
what I'll reiterate, like, don't just take my word for it,
try this on. So first find the lie and find
that old, nasty belief that's been hanging around you for
a while, and really just identify it, make the unconscious conscious,
and then create your own new belief that resonates with
(47:28):
where you are right now, and then anchor it, anchor
it with God's beliefs and God's words that resonate with
you to your bones. And you can do it in
the opposite like if you're in that place where you're like, leanne,
I can't even think of the new belief because I'm
so kind of tied up or wrapped up in the
old belief. Start with God's words about your belief and
build your own words after that. So you have your
(47:50):
version of the truth, you have God's version of the truth,
and hopefully, hopefully they align again. Right, Like, you don't
want to just kind of make it in a way
that it serves the lie, because a lot of times,
like we can find something that will reinforce old beliefs. Right,
So again, I want you to meet yourself where you
are in your skepticism and doubt. But just be mindful
(48:11):
that you're not using scripture to kind of perpetuate an
old lie, if that makes sense. But we can we
can get into that more another time. Again, like I said,
this is kind of a high level overview. But again,
like every single day, I would just wash, rinse, repeat
until I felt it in my bones. And here's the thing,
Like I'm not talking months or years or even weeks.
Right within a matter of days of the repetition of
(48:33):
just trying this on as my new story and my
new set of beliefs, my mind and heart and spirit
were totally transforming. So now this whole finding a relationship
or finding my husband conversation, it just turned into a
conversation where I said, okay, God, like I'm going to
surrender that over to you, or I am surrendering it
over to you. And for now, I'm gonna date you, right,
(48:56):
and I'm going to let you show me who I
am and show me what true love and acceptance and
accepting all of me truly is. And in the meantime,
I'm going to trust that while you're doing these works
for me, you're also doing the same thing to the
person that I meant to spend the rest of my
life with. And yes, that's where the trust all came in.
Like that was faith, right, But that's what I did.
(49:18):
I handed it over and repeated on repeat like a
broken record, and I would just read those few verses
and just seed it into my reality. And again, I
just met myself in my own doubt and I made
over the belief in my own words, and then I
backed it up with scripture. And now you know, this
was just one big belief that I did this for.
(49:39):
But there were so many others that I did this
for too, which I promised to share in future episodes.
But I'll just leave it at that for now, okay,
And as always, like, just remember everything I share is
simply an invitation without expectation, to try on a new
story or a new perspective and just see what meets
(49:59):
you with you are in your own journey and we
will definitely be back with more What's God Got to
Do with It? But in the meantime, I would love
to hear from you, So tell me, do you have
beliefs that you know you want to make over and
love the idea of inviting God into the conversation. I'd
love to know where you are in your story and
(50:21):
your beliefs and your journey and what questions you might
have or where you feel like you might need clarity
or wisdom in your own journey. I definitely want to
hear from you, So head on over to What's God
Got to Do with It? Dot com and scroll down
to the form to share your thoughts, questions, your beliefs,
your feedback, anything that you want to share, You can
(50:41):
do it instantly over there at What's God Got to
Do with It? Dot com? And if you like this
podcast and want to hear more, follow like and subscribe
wherever you listen to podcasts to get your weekly dose
of What's God Got to Do with It? New episodes
Drop every Tuesday, and while you're there, be sure to
rate and review to show your support. It really means
(51:02):
so much. What's God Got to Do With It? Is
an iHeartRadio podcast on the Amy Brown Podcast Network. It's
written and hosted by me Leanne Ellington, executive produced by
Elizabeth Bozzio, post production and editing by Houston Tilley, and
original music written by Cheryl Stark and produced by Adam
Stark
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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