What's God Got To Do With It?: How God Helped Me Heal My Fears About Being Alone the Rest of My Life
September 28, 2025 • 50 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: Leanne Ellington // StresslessEating.com // @leanneellington
To learn more about Leanne, head over to www.LeanneEllington.com, and to share your thoughts, questions, feedback, or guest suggestions instantly, head on over to www.WhatsGodGotToDoWithIt.com.
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 (00:08):
If you want to go on a journey, if you're skeptical,
don't worry. Now Here to preach. I want to keep
it clean and talk to me and recall where faith needs,
files of nature and get in touch with your creator
with a bacon, love and jew.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
She even speaks Hebrew.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
What's that, Gonza?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
This? Well sabosation? You should talking transformation? What's that? Gonzat?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
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
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
(01:07):
reason listeners, I totally have you covered, and we're going
to talk about where faith meets science, specifically where this
self image meets neuroscience. 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
(01:28):
own quest, for surrender, which led me to seek God.
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
(01:49):
that's why when it comes to the words and language
that I'm using, I want you to meet yourself where
you are. So as I'm using words like God or
Holy Spirit or Jesus, you can interchange it with Spirit
or Universe or higher power or source. Because I truly
believe that experiencing the knowingness of who you are and
(02:09):
stepping into your true worth is the most important thing here.
And if you need to change some language in your
own 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
(02:31):
with women and teens coming through my stressless eating program.
So when the work that we do goes in that direction,
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
(02:53):
of faith, or it was just a touchy spot for
them even though maybe they even know really desired a
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.
(03:13):
I've even had fellow Jews who, just like me, God
and Jesus or any faith based conversations were not a
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
(03:33):
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
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
(03:58):
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
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
(04:20):
in your own doubts and in your own shame and
in your own limiting beliefs. And that's where I also
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
(04:41):
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
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
(05:02):
we practice every day, and then of course our identity
and the lens that we see ourselves through, all of
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.
(05:22):
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
as it happened for me, and just to 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
(05:43):
I see and hear that beliefs are often approached. And
this episode is just one example of what I mean
when 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
(06:04):
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
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
(06:27):
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
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
(06:49):
of the neuroplastic, malleable, pliable nature of this machine of
possibility that we all have access to, combined with the
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
(07:11):
why we cope with those emotions however we cope with them,
and heck, there is no judgment and no shame. 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.
(07:32):
So that being said, being exposed to all of the
healing powers of the nervous system on a science level
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,
(07:55):
it made me extremely skeptical and cynical about the whole
faith 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 meeting you in your own skepticism and doubt about
(08:16):
your own beliefs, because I believe that's truly how I'm
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
(08:39):
in all things spirituality or theology. But if you don't
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
(09:03):
if fake it till you make it and acting as
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.
(09:24):
And for me, you know, they just got exponentially easier
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
(09:45):
things don't go your way, I believe it's possible for
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.
(10:08):
But I believe we are in control of how long,
and how far and how frequently 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
(10:30):
walk you through what I want to walk you through.
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.
(10:51):
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 our own beliefs before
you know this Jesus guy came along. Okay, then I'll
share how I took that very same process and I
transformed it by simply asking, you know, what's God got
(11:14):
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 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
(11:35):
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.
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
(11:58):
I was, you know, try 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 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
(12:20):
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 going to
share mine in order 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
(12:40):
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 science and maybe you know,
for lack of a better way of saying it, the
logic and reasons this. Okay, So, those deepest held beliefs
(13:03):
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 ones that are really the most painful or maybe
they just created the most 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
(13:27):
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, 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
(13:50):
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, those beliefs become
your self image and how you see yourself, how you
perceive yourself and what you believe to be true about yourself,
(14:10):
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 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,
(14:31):
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 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
(14:53):
our own value or our own worth. It's just kind
of the human part of us. But I believe that
this can become super dangerous if your value is 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,
(15:15):
with all of those worldly, quantifiable pursuits, because then our
whole identity becomes wrapped up in that. Okay, it's all
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
(15:35):
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,
and actively shift our gaze and renew our minds and
posture our hearts and spirits in a different direction. Unfortunately,
(15:57):
it will stay that way. And I'm not trying to
be I'll 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
first invitation for you. I just want to invite you
to try on this idea that you can shift your
beliefs and take on a whole new identity, that what
(16:18):
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,
while you're trying on this idea that wow, maybe I
can shift my values and I can shift my beliefs,
(16:39):
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
if you are trying to step into a new belief
(16:59):
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 gonna
give you the cliff notes version of this, and I'm
not gonna get too geeky, but you're gonna want to
keep this in mind as we go. So every thought
that you think and every feeling that you feel, it
(17:22):
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 in your brain called
(17:43):
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 to
be positive? And the simple answer is resonance, Like does
(18:04):
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 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 or
(18:26):
that belief that you don't really believe. It's actually going
to 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
(18:51):
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
(19:11):
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,
(19:34):
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
(19:55):
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,
(20:18):
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
(20:39):
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
(21:03):
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
(21:25):
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
(21:46):
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 too, very different experiences for
us as humans, but anxiety and excitement they look very
(22:06):
similar on a brain scan. Okay, and so oversimplifying it again,
isn't it safe to say that 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, and they're
(22:28):
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
(22:49):
your head. And I'll repeat you know, this 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.
(23:10):
You don't want to just jump from a belief of like,
you know, 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.
(23:32):
And I know, 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 meeting yourself where you are right now, Like, no,
(23:57):
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 something that you don't really deep down believe,
it will actually undermine you, overhauling your beliefs. If you
(24:20):
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 all happened in phases, like it
wasn't an overnight thing. And this is actually the perfect
(24:42):
time to share another kind of important sidetrack. So when
I first started my faith walk, I was trying to
get connected at cross Point. Ended up working with one
of the high school ministries called the Teen Dream Center.
(25:04):
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. Ketric
told me about something called Freedom Prayer, and essentially Freedom Prayer,
it's this personal prayer ministry where anyone can just schedule
a focused prayer time with a member of the Freedom
(25:26):
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 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
(25:47):
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 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
(26:11):
how to bring healing and freedom. But in the case
of Freedom 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 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.
(26:32):
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 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
(26:53):
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 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
(27:15):
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 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 refer to scripture
(27:39):
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. So I literally
and again talk about just trying things on and see
and throwing stuff at a wall and see what sticks.
I literally just started googling things like what does the
(28:00):
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
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
(28:20):
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
on their own beliefs before this Jesus guy came along, Right,
But then when I took that very same process and
(28:40):
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 out a specific
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
(29:02):
mind and my reign 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 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
(29:24):
just to paint the picture.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
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 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
(29:49):
of me and in all honesty. Later in life, that
became the belief that I was unmarriable. Okay, So again,
these these beliefs, 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
(30:09):
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, 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
(30:31):
married in my mid thirties, I was some sort of
epic failure. Right now, obviously these are 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
(30:54):
in particular that I'm talking about, and you know, the
fear of being alone the rest of my life 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
(31:17):
the awareness to start seeing things like, hmm, interesting, my
clients that are happily 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
(31:40):
the marriage and the family the things that I was
like swearing would make me feel the way that I
wanted to feel and 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 circum stances, which I very
(32:01):
much labeled and identified with the word single at the time,
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,
(32:24):
and no one can air quotes handle me, and if
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.
(32:46):
And it wasn't the fear of being alone the rest
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 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
(33:08):
of it, that's when I you know, like I said,
the first step for me was to make it over
as Leanne, the scientific thinking 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
(33:29):
stuff that didn't feel true to me at the time,
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
(33:52):
by saying, Okay, Leanne, like, you're right. Whether you think
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, Leanne, like I see
(34:12):
you where you are, but like we are done taking
ourselves down that spiral of negative anticipation at least, let's
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
(34:34):
relationship with God. So I know, I just said it
was my logical self image brain, but some of the
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,
(34:54):
the work is not hoping that a man finds you
lovable and worthy. The work and the path is you
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
(35:17):
you can imagine, after hearing that and seeing that, it
gradually switched to a less you know self imagy brainy
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, nope, LeAnn, we are no longer
(35:38):
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
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
(35:59):
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.
And then, like I shared, as my faith life started increasing,
my new belief and new prayer became okay, Leanne, God
is doing his work in you right now so he
(36:21):
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
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
(36:44):
man for me is doing the work on himself too
and connecting to God himself, and he's preparing himself for me.
Right 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
(37:06):
spiritual gaze. And boy did God deliver on that. Okay
And spoiler alert. At the time of recording this, I'm
about six weeks 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
(37:27):
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, 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.
(37:48):
But we can talk about that more another time. So yeah,
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.
(38:13):
But that's just how it started. 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
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
(38:34):
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
it's no coincidence that the timing all of 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,
(38:57):
is it where's the unbiblical belief versus creating a biblical belief?
And wow, like just that distinction added gasoline to the
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
(39:17):
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.
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
(39:39):
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
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 spiral, right and in
(40:02):
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 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,
(40:24):
resonance is everything. So here's what it looked like now
after I added what I'm calling the God lair. Okay,
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
(40:47):
loved for who I am. Right then I added my
new lie and belief, and you'll remember that that was okay, Leanne.
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
(41:10):
and worthy. So go work on that, and go think
on that, and ask God to help you fill in
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,
(41:32):
for example, I found scripture from Psalm thirty seven to
four that said, take delight in the Lord and he
will give you the desires of your heart. And that
was the NIV version of Psalm thirty seven to four,
and that reminded me of my commitment to stop looking
for love from a man to make me feel lovable,
(41:52):
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 said, take delight in the Lord
and 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
(42:15):
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,
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,
(42:39):
fill your heart with biblical truth. And God literally said,
no one will lack her mate. It doesn't say his mates. 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
(43:01):
is 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 reminder
about the faith part of this, because that's the part
that was so hard coming from my my normal like hey,
I just 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.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
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 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 reinforced kind of like two different elements
(43:43):
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 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
(44:05):
have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
And this scripture it's pretty it's 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
(44:26):
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 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
(44:49):
together with like the believer side of myself. Like I was,
I was split 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.
(45:11):
And until I yoked my heart and soul and spirit
to love and worthiness, 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
(45:32):
and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light
have with darkness? And again 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
(45:56):
me or told me I should read. It was hand
pity 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,
(46:18):
can you see how powerful that is? Connecting 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
(46:41):
create your own new belief that resonates with 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
(47:01):
build your own words after that, so you have your
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
(47:23):
are in your skepticism in doubt, but just be mindful
that you're not using scripture to kind of perpetuate an
old lie, if that makes sense. But 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,
(47:46):
within a matter of days of the repetition of 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
(48:08):
to you, and for now I'm going to date you, right,
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.
(48:30):
Like that was faith, right, But that's what I did.
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
(48:51):
was just one big belief that I did this for,
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
(49:11):
story or a new perspective and just see what meets
you where you are in your own journey. We'll be
back with more What's God Got to Do with It?
But in the meantime, I would definitely love to hear
from you, so just tell me where you are in
your story or maybe what questions you have, like where
do you feel you need clarity or support or wisdom
(49:35):
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, your questions, your feedback and you
can do that instantly. So What's God Got to Do
with It? Dot Com? You'll find all the ways to
do that. And if you like this podcast and want
to hear more, Go ahead and follow, like, and subscribe
(49:57):
wherever you listen to podcasts to get your weekly dose
of What's God Got to Do With It? New episodes
drop every single Tuesday, and while you're there, be sure
to rate and review to show your support. It really
means so much. What's God Got to Do With It
is an iHeartRadio podcast on the Amy Brown Podcast Network.
(50:18):
It's written and hosted by me Leanne Ellington, executive produced
by Elizabeth Fozzio, 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. I want to keep
it clean and talk to me and recall where faith needs,
files of nature and get in touch with your creator
with a bacon, love and jew.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
She even speaks Hebrew.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
What's that, Gonza?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
This? Well sabosation? You should talking transformation? What's that? Gonzat?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
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
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
(01:07):
reason listeners, I totally have you covered, and we're going
to talk about where faith meets science, specifically where this
self image meets neuroscience. 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
(01:28):
own quest, for surrender, which led me to seek God.
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
(01:49):
that's why when it comes to the words and language
that I'm using, I want you to meet yourself where
you are. So as I'm using words like God or
Holy Spirit or Jesus, you can interchange it with Spirit
or Universe or higher power or source. Because I truly
believe that experiencing the knowingness of who you are and
(02:09):
stepping into your true worth is the most important thing here.
And if you need to change some language in your
own 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
(02:31):
with women and teens coming through my stressless eating program.
So when the work that we do goes in that direction,
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
(02:53):
of faith, or it was just a touchy spot for
them even though maybe they even know really desired a
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.
(03:13):
I've even had fellow Jews who, just like me, God
and Jesus or any faith based conversations were not a
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
(03:33):
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
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
(03:58):
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
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
(04:20):
in your own doubts and in your own shame and
in your own limiting beliefs. And that's where I also
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
(04:41):
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
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
(05:02):
we practice every day, and then of course our identity
and the lens that we see ourselves through, all of
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.
(05:22):
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
as it happened for me, and just to 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
(05:43):
I see and hear that beliefs are often approached. And
this episode is just one example of what I mean
when 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
(06:04):
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
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
(06:27):
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
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
(06:49):
of the neuroplastic, malleable, pliable nature of this machine of
possibility that we all have access to, combined with the
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
(07:11):
why we cope with those emotions however we cope with them,
and heck, there is no judgment and no shame. 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.
(07:32):
So that being said, being exposed to all of the
healing powers of the nervous system on a science level
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,
(07:55):
it made me extremely skeptical and cynical about the whole
faith 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 meeting you in your own skepticism and doubt about
(08:16):
your own beliefs, because I believe that's truly how I'm
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
(08:39):
in all things spirituality or theology. But if you don't
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
(09:03):
if fake it till you make it and acting as
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.
(09:24):
And for me, you know, they just got exponentially easier
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
(09:45):
things don't go your way, I believe it's possible for
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.
(10:08):
But I believe we are in control of how long,
and how far and how frequently 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
(10:30):
walk you through what I want to walk you through.
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.
(10:51):
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 our own beliefs before
you know this Jesus guy came along. Okay, then I'll
share how I took that very same process and I
transformed it by simply asking, you know, what's God got
(11:14):
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 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
(11:35):
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.
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
(11:58):
I was, you know, try 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 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
(12:20):
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 going to
share mine in order 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
(12:40):
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 science and maybe you know,
for lack of a better way of saying it, the
logic and reasons this. Okay, So, those deepest held beliefs
(13:03):
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 ones that are really the most painful or maybe
they just created the most 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
(13:27):
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, 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
(13:50):
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, those beliefs become
your self image and how you see yourself, how you
perceive yourself and what you believe to be true about yourself,
(14:10):
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 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,
(14:31):
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 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
(14:53):
our own value or our own worth. It's just kind
of the human part of us. But I believe that
this can become super dangerous if your value is 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,
(15:15):
with all of those worldly, quantifiable pursuits, because then our
whole identity becomes wrapped up in that. Okay, it's all
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
(15:35):
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,
and actively shift our gaze and renew our minds and
posture our hearts and spirits in a different direction. Unfortunately,
(15:57):
it will stay that way. And I'm not trying to
be I'll 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
first invitation for you. I just want to invite you
to try on this idea that you can shift your
beliefs and take on a whole new identity, that what
(16:18):
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,
while you're trying on this idea that wow, maybe I
can shift my values and I can shift my beliefs,
(16:39):
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
if you are trying to step into a new belief
(16:59):
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 gonna
give you the cliff notes version of this, and I'm
not gonna get too geeky, but you're gonna want to
keep this in mind as we go. So every thought
that you think and every feeling that you feel, it
(17:22):
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 in your brain called
(17:43):
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 to
be positive? And the simple answer is resonance, Like does
(18:04):
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 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 or
(18:26):
that belief that you don't really believe. It's actually going
to 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
(18:51):
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
(19:11):
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,
(19:34):
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
(19:55):
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,
(20:18):
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
(20:39):
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
(21:03):
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
(21:25):
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
(21:46):
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 too, very different experiences for
us as humans, but anxiety and excitement they look very
(22:06):
similar on a brain scan. Okay, and so oversimplifying it again,
isn't it safe to say that 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, and they're
(22:28):
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
(22:49):
your head. And I'll repeat you know, this 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.
(23:10):
You don't want to just jump from a belief of like,
you know, 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.
(23:32):
And I know, 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 meeting yourself where you are right now, Like, no,
(23:57):
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 something that you don't really deep down believe,
it will actually undermine you, overhauling your beliefs. If you
(24:20):
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 all happened in phases, like it
wasn't an overnight thing. And this is actually the perfect
(24:42):
time to share another kind of important sidetrack. So when
I first started my faith walk, I was trying to
get connected at cross Point. Ended up working with one
of the high school ministries called the Teen Dream Center.
(25:04):
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. Ketric
told me about something called Freedom Prayer, and essentially Freedom Prayer,
it's this personal prayer ministry where anyone can just schedule
a focused prayer time with a member of the Freedom
(25:26):
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 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
(25:47):
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 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
(26:11):
how to bring healing and freedom. But in the case
of Freedom 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 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.
(26:32):
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 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
(26:53):
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 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
(27:15):
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 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 refer to scripture
(27:39):
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. So I literally
and again talk about just trying things on and see
and throwing stuff at a wall and see what sticks.
I literally just started googling things like what does the
(28:00):
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
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
(28:20):
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
on their own beliefs before this Jesus guy came along, Right,
But then when I took that very same process and
(28:40):
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 out a specific
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
(29:02):
mind and my reign 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 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
(29:24):
just to paint the picture.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
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 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
(29:49):
of me and in all honesty. Later in life, that
became the belief that I was unmarriable. Okay, So again,
these these beliefs, 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
(30:09):
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, 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
(30:31):
married in my mid thirties, I was some sort of
epic failure. Right now, obviously these are 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
(30:54):
in particular that I'm talking about, and you know, the
fear of being alone the rest of my life 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
(31:17):
the awareness to start seeing things like, hmm, interesting, my
clients that are happily 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
(31:40):
the marriage and the family the things that I was
like swearing would make me feel the way that I
wanted to feel and 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 circum stances, which I very
(32:01):
much labeled and identified with the word single at the time,
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,
(32:24):
and no one can air quotes handle me, and if
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.
(32:46):
And it wasn't the fear of being alone the rest
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 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
(33:08):
of it, that's when I you know, like I said,
the first step for me was to make it over
as Leanne, the scientific thinking 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
(33:29):
stuff that didn't feel true to me at the time,
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
(33:52):
by saying, Okay, Leanne, like, you're right. Whether you think
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, Leanne, like I see
(34:12):
you where you are, but like we are done taking
ourselves down that spiral of negative anticipation at least, let's
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
(34:34):
relationship with God. So I know, I just said it
was my logical self image brain, but some of the
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,
(34:54):
the work is not hoping that a man finds you
lovable and worthy. The work and the path is you
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
(35:17):
you can imagine, after hearing that and seeing that, it
gradually switched to a less you know self imagy brainy
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, nope, LeAnn, we are no longer
(35:38):
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
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
(35:59):
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.
And then, like I shared, as my faith life started increasing,
my new belief and new prayer became okay, Leanne, God
is doing his work in you right now so he
(36:21):
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
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
(36:44):
man for me is doing the work on himself too
and connecting to God himself, and he's preparing himself for me.
Right 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
(37:06):
spiritual gaze. And boy did God deliver on that. Okay
And spoiler alert. At the time of recording this, I'm
about six weeks 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
(37:27):
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, 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.
(37:48):
But we can talk about that more another time. So yeah,
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.
(38:13):
But that's just how it started. 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
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
(38:34):
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
it's no coincidence that the timing all of 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,
(38:57):
is it where's the unbiblical belief versus creating a biblical belief?
And wow, like just that distinction added gasoline to the
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
(39:17):
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.
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
(39:39):
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
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 spiral, right and in
(40:02):
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 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,
(40:24):
resonance is everything. So here's what it looked like now
after I added what I'm calling the God lair. Okay,
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
(40:47):
loved for who I am. Right then I added my
new lie and belief, and you'll remember that that was okay, Leanne.
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
(41:10):
and worthy. So go work on that, and go think
on that, and ask God to help you fill in
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,
(41:32):
for example, I found scripture from Psalm thirty seven to
four that said, take delight in the Lord and he
will give you the desires of your heart. And that
was the NIV version of Psalm thirty seven to four,
and that reminded me of my commitment to stop looking
for love from a man to make me feel lovable,
(41:52):
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 said, take delight in the Lord
and 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
(42:15):
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,
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,
(42:39):
fill your heart with biblical truth. And God literally said,
no one will lack her mate. It doesn't say his mates. 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
(43:01):
is 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 reminder
about the faith part of this, because that's the part
that was so hard coming from my my normal like hey,
I just 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.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
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 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 reinforced kind of like two different elements
(43:43):
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 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
(44:05):
have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
And this scripture it's pretty it's 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
(44:26):
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 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
(44:49):
together with like the believer side of myself. Like I was,
I was split 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.
(45:11):
And until I yoked my heart and soul and spirit
to love and worthiness, 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
(45:32):
and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light
have with darkness? And again 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
(45:56):
me or told me I should read. It was hand
pity 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,
(46:18):
can you see how powerful that is? Connecting 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
(46:41):
create your own new belief that resonates with 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
(47:01):
build your own words after that, so you have your
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
(47:23):
are in your skepticism in doubt, but just be mindful
that you're not using scripture to kind of perpetuate an
old lie, if that makes sense. But 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,
(47:46):
within a matter of days of the repetition of 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
(48:08):
to you, and for now I'm going to date you, right,
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.
(48:30):
Like that was faith, right, But that's what I did.
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
(48:51):
was just one big belief that I did this for,
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
(49:11):
story or a new perspective and just see what meets
you where you are in your own journey. We'll be
back with more What's God Got to Do with It?
But in the meantime, I would definitely love to hear
from you, so just tell me where you are in
your story or maybe what questions you have, like where
do you feel you need clarity or support or wisdom
(49:35):
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, your questions, your feedback and you
can do that instantly. So What's God Got to Do
with It? Dot Com? You'll find all the ways to
do that. And if you like this podcast and want
to hear more, Go ahead and follow, like, and subscribe
(49:57):
wherever you listen to podcasts to get your weekly dose
of What's God Got to Do With It? New episodes
drop every single Tuesday, and while you're there, be sure
to rate and review to show your support. It really
means so much. What's God Got to Do With It
is an iHeartRadio podcast on the Amy Brown Podcast Network.
(50:18):
It's written and hosted by me Leanne Ellington, executive produced
by Elizabeth Fozzio, 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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